When she clicked the music video, the video’s title caught her eye before even the five-second advertisement.
[TeSTAR ‘Midnight, and Then (00:01)’ Official MV]
[22,147,586 views]
‘Gasp, it’s at twenty-two million now.’
The last time she’d looked, it had been at twenty million.
Even though it had already been a week since release, the views were still accumulating quite quickly.
The time it had taken to reach ten million had also been a new record for the group itself.
‘I’m watching it again too, though.’
Thinking that made sense, the graduate student shrugged.
This TeSTAR music video had a somewhat different texture from their previous ones.
“Ah, it’s starting.”
At that moment, the advertisement ended and the music video began.
[…….]
An old-fashioned gramophone covered in dust and cobwebs filled the screen.
A white hand abruptly emerged from the corner and lowered the gramophone needle.
Crackle.
The cobweb snapped, and a slow, crackling melody began to play.
It was lo-fi jazz, with deliberately degraded sound quality.
A romantic, sorrowful piano rang out.
Before she knew it, the screen had cut to the foyer of a mansion.
Old but still bearing clear traces of luxury, the structure displayed incredible cinematography in every frame it occupied.
And in the middle of it—
The focus settled on seven people seated in formation beneath a chandelier shining through accumulated dust.
The song began.
—Slowly sinking
Time, the night
I don’t want to escape
—It’s quiet now
Songs and dreams too
Forget them all, this is midnight
Your Midnight
The choreography unfolded.
The colors of contemporary dance and waltz stood out strongly.
It was elegant, complicated choreography with many movements that used the whole body and had the members supporting one another.
Long cuffs swayed.
There were no repetitive movements that were easy to follow or easy to memorize.
They were movements designed solely to make viewers stare with their mouths open.
Those structural lines were captured at length beneath the chandelier light.
—Even if the clock’s second hand races and calls me
It can’t pull me up, not today either
I’m here, your midnight
Your Midnight
The video shifted its background from the old, extravagant foyer to an elegant study where rain fell, then to a massive dining table surrounded by nothing but rusted birdcages, then to a bathroom filled with red scented candles.
Each time, their hair and outfits changed in shape and color as well, naturally absorbing the new background in an instant.
The cinematography was insane.
And before long, the setting had reached a bedroom where golden-blue butterflies fluttered through the air.
The seemingly endless progression of costumes, all built around elaborate formalwear, had finally reached its last form.
Lightweight shirts in a classical style.
From the center of their backs, between their shoulders, rotating copper-brown wind-up keys could be seen.
—Spreading Midnight
The distorted focus
Trembles, tormenting time
The final chorus bloomed into full choreography.
Each time the formation changed, the butterflies gathered and settled on the wind-up keys like birds landing on perches.
The shadows across the floor stretched long, casting butterfly wings.
—Overflowing Midnight
The collapsed Shape
Tears open, and a new day comes
There were no meaningful cutscenes, no acting, no overt narrative.
Made up solely of choreography and appropriately placed close-up shots, the video swallowed time in an instant and passed by.
It was a music video where the song seemed to cling perfectly to the beautiful, intoxicating cinematography.
—The midnight
Where I met you
And then
The lyrics ended like that.
Every sound stopped for a moment.
Then the final accompaniment began faintly again.
As piano and contrabass notes dropped lightly into the silence, a white hand appeared just like in the opening shot.
Only this time, the camera traveled upward along the arm.
The owner of the white hand was Seon Ahyeon.
Leaving the choreography formation, Seon Ahyeon approached a grandfather clock on one side of the bedroom.
Then he tore the lower right wing off a mounted blue butterfly hanging above the clock.
A diagonal crack was revealed in the glass beneath the wing.
[00:01]
Elegant cursive lettering appeared over the grandfather clock, now framed head-on again, and the video ended.
‘Whew!’
It was still so good even after watching it again!
Unable to control the corners of her mouth, the graduate student replayed the final line, where Moondae’s close-up appeared.
With a blue butterfly fluttering near his temple and his lightly made-up face gazing slightly upward, Park Moondae looked absolutely incredible.
And there was the finishing touch too.
‘The choker!!’
Although the material and atmosphere were completely different, it reminded her of the second team battle on <Idol Inc.>, when she’d first seen Park Moondae, which made her like it even more.
Even though she’d already done it, the graduate student pointlessly took another screenshot of the scene.
‘Ah, seriously, I love this music video so much! And the song is just nice to listen to!’
Being able to spend four minutes enjoying gorgeous cinematography and an easy-on-the-ears song without any moments that made question marks pop above her head was exactly her taste.
And that was obvious right from the thumbnail.
Ever since <Magic Boy>, TeSTAR had used narrative, suggestive thumbnails—hands, scenery, props, things like that.
But this time, they’d blatantly put a close-up of a member’s upper body on the thumbnail.
It was Kim Raebin.
“Hmm.”
She was disappointed it wasn’t Moondae, and because Kim Raebin happened to be the member connected to a fan she’d had a terrible first impression of, the graduate student felt a bit complicated about it.
But the shot itself was art.
‘……Raebin is handsome.’
The damp-looking shot of Kim Raebin wearing a corset choker around his neck, with a blue butterfly visible below his chin, was incredible.
And he was also someone who suited this song perfectly.
The concept was extremely languid and luxurious, so Kim Raebin’s faintly decadent impression fit it well.
The music video itself had basically declared that it was going to bombard viewers’ eyes and ears and to hell with lore or whatever, hadn’t it?
‘Oh, it moved on.’
While she’d briefly been lost in thought, the replayed video ended and autoplay moved on to a related video.
It was the first performance of <Midnight, and Then> from the concert.
[Aaaaaaaagh!!!]
[Aaaaagh!!]
The screaming was so loud that the song was barely audible.
‘Ah, right! Everyone was like this!’
She giggled as she remembered the situation at the time.
The fancam link her fansite-master friend had sent her had cleanly edited audio, so she’d forgotten.
According to her friend, the reaction had been even more chaotic because the concept photos released beforehand hadn’t hinted at any of this.
‘Hmm, come to think of it, I think I just thought, “The photos are pretty! I’m excited!”’
That’s right.
For a more dramatic impact during the first performance, TeSTAR and the company had accepted Park Moondae’s suggestion and deliberately made the concept photos and teasers plain.
They’d simply used reasonably nice formalwear and a mansion to produce reasonably attractive shots.
—Heard Syeombyeol finally stopped being concept freaks, so I came to look
└Yeah, now they’re boring as fuck
└The members are still pretty, that’s enough
—Ah, something feels disappointing though
—Are they taking a break from going hard on concepts this time? Since it’s a full album and there’s already tons of work plus the concert, maybe they’re just playing it safe
└That optimism circuit of yours is built sturdy, recycling it’s gonna be hard
—Their original spirit is completely dead, they’ll probably start gaining weight soon too
The graduate student hadn’t known, but the raw reactions beneath the surface had been about this harsh.
But the moment the concert happened, everything flipped.
TeSTAR had even thought that since these were concert costumes, they could afford to go overboard, and attached butterfly models to the actual wind-up keys like tails.
Once enough money was poured into it, even something that excessive didn’t make the outfits look awkward.
—Syeombyeol are seriously committed to concepts
—Whoever came up with that shirt and the corset choker deserves a bonus, seriously
—♡I love Butterfly Boy so much♡
The school-universe concept has already been squeezed dry and is outdated, let’s push this instead
—Fangirl初心 fully recharged
—Male idols really are all about sexy concepts
After that, they added special album-only photos that recreated the music video’s concept exactly, and even uploaded some of them to TeSTAR’s SNS.
It was perfect.
But with no reason to know about all that careful calculation, the graduate student was simply happy.
‘Right, let’s watch Moondae’s fancam too!’
Excitedly, the graduate student entered a search term into WeTube and found Park Moondae’s music-show fancam for the new song.
The hairstyle that exposed half his forehead and the loose stage suit suited him incredibly well.
‘Blond hair is the best…!’
Read only on MUGEX
She happily watched the video, then suddenly opened the comments.
Of course, from experience, she knew the top comments would be plastered with English, but it was always nice when she found one or two Korean comments.
Seeing those over-the-top fan comments sometimes made her want to slip in and leave a reply of her own too.
“Hmm-hmm~”
The graduate student happily scrolled down the comments until she finally found Korean ones.
But…
They weren’t the kind she’d expected.
—Moondae, fighting~ I love seeing you looking strong and cool
—I hope Moondae succeeds! I hope things aren’t too hard for youㅠㅠ
“……?”
…Something felt off.
This concept was built on elegance and sophistication with a hint of sexiness, and…
You could feel how much attention had gone into the artistry of every element.
And Park Moondae was a genius idol who handled that concept with perfect balance, neither too much nor too little!
‘But why are comments like these this high up instead of people talking about the performance…?’
Of course, they were nice comments, so they didn’t make her feel bad.
But…
They dampened her excitement a little.
“Hmm.”
The graduate student simply skipped them and kept scrolling.
Fortunately, she soon found an over-the-top fan comment that perfectly matched her own feelings and pressed the heart button.
—Every time Moondae blinks the whole world flickers too, this is what you call a total solar eclipse
‘This is it!’
The graduate student giggled happily.
She quickly forgot the sense of discomfort, but now she could faintly understand what had been making her friend uneasy.
‘People are more interested in Moondae being kind than in Moondae himself…….’
Of course, it wasn’t as though most people were like that, but the fact that such a current had formed no longer felt pleasant.
‘I just want to watch Moondae on variety already.’
While waiting for the variety show, the graduate student occasionally rewatched videos of the concert unit-stage preparations and unit-stage fancams during her breaks.
And then the broadcast day for <Saturday Party> finally arrived.
She choked from Park Moondae and Big Sejin’s very first entrance scene.
“Cough!!”
Park Moondae and Big Sejin had…
Thoroughly strapped on pink fairy wings made for small children.
“…?!”
The two began dancing perfectly in time with the music on an eighties music-café-style stage.
[The magic of dance! Stocks soaring upward! TeSTAR’s two shining stars descend to Earth!]
They were, of course, cute and handsome in their overalls.
But the pink fairy wings hijacked the viewer’s entire field of vision.
Captions appeared too.
[As though they’ll fly into the sky at any moment…]
[A dreamlike dance!]
[Fairies or humans?]
It was a new line from the DJ.
‘Why… Why are they wearing those?’
The graduate student stared at the screen in confusion.
Then she realized.
“Ah, butterflies!”
It seemed like they were referencing the fact that fans had quietly begun calling the new song “Butterfly Boy”!
‘So cute!’
It was clearly part joke and part promotional scheme, but either way, the fan watching was delighted.
“Ahahahaha!!”
The graduate student burst out laughing and turned up the volume.
And at that exact same time, TeSTAR were doing the same thing.
“Wahahahaha!!”
“Kh-Khmm!”
The guys who had insisted on gathering in the living room to “monitor” <Saturday Party> burst out laughing.
‘I knew this would happen.’
It was a little embarrassing…
But after all the bizarre things I’d gone through so far, something like this wasn’t enough to destroy my composure.
“Is it really that funny?”
“Yes!!”
When Cha Eugene answered, Bae Sejin folded over beside him.
Apparently even that answer was funny.
‘…Endure it.’
I dragged my eyes away from the remote control.
……But once the scene came where Big Sejin and I surrounded the DJ booth while dancing, I couldn’t take it anymore.
The me on the screen shouted.
[Wow, the nation’s greatest MC!]
Click.
I hit mute.
“Huh??”
“Hey, why~”
“Moondae, it’s funny! It’s okay!”
It’s not okay.
I stared bitterly at the screen.
I’m really…
Looking forward to the latter half of the filming.