That came completely out of nowhere.
A unit stage with Cha Eugene?
We did already have concert dates scheduled, but unlike the rest of the set list, which was mostly fixed, opinions were still divided on the units.
Some people are saying we don’t need them since we already have solo songs.
The alternative was to put one or two group ballads in that slot instead.
Personally, though, I was leaning more toward doing units.
It seemed like there would be more fun in anticipating them.
I looked at Cha Eugene, who was waiting for my answer, and grinned.
Then I answered.
“No.”
“WHAT?? Why??”
Cha Eugene looked betrayed.
This bastard was funny.
I shrugged.
“Why do you want to do a unit stage with me in the first place?”
“You’re good, hyung! If we do it together, it’ll be cool!”
“Who knows? You’re good at dancing and I’m good at singing. If anything, maybe we’d be a bad match.”
“We practice!”
Straight to talking about hard work without a second thought.
You really have become Korean.
Cha Eugene, unusually, looked genuinely aggrieved.
I put my smartphone down and crossed my arms.
“You picked me as your roommate because you were already thinking about doing a unit stage, didn’t you?”
“Yes!”
Apparently, he hadn’t intended to hide it at all. He nodded vigorously.
Did he remember that we did unit stages with our roommates last time and choose me because of that?
I stared at Cha Eugene without answering.
Cha Eugene wilted slightly.
“Your stages are fun, hyung…. I want to do that too.”
Hmm.
At least he was stubbornly sticking to his position.
“You think my stages are fun?”
“Yes…. Can I speak English?”
You’ve been using it all this time. Why are you asking now?
I nodded, and Cha Eugene launched smoothly into an explanation in English.
[Ever since we were on the survival reality show, I’ve thought the stage ideas you come up with are really cool. So for this concert, I want to put one hundred percent into one of those performances too!]
Cha Eugene’s eyes sparkled as he pointed back and forth between himself and me.
[Best dancing, best vocals! I guarantee if we practice just a little more, it’ll be an amazing stage!]
Oh.
That was considerably more praise than I’d expected.
Come to think of it, didn’t he keep telling me back during Idol Inc. that we should work together next time?
At the time, I’d thought he was talking nonsense when there wasn’t going to be any ‘next time,’ but maybe he really had been thinking long-term in his own way.
Well, damn.
Maybe I should explain it properly.
Look at that confidence. Even with three members in the dance line, he could declare without hesitation that he was the best dancer.
If I simply rejected him, he clearly wouldn’t accept the reasoning and would keep pestering me to do a unit together.
I rubbed the back of my neck and opened my mouth.
“First of all, we don’t even know whether we’re doing units yet. You know that, right?”
“But units are good! We just say we’re doing them!”
“No. We need to think carefully about which option is better and consider everyone else’s opinions before deciding. We’re a team.”
“…….”
Cha Eugene looked sullen, but apparently he understood that much in his own way.
I continued explaining.
“And our positions are too different. The strengths we can show are clearly different, so if we do some half-baked unit that’s neither one thing nor the other and fail to meet expectations, things could get awkward.”
“I’m not worried. We’re skilled! We challenge ourselves!”
You don’t have to worry, but I do, you bastard.
If the members who ranked first and second teamed up and did a unit together, attention would naturally pile onto us. Some solo fans of the other members would already be annoyed by that alone.
And if we performed worse than expected on top of that, we could go through all the trouble of preparing the stage and end up gaining absolutely nothing while taking nothing but losses.
So, in short, there was no particular reason for me to go out of my way to form a unit with Cha Eugene.
“Challenges are good. But we’re working. This isn’t school, so we can’t just challenge ourselves at everything for the sake of it. We need to be careful.”
“…….”
Cha Eugene completely deflated.
It was the first time I’d seen him look that disappointed since Idol Inc.
Guess he had some grand ambitions.
In the end, I shrugged and opened my mouth.
“So, whatever. If we decide the concert will have unit stages, and if we come up with a genuinely good idea… how about we talk about it again then?”
“…!”
I meant it wasn’t rejected, just postponed.
Crushing him down too hard wouldn’t be good either.
There was nothing wrong with pulling Cha Eugene back toward reality a little, but there was no reason to suppress him indiscriminately.
He might actually come up with a good idea.
Sure enough, Cha Eugene immediately brightened again.
“Good! I have lots of yeonggam-nim! I’ll tell you lots!”
He probably meant he had lots of inspiration.
“Three times a day. That’s the limit.”
“Umm… Got it!”
Cha Eugene snapped his fingers, and it looked as though the conversation was ending….
[Right! What about an underwater performance??]
“…….”
Think about our concert budget.
Maybe I should’ve just let him stay disappointed.
For a moment, I regretted my choice.
But I never imagined that something far more trivial than this concert-unit issue would end up lighting the fuse.
A few days later, TeSTAR’s roommate-reassignment content was uploaded to WeTube.
It was released one week early for people subscribed to the channel’s membership, but naturally, illegal pirated copies were already scattered everywhere.
TeSTAR’s fame explained why the pirated uploads existed.
But there was another reason every illegal upload was racking up views.
-Holy shit this is fucking hilariousㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋ
It was unbelievably funny.
Like most self-produced idol content aimed primarily at fans, TeSTAR’s recent WeTube videos had generally been warm and wholesome without being particularly provocative.
But starting with this roommate content, the production PD had changed, bringing back the spicy flavor of TeSTAR’s debut reality show.
While revamping TeSTAR’s self-produced content, T1 had even recruited the production team that had filmed their debut reality show.
They actively played up the members’ character roles, pushed running jokes, and knew exactly how to make an edit land with a twist.
[Bae Sejin (Investment Addict): (I invested everything, and now I only have 2 coins left…! Now it really is just the coins!)]
[Seon Ahyeon (Landlord): Ah, um… it says I have to collect 3 coins from Sejin hyung….]
[Bae Sejin (Just Went Bankrupt): !!!!]
On top of that, an absurd number of unexpected situations had occurred during the game.
As a result, the comments under every video were plastered with laughing sounds in Korean and foreign languages alike.
-Everyone this video is the real deal I almost threw up laughing just now
-They keep bankrupting each other are they insaneㅋㅋㅋㅋ Guys protect your land why do you keep selling it to speculateㅋㅋㅋㅠㅠㅠㅠ
-(19:41) the members’ reaction when Cha Eugene hits a 1/216 chance and wins the maximum amountㅋㅋㅋㅋ
-Ryu Chungwoo and Bae Sejin are SO BAD at thisㅋㅋㅋㅋ
└Guess they were too busy making real money from childhood to play games about making fake money.. (pitying emoji)
└ㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋHey!! You can’t talk about a national-team athlete and a child actor like they were victims of illegal child labor!!
Fans encouraged each other in posts to report the illegal videos, but privately, they simply loved the fact that the content was so entertaining.
-This might be good for recruiting nonfans… Or is that just idol-stan delusion? (chin-resting emoji)
-Self-produced content is basically advertising anyway, they shouldn’t get blinded by a little membership money and should just release it right awayㅠㅠ
-Ah this is so fun… guys I love you
-Not stanning a group this hilarious immediately is a waste of your life, unbeatable value for money, meet TeSTAR on WeTube now and reclaim your laughter
-Lee Sejin’s adorable little hand movement snatching away bankrupt Baese’s soul.. (GIF)
And the PD had managed to make the roommate formation after the game pretty entertaining too.
[Cha Eugene: Wow!! Moondae hyung! We’re roommates!]
[Park Moondae: …Wow? (Has no idea why but is grateful for now)]
That was because the production exaggerated the subtle emotions each member expressed over their roommate assignments, but always in a positive direction.
And among those pairings, Cha Eugene and Park Moondae—a combination barely seen since debut—proved quite entertaining and received a good response.
-Cha Eugene literally just picked Park Moondae because he happened to be next to himㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋ
-Moondae obviously thought Eugene was gonna choose Raebin look at his faceㅋㅋㅋㅋ
-How long has it been since we got the Moondae-pup × Cha-kitty combo ah give us more~~ (shouting at full volume)
-Fck Park Moondae is such a fcking introvert but he still responds to literally everything Cha Eugene says, f*ck I love this sweet apple-rice-cake so much
-This is an Incheon Tibetan fox getting dried salty under the direct sunlight of a hyper-extroverted Cali boy (screenshot)
Fans who liked TeSTAR as a whole, as well as most Park Moondae fans, enjoyed the pairing.
Their personalities were distinctive, the dynamic was wholesome, and it was entertaining.
There were, however, some people who weren’t pleased.
They were a handful of the oldest Cha Eugene solo fans, people who had been around since the very beginning of Idol Inc.
-Ugh when I see certain stans losing their shit because they want to push the whole ‘my fave just sits there doing nothing and everyone loves him’ narrative I wanna puke
-Looks like you still haven’t lost your habit of manipulating people with cheap emotional bullshit. Guess you can’t help it just dieㅠ
-Bearhead was making it X-ing obvious how annoyed he was, but Bearhead stans are desperately trying to spin it as wholesome. First National-Team Guy in the summer package and now Eugene?ㅋㅋ
Their argument was that the editing had forcibly made Park Moondae’s cold treatment of Cha Eugene look wholesome.
Of course, this wasn’t the general opinion among Cha Eugene’s fandom.
Their aggression had cooled considerably after Cha Eugene’s successful debut, and as newer fans mixed in, the fandom had become much less exclusionary.
Still, there remained fans who quietly questioned the legitimacy of Park Moondae taking first place.
And that sentiment connected naturally to a rather negative view of Park Moondae’s individual successes.
That was why people like this occasionally made hateful comments not only on anonymous sites and secret accounts beneath the surface, but even in public spaces.
It was a day much like any other.
-Who the fuck are these people?
The difference from before was that Park Moondae’s fans no longer had any reason to keep holding themselves back.
-(Screenshot) the #2 akgaes are still doing this shit huh. what do you want us to do about the fact that your fave wasn’t good enough and lost the voteㅠㅠ
-Yep, another psycho having a jealousy meltdown~
-Even Eugene would probably wanna puke if he saw a nutjob like you using him as your profile picㅎ
-What can we do when he’s too brainless to watch his mouth and can’t get solo variety gigsㅜ Is #1 supposed to take responsibility for that too?ㅜ
During Idol Inc., Cha Eugene’s fandom had enjoyed the advantage of having occupied the top ranks from the very beginning. Park Moondae’s fans had been forced to grit their teeth and settle for maneuvering behind the scenes.
But now things were different.
Park Moondae’s post-debut performance had simply been too strong.
His appearance and stage skills kept improving step by step, bringing in visibly more fans, and practically every variety appearance he made ended up being a home run.
Even his photocard prices on this album had risen to about the same level as Cha Eugene’s.
So perhaps it was only natural that Park Moondae’s more aggressive solo fans slowly began to think:
At this point, can’t we just beat the shit out of people like that in public?
And once they started talking back, insults and criticism poured out like water through a collapsed dam.
Of course, Cha Eugene’s toxic solo fans didn’t simply sit there and take it.
Some deleted their posts and vanished, but the ones who remained retreated further underground and began responding even more aggressively.
-Huh so I can’t even say whatever I want on MY account now? If you don’t like it don’t look, who the fuck made you the fandom policeㅋㅋㅋㅋ
-The way they run their mouths pretending to be all-member fans and then secretly boycott streaming his solo song is WOW. Idol and stans are both equally shady as hell
-Ugh acting like he’s suddenly some X-ing popular member is insane lol congratulations on becoming the pick of grandpas and grandmas who don’t spend money~ (clapping emoji)
It was an absolute shitshow.
Read only on MUGEX
-Those bastards trash Cha Eugene every single time he isn’t center for the chorus and even organized a coordinated fax campaign with every dirty trick imaginable, we need to rip them all out by the roots this time
-Park Moondae akgaes have an open chatroom too, why are you pretending you don’t knowㅋㅋ Had fun manufacturing rumors? (screenshot)
One exposure followed another, and even rumors and fabricated testimony were beginning to creep out.
-Let’s just enjoy stanning for once, guys
-Blocking everything related to this. I’m only gonna enjoy updates about the members~
-Please all of you just unstan
Among the fans who hadn’t gotten involved, many of those who noticed what was happening were disgusted or simply ignored it.
But a worrying number of them also began expressing opinions.
-Honestly Cha’s akgaes really have been way too extreme. Those people were actually insane
-Bearhead stans were trashing Eugene exactly the same way, they’re all idiots. What did the idols do wrong
-Cha Eugene should’ve gotten first in the first place. That’s where everything went wrong from the beginning. They gave people a reason to feel wronged so what did you expectㅋㅋㅋ
If things spread even a little further, it looked like it would only be a matter of time before the issue reached trending posts on SNS and community sites.
Fuck.
And that was exactly when Park Moondae saw the whole mess.
“…Eugene.”
“Yes!”
“Let’s do a live.”
After a short phone call with the company, Park Moondae switched on a personal live broadcast together with Cha Eugene.
It hadn’t even been half a day since he learned what was happening.