In This Life, The Greatest Star In The Universe

Gold flakes fell through the air, and I smiled as I offered New Year’s greetings to the other singers.

"Happy New Year!"

"Happy New Year to you!"

We exchanged light hugs with the members of Teen Spirit and TNT. I also greeted Wonder Child, who looked overwhelmed.

It was only a difference of one minute.

A thrill packed with the feeling that we could do anything wrapped around the stage and the audience.

"Happy New Year!"

I waved and smiled at the Souffles who were shaking their lightsticks.

"A new year already."

"We’re fourth-year idols now."

At the youngest’s words, we smiled with satisfaction.

It felt good to think we had stepped out of the third year that you could still call the end of rookie years, like we had gone from kids to adults.

Meanwhile, the New Year feeling faded quickly.

"Maybe because it just became the new year. It still doesn’t feel real."

Ri Hyuk laughed.

"Don’t worry, mister. When we all do the New Year big clean tomorrow, it’ll feel very real."

"..."

"This time there will be no exemptions like ‘I suddenly wrote a song’ or ‘inspiration struck.’ Okay?"

Right around when I was thinking I wished someone would take this kid away, Ri Hyuk got called for a collab stage with Senior Jang Sowon.

"I wish the senior would take him away for good."

"What crime would Senior Jang Sowon have committed then, hyung."

I let out a short laugh at Junhyun’s words and snapped back to myself.

The word crime made something come to mind.

The culprit who had flustered me just before with the acrostic poem and the line, “Guilty, you say?”

"Hey."

"...I should not have said it."

"Do you know how flustered I was because of you? Suddenly ‘guilty?’ and my vision went dark."

Biju and Jiho snickered.

"Anyway..."

"It’s New Year’s, hyung. Look at my smile and cheer up."

At Junhyun’s big, warm, dopey smile, I couldn’t say anything more and just laughed.

Everyone had gotten very good at dodging crises.

Just then Biju tapped us and jerked his chin.

"Ri Hyuk’s stage is starting."

Senior Jang Sowon and Ri Hyuk came out over a sparkly BGM and began a duet.

It was a rock and roll song.

Cheers burst out at the sight of two vocalists belting high notes cleanly.

"Wow..."

I feel it every time, but our main vocal cannot be stopped by any song.

"We love you! Seo Ri Hyuk!"

"Woohoo! Seo Ri Hyuk!"

Under the cool lighting, Ri Hyuk had been keeping his expression perfectly composed, but at our cheers he twitched his cheek and smiled.

As our main vocal, whose range is as wide as my heart, sang the latter half in a low register, the cheers started to swell.

The volume that pierced the mic and the shouts seemed ready to punch through the open hall ceiling.

"He’s really good. Ri Hyuk hyung."

The youngest clicked his tongue in amazement.

"If it were me, I think my throat would bleed. That hyung sings like that and is totally fine."

Ri Hyuk, who had sung a song others would have found painful with ease, came back to the singers’ seats with light steps.

Senior Jang Sowon’s solo stage followed right away.

As Ri Hyuk sat down, ruffling his hair, the youngest grinned and said,

"Good job, hyung."

"..."

As if something was off, Ri Hyuk narrowed his eyes and looked at us.

"But when did he start talking in yo?"

"...!"

Only then did we grasp the source of the vague dissonance we had been feeling all along.

Junhyun’s eyes went wide.

"Are ❀ Nоvеlігht ❀ (Don’t copy, read here) you yo now?"

"It’s yo."

"Really always yo?"

"Yo."

"Yo..."

When we sat there with gloomy faces, the youngest patted our backs and whispered.

"Ye."

"Ye!"

We brightened again and grinned, and as if that had been the last time, the youngest shook his head and spoke again.

"Yo."

"Yo..."

Biju cautiously tested the waters.

"Ye~?"

"Yo."

"Yo..."

We tried to put on calm smiles at the clear statement of intent, but for some reason a corner of my heart felt hollow.

Is this what it feels like when a fully grown child leaves home.

"Then should we use ye?"

"Okaye."

"We hyungs miss the youngest’s way of talking."

At our laughing “ye~,” the youngest made a face like he truly hated it.

"Ah, I really was trying to live diligently from the first day of the new year..."

"Is that soye?"

"It’s soyo. Yo. Yo."

Yo. Yo. As Jiho smacked our backs with light slaps, we burst into laughter.

The stage at TBC’s year-end music festival ended successfully.

After TNT’s stage ended we stood on the ending, and unlike in the past when we went home right after the new year ticked over, staying late at the station felt strange.

That is how we greeted the new year of 2017.

"Aigoo..."

We all pretty much collapsed for about a day.

We filled our missing sleep by waking and dozing off again like we were passing out.

Since the Japan tour we had been sleeping one to two hours a day while preparing the year-end stages, so even our sturdy stamina had run out.

Even Junhyun, who usually held up, tried to sleep with a tired face, so you can imagine the rest of us.

"How come the more I sleep, the more tired I feel."

Ri Hyuk yawned like a sparrow.

"Why isn’t the fatigue going away even though I slept."

"Me too."

"Is it because he’s using yo..."

Across the table, the youngest slid down his chair and attacked Ri Hyuk’s leg with his toes.

Watching the youngest two poke at each other deftly with their toes, I looked toward the laptop.

I was checking off the items for today’s meeting and drinking a chocolate drink when—

Click.

The meeting room door opened and our TF team members came in.

"Hello."

"Hi!"

"Did you spend the first day of the new year well? Happy New Year."

"You too, lots of blessings~"

Manager Hong Seoyoung, the A&R team lead, PD Na Sangyun, and so on. Our team all clasped hands with delighted faces.

Seokhwan hyung came to sit at the head table beside me and asked with a worried face.

"You okay? Your face is half its usual size."

"I guess it’s because I suddenly slept long. Don’t worry. Give it a few days and I’ll be fine."

"Right."

The youngest chimed in, nodding along.

"It’s always like that after the new year. For us."

"? "

The TF staff blinked like they had misheard. They looked at each other and started murmuring.

"Yo?"

"Did he just say yo...?"

"Did he say yo?"

The youngest cleared his throat and said,

"I, Wang Jiho, have decided to fix the ends of my sentences in celebration of becoming an adult..."

"Ye?"

"I did. Yo. Yo."

He widened his eyes for emphasis and went yo, yo, and the staff went yo... with regretful faces.

"We can use it when it’s just us."

"No."

Biju looked at him with gentle eyes and asked,

"Are you really not going to use it...?"

"Looking at me with those eyes won’t work. I’m an adult now. I’m old enough to drink and get drunk now."

"My goodness. He can even get drunk."

Manager Hong Seoyoung’s words were full of laughter.

"Wow. Jiho can drink now?"

"He’ll get a driver’s license too? Whew, impressive."

"All grown up. Our Jiho is all grown up."

At the group teasing, the youngest blew little breaths silently through his nose. The shaky snorts made everyone laugh.

Their eyes were full of affection.

Maybe because many of them had watched Jiho since he was even younger, their gazes were doting.

"Well..."

The youngest said primly.

"If you hyungs desperately beg me to use it, I could think about it."

"Why would we."

"Do you think your ye is that precious to us?"

At the hyungs’ cool reaction, the youngest pressed his lips together and grumbled while we all laughed and clapped hands.

After that small New Year chat, we went straight into the meeting.

"The reason we gathered like this today is the promotion for the special album, right?"

The music video for the special album and the post-production were all finished now.

The release date was set for Monday, January 16.

"As you know, because this time it’s a special album, there won’t be music-show stages, and there won’t be fansigns or events. So I think promotion is extremely important."

Unlike a full album, this time we planned to release only the physical and the digital.

"Like when we did the small-theater tour as special-album promotion early last year. I’d like something unique this time too."

To the TF team listening seriously, I pointed out what to pay attention to for this album.

"This is something we talked about among ourselves. Right now our image is split."

"Between variety and singer?"

"Yes."

On the variety side, we had become the weird, funny kids, and on the music side, we were the kids who did great stages.

"There’s a gap between the two images. The public who meet us through variety don’t really know our stages."

They do call us a national idol group.

But the general public tended to know us more for our variety image.

"We realized this not long ago..."

"What?"

"This variety image of ours... seems hard to change."

"..."

As the TF staff wore blank expressions, Seokhwan hyung asked seriously.

"Uh, Wooju."

"Yes?"

"You only now realized it’s hard to change your image? After three years?"

Everyone burst out laughing.

My brothers and I mumbled excuses.

"We thought if we did cool things a few times it would change..."

"It didn’t change."

"We definitely did cool things, but when we checked the comments, people were all ‘lol’..."

I pulled the thread together again.

"In that sense, this is the album we prepared. Its purpose is to integrate the variety image and the singer image that have been split."

Manager Hong twirled a pen.

"So you want to put more weight on singer. You want to appeal to the public as singers who are also good at variety."

"Right."

"So you need to appeal with songs, not variety."

This special second album was the one we prepared to set our direction.

Now in our fourth year.

We were about halfway through the typical idol activity lifespan, and it was time to set our direction well for the future.

So far, musically we had done perfectly idol-like things, and in variety we acted like variety entertainers, drawing a clear line. If the two images kept running separately, it didn’t seem good.

To put it simply.

As with the second-generation seniors, when people hear “Twinkle?” there should be an immediate “Ah, Twinkle!” with a famous signature song.

Right now, when people hear “NewBlack?” the first things that come up are “goat,” “button,” “table cockroach,” “spaceship,” and other variety images.

Regardless of the actual results our songs were getting, the public’s image of our songs was weak.

"So we prepared the song in that direction."

Up to now, our music had taken fans as the core listeners and the public went “oh?” and liked it, but this title was a song more friendly to the general public.

"Hmm..."

Our TF team lead stroked his chin, adjusted his glasses, and spoke.

"So to sum up, you want to try a more public-friendly route this time?"

"Yes."

"If you want to maintain your current variety image and at the same time appeal your singer side..."

He reached a conclusion.

"Then you should push for doing stages on variety shows. Appear on variety programs and sing briefly there, that kind of thing."

"Is that possible?"

"We’ll have to try to arrange it."

Starting from that, the TF members began throwing out ideas.

As our ideas combined with the staff’s, the promotional direction of the project began to take shape.

With the talk about the choreography video as the last item, the meeting drew to a close.

"Great work, everyone!"

"Good work."

I smiled, satisfied with a smoothly finished meeting.

Everything was proceeding perfectly.

Who knew what the actual results for “Dokkaebi” would be, but at least the plan looked perfect.

I was smiling with that feeling when—

"Mm?"

The A&R team lead checked his phone and approached me with an awkward face.

"Uh, Wooju."

"Yes?"

"You know the record label that handles overseas physical sales? World Music, the one we signed with not long ago."

"I know."

With a half-laughing, half-sighing face, my brothers tilted their heads and gathered behind me.

The A&R team lead held out his phone.

"They said the title ‘Dokkaebi’ feels unfamiliar and so on, so they contacted us to naturally change the name."

"That’s not bad. But what title..."

I stopped the question—what were they trying to change it to.

Because the moment I saw the English letters on the screen, my breath caught.

[Goblin]

Goblin.

The image in my head of a dokkaebi with hanbok fluttering turned in an instant into a golden goblin clutching treasure.

"...Goblin?"

At the proposal to use Goblin as the English name of the song we had worked on for months, the back of my neck went stiff.

My juniors carefully began to massage my shoulders.

"Please give me the email of the person in charge over there."

"Wooju, calm down for now."

"No, my song is about to become Goblin..."

"C-calm down."

It was absurd, but soon I thought, it’s something that could happen.

Even in Korea there had been times when goblin was used to translate dokkaebi, so for people overseas who don’t know well, it was understandable.

I said with a laugh.

"At least they’re not going to put it out as Oni in Japan, right?"

"Hm? They said they were going to do that."

"...!"

"W-Wooju. Calm down!"

World Music’s proposal of Goblin was, thankfully, scrapped.

Instead, we decided to use “Dokkaebi,” carrying the original over phonetically as-is.

"Whew..."

Only then did I feel like I could relax a bit.

"It feels like I used to be more easygoing. Why do I get mad at small things like this these days."

"Because your standards got stricter."

Ri Hyuk let out a small laugh.

"You’re stricter with yourself, you know. Before, you saw ten and were satisfied with seven, but now you need about twenty to feel satisfied. Of course every little detail will get to you."

"Are you taking my side?"

"...Interpret it however you want. Interpretation is free."

Watching Ri Hyuk primly turn his eyes back to a paper on folk culture, I stretched.

—The World Music side said the pronunciation of dokkaebi is too hard. That dokkaebi, goblin, and oni are all more or less the same...

I never thought a song title could almost get changed just because the pronunciation is hard.

Ri Hyuk added the logic, “Americans pronounce Dostoevsky just fine. If you get famous, it doesn’t matter.”

We were firm in refusing, and thankfully it wrapped up as “Dokkaebi.”

"Filming is ready!"

Anyway, for that reason we scheduled a shoot for NewBlack World content this time.

Before releasing the song “Dokkaebi,” to explain what a dokkaebi is to the general public and overseas subscribers.

"Oh my, hello."

A middle-aged man with a warm impression walked into the set that used to be the studio for the History Expedition and is now the NewBlack TV studio.

"Hello!"

We showed Professor Jung Munseok, who researches dokkaebi folklore, to his seat.

He had the warm look of someone who would give students lots of group projects, and intelligent eyes that left an impression.

The professor fiddled awkwardly with the mic the staff clipped on and asked,

"I heard about the content, but... I just need to explain about dokkaebi, right?"

"Yes!"

When I told him the story of how the overseas title almost became Goblin, a spark flashed in the professor’s eyes.

"...I will do my utmost."

"Please take good care of us, professor."

Especially when I mentioned the keyword “oni,” I felt a blaze of zeal burning in his eyes.

We began filming with the professor already indignant from the opening.

First, our daechwita unfolded as an offering to our precious guest.

— Bright metal resounds ~ the daechwita is commanded to begin ~

— Yeah~

When I played the taepyeongso, a smile spread over the professor’s face.

And then—

[boom] [rumble] [bang bang bang] [growl] [boom]

As my brothers’ splendid performance continued, the professor looked into the distance and drank from a bottle of water.

"Yes. Today is the ‘Introduction to Korean Culture’ corner of NewBlack TV World. Hello!"

"Y-yes... hello."

I guided the professor with eye signals as he looked confused about which camera to face.

"That one."

"Ah, yes."

"Please introduce yourself first."

"Yes. I am Jung Munseok, professor in the Department of Korean Language and Literature at Korea University."

Then Junhyun rattled off the professor’s affiliations like the National Folk Museum in a rap.

Professor Jung stuck out his tongue and showed scholarly curiosity.

"That’s extremely fast. When do you breathe?"

"Not breathing is the trick."

"I see..."

He answered with a blank face.

We immediately moved into the time to introduce Korean folk culture in earnest.

"Your new title track is ‘Dokkaebi,’ right?"

"Yes, that’s right."

"When I heard that this time, I thought ‘this is it’ and clapped."

"Why?"

At the youngest’s blink, the professor answered.

"Because I thought the being from the dokkaebi folktales is really a good match with NewBlack’s image."

"With us?"

"When people think of dokkaebi in general, they easily imagine a horned monster holding a dokkaebi club, but the real dokkaebi is a bit different."

As the professor was about to mention the characteristics of dokkaebi in folktales, his eyes went to the paper on the table.

"Oh, you already researched hard. Whose is this?"

"Me. I did it."

"Hm?"

The professor lifted his glasses and leafed through the paper.

"That’s strange. This is a sentence with room for debate... Jiho, you said you researched this?"

"Yes."

"May I ask which text you referenced, if you don’t mind?"

"Yes."

The youngest shot his hand up with confidence and shouted.

"I scraped it from AntWiki!"

The focus vanished from the professor’s eyes, and laughter burst out on set.