[The Real Reason Enfants Terribles Ditched Their Radio Appearance!]
[Why They Are Called the Zeitgeist of the 21st Century!]
If there is even a shred of something worth promoting, you blow it out of proportion. That was the fundamental survival tactic in the entertainment industry.
Furthermore, the story of Enfants Terribles—world-class stars—skipping a radio schedule to show kindness to a young child was naturally spreading across the globe via the media. However, such public spectacles weren't what the band members wanted, and they felt a prickle of discomfort at this series of phenomena.
- Enfants Terribles is the Zeitgeist? You have to admit it.
- Defying the strong and showing compassion to the weak! Isn't that exactly what our era needs right now?
- Have you heard the rumor that they sent threatening letters to news outlets telling them not to write articles because it was just a random act of kindness?
↳ Their character is literally GOAT.
↳ So damn cool. Just total Badasses.
Even actions performed without a single thought are assigned profound meaning, and thousands of evaluations sprout from them. They say this is the standard life of a star, but the level of distortion applied to Enfants Terribles was so intense it made other celebrities look pale in comparison.
[Enfants Terribles' Bass-Burning Performance! A Warning Shot Against the Establishment!]
Enfants Terribles had become the spokesmen for a generation, yet they had never once asked for that title. On the contrary, they loathed having their music and actions over-analyzed.
"I only beat them up whenever I saw them so they'd stop acting like that... dammit..."
Like a snowball effect, the more Enfants Terribles resisted the public's reaction, the more the masses grew fanatical. Despite their rejection of fame, they unintentionally knew the perfect ways to set the world on fire.
[The Rockstars Shaking the World, Standing Against Capital and Corporations!]
In Hide's mind, he had become a walking contradiction from the moment he hit the mainstream.
He had gained popularity by borrowing masterpieces from the past, had completely escaped the life of a commoner—losing the raw energy and spirit of his previous struggles—and even his attempts at rebellion only served to cement Enfants Terribles more firmly into the establishment.
The harder Hide tried to push the fame away with his entire being, the more the public cheered, calling him an anti-authoritarian star who perfectly fit the times.
"Makoto-hyung, what's our next schedule?"
"We catch a flight, appear on a Late Night show, then do a magazine interview there... and then..."
Unlike their tour for the first album, Enfants Terribles' schedule was now packed to the brim. During the first album, they only had to care about the music and focus on the stage; but for the second album, they had sparked a new wave known as the September Movement. To dissolve the fantasies the public had projected onto them, they were now forced into various broadcast appearances.
"Busy as hell..."
There's a law in showbiz that says being busy is a blessing, but that law seemed to miss the mark for Enfants Terribles. Having already earned more money than they knew what to do with, simple broadcast appearances—as opposed to actual concerts—were nothing but physically draining labor.
The members of Enfants Terribles climbed into the vehicle with Miyazaki Makoto.
"Oppa!!! Look over here just once!!!"
"Kyaaaa!!!"
Enfants Terribles couldn't find peace even on the way back to their lodgings. Fans stalked them everywhere.
This time, it seemed they had followed them all the way into the parking garage.
"Yeah, yeah, good to see you."
"Don't follow us all the way here; go live your own lives. A rock band shouldn't be your everything."
Hide waved his hand while giving them a piece of advice.
'Wait, what the hell are those massive cameras?'
Cameras with lenses as long as a person's forearm began snapping photos of the members. Nishijima, the usually eccentric bald bassist, flashed a V-sign toward his fans.
"Makoto-hyung, what are those?"
"Those? They probably make a living off those photos. They upload them to YouTube or blogs, and I heard they even compile the good ones into books to sell."
"Isn't it illegal to sell them?"
"Well, there's no end to it if we try to catch them all, so we just look the other way as long as they don't cross the line."
If they were paparazzi from the press, the band would have hunted them down and given them a physical reality check, but since they were individuals, the members kept their mouths shut.
Though they had assumed they were just simple fans, discovering that these people were operating for their own profit came as a slight shock.
As they drove off, several cars began to move in unison behind them.
"Wow... don't you think it's gotten worse lately, Muscle-mon?"
"At least it was a bit more comfortable in Japan."
The bald bassist stared out the window with a fed-up expression. Over ten vehicles were fiercely pursuing the car carrying Enfants Terribles.
"At least we don't have groupies to deal with..."
Tanaka Shuji, the blonde-haired youth, spoke up with a sense of relief. While sasaeng fans were a byproduct of popularity, he hadn't asked for it to reach this level.
Fans with that kind of madness were hard to welcome because they triggered extreme incidents. From his past life, Shuji remembered countless articles about this type of fan breaking into houses to steal underwear or following idols into bathrooms to take illicit photos.
"Wow... that one is really persistent..."
They were speeding down the road, leaving dozens of pursuers behind, but one black car with heavily tinted windows was still trailing Enfants Terribles.
To keep following even after being the only one left required a frightening tenacity that bordered on madness.
.
.
.
.
"Dammit... his private life is too damn clean..."
Lindsay Martin, a paparazzi for the famous British tabloid 'The Sun,' vented her frustration inside her car. Because rumors said the band would beat people into a hospital bed if they realized they were paparazzi, she had been following them for months disguised as a fan.
She had crossed borders and traversed various countries to capture their private lives, but she had come up empty-handed, aside from a minor dating rumor regarding the bald bassist.
But the frontman of Enfants Terribles was Hide. A dating rumor about the bald bassist wasn't worth much. Most of his female fans liked him for his eccentric personality, not because they viewed him as a romantic interest.
"Meet a groupie, for God's sake!! Or at least have a meeting with a woman!!!"
Hide, the leader and frontman of Enfants Terribles, was handsome but lived a life completely devoid of any romantic encounters.
The only female he met privately was a minor idol named Hoshino Ai, who was known among reporters to be treated like a younger sister by the band members. And on top of that, she was a complete nobody who hadn't even set foot in America yet.