The Road To Glory [EN]: Chapter 1221

< Episode 122 What Do You Think >

The stage at the art center, where Noh Hae-il’s fan meeting was being held, was decorated like a typical classroom to match the theme of ‘school.’

A large screen, visible from anywhere in the audience, looked like it would soon display a standard PPT presentation.

In front of the screen were desks and a lectern that looked like they were from a school in the 2000s.

Next to the lectern was a green chalkboard. On it was written ‘Tonkatsu’ [a Japanese pork cutlet dish] in small letters with five stars, reminding everyone of the school lunch they considered most important during their school days.

But most important of all was ‘New Transfer Student!’ written largely on the chalkboard.

Men and women of all ages, some in school uniforms, began to fill the audience. Even those without uniforms wore clothes that looked as much like them as possible. It wouldn’t have been strange to think of it as a school festival taking place in an auditorium.

Once everyone was seated, the doors of the theater closed.

With that, the lights gradually dimmed. Just as the murmuring of the people subsided, a familiar melody was heard.

Noh Hae-il’s title track from his regular album played softly as background music.

At the same time, the stage lights came on, revealing a boy wearing a hoodie under his school uniform, befitting a transfer student.

The boy, standing before 1,052 classmates, sat on his desk, smiled brightly, and waved.

“Hello, everyone?”

That’s how the fan meeting began.

#

The school-themed fan meeting, proposed by who knows who, was clearly planned by someone who knew what they were doing, from start to finish. Of course, the elite who made it through the 1052:1 competition were happy with whatever it was.

If the small theater concert was a stage focused on Noh Hae-il or Noh Hae-il and guests, the fan meeting was focused on Noh Hae-il and the Noh Hae-il band.

What that means is that they didn’t bring in an outsider for the MC position at this fan meeting. That didn’t mean there was no host.

“Ahem, everyone, welcome. I’m Principal Nam Gyu-hwan.”

It meant that all of Noh Hae-il’s band members were acting as MCs in their respective parts.

In line with the ‘school’ theme.

The opening of the fan meeting, and the introduction of the fan meeting schedule, was delivered through the homily of Principal Nam Gyu-hwan, who recently sported a bold hairstyle.

“Now that the college entrance exams are over, I have some good news. Today’s classes will be shortened to a four-period day-”

What? Only four periods?

The people who had been happily listening to the principal’s homily and the congratulatory speech of Noh Hae-il, the transfer student and representative of the students, booed.

“Teacher, I want to study more!”

“Teacher, I repeated a year [meaning they had to retake a grade].”

“I signed up for night study! My mom told me not to come home until ten o’clock!”

Some people burst into laughter at the irony of young and middle-aged people saying things that teachers would have cried over in a real school, saying they had finally come to their senses.

But everyone had a serious face.

What do you mean four periods? We have to fill seven periods and do night study.

But Principal Nam Gyu-hwan calmly retorted-.

“Everyone, studying is about stamina. You all know that rest is the most important thing, right?”

“Well, repeating a year is doable.”

“Mother… That’s a bit of a rebuttal…”

He stubbornly insisted on shortening classes.

As the homily accompanied by the schedule introduction ended, the ‘Welcome to my world’ bell rang and the first period, history class, began.

The chronology of Noh Hae-il, who debuted on February 28th.

It hasn’t even been a year yet, but the quality of the material he’s shown in less than a year was surprising.

We say every time, where did our singer go, but when you think about what he’s shown in a year, it didn’t seem like he disappeared.

The video played.

From late winter to spring, the festival in May, the summer of countless stars, the cafe in LA, and the live video of the guerrilla performance from Noh Hae-il’s regular album, followed by the small theater concert.

The live video, which had never been released except for fan cams [fan-recorded videos], existed here.

Following the small theater concert, Scorpion’s concert was briefly shown. The boy who appeared as a guest at the Scorpion concert played a brilliant guitar performance, a new song, and the unreleased song ‘Until Dawn Comes.’

People who were captivated by the music wanted to see the entire video instead of the edited version, but eventually, the end had to come.

However, they didn’t even have time to regret that the music was no longer playing.

Because the session’s accompaniment was heard with the end of the first period, history class. The fan meeting officially began with Voice to voice, a track from Noh Hae-il’s first regular album.

The second period was probability and statistics.

It’s a subject that some people hate, but as a corner for a survey conducted on users who succeeded in ticketing, math teacher Moon Seo-yeon, who appeared as the MC, displayed big data on the screen.

[SNS, Instagram, YouTube, Communication, Schedule]

These were the things that fans requested from Noh Hae-il the most, and the most searched things on the internet recently.

“Please do SNS!”

“Please, YouTube and Instagram!”

“Hae-il, please let us know your schedule.”

People shouted as if they had been waiting for it, and the boy sitting on the desk made a troubled face while holding the microphone.

“Am I that curious?”

No, he might be enjoying it.

Even though he already knew the answer, the boy made the fans anxious by asking that.

Only after confirming the fans’ love once again did the boy smirk.

“Okay. I’ll give it a try.”

It was something he was going to do someday.

He always enjoyed talking to fans.

It was then. Moon Seo-yeon, who had been quietly waiting for the boy’s answer, whispered into the microphone.

“Everyone, in fact, we have a lot of unreleased videos. We’ll try to upload them.”

Her voice is soon covered with cheers.

Originally, it was a camera bought to monitor the performance.

But somehow, they ended up chatting among themselves, and leaving quite a few videos, such as the boy being absorbed in playing in the sunlight.

Moon Seo-yeon, who had left it saying that it would be useful someday, recalled the most impressive video.

The members sitting around the label listening to ‘Welcome to my world’ and being moved, opening up their hearts, and then the video of the boy being disgusted.

In addition to this, there were plenty of videos that would make fans’ eyes roll, such as videos taken when they went to LA.

The big data and questionnaire survey shown in the first period, history class, and the second period, probability and statistics, were good, and the boy’s performance that was heard every break – the MC member rushing to the session was also a point of laughter – was good, but there was a corner that fans were most waiting for.

The third period, rhetoric and composition. In other words, the ‘Q&A’ corner.

Han Jin-young, the Korean language teacher with braided hair, proceeded with the corner, reading the post-it notes left by people on the chalkboard.

Han Jin-young, who picked a post, swallowed a laugh from the first one and opened her mouth.

“Hae-il, tell me honestly. Do you enjoy tormenting us?”

Wahaha! Amid the laughter, the boy’s voice of “When did I?” came back in an aggrieved tone. Similar questions were, of course, about the small-scale concert.

“The small theater concert was good, but do you have any plans to do it in a bigger place?”

“Is there a hidden story in 830?”

It was a question mixed with the tears of the fans, so laughter of sympathy poured out.

And from someone’s question that pierced the point, they learned the reason for their pain.

“I’m asking just in case, Hae-il. You’ve never done ticketing, have you.”

The boy blinked.

Honestly, he had never done ticketing even once. What reason would he have to do ticketing? Mostly, he received them from acquaintances, and if he just told someone, it was soon delivered to him.

He had never done ticketing in the past or now. He heard that it was difficult, and he saw people shedding tears in the fan cafe, but it was difficult to feel.

Han Jin-young added something that wasn’t on the post-it, wondering if the boy didn’t answer.

“What would you do if you failed to get a ticket for the date you originally wanted to see?”

The boy answered leisurely.

“I can get it for another date.”

“…That, Hae-il.”

Ah-.

The fans couldn’t hide their exclamations, and Han Jin-young couldn’t help but click her tongue. And this word will forever remain in the record of Hae-il Antoinette [a reference to Marie Antoinette’s infamous quote].

Of course, it wasn’t theoretically wrong. If there was stock left, you could buy it for another date.

He missed the fact that this did not apply to Noh Hae-il’s concert tickets or the concert tickets of a singer with a large scale.

Like this, the boy who drove a wedge into the hearts of the fans couldn’t be hated.

A fan’s question after tearing open the goods and hastily writing a post-it.

“Was it hard to prepare the music box?”

The boy looked back at the people and asked.

“Didn’t you like it?”

People all refuted together.

“No!”

“I really like it!”

“I feel like I’m going to die because I like it!”

“Right?”

Of course, he thought they would like it.

It’s a music box that he once wanted to make with his music. Originally, people liked what he liked, so he thought it was natural.

The boy shrugged his shoulders and soon added with a smirk.

“But don’t die.”

“If you want to listen to my song for the rest of your life.”

“!”

The concept of speaking informally was a divine move.

The fan who lost her words wanted to do 108 bows [a Korean expression of deep gratitude] to someone who suggested the concept of speaking informally.

If rhetoric was a post-it Q&A, composition was a letter from fans to Noh Hae-il. In particular, there were several concepts. A fan letter from Noh Hae-il from the future, one year later, was impressive.

[I finally succeeded in all-con!]

It contained a fan’s future diary that he succeeded in all-con [attending all concerts in a series] with Noh Hae-il, who will be performing at the Seoul Arena complex cultural facility in November next year.

The Seoul Arena complex cultural facility was a music hall completed in Chang-dong Station in October 2025, and was the largest performance hall in Korea that can accommodate up to 28,000 people for standing performances.

“If you perform in such a place, ticketing will be easier.”

“If it’s Seoul Arena, all-con is enough.”

“By then, we won’t be Jaws anymore [referring to the difficulty of getting tickets].”

The future diary, which turned the happy circuit, was enough to stimulate the hearts of many fans.

In fact, Halo also agreed with this part. Small theater concerts are good, but next time, he was thinking of doing it in a bigger venue.

“Let’s meet at the Seoul Arena next year.”

In fact, unless you’re at a certain level, you can’t even think of performing at a large venue like the Seoul Arena, but the fans were happy anyway. Even if it’s not actually held at the Seoul Arena, I hope it’s a scale that allows all-con.

What’s really fortunate is that Noh Hae-il is slowly becoming known overseas, but overseas fans are not threatening the domestic performance seats.

Idol groups that are discussed as world-class also had overseas fans ticketing for domestic concerts, but Noh Hae-il’s fans were relieved that their singer was not such an idol.

What was held after reading the fans’ support was the fourth period, the last class, the art area.

First, art was a photo time and best dresser selection.

I don’t know how the best dresser can come out because they’re all the same school uniforms, but there were people who came wearing novel school uniforms, as if not everyone has their alma mater’s school uniform.

From people who cosplayed as characters from the drama ‘From Today, We Are’, there were also school uniforms from animations that you might have heard of, and school uniforms that you would have worn in elementary school, not elementary school. Furthermore, there were also people who wore hanboks [traditional Korean clothing], as if the clothes of Sungkyunkwan Confucian scholars were also school uniforms.

The best dresser was given one wish ticket. They could ask Noh Hae-il for something with that wish ticket. There were mostly private requests such as photos, autographs, and hugs, and there were also people who gave gifts instead.

Also, there was also a best dresser who suggested playing the Of course game.

“You know you’re the coolest in the world, right?”

In fact, most of the questions were close to nagging.

“Are you going to have a fan meeting again next year?”

“Of course. Of course.”

“You’re going to have a concert in a big venue, too.”

“Of course.”

“You’re not going to forget us today, are you?”

The boy, who paused at the fan’s words, soon smirked.

“How can I forget you?”

“!”

The boy lost the Of course game, but it seemed like the fan who screamed and ran away was the one who actually lost.

And physical education following art.

[Those Days]

Noh Hae-il came down from the stage, singing ‘Ever End’. Light follows the path the boy takes.

[That Time]

He high-fives people, sits on the stairs for a while because there are no empty seats, takes pictures, and the boy who goes around the hall like that comes back to the stage and gestures like a conductor.

Lastly, music.

[We Were Walking There]

Left, right.

Only the voices from where the boy is pointing resonate.

[It’s at the End of This Road]

When he raised both hands, the voices finally came together.

That’s how the fan meeting schedule ended.

But just as there is an encore at a concert, there is, for example, after school at a fan meeting. It meant that there was a seat lottery left. You could leave at any time, but people couldn’t leave their seats in case.

What you can get by seat lottery is similar to the best dressers. The fan meeting is coming to an end. People mostly chose autographs or commemorative photos.

In fact, all the questions that could come out have come out, and in a free democratic society, private interests were more attractive than public interests. Also, they didn’t want to ruin the fan meeting of the boy they liked by asking mischievous or crossing the line.

Then, suddenly. A man who won the seat lottery opened his mouth in his turn.

“What do you think about the word that you’re Halo…?”

With that one question, the fan meeting place, which had been noisy, became so quiet that it was chilly.

It was a time when everyone went over saying ‘I told you it wasn’t me’ after [HALO 10th album Cannot be cut] was released right after Noh Hae-il’s birthday party.

Fans who were ridiculed for raising the ‘Noh Hae-il = Halo theory’ frowned with the expression ‘Why do you have to ask that?’, and some were curious about the boy’s reaction.

The boy on the stage was still and raised the corners of his mouth. He knew that someone would call his name someday. When that time came, he was going to respond as he did to Nam Gyu-hwan and Scorpion.

The person who asked once without asking directly what his intention was had a familiar face.

Halo soon remembered the unusually shaped glasses. The person who was buzzing in front of his label with a camera.

Halo wondered why he asked that question, and at the same time, he felt his heart go wrong. Could it be that he didn’t like that a reporter came to the place where fans should come? Or-.

Soon, the boy smiled faintly and opened his mouth.

With the words he wants to say the most right now.

“What do you think.”

#

Noh Hae-il’s fan meeting, which lasted for three hours, came to an end. Noh Hae-il’s live performance was live, but vivid reviews filled with the words he left behind.

And there, Noh Hae-il’s goods – music box, hologram card, daily photo card – were released, causing those who failed to get tickets to shed tears of blood beyond tears.

At that time, the youngest writer of ‘Spring Again’ opened her eyes wide while looking at the Noh Hae-il’s fan meeting review.

If she was a general public or a fan, there would have been more news to focus on, but as the youngest writer of the entertainment team, there was only one thing that caught her eye.

The schedule that Noh Hae-il revealed in the Q&A corner.

“PD! Big news!”

When the youngest writer jumped up, the eyes of the people in the conference room were focused. The youngest writer shouted without paying attention.

“Noh Hae-il has a schedule this winter?”

It was news they didn’t want at all, but the youngest writer was strangely energetic. Soon, words that led to the PD’s reaction were added.

“He’s going on a European trip.”

“!”

Whether it was a coincidence or God’s help, their schedules coincided.