In This Life, The Greatest Star In The Universe - C.139:
Translator: MarcTempest
Editor: Rxel
Chapter 139
In front of Lemon Entertainment.
As the van with the engine on waited for them, they said goodbye to the choreographer.
“We really appreciate your hard work for the past five days. And please take this. It’s a gift we prepared for you.”
“No, no, you shouldn’t!”
They shook their heads at the American who tried to open the gift right away.
Junghyun spoke with a serious face.
“Not open. Korean manner.”
Bijoo added softly in English, “That’s right. We might be too embarrassed if you open it here.”
“Yep! Rihyuk’s ear will be fire!”
“Shut up, maknae.”
“Ahh…! Please don’t touch me!”
The choreographer and his assistant laughed at the sight of their bickering siblings.
Clay handed the gift box to his assistant and said, “Alright, friends. I understand what you mean.”
He then started to talk about the past five days.
“It was a fun time. It was also very rewarding to talk about choreography with you. I hope you can show your skills in the performance. Good luck. And B.”
Clay called Bijoo.
He was the only one among the members who got a nickname like ‘B’.
And he deserved it.
Even they, who saw him every day, would tease him by saying ‘If the word dance became a person, wouldn’t it be Bijoo Hyung…?’ every time they practiced, amazed by his skills. How much more would a stranger be?
Every time Bijoo danced, the choreographer would stroke his chin and say ‘wow’.
Maybe that’s why he had a friendly face as he handed him his business card.
“Here’s my card.”
“Wow…”
“Someday, I don’t know when, but if you ever come to LA, contact me. Come to the dance academy I run, too.”
“Wow…”
Bijoo turned his head with a bright smile, like a lottery winner.
“Ooooh.”
They raised their thumbs and exclaimed as he shook hands with Clay.
A smile of satisfaction came to Woojoo’s face.
It felt like he became a parent.
It was like the homeroom teacher pointing at their kid and saying ‘This kid is really outstanding’ in front of everyone.
Woojoo felt like he was recognized and happy.
He was touched.
Their kid was recognized by a world-class choreographer.
It wasn’t just Woojoo. The other siblings were also satisfied… Ah, Kim Junghyun. How can you eat snacks at a time like this?
Rihyuk and Woojoo glared at him and he hesitated for a while before putting a snack on each of their palms.
Meanwhile, that touching sentiment didn’t last long.
Their youngest stuck to Bijoo and smiled brightly.
“Remember. We go together.”
“Sure, come all together.”
Clay laughed.
In that atmosphere, they took a SNS commemorative photo with the choreographer in sunglasses and hugged him.
Soon after, the van driven by Minki Hyung headed to Incheon Airport.
As the vehicle became a dot and disappeared, they gathered around Bijoo.
“Hyung! Let me see that card.”
“Here.”
“Ouch, it’s blinding!”
They covered their eyes at the card that Bijoo handed out, and Rihyuk looked at them with a disdainful expression.
Bijoo scratched his cheek and smiled shyly as they played and laughed for a while.
Of course, they regained their seriousness when they saw the passerby blinking at them.
“…That was kind of stupid.”
“But isn’t this patheticness the charm of me and the Hyungs?”
“You’re talking about charm. The fans will drop us if they see us like this. Drop.”
“Why would the fans hate us?”
Junghyun tilted his head at Rihyuk’s question.
“Uh, well…”
“Junghyun.”
Woojoo put his hand on Junghyun’s shoulder and said, “Just accept it. Rihyuk just hates seeing us having fun.”
“Ah, I see.”
"In a word, he has a twisted personality. Twisted. Oh, this sounds good. Should I add it as your nickname?
“Uh, twisted. Cute.”
“Please… stop giving me weird names. Every time I go to the fan cafe, I get a new nickname.”
“Yeah, yeah. We’re sorry.”
“Don’t sneak your hand on my shoulder.”
“…So prickly.”
Woojoo patted the grumbling guy and went into the office.
“Oh, right.”
As they went down to the basement, the youngest asked as if he remembered something, “Clay, do you think he’s opening the present by now?”
***
Inside a car running on Gangnam Boulevard.
Clay Tyler, who was buried in the soft seat, took out the gift box.
‘What’s in it?’
A strange imagination came to mind.
As soon as he opened the box, a sleeping gas came out with a whoosh, and he woke up somewhere locked up.
Five boys said, ‘Hello, Clay. We want to dance.’ and squeezed his know-how.
‘Me too…’
He chuckled and opened the box.
“Oh.”
There were cute cookies inside.
He took out the letter that came with it and saw that it was homemade cookies made by B.
A warm smile came out.
It felt like he was leaving with a good memory for the first time in a long time.
‘They’re interesting guys.’
Although it was only five days, the five singers showed amazing growth.
Of course, the speed of learning the choreography varied.
But every time he visited the next morning, they were all more advanced than the day before.
They were wearing the same clothes as the day before, with a stinky smell and dark circles under their eyes.
Anyway, thanks to that, Masquerade was able to boast a high level of completion in a short time.
‘If they practice more here…’
What kind of product would come out?
Clay Tyler smiled as he read the awkward English messages that the members left on the letter.
Then the last line of the text caught his eye.
-Wait. We’ll come for you.
Judging by the crooked handwriting that said ‘From Wang’, it seemed that the member with the angry face wrote it.
He bragged that his surname was from the ancient Korean royal family.
“…”
It sounded like ‘We’re doing well in America, Clay! We’ll come visit you!’ but.
Why did it sound so scary?
He put the letter back in the box with a slightly trembling hand.
Then he ate the sweet cookies one by one and looked at his disciple and assistant, Johnny.
The assistant sitting next to him was staring at his smartphone.
“Are you watching another K-pop music video?”
Johnny, who had just turned 20, was very interested in Korean idols.
It was obvious that he would be watching the performances of groups like TNT, Teen Spirit, or Scarlet, who were famous for their performance.
“Johnny, what are you watching?”
“…”
“Johnny?”
“…Yes?”
“What are you watching?”
“Oh.”
The smartphone screen that Johnny showed after he came to his senses was something he did not expect.
A practice video of New Black’s Masquerade, filmed in the practice room.
Clay asked with a smile, “Why were you watching that?”
“I don’t know. It’s a bit strange…”
He trailed off.
“I guess I can’t take my eyes off them.”
“Really?”
“Yes, the overall shape they make with their bodies, and they definitely catch my attention.”
“Hmm… Will this be popular?”
Clay Tyler was a person who pursued realistic commerciality, even though he pursued art.
Johnny, who had a deep knowledge of K-pop, said, “Well… I can’t be sure, but I think the song is good, and the choreography is powerful. I think K-pop fans will like it.”
“Here, or there?”
The choreographer asked him whether he wanted to go to Korea or across the ocean.
Johnny thought for a moment.
And the answer he gave pleased Clay.
“Both.”
***
The comeback showcase date was set.
Wednesday, November 19th.
Meanwhile, they put all their effort into practicing the choreography for the showcase and the music show.
-Let’s try to change our image this time.
That was what Director Jo said at the producing meeting.
They had already covered New Black’s vocals through Something or Fireworks, so they would focus on dance this time.
There was choreography in Fireworks, but it was not a big part of it because the main point was freshness.
Of course, that didn’t mean the choreography was easy.
It was a story Woojoo heard from a friend who was a dancer among his TJ classmates.
They were doing a cover choreography competition, and they chose Fireworks because it looked easy, but they saw a lot of blood.
It looked easy on the outside, but once you got into it, every single thing was not easy.
And now they had to do something that was hard on the outside and hard on the inside.
“Rihyuk.”
“…”
“Get up. We have to practice.”
Their main vocal, who couldn’t dance, would collapse every now and then, and his body was covered with patches every day.
“Rihyuk, when you dance, don’t try to do the movements perfectly, but let your body follow the rhythm more…”
“Like this?”
“Yeah, yeah. Good job.”
Rihyuk was led by Bijoo, who praised him.
“Jiho. When you make hand gestures and expressions in the bridge part, try to make them symmetrical on your right and left cheeks.”
“Like this?”
“Hmm…”
“Why are you laughing all of a sudden?”
“You looked like Crayon Shin-chan. Just now.”
“…”
“Hey, I’m kidding. I have a loose mouth. Where are you going? Our youngest is the most handsome in the world.”
Woojoo was helping Jiho, who would be the center of this album, with his facial expressions.
The producer had assigned them personal colors since their debut album.
And this mini album 1 was an album that took Jiho’s color, ‘red’, as the theme.
Red.
A color that stood out wherever you went, like a traffic light or a police car’s flashing light.
A color that suited their youngest, who had a striking appearance, and he actually liked it.
-I like red the best too. Especially the original color.
-Why?
-It’s a color that only good-looking people can wear.
It was a truly ridiculous reason.
Well. Jiho was the center of this album.
Woojoo was the center of the chorus in the first verse, and Bijoo was in the second verse, but the highlight was clearly the bridge part in the third verse that Jiho took.
The part where facial expressions were important.
That was why they watched various movie clips on YouTube every day and discussed them with Jiho.
But…
Today, something strange caught Woojoo’s eye.
“Jiho.”
“Yeah?”
“You look different somehow…”
“Am I cuter than usual?”
“Not that.”
Something seemed different.
Woojoo circled around the youngest like a detective, but he couldn’t find anything unusual.
What was it? Really.
Then, something came to his mind.
“Jiho, lean on that wall for a second.”
“Why?”
Woojoo looked at the youngest leaning on the practice room wall and called his siblings.
“Bijoo, can you get me a ruler from that drawer?”
“Sure.”
“What are you doing? Tell me what you want to do. I’ll do anything.”
Rihyuk, who was eager and happy, said to Woojoo, “I think Jiho got taller.”
“…”
“Wow, did I grow? Really?”
“…”
While the youngest was jumping around happily, a shower fell on someone’s face that was clear as the sky.
Junghyun hummed and asked, “He did get taller.”
He slapped Jiho’s feet, head, and everything in between like a worm crawling, and said, “Maybe about 176.”
“How can you tell?”
“No. Just a feeling.”
Then, Bijoo handed Woojoo a ruler.
“Hyung, here’s a ruler.”
“Quick! Quick, measure me.”
Bijoo pushed the metal ruler with a bright face.
Meanwhile, Woojoo pressed Jiho’s head down, making his hair fluffy and trying to make him taller, but it was futile.
When the result came out, they exclaimed.
“Oh! It’s 175.8.”
“Wow! How tall am I then?”
“Wait a minute.”
Bijoo opened the diary app and tapped on Jiho’s tab.
Woojoo didn’t look closely because of privacy, but there was a lot of stuff there.
Woojoo thought it was a parenting diary.
There, Jiho’s height was recorded by date, like a baby’s weight, and the last one was 174.5 cm in February this year.
“Wow, he grew more than 1 cm.”
Everyone’s face lit up with satisfaction, except for one pathetic older brother who felt a sense of crisis.
Then, Junghyun asked, “But why does he look the same?”
“That’s right.”
“Maybe it’s because it’s only 1 cm difference. You know, it’s hard to tell by eye.”
“No.”
Woojoo shook his head.
“There must be a reason.”
Woojoo was thinking that when they decided to measure their heights since they were talking about it.
Woojoo soon realized the reason.
Why Jiho looked the same.
“Wow…”
“Hyung, we grew a little too.”
“Why didn’t I grow…”
All of them, except Junghyun, had grown a bit.
Especially Rihyuk, who found out that he had grown 1.4 cm, quickly became cocky, and Bijoo smiled happily.
Woojoo thought the last time he grew was in the army.
“…”
After a warm silence.
“Hyung…!”
“Guys…!”
They got up at the same time and danced with joy.
***
The basement hallway.
‘They’ll like it, right?’
President Park Kyuho was carrying snacks for the members to the practice room.
Snacks that he bought from the convenience store himself.
He could see the expressions of the members who liked them.
The members had been avoiding going out because of their diet and the fans who came to the company recently.
A few days ago, he heard that the new convenience store clerk was a fan and the members were surprised, and Manager Yoon Seokhwan had personally talked to the owner.
‘Well, at least I got them a new manager.’
President Park nodded his head, thinking of the new manager who looked like a bodyguard.
Then he stood in front of the practice room door.
‘I have to take good care of our kids until the comeback.’
He smiled warmly and looked through the glass window.
“…?”
He saw a strange sight.
The members took turns standing against the wall, then gathered together with serious expressions.
Then they clapped and cheered.
‘Are they measuring their heights…?’
Then they read something on their phone and got up and started dancing around.
President Park blinked his eyes.
He didn’t know what it was, but for some reason he didn’t feel like going in.
“…”
He carefully put the convenience store bag on the floor and left a note saying ‘Fighting!’ and left.
Muttering to himself.
“Are the kids stressed out these days…?”
***
The day they were excited about 1 cm of joy passed, and before they knew it, they entered the final stage of their comeback preparations.
The visual work of visualizing the concept of the song with images or photos.
The most important of them was the music video.
Of course, strictly speaking, what they were going to shoot today was not a music video.
“Ah, it feels so good to go out for a change.”
A studio in Gapyeong.
As soon as they got off the car in front of the huge building that looked like a warehouse, the youngest ran towards the flowers and trees that were scattered around.
Junghyun also joined him and looked at the flowers together.
“Wow, it’s chilly.”
Rihyuk rubbed his arms.
The weather in Gapyeong was quite chilly, partly because of the cloudy sky and partly because winter was approaching.
“Let’s go in.”
As they stepped inside, the reality show crew greeted them. They were setting up the cameras.
“Hello, Writer! Director!”
“Hi, guys.”
They exchanged pleasantries and walked around the dark and huge warehouse.
They greeted the company staff and the makeup artists, as well as the field staff who were moving the equipment and props.
Especially, the field staff were the ones we had met once before during Everdream’s CF.
“Hello, Director Jo Yonghyun.”
“Oh, hi.”
The staff, including the assistant director, were glad to see them remembering their names.
It was a small thing, but it made the atmosphere more friendly.
“Hey, Director Yu is inside. Go say hello to him quickly.”
They walked past the tangled cables and the wooden boards leaning here and there.
They approached Director Yu Geon, who was in the middle of the shooting set.
“Hello, Director!”
“Ah, New Black. You’re here. Are you ready?”
“Yes!”
Director Yu smiled.
He didn’t believe them when they said they had practiced for the Magic School CF.
But now he was smiling at their words that they had prepared.
Meanwhile, something behind the director caught their eyes.
“Wow…”
A giant water tank with a depth of five meters.
It was the set for the story film ‘Five Colors: The Red’ that they were going to shoot today.