In This Life, The Greatest Star In The Universe

Translator: MarcTempest

Editor: Rxel

Chapter 53

After the media showcase was over, they returned to the waiting room.

They all looked exhausted, but their expressions were bright.

It was the feeling of relief that comes from finishing a task well. It felt like a weight was lifted off their chests.

“Good job, everyone.”

“Good work, Hyung.”

They exchanged glances and patted each other.

It was a rare atmosphere of camaraderie, as if they had gone through a hard ordeal together.

“Don’t you think we did our best ever? We nailed the photo time and the Q&A session.”

“Hey, did you do well? It was this ahjusshi who carried us all by himself.”

Seon Woojoo intervened between the two, fanning himself with a mini fan.

“Come on, Rihyuk. Jiho did well too.”

“What did we do? He handled the sound accident by himself, and we just reaped the benefits.”

“Hmm? Don’t you get in trouble if you reap the benefits?”

“Junghyun Hyung, please stick to the context.”

The rapper was smiling non-stop, despite the main vocal’s scolding.

He looked more cheerful than usual, as if he was in a good mood.

“Thank you, Hyung.”

Seon Woojoo awkwardly received Kim Junghyun’s high five.

Smack!

Ouch, that hurt.

It felt like he hit him softly, but it was like clapping hands with a volleyball player.

Kim Junghyun smiled and said, “Thanks to you, Hyung, my jinx is finally over.”

“Jinx? Oh.”

Seon Woojoo was so busy with the showcase that he forgot about it.

“Every time I say I have a good feeling, something weird happens. But thanks to you, Hyung, it’s broken now. Ah, I feel so relieved.”

“See? I told you it was superstition, that thing.”

“…You do know that right after you said that, the sound accident happened, right?”

“Honestly, it was thanks to Woojoo Hyung’s luck that we overcame that. That’s what it was.”

The two youngest ones retorted, but Kim Junghyun just smiled contentedly.

He joked that he would say he had a good feeling once a day from now on.

Seo Rihyuk suddenly asked, as if he remembered something, “By the way, what about the acapella you did earlier?”

“Huh, why?”

“When we asked you after the stage, you said you did it unconsciously.”

“That’s right.”

Seon Woojoo had brushed off the questions from his curious brothers with vague answers.

“Did you really do it without thinking?”

“Sort of.”

“Come on, you always plan everything meticulously. You even locked us up to analyze our musical preferences when you composed Fireworks.”

“Hey, that’s not locking up,” Seon Woojoo said, looking around, but Wang Jiho and Kim Junghyun kindly nodded their heads.

Those useless fools.

“I don’t always think and act, okay? I was also shocked by the sound accident for the first time.”

“Really? You seemed so skilled. It looked so cool…”

“Cool?”

Seo Rihyuk stumbled over his words.

“Well, it looked cool to me. I don’t think I could have done that.”

“Just say it was cool, Hyung.”

“Agreed. I was amazed, Hyung. You were doing the acapella with the choreography, and it looked like you had a halo.”

“That was the lighting, Junghyun Hyung.”

“Oh, was it?”

“Look at him. His mouth is curling up.”

Seon Woojoo tried to act nonchalant and control his expression, but he couldn’t help but smile at their compliments.

It was a mixed smile.

One was the pride he felt from their gratitude and praise.

The other was the embarrassment he felt from knowing that this was not his skill, but his ability.

Well.

He couldn’t tell them the truth, could he?

It was more natural to say that his body moved instinctively.

But he had a feeling now.

He guessed he could call it an achievement of sorts.

This incident seemed to have peeled off a layer of the secret behind his ability.

The essence of his ability.

He had always thought of this ability as a motion imitation ability, a kind of superpower.

But after experiencing what happened today, it didn’t seem like a mere superpower anymore.

When he first collected information about this ability, he came across a post on an internet blog.

[There are two types of memory: declarative memory and procedural memory.]

Declarative memory was the conscious memory that was used when recalling the day’s events while writing a diary or memorizing English words.

Procedural memory was the unconscious memory that was used for tasks like riding a bike or using chopsticks.

According to his theory, this ability was a phenomenon that occurred when procedural memory was maximized.

The ability to unconsciously acquire the movements in the video just by watching them.

That was how it had been until now.

But the two incidents that he experienced this time were not procedural memory, but declarative memory that was maximized, as he mentioned earlier.

The ability to vividly recall the events that were dormant in his memory as if they were happening right now.

Looking back, it seemed to have manifested whenever he was in a crisis.

Like a student who suddenly remembered a forgotten formula in his head and solved the problem when there were only five minutes left in the exam.

This ability also appeared when he was in a dire situation.

If he had to say, it was stimulated when he felt extreme stress.

Seon Woojoo was under a lot of stress at the university hospital because he had to solve Kim Minjun’s problem, and the sound accident just before was needless to say.

In that situation, his brain moved unconsciously.

It scanned the database in his memory on its own and showed it to him, saying ‘Look! You, the owner!’

Of course, this was still just his hypothesis.

Anyway, when Seon Woojoo put all this together, his ability was not limited to motion imitation ability, but spanned a wider range.

A memory ability that encompassed both procedural and declarative memory.

Wasn’t it quite logical to think that the act of imitating a movement started from remembering that movement in the first place?

“Hyung. What are you thinking?”

“Huh?”

“You were smiling by yourself.”

“Oh, I was just thinking about something else. It’s nothing.”

Seon Woojoo was letting out a silly laugh, feeling like he had become some kind of superhuman.

He came to his senses and looked around.

“By the way, where are the managers and Bijoo?”

“Minki Hyung said he was going to get something from the car with Director Yoon. Bijoo Hyung said he was going to wash his face in the bathroom.”

“Did he go alone?”

“Yes.”

“He won’t get lost again, will he?”

Seo Rihyuk laughed.

“Bijoo Hyung is not a kid. The bathroom is right outside. How can he get lost?”

“It’s Bijoo.”

“True. Bijoo Hyung sometimes gets confused about the direction even in the dorm. I saw it last time. He was holding the food waste and hesitated on his way to the veranda.”

“Don’t worry, Hyung. He’ll come back someday.”

Seon Woojoo clicked his tongue as he watched his younger siblings act nonchalant.

“Wow. You guys are so heartless. How come I’m the only one who’s worried?”

“You didn’t even notice when he went to the bathroom.”

“…”

Just then, the waiting room door opened and three people came in.

Kim Bijoo and two managers.

They each carried a large box in their arms and put them on the floor of the waiting room.

The boxes were so heavy that they made a thud sound.

“Huh? What are these?”

As Seon Woojoo tilted his head, looking at the contents of the boxes, Kim Bijoo said with a smile, “These are gifts for our fans.”

***

Fan showcase.

It was the last event for them today.

If the media showcase was a business meeting with reporters, the fan showcase was a kind of fan meeting.

It was rare to have a fan showcase from the debut.

The fan showcase was literally a showcase for the fans, but where would the fans be for a rookie who just debuted?

Of course, there were some teams that had fandoms before their debut, but that was not the usual case.

On the other hand, they were a case that made their name known to the public through music shows, events, etc. before their debut.

They also had a decent number of members in their fan cafe.

That was why the company decided to open a showcase to repay the fans’ support.

Of course.

“Street Boys did it too, so we have to do it too. We can’t lose to them in this kind of thing.”

…Seon Woojoo wondered if that was their manager’s true intention.

“Wow. What are all these?”

“Your photo cards, snacks, and some keychains and stuff.”

“Wow.”

They gathered around the boxes like a bunch of meerkats.

The boxes looked pretty heavy.

Seon Woojoo felt sorry for Seokhwan Hyung, who was rubbing his back.

“He has a herniated disc, can he carry these? Let me or Junghyun do it.”

“I was going to, but your little brother here texted me that he got lost.”

“I’m sorry…”

They all laughed at Kim Bijoo’s embarrassed expression.

“Did you get lost again?”

“Ah, I was going to buy some drinks for everyone after washing up, because they were having a hard time. But I couldn’t find the vending machine…”

“He was wandering around the equipment alone, I barely found him.”

Yoon Seokhwan shook his head as if he couldn’t help it.

Kim Bijoo handed out the drinks he got from the vending machine with a shy look.

They were all a thousand won each, but Seon Woojoo’s was twelve hundred won. He felt a warm feeling as he sat around the boxes.

They knew what to do without having to say it.

They wrote signatures and greetings on the photo cards for the fans, and packed the other gifts diligently.

The waiting room turned into a cottage industry site in no time.

Wang Jiho, who was putting a handful of chocolate in a plastic bag, burst into laughter.

“Wow, there’s so much. But how many people are coming, Manager? There are so many photo cards too.”

“Don’t you know? We did ticketing a while ago.”

“We were busy practicing, so we didn’t see it. Every time we tried to rest, someone would come down and nag us to practice.”

At Seon Woojoo’s words, Seokhwan Hyung coughed and changed the subject.

“What do you think, how many people do you think will come?”

“Well…”

“Me, me! I counted all the photo cards, and there are about 50 of our individual cuts. So isn’t it 250 people?”

“What kind of miraculous calculation is that. That’s.”

As Seon Woojoo blinked, Wang Jiho explained, “If we give one each, it’s 250, right? Then 250 people.”

“Oh. That sounds plausible.”

“What’s plausible, Junghyun Hyung.”

Seo Rihyuk snapped at the two who were giggling like fools. And Seon Woojoo agreed with Seo Rihyuk’s opinion.

“250 is too much, no matter how you look at it.”

“Hyung, you have to dream big.”

“Right. My dad said that if you’re a leader, you have to aim high.”

There seemed to be a strange word in the middle, but let’s ignore it.

“Honestly, I wonder if 50 people will come.”

“Why?”

“No, it’s a weekday. To be honest, I can’t imagine that 200 people would come to see our faces.”

“Didn’t Street Boys have more than 100 people too?”

That was true.

Seon Woojoo heard that almost 100 fans came to Street Boys’ fan showcase a week ago.

For a while, they talked about how many people would come.

Seon Woojoo joined the conversation, but soon he felt something was wrong and shook his head.

“Honestly, it doesn’t matter how many fans come. We should be grateful that they come at all.”

“That’s right.” Kim Bijoo, who was writing a message on a post-it with care, said, “I think it’s a success that there are people who come here to see our faces and listen to our songs. Whether one person or a hundred, they are all the same fans.”

“Wow…” The youngest, who was admiring, said, “Usually, that kind of cheesy line is Woojoo Hyung’s part, but today Bijoo Hyung did it instead. Amazing.”

“Hey.”

“He got it from that old man. Whatever.”

“I guess the saying is true that you become like the ones you love.”

“What a waste. If only Bijoo had grown as tall as him. Ouch!”

“Shut up, Kim Junghyun.”

Kim Junghyun said a word and got pinched in the side by Kim Bijoo.

Seon Woojoo smiled as he watched his brothers and wrote ‘Thank you for waiting! We’ll do our best!’ on the post-it.

Really, it didn’t matter how many people came.

Seon Woojoo would be overjoyed even if there was only one person in the audience.

The reason he became an idol was because he wanted to see the expressions of the people who liked him and watched his stage.

In that sense, it was a meaningful thing to meet the people who would like his stage and share his songs with them.

It was a thrilling and heartwarming thing to imagine.

Seon Woojoo wanted to see the fans soon.

He thought that and smiled.

***

7 p.m.

They changed into new outfits and waited backstage.

They were excited to meet the fans, but at the same time they looked around nervously.

“Why is it so quiet?”

“I know, right?”

“It’s not like only one person came, right?”

Seon Woojoo wanted to see the audience, but the lights were off and he couldn’t see.

He could feel the presence of people, but he had no idea how many there were.

“Let’s go up.”

They followed the signal of the staff and went up to the stage.

Seon Woojoo was nervous.

If the media showcase was an event to introduce them to the entertainment industry, this fan showcase was an event to introduce them to the fans.

In some ways, it was a much more important event than the media showcase.

Seon Woojoo swallowed and stood on the stage.

“…”

Darkness that he couldn’t see an inch ahead.

The silent silence tormented him.

As he tried to adjust to the darkness and gauge the audience, there was a loud bang and the lights came on brightly.

Seon Woojoo squinted at the sudden light for a moment.

As soon as he saw the audience, he was stunned.

…What?

An unexpected situation unfolded before his eyes.

-Wow!

They were literally petrified by the sight they never imagined.