Chapter 112

The fans’ cheers grew more and more excited.

At last, Gowon pulled the soaked T-shirt over his head and off.

Perfectly broad shoulders. Firm, defined muscle. Completely erasing the image that had still carried traces of a boy’s immaturity, Gowon stood onstage wearing nothing but black jeans.

“What? What did they say his name was?”

“Are shoulders and a back like that even possible? I thought he was an idol?”

“That’s insane. What the hell is that physique?”

“Physically, he wipes the floor with everyone from the Seoul show.”

The effect of his unexpected move sent a wave of commotion spreading all the way to the back.

At the same time, Gowon’s staff standing backstage dropped their jaws.

No.

No... Gowon?

This was never part of the plan...!

As the intro to <Unlimited> began, the energy in the plaza multiplied several times over.

Splash Night’s main lineup was heavily concentrated after sunset, while the daytime stages generally featured singers known for relatively safe performances.

Gowon had debuted only half a year ago. Naturally, the Splash Night organizers had assumed that, as a rookie from a major agency, he would play things extremely safe.

That was why they had put him in an early slot.

And Gowon really hadn’t planned on taking anything off....

His staff were certainly proud not only of their artist’s face but also of his striking proportions.

But with his personality, what possessed him?!

“...I thought this during the Garden shoot too, but... Gowon’s really been hitting his stride lately....”

Maybe seeing K-Dom’s living legend Cha Yensu up close had taught him something. Gowon had gotten better at using his facial expressions and at emphasizing the advantages of his tall frame.

—Unlimited.

...They knew perfectly well that this was the same singer they managed, the one who had been shy and tense only minutes earlier.

And yet.

“Wow....”

Watching water drip from his chin and run down his upper body, catching the sunlight as it went, drew an involuntary sound of admiration.

<Unlimited>, a song about yearning for the very top, had been elevated by a new determination Gowon had honed since his debut.

—Splash Night, let’s keep jumping.

That calm delivery, like a priest reading scripture, was unmistakably Gowon.

But where had the model student of the idol world gone—the Gowon who performed every last piece of choreography even on encore stages without relaxing for a second?

Who was this young man sprinting out onto the extended stage, reshaping the choreography into freestyle to match the atmosphere, and sending ecstatic screams erupting in every direction?

Watching the sheer twenty-year-old audacity that was creating a phenomenon Splash Night had never seen before, every member of the staff had the exact same thought.

The prince is acting out.

“...We should’ve planted at least one company employee under the stage to film a fancam.”

“Y-Yeah. We should’ve put up a drone or something.”

They were dumbfounded.

But at the same time, every one of them was certain.

Miracle Label had just gained another stroke of good fortune.

***

A few hours later.

“Hanje, looks like your junior really did something today.”

“Huh?”

Someone haunting K-Dom like a company ghost even on the weekend looked at the screen one of his older group members held out.

“Oh, right. Splash Night was today. That kid probably did fine like always.”

A moment later.

“...Well, look at you?”

His brows drew together.

“Huh?”

Then his eyes widened in horror.

“No, what—what is this little brat doing?! This punk, he’s twenty years old and he’s out there stripping his clothes off in public like that, huh?! Call Gangneung and tell them to stop him right now!”

“Your junior’s bigger than you, so what do you mean, ‘little brat’...? And the event ended ages ago. What exactly are they supposed to stop now?”

There was one more person who had been just as shocked by Gowon’s stage as the staff on-site.

[Chorus 2]

“Hmm.”

“.......”

“I don’t know whether it’s right for me to interfere with a stage an artist chose to direct on his own initiative.”

Kwon Taeyoung tapped his chin while looking at the kid sitting in front of him with his head hanging low, his face bright red, and struggled to suppress a smile.

Gowon was also the kind of singer who was strikingly different onstage and off.

His present plain awkwardness disappeared so completely under the lights that it was hard to believe it had ever existed. And this time, he had even shown a transformation startling enough to catch everyone off guard.

It could certainly be seen as proof of how passionate he was about his performances.

“Anyway, next time you’re going to do something drastic, I’d appreciate it if you gave the company at least some warning first.”

“...Yes. I’m sorry.”

“No. I’m not saying you did anything wrong. For now, it’s just a recommendation. What agency would stop an artist from getting swept up in his own stage? And frankly, the results this time were excellent.”

Just as Kwon Taeyoung said, Gowon’s surprise shirtless performance at Splash Night had produced countless fancams.

Those videos circulated across every kind of social media platform, spreading Gowon’s name.

Splash Night Goddess, Splash Night Overlord—people had given all kinds of nicknames to performers who had left legendary stages behind.

And this time, the title attached to Gowon was:

🔍 Splash Night Elf │

Gowon could not bring himself to look at the monitor even once while his video list was displayed on it.

The Gangneung Splash Night venue had been set in a place with a magnificent mountain range stretching across the background.

Several close-up videos of his bare upper body with those mountains behind him had somehow created the atmosphere of an elf living in the mountains.

Since they were all fragmented clips filmed by individual audience members, none of them had recorded truly enormous view counts on its own.

But the sheer number of reedited videos uploaded to YouTube and social media, along with the volume of mentions across online communities, proved how much attention he had drawn.

“Our Gowon already picked up Merry Christmas Guy and Splash Night Elf, so now we just need one spring version and one fall version. Then he’ll get invited to events all four seasons of the year... Okay. I’ll stop teasing.”

Chief Manager Park belatedly waved his hands when Gowon gave him a resentful look.

Whatever the case, becoming a hot topic was usually a good thing for a celebrity.

And judged purely by results, this incident had unquestionably been a major positive for Gowon.

Is it seriously true that the Splash Night Elf appeared exactly once and that was it?

My summer is still in Gangneung.

Autumn will never come.

I don’t care where. Please hold Splash Night again and summon the elf.

Comments

Why the hell did the organizers only invite Gowon to Gangneung?ㅠㅠ

↳ He was a last-minute addition to Gangneung too lol. Nobody expected it to blow up this hard...

↳ Gangneung was Korea’s last Splash Night date, so the organizers are probably the ones crying hardest lol

Seriously, if this had blown up in Seoul, they would’ve dragged him through Daejeon, Busan, Jeju, everywhere ㅠ

Just as they said, Splash Night, having failed to properly capitalize on the elf’s fame, was already practically begging Gowon to perform at next year’s Seoul event.

It was a dramatically different attitude from the casual way they had tossed him an offer to fill a hole in the Gangneung lineup.

The ripple effect of the event also caused appearance requests for Gowon from all kinds of YouTube channels and variety shows to skyrocket.

“There are enough that we actually have to pick and choose now. Gowon, is there anything here you especially want to do? Walking around a market doing a food show. You’d probably be good at something like that.”

Chief Manager Park closed the search window and opened the file, finally allowing Gowon to look at the monitor again.

Gowon scanned the list of offers he had received, then raised his head.

“I’ll do pretty much all of them.”

“Some of these are mostly guest talk. You’re okay with that?”

“Yes. I’ll practice a lot.”

No one could ever know where or when a so-called “viral video” would happen.

A casual remark someone tossed out without thinking could become the greatest meme of the year, while a video someone poured their entire body and soul into might fail to reach even ten thousand views.

Splash Night had been the same.

Gowon had worked hard because he wanted to attract attention, but he had never imagined that the clip of him turning his head with the mountains in the background would become the biggest hit.

In fact, the most talked-about community post to come out of Splash Night had not even been a fan’s reaction.

It had been written by someone who knew absolutely nothing about Gowon.

What’s Splash Night Elf’s full name?

I know his name is Gowon

but I can’t find his last name

Comments (999+)

Choi Gowon

↳ (OP) Oh that’s pretty, sounds like number one

Lee Gowon lol

↳ (OP) ??

Go Gowon

↳ (OP) ㅡㅡ Okay, I KNOW this one is making fun of me

↳↳ LMAOOO but this is basically the closest answer here

Guys stop messing around, this is meanㅠ Let’s tell them properly. His real name is Maeng Gowon. He’s about to shoot a mango commercial, that’s why he appeared at Splash Night as promo

↳ LMAOOOO are you insaneㅋㅋㅋ Gowon I’m sorry, I lost it hereㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋ

Gyeong Gowon. Emergency One

↳ No, no, it’s Shin Gowon. Report One

The post became so famous that word of it eventually reached Boggle, which meant even Gowon found out.

He had talked and laughed about it with fans during a livestream after Splash Night.

—I laughed a lot reading that too. Uh... which one did I think was funniest? “Bong Gowon” made Chief Manager Park burst out laughing, and “Won Gowon” was funny too. I really don’t mind, so One and Only can just call me whichever one you think is funniest.

That surname came from a father who might as well not have existed anyway.

Naturally, he kept that darker thought to himself and continued chatting cheerfully with the fans.

His quick thinking in spontaneous situations had improved since Splash Night, and his livestreaming skills had grown substantially compared to the awkward beginning.

In any case, virality was an utterly unpredictable realm, so Gowon intended to pursue as many opportunities as possible.

Gowon’s team found the rookie singer’s enthusiasm admirable and showered him with praise.

...He felt a little bad for them, because something else entirely occupied his mind.

I want to win my bet with Hanje.

He still had not decided what wish he wanted to ask Baek Hanje to grant.

But that strange pounding that never stopped whenever he thought of Hanje made him desperately want that wish ticket.

“Gowon, if you’re heading home, want a ride?”

By now, everyone called the place where Gowon was staying “home.”

That sent a strange ripple through him.

It felt almost like stray bits of fluff were drifting around under his clothes, making his skin tickle. The warmth rising from it resembled the warmth that surfaced whenever he thought of Baek Hanje.

Gowon soon shook his head.

“Since I’m already at the company, I’ll use the practice room a little longer before I go.”

“You’re practicing again?”

“Good grief, at this rate our Gowon’s going to win both a Rookie Award and the grand prize at the year-end ceremonies.”

“That’s a little... No.”

“We’ll make sure to vote every single day, at least.”

“Thank you, Gowon fans. I’ll keep working hard.”

Gowon flinched after instinctively blurting out the greeting and fan service he had learned on <Debut Chart>.

The program still felt as vivid as something that had happened only a few days ago, rather than two years earlier.

Fortunately, the staff simply took it as another sign that Gowon had gotten unexpectedly smooth lately and burst into laughter. They assumed his ears had gone bright red because he was embarrassed after saying something so shameless himself.

“People from survival shows really are different. Everyone here already has him as their pick, and he’s still trying not to lose a single one.”

“Our Gowon’s seriously going to become a superstar. I’m definitely seeing him win the grand prize before I take early retirement.”

“Yes. Y-Yes....”

Hands reached in from every direction. Gowon ended up hunched over as he was thoroughly petted, patted, and fussed over before finally making his way to the practice room.

As he moved his body, Gowon thought.

Everyone who had worked with Young Ace had at least ten years of hands-on industry experience.

Just from their reactions alone, it was obvious that Gowon was the most inexperienced person in this company.

Recently, his desire to move forward had condensed itself into a single sentence.

I want to become an adult.

Not merely an adult because enough years had passed, but someone who had grown into a complete person.

Baek Hanje had joined the survival show at seventeen, yet he had been so capable in every respect that most of the time he had hardly seemed younger than anyone.

Of course, sometimes he really did act like a kid, but I think that’s just Hanje being the youngest member of his group....

Aside from that, whether he was fighting his way through one stage after another or filming a promotional video under terrible conditions....

“.......”

Gowon’s train of thought stopped dead.

A memory from filming the promotional video for <Debut Chart> flashed through his mind.

The staff had wanted to make the video more [N O V E L I G H T] attention-grabbing, so they had instructed the two of them to stage an intentionally suggestive moment.

“High-five here, then keep the momentum going and pull each other into a big hug!”