The Reincarnated Idol Hard Carries an Indie Band - Chapter 101

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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The Former Idol’s Indie Band Carry
Chapter 101
Dampa maintained his sharp predictions and kept his energy high throughout, wrapping up the live broadcast smoothly.
And that wasn’t the end of our new mini album’s support fire.
“Wow, what the hell? Did Im Hyun Taek post something?”
Everyone’s attention turned to Heo Jun Sung, sprawled across the sofa.
“What is it?”
The phone Heo Jun Sung showed us displayed Im Hyun Taek’s personal SNS story.
A brief caption accompanied a screenshot of our album tracklist.
—You picked it like a beast. Just wait.
“Is that praise or criticism?”
“That’s just how he compliments people.”
Kim Ji Hu laughed quietly.
This was the same person who’d called us a “rootless idol band” at Band Slam two years ago.
And now he was boosting us on his story.
After sweating and laughing together on that Aftermath Performance stage, we’d somehow become comrades in arms.
“There’s more!”
This time it was Lee Do Young.
What he showed us was Jo Sung Hoon’s feed.
A few behind-the-scenes shots from the filming location.
Behind Jo Sung Hoon holding the camera, that old residential set came into view.
And in the following shots, us standing with blank expressions.
Moon Ga Young smiling brightly—something we’d never shown in the actual music video.
A photo of Kang Min and Heo Jun Sung arm-wrestling.
A photo of Lee Do Young laughing at that, and so on.
Exactly the kind of behind-the-scenes content fans would be curious about.
And beneath it was a caption written in a straightforward tone.
—It was an honor to direct this wonderful work. Oktatop and Moon Ga Young, you worked so hard. The Jo Sung Hoon Band will be bringing good news soon too!
Jo Sung Hoon, who’d directed the music video for Riot.
With that shout-out from the biggest contributor to this issue, I felt genuinely reassured.
And finally.
Kang Min’s hand, which had been quietly scrolling, went still.
……
“Why are you being so quiet?”
He silently turned the screen to show us.
It was Odyssey’s—Choi Woo Young’s story.
Our album cover as the background, with a calm caption.
—Each of us in the place that suits us. I’m rooting for Oktatop and Kang Min.
Choi Woo Young, who used to resent Kang Min during the Skydiver days.
After our awkward reconciliation at the Session War, this was the first time he’d expressed himself so directly, as far as I knew.
I couldn’t know everything that had happened between those two.
But looking at Kang Min’s face, the story between them had to run far deeper than I could imagine.
Kang Min stared at the screen for a long while before finally opening his mouth awkwardly.
“Hah… is this like a loyalty oath to the protagonist or something……”
“Hey, your nose is getting red.”
“What, what? Shut up!”
“What do you mean?”
With his face flushed red, Kang Min turned away and flopped onto the sofa.
This adorable bastard.
My friends all hunted down reactions to our album, showed them to each other, and laughed and chatted together.
Even at twenty, they looked every inch like high schoolers.
I watched that noisy, chaotic scene quietly.
Im Hyun Taek’s shout-out.
Jo Sung Hoon’s music video.
Choi Woo Young’s sincerity.
It had all started from one place.
The starting point was Who’s The Real, right?
That’s true, but the real beginning was a performance we’d held just recently.
The Aftermath Performance.
That joint concert we’d put together, turning down variety show appearances and accepting the deficit.
That day, we’d simply set up the stage because we wanted to.
To dream of revitalizing this barren band scene.
And now that one day was coming back to us.
To us, with no company backing and no capital.
The infrastructure that major agencies buy with money—we’d built it ourselves under the name of ‘friendship.’
“Hey, we really made a lot of friends.”
Heo Jun Sung, setting down his phone, smiled awkwardly.
“A year ago, everyone was cursing us out.”
It was a small thing to say, but somehow my chest felt warm.
* * *
We’re going to become famous.
Both domestically and internationally.
And for that to happen, it wouldn’t be enough for just us to do well.
Our foundation is the Korean indie band scene, no matter what anyone says.
If the scene we’re rooted in isn’t solid, we’ll end up as nothing more than a ‘famous singer in band form performing pop music.’
That can’t happen.
When we become famous, that fame has to lift the entire Korean indie scene with it.
That’s why we deliberately held that joint concert before releasing our internationally-aimed mini album.
And that fame was slowly beginning to reveal itself.
“Man, it’s rising crazy fast these days, isn’t it?”
“Tell me about it.”
Lemon, the music streaming site.
Currently, Oceans was at number seven, and Riot was at number thirty-one.
In the indie band genre chart, we were naturally dominating from first place down, just like last time, but that wasn’t enough.
Our goal this time was the overall number one spot on the chart.
Ever since release, Heo Jun Sung had been living by the charts.
It was exactly what I looked like the first time I tried stocks in my past life.
“Ah, it dropped to number eight……”
“Hey, stop looking at that. You’re being annoying.”
Kim Ji Hu finally couldn’t take Heo Jun Sung’s constant muttering and said something.
At first, we all weren’t particularly interested in rankings.
But now that we were getting close to number one, Heo Jun Sung seemed to have developed some ambition.
That was understandable—it was a natural human instinct.
If anything, it was strange that the others were staying so calm.
The one who cared least about the chart among them was Kim Ji Hu.
It wasn’t so much that he wasn’t interested; it seemed more like he thought this was enough.
I’d definitely said our next goal was number one, but breaking through it looked harder than I’d thought.
The boy group that came back on the same day as us had serious firepower.
The immovable number one.
Plus, the mega group that had come back aiming for the awards ceremony around the end of last year still maintained their popularity at the top of the chart.
Breaking through that seemed realistically difficult even to me.
Number one on the Korean chart.
Without a solid fanbase, you’d need to appeal to the general public enough to draw people from across the country.
As long as streaming culture exists, anyway.
But we weren’t there yet.
That’s why Kim Ji Hu’s expectations had dropped.
However, there was one thing they were overlooking.
And I was currently confirming that something they couldn’t see in real-time, unable to contain my satisfaction.
* * *
CEO Jo Hyun Seop called us in one day, saying he wanted to have a meeting about Oktatop’s future direction.
From the CEO’s perspective, we must have been frustrating.
After our comeback, not just mega variety shows but smaller radio programs and web entertainment were offering special stages, and music broadcasts were sending requests left and right.
But we didn’t appear anywhere.
All we did was upload updates to Oktatop’s official YouTube channel and SNS, Ban-Wol Park busking videos, and music production diaries.
The CEO had once told us this was going too far, asking us to appear somewhere at least.
A former powerhouse of the entertainment industry must have thought we were too valuable to waste.
While riding the bus to ST Studio, I flipped through my phone’s memo folder.
Memos I’d jotted down little by little since right after my return.
—The Band Boom will definitely come
In my past life, I’d witnessed that trend with my own eyes.
Within the next ten years, there will definitely come a day when band music dominates the chart.
Back then, I was already envying the stages others had built, but this time is different.
This time, I can stand at the very front of that wave, far ahead of everyone else.
And now.
The wind created by Riot was the first signal of that wave.
“…… Isn’t this too fast?”
Even as I muttered to myself, the corners of my mouth were turning up.
It’s not too fast—it’s just the right timing.
* * *
The meeting took place in an empty recording room at the studio.
We were sitting carelessly on the sofa while the CEO looked at us with displeasure.
“You kids, you’re not doing anything, are you?”
“Us?”
We just stared blankly at each other.
“No, we’re already preparing the next song, you know.”
“Right, we’re doing Ban-Wol Park busking every week too?”
“Plus, we were a guest at the Odyssey guys’ concert last week.”
“No, that’s not what I mean……”
The CEO grabbed his throbbing head.
“Do you know how many broadcast offers you’re getting? The mega variety shows are dying to have you.”
The CEO’s voice was full of genuine regret.
“Your ranking just went up to number four. Don’t you know that’s a miracle?”
“Oh… yeah, we know!”
Heo Jun Sung’s stupid answer.
The CEO ignored it and continued.
“You broke through two mega groups. Now is the perfect time to go on broadcasts and promote. If you wait much longer, it’ll be too late.”
The CEO was passionate, spitting words.
But our kids’ responses were lukewarm.
“Um…”
“We’re not really interested in…”
“What would we even talk about on that kind of show?”
“Kids, I understand you want to maintain your image as an indie band, but appearing on one broadcast won’t destroy your image. If you manage it well……”
“Oh, okay! We’ll do it!”
I cut off the CEO before his speech could get longer.
“…… What? You’ll do it? Where?”
The CEO was the most shocked.
Why was he so surprised when he told us to go and we said we would?
“Yes, yes. That’s a good idea. I’d be so sad if talented kids like you shot up and then disappeared. So, Seo Ha—where are you thinking?”
The others were staring at me blankly.
All of them had that look of ‘What crazy thing is this lunatic planning to say this time?’
And I unveiled a record-breaking insane situation.
“I’ll decide based on this data.”
“This… what is this……?”

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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