The birthday celebration continued much longer than I expected.
Honestly, I thought it would end after the song, but they went out of their way to finish the whole cake in the waiting room too.
“D-Do you like the cake?”
“Yeah. It’s clean and light.”
“I believe selecting a strawberry whipped-cream cake through a vote was a beneficial choice. Strawberries are in season, so they are plump.”
The conversation about it continued until I finished the large slice I had been given because I was the birthday boy.
There wasn’t even a camera.
Meaning… they had genuinely done all this without any intention of turning it into content.
“…….”
With the cake board in front of me, now scraped clean of even the last bits of cream by Cha Eugene, I finally had no choice but to say it.
“Thank you. This is nice.”
“…!”
“Ah~ Moondae, hyung is about to cry! Oh my God, what happened to Tibetan Moondae?”
“It’s because the cake is delicious!”
“Happy birthday, Moondae-ssi~”
All kinds of reactions came back at me, from the guy pretending to cry to the staff members who stopped packing up the final pieces of equipment long enough to applaud.
‘Seriously.’
I let out a small laugh.
Then I lifted my smartphone and opened the camera app.
“Pictures? Great!”
“Ah, we should’ve taken them before we ate the cake.”
“I’m here!”
With the empty cake board between us, I took several group selfies in a row with the other six guys.
“Guys, we need to move now!”
“Yes!”
And as we headed toward the vehicles at the manager’s urging, I finished the post I had been writing earlier.
========================
Hello Loviewers
I’m TeSTAR (puppy emoji)
The concert was really enjoyable. I was so happy that I don’t even know how the three days passed. Thank you.
I just received a surprise birthday celebration too, and I wanted to share it.
I hope you have the best night in the world.
♡(puppy emoji)♡
========================
I added my individual photo and the group picture we had just taken at the bottom and uploaded it.
For some reason, I felt lighter afterward.
The responses came almost immediately.
-Holy shit Park Moondae is here
-ㅠㅠㅠMoondae what is this birthday celebration, what happened, please tell us the story
-Aaaah you should’ve done the birthday celebration together with us at the concertㅠㅠ TeSTAR stop! Stop excluding Loviewers!
-I love you Moondae, the concert was so good. I’ll always support you, I hope you have a healthy and happy tour
-I wanted to congratulate Moondae on his birthday in person too, this much is sincere (teary-eyed emoji)
Expressions filled with excitement and affection, still soaked in the lingering emotions of the concert.
I could feel the goodwill even in the foreign languages and emojis.
“…….”
Maybe because we had just directly shared time together, there seemed to be more to read in the comments.
I kept slowly refreshing as I looked through them.
There was occasional bullshit too, but it didn’t even register.
However, there were bound to be comments that weren’t bullshit yet still caught my attention.
-As expected, Moondae was quick too lol
‘…Moondae “too” was quick?’
Something about the nuance was strange.
I pressed back from my own post and returned to the main screen of TeSTAR’s SNS account.
Then I saw the post beneath mine.
“…!”
A long message beginning with “Loviewers, I love you” had already been uploaded in several lengthy sections.
A full twenty minutes earlier.
And each post even had his individual photos and group behind-the-scenes pictures taken during the previous concerts attached.
…Big Sejin.
The bastard glanced at my smartphone screen with his usual shameless expression.
“Ah~ Moondae posted too?”
“…….”
As expected, this bastard… was no ordinary opponent.
‘Don’t tell me the surprise birthday party was some scheme so he could beat me to posting.’
There was no way that was true, and yet I briefly found myself suspecting it as we traveled to the afterparty venue.
Read only on MUGEX
“My~ friend~ is really, really cute!”
“Ahahaha!”
While Cha Eugene belted out the children’s song, the other members collapsed laughing.
That was what things looked like exactly one hour after the afterparty began.
Most of the staff had just quietly gone home, leaving only the manager and a few others behind.
They were probably somewhat conscious of the ominous atmosphere at the company.
And the guys who remained……
‘They’re a little drunk.’
Normally, when you were surrounded by drunk people, it was more comfortable to be at least slightly drunk yourself.
But that was impossible for me right now.
Because what I was holding was nonalcoholic champagne.
“…….”
“Y-You! No!”
I hadn’t said anything.
I silently stared at Bae Sejin as he somehow sensed danger and removed an alcohol bottle from anywhere near me.
For reference, that bottle was already empty.
“…I’m sleepy.”
You certainly look it.
At this rate, he looked ready to use the bottle as a pillow.
‘They’re starting to lose all context when they talk.’
I looked over the atmosphere, where everyone was drunk but not excessively so, shook my head, and stood.
“Huh? Where are you going, Moondae~”
“Bathroom.”
It wasn’t actually the bathroom.
I was just going outside for some air.
But did it matter?
We had rented out an entire restaurant with a terrace included, so at least we didn’t have to worry about other people watching us.
‘Though there’s probably some bastard waiting nearby hoping to take pictures the second one of us shows our face.’
Didn’t matter.
I was just going to sit quietly.
I stepped onto the terrace, briefly leaving behind the room packed with singing and laughter.
Click.
The moment the door closed, the cold winter air struck my cheeks, though it wasn’t particularly freezing because there were outdoor camping heaters nearby.
‘This place is worth the price.’
I simply sat there and quietly looked up at the night sky.
“……Hmm.”
Like any Seoul night sky, there were almost no stars visible.
For some reason, that actually helped calm my mind.
Once the gratitude and enjoyment settled down, what filled the space they left was…….
Rattle.
“U-Um, M-Moondae?”
“…Seon Ahyeon.”
Why was he here?
I had barely closed the door before Seon Ahyeon stuck his head through after reopening it.
“C-Can I come out too…?”
“I suppose.”
It wasn’t as though I had rented the place for myself alone.
“Mm-hmm!”
Anyway, Seon Ahyeon apparently took that as permission and quickly stepped outside.
Click.
The door closed again, and the terrace became quiet.
Seon Ahyeon quietly sat down nearby, though not particularly close.
“…….”
For some reason, it reminded me of something.
Wasn’t this almost exactly the same setup as when Seon Ahyeon gave me hot chocolate?
I opened my mouth without thinking.
“Did you come out for some air?”
“M-Me?”
“Yeah.”
“Th-That too. Um, but I also had something I wanted to ask….”
“Me?”
“Mm.”
Seon Ahyeon fidgeted with his knees and hesitated for a moment.
Then he suddenly continued.
It was an unexpected question.
“Um… Moondae, after the f-five years are over, are you… not going to be an idol anymore?”
“What?”
It was the same thing Big Sejin had said to me not long ago when I gave up on the stage apparatus.
But the nuance was different.
…Seon Ahyeon sounded like he was genuinely worried about it.
“Y-You said something like that to me before.”
Seon Ahyeon lowered his head slightly.
“Th-That it could be dangerous, so I shouldn’t push myself too hard onstage. That it was better to stay healthy… and do this for a long time.”
“…!”
“W-When I did that spontaneous backflip during the year-end stage last year!”
Apparently he thought I had forgotten, because Seon Ahyeon even explained the exact situation in detail.
He didn’t need to.
I remembered it clearly.
‘I did say that.’
When I saw Seon Ahyeon casually doing something onstage that could have caused a serious injury, I had thought, ‘When he feels pressured, he has a tendency to push himself in a somewhat self-destructive way.’
So I had given him that advice.
And after that, Seon Ahyeon had never particularly insisted on doing anything dangerous.
…Right.
Maybe I had been the one doing that instead.
“B-But Moondae… you push yourself. You weren’t even fully healed, but you still used the wires and everything…….”
Now that I had admitted the alcohol dependence issue once, apparently I was able to admit this too.
For a second, I wondered whether this was criticism.
Of course it wasn’t.
“You said it was better to stay healthy and do it for a long time… S-So I wondered whether maybe Moondae… wasn’t planning on doing it for a long time….”
“…….”
Seon Ahyeon had, unexpectedly, identified the truth rather sharply.
How should I make these two contradictory things line up?
‘That time was spontaneous, so it looked more dangerous.’
‘My performance wasn’t actually that risky.’
‘I thought I was basically already healed.’
Various answers passed through my mind.
And Seon Ahyeon would probably have more or less accepted any of them.
But in the end, what came out along with a sigh was this.
“…I don’t really know.”
My breath spread white through the air.
“I think I want to keep doing it, but I don’t know if I’ll still be able to by then….”
“W-Why?”
It would be difficult to answer that specifically.
I blurred the circumstances together.
“Because I don’t know what’ll happen. You never know what kind of incident might happen. Now that I’ve actually seen how this industry works… I think it might be difficult to do this long-term.”
“…….”
Seon Ahyeon was silent for a moment, then suddenly lifted his head.
“A-Actually, I also think… there’s no guarantee that I’ll definitely be able to do this f-forever.”
“Right.”
“B-But doesn’t that also mean… that we might?”
“…!”
“W-We might safely get through all five years… and keep going together after that. I-If that happened, but Moondae had pushed yourself too hard now and things were difficult for you then, that wouldn’t be good…….”
“…….”
“S-So, couldn’t we think about… staying healthy and doing it for a long time together?”
It felt like I had been struck across the head.
Because his idea… seemed more rational.
‘…Of course I should’ve been acting with the possibility that I might remain in this body in mind too.’
The fact that it might end also meant it might not.
Then obviously, I should have prepared for the possibility that it wouldn’t end and made long-term plans accordingly.
‘It’s not even an industry with a certain future in the first place.’
I had been drowning in pointless thoughts in a field where some incident could break tomorrow and force you into retirement.
Only then did the irrationality of my recent attitude stand out clearly.
Wasn’t it basically as stupid as giving up on retirement planning because an epidemic was going around?
‘Once you classify it properly, it’s obvious.’
My mind cleared.
If I finished all the Status Abnormalities and still ended up living in this body, future me would obviously curse past me so much that the dream of a long, disease-free life might come true from sheer spite.
In the end, I let out a small laugh.
“Why wouldn’t we? We can.”
“…! R-Right!”
“Yeah.”
Only then did Seon Ahyeon smile brightly.
I raised my head and looked back up at the night sky.
‘Five years from now…….’
Then should I start building a route while taking contract renewal into account too?
Rattle, bang!
“Wow! It’s cold!!”
“Eugene, you’re wearing short sleeves right now!”
“Oh! Moondae-Moondae is here! You said you were going to the bathroom, did you run away?? I’m seriously hurt~”
“…….”
The blueprint I had briefly begun sketching was soon smashed apart by Cha Eugene and the other drunkards invading the terrace.
But that didn’t mean there had been no result.
Because the very next day, a variable in that long-term plan revealed itself.
“Pictures got taken of you guys making a scene on the restaurant terrace. Guys, hyung told you to be careful!”
“Gasp!”
“Though everyone is saying you look cute. The company already discussed everything, so the articles are positive too!”
“Whew.”
After hearing that fairly nerve-racking first piece of news from the manager as an introduction, the company’s internal situation that casually slipped out afterward was the important part.
“Still, it’s a good thing the company has gotten a little better and responded quickly. Let’s be even more careful from now on!”
“Yes!”
I had already seen the statement they released that morning.
The division head had issued it directly under his own name.
‘It was practically a declaration of surrender.’
To summarize, it was basically this.
-We really screwed up making thirty seats disappear. But Tnet are thugs, so there was nothing we could doㅠㅠ Please hurry up and curse them instead. We’ll stop doing stupid shit from now on and just work hard at taking care of TeSTAR.
Apparently, explicitly framing the fans as customers in that context had worked better than making some pointless emotional appeal.
‘At least they must be able to breathe again.’
But the manager wasn’t finished.
“They’re already saying we’re badly understaffed, and there’s talk that when the girls come in, some people will get pulled over to their side… Ah, guys, but hyung wants to stay TeSTAR’s manager!”
‘Oh.’
This…
was shaping up into an interesting situation.