Chapter 2

Comeback

GXY_Officialmembers

#Bren

Hello my Dear Astras,

Get ready to Rock with us tomorrow with the release of our 3rd Mini Album “Rock Galaxy”

#BrendanChoi #Bren #GXY #RockGalaxy #RockwithGXY

Bren

‘Go over it again,’ barked the choreographer Remi and at her words, I could swear my muscles ached. No one grounded or mumbled their pain outwardly. That would come later in our dorms when we crawl into our beds. And I will take a long hot shower while the others sleep soundly. I would have to sleep on the way to our comeback stage tomorrow or I wouldn’t be Brendan Choi, leader of GXY. Functioning on little sleep is second nature to me now thanks to years of training.

We went over the chereo another two times before Remi was satisfied, clapping and stomping her long staff to the beat, her voice as loud as the drill sergeant she longed to be.

‘Rest,’ she finally said and the 7 of us collapsed on the training room floor panting and moves for our water bottles. I drank so much water I thought I drown in it before I had my fill and sealed the top. To be honest, I would have been happy to go over it a 4th time. With our schedule for the week packed, I could not afford to make any mistakes. This comeback was either going to make or break us and I was determined for our 2nd mini album to be successful. Our debut mini album did okay. Selling around 50,000 copies and our MV plateaued around 14 million views. At the time it was considered a good start and won us some rookie awards and yet we didn’t manage to get a win on a music show either with that release or our next release which was a single album.

While we caught our breaths, the trainer monitored our dance rehearsal on his tablet, our comeback song echoing off the walls of the training room.

‘Can’t believe our comeback stage is tomorrow,’ said our lead vocal Hyeon handing me a towel.

‘Thanks bro,’ I said not really responding to what he said as I wiped sweat off my brow and my arms.

‘How many hours of sleep will we get tonight?’ Asked our Maknae Minho looking downcast, and I sympathized with him but as the leader it’s my job to keep morale up.

‘Get showered and get to bed as soon as we get back to the dorm and have your bag and shoes ready by the door and you’ll get the most sleep.’ Is what I answered with a rifle of his hair, he nodded, and I gave him a swift hug.

‘Dude, our teaser reached half a million views in 12 hours!’ Exclaims our sub rapper Tony K, holding his phone out in disbelief, running his free hand through his long red hair.

‘What!’

‘For real.’

‘That’s more than our Milky Way MV did in 24 hours,’ said our main vocal Seungyoun referring to the title track off our single album. Everyone gathered around and started at the tiny screen. But I looked at the glowing and hopeful eyes of my team and I didn’t want to squash their hopes with saying something cynical like it’s probably just a momentary boost thanks to ads and sharing but I wanted to believe that our 3rd comeback would be successful too.

We worked so hard over the past two years and our fans, our Dear Astras were waiting for us and streaming in the small hours of the night to get our numbers up and I didn’t want to let them down. Two years of getting little sleep, dancing and singing every day, going on every variety show that would take us, doing both online and offline promotions just to get us some airtime. It’s for them that we’re doing all this, and for the dream of one day holding that trophy in our hands and saying, ‘We made it.’