Chapter 9: A Desperate Fan Sign Event

Although they performed across all the first-week music shows, the response was lukewarm.

Rather than building momentum, people quickly grew used to their initially shocking concept, causing even negative attention to fade.

They even heard news that their planned three-week promotion period was being cut short to two weeks.

“Wait, shouldn’t they at least decide after we finish two weeks of promotions? How can they just do this after a single week…?”

Jemin felt it was deeply unfair, but he couldn’t object.

Looking at their digital charting, MV views, SNS followers, and physical album sales, there was no logical reason for the agency not to make that call.

Speaking of which, to put 4ever’s current reception into precise, quantitative figures:

Digital chart performance? Unrankable, as the numbers were simply too low to be tallied.

MV view counts? Jemin played it on repeat every single night, but it was a futile effort.

He wasn’t sure if it was restricted to one view per IP, if repeating the same video stopped counting altogether, or if playing it on mute invalidated the views—either way, Jemin couldn’t carry the numbers alone.

A full week after its release, the music video sat at a miserable 1,516 views.

Although word had spread on online communities that it was bizarre, people only shared screenshots and GIFs; almost nobody bothered to search up the actual link to watch it.

“We have a thousand followers, so how are the views only…?”

They had roughly a thousand followers on SNS, a fact that left Jemin feeling utterly betrayed.

If every follower had watched it just ten times, the music video would have easily hit ten thousand views.

The first week of sales following an album’s release is called Chodong (first-week sales), and this number is used to estimate the size of a fandom.

So, what were 4ever’s first-week sales?

It was impossible to tell.

The last two digits of sales figures were masked with asterisks, but since their sales were only in the double digits, getting an exact count through public data was impossible: ** copies.

To find out the true sales figure, someone would have to sit on every single online album shop all day long, manually tracking and logging every real-time purchase of 4ever’s album.

Who else but Yu Jemin would ever do such a thing?

There was no fan in the entire 4ever fandom dedicated enough for that.

As a result, Yu Jemin was the only person on earth who knew the exact number.

73 copies.

4ever’s first-week sales were a grand total of 73 copies.

“Hey.”

Woohyung tossed something onto the desk in front of Jemin, who was busy struggling on his own to boost the MV view count.

“You crazy bastard!”

Jemin immediately threw back the civil service exam prep book Woohyung had just dropped in front of him.

“I really think there’s no hope for us.”

Jemin knew Woohyung didn’t mean it completely literally.

But jokes had boundaries.

Just as you shouldn’t call an overweight person fat, you shouldn’t joke to a dead-flop idol that they were dead-flopping.

“If you think there’s no hope, why don’t you actually do something about it?”

“What are you doing, then?”

In Woohyung’s eyes, outside of choreography practice, Jemin was just a guy glued to his phone screen all day.

It wasn’t as if he was writing lyrics or composing music, so what on earth was he actually accomplishing? Jemin, on the other hand, let out a dry, incredulous laugh, wondering if Woohyung was truly oblivious to all his efforts.

“Are you seriously asking me that? You haven’t seen what I’ve been doing?”

“Doing what?”

“It’s been a week since we debuted! Aside from debut day, have you stepped foot on SNS? Have you posted anything? Have you uploaded a single selfie?”

As Jemin showered him with accusations, Woohyung scowled and leaned back.

“That stuff isn’t mandatory. What’s the point if it’s forced?”

“For an idol, that is mandatory! It’s basic duty! It’s filial piety!”

Before Woohyung could open his mouth, Jemin cut him off.

He knew for a fact that this bastard was about to spout textbook nonsense like, A singer should focus on music, dance, and the stage.

“Fine! If you don’t have that kind of damn personality, then fix it! Or it doesn’t even have to be a selfie—upload a cover video or something! Don’t you get that fans are tempted every single day to slip away to other idols? It’s not even just other idols, we have to guard against 2D anime characters too!”

“Ah, fine. Got it.”

Woohyung was the type to scowl the moment he was asked to do aegyo for the camera or do anything remotely “idol-like.”

Jemin could already foresee a future where this guy would get pulverized for hating his own fans.

Right now, there were no fans around to beat him up for it, so he was getting away clean, but Woohyung was far too laid-back for his own good.

“If you’re like this, what are you gonna do at the fan sign—?”

“What about the fan sign?”

“…Never mind.”

Surely, no matter how bad he was, he wouldn’t actually find his own fans annoying.

Jemin stopped himself before he said any more to Woohyung.

“Just post something before you go to sleep.”

“Don’t order me around. I’ll handle it myself.”

That night, Woohyung posted a update titled From. Woohyung for the first time in a while.

Had he finally decided to proactively deliver some fan service on his own initiative?

To put it short: no.

[From. Woohyung]

I walk my own path.

I’m on my way

Jemin stared at Woohyung’s post with half-closed, disbelieving eyes.

‘Why is this crazy bastard picked a fight with me in a place where fans can see it?’

Jemin wanted nothing more than to block Woohyung, but the bitter reality was that they were in the same group, so he couldn’t.

“What kind of company hosts their very first fan sign in the third week? They’re genuinely terrible at their jobs.”

“Why, Hyung? Doing it while we’re promoting sounds so exhausting, so I actually wished we’d do it way later!”

At Eunhan’s innocent reaction, Jemin pressed a palm to his forehead.

“Eunhan-ah.”

Taking a deep breath to regain his composure, Jemin put on a gentle, patient tone, speaking as if he were a kindergarten teacher explaining things step-by-step.

“You have to do the fan sign in the first week so those sales count toward the Chodong numbers, which is how we get into three-digit album sales.”

“What’s Chodong?”

Jemin was an extreme stats maniac.

While an idol’s career shouldn’t be judged entirely by metrics alone, Jemin placed the absolute highest value on visible, objective figures—unaware that this was the express route to mental ruin.

“We don’t really… have Chodong sales, but anyway, it’s a thing.”

The real problem was that 4ever didn’t possess a single stat high enough to justify being a stats maniac over.

They were the absolute worst group for someone like Jemin to stan.

“Don’t obsess over numbers and results like that.”

“Ah, yes, yes. Sure thing, Mr. Producer.”

When Woohyung chimed in with his uncalled-for advice, Jemin snapped back sarcastically.

‘Oh, excuse me. Pardon me for disturbing your high-art craft.’

Woohyung knew Jemin was being sarcastic, but he ignored him.

Even so, just as the sun rises in the morning, fans did eventually appear.

Just as tomorrow comes even when the future seems bleak, 4ever finally held their very first fan sign event.

“Hyung! I’m so excited to meet the fans.”

“I’m nervous too. What if I make a mistake?”

It was their very first fan sign.

The venue had set up 100 seats, but no matter how Jemin looked at it, it felt like every single person who entered the lottery had gotten in.

On top of that, 100 people was an impossible dream.

Their first-week sales were 73 copies; even if every person bought just one copy, that would only be 73 people.

But that 73 wasn’t even the number of albums bought specifically for the fan sign lottery.

Which meant the actual number of applicants had to be estimated from sales after that window.

No matter how hard he ran the math, there was no way it reached 100 people, and anxiety gnawed at him.

“Honestly, though, I’d be touched even if just one person showed up to our fan sign.”

“Me too. It must’ve been hard for them to like us in our current state.”

And so, exactly twenty people showed up.

“Woah, but that’s still more than the number of members we have!”

Eunhan was absurdly positive.

Jemin had said he’d be touched even if one person showed up, but he was visibly shaken because he hadn’t expected the turnout to actually be this pathetic.

‘Forget two hours, this is going to wrap up in under thirty minutes!’

After going through the identity verification process to confirm they were the ones who entered the lottery, the fans began entering one by one.

Before the event officially started, Jemin quickly pulled out his phone to search online.

K-Pop Multi-Stan @k-popmangryeong

Lmao Lol 4ever fan sign was literally a 1-album cut

Every single person who bought an album got in Lol

Jemin, who had been obsessively searching every possible keyword—4ever, Forever, Four Ever, 4-Ever, 4ev, 4eb—finally ended up seeing that exact post.

“Even if they’re just casual fans right now, all we have to do is turn them into real, devoted stans.”

Jemin steeled his resolve once more.

The fan sign began.

Feeling embarrassed by the 100 chairs laid out earlier, the staff quietly cleared away the empty ones.

B-side tracks like Ten Symbols of Longevity and Ending played continuously throughout the room.

Even though it was an open fan sign, not a single passerby stopped to watch.

Everyone was too busy shopping to care about a group of nameless male idols.

As the event kicked off, fans stepped forward one by one holding their albums.

Knowing that not all twenty of these people were his personal fans, Jemin poured blood, sweat, and tears into making sure they at least walked away with a favorable impression of him.

“Hello~! What name should I write for you?”

He started with the little things, like adding hearts next to their names…

“Can I hold your hand while we talk?”

He made sure to hold their hands while signing without them even having to ask…

“Umm… I had something I wanted to say, but give me a second.”

“If you can’t think of what you wanted to ask me, would it be okay if I asked you something instead?”

He even took the initiative to start conversations with fans who clearly weren’t his main bias and had run out of things to say.

“May I ask how you first found out about us? What was your first impression of me!”

Jemin was as natural and skilled as a seasoned veteran, looking nothing like an idol doing his very first fan sign.

Jemin was doing great.

However…

“Woohyung-ah! I’ve been waiting for you to debut ever since your trainee days!”

“Ah, really.”

The moment a fan finished getting an autograph from Jemin and moved over to the next member, Jemin felt his whole body freeze at the sound of Woohyung’s voice to his left.

‘Is this crazy bastard serious? That’s it? Not even a single “thank you”?!’

Up until now, Jemin had been so focused on the fans sitting in front of him that he hadn’t noticed what Jung Woohyung was saying.

But during the brief lulls between fans moving down the line, whenever his seat was momentarily empty, Jemin strained his ears to listen in on Woohyung.

No matter how he thought about it, he was deeply uneasy.

“Woohyung-ah! You’re seriously so handsome. I heard you wear the exact same T-shirt every single day?”

– Why do you wear the exact same T-shirt every day?

– My cute-tea. My pretty-tea.

It was an ancient, overused joke that fans threw around at almost every fan sign event.

Even if it was a joke an idol had heard a thousand times, handling it with wit was the true measure of idol talent.

Jemin desperately prayed and hoped that Woohyung would at least reply with a simple “Thank you,” but…

“No, I don’t. You saw wrong. It’s a different shirt.”

“Ah… wait, no… Okay, sorry.”

Is this guy actually insane? Is he publicly embarrassing a fan right now?

If there hadn’t been DSLR camera lenses pointed in his direction, Jemin would have grabbed Woohyung by the collar right then and there.

“Woohyung-ah! Try wearing this!”

The item the fan handed over was a pair of rabbit ear headbands.

Based on all the monitoring Jemin had done online, the animal Jung Woohyung was usually personified as wasn’t a rabbit.

If anything, he was the one fans referred to as a human rabbit.

‘Are they trying it on Jung Woohyung before giving it to me?’

Jemin quickly rehearsed his mental routine for when the headband was passed to him: Don’t just act cute right away. First, look flustered and laugh embarrassed, do a subtle rabbit gesture, then act completely dead inside from embarrassment, bury your face, stand back up, and fan your face with your hands. Okay, perfect plan. As long as Jung Woohyung doesn’t steal my exact routine.

While waiting for the next fan, Jemin stole a glance at Woohyung out of the corner of his eye.

Woohyung stopped signing and made direct eye contact with the fan.

Then, in a calm, quiet voice, Jung Woohyung spoke:

“I don’t want to. It’ll mess up my hair.”