The Reincarnated Idol Hard Carries an Indie Band - Chapter 114

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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 Carries the Indie Band
Chapter 114
The new single entered the charts the moment it dropped.
-14. OKTOP – Monster
With momentum like this, it wasn’t difficult for Oktatop’s music to chart.
But Oktatop’s ambitions reached higher still.
And the world was flowing in their direction.
“Isn’t that Cha Seo Ha?”
“Yeah, you’re right! And that’s Kim Ji Hu next to him?”
“Whoa, what are they doing there?”
A café with a terrace overlooking Seongsu.
Cha Seo Ha and Kim Ji Hu sat there, sipping coffee without a care in the world.
Passersby caught sight of them, stopped in their tracks, and snapped photos or stared.
Both wore an outfit similar to what they’d worn in the Music Video they’d recently filmed.
Yet it didn’t come across as overdone.
It was close to everyday wear, but brimming with an understated cool.
Two people at complete ease in their ordinary day.
Though many recognized them, few had the nerve to approach or speak.
After chatting at length, the pair rose from their table.
* * *
“Thank you so much! We’ve been Oktatop!”
One spring evening with Busking at Ban-Wol Park.
Oktatop filled the park once again that night.
Currently, Ban-Wol Park was under special traffic control by the district office.
Hundreds of people came to see Oktatop.
Without the controls, there could have been accidents.
Oktatop was packing up the Stage to leave.
Their style had clearly changed from the old days.
What they’d shown in “Monster.”
And what they’d displayed through magazine interviews — they wore that look consistently now.
“Seriously, they look like celebrities these days?”
“Kang Min and Cha Seo Ha’s fashion sense is insane, right?”
“For real. They look like actual celebrities.”
“They are celebrities.”
“True.”
Until now, Oktatop’s main weapons had been music and youth.
But a new current was forming.
* * *
Recently, Oktatop’s SNS story uploads had increased markedly.
They weren’t posting special content—just sharing snapshots of their daily lives.
Lee Do Young walking somewhere, shot from behind.
Heo Jun Sung stealing the Keyboard from Kim Ji Hu and playing it.
Of course, the playing was terrible.
Kang Min speaking in Japanese with a giggle, then suddenly switching to his normal tone the moment the camera came close.
Kim Ji Hu reading a book. Cha Seo Ha passed out face-first on the couch.
Each story captured different moments, but they all shared one thing in common.
-Ink Studio
-San an Dress
-Black Out fit dot com
-Grand Fashion
-Ziro Style
-Mino R Line
-Fillips Daily
Each story tagged where the members’ clothes could be bought.
All from places where they’d done interviews and photo shoots right before the single dropped.
Even the priciest outerwear topped out in the high 100,000-won range.
Tops and bottoms came from mid-range wholesale shopping malls, none exceeding 100,000 won.
There was some variation between malls, but the average was entirely manageable.
Teens and twentysomethings could pull off the look, and thirties could too—the styling was fashionable yet accessible.
They were mainstream shopping malls, practical and populist.
* * *
As Oktatop showed different sides of themselves everywhere, their music was getting a different kind of reaction.
-Oktatop’s new track feels kind of weird, doesn’t it?
Oktatop’s single “Monster” certainly wasn’t mainstream-sounding.
More than that, it was genuinely divisive.
So you’d find people everywhere saying the song left them wanting.
And fans hit back at those takes aggressively.
-Proving you don’t know music?
-It IS kinda weird, that’s on your ears
-But people who’ve never actually engaged with culture might find it weird
-Just listen to nursery rhymes for the rest of your life then
-Some people can’t keep up with the level lol don’t be so harsh everyone ㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋ
Of course, plenty of people agreed with the negative takes.
-Yeah, it’s weird, not gonna lie. Honestly it doesn’t feel mainstream
-It feels kinda…experimental? But like, the experiment seems to have failed?
-Looks like they were trying to imitate overseas music but it didn’t quite land
It was natural for unconventional music to draw divided opinions.
And this was all according to Cha Seo Ha’s plan.
* * *
Brilliant visuals.
Easy-to-copy outfits.
And divisive tastes.
Perfect conditions to spark the Hongdae Disease that once swept through the hipster crowd.
And that disease was spreading beyond the so-called hipster scene.
Yeo Young Eun, Moon Ga Young’s friend who’d just become a freshman and was settling into school.
Yeo Young Eun had graduated from Jeongwun High School and gotten into her dream university through the regular exam route. With her pretty face and natural sociability, she’d made plenty of friends the moment she enrolled.
During high school, she’d focused entirely on her studies.
But perhaps because she had connections to entertainers like Moon Ga Young and Lee Do Young.
Once Yeo Young Eun became an adult, she started taking interest in styling herself.
She tried makeup, hunted for pretty clothes.
Then recently, she came across one hashtag that was taking over her SNS feed.
#OKTOP Core
Yeo Young Eun had listened to “Monster” and watched the Music Video.
Every post tagged with “OKTOP Core” was imitating the outfit from Oktatop’s “Monster” Music Video.
Not copying the exact same clothes.
Loose, fringe-style layering based on leather or suede.
But natural enough not to feel overdone.
Somehow those clothes looked cool to her, so she clicked through to the shopping mall links.
30,000 won. 50,000 won.
A bit pricier and it’d be between 90,000 and 150,000.
Accumulating a full cart would’ve been a burden, but buying one or two pieces was fine.
She got an allowance and worked part-time anyway.
So one day, she put on the clothes she’d bought and gathered her courage for class.
“Whoa, Young Eun? What’s this? Your style totally changed?”
“Hey, what’s going on? You look pretty cool?”
Until then, she’d stuck to a pure, safe style.
Truth was, it wasn’t what she’d chosen—she’d just worn safe clothes because she didn’t know any better.
Now Young Eun was giving off a muted, moody vibe.
In an instant, she’d captured her classmates’ attention.
She loved the image of herself in these clothes, listening to Oktatop’s “Monster” through earbuds.
This was Hongdae Disease as she’d felt it for the first time in her life.
And that happy affliction boosted her confidence even higher.
She didn’t want to get better from it.
* * *
Hongdae Disease wasn’t inherently bad.
Rejecting the mainstream, pursuing the unique.
In a homogenized society like this, it’s actually a good phenomenon that helps people reclaim their individuality.
And Hongdae Disease only has meaning when it applies to a minority.
When many follow the same trend, it becomes mainstream.
And the Hongdae Disease that started with “OKTOP Core” was already losing its power.
-Complete your OKTOP Core look for just 120,000 won: a guide.
Fashion YouTubers across SNS were introducing OKTOP Core looks.
-So the layering here is the key point. Kang Min wore strap pants in the Music Video, but frilly layering works too.
The YouTuber in the video was modeling the OKTOP Core outfit themselves as they explained it.
-And this one’s only 40,000 won.
“Pretty effective,” Kim Ji Hu muttered in the Practice Room.
“Right? Cha Seo Ha’s a genius, seriously.”
Heo Jun Sung was murmuring along with him as they watched.
Lee Do Young was filming them at the same time.
This was going on the story too.
“Okay… Seo Ha, we’re out of clothes. Should we wear what we had on before and post that?”
“Nah, we’re good. This is enough. Let’s stop here.”
Fashion Viral Marketing was done as far as he was concerned.
Trends have their moment—that’s why they’re trends.
Push it any further and people will call it Brain Death and hate it.
We’ve already gotten plenty of promotional mileage.
More than this and it backfires.
Now we let the snowball roll on its own.
-06. OKTOP – Monster
Since we rolled out the fashion Viral Marketing, our single’s been climbing the charts like crazy.
It made perfect sense.
People who saw OKTOP Core were curious about it, so they watched our Music Video.
If they liked it, they’d listen to the music.
Fans obviously did infinite streaming, and that mixed with the general public’s picks.
The ranking will keep climbing steadily.
* * *
The Maruru Band had done nothing for over a month now.
Min Hyun Ah found it hard to lift herself from bed until late afternoon.
-How to complete the OKTOP Core look for just 100,000 won! (w/INK Studio)
Her SNS and YouTube were drowning in Oktatop content.
It wasn’t because she was interested.
The algorithm kept bringing Oktatop to her.
“This is so annoying…….”
It wasn’t that she hated Oktatop.
She had no choice but to acknowledge them now.
The resentment she’d felt toward them was long gone.
If someone asked who was running the scene now, a hundred out of a hundred would say Oktatop, not the Maruru Band.
She knew it well.
So that was…
what bothered her.
How had the Maruru Band ended up like this?
They’d worked hard and won on broadcast. That was it.
She’d found out later that Lee Jong Myung was a bad person.
That was none of their concern.
She’d already known there’d be constraints once they joined a company.
It had proven more fatal than expected.
“……Wait. What?”
While thinking like this, she happened across a post.
-1. OKTOP – Monster
Tuesday night at 8 PM.
Oktatop had hit number one on the Lemon Chart an hour ago.
And at the same time, her phone buzzed.
-Have you given any thought to the offer I made last time?
A text from Cha Seo Ha.

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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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