Chapter 1192: Extremes (3)

"Ri Hyuk."

"What?"

"This plane... it is safe, right?"

"I'll hold your hand."

"Thanks."

While the plane prepared for takeoff, Ri Hyuk's small hand settled over my right one.

Then I felt Jiho's hand come down on my left.

Vrrrrrrrrrrr—

As the engines roared to life, my heart rate shot up, and cold sweat began beading beneath my outdoor jacket.

Maybe it was because the interior looked so different from a regular passenger plane, or maybe it was because I'd heard the air currents were unstable.

From the seat behind me, Junghyun hummed a lullaby.

"Sleep, sleep... eat black bean noodles."

"Hey."

I burst out laughing despite myself.

When I turned around, Junghyun grinned and gave me a thumbs-up.

"But it took all the tension out of you, right?"

"Yeah."

"Good job, huh? Hehe."

"Yeah."

I chuckled and turned back around.

It was true that he'd helped calm the nerves that had been wound tight.

I still squeezed my eyes shut again as we prepared for takeoff, but thanks to the younger members taking care of me, I was able to settle down safely aboard the plane bound for Antarctica.

"Phew...."

I closed my eyes and took deep breaths for a while.

How much time had passed?

"Wooooow...."

Jiho, sitting beside me, made a fuss and pointed out the window.

"Hyung. It's Antarctica!"

"Already?"

I looked out the window and gasped.

A land like pure white clouds stretched out....

Wait.

"Those are clouds, Jiho."

"Oh? You're right."

Thank goodness he'd said it in Korean.

If he'd said it in English, everyone nearby would have been snickering like the penguin doctor who was currently trying to hold back his laughter.

But not long afterward, when the Antarctic continent truly came into view....

"Wooooooow—"

That time, all of us pressed our faces so close to the windows that our noses nearly touched the glass.

Even the director filming with a handheld camera and Producer Gu Jaeyoung stared blankly at the sight before them.

"So this is Antarctica...."

A vast white land of ice spread out beneath us.

A dull gray sea.

Except for the occasional patches of exposed black earth, the entire continent stretched magnificently before us, blanketed in snow and ice.

"I was a little worried, actually."

Biju's voice reached my ear.

"I wondered if seeing so many glaciers in Alaska would keep me from being impressed, but I worried for nothing."

"...It really is different."

This was on an entirely different scale from what we'd seen in Alaska.

You could truly feel that this was an unknown land untouched by human feet for an unfathomably long time.

Just looking at it made me understand why countless explorers had risked their lives to come here.

"It really is an unknown continent."

"A land of snow and ice...."

As we murmured those thoughts with our limited vocabulary, someone spoke up.

"And a land of penguins, too. Hehehehe!"

"...."

"Antarctica is the kingdom of penguins, home to no fewer than twenty million of them, and a dreamlike continent with the largest penguin population on Earth."

Dr. Paeng Gwiin beamed contentedly, practically spraying spit from his beak—no, his mouth.

Then he asked us a question.

"By the way, did everyone bring sunglasses?"

"Yes."

"UV rays are especially strong in Antarctica. On top of that, the snow reflects an enormous amount of sunlight. First-time visitors like you should really wear sunglasses while you're outside...."

His gaze came to rest on me.

"Wooju?"

"Yes?"

"Are you... planning to wear those?"

"Yes."

I put on my sunglasses.

"Do they look strange?"

"...."

While the doctor fell silent, I felt everyone around me staring.

Not only my underlings, but the other passengers were looking at me too.

"??"

What was wrong?

Korea.

In an office in Cheongdam-dong, a group of women organizing clothes on racks packed to capacity let out a sigh.

"Phew."

One of them wiped away her sweat.

"Wow. Getting too many sponsorship offers is work in itself."

"Seriously. It's a problem when none come in, but it's also a problem when too many come in. Either way, it's a problem."

They were NewBlack's stylists, employed by Lemon Entertainment.

The spacious office was filled with all sorts of outfits related to NewBlack.

From concert costumes to casual event wear.

"Not long ago, even after we said we weren't accepting sponsorships, a company just dropped off clothes anyway. They asked us to at least look at them once."

"And that wasn't the only one...."

Was it because, true to the meaning behind the name The New Black, they stood at the forefront of celebrities who set trends?

Fashion industry insiders were doing everything they could to establish some kind of connection with NewBlack.

As a result, the wardrobe team was being harassed from all sides.

They would go out thinking they were just having drinks with a friend, only to be asked for a favor, or have someone show up at the office and stage a sit-in.

"By the way, did the boys leave for Antarctica?"

"They've probably arrived by now."

"I heard the airport was absolute chaos. Just looking at the pictures made me feel suffocated. And there were so many stalker fans...."

Then someone asked,

"Speaking of Antarctica, is nobody going with them this time? Is Wonseok going?"

"I don't think any of the managers went. Apparently there's a limit on how many people can enter Antarctica."

"Well, the boys manage just fine on their own even without managers."

Weren't they the singers who had practically built their own village in Alaska on the recently concluded hit show NewBlack's Travel Diary?

There was no need to worry much, no matter where they were dropped.

Especially since Wooju was there....

"Wait."

The styling team leader looked at the staff.

Ever since NewBlack's leader had stamped the pledge he'd presented to his underlings, they had been given another duty.

"Who managed Wooju's casual clothes for Antarctica this time? Jiyeon?"

"Yes. Me."

"You checked everything thoroughly, right?"

"Yes. I removed all the weird clothes. I checked almost everything. Things like jewelry and accessories, though...."

Her voice trailed off, and the team leader narrowed her eyes.

"What?"

"Oh, I didn't check things like sunglasses, but surely sunglasses would be fine...."

"...."

"They wouldn't be fine, would they?"

An anxious silence settled over them.

Ding-dong—

A notification appeared from the @dnwn_sun account, which had tens of millions of followers, and they all swallowed hard.

A selfie of Sun Wooju after arriving in Antarctica.

Screams and groans erupted immediately.

"Oh, no...."

"Damn it."

"Why would he wear such bizarre vintage sunglasses...?"

They looked like cheap paper 3D glasses with red and blue cellophane pasted over the lenses.

But what truly infuriated the stylists was Sun Wooju's face.

Why does he have to be handsome in them?!

Once that face was paired with sunglasses that should have looked completely ridiculous, the result somehow seemed plausible.

They were strange enough to draw the eye, yet somehow suited him at the same time.

It gave off an avant-garde impression, as though he had gotten an early glimpse of fashion from ten years in the future.

"You know what, though? The casual clothes Wooju wears tend to become fashionable a few years later."

"Don't say something so ominous."

"Yes, ma'am."

"Can't you see the Koreans making fun of him?"

The Korean comments were visible below.

-The styling team couldn't accompany them???

-Human freedom is a natural right bestowed by heaven. But couldn't we take just a little of it away from this boy?

-Please don't let this become fashionable in a few years

-Look at the members cursing him with their eyes in the background hahahahaha

-Our hyung, embarrassing wherever we take him???

Up to that point, the stylists nodded in agreement, thinking, Exactly. That's right.

The problem was the foreigners' reactions.

-What incredible fashion!

-Whenever I see his fashion, I want to copy it

-It looks like a magazine shoot (crying) (crying)

-I really love Sunny's fashion world. There's a reason he was named the Met Gala's greatest fashion icon

The stylists felt their blood pressure rise.

Jimmy Robbins of LeBlanc made that for him!!!!

That's not the same thing!

Was it because Wooju had made such a spectacular debut at the Met Gala?

The foreign netizens praising Sun Wooju as a fashion icon drove them insane.

The mood was something like this:

-The world's greatest fashion designer, Jimmy Robbins, chose him as his muse, and the world's top fashion editors all praised him as a fashion icon ahead of his time! So there must be something to it, right?

It clearly looked strange, but because the media kept brainwashing everyone into believing Sun Wooju was a fashion icon, people began to think their own eyes must be wrong.

"No... ah...."

"Ah...."

"Ah, I want to argue so badly, but I can't speak English...!"

As the stylists clutched at their hair, someone delivered news from an account she followed.

"Jimmy Robbins just updated his Instagram Story."

"It's about Wooju, right?"

"Yes."

He was the genius designer who had turned LeBlanc into the world's greatest brand, an unparalleled prodigy admired by everyone in the fashion industry.

...How did someone like that end up getting wrapped around our boy's finger...?

Good grief. How did such an incredible man end up like this?

As everyone sighed, the Instagram Story appeared.

It was a video admiring Wooju's sunglasses, decorated with emojis.

[The coolest sunglasses I've seen lately!]

While the team leader massaged her aching eyelids, one of the stylists muttered,

"I think those are going to appear in LeBlanc's show at this year's spring and summer fashion week."

"But the sunglasses they release then will be redesigned to look incredibly stylish and sophisticated. Nothing like the ones Wooju wore."

"And Jimmy Robbins will praise his muse for inspiring him in an interview, and the fashion magazines will all rush to cover it."

"And that will perpetuate the vicious cycle of more people around the world being brainwashed into thinking Sun Wooju is a fashion icon...."

As they spoke, the stylists grabbed their hair and screamed, "Aaaaargh!"

It was a good thing, yet somehow it still made them angry.

"This might just be my opinion, but...."

"Yeah?"

"At this point, isn't it possible that we're the ones who don't recognize Wooju's true genius?"

Someone presented evidence.

"Remember when Wooju used to wear cropped padded jackets and we asked why he always wore those? But these days, everyone wears them...."

"Come to think of it, in old photos, he was rolling up his pants before anyone else did."

"...."

"...."

They thought back to the casual outfit Sun Wooju had recently tried to wear.

That strange outfit was so oversized that everyone had burst out laughing, saying the clothes looked ready to slide right off him.

The colors had been a little strange, but from a fashion perspective, perhaps it hadn't been that bad.

Did that mean the casual clothes Sun Wooju wore now would become fashionable five years later, just as the clothes he'd worn in 2014 had become fashionable today?

"Let's stop there. If that's actually true, I think I'll have an existential crisis."

"Me too."

"It can't be. There's no way...."

"Conan or Kindaichi said it, didn't they? The truth is best left buried in a maze."

The stylists shook their heads and looked away.

For some reason, they felt as though they could hear gleeful laughter drifting from somewhere to the south.

My sunglasses were confiscated.

"Why...?!"

"They're confiscated."

Junghyun held down both my protesting arms while Ri Hyuk pulled up an electronic document and showed it to me.

"Under Article Seventeen, Clause One of the Treaty on the Protection of NewBlack's Image and World Fashion, we will now collect this piece of waste."

"Urgh!"

"See? Your fingerprint is stamped right here."

"You fools... You know nothing about the world of fashion!"

My distinctive sunglasses were confiscated, and I was ultimately issued an unbearably ordinary pair.

Meanwhile, I could feel people around us watching as though they had discovered something fascinating.

We waved at them.

"Wooooooow—!"

The personnel who had come to greet us from the various research stations answered with cheers.

Because our filming schedule was tight, we didn't get to speak with them, but most of them were looking at us with fascination.

Then a group of Koreans in red padded jackets approached.

"Goodness! You're here! Hahaha!"

"Hello!"

They had come from the King Sejong Station to meet us.

We followed them along with the production team as they exchanged greetings with Dr. Paeng Gwiin.

Dr. Paeng explained,

"You'll need to take a boat to reach the station. We'll be using these inflatable boats."

"Okay."

"Please make sure you wear your life-saving equipment properly. Penguins might survive in Antarctic waters, but humans cannot. Haha!"

Soon, the inflatable boat set off.

Vroooooom—

"Whoa... whoaaaa...."

I held Ri Hyuk's hand as he clutched the boat's handle with a pale face.

Over the roar of the engine, one of the station personnel shouted loudly.

"Can you see the glacier over there?!"

"What?! Uh?! Yes!! I see it!!!"

The wind stung my face, and it was hard to focus while the inflatable boat pitched up and down, but even so, the enormous glacier caught my eye.

It was so massive that the glaciers we'd seen in Alaska couldn't compare.

"Wooooow...."

But as the saying went, humans were creatures of adaptation. After the same sort of scenery repeated a few times, our eyes adjusted.

And so, at last, we arrived at the King Sejong Station.

Beyond a beach covered in black soil and gravel, the station came into view, made up of orange, container-like buildings stacked neatly together.

"We've arrived!"

So this was the King Sejong Station in Antarctica.

While we marveled at how much larger it was than expected, Ri Hyuk lifted a hand to his face, deeply moved.

"I can't believe I'm here...."

He seemed overwhelmed by the fact that he'd come to a place where scientific research was conducted.

The first place the station personnel took us was Sejong Hall, where everyone was said to be waiting.

It was the largest building here.

"The floor is slippery when you come in, so please be careful."

"Okay."

We shook the dirt and snow from our insulated boots before entering.

"Oh."

For some reason, it reminded me of a village community center.

When we filmed My Hometown Today, some rural villages had boasted cutting-edge community centers, and the interior of Antarctica's King Sejong Station looked exactly like that.

Perhaps it was the wooden flooring, but it felt familiar.

Dr. Paeng gestured.

"You must be hungry. We'll take you to the dining hall first."

We were already starving, so we entered the hall with delighted expressions.

Pop—!

A party popper went off, and people greeted us with a roar of cheers.

"Hello!"

"Hello—!"

We smiled brightly and bowed our heads.

Hearing Korean amid the lively laughter and warmth of the people felt... incredibly cozy and reassuring.

It was probably because we'd spent the last several hours staring at nothing but snow and glaciers.

Dr. Paeng took charge of the mood like an emcee.

"All right, everyone, please introduce yourselves one by one!"

"Yes, hello. I'm...."

As the station leader, researchers, cooks, and other support personnel each introduced themselves, we committed their names to memory.

Dr. Paeng said,

"Shall we eat first?"

"Yes!"

"You can serve yourselves rice from the rice cooker, and take whichever side dishes you like. Does anyone want soup or broth?"

"Me."

Junghyun raised his hand, and the doctor pointed toward a shelf.

"We have stacks of ready-made products over here. Help yourselves."

"Ooh."

"It's all free. That's why people can save money after spending time in Antarctica. There isn't anywhere to spend it. Hahaha!"

We listened to the explanation as we scooped rice from the cooker.

Maybe it was because we'd been eating nothing but airplane meals and foreign food.

"Ish sho good."

"Ah, ish really good."

Everyone smiled knowingly as my younger members and I wolfed down the familiar taste of Korean food.

"Good, isn't it? Your first Korean meal in Antarctica is something special."

"It really... has a different meaning here."

At first, this unfamiliar land had frightened me a little, but now it felt welcoming.

If it weren't cold enough that we still had to wear our outdoor jackets indoors, I might have thought we'd simply come to a village community center somewhere.

While we were in the middle of our meal, the people who had gone outside returned to a chorus of cheers.

A man whose cheeks were flushed from the cold took off his hat.

"We heard NewBlack was coming, so we brought something very special."

"?"

It was a bowl piled high with chunks of ice.

"One of the previous crew members brought this back using heavy equipment. It's drift ice. Drift ice."

"Drift ice...?"

"Perennial snow."

"Ah...."

The crew member pointed to the ice.

"This is a real delicacy. It's great for shaved ice, and it doesn't melt easily, so if you drop one into an Americano, ah...."

"Ooooooooooh."

"Just wait a moment~"

Our eyes gleamed as we watched him fill wine glasses with ice and prepare drinks.

I asked the man, who was absorbed in handling the ice,

"Can I try one?"

"Yes, of course."

But the moment I took a sip....

The personnel at King Sejong Station waved their hands in alarm and rushed toward me.

"Whoa, whoa, whoa!"

"Wooju! Wooju, that—"

But before they could finish, I frowned first.

"Urgh...!"

"That's alcohol over there! Wooju!"

I realized from the smell the instant it entered my mouth.

As the sensation of strong alcohol slid down my throat, I grimaced, and chaos erupted around me.

Everyone here seemed to know how weak I was to alcohol.

"What? Wooju drank alcohol?"

"Hyung drank alcohol?? Oh no. This is bad...!"

Producer Gu Jaeyoung, the production staff, and my younger members all stared at me as though I might collapse at any second, and I swallowed nervously too.

But....

"?"

"??"

Nothing happened.

I only felt slightly dizzy and pleasantly warm.

I'd taken only a tiny sip, but normally, even that much would have made me overwhelmingly sleepy. This was strange.

"...What?"

Jiho blinked, walked over, and snatched the glass away from me.

Sniff, sniff.

"It is alcohol. It definitely is. Why aren't you passing out, Wooju hyung?"

"...."

"Hyung. Who am I?"

"Wang Jiho."

"Then who's this unpleasant-looking person?"

"Seo Ri Hyuk."

"You're completely fine...."

Biju placed a hand against my forehead, and Junghyun and everyone else looked puzzled.

"Did I get better at holding my alcohol?"

"Don't you have to drink alcohol to build tolerance?"

"Oh? That's true."

It wasn't as though I'd had any opportunities to build up alcohol tolerance over the last few years, because I hadn't drunk any....

Spritz, spritz—

That was when it happened.

Spritz, spritz—

Something entered our field of vision.

Our main vocalist was thoroughly spraying ethanol all over the table where we'd eaten and wiping it down.

As though that wasn't enough, he sprayed a generous amount of sanitizer onto his hands as well, carefully maintaining his hygiene.

The scent of alcohol drifted past our noses.

"...?"

Ri Hyuk looked at us.

"What?"