In This Life, The Greatest Star In The Universe

It was a very uncomfortable feeling.

It felt like sticky eyes were clinging to my body and then sliding down.

When I was about to glance around the audience.

“Why are you like that, oppa?”

I came to my senses at the question of Soufflé, who was sitting across from me, and answered with a serious expression.

“Well.”

“…?”

“I was thinking about what kind of spaceship to draw. Whether to do it as a UFO or a rocket.”

Soufflé clapped and laughed at the sight of me drawing a space station.

“What kind of space station is this, oppa? There’s a spaceship parked in front of the bus stop.”

“That’s what makes it special. One and only.”

“Oh. That’s good.”

Then Soufflé took the sign and moved on to Bijou.

While Bijou was snorting with a headband that a fan gave him, I looked around again.

On the side, the signing event was going on peacefully.

The seats were filled with cannon lens cameras and Soufflés waving their hands at me.

As I smiled with a V on the corner of my eye, I was lost in thought.

Was it just my mood?

The feeling that was very strong just before had disappeared.

Maybe it was the uncomfortable feeling that I felt when stalkers among the fans looked at us.

It was like a sticky slime that made me feel unpleasant as soon as it touched my body.

“What’s wrong?”

Minki hyung, who was standing behind me and noticed the signs of something wrong, asked me with a mask on.

I covered my mouth and whispered.

“It’s nothing.”

“Do you see any fans?”

“No.”

“If you feel anything weird on the spot, let me know right away. I’ll take care of it.”

“Thank you. Hyung.”

As I waved my hand and smiled at the curious Soufflés in the audience, another fan came in front of me.

“Hello!”

I shrugged it off as a momentary mood.

It must be because I was tired from running around the music shows without resting after the concert. Whatever.

The only thing that could be a problem at the fan signing event was that sometimes fans who were banned from entering would cause a fuss.

But that part was well managed by the company on a blacklist.

I didn’t have to worry.

“Where are you from?”

The Soufflé wearing a hijab answered me in Korean with a smile.

“I came from Indonesia.”

“Selamat Malam(Hello).”

As I greeted him in Indonesian, his cheeks turned red and he laughed.

Since the Windflower era, the number of foreign fans who came to the fan signing event had increased.

As I spoke in a mix of Korean and English, I looked into the fan’s eyes.

How sparkling they were.

It was my favorite moment at the fan signing event.

It was a happiness that I didn’t know unless I experienced it, to meet the shining eyes that were directed at me right in front of me.

“Thank you for cheering me on from afar.”

The fan, who was reluctant to move on at the manager’s suggestion, waved his hand with a regretful face.

As my front was empty again, I stretched out and looked around.

Usually, the fan signing event should flow smoothly, but today, my front was often empty.

“Uhahahaha!”

It was because of our youngest.

He was in a good mood today and was having a stormy chat with the Soufflés.

“Ji, Jiho. I’ll move on.”

“Oh, you can’t. We haven’t finished talking yet, have we?”

“That.”

“Just 10 more seconds.”

I laughed at the sight of the fan worrying that he had to move on before the manager.

The fan managers were also more relaxed than usual, maybe because the music show was over and we had plenty of time.

The atmosphere of the signing event was great.

“Hmm?”

I heard Jun-hyun’s voice nearby.

He was talking to a male fan who was sitting in a comfortable hoodie.

“Did you go to the bathhouse?”

We were startled.

‘No, I mean…’

‘If you say your fashion is free like that…’

‘I’ll have to scold you later.’

That’s what I was thinking.

When a male fan asked me with a surprised face, ‘Mom?’

‘How did you know that, bro?’

‘Um, I just had a feeling.’

‘Wow. That’s amazing.’

Was he really from the bathhouse?

As I made a sheepish face, looking back and forth between Junghyun, who was smiling warmly, and the fan, who was saying ‘wow’, people burst into laughter.

And we laughed too.

Jiho made a cute gesture towards the audience, and the Soufflés answered with a somewhat flustered face.

Rihyuk pointed his finger at the fan he had seen earlier and said, ‘Look. A diamond ring. Here.’ with a pitiful face.

Because of Junghyun, who kept guessing what we had for lunch, the Soufflés sniffed their clothes with a worried expression.

When Bijoo, who was holding a pancake flipper that a fan had given him as a gift, said ‘Yap!’ like a fairy godmother, I pretended to be hit by a rocket.

‘Hello.’

I met eyes with the person who started to sit down on the chair opposite me.

He’s avoiding me.

I smiled awkwardly and asked the person who was nodding his head.

‘What’s your name?’

We were able to have a friendly conversation right away.

He also smiled and said something, and I joked with him and laughed.

I noticed something suspicious in the corner of my eye.

‘Your necklace is pretty.’

‘Really?’

He touched his neck every time he talked to me.

‘Are you very hot? Do you want me to give you my hand fan?’

‘Yeah. Thank you.’

He took the hand fan with a slightly embarrassed face and smiled faintly.

I could see faint beads of sweat along his nose bridge and the side of his chin.

He rubbed his hem with both hands that came down under the table.

His expression was calm, but his unconscious actions revealed his anxiety.

And not a good kind of anxiety.

‘How should I draw a spaceship for you?’

‘You can draw it however you want.’

‘Then I’ll draw a UFO for you.’

I didn’t relax my tension because of the awkward feeling, but nothing happened while I was signing.

Rustle rustle.

He rummaged through the bag he had put on the floor and took something out.

‘I prepared this as a gift.’

‘Wow. A penguin doll. An emperor penguin.’

‘You promised to cosplay as a penguin when you won the first place in the fireworks. So I wanted to give it to you.’

‘Thank you. I’ll use it well.’

Minki, who was behind me, reached out and put the doll in a cardboard box behind the table.

When the fan who moved on to Bijoo got a sign and went down.

‘Hyung.’

I whispered to Minki.

‘The penguin doll just now.’

‘Yeah.’

‘Please check it out without the fans noticing.’

‘Got it.’

Minki looked at the box right away and said, ‘It’s full.’ and asked Wonseok to change the box.

The managers moved the box.

When the Soufflés blinked, noticing that the air was slightly strange.

I gave my youngest a look.

‘Nandong.’

‘Yes.’

The youngest, who lifted the fish doll that Soufflé gave him to the sky, shouted with a bright smile.

‘Rihyuk hyung!’

‘…?’

‘Your friend is finally here!’

‘Hey!’

The fan signing venue was filled with laughter.

Meanwhile, the managers who were checking the contents of the box at the entrance that the fans couldn’t see, frowned.

‘Two, three!’

‘Thank you, we were New Black!’

We came down, waving our hands to the Soufflés in a cheerful atmosphere.

‘Diamond ring-!’

‘Puhaha!’

‘Look at my diamond ring. Look at this diamond ring.’

He shook his diamond ring with a pitiful face, saying ‘Eeeh’, and the fan laughed again.

‘I’ll never fail at a joke again.’

Rihyuk’s firm determination made us laugh for a moment.

When the manager hyungs went to arrest someone, Bijoo, who was brushing his hair, asked.

‘What’s going on, hyung? Is it because of the penguin doll earlier?’

‘Yeah.’

‘I was curious too. What’s going on?’

It seemed that everyone was being polite by looking at the atmosphere.

‘Usually when I talk, everyone goes ‘Oh, Jiho’s face’ and their eyes widen and they look at me. But he was like ‘Huh? Huh…’ with his mind elsewhere when I talked to him.’

‘The person who didn’t laugh at my history joke, I remember.’

‘Oh. The one who didn’t eat alone?’

We smiled warmly at the sight of our kids who noticed something at different points.

‘There you were.’

We heard the whole story from Wonseok hyung, who walked towards us.

‘Uju said it was suspicious, so I opened the doll. It seemed like there was something inside.’

“But?”

“A wireless camera came out from inside. A miniature camera.”

“…”

Junghyun’s face showed that he had lost his appetite.

Bijoo asked.

“So what did you decide to do?”

“He says it’s not him, he doesn’t know anything about it. But I’m going to call the police and take action. There’s no special damage, so it might be hard to take any big measures…”

“Wow. You almost got into big trouble by bringing that home.”

I got goosebumps just thinking that our faces were captured by the hidden camera that was transmitting wirelessly.

“For now, the staff are all sticking around and monitoring. And I’m going to register his identity on the blacklist.”

“Thank you for letting me know. Hyung.”

“Rest in the waiting room for a while. I’ll be back when I finish the work.”

This was the first time I saw him so angry.

He walked down the hallway like an angry bull, and we followed him to the waiting room with the other staff.

My chest was pounding, but luckily it didn’t last long.

Maybe because I heard about it, it felt somewhat unreal. Riyuk sighed and said as he flopped down on the sofa.

“I guess we’ll have to stop accepting gifts at fan signing events from now on.”

“Yeah.”

“Didn’t TNT seniors have something like this happen before?”

There was an incident among the TNT members where one of them drank a drink he received at a fan signing event and ended up in the emergency room.

There was a drug in it.

I knew because Seonwoong hyung would say ‘Have you ever been poisoned?’ with a wistful expression to everyone he met.

“Then let’s not accept gifts…”

Bijoo answered with a regretful face.

We basically had a policy of banning gifts or donations, but we accepted small items like hats or headbands at fan signing events and such.

We wanted to have fun with each other.

But now that this happened, it would be hard to accept gifts in the future.

We had to check the dolls we brought to the dormitory first.

“How are you guys? Are you okay?”

“Yeah. Well.”

Riyuk said.

“It’s not like the fans came directly or anything, and I expected that someday this day would come.”

“You look the most surprised.”

“Wow, my skin is originally pale.”

We laughed at Riyuk, who looked pale.

But they didn’t seem to be very surprised. At least I wasn’t.

These days, they followed us even on the plane.

Some of them even drove their cars and followed our vehicle’s tail. I didn’t care about this kind of thing.

I was just worried about something else.

“How are the fans’ reviews? Nothing, right?”

I fiddled with my smartphone.

I searched, but only hashtags like ‘Junghyun’s bathhouse joke’, ‘Riyuk_got_a_friend’ were visible.

“They don’t seem to know.”

“What are we going to do tomorrow? We have a signing event tomorrow. If we decide to ban gifts, we’ll have to ask them from the next album signing event, right?”

“Let’s do that. Let’s not let them know if possible.”

There was something I learned from being a singer, and that was that it was best for the fans not to know about bad things.

We were living off our image.

When they hear ‘New Black’, they should think of keywords like ‘good mood, happiness’. It would be troublesome if negative keywords like ‘worry, controversy’ came to mind.

It was because of this association effect that celebrities suffered image damage from incidents and accidents that were not their fault.

So it was always important to make them feel good and leave good memories.

Riyuk said.

“But you found it well. You did well.”

“Right. I thought you were a detector dog.”

“It’s not Woojoo. It’s a dog.”

We all burst into laughter at Junghyun’s imitation.

Our bear, who was smiling, held out his fist.

“You did well. Hyung.”

“Yeah.”

I held out my fist with a warm smile.

And.

“Junghyun.”

“Yes?”

“Loosen up.”

“…”

“More. More.”

“…”

His sullen face timidly clenched his fist.

I heard that the person who tried to hand over the hidden camera doll at the signing event was banned from participating in the official schedule.

It would be hard to take legal action.

I nodded my head as I heard how it was roughly handled.

-We’ll take care of the rest. Don’t worry and finish your dinner schedule well.

“Yes.”

-Make sure you take a good proof shot.

I answered that I knew to Seokhwan hyung’s request.

The place we came to was a famous restaurant near Hapjeong Station.

“Hi!”

As we arrived on the second floor, passing the restaurant stairs, the ones who arrived first waved their hands at us.

They were the main staff of Nostalgia, including John Edwards, the director, and the lead actors, Rupert Dean and Bella Page.

The faces that could be seen through the open door made the nearby customers whisper in wonder.

“Isn’t that the director of that patriotic movie that came out today?”

“Oh, the one who sang Arirang?”

And soon we heard the laughter of the guests who found us.

“Noblack!”

“Yes, hello. I’m Noblack~”

I bowed to the grandfather who greeted us. A middle-aged man whose face was flushed from drinking recognized us.

“Nine nine?”

“That’s right. Nine! Nine, nine~”

We sang a variation of Nine’s chorus, ‘Eat meat, meat, meat deliciously’, and laughter erupted.

As we slid the door shut and entered, John Edwards, the director of Nostalgia, said.

“You look like superstars.”

“Oh, no.”

As we waved our hands, Bella Page pointed to the other side of the door with her chopsticks.

“Who are those people?”

“Who?”

“The people who followed you. The ones wearing masks and carrying cameras.”

“Um…”

I was at a loss for words to explain ‘paparazzi’, so I used that term and the actors looked at us with warmer eyes.

‘You go through it too?’ I guess.

“Nice to meet you. I’m Woojoo.”

As we shook hands and greeted the people we met for the first time, we smiled proudly.

‘It works. It works.’

‘We can communicate…!’

I worked hard on Clay, or rather, I had an enthusiastic conversation with Clay, and the English I studied paid off.

Sometimes I couldn’t understand some sentences, but the interpreter helped me, but most of the conversations went smoothly.

“Clay said he was sorry he couldn’t come and asked me to say hello for him. He really emphasized that he was sorry.”

“I can imagine.”

We laughed at the director’s words, which he quoted with both hands.

The director turned to Rupert Dean, who was sitting next to him.

“Rupert, why are you so quiet? You said you wanted to meet Newblack once.”

“Um, yes…”

The other person greeted us with a shy face, ‘Hi’.

Bella Page picked up the white kimchi with a look of ‘what’s wrong with him?’

“Didn’t you say you were going to talk a lot about music?”

“I will.”

“He said he loved the song so much, he wanted to meet the composer and sang the song.”

“When did I?”

We nodded our heads as we watched the two bicker like siblings, who seemed to have become close while filming the movie.

Rupert Dean glanced at me and cleared his throat and greeted me.

“Your song was good.”

“Thank you.”

“I really listened to the song and thought, oh, this person knows about music…”

“I saw your movie before and you really acted well…”

“Ah…”

“Um…”

People laughed as we complimented each other and felt embarrassed.

It felt awkward to talk comfortably when people around us were talking like this.

And our staff, who were standing around us, filmed us with 6mm cameras.

The director asked.

“This is going on YouTube, right?”

“Yes, that’s right.”

Today’s meeting was not only to treat the guests who visited Korea, but also to promote the movie.

We used our channel, which had over 2 million subscribers, to promote the movie.

We did our own thing, filming new content with foreign stars, and they enjoyed the promotional effect. It was a win-win.

“This is called ‘flower sirloin’ in Korean. This is a special part…”

“Oh. Flower sirloin.”

“When you eat it, wrap it in this lettuce…”

As Rihyuk explained the food, they nodded and showed interest.

They were surprisingly good at using chopsticks.

John Edwards, the director, quickly picked up a piece of cooked meat and asked.

“But who else was supposed to come…?”

“Excuse me?”

“No. There seems to be too much meat…”

“Oh, we’re going to eat it!”

We smiled confidently at the westerners who were disgusted by the amount of meat.

We nodded our heads in agreement to his expression of ‘this one?’

Junghyun said.

“We’ll show you.”

“Don’t show me. This kind of thing.”

I laughed at the sight of Rihyuk trying to stop us.

While the meat was being grilled, I asked Director John Edwards.

“Did you finish the premiere well?”

“It was a hot atmosphere. I bowed deeply on the red carpet.”

“…”

“I only did the stage greeting at the theater and came back. They’re probably watching the movie right now.”

The director, who seemed to recall something, said with a cheerful smile.

“It’s about that time now.”

“What time?”

“The time when ‘Thousand Dreams’, the movie you made, will be shown.”

The 6th floor of a shopping mall in Yeongdeungpo.

The premiere of Nostalgia was in full swing, with nearly 500 seats filled with audience.

‘Wow…’

They marveled at the movie’s visual beauty, filled with dreamy backgrounds and fantastical colors.

‘It’s amazing.’

And the splendidly arranged numbers from the original musical.

It was a fun first half that made them feel anxious and regretful as time passed.

-Thud thud.

On the giant screen, the protagonist with a tired face stopped walking when he found a huge bookshelf.

-…

Along with the rusty letters on the sky-high nameplate, a caption saying ‘Foreign Language Books Corner’ came out.

Some of the audience’s eyes sparkled.

‘Oh, this is where…’

‘Did they say New Black’s song will play for a bit?’

‘It doesn’t seem to fit.’

It was a topic that had been buzzing on the internet along with the visit of the Nostalgia production team.

The audience, who were satisfied with the movie so far, repeated ‘Please don’t ruin the mood’ in their minds.

Then, the piles of books on the floor of the screen began to move.