Chapter 51: Twenty Thousand Copies

Laughter often burst out at what people commonly called cheesy fan-service lines.
Of course, a few mischievous questions popped up here and there, but when they laughed awkwardly, the fans enjoyed it in their own way.

They said fan signing events were usually for the fans, but it was the opposite.
It was an event for the idols from beginning to end.

Especially, the things the fans said were truly so beautiful.

The things they said in common, summarized, were like this.

‘I’m sorry I only found you now.’

‘Thank you for holding on until now.’

The words “sorry” and “thank you” were words Shim Eun-chan should be saying to them.
At the very least, they weren’t words the fans should be saying.
Yet every fan who came to the fan signing event said exactly that.
Some fans even had tears welling up in their eyes.
Shim Eun-chan handed a tissue to such a fan and told her not to cry, and the fan, embarrassed, moved on to Do Jun-seo in the next seat.

She said a few words to Do Jun-seo in a tearful voice as well, but Shim Eun-chan was busy talking with the fan in front of him and couldn’t hear exactly what was said.
Suddenly, Do Jun-seo sniffled.
The thought that his nose might be stuffed lasted only a moment.
Turning to look beside him, Shim Eun-chan saw Do Jun-seo with tears welling up in his eyes and the tip of his nose gone red.

Do Jun-seo, feeling Shim Eun-chan’s gaze, startled and covered his face, but it was already after Shim Eun-chan had seen everything.

“No, no. It’s not that.”

Do Jun-seo waved his free hand—the one not covering his face—and then, perhaps overcome with emotion again, tears streamed down.
From the fans seated in the fan section, sighs of sympathy and the clicking of shutters, eager not to miss this moment, burst out simultaneously.

Shim Eun-chan took another tissue from the pack of disposable tissues he had used earlier to give to a fan and handed it to Do Jun-seo.
He smiled and patted Do Jun-seo’s head as he quickly wiped his eyes with the tissue.

After finishing the in-person fan signing event, the members parted with the gathered fans, promising to meet again.

An emotion that couldn’t be described in words churned inside his heart.

Gratitude, or perhaps apology.
And a tenderness to match.
But he couldn’t say it out loud.

Strictly speaking, idols weren’t beings who did anything grand.
All idols did was stand under the lights, dance, and sing beneath them.
It wasn’t contributing something to the advancement of humanity or sacrificing something for a cause.

To put it bluntly, when popularity increased, the one who made money was the idol himself.

And yet, people appeared who liked and cheered for them.
People who even said they were sorry for not knowing them sooner, and thanked them for holding on until now.
Even though it was Shim Eun-chan who should be grateful.

There were many teams better than B the 1, and there were far more idols in existence.

Among all of them, the fact that they liked their team, that they liked Shim Eun-chan, could be called a miracle.

The fans didn’t like them because they were worth liking.
That was the result created by coincidence and miracle.

After resting for about 30 minutes, they had to do video calls with 30 people.

Shim Eun-chan, who had been drinking water, patted Do Jun-seo’s back a couple of times and then went over to Hyun Woo-young.
He perched on the edge of the table next to Hyun Woo-young, who was sitting in a chair, resting one side of his rear on it.

“How was it, doing it for the first time? From what I glimpsed, you were doing well.”

“That’s a relief. By the end, I couldn’t even tell if I was smiling properly.”

“Hm?”

What was that supposed to mean?

One could feel that a fan signing event was in name only—what was the difference between it and selling smiles?
In fact, taken at face value, there was no difference between the two.
If there was a difference, perhaps it was the mindset of the person doing it.

Just as Shim Eun-chan was trying to gauge whether there was any impure intent behind the words, Hyun Woo-young tapped his own cheek with his finger.

“My facial muscles hurt. How do you keep smiling like that, Eun-chan hyung? Around the middle of the fan signing, my muscles were twitching.”

It seemed to have been a simply practical matter.
Shim Eun-chan let out a small laugh.

“I was like that at first too, but once I figured out the trick, it got a little easier.”

“A trick?”

“Mm. For me, when my cheek muscles start hurting from smiling, alternately blinking one eye at a time makes it a bit better.”

“Blinking?”

Hyun Woo-young, who had been listening, tried blinking one eye at a time, but it didn’t seem easy.
It made sense, since his muscles were stiff from doing nothing but smiling.
Shim Eun-chan, finding Hyun Woo-young’s reaction amusing, laughed softly and cupped both of his cheeks.
He intended to massage his facial muscles a little.

He pressed and rubbed the cheekbones and the cheeks below them gently with his thumbs.
Gently enough not to wipe off the makeup.
Even though he applied a bit of pressure while pressing, perhaps it hurt because the muscles were knotted—Hyun Woo-young’s neat brow furrowed slightly.

“Does it hurt a lot? Bear with it a little.”

“…”

There was no answer from Hyun Woo-young.

“Blinking one eye at a time is like this.”

Shim Eun-chan, keeping his mouth curved up in a smiling expression, scrunched his left eye as if winking.
Then he scrunched the other side as well.

“When the twitching comes, if I do it like this, it loosens up for me.”

“…”

“Woo-young?”

When he called Hyun Woo-young’s name after he had been staring at Shim Eun-chan’s face for a while, his eyelids blinked once.

“What are you thinking about? Did you hear me?”

“Yes. Blink one eye at a time.”

“Try it.”

“Now?”

“As practice.”

At Shim Eun-chan’s urging, Hyun Woo-young made a smiling face and then scrunched one eye as if winking, just as Shim Eun-chan had done.

“Wow. Handsome.”

“…”

At Shim Eun-chan’s words, Hyun Woo-young stopped smiling.
Come to think of it, he recalled that they had talked before about how he had heard he was handsome many times and such.
He wondered if Hyun Woo-young had taken it as teasing.

“I mean it. You’re really handsome.”

“Yes.”

Shim Eun-chan removed his hands from Hyun Woo-young’s face as he answered with a slight bow of his head.

Hyun Woo-young, who had shown an awkward reaction, spoke to Shim Eun-chan, who was about to add something.

“It’s not that I feel bad or anything, so you don’t need to worry about it.”

Shim Eun-chan wondered if he should believe that, but since it was Hyun Woo-young, he would have honestly said if he felt bad, so Shim Eun-chan nodded.

“We’re going to start the video calls, so let’s sit down.”

At the manager’s voice, Hyun Woo-young returned to his assigned seat.

The video call fan meeting was different again from the in-person fan meeting.
Since faces were almost entirely visible, they had to pay attention to every single expression.
There was a warning attached not to record the screen, but since there was no actual control on site, there was no way that would be properly followed.

It was more comfortable to assume that the recorded videos would be uploaded to SNS accounts.

So they had to do it with the same level of tension as the in-person fan signing event.

There were foreigners in the video call fan signing event as well.
Communication wasn’t as smooth as in Korean, but since they had learned a few simple greetings, they exchanged a word or two.
When the time was up, the staff covered the camera part with paper, but feeling regretful, they lifted the paper and waved while saying goodbye.

****

Every day, after completing all their schedules and returning to the dorm to rest, it was around 2 a.m.

Because they brought back all the gifts they had received from fans, even the manager had to make several round trips in the car.

Music shows, excluding Tuesdays, were about five a week including cable, and six at most.
Since every music show had sent B the 1 an appearance request, they showed their faces without fail.
In between, they did magazine interviews and recorded variety shows, and it was impossible to know how they stayed sane.

Especially Shim Eun-chan, whose popularity had soared due to the drama, had it worse.
There were quite a few schedules coming in for Shim Eun-chan individually rather than as a team.
Advertisement offers seemed to be coming in as well.

However, Shim Eun-chan couldn’t really feel whether he had truly become that popular.
Of course, messages were coming into Cosmos more than ever before, and the viewer count and number of hearts on Face App were also higher than ever.
The number of views on NuTube fancams had also increased, but that was only on the internet.
There was a limit to the number of fans one could meet at public broadcasts or fan signing events where fans could be seen.

Then, occasionally, when walking down the street and someone recognized him and asked for a photo, only then could he think that he might be somewhat popular.
Compared to before, when he often danced busking on the streets and people mostly avoided him, it was a huge improvement.

Because they split their time and split it again to handle their schedules, sleep was insufficient.
Shim Eun-chan slept even a little during the time he could have been checking his phone.
Still, he did at least search for the team name or his own name on SNS, but for the past few days, it had been too physically demanding, so he couldn’t even do that.
He only went into Cosmos once or twice a day and sent messages—that was the extent of it.

It was during one of those times, rubbing his sleepy eyes during travel time as he turned on Cosmos.

There were many congratulatory messages, so he wondered if something had happened and looked through them, and it seemed they were talking about first-week sales.

How many copies was the first week, then…

Shim Eun-chan’s fingers moved busily and then stopped at some point.

“…”

After checking the screen, he swallowed his breath.

“Hyung. Our this.”

“Hm? Eun-chan, what is it?”

“Our first-week sales. The final total is 200,000 copies?”

At Shim Eun-chan’s voice, the inside of the car went quiet.

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