Entertainment Life With A Camera

Chapter 102:

Chapter 102

Don’t come if you’re like this!

“Did I hear that wrong?”

Ian’s expression hardened in an instant. 

It was a desperate look that he had never shown before.

The fans who were taking pictures in the audience murmured at the sudden change.

“What’s wrong with him?”

“What did they say to make him look like that?”

The fan who sat across from Ian shuddered his shoulders. 

He had intended to make a joke about switching fandoms, but he didn’t expect Ian to react so strongly.

“Aren’t you curious who it is?”

“…Do I have to know?”

The fan who sat in front of him felt that this was not right, but he also knew that he couldn’t take back his failed joke. 

He hastily said,

“Well… Ian changed from cool to cute!”

Ian’s dark expression brightened up quickly. He covered his face with both hands and looked at the ceiling, pouting briefly.

“Ah, don’t do this to me.”

“Sorry, sorry! I didn’t know you’d be so surprised!”

“Please move to the next seat.”

The fan tried to make up for it, but he had no choice but to sit on the next seat because of the annoyed voice of the fan manager.

“That was mean of you.”

Jo Tae-woong, who was next in line for Ian, gave the fan a sarcastic remark. He had heard their entire conversation from start to finish.

[Boring.]

‘Ah, I’m getting PTSD…’

[Was there someone like that in Diamond too?]

‘Yeah, there were fans who advertised their defection, not as a joke like this.’

‘I remember hearing someone say in front of me, “Actually, I left you and went to Jupiter, but I won the fansign and came here thinking it was the last time.”’ And the worst part was that his rival who took his place was his nephew!

As soon as he thought of that, Ian frowned deeply.

‘Ah… I don’t even want to think about it.’

[Diamond… What are they doing now?]

Ian twisted his body in pain. Jin watched him with amusement.

“Hi, Ian!”

“Hello!”

He left his past memories behind and focused on his work now. Ian smiled automatically at the fan.

The fandom grew bigger, and so did the core fans, but also some weird ones. Now he could easily ignore people who nagged him for not sending them his camera.

“What’s your name?”

“I won’t tell you.”

“What?”

“You know my name by now, right?”

[Oh, this is something new.]

What kind of new villain is this? There are so many fans here… How can he remember their names?

His tone was not playful, but rather scolding, which made him feel even more uncomfortable. Ian forced a smile and finished signing.

“I’m not a genius, you know.”

“You’re not my sister… I came yesterday too. Don’t you have to know my name at least?”

This was one of the side effects of Ian recognizing the fans’ faces too well. 

They thought that if he remembered their faces, he would remember their names too. 

They wanted to be confirmed as special fans. 

Honestly, most of them were just demanding him to memorize their names.

[What are you talking about? You only came twice including today.]

‘I knew he looked unfamiliar.’

[He’s definitely the type who would give obvious hints if he didn’t remember their names.]

‘True.’

It wouldn’t matter if it was only Ian, but the problem was that it affected other members too.

“Please move to the next seat.”

“Tell me your name quickly. At least the initials.”

“Are you going to sit here until I write your name? Oh, you know what. Hurry up. What if I don’t know your name?”

He even brazenly resisted on the spot, making Ian pick up his magic pen and scribble something on the space he left for his name.

“Do you want me to write whatever I want?”

“No…”

“Please move to the next seat!”

“Thank you for coming.”

Ian greeted him coldly and handed him the album he scribbled on carelessly. He welcomed the next fan.

[What did he write?]

‘He wrote “Don’t come if you’re like this!” with a smiley face.’

[That’s harsh.]

He wanted to say something harsher, but he couldn’t be too rude to a fan who paid a lot of money to come here.

Ian sighed deeply after dealing with various fans who made fun of his past life and acted rudely.

‘This is emotional labor…’

He was really an idol with a tough job.

-A review of how Ian got scolded by Taewoong after making fun of his past life

(Link) The video is from Iron Heart

…I made fun of him for being a reincarnator, but his expression changed so quickly that I felt sorry for himㅠㅠ

└He is cute, but… why did you do that if you felt sorry?

└Honestly, am I the only one who feels uncomfortable with this kind of joke?

└Do it moderately

└Wow, do singers have to put up with this kind of thing?ㅋㅋㅋㅋ

-A review of Awi’s fansign event

Look at Choi Ian writing my nameㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋ

└Wow, the fansign cut was not low, right? Isn’t that too much?

└His personality explodedㅋㅋㅋㅋ

└Are you the one who nagged him for not knowing your name next to me?

└└Wow, what is this?

-Someone who wrote a review gets attacked

He gave me a hint and nagged me to move on because I didn’t know his name, but he ignored it and kept nagging and bullying him ㅅㅂ I saw it while waiting for my turn. I’ll post the signed CD as proof.

└As expected

└Honestly, they love their fans so much, but they wouldn’t say that out loudㅇㅇ

└The writer of that post deleted itㅇㅇ Don’t come to this board ㅅㅂ

***

“How many copies did we sell in the first week?”

“It was 230,000 copies, but… another 60,000 copies just sold out.”

The employee who was refreshing the page frantically widened his eyes. 

Awi’s rank was not dropping from the first place on the Korean Music Chart, or Hanum Chart.

“How many copies did we distribute for ‘Side Effect’?”

“350,000 copies.”

“Oh my god…”

It had been only four days since the album was released. 

At this rate, they would easily surpass the total sales of their previous work from the first week.

-Hey, China’s Ian Bar exploded againㄷㄷ They posted the receipt as proof

-ㅁㅊ How many copies did they sell?

“Wow, our idol uni is amazing…”

Seo Suryeon smiled satisfactorily. 

Hallyu was money. Whenever there was an article about lifting the Hallyu ban, the stock price of their entertainment company also rose.

“Can we go bigger for the next Asia tour?”

“I think we can.”

Of course, there would be a mess because of COVID-19 before they could make some real money overseas, but the company officials didn’t know that.

***

-These days, the ad concepts are all crazy

What is Awi’s long padding ad?ㅋㅋ

└Who is acting as a penguin?ㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋ

└└Taewoong!

└The falling part is too realistic, right?ㅋㅋㅋㅋ

As soon as the season changed, Awi’s long padding ad started to be released in the media.

Awi, rising as a blue chip in the advertising industry… ‘Sold out’ in 10 minutes after sales started

Awi, the trendsetter, chasing the ‘leader’ in brand reputation index

‘The power of big spenders’ fandom, now trot and idol are taking over the advertising industry

As soon as the long padding sales started, the online shopping mall of that brand crashed.

-You guys said you had long padding! You said you wouldn’t buy it! Am I the only one who is sincere?

-I thought it was noon and slept, but it was already sold outㅠㅠ

The fans who wanted to buy it barely got in, but everything was already sold out. The companies that saw this situation also made proposals to Awi for advertising contracts.

Awi had a bit of a hiatus because of the world tour, so they scheduled their music shows for four weeks instead.

They had to get up early in the morning and go to the salon, then rehearse and pre-record, and finally finish their live stage. 

They couldn’t sleep much and had to go to work again at dawn. 

Plus, they had fan signing events on Friday, Saturday and Sunday.

“Didn’t we make our stage too hard from the beginning?”

“That’s our level.”

“But we got famous because of our stage…”

They had to prepare for the awards ceremony in the midst of their busy schedule. 

Awi was known as a stage powerhouse since their debut, and the industry people were looking forward to their awards ceremony stage.

“We have to decide quickly so that our stylist noona can rest.”

“Then, let’s go with the Egyptian concept for the Watermelon Chart?”

“Good. We can reuse the coffin we used before.”

They had a lot of year-end schedules. 

Awi decided to shorten their preparation time by overlapping their concepts with the ones they used before.

“We have another stage next week after the Watermelon Chart. What do we do?”

“Oh, right.”

The members who were lying down groaned. 

As soon as the Watermelon Chart Awards ended, they had a series of year-end music shows booked by the broadcasters.

“Why does our country have so many music shows and awards ceremonies?”

“They should at least give us some time to rest, right?”

Park Jin-hyuk complained, and Kim Hyun sighed deeply.

“What are we going to do this time?”

“I heard that the drama with the priest was popular, how about a priest concept?”

“But our choreography with the priest costume… isn’t that blasphemy?”

“Our choreography is not that bad… And the Catholic Church is tolerant of these things.”

“Uh… it’s hard. Let’s ask the higher-ups tomorrow.”

They all went home after work and stayed up all night in the practice room.

“Do you think we’ll have to back up the trainees again?”

“Probably. They said they’re all going to debut this time.”

“Wow, that’s like 30 people, right? It’s going to look amazing.”

The more they filled up the stage, the better it looked. 

There was also the advantage that it didn’t show if their moves were slightly off.

Ian suddenly became curious and sat up straight.

“By the way, have you guys ever backed up Black Rush?”

“A few times before you came.”

“Oh, how was it?”

Ian had never been a backup dancer in his previous or current life.

“…I almost threw up on stage.”

“Really?”

Jo Tae-woong laughed self-deprecatingly as he remembered his dark history.

“Hyun-hyung and Ju-young were used to going to dance competitions, and Ju-hyuk-hyung and Jin-hyuk-hyung said they did it a few times too. Seo-dam was a first-timer but he did better than me at rehearsal.”

“I’m a type that’s strong in real situations, hyung.”

Park Seo-dam shrugged his shoulders.

“I thought I’d be fine since I’ve been in front of the camera a lot. But acting and dancing on stage are very different.”

“Yeah.”

“I practiced in front of the mirror every day, but there was no mirror. Am I doing well? Is my line okay? I had a lot of thoughts but my stomach was bad… I felt anxious as the acid came up from my throat.”

“So what happened?”

“It just happened to be Black Rush’s comeback stage, so I ran to the backstage while everyone was gathering their lines.”

It was lucky that it happened during pre-recording. If it had been live… Jo Tae-woong shivered.

“I threw up backstage, and our staff had to clean it up. And after that I couldn’t back up anymore.”

“You must have messed up big time.”

“I messed up big time. Kim Ju-young that bastard teased me for months. Oh! But then Young-hyun-hyung gave me some water? He said it could happen the first time.”

The members who were listening quietly exclaimed.

“Young-hyun-hyung is really awesome, right? He sometimes bought us ice cream too.”

“He gave me some snacks when he said he was going to Imjingak.”

“He bought us meat too.”

“Yeah.”

They realized they had gotten a lot of small favors from him. 

Kim Hyun, who had been through a long period of hungry trainee days, asked quietly.

“…What do our trainees like?”

Ian answered abruptly.

“They like everything. They like tteokbokki these days. They pile up fried food as much as tteokbokki.”

“Did you already buy them something?”

“Uh.”

“Damn, I should have done it first… He always does cool things by himself?”

Ian smiled awkwardly. He ignored Jo Tae-woong’s whining ‘buy us something too!’ and changed the topic.

“By the way, what is Young-hyun-hyung doing? We have to repay him for the beef he gave us.”

“When Seo-dam can drink next year, let’s call Se-jun-hyung too and go together.”

“Good idea.”

Lee Ju-hyuk glanced at his watch. 

The break time had passed 20 minutes. 

He got up with his heavy body and said.

“Okay, let’s stop talking nonsense… What are we going to do for our remaining year-end stages?”

“Ugh…”

The members screamed softly.

[I forgot something important…]

Jin, who was floating in the corner of the practice room, snapped his shutter with a fierce look on his face.

[What is it? What did I forget?]