From A Producer To A Global Superstar-Chapter 329: Album Trend

Michael’s office was quiet in the way expensive rooms always were, not peaceful, just controlled. The city outside his windows looked calm, but Michael had lived long enough to know calm was only what you saw before you noticed what was already moving underneath. He stood near the glass with one hand in his pocket, staring down at the lights like he owned them, because in most ways he did.

Then came the knock, not gentle, not hesitant, four quick taps like the person outside already knew they had permission. Michael did not turn, he just said, "Come in."

The door opened and Clara stepped in with a tablet held tight against her chest, wearing the same neutral face she always wore, the face of someone who handled disasters for a living and never let her boss see her blink.

Michael finally turned, his eyes landing on the tablet first before they landed on her. "Update," he said.

Clara nodded once. "On the album." Michael’s expression did not change, but the air in the room tightened a little, like the room itself understood the name being mentioned. "Read," he said.

Clara walked closer, placed the tablet on the desk, and tapped until the report opened fully. Charts, rankings, streams, sales, the kind of report that was supposed to be boring until it wasn’t. She had barely started speaking when Michael’s eyes moved over the numbers and his body reacted before his mouth did, his lips parting slightly as he stared, then his face hardening fast, fast enough to look like a door slamming. "What the f**k," he said, quiet but real.

Clara did not flinch, she only kept scrolling as if she expected the reaction and had already prepared to stand inside it.

Michael leaned forward, palms on the desk, eyes scanning like he did not believe what he was seeing. He had expected noise, expected hype, expected a decent performance at best, but this was not decent. This was dominance dressed in numbers. He breathed out through his nose, slow, controlled, but the edge behind it was sharp. "Show me again," he said like he was hoping what he saw earlier was an illusion.

Clara tapped and pulled up the summary screen again. Michael’s eyes moved faster now, hunting for the part that would make it make sense, a mistake, a glitch, a marketing trick, paid streams, bot farms, the cheap tricks people used when they wanted success to look organic. But the distribution looked too clean, the pattern looked too human, the curve looked like real people repeating, sharing, replaying, arguing, laughing, dragging friends into it, the kind of obsession you couldn’t buy properly because it had to start inside people first.

Michael straightened slowly and for a few seconds he did not speak. Then he asked, "Your personal view." Clara hesitated for half a breath, not fear, just calculation, because Michael did not like opinions unless they served him. Still, she answered. "It is a hit, sir."

Michael’s eyes narrowed. "That is not a rating."

Clara kept her tone professional, steady. "If I had to rate it strictly, a nine point five. All the songs are performing, not just one lead, the whole Album, and the response is strong in the United States. The secondary markets are moving too, and the reactions are stacking instead of cooling."

Michael stared at her like she had insulted him, like her honesty was an act of disrespect, but she did not look away. His jaw shifted once, and he looked away from her to the screen, then back to her again. "Enough. Leave it," he said.

Clara nodded. "Yes, sir," and she stepped back, turned, and left the room quietly, closing the door behind her.

The moment the lock clicked, Michael’s composure cracked just a little, not outwardly, but inside, and he began to pace. One slow step, then another, hands behind his back, moving across the room like a man walking through his own thoughts. "How," he muttered, stopping, turning back to the desk, staring at the numbers again like they had personally offended him.

The movie had already been a problem, a Korean movie moving like a franchise, and he could have convinced himself that it was timing, controversy, hype, luck, a good team, a lucky wave, something that happened once. But this was music. A Korean album. And it was blowing up from the United States like it belonged there. Michael’s eyes lifted slowly, staring into nothing. "How are you able to do it twice," he said, then he paced again, mind running through the usual routes, paid promotions, bots, distribution tricks, manipulation, but the report did not look like fraud. It looked like culture.

He laughed once, not happy, the kind of laugh people made when they realized something was not normal and they did not like the direction it was heading. "Technology," he whispered. "Or what." His face tightened as he thought of Dayo’s tech company, the rumors he had dismissed years ago, and the strange way Dayo’s success did not behave like other success, no slow buildup, no gentle climb, just explosion, then control, then another explosion.

Michael turned back to the desk and stared at the numbers again. His voice dropped. "I have to find out."

Then he remembered something else, the internet, the trend, the stupid little picture that had started as one post and turned into wildfire. He opened one of his monitors, typed a keyword, and the results loaded instantly, thousands of posts, copies, remixes, people recreating the same thing again and again like it was a ritual. The physical album in the middle, Train to Busan tickets arranged around it, some people using day one to day seven stubs, some using crumpled tickets like trophies, some doing it on car dashboards, some on bedroom floors, some on restaurant tables, some right in front of the cinema entrance with the ticket booth behind them, smiling like they had just met God.

And the comments were pouring like rain, loud and shameless, full of the kind of excitement that made people spend money just to feel included.

"My God, I’m hopping on this trend right now."

"Bro I don’t even collect tickets but I kept every single stub since Day One, this is history."

"Wait you’re telling me people are buying USED tickets online just to complete the set?"

"That’s how you know it’s not normal, people are paying for trash and calling it treasure."

"Tell me why I visible searched ’Train to Busan ticket stubs’ like it’s designer wear."

"I watched the movie twice already, now I bought the album just for the trend, I’m not even ashamed."

"This is me carrying Dayo on my head, movie plus album, I’m sick of him but I’m addicted."

"Somebody stop this man, he’s making us spend money happily."

"Look at the line at my cinema, people are coming out yelling and still buying another ticket."

"This is not promo anymore, this is a movement."

Michael scrolled slowly, and the more he scrolled the clearer it became, people were not just enjoying it, they were participating. People were hopping on the trend like it was a challenge and the trend was feeding itself. Fans were buying tickets again just to have more stubs. People who had not watched the movie were watching it just to join. People who had not bought the album were buying it just to post the photo. Some were even buying used tickets from online resellers, paying real money for someone else’s old cinema stub, just to complete the look, just to be able to post, just to say they were part of the wave.

And because of that, sales were jumping in a way that wasn’t even subtle anymore. Every time someone posted the trend photo, another person replied that they were going to do it too. Every time a fan bragged about having a full set of tickets, ten more people asked where they could buy theirs. The internet was doing what marketers could only dream of, turning a product into a badge and turning a badge into pressure. Even people who claimed they were "tired" were still buying, still streaming, still showing up, because the fear of missing out was being weaponized by joy.

Michael’s fingers tapped the desk once as he stared at the screen, expression hard, eyes darker than before. He recognized the original post, Jeffrey Miller, the first one, the match that lit the whole thing, and now it was everywhere, so big that it didn’t even feel like one fan anymore, it felt like the internet had agreed on a ritual.

Michael’s lips moved slightly as he spoke to the room, voice low. "This is not normal." He scrolled again, more posts, more noise, more praise, more obsession, and with every refresh his patience thinned, because he understood what this meant. Dayo was not just winning. He was building culture, and culture was harder to kill than a person.

Michael reached for his phone, stopped, then reached again, this time with purpose, not because he was angry only, but because he felt something he hated more than anger.

He felt late.

And for the first time in a long time, Michael did not feel in control and it was the same person that made him feel the same Dayo.

He felt like he was watching a wave he did not start.

And he hated that feeling more than anything.