In This Life, The Greatest Star In The Universe

At the same time.

Souffles drifting around the web, idly surfing, fixed their gaze on one spot.

[NewBlack 2nd Studio Album — First-Week Day 7 Finalized: Highest Domestic Record]

Highest domestic record!

Souffles’ eyes went wide. Hearts already fluttering, they tapped the post—

[Day 7 (final): 999,9** copies]

A scream almost burst out of them.

It wasn’t the million everyone had prayed for, but it was, without question, a history-making number.

A historic moment in which NewBlack answered “yes” to the question idol fans had argued about since the 2010s: “Will the era of one million in first-week sales ever come?”

It was up by 200,000 over the previous 780,000.

"Wow. They really gathered the spirit bomb this time."

It felt majestic—fruit of Souffles worldwide each pitching in to try to make a million happen.

"Insane! Nine hundred ninety— huh?"

Fans about to raise a toast sensed something off.

The digits following 990,000.

Nine hundred ninety-nine thousand, nine hundred...

"...."

"...."

Souffles, each on their phones, opened the chart site that logs first-week metrics.

A subscription-based chart site.

The figures that form the first-week graph over seven days are lifted straight from this site’s tally. But since it’s copyrighted, they don’t show the full number; they publish it with the last two digits omitted.

"No way, right."

Souffles logged in to see those last two digits—then, moments later, screams erupted.

"Aaaaaaaaaaah!"

Because the last two digits were exactly 99.

999,999 copies.

Posts flooded SNS and communities where idol fans gather.

— "Ah, so this is what ‘brain rot’ feels like"

— "Are you kidding me lolol"

— "Nine hundred ninety-nine thousand nine hundred ninety-nine??? ㅠㅠㅠ At this point can’t we just round up"

— "Somebody please apply round-to-even"

— "No sense of the moment, manager..? This is when you add one and give us a clean million"

— "Is this a million or not, god what a cursed conundrum"

— "Not a million; a ‘mill-agh’"

— "So this is brain rot... first time I’ve felt it in my whole stan life"

— "One copy... one copy... no... ah wow eu—ng am—j—d—e—h—j—dyuo—jiarBHioriJ"

— "r—yae—bd—hoe"

— "I’m so mad I just punched my keyboard mid-comment"

— "doa—ra—pa—hae3—ae3—ae—paeㅠ—dae—da"

It wasn’t something or other—it was exactly one copy.

Souffles began to sob in hiccups.

— "Anyone know a math professor? At that closeness we can round up and celebrate a million, right?"

— "Is there no margin of error... if it’s ±1, we’ve got a million"

— "Prophecy: tomorrow the chart says there was a small error and adds +1—voilà, our million"

— "We gathered the spirit bomb only to leave the final boss at 1 HP"

— "Journalists must be sweating: ‘Do we declare the million era or not?’"

— "Society is built on consensus. Like how we call a pen a pen, not a prindle... if we all call 990k ‘a million,’ does it become a million?"

— "Then is a 99-cone an ice-cream million-cone?"

A hair’s breadth from one million.

No wonder Souffles shuffled around with their necks tilted at 90 degrees, giggling deliriously.

Fans of other idols, watching them, turned away, struggling not to burst out laughing.

"Ugh, I shouldn’t laugh..."

But it was impossible not to.

— "lolololololololol"

— "Sorry... from an outsider’s seat it’s kinda funny lol"

— "(Water does not boil at 99°C — campaign poster.jpg)"

— "Scientifically speaking, like how 99.9999% of light speed is not light speed... 999,999 is not one million"

— "So are we in the first-week million era or not" 𝘧𝑟𝑒𝑒𝘸𝘦𝘣𝑛𝑜𝘷𝑒𝓁.𝘤𝘰𝓂

— "The mill-agh era"

— "Basically 11:59:59"

Quips were being born everywhere.

Naturally, because the record was all-time great, the mood stayed light.

From the inside, it was blissful and maddening; from the outside, it was hilarious.

"If only someone had bought one more copy..."

Seeing people ache over that single copy, Teen Spirit fans smiled too.

— "Reminds me of Teen Spirit’s Day 1 first-week tally lol"

— "One-copy déjà vu"

— "In idol land, the one-copy gap comes back around"

— "One copy lololol"

— "It’s killing me—first time I’ve ever had a meltdown while stanning; kinda jealous actually"

With that, the memes started rolling.

[100% chance of Princess Gyuho pic]

(Wooju’s fresh, bright smile from the Coin concept photo)

1% chance of a Wooju pic

For Souffles now, 99 equals 100

— "lololololol"

— "Calm down"

— "So where’s the Princess Gyuho pic"

— "Hand over the princess pic ㅡㅡ"

— "Gimme Princess Gyuho"

[???: Do you know what 100 minus 1 is, everyone?]

(Einstein at the chalkboard.jpg)

It is 100

— "Accepted"

— "That’s math"

— "Einstein is right"

— "(Einstein quote: ‘I believe the laws of the universe are beautiful and simple.’ .jpg)"

— "Knew it, a famed Wooju-hardcore fan"

— "Was I the only fossil expecting ‘100-1=0’"

And so, in a party of 99 vs 100 jokes, Souffles soothed that delicate sadness.

"Yeah. We’re spoiled."

Even Teen Spirit—the next highest first-week seller after NewBlack—was around 570,000.

In a landscape steadily rising overall, when others climbed to a peak, NewBlack alone sat on Olympus looking down.

When others talked Baekdusan or Everest, NewBlack discussed the upper atmosphere—or the stratosphere.

As painful as that single-copy gap was, Souffles were about to accept it in their hearts when—

"Hm...?"

A post titled [The Butterfly Effect Triggered by One Copy] caught their eye.

It had just gone up, but comments were exploding. Souffles clicked.

They blinked.

[The Butterfly Effect Triggered by One Copy]

(A 2016 meme image showing Teen Spirit missing Day 1 first-week No. 1 by one copy. jpg)

A rundown followed of the famous incident from 2016.

Neighbors Teen Spirit and NewBlack had grown close and promised to buy each other’s albums during first-week.

But, as luck would have it, NewBlack had five members and Teen Spirit had six—Teen Spirit missed the Day 1 all-time No. 1 by one copy. Of course, afterward they hit 570,000 and set the first-week all-time record at the time...

"What does that have to do with—"

Then Souffles’ eyes snapped to something.

["This time we’re going to buy five copies of our NewBlack hyungs’ album. Not six—five..."]

A Y-app clip of Huiyeon, chin in hand, wearing a fresh smile.

Below it, Teen Spirit members’ five-album proof shot.

Six minus five is one.

A one-copy gap.

Everything clicked into place—Souffles screamed.

"Aaaaaaaaaaaah!"

They knew in their heads that thanks to Teen Spirit they’d ended up with 999,999 instead of what would have been 999,994.

But their hearts couldn’t stop the rain.

And people around them, knowing or not, laughed their heads off.

— "lololololololol"

— "One copy"

— "In the parallel world where NewBlack is a six-member idol group, they hit a million..."

— "I’m sad and I can’t stop laughing lol"

— "If they weren’t neighbors it wouldn’t be 9,999, but because they were neighbors it couldn’t be a million"

— "Even their first-week is so NewBlack lol"

— "We shouldn’t have laughed at Jiho’s 69 points; this was the real thing fr"

— "I’m crying lol"

While laughter burst everywhere, Souffles sobbed hiccuping at photos of the sparkling, grinning Teen Spirit boys.

When the Day 1 incident happened last year, they’d laughed along.

Turns out it was their own future.

Starting the next day and for several days, our first-week sales news wallpapered the internet.

— "NewBlack, ‘first-week 99.9999 ten-thousands’... have they... opened the million era?"

— "Round it and it’s a million—did NewBlack crack a million first-week... or did they"

— "[Record Run] NewBlack’s 990k first-week, highest all-time"

You could picture the reporters giggling as they typed the headlines.

Around us, the congratulatory texts were loaded with jokes.

Hanzho sent me a photo of a road sign reading [Speed Limit: 100 km] and asked me how many that looked like to me.

No need to mention Taehyeon and the other ex-goons.

My fingers itched to hit "block"—most since the peak of embarrassment in the SojuBlack era.

"Tsk."

The youngest eyed a flood of messages from friends and snorted.

"Still... what can you do. They’re teasing us because it went well."

"True."

It was, for all intents and purposes, a million.

Industry folks who’d forecast 800–900k for our first week were startled.

Honestly... even I used to wonder if crossing a million first-week was physically possible.

"So it can happen."

"Knew you’d say that line again."

Anyway, we were rattled at first, but decided to accept it rounded up to a million.

"Hyung."

Junhyun showed me a picture reading 99.999% and asked:

"How much is this?"

"One hundred percent."

"All right. Both of you clock in at 2.0."

Every time I saw a 99, I snipped the little bean-sprout tail in my mind and slapped a 1 in front—viewing it as 100.

Ding!

The car navigation chimed.

["In 100 meters, turn right..."]

"Waaaaaaaa!"

"Does the nav have no sense?"

As we all trembled in unison, Minsoo at the wheel fought a smirk.

While Wonseok hyung gave tips on holding back laughter, I checked the messages in the group chat.

Huiyeon [(photo)]

Me [?]

Huiyeon [We don’t have much we can do to make it up...]

Huiyeon [They say my photos are pricey]

I burst out laughing at the neighbor group’s leader offering his portrait rights as compensation.

Since the tally hit 999,999, the neighbor boys had been timidly apologizing, "Sorry..."

We told them there was no need, and still.

"At first they wouldn’t even pick up."

"It was funny."

We’d tried to prank-call them, ya~!—but they wouldn’t answer.

When we rang their doorbell, they went dead quiet and pretended no one was home.

It took two days to get them on the phone.

["We’re still kids, kind of avoidant. When it feels uh-oh, we hide."]

["But thinking about it, it wasn’t that uh-oh."]

["A liiittle sorry?"]

["Ha. The mighty NewBlack got done in by Teen Spirit~? ...Huh? You’re coming down now? You’re out front?"]

["Hey! Lee Yeonhu! Do not open— why’d you open it? Are you shaking coins? What are you, a vending machine?"]

After a small commotion, it ended as a funny little happening.

Since then, feeling super sorry, they kept tossing us "favors" that were all completely useless.

Still, we appreciated the thought.

They didn’t have to buy any—and they bought five, which made it 9,999.

"Grateful..."

"Truly grateful..."

We stared off into the distance with awkward smiles, then burst out laughing.

Aside from the hairline regret about that one-copy shy of a million, life lately gave plenty of reasons to smile.

"Coin," which had debuted at No. 93 on the Billboard Hot 100 in its first week, jumped twenty spots this week to No. 73.

They said our radio points were lacking.

Even so, the trend was steadily upward—felt like we might really climb into the 60s.

And—

At home, of course, we were holding No. 1 firm on the charts.

Thanks to that, every music show we hit this week, we picked up the No. 1 trophy.

— "Congratulations! NewBlack’s ‘Coin’!"

— "This week’s hot song is... NewBlack’s ‘Coin’!"

— "Congratulations, sunbaenim!"

Between Souffles waving Dalbong and our encore stages on music shows, it felt like a happy week.

We’d just finished collecting trophies from the big three—K-Net, PBS, and TBC—starting Thursday, when our final destination for this "Coin" run came into view.

"We’re here."

A place we hadn’t visited as singers since "Nine" in 2015.

HBS’s open hall in Deungchon-dong, where they tape their music show.

The moment we stepped out into the underground parking lot, Junhyun sniffed.

"Smells different from last time."

"Right. Last time we dropped by briefly as Street Boys’ managers; this time we’re here as singers."

"I meant it smells like they used cleaning chemicals..."

"...."

Ignoring the snickering kids, I quickened my pace.

Maybe because it was our first time back here, Minsoo, Jongwan, and Jiun were sticking close behind Wonseok hyung.

Jongwan glanced at the elevator from the garage up to the hall and said, as if struck anew:

"This is the place from the manager OT video. Chief Manager Ju Sunwoo taking the Sbo members up..."

We laughed at the managers acting like they were on a pilgrimage.

That special must’ve really stuck with them.

With managers, stylists, and our staff in tow, we all crowded up to the first floor.

"Hm?"

Rihyuk looked around the first floor, eyes going wide.

"Huh? What the—"

"What is it?"

"The floor’s gleaming. Why is it so spotless? This is exactly my aesthetic..."

Watching satisfied Rihyuk, we glanced around the hall again.

Pristine.

Between the cleaned garage and the polished floors, something felt familiar.

"Wonseok hyung."

"Yeah?"

"Maybe it’s just me, but..."

"Uh-huh."

"Doesn’t this feel like that?"

I voiced what popped into my head.

"When the division commander or some bigwig is coming to the base."

"...!"

Managers and other veterans all nodded with an "ah!" It was a shared memory.

— "The division commander’s coming! What’s with wiping half the dust off this window frame? Wooju, where’s that punk Eunseong."

— "Wipe it evenly. The King is passing a nearby unit. Right—passing. Not visiting."

We’re not the division commander... are we?

It felt like HBS had suddenly decided "Let’s make up! Please! Make up!" and was now showing it with gestures.

Let’s do this right.

"Nope. Huddle up a sec."

We gathered in front of Rihyuk.

Our main vocalist’s gentle voice floated to our ears.

"Repeat after me. Stop the overblown self-consciousness."

"Stop the overblown self-consciousness."

Since that excessive success, whenever our pride started to puff up, we recited the line together.

Maybe they just cleaned, and we’re reading too much into it.

Chanting the anti–self-importance slogan, we headed to our greenroom.

"...."

The door opened—and with a puff of aroma-candle smoke, we saw flower petals stuck in thick clusters across the wall.

A few balloons floated.

There was even a banner.

["We sincerely welcome NewBlack’s music-show comeback♡"]

["HBS cheers NewBlack’s flower path"]

We stared, dumbfounded, then rubbed our temples and called a manager.

"Hyung."

"Yeah..."

"We appreciate it, but... could you please tell them not to do this going forward? In a positive way."

"I’ll pass it on when I meet the main PD."

We’d heard the PD in charge of HBS’s music show had been replaced. The enthusiasm felt a bit... much.

I do like honeyed words, but this was different.

Even if it’s not power-tripping, if word gets out—"We hired a cleaning service because NewBlack was coming," "The PD ordered floral staging in the greenroom"—it could backfire.

Our image leans friendly; this could come off wrong.

"I’ll be right back."

While Wonseok hyung went to speak to the main PD with other managers in tow—

Left behind, Jongwan checked the schedule sheet.

"After dry rehearsal, we’ve got pre-recording. Then a pre-meeting nearby at a Chinese restaurant for From Now, We..."

"Yes!"

"The From Now, We... production sent the script too."

We changed into the outfits the stylists prepped, checked the mic mounts, and sat with the kids to review scripts while we waited for the call.

From Now, We...

With observation reality shows booming, HBS was rolling out this ambitious variety. A rising heavyweight, trading the No. 1 slot with Jusehan and Mister Producer.

It was the show we were about to appear on.

And among observation shows, this one’s motif was—

["New-concept observation variety, From Now, We...!"]

["We sincerely welcome our special guests, NewBlack. We’ll now explain your mission."]

["From here, you must find a way to get out safely."]

An escape-room–concept variety.