June's heart dropped as soon as Sehun said those words.
"Because it's great?" June asked, trying to see if Sehun was just messing with him.
However, their oldest member remained serious. June should have figured it out. Sehun rarely made jokes.
June leaned closer to Jisung and looked at his phone. The youngest member refreshed the page over and over again, hoping that the results would change. However, it remained the same.
June clicked his tongue and got the phone from Jisung's hands since the latter couldn't stay still.
Then, he finally caught a glimpse of their rank on the music app.
"10th," June muttered, looking up from the phone. "That's not so bad. I thought we didn't chart at all because of your guys' reaction."
"But Oasis placed 4th back then," Akira pouted, still feeling a bit disappointed.
"It took a while before it placed 4th," June said. "Honestly, I'm more disappointed that Luster is only on the 25th spot."
"I get it, though," he continued. "It hasn't been promoted yet, and it doesn't have a music video like Skyrocket."
Jaeyong sighed, running his fingers through his hair.
"Yeah, we shouldn't be too beat down about this. The fact that we've placed tenth on our first day already says a lot. It'll probably go up once we start promoting the song."
"Honestly, I'm quite happy with the results," Sehun said. "Some of the comments we've been receiving have just been quite discouraging."
"True," Akira sighed, scrolling through the comments and even reading some of them.
"This is EVE's worst song up to date."
"I had high expectations for their comeback because their debut was amazing. However, I'm disappointed after hearing the title track. Now, I don't even want to listen to the album."
"I hate noisy music like this."
"Akira's so annoying-looking...what?" he muttered in confusion.
"That's the only thing I agree with," Ren said.
Akira ignored him and turned his phone to his members.
"See?" Akira whined. "They're not even giving our album a chance! Skyrocket does not give our album a good reputation."
"A lot of people still enjoy it, though," Jaeyong pointed out. "From what I've read, it's a song that people really love or really hate. No in-between. It's quite experimental, so I get where the others are coming from. Nonetheless, we should focus on working harder to promote the album so we can have more people listen to the other songs."
"That's not the worst part, though!" Jisung exclaimed, startling the older members of EVE.
"What's worse is that they're already comparing us to this rookie group—MATCHSTIX! They're ranked 8th right now, and they're saying that it's shameful that we charted even lower than them."
June's eyebrows raised in surprise. He looked at Jisung's phone once more and saw that, indeed, MATCHSTIX's title track, 'Match Made in Heaven,' was charting higher than 'Skyrocket.'
Ren pursed his lips before guiltily confessing something.
"I listened to it," he said.
The other members gasped in an exaggerated manner.
"Traitor!" Akira exclaimed, pointing at Ren with a shaky finger. "Did you at least listen to a pirated version?"
"I listened to an official one," Ren muttered.
Akira shook his head in disappointment. "I need a moment to rethink this friendship."
"What do you think about it?" June asked, ignoring Akira's dramatic monologue.
"I think it's a good song," Ren admitted, eliciting yet another dramatic gasp from most of his members.
"Elaborate," June said.
"It's a general-public friendly song. It's produced differently compared to other songs in the market right now. Frankly, it has the same vibes as Luster—just a more generic and cookie-
cutter one, which means that even though they have a smaller fandom, more people are listening due to its 'listenable' nature. You get what I mean?"
June nodded, fully understanding where Ren was coming from.
Ren continued analyzing the situation, and he couldn't have summed it up more perfectly than it had already.
"The streams we're getting right now are definitely from our fans, which already says a lot since we achieved 10th place just with their support. Due to the song's experimental nature, it would be hard for us to pull the general public toward our way. I still believe that Luster would have been a better choice for the title track, but we can't really do anything about it right now."
"It'll be harder to promote the song because it is just a B-side track. The fact that it's already charting while the other songs on MATCHSTIX's album aren't is already saying a lot, too," he added.
"So, what you're saying is that we need to promote Luster better?" Jaeyong asked.
"Yeah," Ren sighed. "Although I'm unsure how we're going to do that when Skyrocket is the main song being pushed right now."
June nodded, suddenly having a great idea.
"It'll rise," he said, crossing his arms in front of his chest.
Ren's eyebrows raised in surprise. "Approximately when?"
"Next week," June smirked.
***
The boys were currently in the music show studio, having just finished their set for the day. It was nice seeing their fans once again, and the doubts that arose last night quickly vanished with their fans' enthusiasm.
This week, they were only bound to promote the title track, so Luster was slowly declining in the charts. Still, June assured his teammates that it would undoubtedly rise again next week, so they stopped dwelling on the fact.
They were currently having a meal while waiting for the other artists to perform their sets so they could film the ending stage along with them.
"The chicken leg is mine!" Akira exclaimed, wrestling with Ren so he could have the other piece of chicken leg.
Jisung, by default, got the other chicken leg because he was their precious baby chick.
Jaeyong sighed as he watched the two battling it out on the floor. At this point, the chicken leg had become dirty with their antics.
"I swear, we should just get chicken legs the next time we order this," Jay said, also watching the two of them and not making any efforts to break off their fight.
Casper, Sehun, and Zeth all glared at Jay.
"Chicken breasts all the way," Sehun said.
Jisung shook his head in amusement. "These gym addicts."
Meanwhile, June was busy eating his chicken wings when he heard a familiar theme song on the television just right before them.
Jisung's eyes widened in surprise, and he quickly got the remote control to turn the volume up.
As the theme song resounded in the room, the other members began paying attention. Ren and Akira even stopped fighting as they looked at the television with sparkling eyes.
"Guys! Let's watch Disguise Surprise Singer together!" Jisung exclaimed.
