In This Life, The Greatest Star In The Universe

Translator: MarcTempest

Editor: Rxel

Chapter 251

The main scenes from the previous episode flashed by along with the ‘Last time on…’ narration.

It was a considerate gesture for those who couldn’t remember what happened in the weekly drama.

Not that they could understand it anyway.

“What’s going on there…?”

“Hmm. Maybe they somehow time-traveled, something like that.”

“Jiho, is there a summary of the plot online?”

The last thing they saw was a caveman attacking Officer Heo.

They stared blankly at the screen as Lee Kangjin spoke with a serious expression in the ‘Last time on…’ segment.

Junghyun said solemnly, “It looks like a dire situation.”

“Yeah. Let’s just eat some pork feet.”

“And some boiled pork too.”

They laughed and enjoyed their food.

Meanwhile, the drama had officially started on TV.

There were mysterious tunnels that could take you to the past.

And there was a story about chasing a cult that had discovered and used them.

The protagonist was up against a cult that had such a huge influence that they even captured a congressman.

Finally, the protagonist entered the time tunnel, the source of all the trouble.

Swoosh-

The reeds swayed in the wind.

Before entering the tunnel, the protagonist looked back at the reed field with a calm eye.

There was a spot where the grass was flattened as if something had pressed on it.

There was no flashback scene, but they knew what it was.

“Hey! Hey! That’s where I died!”

“…”

“Wow. I must be an important character to the protagonist.”

He broke the immersion with his loud voice.

The faces of Jiho, who was babbling excitedly, and Officer Heo, who was diligent and polite, overlapped and then dispersed.

Bijoo wiped the sauce off his mouth with a tissue and quietly shut him up.

“Mmph! I…”

They turned their eyes back to the TV screen.

The same scenery appeared to the protagonist who had come out of the tunnel.

A reed field.

The only differences were that it was noon and the reeds were growing taller.

And there was no paved road nearby.

The screen was filled with a yellowish hue that looked like it came from a photo of Korea in the 1960s or 70s.

At last, the protagonist had traveled to the past in the seventh episode.

It was probably the prehistoric era where an unknown monster had come from.

“Would there be dinosaurs in the prehistoric era? Dinosaurs.”

“…”

Bijoo stuffed two lettuce leaves into Junghyun’s mouth, who was making an excited expression.

While someone was chewing on the lettuce like a bull, they turned their eyes back to the TV screen.

Swoosh-

The sound of reeds.

As they ate jokbal in silence, feeling the tense atmosphere of the drama, Rihyuk lowered his head and turned up the volume.

Swoosh-

The protagonist looked around. He raised his hand to make a shade in the scorching sun.

He had a clueless expression, not knowing what to do after coming to the past.

His face looked like a lost child, on top of the bleak face of a man.

“He’s really good at acting.”

“Right. His eyes…”

Lee Kangjin, who had been flattering the director as an extra, was alive as Detective Park Cheoljin.

Jiho asked in wonder, “I’ve never seen anyone who’s so different in acting and reality. If the viewers knew, they would lose their immersion.”

“…”

“Why are you guys like that?”

“…”

There was no background music, only the sound of wind and reeds swaying.

Meanwhile, the detective who was wandering aimlessly started to notice some strange things.

‘This place used to be all hills! But the government bulldozed them all to make roads.’

Someone’s voice overlapped.

It was supposed to be a hill if it was the past, but it was the same plain as now.

‘The reeds came later. There was nothing before.’

There was a reed field.

The protagonist got a bad clue, and the viewers were getting closer to the truth.

Park Cheoljin stumbled.

-…

He was walking aimlessly and stepped on a pebble.

He almost fell and tried to tie his loose shoelace.

There was something hard exposed.

It looked like a steel column with a metal structure.

The protagonist tilted his head and brushed off the dirt on it. As if denying something.

‘We weren’t a cult before. We were normal.’

‘I don’t know why he went crazy. He lost his mind saying ‘I can’t change it.’

‘He was desperate to revive his daughter…’

A green steel plate appeared.

When the protagonist brushed off all the dirt, all the sound stopped for a moment.

There was a word on the rusty steel plate. With a familiar arrow, it said ‘Oseong District Office’.

All the clues that had been there so far, the primitive people, the Joseon arrows, etc., were revealed where they came from.

They were not tunnels to the past, but to the future.

It was not the Stone Age or the Joseon Era.

What looked like a Joseon arrow was the civilization that the future humans had achieved after the destruction.

‘Slip’ was not about going back to the past, but about the post-apocalyptic humans who had ‘time slipped’ to the Stone Age.

And judging by the rust on the sign, the moment of destruction was not far from the present.

The voice of the scientist overlapped.

-In theory, it’s possible to go to the future, but the past… It’s impossible to go back to the past.

The protagonist collapsed.

-…

They dropped the jokbal.

Then Park Cheoljin cried endlessly.

It was the first time the protagonist showed his emotions in the drama.

There was no flashback scene, but Jiho told them the story he searched on the internet.

The protagonist had a hope that he could change the past with the clue of time travel.

His parents who died in a fire when he was young, his orphanage friends who died tragically, his young son who died of medical expenses and his wife who followed him. And the police officer whose name he barely knew.

The drama told the protagonist.

He couldn’t go back to the past.

The guilt that he tried to escape from choked him more.

“…”

Woojoo felt a strange feeling.

He used to think like that a lot when he was young.

“But our song isn’t playing?”

“Is this really the end? What is this?”

The words ‘S L I P’ appeared in reverse as usual, as the siblings said, “…What?”

Woojoo tilted his head.

“The Director said he would be on today, so watch it… Huh?”

“What? Our song is playing?”

Their song, which had never been shown in the seventh episode, was playing after the drama ended.

Normally, the staff roll would have come out and ended here.

Woojoo heard a gentle acoustic guitar riff.

“…?”

And then the screen that had been blacked out started to change as if it was rewinding.

It started with the title that had just ended, ‘S L I P’, flowing out again.

It was really rewinding?

As the intro played, Park Cheoljin, who was heading back to the tunnel, moved as if he was backpedaling.

The speed gradually increased, and the content of episode 7 was skipped in a few seconds, and time flowed back to the past, and further back.

During that time, their song <A Poem About Yesterday> was playing as the background music.

Can we leave a little slower

Before today fades away as a sunset

Rihyuk’s voice softly moistened the ears.

The lyrics that said he wanted to stay in the past while time was heading to the future combined with the flashback scenes.

Park Cheoljin, who had been expressionless like a stone throughout episode 7, smiled and lived in the past.

“Wow…”

The natural transition to the past and the subtle change of colors each time.

The lyrics they wrote and the past scenes fit together like a puzzle.

Director Kang’s voice, who said ‘It seems like the Director got a kick out of your song’, passed through Woojoo’s brain.

Finally, with a picture of the young protagonist and his parents smiling brightly in front of the photographer, episode 7 of S L I P came to an end.

“…”

They looked at each other with wide-eyed faces.

“I didn’t expect it to be this impactful…”

It was a time to be surprised, as they only heard that it would be in an important scene.

“Hey, Hyung…”

Jiho looked at his smartphone and said to them with a surprised face, “Our song is going crazy.”

With 13.3 percent, it set a new record for its own ratings.

With the evaluation that it had achieved a ‘huge hit’ as a genre piece, and even created a large number of maniacs, episode 7 of S L I P received tremendous praise.

-[YesterdayTV] ‘S L I P’, soaring ratings with bigger scale

-‘S L I P’, shocking twist that the caveman turned out to be ‘humanity after the apocalypse’

-‘S L I P’ surprises viewers with a stunning twist

Episode 7 was over, but its impact was enormous.

Portal comment sections and various communities were talking about S L I P for more than three hours after the broadcast.

-The twist was awesome, I never thought of it ㄷㄷ

-I got goosebumps when the sign came outㅋㅋㅋㅋ It felt like I got hit in the back of the head;;

-Goosebumps;

-But it’s not a special twistㅋㅋ It’s a common twist in movies like Mids or Planet of the Apes, so it’s not surprising

-Go live in America then

-Goosebumps are all you have, what

-Slip fans are already making a fussㅋㅋㅋ I’ve never seen a drama with so many extreme fans

-The drama is subtly cliché. It’s also using Officer Heo as a tool character

As the drama became a huge success, fans and antis fought every episode, but there was a common opinion.

It was the last ending.

-The last production was awesome

-I hope the clip comes up soon

-The production of disappearing one by one like acting was awesome

-I cried while watchingㅠㅠㅠㅠㅠ Cheoljin-nimㅠㅠㅠㅠ

-I was just watching along with the trend, but this ending was awesome ㅋㅋㅋ

-But the song was good, who’s song is it?? It sounded familiar

-Me too curiousㅋㅋㅋ

-I thought it would be awesome from the first verse

As the legendary ending of episode 7 became a topic, interest in the song also increased.

The keyword S L I P OST started to appear on the popular search terms of music sites, and entertainment reporters also wrote articles in a hurry.

The idol community also had a similar reaction.

-Hey, I found the article! I found it!!! It’s New Black’s ‘A Poem About Yesterday’.

-New Black?

-Again New Black?

-Again Black;;

-ㅋㅋㅋㅋ I thought it was their voice as soon as I heard it, awesome

-They do everything… They might take over the chart

-Are they the bullfrogs of the music industry

The heat of ‘Deoksoon-ah’ was still on the music chart.

It was not surprising that a hit drama with a 13 percent viewership rating would have its OST added to the chart.

The OST of Fox Bead, the most popular drama right now, was also staying within the top 10.

But it had been a long time since an OST of a genre piece entered the chart.

Genre pieces, which relied on story, acting, and directing, had different appeal points for the public.

It was an unusual situation in many ways.

‘It will drop in a few days.’

Most people thought that.

The OST of a genre piece that was briefly hot would soon fall off.

But ‘A Poem About Yesterday’ did not decline.

Rather, it climbed up from the rank it first entered as the days went by.

At first, it was the streaming and downloads of the drama fans that worked, but it was a proof that the song was also catching on with the general public who heard it.

-The song is so good

-It has a subtle sad vibe, but it’s addictive like a balladㅋㅋㅋ

-But there are three songs by New Black in the top 10ㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋ This is legendary

-And behind that, there’s one more track by Something and Flower Somethingㅇㅇ

A boy group that was called a ‘rookie idol’ a few months ago had five songs in the top 100.

The insiders were also stunned by the unprecedented situation.

“Hey, have you heard that song about yesterday lately?”

“A Poem About Yesterday? How can you not know that?”

"You really made a great song…"

It was a gathering of composers.

"New Black is all the rage these days. How many of their songs are on the chart? At least five, right?"

"I saw them lining up the top-tier artists with their streaming, but filling the chart with public picks…"

"I've never seen anything like this in my 10 years of composing. Really."

"I'm going to produce a rookie boy group this time, and they told me to avoid New Black's schedule and set the comeback date accordingly."

The conversation flowed from here and there.

"I should have sent something for the next New Black song contest. Maybe I could have made some connections."

"What's the point of being friendly now? They only work with famous people these days."

"But overall, Woojoo caused a lot of false hopes for the agencies. They had too many requests for songwriting lessons for the trainees."

Others started to share their similar stories.

"But does that mean they can grow from that?"

"They don't understand no matter how much I explain that he's special."

"I know. I've been in this business for 10 years, but I've never seen anyone like him. He hits the jackpot every time, while others barely do it once in a few years."

"I'd love to meet him once. I'm curious what kind of person he is."

"Me too. I wonder how he works. I wish I could watch and learn from him."

They all agreed that they would participate in the next New Black song contest.

Someone called out to the one who was silently drinking.

"Right. Pilgeun, you went to Lemon, right? You're close with New Black's Woojoo, right?"

"Uh…"

Everyone looked expectantly at Seo Pilgeun, the deputy of the A&R Team, who had a sad face for some reason.

"How is he? How does he work normally?"

"He's amazing."

Seo Pilgeun looked at the air with a sad expression.

"When I work with him, I feel amazed, but also crazy and like jumping around, and I want to leave, and I'm hungry…"

He muttered to himself like a drunkard, making the other composers tilt their heads.

"Is he okay?"

"He doesn't look good."

"Someone must be giving him a lot of stress at work. But I envy him. I wish I could work with someone like that…"

The composers fantasized about the leader of New Black, unaware of someone's bursting speed.

When Seo Pilgeun was silent and only drinking.

Someone who was looking at his phone asked the other composers.

"Hey. What about this ‘A Poem About Yesterday'? The trend is a bit weird, isn't it?"

* * *

"You're the first-place candidate on Music On."

"……"

The inevitable happened as he said it was weird.

That was the first thing he heard when he visited the Management Team's office.

"……"

Silence.

After staring blankly for a while, Bijoo raised his hand and asked, "Manager, you mean we're competing with ourselves?"

"Yes."

Woojoo asked in confusion, “Hyung, you’re not going to say something like ‘life is a fight with yourself’, are you?”

“You know me better than that. I wouldn’t say such a cheesy thing.”

“…”

Woojoo coughed awkwardly as he felt the sting of his words, and their younger siblings laughed and said he was the best manager ever.

Seokhwan Hyung explained, “Your OST ‘A Poem About Yesterday’ is a candidate for number one next week. Along with Windflower.”

“…!”

Woojoo had a rough idea, but he was still surprised to hear it. The song, nicknamed ‘A Poem About Yesterday’, was currently at number two on the chart.

And the gap with number one wasn’t that big.

If Windflower was like Rihyuk, who ran away screaming, then A Poem About Yesterday was like Junghyun, who tried to catch up with him.

Oh, this way, he would be caught for sure.

Woojoo had to think the opposite.

Junghyun, who broke the vacuum cleaner and ran away, and Rihyuk, who chased him with a broom.

“What a strange situation. Our competitor is ourselves… It really is a fight with ourselves.”

Jiho looked bewildered, and so did they.

Bijoo asked, “Hyung, what should we say?”

“First, let’s decide this, guys. What kind of reaction should we show when we get number one?”

“Do we have to stand separately on stage too?”

“Then, since Woojoo Hyung composed the song, he should stand in the center, and the rest of us should split into two groups on each side. How about that?”

As Seokhwan Hyung smiled and looked at them, the younger ones talked excitedly.

Woojoo was both happy and confused.

They were candidates for number one on the music show, and no matter who won, they would be number one.

And both songs were composed by Woojoo.

It was a situation that Woojoo couldn’t help but be happy about, but somehow he couldn’t shake off the confusion.

It was complicated, as the younger ones said.

Should he be happy or sorry when they get number one?

How should they stand when they were on stage?

As they continued to worry with serious expressions, Jiho asked the most important question.

“First, let’s decide what to do at the broadcasting station.”

Yeouido. PBS Broadcasting Station.

“Wow!”

Today, Friday, the boy group ‘Iris’ who debuted with ‘Music On’ looked at the entrance with wide eyes.

Cameras everywhere beyond the long fence like a red carpet.

Fans all around.

“Hello! We are Iris!”

As they greeted them loudly here and there, the cameras that clicked with a ‘who are they?’ expression stopped.

“Wow!”

A rookie idol group that was amazed by everything.

“It’s amazing!”

They were standing on the Music On entrance! They admired themselves as they posed awkwardly at the photo zone.

“Kyaaa!”

The crowd grew louder with a scream. As the camera shutter sound became busy and the reporters turned their heads, they stopped and made a fuss.

“Heh, it’s New Black. New Black.”

“Wow, they’re New Black seniors.”

They were a senior group that was rumored to be the trend idol these days.

As the five men with picture-like beauty walked, screams erupted everywhere.

Unlike them, who were clumsy, they waved their hands skillfully and made them admire them.

How can they look so cool even in casual clothes?

“Woojoo Sunbae-nim is so handsome in real life…?”

“It’s amazing.”

“That floral shirt is so pretty… Should I buy one too?”

Woojoo’s Hawaiian shirt looked plausible even for a rookie idol.

The Hawaiian shirt with red flowers was a strong color item that was hard to dare, but his face was winning.

“Guys, let’s go.”

After staring at New Black for a while, they followed the manager inside.

“Hyung, I need to go to the bathroom.”

“Do you know where it is?”

“Yes. I saw it earlier.”

“Don’t go alone and go with the others.”

As someone who was nervous before the dry rehearsal said he was going to the bathroom, all seven members followed him.

Iris walked timidly, their hair dyed in the seven colors of the rainbow.

‘I’m scared…’

The staff members they met in the hallway looked so tense, their expressions were frightening.

“Hello!”

They greeted them loudly, but they only frowned and didn’t respond.

They swallowed their discomfort and headed to the bathroom.

“Hey, hey! Move!”

A male staff carrying a full box pushed them aside as he walked by.

Thud!

One of their members fell down.

“Hey, you. Don’t you look where you’re going?”

The staff walked away, annoyed, while they apologized to him.

‘Sorry.’

The fallen member looked startled at first, then his face crumpled.

“Are you okay?”

A white hand reached out to him.

He turned his head to see who was offering him a hand with a gentle voice.

“Gasp!”

It was Jiho from New Black, smiling calmly at him.