First, we asked the company employee to give us a little time to discuss it among ourselves.
Then the discussion began.
“What do you think?”
“I want to go to America!”
“Okay. We’ll count Eugene as a yes and hear what the hyungs have to say.”
“Yeah!”
Just as Cha Eugene was about to be smoothly removed from the discussion by Ryu Chungwoo’s mild words, Big Sejin cut in.
“Hold on~ Eugene, have you heard of this show?”
“<Nerdy Andy Show>? No!”
That was the name of the show that had invited us.
<Nerdy Andy Show>.
And Cha Eugene genuinely seemed to have no idea what it was.
“M-Maybe Eugene doesn’t know because it only started recently…?”
“Right. They said it’s getting popular these days, didn’t they?”
The members all started talking at once.
I pulled out my smartphone.
“Moondae, Moondae, gonna look it up?”
“Yeah.”
“Ooh~ Let me see.”
Anyone watching would think these guys didn’t have smartphones in their own pockets.
Anyway, apparently too lazy to search themselves, the members gradually crowded around my smartphone screen while I worked.
After running a few searches through a translation program, the show’s identity became clear.
“Oh, here’s the page.”
Naturally, it wasn’t one of America’s famous flagship network talk shows.
But was it some completely obscure little program?
Not that either.
“Oh, that’s interesting.”
“It feels really specialized.”
It was a lighthearted show formatted as a parody of famous talk shows.
And the content was…
in a word, subculture.
It seemed to focus mainly on games, comics, and superhero movies, and just as the company employee had said, the YouTube view counts were pretty good.
“Eugene, want to watch this one? Is it funny?”
“What is it?”
Cha Eugene shoved his head toward my smartphone screen, where a clip from the talk show was playing.
He watched for a moment.
Then he gave a quiet snort.
“……?”
Had this guy actually spotted a problem?
“W-Would it not be fun…?”
“Don’t know. I don’t watch stuff like this. So nerdy.”
“Uh, uhh?”
…Apparently, it simply wasn’t to his taste.
Cha Eugene pouted.
Big Sejin asked him with a mischievous look.
“But if you want to go to America, you’ve got to appear on this~? You’ll have to go on and sing the game song!”
“Appearing is okay. Watching isn’t.”
What an impressively professional attitude.
‘The problem is whether we’re actually going to appear.’
From what I could see, it seemed like a decent program with a reasonable amount of buzz.
But I wasn’t sure whether it was a good idea for this to become our first performance in America.
‘I don’t want to get any more entangled with that game.’
In the long term, the risk was fairly significant.
TeSTAR was a K-pop group, and we were going to make K-pop albums.
But if we went on here and did well, we might come out of it with nothing but the image of being avatars for game characters stuck over our heads.
Then if we later made a genuine overseas push with an actual TeSTAR album, the gap between people’s first impression and the real thing would be considerable.
There was a very real chance that gap would turn into mockery or a sense of betrayal.
‘If we had no particular intention of entering English-speaking markets, though, this wouldn’t be a bad choice for media play….’
It was still an appearance on an American program, so it wouldn’t be bad material for articles.
‘It would help shake off the domestic-only image.’
We could throw up a smokescreen that said, ‘We’re totally making a global push too.’
In that case, there was no real need to worry much about opinion in the gaming community either.
Even if people complained that we were using the game for media play, it would settle down quickly as long as we didn’t do another collaboration.
But the members didn’t seem to be thinking in those terms.
They simply saw it as a career opportunity.
“Should we try it? It’s not the kind of chance you get often.”
“…I don’t mind.”
“I also believe it’s an opportunity worth taking on. Even if it’s a game collaboration song, I’d be glad if we could let people hear one of our songs.”
It was an extremely constructive, rookie-like attitude.
Hmm.
What surprised me was that Seon Ahyeon was the one who raised a concern.
“B-But will it be okay? M-Moondae said back then… that doing another collaboration wouldn’t be good…… Would this be okay…?”
The final question was directed at me.
Big Sejin joined in too, although he was on the side in favor.
“Come on~ It’s not like they’re asking us to do another collaboration. Wouldn’t one performance be fine? We just give them a great stage and leave a good impression~”
There was no way this guy didn’t understand the importance of first impressions.
Apparently his ambition to break into America had simply beaten out the risk.
‘So his position is that no matter how we get there, we should secure name recognition first.’
To make matters worse, Seon Ahyeon’s eyes lit up and he nodded.
“D-Do you think so? I-I’d like us to give them an amazing performance…!”
Apparently he’d wanted to do it all along.
The others began agreeing as well, forming an eager atmosphere.
…It couldn’t be helped.
I ruffled my hair.
“…Fine. I like the idea too.”
“Ooh!”
“On one condition. I’d like us to focus as much as possible on showing them the group itself.”
“Th-The group?”
“Yeah.”
It probably sounded vague at first, but once I explained myself, everyone understood.
“Sounds good!”
“Hmm~ Guess we’d better study up.”
“It’s fortunate that we’ve recently gotten a little more room in our schedule.”
The group discussion ended on an excited note.
And when we met with the company employee again, we gave an opinion similar to what I’d said earlier.
Only a bit more specific.
“First… we’d like to perform one of our title tracks too.”
“Ah~ Ah! Of course. That’s absolutely something we’ll negotiate with them!”
“Yes. Thank you. As for the performance itself, the program has only requested the song selection, and the rest is for us to prepare on our side, correct?”
“Yes, that’s right. If there’s a concept or setup you’d like to use, we’ll accommodate it as much as we possibly can. Within what the schedule allows!”
“That’s good.”
Time?
That should be perfectly fine.
I gave a small grin.
“We’re going to perform with a live band.”
“Ah! Sounds great.”
“And we don’t need costumes.”
“……? Excuse me?”
That face clearly said, What the hell are you talking about?
It looked like this was the point where another explanation would be necessary.
Read only on MUGEX
News of TeSTAR’s appearance on an American program hit the main entertainment-news page once, then dropped back down.
If the response after the actual appearance turned out badly, even media play would become difficult, so the agency had simply seized the opportunity the instant the invitation came in.
The news quickly reached the fans too, who had been happily enjoying fancams from TeSTAR’s May university-festival performances and the video of Seon Ahyeon’s surprise birthday party.
-Whoa, are they entering America??
-I knew overseas talk would start coming up soon, but I thought they’d go to Japan first… As expected of TeSTAR, the size of the population they’re aiming for is different
-Ah finally I get to hear Cha Eugene speak English to my heart’s content, that cheerful sexy Cali-boy accentㅠㅠ
-If I want to watch live I’ll have to use a vacation day, okay, apparently I’m getting food poisoning that day
Rather than worrying about overseas tours causing them to neglect domestic promotions, the overwhelming mood was still, ‘The entire world needs to know how amazing my idols are.’
That was because TeSTAR’s fandom was still structured overwhelmingly around Korean fans.
However, once the exact nature of the program and how the invitation had happened were revealed, the excitement cooled slightly.
-Oh, so they’re performing the game collab song… No wonder the show itself felt kind of geared that way lol
-Apparently it’s the first time K-pop has appeared on that program, that’s still a meaningful achievement
-I heard our kids contributed a lot of ideas to the game collaboration too, so I’m glad they’re seeing the results of it
-This might actually work better locally than their title tracks. The collaboration song did make Billboard, after all (screenshot)
-But if those fucking otaku gamers throw another fit over this I swear I won’t sit still, f*ck, what are we supposed to do when our precious genius baby made even the collab song a god-tier masterpiece huhㅎ
The last post had been typed one character at a time, full of fury, on the private account of a Kim Raebin solo fan.
‘Those fucking assholes piss me off so much!!’
She slammed her keyboard.
It was because she’d remembered the vicious fight she’d gotten into with some toxic game user spouting absolute bullshit.
‘When the game first launched they wouldn’t shut up about GodSTAR and kept hyping them to hell, and now that the game’s successful they’re cutting TeSTAR off like a dead tail!’
The fact that the situation had changed and the game’s user base was now very different from what it had been back then meant absolutely nothing to an enraged Kim Raebin fan.
‘I almost wish this whole thing would just fizzle out. Ha!!’
She wanted TeSTAR to completely wash their hands of this damn game!
Frankly, TeSTAR doing well overseas wasn’t exactly in her personal interest either.
‘If this actually becomes an opportunity for them to blow up, they’ll be running around on tours and barely appearing on music shows. Either way, it’s bad for me!’
…And yet, despite saying all that, on the day TeSTAR appeared on <Nerdy Andy Show>, she was sitting there waiting to watch it live.
She’d even gone out of her way to sit in front of her desktop because her smartphone screen was too small and prone to errors.
‘Haa…….’
A mild wave of self-awareness settled heavily over her shoulders.
There was nothing she could do.
Kim Raebin and Park Moondae were being held hostage by this ridiculous program…….
“Whoa, you’re watching those guys again?”
“Yeah. Piss off.”
“Yeah, you too.”
“Call me ‘you’ one more time and you’re seriously dead.”
She gave her younger brother an obscene hand gesture and ignored him.
But her brother loitered around and peered at her computer screen.
“Is this that thing? They’re singing the game song in America? Are they coming out in cosplay?”
“Hey, fuck off.”
“They’re seriously beating a dead horse with this~ Argh! Ow!”
Only after taking a merciless beating across the back did her younger brother flee back toward the sofa.
<127 Section> had done so well that he’d played pretty deeply into it himself, so he’d heard bits and pieces of the related news.
‘He’s already calling it beating a dead horse? That pisses me off even more.’
The Kim Raebin solo fan ground her teeth and glared at the computer screen.
Fortunately, the program began before much longer.
[Welcome to the Show!]
[This is… nerdy!]
[Oh, I mean, Andy~]
“What are they even saying?”
Extremely American B-movie-style CG and captions flew all over the screen.
Then another endless stream of English poured from the speakers.
The commercial breaks arriving every few minutes were an added bonus.
In short, it was boring.
The only things she recognized were a few superhero-movie characters.
‘What the hell am I doing….’
The Kim Raebin fan bitterly regretted not just finishing her assignment and watching an edited version later.
Still, now that she’d already turned it on, it felt like a waste to stop watching.
Fortunately, a preview for TeSTAR finally appeared.
More precisely…
it was a preview for the <127 Section> OST performance.
‘F*ck…!’
Were they going to do nothing but promote the game?
With an ominous feeling, she kicked her feet.
She ignored her younger brother spouting some nonsense about King Kong, and before long, the commercial break ended.
Then the stage came into view.
“……!”
The place where TeSTAR would perform was…
filled with a band.
‘Looks like they’re doing a live band performance.’
For the moment, she focused on the screen.
Not long afterward, TeSTAR walked onto the stage.
But they were……
wearing ordinary clothes.
“Huh?”
No, they were too neat to be completely ordinary clothes.
But they weren’t conceptual in the way their usual idol stage outfits were.
“Huh? They’re not cosplaying?”
Just as her younger brother said, they weren’t wearing the game characters’ costumes or hairstyles either.
TeSTAR simply looked natural.
Like they might have looked in footage from a reality show.
Cha Eugene grinned and took hold of his standing microphone.
-What makes people live? …CHOICE!
And with the live band’s accompaniment, the performance of the trailer song began.
DOOOM DOOOM DOOOM DOOOM ZZZZ-ING!
-I’m gonna survive,
Like you did before
Park Moondae launched into the high-pitched opening with an exceptionally clear, refreshing force.
Each TeSTAR member held a standing microphone, singing while throwing in ad-libs.
“……!”
It sounded…
better than the recorded track.
Her younger brother shrugged.
“They can sing.”
TeSTAR had always been good live.
But this was the first time they’d done a performance where, without any other elements, the audience was simply made to listen to the song itself.
In fact, most of the fans watching the program had privately expected TeSTAR to somehow add stage direction or choreography to the performance.
But there was none of that.
It was simply a clean, exhilarating performance that let the audience enjoy the song.
Their facial expressions were good and their gestures weren’t awkward, and that alone was enough to carry the stage from beginning to end.
-Choose your way
Choose your side
They radiated confidence.
-Survive!
Instead of character performers, TeSTAR presented the game collaboration song brilliantly under the image of straightforward, proper singers.
The siblings opened their mouths along with the applause and cheers pouring from the screen.
“Wow…….”
“Ooh~ I’ll give them this one.”
Instead of answering, Who the hell are you to decide whether you approve or not?, the Kim Raebin fan pounded the desk in surging excitement.
‘Their performances really are fucking good!’
This was as clear a line in the sand as anyone could have drawn.
It practically shouted,
‘We’re not part of the game. We’re the singers who made this game’s OST!’
And because they had more than enough ability as singers, the boundary came across naturally and brilliantly.
[Wow~ That’s awesome!]
That same framing revealed itself again in the short talk segment after the first performance.