Chapter 111

A fruit punch made with cola? I never heard of such a thing, but Do-Seung looked more serious than he had ever been.

‘No, rather than serious, he looks sort of crazy.’

There was a strange madness in his pupils, as he continued, “Everyone thinks it's bizzarre when they first hear cola fruit punch, but it’s no joke if you actually eat it. This is great. If I reveal this to the public today, it could increase people’s awareness of it.”

‘What? Do-Seung is more serious about this than I thought.’

In the first place, what was so great about cola fruit punch that he was this obsessive about it? Do-Seung wasn’t the type to get so fixated on something besides music.

‘Is music and cola fruit punch on the same level?’

In Do-Seung’s world, I thought these two might be on the same level of importance. I was about to increase my distance from him a bit as I got scared.

Then I realized,

‘Ah, this is it.

’ I got a mission for Siren to get a higher retweet count than Only One. This was the person that could put us in the lead. Thus, I replied, “Cola fruit punch sounds good.”

“Right?”

“I think it will be good to do this in a broadcast.”

“I can finally show it...” Do-Seung’s face filled with anticipation and excitement. Then, I gathered my group members and told them what I just talked about with Do-Seung.

“Huh? What kind of weird combination is that?” Dong-Jun responded.

“Ah, hahah...” Yeon-Hoon said.

“Are you serious...?” Woon asked.

“I am serious, and it’s not a weird combination of foods but a dish I’m confident about,” Do-Seung said with firm determination that didn’t waver. And as we discussed our dish, the staff began to withdraw one by one and announced:

—We will head to the studio now.

Thus, we decided to halt our conversation momentarily to move to the car. But as soon as we got in the car, Do-Seung resumed his previous enthusiasm with the cola fruit punch.

“Let’s do it! Do it! Let’s make the cola fruit punch!”

“Yeah, Do-Seung. We will go along with your idea.”

“Haa. I’ve never seen you this passionate, Do-Seung.”

My group members had no choice but to agree, and our cooking menu became finalized as cola fruit punch.

***

When we arrived at the studio, our activities became much more like an ordinary commercial shooting than when we were at the amusement park. The story of this commercial was that Siren and Only One high schoolers skipped school to go to the amusement park. Thus, our shooting set was decorated to look like a classroom, and we were instructed to look out of the window, appear bored, and act like we were studying. We were also given individual characters to act out.

“Mr. Tae-Yoon, you are a tough-looking student who just looks out the window instead of paying attention to the lesson. Do you understand what your concept is?”

“...Uh, yes?”

“And Mr. Do-Seung is a jock who just sleeps in the back of the classroom all day long.”

“Me?”

“Mr. Dong-Jun is a character who sits in the middle of the classroom and just plays and doodles on his textbook.”

“Wow! That’s exactly how I used to be at school!”

“Mr. Yeon-Hoon is a studious character who wants to pay attention in class very much, but his attention keeps getting stolen away by the window. And unable to win over his desire to just play, he leads his friends to skip school.”

“I’m the one who leads? Yay!”

“Lastly, Mr. Woon is the class president. He’s a character who wears circular glasses and fervently takes notes in the front of the classroom. But he forcefully gets dragged out of the classroom to the amusement park to play.”

“I was actually the class president before. How cool.”

It seemed the shooting staff had done a good job deciphering our characters. But I didn’t know why I was supposed to be sort of the class delinquent. I had lived a life far apart from that. After I changed my outfit and hair according to my character, others commented, “Wow, Tae-Yoon! I’m not sure I should say this, but...”

“Just say it.”

“You really look like a school delinquent!”

“...Haha.”

I had to admit that I really looked like a delinquent. Then, we each shot the commercial according to our characters.

“Mr. Tae-Yoon! Look more rebellious! That’s right! Good job~”

“I didn’t do anything but sit.”

“It’s okay from the first take!”

Starting from me, the shooting progressed smoothly and fast.

“Mr. Do-Seung! Just sleep with your head over your arms and slowly raise your head.”

“All right.”

“Ohhh! That’s good~”

I didn’t know whether the director didn’t have much expectations about the final results or we were just that good, but the shooting progressed fast, and we continuously got positive feedback.

“Mr. Yeon-Hoon, sit there bright-eyed and glance at the window! Good! Yes! You look so good.”

“Really?”

“Yes~”

Yeon-Hoon also got an ‘okay’ on the first take.

“Mr. Woon, please look like you are studying hard! Write in your notebook and look at the board! Okay!”

“Mr. Dong-Jun, you sure are good at doodling~ You look like a honed expert?”

Woon and Dong-Jun also got an ‘okay’ on the first take. Then, we took a full shot of all of us sitting in the classroom, a shot of us chit-chatting during break time, a cut of Yeon-Hoon grabbing Woon’s wrist and dragging him out, and a cut of all of us running out of the corridor with our bags. Because all the scenes were shot so fast, I thought the director was doing a shoddy job. Yet, when we saw the shot scenes, we could tell that it was a high-quality work.

“This is so good!”

“What?”

“It looks like some teen drama.”

“...It came out so well.”

I realized then that the director was very skilled at his job, but I supposed it was expected from a man picked by a big company such as PepCola. There was no way PepCola would’ve just gotten anybody to film their commercial. Then, we filmed more scenes that weren’t in the original draft.

“At this crossroad, Only One students and Siren students meet each other at this cross section like destiny!”

Since we shot scenes of us playing in the amusement park together, we needed to take a leading-up cut scene like this. Thus, we filmed a scene of Only One and us staring at each other at a crossroads between us. I recalled seeing a similar scene from a movie showing two groups of gangsters going on a turf war.

In the movie, the two groups began fighting when they met in the middle of the crossroad, but unlike them, Yeon-Hoon from our team and Only One’s Park Young-Ho came out and exchanged these greetings.

“Should we go to the amusement park?”

“Shall we?”

Because the two fit their lines well, the script didn’t sound cringy. Then Only One and we filmed a scene of us riding in a village bus and running towards the amusement park.

“Good work~”

“You all did so much~”

And that was how our commercial shooting came to an end at 3 p.m. Though we did start shooting early at sunrise, everything progressed so smoothly that we were able to finish much earlier than expected. Soon, the shooting staff in charge of us left, and the director also departed after saying that he had a fun time working with us. Yet, Only One, a few staff from

The Showcase,

and our group remained on the site to prepare for the live broadcast at 4 pm.

“Okay~ There’s one hour left before the live broadcast~ Can everyone be prepared!”

“Haaa.”

For some reason, only Do-Seung seemed particularly nervous as the staff told us, “If you write down the ingredients you need for your dish, we will go buy them~”

Nevertheless, my group members and I gathered at a corner to create a list of ingredients we needed. We made our list in secret from Only One since we had to cook this food on live broadcast, and a rivalry formed between our two groups.

“We should buy this amount of watermelon,” I said. Thus, I began to also write ingredients that could be good to use for a fruit punch, but it was hard to say they were unnecessary.

“Huh?”

“I think we will also need this.”

“Tae-Yoon?”

And after we finished coming up with our list, we handed it to the producer.

“...Are you serious about this?”

“Yes.”

“...Okay, then, we will follow it.” The producer who accepted our list appeared very flustered.

***

At 4 p.m., a Siren fan logged into V-Live according to the designated time. Today was the day when Only One and Siren would broadcast their live show, and this was her first time seeing Siren’s live show. It was because Siren was a new group that had recently appeared in the media and hadn’t even debuted yet, so they didn’t even have their own V-Live channel.

Furthermore, they didn’t have any social media accounts besides the company’s official one. Thus, there wasn’t much content and pictures for fans to keep themselves occupied with. A live broadcast that captured their commercial schedule in this situation was like rain trickling during a drought.

‘I wonder what concept they will shoot the commercial?

’ she wondered. Everyone knew that today was the day of the commercial filming. Thus, Siren members would probably shoot the live broadcast with the clothes they had been wearing for the commercial, and with the clothes the members were wearing, she could probably guess the general feeling of the commercial.

Siren’s fan was curious about everything from one to ten. Finally, the anticipated time arrived, and people began to enter the live broadcast one by one. Right before the broadcast started, there were about 20,000 people watching.

‘That’s quite a lot?’

Siren’s fan thought. Perhaps, it was natural since the program was doing well, but it was still surprising since the program’s concept was showcasing ‘failing idols.’ The number of viewers soon increased to 30,000.

“Oh...” She exclaimed shortly while looking at the phone screen. “Maybe they can reach 100,000 if everything works out.” She was about to be shocked by the numbers when she recalled how first-tier idols who were popular overseas often had several million people watching their live social media broadcasts.

‘Maybe this is a low count considering that they have Kang Hyun-Sung.’

She tried to calm her heart and looked at the screen.

Tick

. “Huh?” She wondered when the official show would start when the black curtain on the screen disappeared, and the show started.

—Kyaaaah

—Hello

—Hi

—Hey guys

—Wow this is happening

—So handsome

—Please say hello guys

—Hi from Brazil

—I say hello. Peru loves you all

The chatbox filled with comments and quickly moved down. Hearts exploded and Siren’s fan also quickly typed and shot out hearts. Simultaneously, she watched Siren on the video screen.

“Oh, school uniforms?” she said aloud. She had wondered what the Siren members would be wearing and noticed that they were wearing beige uniforms while Only One wore navy-colored uniforms. She didn’t know who the shooting director was but she wanted to show her sincere gratitude to them.

—Tae-Yoon looks so good in a uniform *sob, sob*

—Yeon-Hoon looks totally like a sweetie pie *sob*

—Do-Seunggg

—Park Dong-Jun what happened

—Wooooon

—Princess is in a uniform *sob*

—OMG SO CUTE

—WOONI MY PRINCE

—Dong Jun. Person you are. Is cute.

Siren’s fans poured out their appreciation of seeing their idols in a school uniform. But besides their uniforms, there was another thing that caught fans’ eye as the idols greeted them.

—Hello everyone! Glad to meet you all.

—SAY YES! Hello! We are Siren!

—BE YOUR ONLY ONE, hello, we are Only One!

‘An apron?’

Siren’s fan noticed that all the members were wearing aprons.

‘And why are only Siren members wearing work gloves?’

she wondered.

Siren members looked like butchers in Majang-dong, but seeing their aprons, it seemed clear they were going to make some cooking content.

—Okay! The content we prepared is cooking!

—We are going to cook using Pepcola and are going to try each other 's food!

Park Dong-Jun and Kim Ju-Hyun came out as the broadcast’s hosts and introduced the content of the show.

‘But why those work gloves?’

Siren’s fan still wondered. And this confusion only grew as the broadcast continued.

—What kind of food is Only One planning to make?

—We are going to make the classic cola food—steamed cola chicken.

—Ohh

—That sounds delicious

—What food is Siren going to make?

—We are going to make something quite controversial.

—Ah, what is it? It makes me curious.

—...Ah, well, it’s cola fruit punch. Haha

Siren’s fan filled with more questions when she heard the menu.

—Cola fruit punch?

—??

—What kind of strange combination is that?

—???