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The video started with Ryu Chungwoo sitting motionless under a pine
tree.

[…]

The background was a dense pine forest, immersed in a profound

night. In its midst, the moment when a vivid blue radiance vanished
beneath the eyelids…
Ping!
The screen flickered as if gluing past and future together like a
reminiscence:
A dazzling day. Ryu Chungwoo, smiling, gracefully concluded an
archery session.
Then suddenly, the scene switched to Ryu Chungwoo with an
emotionless expression, holding a black musket firearm as a bullet
ejected from the barrel.
Bang!
Then, the slow-motion shot of the bullet flying transformed into a cut
where a similar-sized gold coin bounced in front of Lee Sejin's face.
Cling!
And the scene smoothly transitioned from Lee Sejin's hand that flipped
the coin to a cut where his hands performed intricate dance
movements in a grand palace.
Swish.
Next, the vibrant multicolored fabric fluttering in the air transformed
into a glowing ribbon, and that ribbon resembling a bracelet was seen
adorning Park Moondae, casting its reflection.
In such a manner, fragment by fragment, cuts resembling scenes from
the music videos seamlessly flowed through the screen, intricately
woven together like the flow of consciousness.
A slow, classically arranged melody of 'Present' served as the
background music.

- ??? What is this?

- I think it was filmed during 'Present' and 'Spring Out'.
- I'm waiting for the interpretations

People were taken aback by the unexpected video but primarily

enjoyed the excellent cinematography and new cuts of the members.
Although it seemed like it should have been presented as a collection
of B-roll footage, the strategic arrangement of the cuts gave a sense of
symbolism.
As the video progressed a little further, some people also noticed the
deliberate composition.

- This is the teaser of 'Present' shown in reversed sequence

└ Heol
└ That's crazy. I'm getting goosebumps.

That's right.
The members' cuts were appearing in reverse order, going against the
sequence in which their solo songs were introduced in the teaser of
'Present'.
And it wasn't just that.
When the cut of Seon Ahyun reaching out his hand above the water
surface, which appeared at the very beginning of the teaser, was
shown, it transformed into Ryu Chungwoo's cut where he twirled and
grabbed the musket.
The beginning and the end were connected.
And just like that, the cuts flowed together like a continuously looping
flashback.
Whoosh!
Over and over again.
Faster, with incredible speed.
The artistic cuts that were crossing and chasing each other suddenly
came to an abrupt stop.
Click.
At that moment, as Cha Yujin grabbed the arrested Ryu Chungwoo's
tied-up hands and pulled him up, the close-up revealed the citizenship
application form clenched in his hand.

[Ding-]

Suddenly, the cut froze in place.

And instead, unexpectedly, it shifted to show the face of Bae Sejin who
was standing behind Cha Yujin.
With a languid and static close-up shot as if in movies.

[…]
The face, revealing a contemplative expression, seemed to be hinting
who the subject of the flashback expressed in the preceding numerous
cuts was.

[Wahhahaha!]

Bae Sejin then walked away, leaving the members, who were excitedly
running with their citizenship applications, behind.
His footsteps gradually quickened. The sound of laughter grew distant.
Thud!
And soon, the location where Bae Sejin stood changed.
It was the same huge window he had looked out of in the latest music
video, where he gazed down at the magnificent city.
The vast and otherworldly city remained unchanged.
However, there was a document taped to the window that was not
reflected in detail in the previous music video.

- Guidelines for Responding to Citizenship Certificate Requests

(Yogwe)

On the crumpled document, numerous red circles were drawn under

the phrase 'Actively reject similarities'…
This indicated that the citizenship certificate was a futile decoy.

[Phew.]

Bae Sejin let out a sigh and tore the document apart.
Then, with a great deal of hesitation, he alternated his gaze between
the torn document and the view outside the window. He briefly caught
a glimpse of the members, who were still filled with excitement,
passing by in a corner outside the window...
As a result, his internal conflict did not last long.

[…]

With a single string instrument, the theme melody of 'Spring Out' was
played.
Bae Sejin slowly tossed the document onto the floor. Then, he took out
an old cloth from his pocket and began covering his eyes.
Just like during 'Present'.
Over it, a natural and distinct voiceover narration flowed smoothly.

[If I were to be born again…]

[I want to be born as someone like you.]

On the screen, Bae Sejin, without any hesitation, extended his hand
towards the window with his eyes closed.
A slow close-up shot accompanied by intensifying music.
And the moment his hand made contact…
Thunk.
The music distorted, and the perspective suddenly changed.

Shhh…
Complete darkness and white noise.
And then, the screen came back to life.
It was not Bae Sejin but a black-haired Park Moondae, standing in his
school uniform and removing his hand from the window.
It was a school.
He turned around, facing the camera, and smiled.
The sun was setting.

[…]

It was a very familiar scene.

And a very familiar sound of a chime bell could be heard.

♬♪♩♪- ♬♪♬♪- ♪♩-

It was the melody of 'Magical Boy'.

With that, the screen disappeared as if melting away.

[Still enchanted]
[See you in that dream]

Leaving only the phrase.

The video ended just like that.
- ??????
- What did I just watch?

Naturally, after that, TeStar's fandom was completely engulfed by the

breadcrumbs of a massive worldbuilding connection for about three
days.

***

"This is great."
Releasing consecutive videos of our personal daily lives and the official
worldbuilding universe was indeed remarkably effective. I quickly
skimmed through various social media posts presenting all sorts of
theories.
Let's see, there were all sorts of talks.

- Parallel world, it's so good

- I think it's like some kind of Inception structure, like a dream
within a dream? Probably like Present > Magical Boy > Better Me
> Airplane
- Now that I think about it, during the picnic, weren't there
strange overlaps with scenes from the previous music video?
Could that have been a hint too...?

- ㅠㅠㅠㅠ Our kids wanted to be humans and not yogwe. But

because they are originally yogwe, their supernatural powers
kept developing
- It seems like the next album will return to the world of Magical
Boy, right? (Drinking kimchi soup)
//TN: Drinking kimchi soup is an idiom similar to counting your
chickens before they hatch

Perhaps it was because it was crafted with so many hidden meanings,

people seemed to have gotten more excited to talk about it in various
ways, from Bae Sejin's role to the order of the universe's
worldbuilding.
'Although I'm glad they seem to be having fun…'
Of course, there were many fans who weren't particularly fond of the
worldbuilding itself. These people must have been quite
underwhelmed for the past few days.

- Guys, let's not overdo it.

- This is too far. Just how much are they going to tie it together?
- Just put on a suit and do a sexy concept for once. If you indulge
the T1 guys in their worldbuilding antics, there will be no end to
it.
- I'm gonna go watch Moondae brushing his teeth one more time.
Take care.

So, to cater to this side, we were planning to soon release the

roommate game content. Then, within a few days, the fan community
will return to a pleasant atmosphere.
'I don't think there will be more talks about Seon Ahyun.'
I shrugged my shoulders, checked around inside the car, and quickly
closed the tab on my smartphone.
'Mm, I should stop looking.'
Since I had made the statement, I consciously decided to avoid looking
at the stories murmuring beneath the surface for a while.
…In fact, during a brief meeting held to expedite the release of the
worldbuilding content, the related topic came up as well.

- S-so… Moondae decided to stop looking at the Internet so much from

now on…!
- Good job!
- Okay. I was a little worried since Moondae seemed to be looking at it
too often anyway.
- I heard that it is good for your health to limit your screen time. That
is a great choice!

Although, it seemed like Kim Raebin misunderstood things a bit…

Anyway, with things turning out like this, even Keun Sejin shrugged his
shoulders with an expression as if saying 'What can we do?'
I didn't expect them to unanimously be concerned about my mental
health to this extent.
'If someone saw this, they would think I'm some kind of reclusive loner
who has fallen into the depths of the internet to a dangerously unhealthy
level.'
Anyway, in the end, it meant that I had no choice but to nod my head.
'I can just spend a few days watching animal videos on WeTube.'
I apathetically thought to myself and logged into WeTube.
Because I didn't leave any viewing history or consent to data
collection, algorithms and such didn't appear. I just sorted it by
popularity and thought I'd watch something random.
…And it just so happened that this video was in the top 5 most popular
videos in real-time:
[TeStar's big picture? Discovering the route that captivates
Americans into the K-pop ant hell!]

…The thumbnail showed Westerners with speech bubbles saying

'Idolco?' and 'What is this worldbuilding?'
Nationalistic aggro was overflowing to the point of suffocation.
However, looking at the name of the WeTuber, I realized I had seen
them a few times.
'The content itself was quite well organized.'
I suppose you could say that they summarize the overseas internet
scene with a biased perspective.
"…"
Well, watching real-time popular videos… wouldn't hurt, right? They
were thumbnails that even people who weren't interested would look
at once.
'At a glance, it seems like there would be a string of compliments.'
There was no harm in that. I quickly reached a reasonable conclusion
and clicked on the video.
I skipped the filler introduction that started with 'Hello, WeTube
viewers.'
Let's play the main content at 1.5 times the speed.

[Everyone, in the last video, I talked about the reason for TeStar's
rise in popularity in English-speaking countries.]
[The interest from the survival audition meme to <Idol
Corporation> led to the view count of the 'Spring Out' music
video]
That remark 'Reminds me of the old days' aligning with East Asian
memes stirred up some discussion.

[This oriental steampunk worldbuilding captured the hearts of

many Western otakus. And here, the newly introduced K-pop
variety show, <K-NOW>, comes into play.]
[It was produced by the team behind <IdolCo> and it was even a
variety show self-produced by Netplus, which is known for its
accessibility. Naturally, Americans, who became interested in the
TeStar-IdolCo line, flocked to watch this program.]

They didn't exactly 'flock' to watch it. It was more like those, who
developed an interest in K-pop enough to watch <IdolCo> also
watched <K-NOW>.
Just as I thought it was a predictable story, a fairly intriguing next
statement emerged.

[However, it doesn't end here. <K-NOW> became a huge success

locally, surpassing expectations!]

Oh, that's true.

I heard that the <IdolCo> production team's K-pop boot camp of hell
was quite successful in the United States.
While it wasn't on the level of a massively popular channel,
considering it was a self-produced show of Netplus, it gained attention
among the general public on the internet.
Of course, the WeTuber skipped that part of the story.
Still, the next words were quite sharp.

[The hit variety show attracted a diverse audience, and as a

result, the 'veterans', who jumped on the TeStar-IdolCo line
through the meme, became active!]
[This is because they actively recommended <Idol Corporation>
and TeStar to the American general audience and mainstream
viewers.]

"…!"
Oh, this was a bit of new information.
'Was there such analysis?'
I thought we simply gained international recognition through the buzz
of the variety show, but it seems that there was some movement
within that as well.

[The viewers who were impressed by <K-NOW> ended up

watching TeStar's music videos or <Idol Corporation> and were
introduced to K-pop!]
[It can be seen as a clever, ripple effect move that not only piqued
the interest of the existing K-pop fans but also grows the 'K-pop
pie' itself.]

I will bet on this quarter's paycheck that no one on the production

team intended this, and the company didn't even think of it.
Because even we didn't envision the picture this far.
However, the WeTuber seemed completely convinced in their own
theory.
[Then, what is the extent of TeStar's big picture?]
[Even yesterday, TeStar's worldbuilding video was newly
uploaded. This video connects the chronicles of TeStar's activities
up to now.]
[Eventually, there were even indicators that they were getting
traffic to their debut song, 'Magical Boy'!]
[※Based on the date of this video's production※]

…Is that so?

Although the graph attached to the video was somewhat exaggerated,
it seemed about right.

[And last Monday, TeStar concluded this round of promotions and

went into an inactive period. What surprises will they bring us
with their next album?]
[That's all for today's video.]

Hmm.
I rubbed my chin in thought.
There were a lot of exaggerations and hype, but when you overlooked
those, there were some worthy discourses worth thinking about.
'The next album is going to be important again.'
When hasn't it been? This time, too, we needed to select a title track
that could cater well to the fan base… a song that would be well-
received both domestically and internationally.
It was good to grow steadily without losing momentum, but there was
no time to catch a breath.
'Should I look into it in detail?'
It was not an easy task to create new fans while staying within the
existing fans' needs. The more information, the better.
So, it was the moment I reflexively opened the Internet tab to start a
detailed search…
"Um, M-moondae-ya. Are you searching?"
"…! Just a bit."
Seon Ahyun spoke in a small voice.
"Y-you said you wouldn't… I-I mean, if you want to look, Moondae, you
can do it, but I hope you won't do it too much…"
"…"
"S-since you promised…"
All right.
"Okay."
"Y-yeah!"
I turned off my smartphone. And sighed inwardly.
'Well, is there anything else to do?'
It was soon the inactive period, so there was no need to check the
schedule. Somehow, my hands and feet were itching.
It was then…
Bzzzt!
Suddenly, my smartphone vibrated, and I received a text message.
"…?"
[Notice of guidelines for the 1st GED exam applicants]

Ah, right.
Come to think of it, I applied for this in line with the inactive period.
'Should I just go and see what happens?'
I apathetically put down my phone once again.
For the record, I was unaware that the people sitting next to me also
saw this message briefly.