Translator: MarcTempest
Editor: Rxel
Chapter 70
The Butterfly Effect
There was a saying called the butterfly effect.
It meant that somewhere on Earth, a butterfly’s wing flap could cause a huge result like a typhoon.
In other words, a very trivial thing could turn into a huge thing.
Just like right now.
“I think of this poem.”
Junghyun, who was reciting a poem in front of the self-cam.“Before I called his name, he was nothing but a gesture. When I called his name, he came to me and became a flower. That name.”
“Sou.”
“Fflé.”
His younger brothers laughed, and Woojoo made a detached expression.
When the youngest one pointed the self-cam at Woojoo, he said, “Hyung, smile a little.”
“I’m smiling.”
“You look so sad right now. It’s a historic moment when the fans’ name is decided, so why are you so gloomy?”
Should he get rid of it, that thing?
If there was no camera, he would have removed it right away.
“That’s right. It’s a really meaningful thing.”
“Bijoo, you too.”
“Ahjussi, don’t nag Bijoo Hyung and relax your face.”
“You look better when you smile, Hyung.”
They said one thing after another to tease Woojoo, and the staff in the waiting room were holding back their laughter.
The makeup teachers and the manager hyung too.
Woojoo smiled bitterly and smiled warmly at the camera that the youngest one was holding.
“Hello. I’m Woojoo, the former member of New Black.”
The younger ones laughed again.
“Of course, it’s a joke. I think of the butterfly effect. Who would have thought that my mistake would come back like this? At first, I was very miserable and ashamed when I saw the voting results, but now I’m accepting it with gratitude.”
“Your expression doesn’t say that at all?”
“Well, just be quiet while I’m talking. Rihyuk.”
They giggled among themselves, saying, ‘Woojoo Hyung was really hurt.’
“Actually, it doesn’t matter what the name is, isn’t it a happy thing that we have a name to call our fans? Now, every time I see our fans, I think of calling them ‘our Soufflé’, and I feel like crying in many ways.”
“Of course you would cry.”
“…”
“Don’t mind what Rihyuk Hyung says and keep going. Hyung.”
“Yes. I’m really happy that we have a name to call you. To commemorate that, shall we all say hello to our Soufflé together?”
They gathered together and waved their hands vigorously toward the camera, saying, ‘We love you, Soufflé!’
And after saying goodbye.
Woojoo turned off the camera and smiled at the members.
“Let’s talk for a moment, you guys.”
Woojoo chased after the younger ones who ran to the corner of the waiting room, and he became a beast.
***
Meanwhile, at that time.
On the idol community ‘Green Room’ board, someone had posted a carefully written article.
[The butterfly effect caused by a rookie male idol’s slip of the tongue.hyogwa]
The subject is the rookie New Black who debuted this year!!
The fandom name was decided today and I wrote a post because I was excitedㅋㅋ
(Official SNS photo capture)
The fandom name that was decided this time is ‘Soufflé’, which is bread.
I looked it up and it’s a French dessert.
(Photo)
—Doesn’t it look delicious? I’ve never tried it either
Anyway, you might wonder why the fandom name is a bread name??
But there is a story behind it.
In February of this year, when New Black won their first place with Jang Sowon on Something, Woojoo, the leader, made a slip of the tongue in the Music On speechㅋㅋㅋ
(Video)
—From 1 minute and 10 seconds ‘Our Soufflé…’
Those who saw it at the time will rememberㅋㅋ
The TNT Taehyun’s explosive reaction capture that is sometimes used as a comment is from that time
(Capture collection 1,2,3,4)
—The younger ones who are having fun and the eldest brother who is suffering
This is a scene that often appears in their own reality show, but the kids tease Woojoo all the time with thatㅋㅋㅋㅋ
I heard that there was a fandom name contest recently.
Maybe Kyuho was conscious of the scandal that happened last year when they chose Curtain as their fandom name?
There were many opinions on what to do, but after the first private fan signing event on Sunday, the public opinion shifted drastically.
(Video)
-How the members prepared gifts for the fan signing event
(Video)
-From 8 minutes and 13 seconds. You have to watch this if you are a fan! There are a lot of touching words.
Anyway, after these two videos were uploaded, the fan cafe was buzzing with reactions.
Everyone was lightly supporting them, but then they felt more passionate.
So when the fandom name contest was held, they thought, we should also give them something with love, and someone came up with the perfect name.
There are some other processes, but–
The remark he made in February led to the fandom name.
They will post a thank you message later, and I’m personally looking forward to their reactions.
Hmm, I wrote it so grandly, but the ending is a bit weak;;
I’ll post some pictures of them as I finish the post!!
I hope you like them!!
(New Black pictorial collection)
[Comments: 3]
-I had a feeling it was them ㅋㅋ
-You wrote a good sales pitch ㅋㅋㅋ
-They look prettier every time I see them
At first, there were a few comments, but then the post was pushed back by other posts and the page turned, and the interest in the post was cut off.
It was a typical reaction to a sales pitch for a rookie idol group.
The writer who posted it also checked the reactions and closed their phone with a gloomy face after a while.
Meanwhile,
The number of views on the post started to increase silently.
***
In the car moving to the event hall after the music show.
“Wow, what a surprise.”
Woojoo was shocked when he entered the fan cafe as usual.
Bijoo, who was listening to music with earphones next to Woojoo, turned his head.
“What’s wrong, Hyung?”
“The number of members in the fan cafe has increased a lot.”
“Really?”
Woojoo showed him his phone screen and his eyes widened.
“Really?”
“What’s going on? It suddenly jumped up.”
When was the last time this happened?
It was when the number of members went from 200 to 800 after the Music Cafe broadcast.
Now the increase was even bigger.
“Wow. My heart is pounding, man.”
“Hyung. Calm down.”
Bijoo plugged one of his earphones into Woojoo’s ear.
A calm R&B music flowed out.
But the scene in the car was quite different from the calm music.
It looked like a scene from a comic.
The two youngest members in the back seat had their eyes wide open as if they were about to pop out.
“What are you guys doing?”
“It’s the YouTube views. They’re huge.”
“Really?”
It was true when he checked.
What was this?
They were caught off guard by the sudden phenomenon, and even Seokhwan Hyung in the passenger seat joined the search.
They soon found out the cause.
There was a post about the fan signing event on the idol community ‘Green Room’.
It was a sales pitch written by their Soufflé.
The post had over 200 comments and over 10,000 views.
And for the first time, the comment section, which was usually half and half for rookies, was full of compliments.
-Oh, it’s our kids, roomies, please look at them nicely!!
-I saw their remarks and they’re really good
-They speak so nicely ㅠㅠㅠ
-It’s the charm that only rookies can haveㅋㅋ They can’t do that when they get older
-They must have been well trained by the company. They have to know that fans are precious to survive in this industry
-I was always a bit ambivalent when their posts came up, but I became a bit of a fan after seeing this.
***
Woojoo scrolled down the comments, wondering if there would be any hate, but there was none.
He still felt nervous, though.
The fansign was on Sunday, but why did it become a hot topic now?
On Monday, when the fansign video was uploaded on the company’s YouTube channel, it was rather quiet. But now, after the fandom name was decided, it felt like a fire had been lit.
Woojoo didn’t expect this at all…
He was happy, but also a bit flustered.
Until now, the stage had always been the main thing, no matter what kind of issue there was.
Something’s debut stage, the stage that they showed at the Music Cafe, and the most recent one, the Night Sea stage.
Even if there was a brief issue, in the end, it was always the song or the stage that got the attention.
This was the first time that something other than their main job became an issue.
Wait, was he a celebrity now? Was fan service also part of his job?
As he was thinking that, a face that looked like a rice cake popped out between him and Bijoo.
“Hyungs, I think I know the reason now.”
“What is it?”
“Jiho, put on your seat belt.”
At Bijoo’s scolding, Jiho clicked his seat belt back on.
But his face was flushed red.
He looked like a very excited puppy tied to a leash.
“The digital chart ranking has been the same since Sunday, right? The A&R team leader said it would go down.”
“Oh.”
“Don’t you think our fans are working hard after the fansign?”
“That could be possible.”
It sounded plausible, even though it was just a guess.
The digital chart ranking had been weird since Monday.
Last week, at the meeting, the team leader showed them the expected chart trend and said it would drop, but the actual chart was different.
[31st. New Black – Fireworks]
Fireworks had stayed in the 30s and slowly climbed up to 31st, and then it didn’t go down.
It was like that until today, Friday.
It was stuck there.
Soon, they would be pushed back by groups like Daydream, who had a strong fandom, but it was still an incomprehensible phenomenon.
Yesterday, too, the staff members at the A&R office looked at the trend as if they couldn’t understand it and asked him, “Woojoo, did anything happen on Sunday or Monday?”
Junghyun, who was looking at his phone, said, “What if we become the first-place candidate?”
“Hey, don’t count your chickens before they hatch.”
“Why are you like that, Hyung? Nothing is impossible. Right?”
They were in a good mood, humming “A world where anything is possible~” and looking at Woojoo, Rihyuk stuck out his tongue.
“Is it that easy to get first place?”
“Don’t be so negative. Just let them be happy, Rihyuk.”
“Well, fine.”
Rihyuk muttered as if he was grumbling at his words.
“He’s probably worried that we’ll be disappointed if we get our hopes up. We’re almost done with our activities.”
Well, it was almost time to end.
“Seokhwan Hyung, when is our last music show next week?”
“It’s on Wednesday.”
The man who had been texting with the company because of the fan cafe membership increase, answered dryly.
Bijoo said to Woojoo, “It’s only a few days left, Hyung.”
“I know. Why is time so fast?”
He lost his appetite.
“It feels like we just did our debut showcase yesterday, and now we’re ending our activities. It feels so sad.”
“Me too. I feel like we can do more.”
“We did enough, right?”
Rihyuk, who was in the back seat, joined in.
“We worked really hard, right? And the results are really good too.”
“Rihyuk, seat belt.”
This time, Woojoo pointed out and Rihyuk pointed his finger forward.
“We’re here.”
Woojoo turned his head and saw the venue where they would perform today.
***
Woojoo was in a good mood, since it was a rare event for them.
He liked the smell of grass and the sound of insects that he couldn’t experience in the city.
“Ah! A moth!”
Rihyuk was startled and hid behind Woojoo, while Junghyun casually caught the moth with his hand.
He only grabbed its wing.
“Don’t worry, Rihyuk. I got it.”
“Ah! Get rid of it! Hurry!”
“Rihyuk Hyung, calm down, ah! Junghyun Hyung! Get it away from me! Ah, my eyes, it hurts!”
The two younger brothers were making a fuss, and Junghyun looked embarrassed. He went to a nearby bush and let the moth go.
“Take care,” he said.
He looked like a trainer who released a Pokemon.
“I can’t live because of them.”
Bijoo smiled sympathetically.
They followed Seokhwan Hyung to the back of the outdoor concert hall, after parking the car.
There were tents everywhere.
They were probably the singers’ waiting rooms.
They walked past the metal frames set up outside, and the busy staff members, and got a rough idea of the stage.
They would have a rehearsal later, but they wanted to avoid any mistakes.
“It’s bigger than I thought.”
The event today was a regional festival in Icheon, Gyeonggi-do, with the theme of summer night.
The size of the seats was not huge, but the stage was decent.
It was much better than the event where they had to sing Fireworks awkwardly after the trot singers finished, in front of a crowd of elders.
“I’ll talk to the event agency staff for a while, so you guys go to the waiting room with Minki.”
“Okay.”
They headed to the tent that was set up far away, like a waiting room.
As they felt the hot July air and the sound of insects on their bodies, reminding them that this was not a city, the youngest asked a question.
“Hyung. Who’s coming today?”
“Um…”
Who was it?
Woojoo knew that there were about ten teams that would be on stage today.
There were some who played traditional music or instruments, and some trot singers.
And among them, there were about five idol groups.
“Street Boys, us, and who else? I don’t know much except for Teen Spirit sunbaenims.”
Anyway, today’s event was like ‘Teen Spirit + alpha’.
Teen Spirit.
They were one of the best boy groups after TNT.
They were a pretty boy group from MOP Entertainment, which focused on visuals. They met them in February when they were doing music shows.
Well.
They didn’t leave a good impression.
Their words were rough, unlike their beautiful appearance.
When Woojoo talked to them a few times, he felt that God balanced their speech when he gave them such looks.
But wasn’t it too much to call Teen Spirit?
The event scale didn’t seem to be enough to call Teen Spirit.
Maybe that was why New Black was hired.
If they had distributed it properly, they would have filled the lineup with some idol groups with name value.
But they spent all their money on Teen Spirit, and hired some rookies with the little money left.
But it wasn’t a bad choice.
From the perspective of the event’s success, Teen Spirit’s fans were already waiting in the seats from far away.
Woojoo had to warn the kids to be careful with their words before going on stage.
Since Teen Spirit’s concept target was mainly teenagers, their fandom was quite prickly, both in age and personality.
Woojoo looked around the brothers to talk, but one was missing.
“Hey, wait a minute. Where’s Junghyun?”
He looked around for the missing kid, and saw Junghyun standing still in the distance.
They approached him.
“Junghyun, what are you doing there?”
“…”
Junghyun frowned and looked at the sky.
What was there?
Woojoo looked up at the sky, but there was nothing special.
It was a clear sky.
Except for the faint sunset that was fading away, there was nothing remarkable to note.
They were six people lying on the ground, looking at the sky. The staff who passed by them wondered what was going on and glanced at the sky briefly, only to disappear with a ‘hey, what’s that’ expression.
Woojoo spoke to the statue-like figure who was still frowning.
“Junghyun.”
“…”
Before he could ask again.
“Hyung.”
Junghyun lowered his head and said to Woojoo, “It looks like it’s going to rain a lot later.”