The Idol Who Returned from Hell Chapter 124

On the way to Rave Entertainment’s building, I was able to get a rough explanation of the situation.

“—Ugh, I told them several times not to rush like this and to prepare in advance. Kids? You all know, right? This brother doesn’t have much power—.”

“We know, we know.”

Seong-hwi grabbed the closing elevator door with a crack while grinning.

“We’re the ones who follow decisions, not the ones who make them. For now, everyone hurry and get in, alright? My hand hurts.”

“You could just press the button instead of grabbing the door like that. You’ll get hurt doing that. Be careful.”

“Ahaha, getting Brother Si-hwan’s attention is always a pleasant thing, you know?”

I shot a sharp look at Seong-hwi, who was still showing his weird preferences.

After bowing politely to the company people who were already in the elevator, I brought up the topic the manager had been trying to discuss.

“But isn’t this kind of paradoxical? We’re in a position where we just have to follow what’s decided from above, but now they’re asking us to make the decision.”

“Right, right! I’ve been annoyed since that time during album work when they suddenly told you guys to participate in lyric writing. That’s why I kept saying ‘Since fans are reacting faster than expected, wouldn’t it be better to move faster than the scheduled timeline?’ Ugh, don’t even mention it.”

The manager brother slapped his chest and sighed.

Ah, today’s hot topic was none other than CENTIX’s official light stick.

According to what I just heard, our official light stick was originally supposed to be made slowly after 〈Chronic〉 activities ended.

However, CENTIX showed overwhelming performance in every metric, which made the fandom grow even larger.

As the scale grew, surveillance cameras started rolling in all directions.

I briefly recalled the NeoTube comments on our debut show video in my head.

‘Back then too, there were many comments about how nice it would have been to have light sticks since so many people came.’

That desire seemed to have grown exponentially.

We entered the conference room where we had previously exchanged opinions about the title song.

The Rave Entertainment people who were already seated looked exactly like they had faced a storm head-on.

Their disheveled hair and sweat dripping onto their foreheads showed how urgently they had been handling work.

“We’re really sorry for calling you so urgently. Various circumstances got tangled up…”

The usual plausible excuse.

Cerberus, who wouldn’t miss this kind of situation, chuckled on my shoulder.

{Oh my, the scent of these confused souls always makes me excited. Don’t you think so, Master?}

‘I don’t have exceptional senses like you, so I’m not sure.’

{What a shame! This, you see Master, is similar to the fragrance of meat freshly grilled over sweet lava fire—.}

‘Isn’t that just similar to the Korean beef smell we had last week?’

{Master, I hate how you cut my elegant commentary so short!}

I looked at the laptop the promotional department head had turned around.

The screen showed the comment section of the video from when CENTIX got 1st place on MBS.

—I get angry looking at my babies, no but I’m already annoyed that they only selected 50 people for the live audience, and now the 1st place group’s fandom doesn’t even have proper light sticks making them look so pitiful, what the hell is this ↑ 6.8k

—MILLENNIUM went empty-handed to cheer for the kids during two 1st place wins, what is this Rave please do some work ↑ 4.3k

—Seriously LOL T_T we’re like a deserted island, everything around us is sparkling but only the MILLENNIUM section is dark ↑ 2.4k

—I haven’t been to a live audience yet but honestly I think I’ll feel intimidated seeing other fandoms… I’ll probably feel like a background character ↑ 1.2k

“Actually, we had confirmed light stick design candidates and companies, but we had postponed the official release schedule until after activities ended. But as you can see, many people want to buy light sticks as soon as possible, so we moved up the timing.”

That’s somewhat fortunate news.

If they hadn’t even established a design outline and told us to conceptualize it, harsh words would have almost come out.

No matter how multi-talented we are, we don’t know the ‘D’ in design.

“Then we just need to discuss with fans using the design candidates and decide on the one that gets the most opinions, right?”

“Yes, we thought it would be best to gather fans’ opinions rather than making a unilateral decision ourselves.”

“That’s not difficult then. We were just wanting to do a K-Live anyway, so this works out well—.”

Kang Seon-woo seemed quite satisfied.

The younger line, who always became yes-men in meetings with adults, unanimously nodded following Kang Seon-woo’s words.

We took all the necessary materials and returned to the dorm to set up the K-Live.

“Is the camera angle okay?”

“Check the screen. Is Si-hyeok cut off?”

“Um… his shoulder is slightly cut off.”

“Let’s pull closer this way, guys.”

Since everyone needed to be in the camera’s view, six sturdy men squeezed together nicely on the sofa.

Ma Si-hyeok, with his broad shoulders, bent both shoulders and lowered his posture so his entire body would show somehow.

Chae Ha-ru, who had somehow become in charge of starting the K-Live, gave the final OK sign, and CENTIX’s broadcast began immediately.

“Wow, we’re already hitting ten thousand viewers?”

Yu Ha-woon, who was monitoring the broadcast with a tablet set on the table, showed amazed eyes.

Seeing the chat window rapidly filling up, I once again experienced MILLENNIUM’s firepower firsthand.

“Yes, then shall we start with greetings?”

“Two, three. All eyes on us! Hello, we’re CENTIX!”

“It’s great to see everyone! It feels like we just did our first K-Live yesterday, but I can’t believe it’s been this long!”

“Wow, wait everyone, everyone! The chat is going too fast, I can’t read anything.”

After giving energetic greetings, we recalled the most important matter before getting into the main topic.

When I gave Ma Si-hyeok a hint, CENTIX’s tallest member mechanically stood up and brought a trophy from the display case.

“First, MILLENNIUM! We have something to say!”

“Ta-da! It’s the fresh trophy we received from MBS!”

“Thank you so much MILLENNIUM for cheering hard so we could get 1st place on broadcast! We love you!”

When Chae Ha-ru made a happy expression and even kissed the trophy, the live chat went even crazier.

From people crying in great sorrow to foreigners copy-pasting almost identical English sentences like macros.

Kang Seon-woo grinned while watching the spectacular party unfolding on the tablet for a few seconds.

Then he casually threw a mission to MILLENNIUM.

“MILLENNIUM, we actually turned on the broadcast partly to say thanks for getting 1st place, but there’s another reason too. Try guessing what it is in the comments!”

That doesn’t seem like a great method.

The broadcast notification had only gone out 2 minutes ago, but nearly 50,000 viewers had already entered.

The regeneration was already incredible when everyone was saying different things, but if we threw a mission on top of that, how much more would it be?

“Wait a moment.”

I pulled the tablet forward and utilized my dynamic vision as much as possible.

Because it was going up so fast, all the text just looked like white patterns, but I managed to spot one person’s comment that said ‘light stick’ in the midst of it all.

“Oh, someone just wrote it exactly right. Today’s topic for discussion with MILLENNIUM is none other than CENTIX’s official light stick!”

“Applause, applause!”

“Woooah!”

While the younger members raised the tension and induced reactions, the real-time chat window response was also legendary.

Again, there was great difficulty in identification, but I caught several comments shouting ‘our voices reached them.’

I organized the light stick designs in order and introduced them one by one.

“We received light stick design candidates, and we want to discuss with MILLENNIUM and decide which design is best. There are a total of three candidates. We’ll introduce each design and concept, so please freely share your opinions.”

…I said it grandly, but the candidates were instantly compressed to 2.

The first design was just hastily made for filler, so crude that anyone would mistake it for a children’s toy magic wand.

So immediate pass.

The second candidate was quite good.

The CENTIX logo standing inside a transparent case. The border was painted in our official colors, making it very clean and nice.

It was like the standard of idol light sticks.

After seeing the previous crude magic wand, this one had a contrasting effect that made it seem much better.

MILLENNIUM was also posting comments like ‘that’s not bad.’

‘But somehow it’s too ordinary.’

While thinking that, the moment I pulled out the last design, my heart immediately went to candidate number 3.

“This is pretty. It’s really unique.”

A golden circular base with CENTIX lettering engraved in the center. And minute and hour hands that move like a real clock.

It was written that the concept came from ‘Century’ and ‘Millennium,’ both time-related words.

“This is really good?”

“Haven’t other light sticks not had a clock concept before?”

“If the clock hands really move as written here, that would be cool.”

The members also reacted positively to the fresh and good design.

And fans… naturally, new and unique flavors are more thrilling than familiar ones.

—Wow if it comes out exactly like that design I might buy another one just for decoration, seriously

—So pretty

—Clock stick is actually quite good?? Let’s go with that one

—The light stick that came out earlier was clean, ordinary, and standard vs the clock stick that just came out has unique charm

—Definitely the latter

I was also more inclined toward the latter over the former, but an additional note from the promotional department bothered me.

“Ah, if we go with the third design, it says here that production will take a bit longer due to manufacturing. The second design is simple so it says production is possible within a short time.”

“Ah…”

“That’s true, that kind of design wouldn’t be ordinary work, so it would take a long time.”

I had thought our fans had strong desires to take light sticks out right now.

So I thought public opinion might flip because of this additional factor.

—Even if it takes long, number 3 seems best!!

—We can wait well, don’t worry kids

—Honestly number 2 is tempting too but if we’re going to do it, we should go with something eye-catching, agreed?

—If it drags on for more than a month, we can just park trucks in front of Rave so it’s fine ^^

Some scary comments appeared here and there, but the 80,000 MILLENNIUM watching the broadcast were saying number 3 was best.

Still, we couldn’t make them wait indefinitely, so I called over the manager who was standing by.

“Brother, if we go with number 3, could we know roughly when pre-orders would open and when shipping would be possible?”

“Wait, let me call right now.”

The result of the manager’s call was that if we decided on number 3, pre-orders would open 3 weeks later.

But the higher-ups who were probably watching the live broadcast had somewhat grasped public opinion too.

“…They say they’ll try to adjust it to within 2 weeks at most.”

“Two weeks is fine!”

“We want to see our official light stick in person quickly too. Everyone, you’re excited, right!”

A call came saying they’d try to prepare sales within 2 weeks.

The official light stick discussion broadcast with MILLENNIUM concluded with the so-called ‘clock stick.’

Right after the live ended, the members all sprawled out on the sofa.

“Ah, now I can finally rest a bit.”

Seong-hwi stretched out like a grandfather who came to a mineral spring, making groaning sounds.

The moment when we thought we could finally get a proper sleep after the forced march.

“Kids, sorry but we have to go sign digipacks. Let’s do just this and sleep a little before the practice session! Okay! Really sorry! I’m begging like this!”

“…There’s no way we can rest.”

Rest was a luxury for rookie idols.