NOVEL NEXT Chapter 92:
Translator: MarcTempest
Editor: Rxel
Chapter 92
He had always wondered about something.
What did it feel like to be a variety show participant who performed missions?
When Woojoo was young, he thought it would be fun. It looked exciting to see them play chicken fights or chase each other on TV.
But when he actually appeared on one, it was nothing like that.
Fun? What fun?
It felt like taking an exam.
It was like shooting a free throw in front of a crowd.
And not just any free throw, but one from almost the end of the court to the basket, while wearing headphones that distracted your concentration.
“Oh, what a pity!”
“That was so close!”
Every time they failed, he heard sighs of regret from everywhere.
But the spectators’ eyes were full of amusement.
The only ones who felt like dying were them and the members of Around the World With Dice.
“Ah! This won’t go in!”
Ye Heeyeon took off her headphones and ruffled her hair with her hands.
Her face was flushed with frustration.
She received the ball from the staff and passed it to the next player, Ye Heechan.
He smiled casually and bounced the ball lightly. Then he put on his headphones and took a shooting stance.
It was a pose that showed he had some basketball experience in his childhood.
His arm stretched out and the ball drew a parabola.
Thud-
Unfortunately, it hit the backboard and fell.
Unlike his sister who clenched her fist and groaned next to him, he just shrugged his shoulders and smiled as if he was sorry.
When it was their turn again and Junghyun was about to do it–
“Wait a minute, let me try one more time.”
Ye Heeyeon took the ball.
She started bouncing the ball right away, with a face burning with competitive spirit.
Woojoo admired her as he watched her.
She was good.
He could read her movements clearly because of his ability to mimic actions.
She was a former athlete, and her movements were not ordinary.
Woojoo remembered the internet article about the members of Around the World With Dice.
He searched for their unique characteristics in case he made a mistake, and he saw that Ye Heeyeon was a former athlete who retired due to an injury.
An Achilles tendon injury from a traffic accident.
Then, by chance, she joined Around the World With Dice with her actor brother when her rehabilitation was over.
That was why she was a versatile character who excelled in physical episodes in Around the World With Dice.
Their team’s sports maniac opened his mouth in awe.
“Wow, your posture is perfect. You must have learned basketball, Sunbae-nim.”
“She has a different sport,” Ye Heechan replied with a smile.
Just then, Ye Heeyeon moved swiftly.
She quickly passed the ball to herself, then stretched out her long legs with strength and speed.
And her sneakers kicked the ball.
…Wait, sneakers?
Bang!
The basketball flew away after being hit by her kick, and reached its destination like a delivery.
Woojoo’s mouth opened wide at the sight.
Unfortunately, it bounced off the rim and fell.
“Ah, ah, ah! I could have done it!”
He remembered. She was a soccer player.
Ye Heechan approached his sister who was screaming and gave her a warm consolation.
“You’re too much. How could you miss that?”
“…”
“Ah, ah, ah! Everyone, he’s killing me!”
People laughed as they watched the scene, but New Black couldn’t laugh comfortably.
Junghyun’s skillful shot also failed.
And Bijoo, who unintentionally danced and messed up his steps.
Rihyuk was, well… yeah. Rihyuk.
Jiho threw the ball between his legs like a tank from Fortress, and only succeeded in making a big laugh.
It was a situation where all the other siblings failed.
“It’s your turn now.”
Ye Heechan handed Woojoo the ball.
Woojoo stood in the middle of the court, receiving the eyes of everyone.
He was nervous.
How should he do this?
He had all kinds of thoughts.
His goal for today’s recording was to fill the airtime without any negative image.
The problem was that they did the self-introduction corner too smoothly, and there were not many episodes to go on the air.
There were two ways to fill the airtime here.
One was to make them laugh.
To make a funny joke or use physical comedy.
But neither of them were his territory.
First of all, Woojoo had no confidence in jokes, and if he tried to do physical comedy on purpose, it would be obvious.
The only remaining option was to succeed in shooting well.
Ye Heechan tapped Woojoo’s back as if to relax him.
“Just do it. It’s practice.”
“Yes,” Woojoo answered and looked at the basketball hoop in the distance.
The backboard with a white tape border looked as small as a passport photo. The rim looked like a straw hole.
It was farther than he imagined.
Woojoo bounced the ball and measured the distance.
Ye Heeyeon whispered something to the siblings as he dribbled.
Woojoo swallowed his dry saliva and focused on the target in front of him.
Along with that, his mind settled down.
At first, he was trembling, but as he bounced the ball, he felt a strange certainty.
The feeling that his body knew what to do before he did. It was the same as when he flipped over the cop at the hospital.
The headphone music made him flinch a few times, but he kept ignoring it consciously.
Eventually, Woojoo grabbed the ball with his hand.
Holding it, he moved his wrist a few times to gauge the strength.
Like a volleyball player practicing a toss, he repeated lifting and dropping the ball up and down.
After checking, he held the ball in his right hand.
It was the moment of decision.
As Woojoo imagined the action in his head, his body moved naturally. He stretched his arm back like a person throwing a spear, then used the momentum to throw it forward with all his strength.
The ball flew in a parabola.
But even before it went in, Woojoo felt a strong conviction.
It was like when he had a good performance. No one cheered, but he knew whether he did well or not. It was the same logic.
As the siblings, Around the World With Dice and the members, the production staff, the advertising staff, and the extras all followed the trajectory blankly.
Thud-!
The ball went into the rim and wrapped around the net.
The sound of the bouncing ball echoed in the quiet gym.
Through the silence, someone’s faint voice was heard.
“…Wow, that went in.”
With that, their teammates shouted with a scream that hurt their ears.
It felt like he had risen from a slave to a noble.
This must have been what the late Joseon period looked like in the college entrance exam books.
Just a moment ago, he was treated like a traitor for rolling a six on the dice, but in an instant, he became a hero.
“That’s right! That’s it, Woojoo!”
“Hyung, you did great!”
“Wow, there was a player in the NBA who threw like that. The distance was much farther, but the posture was very similar to yours.”
The last remark was a bit embarrassing.
That was true.
Woojoo had been practicing basketball as well as testing his abilities since last November, but the shot he just made was the result of a quick search on YouTube.
With keywords like ‘Long shoot NBA’.
Of course, no one knew that.
And there was no need to know.
Anyway, it worked out well.
But it was funny how things worked out.
Actually, Woojoo was the one who caused this distance, but everyone seemed to forget that because of the shot.
“Well, actually, if you think about it…”
“Shut up.”
Woojoo whispered menacingly in the ear of the rebel.
Meanwhile, the atmosphere of the set changed completely thanks to the shot.
Everyone’s expressions changed.
From ‘How are we going to do this from this distance?’ to ‘We can do this, right?’.
Oh Taejun, the PD, nodded and said, “Okay, then shall we move on to the main mission?”
But the cheerful mood soon faded.
The situation was that only one of the seven had to succeed.
But until it was Woojoo’s turn, no one had succeeded.
Especially Ye Heeyeon had the most resentful expression on her face. She roared like a lion to the sky, and frankly, it was a bit scary.
And then it was Woojoo’s turn again.
In the midst of the tense air, the younger ones gave him warm cheers.
“Please do well. If you succeed, I’ll forget about the dice you rolled six earlier.”
“Thank you. Rihyuk. I feel very reassured by you.”
“You should be grateful.”
This was just.
“Hyung. You know that if you succeed, we can eat meat, right? There’s meat on your hands. On your left hand, there’s sirloin, and on your right hand, there’s snowflake sirloin. If you fail, they’ll fly away into thin air.”
“Jiho. Do you care about me at all?”
“Of course. I always worry about our big brother’s… What is it? Rihyuk Hyung, what was it? Anbo?”
“Anwi. You idiot.”
“Right. Jiho. If you’re worried about anwi, you should call 111.”
“…Whatever. Anyway, fighting.”
Junghyun also nodded and held out his fist to Woojoo.
Boom!
A gust of wind blew and his hair fluttered.
“Cheer up, Hyung.”
“…Ah, you scared me. I thought you were going to hit me.”
“Sorry. I’m just a bit too excited because of the meat.”
“I can see that.”
As Woojoo nodded his head while holding their third sibling’s fist in his hand, Bijoo lifted his microphone with his hand.
A soft whisper tickled his ear.
“Hyung, if we succeed, I’ll forget about the 100,000 won that Daisy Sunbae gave.”
Oh, this was effective.
As Woojoo suddenly burned with motivation, the other siblings looked curious, but Bijoo just smiled silently.
Meanwhile, the Ye siblings were busy trying to get as much content as possible.
How should they put it?
They were dramatically heightening the atmosphere.
It felt like they were building up the highlight scene step by step.
“Woojoo.”
“Yes, Sunbae.”
“Don’t be nervous and relax.”
The pleasant-looking handsome guy put his arm around Woojoo’s shoulder.
“Don’t worry about this golden key thing or whatever. It’s nothing special, but they make it sound so important. That’s how this show is. They say they’ll take us to Bali, but they go to Onyang Village Bali. They say they’ll go to Bangkok, but they lock us in a room.”
“Ah, yes…”
“So just relax. What, is there anything else?”
“No.”
The diligent-looking beauty stood across from her brother.
“Don’t listen to what he says, Woojoo.”
“Look at her tone. To her brother.”
“That guy, he’s so smooth that everyone else is starving, but he sneaks out and mooches off other teams. He thinks he can fail. But we’re different. Can we fail, or not?”
“…Ah, no?”
“Right. That’s the mindset! We have to go with full of energy. Okay?”
“Oh, okay…”
“Ugh, she makes me tired. Really. I’m telling you to relax.”
It was like that.
Like an angel and a devil fighting over his head.
They must have intended that, too. The spectators laughed nonstop as they watched Woojoo sandwiched between the scary siblings.
Woojoo cried out, lonely.
“I’ll put on the headphones…!”
The echo of ‘Woojoo…’ faded as he ignored the siblings whispering in his ears and put on the headphones.
Then the siblings who were mouthing words next to him soon moved away.
They winked at him from an angle that the camera couldn’t see.
They meant that they had laid the groundwork for him, so he should do well.
So.
He did that.
***
“He pulled it off.”
The onlookers stuck out their tongues as they watched the people who were laughing loudly with the keys wrapped in yellow cooking foil.
“How did they do it? I can’t figure it out no matter how I look.”
“Hey. I just got a message from my friend. He said don’t lie. How can an idol do that when he’s not even an athlete?”
“I can’t believe it either. I wouldn’t have believed it if I were you.”
The production team of Around the World With Dice smiled with satisfaction as everyone else was snickering at the one who had completed the difficult mission.
Writer Yang Mihyun spoke as he packed his stuff.
“How was it, PD-nim?”
“Well. It was okay.”
“It seems like you got some good scenes out of this, right?”
“Yeah, we did. There weren’t many successful missions out of the ones that had six dice eyes so far. We got quite a lot of usable ones, so the problem is what to cut out from here. I’m definitely going to include that full-court shot.”
“The reaction won’t be bad when it airs.”
PD Oh Taejun nodded.
His gaze lingered on one member who was smiling from afar.
“The reaction will be fine. Until then, well, it’ll be noisy one way or another.”
***
○ YoHC_0509
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-Our team’s last guest ‘New Black’ and our meeting! We had a surprising thing happen while filming the introduction video! Watch it if you’re curious!
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-gmldus87 : Change your picture if you don’t want to die
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-gmldus87 : I said change it
-YoHC_0509 : Sister. How about paying more attention to your inner beauty than your outer beauty?
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-Promis.Jang : Are you guys fighting again…? -_- Anyway… I’m so happy to see our New Black after a long time…
***
The recording that day ended successfully.
Woojoo knew it without anyone telling them. They had gotten some pretty good scenes.
That was why the atmosphere was warm and friendly.
“It was fun thanks to you.”
“Please work hard like this for the main recording too.”
The Ye siblings who said that invited them to a group chat.
It was a room with the production team and the team celebrities who would work together for the Chuseok Special.
They said they made the room to get to know each other in advance.
Woojoo bowed his head as he looked at the chat, where Lee Gyeonwoo Sunbae and other sunbaes greeted them.
They were all big names.
And then.
“Thank you for your hard work!”
The two-day commercial shoot was also over.
The changed script didn’t have much difference in content.
The story focused on the emotions of two characters, Woojoo and Jiho, and changed a few lines of dialogue and one or two scenes.
It wasn’t so difficult that it required the acting skills of a top star, so Woojoo could do it smoothly.
It was a good experience in many ways.
It was also meaningful that he practiced acting in advance for the music video with a story that they would film later.
But most of all, it was because Woojoo discovered his talent for acting through this opportunity.
He wasn’t as possessed as Jiho, but he felt like he had some talent.
Well.
That made him think a little complicated.
The choice that TJ offered him was to be an actor.
Woojoo wondered what he would be like now if he had chosen that path then, but he shook his head after a while.
It was already a past thing.
It would be a lie if he said he had no regrets, but as someone who had a dream of being an idol, he liked himself now more.
By the way.
“Where did they go and not come back?”
As the advertisement staff left, Woojoo was alone in the empty school classroom.
Seokhwan Hyung said he had some good news and ran to the HBS Broadcasting Station, and Minki Hyung was resting in the car.
The younger ones said they had a gift for him and disappeared, which made him anxious.
They had a live broadcast with the fans in a minute.
Woojoo looked at the lazy sunset outside the window and picked up his phone.
It was a smartphone that the company gave them for live streaming.
As Minki Hyung told him, he pressed the button and soon his face appeared on the screen.
The first ones to come in were about ten Soufflés.
“Hi, Soufflés. It’s Woojoo.”
Woojoo greeted them and told them where the younger ones were for the fans who might be curious.
“Um, the younger ones went somewhere for a moment. Yeah. They said they had a gift for me and told me to wait. It’s almost time for them to come back. In the meantime, let’s have fun with me. Oh, and the younger ones.”
Woojoo gave a wicked smile to the phone.
“If you’re watching this, hurry up and come. If you’re late, I’ll start with Rihyuk and tell them one of your secrets.”
As Woojoo talked with the fans, he didn’t even notice the time passing.
Thud, the classroom door opened with a sound.
His kids came in with something hidden behind them.
“Oh, you’re here. What’s that?”
“Well, uh. You started the live. Hello, Soufflés! We came to give Woojoo Hyung a gift.”
The kids who were whispering to each other pushed something out with a bang.
It was a school uniform hanging on a hanger.
There were question marks in the chat window.
“What’s with the uniform…?”
Rihyuk coughed and said, “Well, that. You know, when we first did a live with the fans. You liked wearing a uniform then, and, well, anyway.”
“That’s right. We prepared this gift for our uniform maniac.”
“We had a hard time getting it.”
“Thanks, but. Why are you suddenly giving me this…?”
As Woojoo was stammering, Bijoo explained, “Hyung, you said you couldn’t graduate from high school because of your debut problem. You also said you were sorry that you didn’t have a graduation album. So we prepared this. Since we don’t have a schedule, we thought we’d do it with the fans today…”
As Woojoo lost his words at the unexpected answer, Bijoo smiled and said, “Hyung, we want to make a graduation album for you.”