Little Pink Starfish

Anyone could see it was a forced greeting, but that didn’t matter.

It wasn’t like I was happy to see Fade either.

I just had something I wanted to say.

I stared quietly at Fade and spoke.

“Go your own way.”

“…What?”

“Let’s stop being hostile. You and me.”

I mumbled it quietly, but the other Take Scene members probably heard it too.

I didn’t care. Neither did I care about the Self Made cameras set up for filming.

We weren’t wearing mics right now; they were just recording background footage.

The PD calls it green screen extraction.

“…”

At my words, confusion flickered briefly on Fade’s face.

He must have expected me to pick a fight or mock him.

Well, I could have.

It wasn’t like I had no such feelings.

Sometimes even I get confused about what I’m thinking as I live my life.

Even when I wake up from nightmares, I often can’t tell if I’m still dreaming.

But one thing is certain.

Emotions are exhausting.

Hating someone means you’re not doing something productive.

But now, Fade no longer holds that much meaning for me.

Originally, thinking of Fade reminded me of the For The Youth days.

The first K-pop idol group I challenged myself with.

Over a hundred years ago now — a distant memory so hazy I can’t tell if it’s real or distorted.

But now it’s different.

Even if I face failure in this life…

I don’t think I’ll remember Fade as For The Youth.

He’ll be remembered as the guy who opposed Sedalbaekil.

Or as the one who tormented Onsaemiro.

That’s how I’ll remember him.

And this revenge isn’t mine to take.

Sedalbaekil’s success, and Onsaemiro’s own revenge — that’s how it should be.

It’s not forgiveness.

It’s simply irrelevant now.

My feelings are no longer entangled with For The Youth.

Fade avoided my gaze, standing still, and since I wasn’t expecting a reply, I withdrew.

An awkward silence filled the waiting room.

Seeu, Take Scene’s leader, seemed to think he should say something, but at that moment, the staff hurried in.

Why were they still here?

They had to prepare for their opening stage.

Hearing that, I realized this must have been our private waiting room.

No one mentioned it, but maybe it was assigned for the Self Made filming.

So Take Scene had really just come by to say hi?

While I was thinking that, Take Scene bowed and left the waiting room.

“Why’d you do that?”

“Do what?”

“I thought you’d say something sharper to Fade.”

I shrugged at Iion’s comment.

“I don’t enjoy tormenting people.”

I don’t avoid conflict, but I don’t pursue domination either.

Once you fight and win, that’s it.

That’s what I thought, but the members reacted strongly.

“Lies.”

“Blatant lie.”

“No way.”

What’s this?

“If you remember how you were in the recording studio, you can’t say that.”

“That was recording.”

Our first album schedule had been pretty tight.

Choi Jaesung had a particularly hard time.

I didn’t intentionally gather them, but Sedalbaekil ended up with very strong individual styles.

Balancing them wasn’t easy.

So I had to… not really wring him dry, but push Choi Jaesung hard in directing.

But he did well, didn’t he?

“He ate tons of chocolate bars while recording but still lost weight.”

“That’s because he gained muscle mass.”

“Ugh.”

When Choi Jaesung cringed, the other members nodded in sympathy.

That’s kind of hurtful.

He might not know it, but after that intense recording period, his skills improved a lot.

Apparently, he’s soon doing full performances on SNUMZ — he’ll feel the difference quickly.

As I was thinking that, fireworks exploded outside.

The familiar sound meant Scene Stealer’s stage had started.

“Shall we run through the choreography?”

At Iion’s suggestion, everyone stood up.

Take Scene was opening, and we were closing, so we still had about two hours… but I liked their diligence.

---

University festivals are quite a welcome schedule for idol fans.

No ticketing, no cost.

Depending on the university, students may get priority seats while general public gets leftovers, but Gunam University wasn’t like that.

First come, first served!

Naturally, Sedalbaekil’s fandom swarmed in for today’s festival.

Waiting for the closing act was long, but watching other performances wasn’t unpleasant.

Except for one team — Take Scene.

“They’re leaving.”

“Well, they were the opening act.”

“Jealous.”

Titi watched Prism leave after Take Scene’s stage ended.

In the past, idol fandoms sometimes clashed in real life, but not these days.

Usually, they just ignored each other, and sometimes even got along in real life.

Of course, this tolerance was only possible because Sedalbaekil had fully escaped Ryan Entertainment’s influence.

If they were still being suppressed and couldn’t appear on music shows, it’d be very different.

“Still, there are quite a lot of them.”

“They’re super united. Crazy solidarity.”

Prism was fiercely resilient these days.

With Take Scene constantly mocked from all sides, the fandom had grown tightly knit.

But regardless of that, Titi had only one thing on her mind.

‘The non-promo track!’

K-pop Struggle, State of Mind, Pinpoint — these were the promoted tracks for this album.

Of course, promo tracks had choreography, and now that Sedalbaekil was hugely successful, everyone knew who choreographed them.

Not because of internet sleuths — the performance teams themselves were promoting it on their YouTube channels.

But absurdly, the most successful track from Sedalbaekil’s first album wasn’t any of those title tracks.

Though Pinpoint consistently held first place on real-time charts after music shows, monthly charts told a different story.

On the monthly chart, Summer Cream ranked higher than Pinpoint.

Interestingly, Summer Cream wasn’t even a promo track — just track 10.

This was purely the power of the song itself.

No marketing, no viral buzz, no TV performances — its pure streaming numbers were overwhelming.

Which made sense. Pinpoint was polarizing.

Some people loved it intensely; others hated it for the techno “boing-boing” sound being too noisy.

Same with the other tracks.

Some disliked K-pop Struggle’s lo-fi chipmunk style, and others didn’t like State of Mind’s sparse emo hip-hop vibe.

But not Summer Cream.

A song you want to hear while driving to the beach.

A song for gazing at blue skies on a vacation flight.

It was everyone’s top pick for such playlists.

It perfectly fit Korean tastes — instant hook from the first bar, easy listening.

Plus, whatever Han Sion did to it, you never got tired of listening to it.

A classical musician explained why.

K-pop fans are used to reaction videos, and love watching experts praise their idols.

Recently, a major YouTuber filmed a video showing Sedalbaekil’s album to a member of the Seoul Philharmonic.

The violinist, unfamiliar with K-pop, revealed Summer Cream’s secret.

[Wait, is this rubato? This kind of progression shouldn’t work in a studio recording.]

[Wouldn’t rubato sound weird in a studio album?]

[Exactly. So this precarious feel was intentional? In such a soft, bouncy song?]

[Can you elaborate?]

[It’s like… imagine a perfectly organized bookshelf, except one book is slightly tilted. Your eyes keep being drawn to it.]

[Is that difficult to pull off?]

[Very. If you mess it up even slightly, the balance collapses, or immersion breaks. Wow, amazing. The composer must have a classical background, right?]

[Nope.]

[Older, then?]

[He’s twenty.]

[No way.]

[It’s true.]

The video went viral via YouTube’s algorithm and pushed Summer Cream back to number one.

Yet absurdly, Sedalbaekil had never performed Summer Cream live.

During September’s college events, they performed Resume, Colorful Struggle + K-pop Struggle, State of Mind, and Pinpoint.

Sometimes they also sang Seoul Town Funk or Coming Up Next songs.

In context, this made sense.

At non-concert events, you usually perform your hit promo tracks.

Especially for idols, choreography is crucial.

But…

‘Summer Cream’s chill enough to sing lying down.’

Track 10 of Sedalbaekil’s album was just that strong.

Then yesterday, a notice appeared on their homepage and SNS.

For the remaining October university events, they would perform only album tracks.

What did that mean?

They would perform Summer Cream and other non-promo songs.

And today was the first of those events.

It wasn’t just Titi who was excited.

-Is it weird for a military guy to watch boy group fancams?

-ㅋㅋㅋㅋ I really want to see a Summer Cream stage too.

-I think they didn’t do it because it has no choreo, but who cares. They’re skilled enough.

-ㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋ agreed.

-You guys don’t know how to handle Hip Sion. If you ask him to perform, he won’t. You have to beg him not to sing it, then he’ll do it.

-Makes sense.

-Starting Summer Cream Boycott Day 1.

The general public’s anticipation was high too.

And so, the Gunam University festival proceeded under everyone’s expectations.

Aside from Sedalbaekil, the lineup wasn’t very impressive.

There weren’t many big-name artists.

Some even said Take Scene’s opening was the best part so far.

“Wasn’t Take Scene the best so far?”

“Yeah. What’s the name of the blonde guy?”

“Ready?”

“He’s handsome.”

Hearing this, Titi instinctively resisted, but truthfully, Take Scene wasn’t a bad group.

Someone once joked, “Maybe Take Scene’s actually good — they competed with Sedalbaekil after all.” Not entirely wrong.

Of course, Sedalbaekil now was on a whole different level than during Coming Up Next days.

‘Just wait.’

‘You’ll see how different our kids are.’

As Titi was thinking that—

Finally, it reached the festival’s finale.

Then—

“Sedalbaekil!”

At the MC’s call, Sedalbaekil rushed onto the stage.

No greetings.

The beat dropped immediately—

The first track, titled the same as the album, <The First Day> began.

The audience didn’t know yet.

This was the beginning of the legendary full album live performance.