Chapter 220. Kick off (1)
Kairos’s first group livestream.
As soon as the alarm popped up, what greeted the Destinies who hurriedly entered Ivors was a pastel-colored, beautifully decorated party room, and…
“Hello, Destinies!”
“Hi!”
“Hello, everyone~”
“Oh my gosh, those school uniforms!”
It was the members of Kairos dressed in the school uniforms they had worn in their self-made content!
“The school uniform concept is crazy, I swear, who thought of pairing Yugeon with that black turtleneck?”
“Officially, we’ve got thug Siwoo… ‘This works.'”
“Ha, Sujin is back with that annoying round face, with the godly headband on again. So freaking cute, haha.”
Hajin wore a full set of neat school uniforms, maintaining his nerdy concept from the self-made content. Siwoo, in contrast, wore a white short-sleeved shirt with the buttons undone, along with a school jacket. Yugeon, in a loose shirt and school jacket over a black turtleneck, and Eunchan, who loosely wore a shirt and tie, maintained their outfits from the self-made content. Some members, however, had tweaked their outfits to focus more on the “school uniform” aspect.
“Kairos in school uniforms. All four heavenly kings of the school uniform gang, the stylist went insane.”
“Doha took off his hoodie. Now, without it, it looks more like a suit than a school uniform, doesn’t it?”
“The youngest members look great in school uniforms, of course. They’re still high schoolers after all.”
In the self-made content, Taehyun, who was dressed in a yellow gym uniform as part of his setting, still wore a large yellow jersey, but underneath it, he had on a loose school shirt and tie.
Doha, who originally had a forced concept as a born-to-be dancer (recommended by Kang Hajin as a half-joke), took off his hoodie, replacing it with a school shirt, tie, and knit vest. However, it took a moment to recognize that it was a school uniform and not a suit.
Dan Haru also made a subtle change in atmosphere by wearing a soft cardigan instead of a school jacket, unlike his usual outfit from the self-made content.
“Please, just once, perform on a music show in school uniforms. It’s my mom’s wish.”
“Release your next album as a school-themed one, please. Newbies are supposed to be fresh, right? Honestly, I can’t be satisfied with ‘Order.'”
“Hey guys, ever thought about debuting again with this concept…? I can play dumb really well.”
The epitome of a rookie! The essence of a rookie!
Following up on their rookie school uniform looks in their self-made content with a live broadcast had the Destinies overjoyed, quickly flooding the comment section with their thoughts.
Just as the member count reached a certain point, the members gathered themselves to introduce themselves.
“Alright, let’s greet everyone now. One, two, three!”
“LET’S KICK US OFF! Hello, we are Kairos!”
The Destinies erupted in the chat again as they watched Hajin, now the leader, call out the cue that Siwoo had previously always shouted during music shows.
“OMG, we have a leader now, finally.”
“Our wolf Doberman… Although he resisted hard, the perfect leader is Hajin, isn’t it? So fitting, right? One glance and he can straighten out those youngest members who were goofing off.”
“Siwoo looks like a goofy uncle, happy he doesn’t have to shout the cue anymore.”
└ “How far are we going with Siwoo’s character concept?”
└ “Overall, Kairos is just completely off the rails right now.”
As social media, various communities, and live chats caught fire, the livestream proceeded smoothly according to the pre-planned schedule.
“Destinies, did you all enjoy today’s Kairos?”
“We watched it here too, waiting for the livestream to start, and we found it really fun as well! Especially the part where Hajin-hyung and Siwoo-hyung fought… Oh, though, they did fight for the entire 30 minutes…. Um….”
“Haru, do you want a muffin? There’s a chocolate muffin here that you like.”
“Wow!”
“Don’t be fooled, Dan Haru. He’s trying to keep you quiet by feeding you.”
“…!”
“Eunchan-ah, milk…”
“Oh! Ah, oops!”
“…I was going to warn you not to spill it.”
“Doha, you should say that earlier.”
“Ha, I want to go home….”
Although it was a bit noisy, they were still somewhat sticking to the script.
“ㅋㅋㅋ It’s so loudㅋㅋㅋ Hilarious.”
“Is the sound director’s hearing okay? My ears are bleeding just from watching the livestream.”
“Taehyun, hang in there. That’s all I can say, sorry. Oh, and good job.”
“Just like during the escape room last time, Doha always speaks too slowly after the fact, honestly, it’s hilarious.”
This level of chaos was acceptable for a rookie idol group in just their second week of debut. In fact, some fans enjoyed this kind of clumsiness.
The one who finally calmed down the ruckus in the room was Hajin, who handed a tissue to Eunchan after feeding Dan Haru a chocolate muffin and seeing him spill his milk.
“Yes, so today is our first group live as Kairos. We wanted to commemorate this since our music show schedule was canceled tomorrow, and our debut activities are slowly coming to an end, so we decided to meet you like this.”
Hajin had always been the one to organize comments, but now that he was wearing the leader’s armband, each word seemed to carry more weight. The other members didn’t seem to notice, though.
Hajin handed the monitoring tablet to Yugeon and clasped his hands lightly, looking at the camera.
“We’ve prepared various content, but if you have any questions you’ve always wanted to ask us, leave them in the comments, and we’ll try to answer as many as possible. Let’s chat together.”
Kairos’s first interactive broadcast officially began.
* * *
“Oh, I found a question. Taehyun-hyung, why is the high school named Saegim?”
“Our group’s name is Kairos, right? I heard that the word ‘Kairos’ originally comes from a verb meaning ‘to engrave.’ One of the meanings of our group name is to become idols who leave a special mark on the music industry…. So, that’s why it became Saegim High School….”
“Because Kaes High School would’ve sounded weird.”
“…”
“Why? It’s true, though. We were rejected because Kiss High, Karos High, and Kayo High all sounded awkward…. Okay, okay, relax, Taehyun. Whoa. That look in your eyes is not good.”
Oops.
I almost experienced the miracle of laser beams shooting from a member’s eyes because of a poorly chosen word.
“I need to be careful not to push my luck in front of Seo Taehyun.”
Taking a deep breath, I turned my attention back to the live chat comments, though I knew I wouldn’t last three days, let alone three hours.
My physical functions were mostly working fine, but unfortunately, I didn’t have the dynamic vision to read through the comments flying by at Mach speed. Even so, I tried my best to catch any questions that stood out, to the point where my eyes were dry and sore.
‘Thirteen, couldn’t I use a skill to regain my childhood vision or something? I seriously need a digital detox, but my job won’t let me.’
[System Alert: But according to our records, Kang Hajin, you’ve been wearing glasses since elementary school? How far back do you want to regain your vision…?]
Thirteen’s comment reminded me that my first gift upon entering elementary school was a pair of glasses.
Hmm. Maybe it’s just better to think that I had bad eyesight since birth.
‘Then instead of a skill, could you maybe just slow down the chat for me?’
[System Alert: Are you treating me like some sort of AI assistant system now….]
‘Weren’t you?’
[System Alert: The system is too stunned to counter this.]
[System Alert: s(・｀ヘ´・；)]
Despite the annoyed effect, Thirteen reluctantly opened an empty system window and started to slow down the comments.
To avoid looking like I was staring into space, I adjusted the system window next to the monitoring tablet and slowly began reading through the comments. With the speed reduced, I could finally catch some of the comments I had missed earlier.
“Yugeon, say somethingㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋ Just sitting there and making money, isn’t it too easy?”
“Please, Suho, be quiet…ㅠ Let us hear the others talk, please.”
“♥♥♥♥♥ReadReadReadReadReadReadReadRead♥♥♥♥♥♥ Do you keep in touch with Wonho and Jaeyoung? Please read this♥♥♥♥♥♥”
“I broke up with my boyfriend today. Please comfort me. I also didn’t get into the fansign or music show. My boyfriend dumped me, and now I’m so depressed. If you say, ‘I love you,’ I think I’ll feel better? If you don’t read this, you really have no empathy, you know.”
‘…Not easy.’
Honestly, this was at a level where it was hard to call it a hate comment or a troll. More explicit and harsh words would likely be rampant on social media or anonymous communities, and even without going that far, the worst things were probably already happening
.
“……”
Our phones, which we had gathered and handed to Ji Suho before the broadcast, were all powered off. That was because some sasaengs, who had somehow obtained a few of our numbers, had been incessantly calling us.
‘As soon as the livestream ends, if we turn them back on, they’ll be sure it’s our numbers, so I need to tell everyone to keep them off until the middle of the night.’
When I decided to debut as an idol, I hadn’t overlooked these sorts of issues.
But knowing something in your head and actually facing it are two very different things.
“Hmm. Someone’s asking if our fan name will continue to be ‘Destiny’? Doha, do you want to answer that? You gave a lot of input on that.”
“…We considered coming up with a new fan name, but we thought ‘Destiny’ sounded good and had a deep meaning. ‘Destiny’ means a lot to us.”
“We also suggested other names, like combining the word ‘Eternity’ to make ‘E.nity,’ or ‘Mysty,’ meaning ‘My Destiny’…. We even considered giving you an entirely new name, but ‘Destiny’ just seems to roll off the tongue the best.”
I glanced at the members responding sincerely to the fans’ comments, checking their condition.
They all seemed fine, calmly continuing the conversation, but in reality, we were all exhausted, having not slept properly for days. We still weren’t used to the irregular lifestyle.
‘…That’s why I wanted to do the livestream after the music shows ended.’
At times like this, you had to be careful about mental damage.
Not getting enough sleep, feeling tired, and being mentally drained from activities—it was easy to lose more sleep over a single hurtful comment in these conditions.
As I wondered what was next and looked at the comment section again, a strange comment suddenly passed by.
“Is it fun stealing someone else’s life, you lying orphan Dan Haru?”
‘…What?’
What was that?
Before I could even process my shock, I instinctively turned my head to check if Dan Haru had seen the comment. He was on the opposite side, laughing and watching Yugeon and Taehyun bicker.
Just as Dan Haru turned his gaze back to the tablet to check the comments—,
“……?”
“Hmm. Someone’s asking if our fan name will continue to be ‘Destiny’? Doha, do you want to answer that? You gave a lot of input on that.”
I was back just a few minutes before, right before that problematic comment appeared.
So….
Once again, the timeline had rewound.
‘What the…? What is this?’
Just in case, I checked the chat carefully, but the problematic comment did not appear.
It was as if a game bug had been patched and erased.
‘Hey, Thirteen. What’s going on? What just happened? What is this situation?’
I urgently called out to Thirteen while keeping an eye on Dan Haru.
But the answer Thirteen gave me was beyond my imagination.
[System Alert: What?]
[System Alert: What are you talking about?]
[System Alert: ( •́ㅿ•̀ )?]
‘What? What do you mean, what? We just regressed again. That weird comment popped up….’
[System Alert: …What?]
‘…?’
It was only then that I realized something was seriously wrong.