In This Life, The Greatest Star In The Universe

“Award?”

We looked at each other.

“What kind of award is this?”

“I know, right. It’s not even the award season yet.”

The closest award ceremony at this point was the Mango Chart Award in November.

It would be understandable if it was the end of the year. But we had no idea about any award shows happening around October.

The only thing that came to mind was…

“Junghyun, did you do something?”

“No. What about you, hyung?”

Junghyun and I exchanged glances, wondering if it was either of us, then turned to look at Rihyuk, as if asking him the same question.

Rihyuk, who was shaking his head vigorously, asked Seokhwan hyung.

“What award are you talking about, manager?”

“Wait a minute.”

Seokhwan hyung seemed to worry that the other passengers might hear, and cautiously showed us the text message on his phone.

The phone was passed around the five seats.

And every time.

“…?”

We blinked our eyes.

[Regarding the Korean Popular Culture and Arts Award…]

At first, we didn’t know what kind of award show this was, so we searched it up. But as soon as we found out what it was, we became even more puzzled.

It was a commendation from the country.

The Popular Culture and Arts Award.

It was an annual award show where the country recognized the artists who contributed to the culture. They also gave medals to the senior figures in the arts as a sign of merit. And sometimes, idol singers like us were also selected and received commendations.

“Is this for real?”

Inside the car heading to the company.

We all asked with wide eyes.

“A commendation from the Minister of Culture, Sports and Tourism?”

“Yeah. That’s what they said.”

We asked Seokhwan hyung again, as if to confirm.

“Are you sure this is from the country? Check the name carefully. What if we get there and it’s not Culture, but something like Munha?”

“It’s real, okay. Look.”

“You have to check the fire even if it’s out, manager. Please check it.”

He laughed as if he was dumbfounded by our enthusiasm.

“Think logically. Even if someone impersonates, would they impersonate the country? It’s true that it came to you guys.”

“It’s just so out of the blue.”

“Then what did you expect when they said award?”

We were silent for a moment, then uttered a word each.

“Um, entertainment award…?”

“Best Newcomer in Entertainment of the Year…?”

“I thought maybe we won the funniest idol poll or something.”

He rubbed his temples and said.

“Stop thinking that way. You guys are singers, you should think about that too.”

“Really?”

“The reason for the selection is ‘contributing to promoting Korean history abroad through new media such as YouTube in the 21st century…’”

History Explorers.

I remembered the scene where we lit a fire in the Stone Age.

It was the content that made us famous among the general public this year, thanks to the huge hit on Korean YouTube. It was also the reason why the college students shouted ‘It’s the explorers!’ when they saw us at the college festival.

But still…

“Is that singing activity?”

As we were doubtful, the manager who was hesitating cleared his throat and continued.

“Also, ‘contributing to spreading K-pop through YouTube and SNS and so on.’”

That made sense too.

We had seen an article that said our videos were the gateway for foreigners who came into K-pop.

I smiled.

“We rode a lot of unicycles…”

“I remember throwing and catching rice cakes from 20 meters away. The rainbow rice cakes were the hardest.”

“ Bijoo hyung did a great job dancing on the trampoline.”

As Won-seok hyung, who was holding the steering wheel, curled his lips, our manager went on.

“And lastly, they said you contributed to the development of popular culture with various broadcasts and hit songs this year. They also mentioned the Nostalgia OST recently.”

“So singing activity is just a spoonful, huh.”

Junghyun added.

“It feels like a spoonful of salt in the seolleongtang.”

“Well, broadly speaking, it’s all singing activity. Hmm, let me see. I have to contact someone right now…”

He turned away from our gaze and casually scrolled through his phone contacts.

We admired the veteran manager’s skill of changing the subject.

Then we all searched on our smartphones.

“They gave it to a lot of people. Girls on Top are there, and TNT seniors also got it before.”

“When is the award show?”

“It looks like it’s at the end of this month. Oh? There’s already an article.”

We looked away from the article that said ‘ Bijoo and Junghyun, like Tom and Jerry’ with our arrival photo.

The press release must have been released, because there was already an article.

-New Black, confirmed to attend the Korean Popular Culture and Arts Award

-‘Trendy Idol’ New Black, attending the Popular Culture and Arts Award…likely to receive commendation from the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism

-‘TNT’, ‘New Black’ and others to attend the 2015 Popular Culture and Arts Award

TNT kids are coming too.

We hadn’t seen them since the Dollympics, so we felt a little excited to meet them again.

We were also happy to receive the award.

We were thinking about how to decorate the congratulatory stage at the award show.

When we unconsciously typed ‘New Black’ in the search bar.

“…”

The related search terms appeared.

[Are you looking for related keywords for New Black?]

Funny idols, black goat, dark past, who is Woo Zenmin, Sagan 8, special forces, hit song group, “Bijoo’s face”

I laughed at the list of precious related keywords.

Bijoo, who had saved my airport arrival picture, peeked his head out and soon smiled.

Then he asked.

“Why are there quotation marks only on mine?”

“Maybe that’s an exact match search. The fans want to see your face, but if they just type Bijoo’s face…”

The youngest tapped his phone and showed it to me.

I was convinced.

“Oysters come out.”

“Wow. Seasonal seafood that changes 8 to 10 times a year.”

“It’s a raw fish restaurant.”

I nodded as I looked at the pictures of oysters and clams filling the image search window.

The portal automatically recognized ‘Bijoo’s face? Oyster face!’ and showed that.

Then I typed “Bijoo’s face” and a picture of Bijoo making a rice cake with his white face came out.

Bijoo looked at the dozens of Bijoo’s divided into grids and said.

“Wow. It’s so hard to search for my face.”

“Don’t you search normally?”

“No. I’m myself, so I can just look in the mirror when I’m curious, right?”

“…You’re lucky?”

The rest of us wondered ‘Why did we search until now?’ for a moment and then admired Bijoo’s idea.

Meanwhile, Bijoo said with a serious face.

“I guess I can’t do this. I have to succeed more so that my face comes out when I type ‘visual’.”

“Yeah. Fighting, you can do it.”

“Huh? You’re not going to do it together?”

“If you work hard, we’ll ride along.”

“…”

We cheered him on with a harmony of ‘Our Bijoo is visual’ and then returned to the main topic.

“But the related keywords are not good. Right?”

“Definitely, they’re not the usual idol’s related keywords.”

“That’s why the manager talked about image transformation, transformation. We would have changed to comedians if we kept going like this.”

“But if we do it individually, the keywords might be different, right?”

Our team’s main dancer suggested and we held our phones to our chests and covered the screens with our hands.

We typed our names on the portal.

“…”

I saw it.

Except for one who was very satisfied, everyone twitched their eyes and hesitated their fingers.

“…”

There was silence for 3 seconds.

Then we smiled warmly at each other and nodded our heads and put down our phones.

Rihyuk said urgently.

“We don’t know yet. We don’t know what will happen after today’s broadcast.”

“Right.”

“Yeah. Let’s do some image laundering with that.”

We hoped for the music cafe that would air tonight.

“Didn’t you guys pop your buttons?”

“…”

We pretended not to hear the managers’ words.

Friday night.

As the broadcast of ‘Ha Seung-ju’s Music Cafe’ approached, the souffles gathered in the fan cafe and various communities.

-I’m so excitedㅠㅠㅠㅠ How long has it been since the music show?

-I became a fan of New Black with the music clip last year, so I feel strange.

-This time, you said you were doing a lot of things.

-A review said that the audience was crazy.

-Musica, but isn't the atmosphere serious?? If it's a legend stage, it's like I would have picked it…

-ㅎㅎThe real distrust felt in the back two dots….

Meanwhile, there was also a lot of buzz about the fan meeting reviews.

-I saw the private reviews, but they said they can’t say anything because of spoilers… Didn’t they say something about a button popping?

-A button…!!

-My guess is that it’s something to do with a fierce dance move that makes the button go pop!

-Thankfully, they said there was no exposure or anything like that

-I was so curious about that lol but the ones who went won’t tell me… They just beat around the bush

I didn’t know what it was, but I was also excited by the news of the button popping.

When everyone was thrilled.

Hello, this is Copilot. I can help you with editing and translating your web novel text. Here is my suggested version in English:

The live broadcast of ‘Ha Seung-ju’s Music Cafe’ finally began.

I think they’ll be the last to come out because of the nostalgia factor… We’ll have to wait a bit longer.

It’s an hour and 20 minutes, so maybe 50 minutes later?

Yeah, probably.

That was the conversation going on. Some of them went on web surfing when.

Huh???

What’s this? Why are they coming out so soon?

Who’s that behind them???

The ballad singer The Moon and the band Jo Yuri had a short segment.

It wasn’t lacking, but they didn’t expect New Black to have such a large portion allocated to them.

Everyone fixed their eyes on the TV.

Soon, New Black’s first stage appeared on the living room TVs and smartphones, and the melody of Nine, arranged in jazz, came out of the audio.

‘It’s good.’

‘I have to take a screenshot of the caption that said Woojoo did the arrangement.’

‘They’re the best at their main job…’

The Soufflés deeply empathized with the expressions of the audience on the TV screen, smiling like mothers.

When they were talking about how they wished this version of Nine would be released.

When will the button pop?

They said there’s a time bomb, but I don’t know when… Why do I care so much? It’s not like it’s a lottery.

-심지어 다들 옷에 단추가

-I can’t stop thinking about it ever since I recognized it.

-Whose button is it? Whose button is it?

I should be focusing on the talk, but I keep seeing the button in my eyes.

The members and MC Ha Seung-ju exchanged witty jokes, saying ‘New Black is awesome’, ‘Music Cafe is amazing’.

Every time, the audience responded with enthusiasm.

‘They’ve grown so much.’

Those who remembered New Black’s first Music Cafe last spring felt nostalgic.

The members who were so nervous that they swallowed their saliva every 10 seconds.

Woojoo, who took charge of the comments, was funny with his bright smile, but he also looked quite tense.

He had to take care of the other members’ comments as well, in a situation where the audience was staring at the rookie singers with blank expressions.

But.

‘They’ve improved their broadcasting skills.’

The audio was smooth even during the talk.

Maybe because they had a lot of variety show appearances compared to other rookie idols, they kept making appropriate jokes without crossing the line.

[Kyaa! Kyaa!]

[Hahaha!]

They might have gone too far, but…

It was a good change.

Thanks to the relaxed atmosphere of the recording, the viewers could also enjoy it more comfortably.

Lee-hyuk, who was embarrassed by the MC’s vocal praise, appeared on the screen.

[Since you brought it up, can we hear that part again?]

[Which part?]

He got up from his seat at the request to sing the chorus of Nine, which was arranged as a jazz song.

He looked like a bartender with a neat vest.

He soon picked up the microphone as the main vocalist.

-Wait a minute, Lee-hyuk, I need to clean my ears

-Ha Seung-ju has a good sense of humorㅋㅋ I really liked that and wanted to hear it again

-Everyone, remember to lower the volume.

-He has a matchbox body, but a world-class voice

In an apartment in Seoul.

A souffle who was rolling around on his bed, switching between his smartphone’s comment section and his tablet PC, paused.

-Hahaha!

He heard his parents’ laughter from the living room. They seemed to be watching Ha Seung-ju’s Music Cafe until a while ago.

They must be watching some comedy show on cable.

‘Are they watching something funny?’

He thought as he gulped down some juice, when the vest popped with Lee-hyuk’s voice on the DMB screen, which was slower than the TV.

“Pff-!”

As he jerked his body from the sudden surprise attack, the souffle fell to the floor while laughter erupted on the screen.

“Pfft! Hahaha! Haha…?”

As he saw the juice sprayed on the floor like a spray, someone made a dismayed expression.

On the internet, the souffles were having a blast.

-Ah… So that was the button

-Click the button

-Look at the camera moving along with the button falling off. What's this close-up

– Camera director: (You have to film this) HJ: It's my first time seeing an inanimate object doing a close-up like this on "Music Core." That's bursting out

– This is why the people who came to the audience couldn't say it. Everyone was blinking and saying, "What? The button is popping?" – How can I say that? lol

HJ: My parents' Bijou button was ripped off second time when they picked it up. HJ: They said it was cute, so I told them to tell me their names, but they said Bijou..

After the news of how much everyone was laughing in different places came out.

-So that’s why they gave us a lot of content -Our kids always answer ‘content’ when the haters ask what the PD gave them… -Didn’t Uju get picked for that thing recently?? The male idol member that the current PDs prefer the most

-Hahahaha That's hilarious. "Reason for responding (Sagan PD) : A tree that gives generously."

-But the impact is too strong from the beginning… Won’t the broadcast be boring until the end?

-Yeah, Rihyuk’s button took everything away and now

I had heard from the members on the recent Y-app live that they had put in a lot of effort for the Muka appearance.

They said they hoped people would be interested in music after watching it.

That’s why the Soufflés were worried about what to do if the broadcast content was boring.

‘Isn’t the music talk buried because of the button?’

They only made that expression for a moment.

-Hahaha, fireworks, so funny hahaha!

-I'm reflecting on myself for worrying just a minute ago.

-Look at Mr. Ha Seung-ju bursting into real laughter hahaha!

-The fans were relieved to see New Black’s transformation with a beautiful harmony. “Image transformation – we’ll transform and that’s it -”

After the broadcast of Music Cafe, where New Black appeared.

The ratings had risen slightly more than usual.

But because of the late time slot, there was no big response right after the broadcast, except for the fixed viewers.

But the next day.

On Saturday morning, people’s phones were filled with New Black’s faces.

-[Yesterday’s TV] New Black on Ha Seung-ju’s Music Cafe “Crazy presence”

-‘Improvised composition thanks to a broadcast accident?’, New Black’s Woojoo… The talk of the town ‘Manner Mode Song’

-‘Do you want to hear it?’ New Black’s title song medley… “Image transformation”

New Black was everywhere on the top of the entertainment section and the photo articles of the portal.

And the real-time search terms as well.

The curious ones started to click on the Music Cafe clips. Starting from the most viewed ones.

“Hahaha!”

Button explosion.

And the camera moving that followed the button rolling on the stage like a soccer ball made them laugh for a moment.

‘What is this?’

The title and thumbnail that no one could pass by, saying that they improvised a song with a ringtone.

The ringtone that echoed in the quiet open hall.

As a couple turned off their phone with an embarrassed face, Woojoo moved his fingertips on the screen.

‘Wow…’

The ringtone that was reproduced on the piano keyboard gradually varied and started to become a song.

The change that happened in an instant.

It looked like a magnificent castle was built when they only saw the skeleton 10 seconds ago.

‘What is this? How did he do that?’

They felt amazed for a moment, and New Black’s improvised song continued.

[You couldn’t do the manner mode (You couldn’t!)]

The improvised song that started from a ringtone.

They laughed and admired at the same time at the lyrics that were attached with sense.

They kept watching because it was amazing.

And then, the ‘Nostalgia OST composition behind’ and the ‘title song medley’ that followed.

Every time Woojoo moved his fingers on the keyboard, a pleasant melody flowed out.

‘What does this guy do?’

They had heard that New Black’s Woojoo ‘composes songs’, but it was different when they saw it with their own eyes.

A fresh and new feeling.

Just like people share something amazing or funny with others, the video also spread quickly.

“Have you seen this?”

“That New Black guy who went to the special forces last time, I think he really composed the Nostalgia OST this time.”

“Hey, did you see that manner mode?”

People who met on the weekend talked to each other.

-An idol who made a song on the spot after hearing a ringtone during the broadcast

-New Black’s etiquette song.swf

-The Hollywood movie OST production story that the idol told

The story also spread through communities and such.

-Awesome… He makes songs like that

-I watched the broadcast yesterday and I thought he was a real genius… New Black kids have something with music

-Yeah, they’re all good. I knew that button guy was good at singing

-벨소리 저건 진짜 신박한데??ㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋ

I was amazed by the nostalgia. I felt like I knew what it was like to speak when I had that thousand-dreams thing. It was like I was floating in the air.

-Did they really compose all of their songs?

-Their father was famous, right? They must have inherited his musical talent.

Meanwhile, the image of New Black that was engraved in the public’s mind was slowly changing, just as they wished.

-They look different somehow…

-I thought they were funny kids, but now they seem like funny kids who are good at music.

-For real, hahaha!

-What is this? It’s not even a waste of talent.

-A waste of face.

-Which one do you think is better? A musician who is good at entertainment or an entertainer who is good at music?

Meanwhile, at the PR office of Lemon Entertainment.

“…”

“…”

Hong Seo-young, the deputy who was sitting at her desk and clicking her mouse, and Yoon Seokhwan, the manager who was standing and looking at her, opened their mouths.

“What do you think, manager? We won, but why do we feel like we lost?”

“I know, right? Should we call this a success or a failure?”

Thanks to the name value of New Black, whose stock price had soared, the broadcast content was spreading quickly.

It seemed like they had made a mark as skilled artists, but…

It was more like ‘New Black is still New Black’ than an image transformation.

“…”

When the two employees were feeling awkward.

The phone rang, and Hong picked up the receiver.

“Thank you. Lemon Entertainment PR team… Yes, hello. Yes?”

“…?”

Hong Seo-young scribbled something on a memo pad for the puzzled manager.

Movie theater.

The audience who came to watch ‘Nostalgia’ sat down with popcorn and cola in their arms.

“Oh, it’s New Black.”

“Did you see their thing? It was hilarious.”

“I can’t get used to them doing cool stuff.”

In the telecom ad, the New Black members acted as trendy 20-somethings, riding skateboards or walking like models.

After about 10 minutes of ad time.

It was when the emergency exit and etiquette guide text came out on the screen. As the familiar guide music played.

‘Huh?’

A new video started playing.

Movie theater.

On the screen, a child was looking around the dark theater, and anyone could tell he was saying ‘I’m lost’.

-Hi.

Bijoo, dressed like an etiquette fairy, appeared in front of the child.

-Are you lost?

-Yes! Are you here to help me?

-No.

The etiquette fairy whispered.

-Me too.

At that moment, the people who were drinking cola spat it out in surprise.