The next morning, when Chisato woke up, the first thing he saw was his phone screen flooded with notifications.
All four band members had messaged him, urging him to check the download numbers and online reviews of the songs they had uploaded.
The excessive use of exclamation marks emphasized their excitement.
He glanced at the time. It was only 6:30 AM, while the latest message had been sent at around 4 AM.
Had those guys stayed up all night celebrating, thinking they had nothing to do today?
He replied to each of them but received no response.
That confirmed it. They were all fast asleep now.
Yawning, he walked to the sink while brushing his teeth and tapping on his phone.
They had told him to check the download numbers, but it had only been one night. How exaggerated could it be?
However, when he actually opened the relevant page and saw that their performance's songs were dominating the top spots on major music charts, his heart involuntarily tightened for a second.
On just one website—YouTu—the top-ranked song, "STAY," had already surpassed 700,000 downloads. And that was just from a single site.
But it wasn't just YouTu where Ikuyo had uploaded their songs last night.
Aside from mainstream video platforms, she had also simultaneously uploaded their music to well-known professional music sites such as Yahoo Music, SoundCloud, and MySpace Music.
Even by conservative estimates, the total downloads across these platforms had likely already surpassed a million.
And this had all happened within a single day. The results were astonishing.
Realizing this, Chisato's drowsiness instantly vanished.
He quickly finished washing up, went to the kitchen, poured himself a glass of cold water, and drank it all in one go—trying to cool down his already overheated mind.
Sitting on the couch, he held his phone in his right hand, his left hand resting near his lips as he lightly bit his thumbnail, and his right leg bounced unconsciously from excitement.
Spending more time with Utaha had unintentionally led him to pick up some of her habits.
The rankings on the music charts looked like this:
First place: STAY.
Second place: Until the End of the World.
Third place: Gradually Drawn to You.
Fourth place: Sakura Love.
Fifth place: Lemon.
The top five positions on the chart were dominated by four songs from Kesshoku Band.
As for why "STAY" took the top spot instead of another original song, Chisato only had to think for a moment before arriving at the answer.
It was likely due to the song's dynamic rhythm, coupled with the fact that English had a larger global audience.
After all, Japan's internet was connected to the world without restrictions, allowing anyone to browse freely.
The fourth-ranked song, "Sakura Love," was performed by a well-known veteran singer in Japan, someone who had been famous for a long time.
With an immense fanbase, the song had been hyped for half a year before its release.
Backed by an entertainment company's promotional funding, it had claimed the top spot on the new song charts upon release three days ago.
Discussions about it exploded across major websites, making it the center of attention.
There were even companies interested in producing short dramas based on the song, and filmmakers in the youth genre had come seeking authorization to use it.
Unfortunately, by the fourth day, it had been effortlessly pushed down by three completely unknown songs that had seemingly come out of nowhere.
Looking at the current trend, its successor, "Lemon," was also bound to surpass it sooner or later.
Bringing out top-tier, award-winning songs from his past life was bound to have this effect.
Though Chisato felt a little sorry for "Sakura Love," there was nothing he could do about it.
Moreover, a previously released song, "Sorry for Being This Cute," had ridden this wave of popularity and experienced a resurgence, climbing to the twelfth spot.
Meanwhile, "Loser" had reached the tenth spot.
As a result, half of the songs in the top ten of the music charts were original works by Kesshoku Band.
If there was ever a definition of a meteoric rise, this was it. The air at the top was truly rarefied.
Chisato had anticipated that yesterday's music festival performance would mark the beginning of Kesshoku Band's rise to fame.
However, he never expected their popularity to explode to such an extent.
Upon opening the relevant page, he saw that their official YouTube account had already surpassed one million subscribers.
It now had over 1.6 million followers, and more than 120,000 fans had donated varying amounts of money.
These numbers were still skyrocketing, and no one could predict how far they would go.
Of course, this was undoubtedly good news for Kesshoku Band. Their hard work had paid off, and the rewards for their efforts were exhilarating.
When they woke up to these numbers, they would probably jump around in excitement, crying and laughing together.
However, for Chisato, this surge in popularity carried a significant risk.
Last night, besides uploading their pre-recorded original songs, Ikuyo had also posted a live recording of Chisato's impromptu performance at the music festival.
The video had been pinned to the top of Kesshoku Band's official homepage, making it easily accessible to anyone who clicked in.
Chisato understood that they had done it with good intentions, hoping to let more people know about his performance.
But that was exactly where the problem lay. Ever since the internet had become widespread, netizens had never failed to make their presence felt.
This community was full of hidden talents, and whenever someone or something went viral, they would eventually uncover every piece of information they wanted to know, limited only by how much time it took.
And just like that, despite only briefly stating his name on stage without saying anything else, by the next morning, a rough profile of him had already been completely dug up—with absolute accuracy, not just baseless speculation.
For instance, the fact that he was a second-year high school student working part-time at a live house in Shimokitazawa called "Starry Sky," handling beverage preparation, cashier duties, and ticket sales.
On top of that, for some reason, his LINE account had also been leaked.
When he opened the app, a barrage of friend requests instantly froze his phone for a moment.
His linked email inbox was also flooded with countless new messages, mostly from industry professionals and companies seeking collaborations.
In just one night, so much had happened while he was asleep.
_______
50 advanced chapters on p@t re on (.) com/SenatusTheta
_______
If any of you noticed an error, please point it out in comments!