Chapter 192: Groundless Confidence (2)
"Make sure you’ve disabled the popup blocker…."
The Doubles office had practically turned into a PC room for ticketing.
Jin Sehyun gave advice one by one for the confused members in front of their computers.
"What should I use to make the payment?"
"Bank transfer."
"Does the payment window pop up when I click ‘Reserve’?"
"You’ll probably see a reservation queue window first."
Not a single person in the team had experience with ticketing.
It was a truly disastrous situation.
‘If I can even get half of them to succeed…’
Thinking that, Jin Sehyun began personally setting up the computers.
Ha Junseo murmured in awe as he watched Sehyun deftly open four windows.
"What the, is that like split screen or something?"
"I have a timer open. It’s synced with the site server time. You just refresh when it hits the hour."
"Wow, the site server time actually shows up?"
"Jin Sehyun is a genius!"
Chrome normal mode, incognito mode, and even Naver Whale.
He evenly opened four different browser windows and placed a timer visibly in the corner.
What the members had to do was simple—refresh in order when the time came, and pray.
"All we have to do is click, right?"
"Yes. And then leave it up to luck…."
Ticketing was all about luck.
Even Jin Sehyun, who had studied ticketing thoroughly, couldn’t guarantee success this time.
The ones who had never tried it before were always the most confident.
And as if to prove that….
"Seohan, you're going to succeed, right?"
"Ah, obviously."
"This hyung’s got this! If you fail, I’ll book yours too!"
The bluffing from the youngest line was piercing the heavens.
Clicking his tongue, Jin Sehyun turned to look at the two.
Banging on the keyboard, Seo Haim exclaimed excitedly.
"Did you know? I’m really fast at Hangul typing!"
"Hyung, but do you even type during ticketing?"
"You have to when entering the code."
"…Does that even matter?"
Seohan tilted his head, then stretched his arms wide.
In a voice full of confidence, he spoke seriously.
"First of all, I’m definitely going to succeed."
"How?"
"Oh, time to pull out my secret weapon."
With a smirk, Seohan typed something into the browser.
Watching him, Jin Sehyun let out a sigh.
"Reaction speed test?"
What kind of superstition was this?
The problem was, the two of them were actually pretty serious.
"I saw on YouTube that people do this before course registration."
"Oh, really?"
Not knowing this was Seohan’s own anecdote, Jin Sehyun tightly shut his eyes.
"It’s about sharpening the sensation in your fingertips."
"That’s important."
"I’ll give it a try."
Staring resolutely at the monitor, Seohan clicked the mouse the moment the red screen turned green.
Click!
"Aaaaagh!"
"Did you see that? My reaction time was 170ms!"
"Wow, that’s incredible!"
Incredible… how?
Blinking slowly, Jin Sehyun shook his head.
"I’m trying it too. This hyung’s got some reflexes!"
After being wowed, Seo Haim sat at the computer to give it a try.
But when he couldn’t beat Do Seohan’s record, he quickly sulked.
"What the heck, how did you do that!"
"My reflexes are honed from years of experience."
"Seohan, how long have you even been alive…"
Ha Junseo added, dumbfounded.
Click—.
The monitor now showed 148ms.
Not sure what that meant, but….
Seo Haim jumped up from his seat in exaggerated excitement.
"Wooooah! That’s almost beyond human!"
"Unbelievable!"
"I told you, right? You need to train your reflexes in advance so you can refresh faster. Next up… visual tracking test?"
"I wanna practice too!"
Now they were pulling up a visual tracking test, chasing disappearing balls with the mouse.
Jin Sehyun sighed and shook his head.
"Relying on superstition like that…."
Let’s be real.
Could that actually work?
.
.
.
"It worked?"
It worked.
Dusty’s Yoo Eunseo stared at the monitor with a serious face.
Her mood, completely sunken, didn’t improve at all.
"Wow…."
I seriously can’t believe it.
This was the Stardust concert they said would be held at the Gymnastics Stadium.
I’d expected it to be intense, since there were so many competitors.
But….
I didn’t expect to be completely blocked at the entrance of the Gymnastics Stadium itself.
Yoo Eunseo let out a deep sigh as she stared at the empty monitor screen.
A behind-the-scenes self-content video on the concert preparations was uploaded after ticketing.
The community was already buzzing with reactions.
[Do Seohan’s ticketing was insane]
Do Seohan filmed a ticketing behind-the-scenes and snagged both Ground and 1st floor seats.
No one did it for him either lololol
Seriously, he pulled it off.
They said it would be given out to fans via a lottery, please God ㅠㅠㅠㅠ
Noona doesn’t have a ticket… Seohan, I’m begging you ㅠㅠㅠ
—He got Ground? That’s insane. Seohan, how did you do it?
└Even I couldn’t get Ground after 10 years of ticketing, seriously Seohan, how?
└I screamed watching the behind-the-scenes, felt like I succeeded at ticketing
—Even Jin-Searching barely grabbed 3rd floor, and Do Seohan went straight to Ground—thought I was seeing things
└They said the visual tracking test worked
└Ah lololol should I try that next time too
└He talked like a total ticketing noob, and yet it worked
"Wow… even Do Seohan got Ground…"
Dusty’s Yoo Eunseo let out a sigh and murmured quietly.
Even the youngest, who looked like he’d never ticketed once in his life, got Ground.
But I couldn’t even get 3rd floor and the server crashed—how is that fair?
I feel like crying.
"Screw off, me."
A rookie idol only two years in. There would be more chances to see concerts in the future.
She told herself she’d get to go someday….
But this was their first solo concert.
Missing Stardust’s first solo show made her heart feel like it was tearing in two.
"Let’s just blame myself for missing it."
Still, once a ticket was gone, it was gone.
The dawn ticketing for canceled seats also ended in vain, and Yoo Eunseo had completely entered the stage of resignation.
"I guess I’ll have to watch the online livestream…"
They say those who want money dig the well first. Doubles would probably sell the stream.
Thinking that, Yoo Eunseo buried her head into her desk.
At that exact moment—
Dding—
Dding—
The phone on the desk vibrated loudly.
With one hand, Yoo Eunseo groped for her phone.
Too drained to lift her body, she turned on the screen with her head still down on the desk.
What appeared in front of her eyes was a single message.
[WEB sender]
Hello. Congratulations on winning….
"Huh?"
Her mind snapped awake.
Dusty’s Yoo Eunseo shot up from her seat.
"Is this for real? Not spam?"
It took mere seconds to log into the fan site to check.
She hurriedly accessed the site and found her ID and nickname on the winner list.
1st floor, Row 3.
This…
Could it be the ticket that appeared in the behind-the-scenes?
Yoo Eunseo let out an involuntary scream of joy.
"Aaaaaagh! I love you, Do Seohan!!"
I’m a fan for life, seriously.
[Stardust’s 2nd Full Album ‘Isolation’ cruising, proving their rise as next-gen stars]
[Top 10 on digital charts, Stardust returns with 2nd Full Album]
[Stardust reaches 770k in first-week sales—‘The significance of this full album’]
Stardust’s 2nd Full Album Title Track <Merit>.
Among fans, it was being called “Beyond-bar.”
Returning in grand style with Beyond-bar, Stardust had a solid pre-release run, and while the group was clearly on an upward trend, this result was far beyond expectations.
The album’s first-week sales surpassed 770k and were speeding toward a million.
Even briefly charting in the top 10 of the digital rankings, the Dusties were openly celebrating.
[You Dusties seriously worked so hard]
Let’s stream it to the top!!
Let’s go for that 1 million first-week!!
We can do it, love you Dusties!!!
—Haven’t overseas fans’ sales not been counted yet? We might really hit 1 million first-week?
└Same, I heard some sites haven’t been tallied yet so we’re probably gonna hit it
└What is even happening lol
└Even compared to their past albums this is a ridiculous rise lol
—Anyone who said Stardust was washed up needs to face the wall
└lololol they tried to bring them down but it all backfired, huh?
└Calling a 2-year-old debut group washed-up just because they came from an audition show was always infuriating
└So true, how do you call kids who just won rookie awards ‘washed-up’ lol
└Our kids are only going to rise higher, just ignore the haters
The numbers were just too good.
So good, it was almost unreal….
"Let’s stop smiling, guys."
"Ah, I think I’m going to fail at controlling my grin."
Everyone was trying not to show it, but their lips kept curling into smiles.
Honestly, I was the same.
"So it was right after all…."
"What was?"
"Ah, nothing."
<Trace of the Stars> was a good song too, but it didn’t achieve numbers like this.
That meant Cha Seongbin and I had been right in our judgment.
A clean yet trendy beat.
An addictive main melody.
If not for the public’s pick, there’s no way a boy group song could climb this high on the charts.
Thanks to that, the members’ excitement had hit its peak since debut.
"Let’s slay today’s stage too! Universe Dust, let’s go!"
"We can do it!"
"Waaaaaah!"
It was a schedule so packed we were basically up all night, but running on half-awake adrenaline, we didn’t even feel tired.
Manager Lee Jaeyoon was the same—his eyes were still sparkling even though his dark circles had dropped since yesterday.
"Guys, start getting ready."
"Yeesssir!"
Time to start preparing for the pre-recorded performance.
After finishing our final makeup, we stood up.
That’s when it happened.
Knock knock—someone tapped at the door.
"Hmm?"
"Who could that be?"
There weren’t many juniors around to greet us in the waiting room….
I ran through the rookie names that debuted around the same time—and my face immediately went cold.
Ah.
There was one.
"Hello, sunbaenim!"
Beaming brightly, the one who opened the door and stepped in was Lee Dokyung.