Chapter 327

Chapter 327

[Idol of the Year “TeSTAR” wins Artist of the Year Award at ToneA]

[TeSTAR wins “202X ToneA” daesang]

[Excited winning speech at ToneA… TeSTAR is “creating a label!”]

At first, the daesang, our speeches, and TeSTAR’s future potential were all the topics of headlines. I could only assume that many of the articles had already been written ahead of time so that they could be published as soon as we won the award. If the content was nothing unique, the articles that went up first were likely to get more views.

More articles that seemed to feature tacked-on additions of what the members had said during their speeches followed in the next few hours. The real fun started after the ceremony was over, however.

[TeSTAR is creating a new independent label… Is this T1’s new strategy for K-pop growth?]

[T1 to create new K-pop artist label… starting with TeSTAR]

They began reporting on the surprising statement I’d made at the event. Their question was simple: why were we creating a new label? It wasn’t really all that rare for an independent label to be created for a specific artist, but they were usually publicized differently than how we had gone about it.

An artist had mentioned it, seemingly randomly, during a speech after receiving an award, instead of the agency releasing a statement as part of its business strategy. The event that I’d mentioned it at was hosted by none other than T1, to boot.

T1 is doubling down. They’ve got something big planned. Those who were interested in the inner workings of the entertainment industry inevitably thought this way as soon as they clicked on the relevant articles.

The fans’ reactions only contributed to this.

- Finally! Yes!

- So we won’t have to leave our group in the hands of some mediocre affiliate anymore? I’m so proud of you guys, really T_T

- I’ve never seen Moondae look so excited. He’s been like this ever since they got that first daesang. It’s so cute that I want to cry.

- Am I dreaming?

- Wow, an independent label before they even renew their contract? Give them proper support and lots of manpower

The fans knew that the agency had often caused trouble for us, but now we’d won several daesangs and declared we were establishing an independent label. This got an explosive reaction from the fans—in a good way, of course.

When excitement and agitation filled the comments and various online communities, the interest of members of the public who were not fans was also roused. They started to get the impression that something huge had just happened. This led to a secondary effect—on the stocks, to be precise.

=======================

[What does everyone think of the new label TeSTAR is creating?]

It’s a good thing for the stock prices of T1 Entertainment, right?

=======================

- TeSTAR is being allowed to do this because positions may overlap between TeSTAR and the male idol group from the new season of Idol Inc., Spacer. We’ll probably see some new plans unfold starting next year.

- LOL I can see why they did this, judging from T1 Stars’ sales this year. Yeah, this is a good thing

└ Precisely. TeSTAR is at the top of their game in Korea, but they’re not so strong overseas. The thing is, overseas popularity usually follows when domestic popularity is achieved. I’m sure that they’ll become bigger in foreign markets as well next year, and that will double their name value and sales several times over

- I suppose T1 is the exclusive owner of TeSTAR’s new label?

- Entertainment stocks are never a wise purchase… but this time I feel tempted

As rumors spread that T1 had a big plan on the horizon, their stock prices even went up. Posts analyzed this, transforming the rumors until they were largely considered an established truth.

[What’s the reason T1 Entertainment’s stocks went up?]

[What are the advantages of an independent label? T1’s new plan]

At this point, T1 probably wasn’t inclined to tell the public that they had never heard of any plans for a new label for TeSTAR before. If they were to make that statement, it could easily be interpreted negatively, potentially leading to harmful repercussions for the company.

Even if we went independent, T1 would not lose out on the arrangement. Our label would just be another affiliate. In the end, the agency had been deprived of the biggest card in their hand when it came to persuading and potentially threatening us.

The subtle threat that our relationship with T1 might be affected won’t work anymore. As a result, three days after our recent daesang, the agency got in touch with us.

“The agency is asking if we want to put out an article explaining that no details are yet available.”

“Whoa!”

I knew it. Instead of trying to browbeat us, they were playing friendly and asking for our opinion.

There we go. They were now ready to sit down and start negotiations. I nodded in satisfaction upon hearing the news that Chungwoo brought us. Most of the members seemed to find the whole situation a little absurd but knew it was a good thing that the bastards had approached us with hopes of communicating, confused about how things had gone down.

Bae Sejin even gave me a thumbs-up and mouthed, You did great!

I’d expect no less from him, since he’d been the first to hear my plan and agree with it. I gave him a wry nod. One of the members suddenly grew red in the face, clearly agitated.

“Th-this is hardly fair!”

“…?”

It was Ahyeon.

Well, that was sudden.

He balled his fists and began to explain the reason for his anger. “Th-they were so mean to Moondae!”

Oh. He meant the day of the awards ceremony. That day, they’d been beside themselves and had even called to tell us off.

They told me I’d been impudent and that they’d lost their trust in us, or something like that. I’d expected as much, and they were just blowing hot air by that point, so I’d deemed it safe to ignore. Even so, I’d apologized, assuring them that I understood their confusion and that I would discuss this sort of thing in advance with them next time, just in case it interfered with our next negotiation. None of it had surprised me, but Ahyeon had seemed very annoyed. He balled his hands into fists.

“M-Moondae apologized… but they didn’t. They wanted to make it seem like M-Moondae lied… This isn’t right.”

“I agree! The agency is a bunch of meanies! Give them a taste of justice!” Eugene cried in agreement. It seemed he’d learned a new idiom from the dubbed superhero movie he’d watched recently.

Chungwoo seemed to consider carefully for a moment, then asked gently, “What do you want to do, then?”

“I want to protest. C-can’t we have a vote about this?”

“Actually, I’m fine with having a vote. Here goes, then.”

“…?”

Aren’t you guys going to ask me for my opinion? And so they held a vote without asking me, the person who had the most right to feel offended. They came to a neat consensus.

Ahyeon said firmly, “We’ll lodge a complaint!”

I nodded uncertainly.

“Okay… I guess I’m thankful.”

“D-don’t mention it! Uh, what do you want to say, Moondae?”

Say what? I looked around and realized that they were all ready to follow my lead, staring back at me without a word.

Well, all right, then. I shrugged.

“Let’s just tell them that.”

“Huh?”

“What you said.”

There was nothing more to add. I wrote up a frank response conveying Ahyeon’s stance, which could be summarized as follows.

[ - We were taken aback by your request. We have a contract, so why do you want to state that no details are available? Are you planning on not carrying out your end of the agreement? ]

[ - We apologized for mentioning it at the awards ceremony, since we assumed you might be caught off guard by the press’s reaction. But that also makes us nervous.]

[- We believed the agency would carry out the agreement stated in the contract. That’s why we mentioned it. We hope you didn’t get angry at us because you had no intention of doing so.]

In other words, we were telling them to shut up and come up with a plan.

“I-I’m sending it!” Ahyeon said.

“Okay!”

“I think it summarizes well why we are upset! It’s great!” Raebin said.

Following some encouragement from the other members, the message was sent to the agency’s management.

Big Sejin leaned toward me and whispered, “This isn’t going to do anything, is it?”

“Nope,” I replied.

The agency wouldn’t just look at the message, apologize to us, and tell us first thing tomorrow that our label would be created as soon as possible. It would just upset them and make them even more nervous.

They’ll be pissed, since nothing is going the way they want it to. They’d be even more angry since they’d have to placate us somehow, meaning they couldn’t play games. In a word, they were the disadvantaged party in every way, and they’d met a dead end, unable to take action one way or another.

I grinned. “But it’s generally in situations like this that people make mistakes.”

Big Sejin watched me quietly for a moment, then thumped me on the back. “Moondae, let’s keep TeSTAR alive for a long time, okay? In fact, we’re going to be TeSTAR for the rest of our lives. You know what I’m saying, right?”

“Sure,” I said, grinning.

It felt good to hear him acknowledge this desire out loud. Being able to agree so easily to such a statement was nice as well. If everything went according to plan, things would only get even better for us going forward.

As expected, the agency made a huge mistake only a few days later. They fought with their parent company, the headquarters of T1 Entertainment.

***

The agency, having failed to persuade both their parent company and TeSTAR, no longer had the ability to release a statement as they liked. They couldn’t simply delay, however, without announcing anything, since the fans were growing impatient.

- Why isn’t the agency saying anything?

- The articles are saying they haven’t made an announcement. I don’t like it

- Even if the label is only starting after the awards ceremonies are over, they should make an announcement, at least. The members won’t have mentioned something that hasn’t even been discussed in advance

If the agency delayed any longer, the fans seemed ready to send a fleet of protest trucks their way. I realized that my being the one to make the announcement had contributed to the buzz. The shady people on the internet who loved their conspiracy theories seemed to have gone to town with this.

- From the way that glum dog took to the microphone, I’m assuming he invested a ton of money in the label LOL

- What is he, the CEO?

- That’s Moondog for you. He won’t let the leader take anything from him

Such words were usually dismissed and criticized by the majority of the public, who saw these sorts of people as negative critics who simply didn’t like how excited Moondae had been about the announcement. But any brand of controversy led to more talk. Even these negative comments assumed that TeSTAR’s new label would be a big thing, which naturally led anyone who heard about it to accept this as a given.

This is the sort of business buzz that most companies would die for. In the end, T1 Entertainment took the bait.

[T1’s new vision for K-pop starts with “an artist-specialized label”]

They released an article before anyone else could. Their statement was basically an announcement that they would not help T1 Stars to stall. This didn’t mean management at our agency gave up when they saw this, however. Rumor had it that they’d lost their sh*t and sent a forceful letter to T1.

What a stupid thing to do. They weren’t idiots, and wouldn’t have done something like this under ordinary circumstances, but they’d been worked up over this contract issue for days and had made the wrong call.

The letter, which wasn’t even vetted properly, was sent to T1. This led to the management of our agency being marked as impudent by the higher-ups at T1. The result was simple.

“So in a word, we’ll be able to go independent by early next year at the earliest.”

They’d surrendered.

“No way!”

I was on a video call, and the face on the screen seemed excited. Big Moon had been so curious about the situation ever since my announcement at the awards ceremony that I’d called to explain what was going on. I’d been meaning to just call him, but I’d video-called him in the end so I could check on how he was doing.

He seems to be doing all right so far. His retreat was going well, and he seemed healthy.

“Gunwoo, isn’t it too cold out there? You’re on the balcony, right?”

I grinned. It seemed that any time I had to do something out of sight of the members I ended up on the balcony. I could have made a video call like this, using only the tiny screen on my phone, in my room. It had been a force of habit that led me to come out here, nothing else.

“It’s fine. The apartment is expensive, so you can hardly feel a breeze out here,” I said.

“Wow. That’s a relief. That place is nice!”

“Yeah,” I said with a shrug.

“And congratulations on the label! As your fan, I’m so excited about the next album, too…”

Big Moon, who was using Gunwoo’s body, began to drone on about how excited he was. I let him continue without stopping him. Then someone came out onto the balcony after pushing the door aside.

“Moondae, the company just got in touch—”

“Huh?”

I turned around and noticed Bae Sejin, smartphone in hand.

Huh? The company? I tried to question him after removing one of my earbuds, but Bae Sejin reacted more quickly. He suddenly pointed at my phone.

“…?”

“Huh? What!”

It was almost as if he’d recognized someone. I stared.

“Hey. Gunwoo?”

Bae Sejin, don’t tell me…