Chapter 295

Chapter 295

An agency-hosted group concert was usually only held by companies with at least one famous idol group, male and female groups, as well as some promising rookies. In that sense, it would be easy to think that our agency, with three teams from Idol Inc., fit that description… but that would be incorrect. As I headed back to the dorm, I read over the proposal I’d brought with me and frowned.

I don’t think anybody is going to like this. The hurriedly thrown-together agency did not have a unique bone in its body—nothing that could be used to identify an agency and set it apart from the others.

There has to at the very least be something in common between the teams in order to satisfy an audience. Our agency had simply taken every single group that had won on the audition show. It was really brave of them to think that hosting their own concert would be a good idea, though I could easily guess what they were hoping to get out of this.

“Hmm. Looks like they’re trying to drum up some attention for the newly debuting group,” Big Sejin said with a shrug.

“Look. They’ve even been given a few of our songs to cover! And songs from our season of Idol Inc. are also in the draft lineup.”

“Hmm.”

Bae Sejin, who’d been drinking water in the kitchen, said with a nervous look on his face, “Isn’t this an attempt to replace us?”

“Replace us?”

“Yes. Well, our contract is nearly over, so… They might be trying to get the public to move on to the next group!”

“What! Do they really think that we’ve already exhausted our potential? They would be so wrong!”

Bae Sejin’s theory must have sounded pretty legitimate, since Raebin balked. Bae Sejin nodded gravely. “I’m just saying, it’s a possibility.”

Come on. Did you see someone saying something like that on WeTube or something? He sure had been watching a lot of K-pop channels recently. Maybe he’d picked up ideas here and there.

I grinned and shook my head. “I don’t think so. They probably just want the new group to gather some traction.”

“Y-yeah?”

“Yes. The recent season didn’t do as well as ours, so I would guess they’re trying to piggyback off of us. Don’t worry too much.”

They’d only just managed to build up a friendly relationship with us. The agency wouldn’t be looking to give up on us already.

They probably believe we’re going to renew our contract for sure. The most they would do was to take advantage of our status in any way they could.

Not much point in killing the golden goose.

Big Sejin agreed with this statement. “I think the same thing! Though, of course, it’s not a bad idea to be wary. Hmm, I think your suggestion is worth thinking about, Bae Sejin.”

“Right…”

“Excellent assessment.”

Bae Sejin and Raebin abandoned their conspiracy theory very quickly.

Then Eugene suddenly butted in. “So when is it? Is it happening soon?”

“Let’s see… It’ll be in twenty-five days.”

Chungwoo pointed at the part of the document that said Venue rented for August. I was focused on a different part, however.

The scale is smaller than I expected. The concert was to be held at Jamsil Indoor Stadium, which could only seat about eleven thousand people. At the very least, they hadn’t been foolish enough to assume that with TeSTAR, Miry-nay, and the new group, they would get enough attention to fill a stadium. This here was a level of foresight that could not always be expected from the boss of our agency.

Headquarters stepped in, it seems. T1 had gotten involved. Because the concert itself was going to air on Tnet, T1 had probably pushed them to hurry things along.

My guess is that they want a repeat of TaKon, which was popular. The fans wouldn’t be entirely happy… but TeSTAR wouldn’t lose anything by doing it.

And if some of the videos taken at the concert go viral, that’ll be free marketing. Because we were approaching contract expiry, now was the time to avoid any altercations with T1 if possible. It was okay for us to go along with this without any complaints.

“So we only need to prepare five songs,” I said, patting the document with a grin.

Let them get some attention, then. As for what kind of attention that would be… it was up to them to deal with it. Two male idol groups who were about the same age… performing the same songs. It would lead to a slew of comparisons, which wouldn’t necessarily leave the other group coming out on top.

“Three and a half weeks. That’s not a lot of time,” Chungwoo said.

“The theme is similar to the last concert’s, so I think we’re good!” Big Sejin said.

“We’ll have to ask about the particulars. Like if we need to do any special arrangements, for example,” Raebin said.

I summoned up the status window belonging to the member who was talking eagerly at the moment.

[Name: Kim Raebin]

Rapping: A+ (S+)

Singing: C+

Dancing: B (A+)

Physical attractiveness: A- (A+)

Charm: A (S)

Trait: Maestro (S)

Just picking a person at random in our group produced these results. What was more, a lot of them had grown by at least three stat points since Idol Inc.

And in Raebin’s case, he even gained a trait rank. Maybe that was normal, since he willingly threw himself into intense, short-term sprints producing with every new album.

Bae Sejin was the weakest, relatively speaking, but even he seemed to have picked up some strange techniques recently.

“Wow! So I can just memorize the entire movement according to the lyrics!”

“…?”

Having gotten used to basic dance routines, he could now focus on reproducing certain movements, instead of simply dancing to a rhythm, and his dancing within the group had become far more appealing because of it.

Isn’t that the harder approach? But that didn’t matter, since he apparently found it more intuitive. In any case, there were precious few people on the internet now who criticized TeSTAR for their skills on stage.

That makes us a very hard group to cover. It seemed that what had happened with Onyx when we’d switched songs for the Rookie of the Year award had already caused that impression to sink in. The internet was convinced that covering us was impossible.

And this time, it was a new group that would be covering us, while we did nothing. The difference in basic stats and practice would mean that the results were basically already guaranteed. It would be weird to worry that this was going to lose fans.

All we have to do is be careful to treat those rookies with respect. What actually worried me was a certain performance that seemed to have been added in as filler.

Chungwoo was pointing at it now.

[Team performance (TBD) / Two members from each group]

“And one out of the five performances is a team performance.”

“Yes.”

A couple of us would be joining members from the other two groups to perform. With the exception of the tacky ending, a popular non-TeSTAR song we would perform all together, it would be the first and last time any of them performed with us.

There is going to be some noise over this, no matter who is picked.

Eugene’s hand shot up. “I want to do it! The group performance!”

“Haha.”

Just as I thought. None of the members answered, despite his eager request. If any of us agreed now, Eugene would really end up performing.

It’ll be a bit cruel to send out Eugene. We didn’t care, of course, but in the eyes of the public, that was how it would seem. It was like sending your absolute best players to a friendly charity match. The issue bore some more thinking about, so I decided to put it aside for the time being.

Before long, at the first group meeting and practice session, it became clear that it was worth worrying about.

“Here’s the new setlist.”

We arrived a bit early and received a piece of paper, immediately noticing that a revision had been made with regard to the group performance.

[Team performance (TBD) / Two members from TeSTAR, two members from Miry-nay]

The bastards tapped out. The debut team from the recent season had dropped out of the performance. Their excuse was that their debut preparations prevented them from doing too much—they had too many performances to practice for already.

“If you don’t mind, I’d like to make it so that the end of this performance connects smoothly to the next one. That’s how we’ll bring in the rookies.”

The director’s explanation sounded reasonable, but it was quite strategic. Too strategic, in fact, for it to have been thought up by the new group. The excuse was good, but the timing was odd.

“Hmm.”

This is pretty interesting. For now, though, we would have to focus on our more pressing priorities. As the director was called away elsewhere, I began revising my plans regarding the group performance.

It didn’t take long for Miry-nay to appear, out of breath. The door flew open.

“Hello!”

They weren’t late, but it seemed they were also busy with comeback preparations. After greetings were exchanged, with some preparations being made and the staff moving back and forth, Chungwoo kindly explained the situation.

“There’s been a bit of a change to the proposal. It’ll be just our two groups in the group sequence.”

“Oh. Right.”

The member who’d ranked second place… that is, Park Minha… looked somewhat resigned to our fate.

“The proposal? We never got one…”

None of us said anything. It seemed that Miry-nay was still too new a group to warrant the kindness of a heads-up.

But then again, maybe it’s just us that’s special. Though we’d taken a measure of control through a series of events, most groups in their fourth year would still be pretty docile when it came to their agency.

Hmm.

Big Sejin quickly stepped in to keep the vibes from getting awkward. “Well, this is just the draft. It’s hardly important! What matters is that we put on a good performance! Good luck to everyone!”

“You’re absolutely right. We’ll do our best, no matter what. To a great concert!”

Eugene cheerfully held out his hand for a shake. “Yes! Let’s have a great performance together—”

“Wait.” I grabbed his shoulder coolly. “Eugene? What do you mean, together?”

“…?”

“Oh, right… I won’t be in that performance…” Eugene looked a little put out as he pulled his hand back.

Indeed, we’d just had an emergency meeting, in which we’d excluded Eugene from the group performance.

“What? But I’ll do a great job!”

“Yes, we know that. That’s why you should do something even bigger at the concert.”

“What would that be?’

“Uh, well…”

Suffice it to say that we’d had to offer him many incentives. The reason we’d gone out of our way to exclude him was not actually my initial fear that he’d outgun them on stage.

He’s just too friendly. At the same time, he seldom showed restraint. He would not hesitate to do anything and everything that would look good on stage, and he could easily cross a line in the minds of the fans.

There will be two female idols and two male idols in this performance. We can’t have him doing that. There are too many factors to consider. In this situation, it was safest for only those who could keep a cool head and make intelligent decisions to be in the performance. That meant there was only one possible composition.

“I… see!”

“All right!”

Big Sejin smiled and threw an arm around my shoulder. “It’ll be me and Moondae who’ll be joining you for the group performance! I think it’ll be great!”

So the decision had been made. If we did it this way, at least, the worst criticism that would be thrown at us was that it was hilarious how little we seemed to fit into our roles.

“I see! Am I free to come up with ideas and stuff? I think it would be great if we could do something really cool!”

“Hey! Yulki!”

“Huh? What? Shouldn’t I have said that?”

Upon hearing the top member in Miry-nay say this, the other girls groaned and grabbed at her arms.

The member who’d ranked second nodded resignedly. “Right. It’ll be me and Yulki.”

So the members ranked #1 and #2 on their respective audition shows were both going to be in the performance. They didn’t want to lose… and if I had to guess, the second member was responsible for this arrangement.

I guess they guessed that TeSTAR would try to win, even if it was against female idols. Perhaps this was partly due to the fact that all of us had come from audition shows. This made the situation all the more unique. At this rate, we might even end up trying to outdo each other, like in a team battle on the show. That scenario would make the likelihood of unpleasant rumors spreading one hundred percent.

“Well, that’s great news! Let’s put on a fantastic performance!” Big Sejin said.

I knew that under normal circumstances, he would have asked to make a cheer together or create a group chat for the four of us. But instead, he seemed intent on focusing on only the work side of things. That made it obvious to me how things were going to go.

And if we’re going to do something that’s high quality… There was only one option. I mentally set aside all the potential concepts for the performance I’d come up with, except for one. And then I began to simulate the conversation in my head, which would most naturally go where I needed it to.

***

The director returned. A few important announcements were made, and different topics were discussed. Those of us who would be taking part in the group performance held a separate meeting of our own. Starting the discussion with the one thing that would be difficult to change further down the line meant that we had to talk about stage equipment.

I knew it. And what was more, because our performance would be wedged between existing performances, we wouldn’t be able to use the ones that were being used by the performance prior as well as the ones that came after ours.

“So you’re saying that it’s best if the equipment usage doesn’t overlap, right?” Big Sejin asked the camera director.

“Yes.”

Hmm. That means no wires. No confetti or lifts, either, since those will be in the following stage.

“No water, either, huh? Our title track will come two performances later, and we don’t want to allow for comparisons to be drawn.”

“You’re right.”

Big Sejin smoothly crossed out the equipment that TeSTAR had plans to use in their own performances.

He’s doing great.

The top member of Miry-nay, however, seemed a little frustrated.

“Why don’t we start by choosing the song? That’s the usual way of things. Right now, we’re focusing too much on what we can’t do. That’s no fun!”

“H-hey!” Minha cried.

“You’ve got a point,” I said.

Nice timing.

“Is there something you have in mind?”

“Oh! Well, we think hip-hop might be good…”

I let her describe all the songs that Miry-nay wanted to do, so she would grow excited and start considering all the possible options.

Someone with her personality probably wants to try a lot of different things. And in the course of that, a few of the songs that I had in mind were sure to come up.

“In that sense, I think ‘Attack’ might also be pretty good…”

There it is. Now it’ll feel like you chose the song, not us. After waiting for a moment longer, I signaled Big Sejin and butted in.

“Come to think of it, you mentioned earlier that you wanted to do something cool.”

“Yes!”

“Then why don’t we do the song you just mentioned… with a concept like this?”

I began to fill a piece of paper with lines and words. The concept… the expected effects… and how the arrangement would be done. I made it seem like I was brainstorming these things on the spot.

“Something like that.”

I honestly found the process pretty fun, and that made my leading the conversation seem a bit more natural and impromptu. I thumped my hand down on the paper and looked up. The #1 member’s eyes were sparkling.

She took the bait.

“I love it!”

“I agree… I mean, I think you’ve already given us a pretty solid option here!”

All right. I sensed they were being polite, but it seemed they were also sincere. It was time to move on to the next step.

“Oh, so both of you like this sort of thing. Then the choice of stage equipment will be very simple! I know just the thing,” Big Sejin said, following up immediately. He pointed at one of the available devices—the lasers.

And so our plan was nearing completion, without wasting any time on unnecessary rivalries.