In This Life, The Greatest Star In The Universe

Translator: MarcTempest

Editor: Rxel

Chapter 65

Your Name Is

Splash.

As Woojoo lay down with his eyes closed, he heard the sound of water tickling his ears.

Someone touched his head.

“Is the temperature okay?”

“Yes, it’s fine.”

While the hair salon assistant washed his hair, he fell asleep.

He barely woke up to a shaking hand and sat in front of the mirror.

The clock said it was 4 a.m.

As his hair was being dried, he saw the corpses sprawled on the sofa behind the mirror.

Junghyun, who took off his shoes and lay down on his back, was cuddling with Jiho, and Bijoo and Rihyuk were nodding off while sitting.

Next to them were Minki Hyung and the actor team leader who came to support them today, wearing baseball caps.

The only ones moving were the expressionless salon teachers.

It was quiet.

They would probably laugh and chat when they got to the broadcast station later, but at this time of the day, they were all quiet like zombies.

A fitting sight for a Monday.

The reason they got up at this time was because of the music show.

People who only know the three major terrestrial broadcasters and K-net might ask, ‘Huh? What music show on a Monday?’

But there was.

The actual broadcast was on a different day.

The recording they were doing today is ‘Global K-Pop’, a music show by Korean TV that introduced Korea in English.

The actual recording was at 10 o’clock, but the standby was at 7 o’clock, so they were getting ready from now on.

Well.

It was better than sometimes having to get up at 4 a.m. like this.

“You look more tired than usual. Did you not sleep well?”

“No, I slept the same as usual, but I guess it’s because I had a radio schedule yesterday.”

“Oh, right, you went on the radio?”

As he chatted with the hair teacher, a face with a grimace sat on the chair next to him with a thud.

“Hyung, I think I’m going to die.”

“Why again?”

“My body hurts from where you and Rihyuk Hyung hit me yesterday.”

“Hey, when did I hit you?”

Woojoo raised his hand to explain, and the tired faces laughed.

As his hair was being dried, Jiho, who was shaking like a beanpole, seemed to remember something and said, “Ah, I was mistaken. I guess it was in my dream.”

“Hey.”

“But my body still feels sore. You two kept choking me from behind, and using wrestling moves on me.”

Well. That was true.

After the radio ended and they went back to the dorm, Woojoo taught him a lot of wrestling and jiu-jitsu moves on YouTube.

“You deserve it, you bastard.”

“But thanks to me, you got the broadcast time, right? You admit that?”

“Wow, you’re so shameless without changing your face color.”

“What can I do? This is my charm.”

Woojoo couldn’t think of anything to say back because he was so tired.

Woojoo chuckled and shook his head, and Jiho picked up his smartphone.

He pressed the bookmark with a familiar hand movement.

Soon, a yellow mango-shaped icon appeared.

What rank were they today?

Woojoo was too tired to even touch his phone.

As far as he remembered, the chart ranking of Fireworks was stagnant for a few days.

In the early 40s.

It did go up to 39th place yesterday.

Woojoo was about to ask the youngest how their ranking was, when he was puzzled by the reflection in the mirror.

Why was he like that?

His eyes were huge, like a character in a cartoon.

“Jiho, what’s wrong?”

“Hyung. There’s ‘Night Sea’ on the Mango real-time search, you know?”

“What?”

“And there’s a song too. It’s at 135th place.”

“Wait, wait.”

His head was a mess.

“What are you talking about? You’re saying our song was released after the radio schedule yesterday?”

“Yup.”

“How is that possible?”

“Look here. It’s at 135th place.”

The youngest shoved his phone at Woojoo as if to show him.

Sure enough, there it was. Night Sea at 135th place.

135th. Woojoo & Rihyuk – Night Sea (Original Ver.)

It even had an album art.

A song that they hastily made a week ago was out as a digital single, and it was ranked pretty high.

There were only two people who could explain this anomaly, but neither of them was here.

The stylists who were touching up their hair looked at them with curious eyes.

“Jiho, what’s going on here?”

“Well. I don’t know.”

Eventually, the only two people who were awake in this room started to search on their smartphones.

For a moment.

As Woojoo browsed through the idol community and the internet portal, he soon found the cause.

[Best] The reaction of a veteran idol to the re-enlistment joke.gif

“…”

Woojoo turned his head with a cold gaze, and there was only an empty chair spinning there.

***

The waiting room of the music show ‘Global K-Pop’.

“…New Black is making headlines for their appearance on HBS SuperFM ‘Jang Sowon’s Wonderful Night’. On the broadcast, members Woojoo and Rihyuk showed off their witty advice and amazing live performance, and Woojoo’s self-composed song ‘Night Sea’ was revealed for the first time, drawing admiration from the listeners and the DJ with its lyrical atmosphere and the story behind it.”

A pleasant low voice recited the article content like a rap.

“But the most talked-about thing after the broadcast was Woojoo’s expression. His reaction to the listener’s comment asking ‘How about re-enlisting?’ as a first-place pledge made the DJ and the guests burst into laughter…”

Woojoo rubbed his throbbing temples and tapped the smartphone screen.

The abusing articles that were lined up were turned off and the community best post that he had opened earlier appeared.

The comments had grown even more.

-LMAOㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋ

-His expression was so realㅋㅋㅋㅋ

-It was even funnier when he realized and tried to control his expressionㅋㅋㅋㅋ

-He’s the type that’s easy to teaseㅋㅋ

-What the hell is that expression in the gif?

-Who is it? Who said re-enlistment?

At first, Woojoo wondered what was so interesting about it, but when he saw the gif, he agreed.

It made sense.

And of all things, the topic was the military, so it was spread not only on the idol community but also on other sites.

Didn’t people have anything else to laugh about?

What was so funny… It was funny, but.

Woojoo didn’t know. He couldn’t complain about this burning feeling anywhere.

“Hyung, don’t worry. Last time, when we had the souffle, the post on the idol community was gone soon.”

“Thank you, Bijoo.”

“You’re welcome.”

“Aren’t you laughing too much right now…?”

“No, Hyung. I just have a smiling face.”

The second, who was good at managing his expression, barely held back his laughter, so the rest of them didn’t need to be said.

They’d been giggling at their phones since a while ago.

“You’re all having fun. You’re having a blast.”

“Honestly, what can we do if it’s funny? Wow. This gif is really art.”

“You should be glad that you were buried because of me.”

“That’s what luck is.”

The fourth was happy that his puffed-up face was buried.

He was eating dried sweet potatoes like popcorn.

Next to him, the third was smiling as he looked at the posts on the fan cafe.

There seemed to be a lot of interesting stories.

Woojoo wanted to ask him how the reaction was, but he couldn’t open his mouth.

And.

The culprit who created this situation was sitting next to him, looking around.

“Woojoo Hyung, try to think positively.”

“About what.”

“Um. Thanks to this beautiful change of expression, we have another good thing happening to us. You burned your whole body to save us.”

“And I burned to death?”

“…Uh, that’s not it. Ouch.”

Woojoo pinched the youngest’s side as he twisted his head.

"Wow, the response is good." Yoon Seokhwan looked at his phone with a satisfied smile. "It's true that the live performance got attention thanks to you, like Jiho said."

"Hyung, don't you care about me?"

"Of course I do. I'm just happy for your success as a manager."

Woojoo stuck out his tongue at the math genius who smirked.

He had no allies here.

But they were not wrong.

His expression became a hot topic unintentionally, and as a result, their name became more known.

‘How funny. But who is that guy?' Something like that.

It seemed that various complex causes were at work, but one thing was certain: it was because of that that Night Sea became a buzz.

"I didn't expect you to release the song so soon."

"The Director ordered it right after you mentioned your self-composed song. I was preparing it beforehand. The timing was the problem."

It was thanks to their producer's quick action that it came out so fast.

You had to row when the water came in.

The original plan was to release it later, but the company had a quick internal meeting after listening to the live performance.

Of course, it was not an official sound source.

The official sound source would be modified by the A&R team and released in three weeks.

As the word ‘Original Ver.' attached to it implied, this song was just a demo version that Rihyuk and Woojoo sang yesterday.

That was why it was so crude.

There were a few parts that he had to fix right away.

He felt like a high school student who had his painting submitted to an international art contest without knowing it.

Woojoo was embarrassed and ashamed.

At least there were many comments praising Night Sea in the review.

-It's a warm song. ^^

-I heard it live yesterday and the sound source came up right away. Thank you for the good song.

-It sounds like an old song, I like itㅎㅎ

It was a rewarding thing.

The melody that Woojoo created received such excessive love.

"Puhaha, Hyungs. Look at these comments. Aaah…!"

Of course, he was also very excited in another way.

* * *

11 a.m.

The music show Global K-Pop pre-recorded two to three weeks of episodes and aired them, unlike other broadcasters.

That was why they divided the recording into five parts, and they, the youngest in terms of seniority, were naturally in the first part in the morning.

The others who were with them were also all rookies or singers with low seniority.

Their rivals, Street Boys, Soul Six of Harmony who debuted right after them, and Blink, a girl group that debuted earlier this year, etc.

"Oh, we saw your gif! That guy! Right?"

"Yes, that's right……"

As they were waiting backstage, the Blink members came back and pretended to know them.

They laughed among themselves at Woojoo’s resigned smile.

Was Soul Six behind them?

He had a feeling that they would also pretend to know him when they saw his face.

"See, Hyung. Thanks to that, we're expanding our network like this."

"I don't need this kind of network……"

"Wow, you're so negative today."

Woojoo glared at him, wondering who made him negative, and then he saw the camera and smiled kindly.

Rihyuk chuckled.

The writer came over with a VJ holding an ENG camera and smiled.

"We're filming a behind-the-scenes video for YouTube today. How do you feel about today's recording?"

"Great!"

"I'm so excited, thinking about meeting the fans."

As they exchanged some stories, the company staff checked the mic pack and pin fixed on their waist and clothes.

Phew.

Woojoo took a deep breath and waited for the standby signal.

Woojoo hoped the atmosphere would be good today.

He was happy to think about meeting the fans, but he was also a little worried.

The atmosphere was subtle last time.

Global K-Pop recorded jointly, so each group's fandom took out some people and distributed the seats.

In other words, there were fans of other groups mixed in the recording studio.

Maybe because Street Boys' fans were also there, the atmosphere was subtle last time.

They didn't openly show their dislike or curse at each other, but Woojoo felt a subtle tension.

The problem was that the seats here were as close to the stage as an indie cafe in Hongdae.

It was impossible not to be nervous with the audience right in front of their noses.

“Let’s go in.”

At the staff’s cue, they headed to the stage.

A cheer erupted from the crowd.

Their fans who occupied the side seats.

Seeing them, Woojoo couldn’t help but smile and feel warm. And then, the younger members giggled as if they had spotted something.

“Hyung, look at that.”

Junghyun pointed to one of the fans who was playfully waving a slogan that read [Woojoo, I’ll go to the army for you].

In an instant, the whole audience burst into laughter.

Not only them, but also the fans of other groups.

The fans of Street Boys also laughed awkwardly, but the atmosphere was different from usual.

What was going on?

There was no hostility or tension like last time.

Did something happen?

Woojoo was wondering if he should find out later, when he noticed another phenomenon that was different from last time.

Usually, in this situation, people who would have muttered ‘Who is Woojoo?’ were all looking at him and smiling as if they knew who he was.

The fact that people knew his name.

Maybe.

As the youngest said, it might be a good thing.

“We’re starting the recording!”

Of course, today’s Fireworks was spectacular.

***

After finishing the music show recording, they had a brief interview with a reporter from Young Daily, and then they returned to the company.

The conference room on the third floor.

It was his second visit since he introduced Fireworks to the company people.

Bijoo asked curiously, “What’s going on today? They said all the team leaders are coming.”

“Well, they must have something to say.”

“Do you have any idea, Hyung?”

Woojoo didn’t know either.

He only heard that there was a meeting about New Black and that they had to attend.

“Maybe it’s about that thing Seokhwan Hyung went to TBC for.”

“Oh, right. Is it going to be broadcast?”

“I don’t think so. If it was, they wouldn’t have to announce it so grandly. It’s not like we’re going on a survival show or something.”

The mystery was back to square one, when Jiho said he remembered something.

“I think I heard something about that. I chatted with a promo team noona a few days ago and she said they were going to do something around the time of the fan signing event. Like deciding on a fandom name and stuff.”

That was right, this Sunday was their first fan signing event.

But more than that, he was interested in what Jiho brought up.

“Fandom name?”

“Yeah, I think they’re going to have a public contest or something this time.”

“The fans get to choose?”

When Woojoo was in TJ, the company planning team came up with the fandom name.

Woojoo marveled at the novel way of doing things.

Rihyuk looked around and whispered, “Well, you know, there was a big fuss last time when the company decided on Scarlet’s fandom name. The President had a name he liked and pushed for it. Curtain, he said.”

“Curtain?”

“Yeah, curtain.”

Woojoo suddenly remembered the group names that the company had suggested before New Black was decided.

Lemon Boys, Flying Angels, Black Hole, Hot Voice.

A creepy feeling ran down his spine.

“That must have been a mess.”

“Yeah. So I guess they changed the way they do things because of that. If you go to Scarlet’s fan cafe and search for the President’s name, you’ll see a lot of nasty posts.”

“Well, the meaning is nice,” Rihyuk said.

“A curtain that shields and protects your singer from the outside world, something like that. The intention was good, so the internal response was positive.”

Still, having a fandom name like Curtain was a bit much.

Woojoo felt sorry for the members of Scarlet.

They had to say things like ‘We love you, Curtain!’ or ‘Curtain is the best!’.

Woojoo hoped their fans would get a prettier name.

As he was thinking that, the door opened and the staff came in.