Chapter 106

Chapter 106. Seeds of Distrust

Nearly every employee in the company gathered in Practice Room A, along with the 〈Rebooting〉 trainees.

The Blue Moon members were there too.

Everyone wore slightly serious expressions after hearing the absurd news that we'd be using Sea Girls instead of Billy Aaron.

"But why all of a sudden? We were supposed to get a song from Billy Aaron. Articles already went out about it. We can't just change it now."

Song Hana broke the silence.

To be honest, the biggest reason was that I couldn't guarantee Billy's song would automatically succeed.

Among the tracks I'd seen in the future video, the songs ranked fourth and fifth were different songs, but aside from those two, almost everything else had come from 〈Friday and Saturday Are for Singers〉.

It was fair to say that almost no song represented the early nineties better than 〈I Love You So Much〉.

But that didn't mean I could be certain the debut group's Billy-produced song would be somewhere in the top three.

Even if I rushed the debut preparations and launched them before then.

In other words, Billy's new song had only two possible outcomes.

Either it landed somewhere in the top three.

Or it didn't even enter the top ten.

Even if the first possibility was far more likely, I didn't want to take the risk of the second.

No matter how talented Yoo Jong-hak was as a music-program planner, he couldn't understand the charts as well as I did.

If Yoo Jong-hak could push a song to number four, then I was confident I could push mine to number one.

"Everyone knows Blue Moon's 〈Homesick Girl〉 became a huge hit after being released through a competition program, right? Back then, the thing I heard most often was, 'A competition show is too temporary to rely on for marketing a new song.'"

I'd never actually heard anyone say that.

"By the time we release this song, there will be a retro boom. That's exactly why PD Yoo Jong-hak is preparing a show called 〈Friday and Saturday Are for Singers〉 around the same period. That retro boom will definitely be temporary too. But once a song reaches the top of the charts, keeping it there is my specialty. Has anyone here ever seen one of my plans fail?"

Honestly, they just didn't want to remake a Sea Girls song.

No one could directly challenge my opinion.

But if they weren't convinced, then they weren't convinced.

That couldn't be helped.

"Are you sure this retro trend is really going to happen?"

"Yes. I'm sure."

"How can you be sure?"

One of the trainees from Root Entertainment asked sharply.

Of course, I'd never seen a future video of the debut group reaching number one.

So I couldn't truly be certain.

I could only choose the route with the highest probability of success.

Billy's songs would still be available later.

But if I lost 〈I Love You So Much〉 now, it would be gone for good.

Not that I could give Billy's song to the debut group no matter how quickly I received one anyway.

"I'm the one who brought back Billy's songs, but the idea of having the group produced by a foreign artist was decided by the original 〈Rebooting〉 planners. I wasn't involved back then. Billy's songs may be huge overseas, but are they really that strong in Korea? When was the last time an English pop song entered Mango's top five? Univ took first place during the last competition, but did the song itself perform dramatically well on the charts?"

"You're saving Billy's song for Blue Moon, aren't you?"

"What?"

The Root trainee snapped at me.

"We're only going to promote for six months and then get sent back to our agencies, so giving us a Billy song feels like a waste to you, right? That's why you're making us do some weird retro concept and planning to send us back afterward."

"That's not what this is."

"We went from Billy Aaron to 〈I Love You So Much〉 out of nowhere. Seriously? Even the lyrics weren't grammatically correct back then."

She was clearly furious.

I understood that they were irritated because the debut planning had been delayed.

But couldn't they trust me just a little?

"If the situation becomes right for one of Billy's songs to succeed, and Blue Moon is the team still under this company at the time, then yes, I might give it to Blue Moon. But I'm not saving it for them."

"..."

"In any case, I'm confident. If you debut with 〈I Love You So Much〉 this time, people will talk about this concept as one of the best plans of your careers no matter what you do afterward. It's not like I can show you the future. So this much, you'll have to trust me on. If you're still too uneasy, I'll let you go. Do you need time to think about it?"

No one asked anything else.

The atmosphere was as gloomy as a funeral.

But once they heard the new arrangement, their reactions would change.

"For now, start vocal practice with the original track until the arrangement is finished. Kang Sang-do will handle the arrangement, Yang Seung-tae the choreography, Hong Young-hye the debut-stage outfits, and Choi Joo-hong the album-cover design. You're not the only ones desperate for this to succeed. Universe is going all in too."

Shin Hyung-geol, who had practically handed 〈Rebooting〉 over on a silver platter, was now planning his next competition program with Root Entertainment's planning staff.

There was a reason Shin Hyung-geol liked competition programs.

Fans were at their most passionate when the trainee they supported was still competing.

If that trainee was eliminated, they might never appear on television again.

Naturally, fans poured all their attention into them while they still had the chance.

And if the program contained every imaginable type of idol, it was actually harder not to find someone who matched your taste.

Of course, the biggest purpose was easing competition between agencies.

There was the limitation that they were simply pushing the pressure of competition onto the trainees instead.

But competition between major agencies was a different kind of problem.

If the market continued like it was now, countless schemes and underhanded moves would inevitably spread.

That would only make life even harder for trainees.

If a competition program brought idols from different agencies together, let them earn money together, and split the profits fairly, it could cool that competition down somewhat.

"CEO Do Jun-hyeok changed the debut group's concept."

"Changed it? Was there even a concept to begin with?"

His secretary reported to Shin Hyung-geol in the middle of the meeting.

"They were supposed to receive a song from Billy Aaron, remember? Apparently they've decided to remake Sea Girls' 〈I Love You So Much〉 instead."

"What?"

Sea Girls instead of Billy?

Did that make any sense?

When Shin Hyung-geol asked where the information came from, the secretary said some of Root's trainees had complained about it.

"I don't understand. What on earth is he thinking?"

"Maybe he's saving Billy's song for Blue Moon."

That would be the most ordinary explanation.

But there was no way.

Do Jun-hyeok wasn't the kind of bastard who thought that simply.

If he saved Billy's song and gave it to Blue Moon instead, the backlash from fans would be enormous.

The program had already ended three months ago.

If he did something like that now...

Unless he had somehow decided Billy's songs couldn't be used at all because of something that happened this time.

No matter how much Do Jun-hyeok favored Blue Moon, there was no way he didn't understand what a massive opportunity this debut-group activity was.

Out of everything Do Jun-hyeok had done through Universe, the six-month debut-group project was the biggest opportunity of all.

Those six months alone could double the company's size.

For reasons Shin Hyung-geol couldn't understand, Do Jun-hyeok had apparently decided that debuting them with a Sea Girls song was better than using Billy Aaron.

"Didn't Yoo Jong-hak say something last time about making... Monday and Tuesday Are Something? Some retro music show? I think Do Jun-hyeok and Yoo Jong-hak were talking that day. Did Yoo Jong-hak fill his head with nonsense?"

"You mean 〈Friday and Saturday Are for Singers〉? I'll look into it."

For a retro trend to explode, the public needed some kind of special demand for it.

There was nothing like that right now.

When Yoo Jong-hak had said he was planning a retro music program anyway, Shin Hyung-geol had sincerely advised him against it.

Because the program was obviously going to fail.

Do Jun-hyeok was still impossible to understand.

Maybe this time, Shin Hyung-geol could finally teach him a proper lesson.

"We have three trainees in that debut group, right?"

"Yes."

"Make it public and pull them back out. We'll put those three into the new program as they are."

The new show was being planned around the current observational-variety trend, combining dorm life with stage performances.

They were even building a dedicated set.

"They already have group experience, so doesn't that go against the program's original purpose?"

"It's fine. Sell the angle that Do Jun-hyeok stabbed them in the back. Play the emotions properly and they'll debut without much trouble. Anyway, how's the set for the new program?"

The secretary stopped writing and answered.

"We've decided on the Odu-ri set in Ganghwa. Until recently, Director Choi Gyu-sik had it rented for filming 〈The Stranger〉, but he canceled, so we were able to secure it quickly."

Wasn't 〈The Stranger〉 another movie Do Jun-hyeok was involved in?

Whatever.

That worked out nicely.

The Odu-ri set could be made to look like either an American downtown area or a western wasteland.

The moment Shin Hyung-geol heard about the set, he became certain.

No matter how capable Do Jun-hyeok was, this time he was definitely making a mistake.

In broad daylight, Dae-hun gave me some news that wasn't exactly pleasant.

The three trainees from Root Entertainment wanted to quit.

I'd told them I'd let them go if they were unhappy with debuting through 〈I Love You So Much〉.

But I hadn't actually expected them to do it.

If all three trainees from the same agency decided together, they'd probably discussed it among themselves.

Or Shin Hyung-geol had some kind of scheme in mind.

They were skilled trainees despite being a little sharp-tempered.

Still, maybe this was actually better.

I'd forced myself to keep the lineup at eleven members because I was worried about offending the agency executives.

Meanwhile, Yang Seung-tae had already been complaining that distributing choreography from a song originally made for four people across eleven members was a headache.

Honestly, eleven members felt burdensome to me too.

I'd even started wondering whether we'd need to rent a bus.

With eight members, we could simply use one of the spare company vans.

I entered Practice Room A and addressed the trainees who had already gathered.

"It looks like something came up on Root Entertainment's side. Those three trainees will be leaving the debut group."

"R-Really?"

I'd said something had come up, but everyone could probably guess the truth.

They had left because they hated 〈I Love You So Much〉.

The others were clearly shaken too.

But it was fine.

Sang-do, who had become thoroughly accustomed to slave labor, had already finished the arrangement.

"The new arrangement is finished too. We even have guide vocals. I'm sure all of you have a lot on your minds, but let's listen to the song first."

I needed to settle the members down quickly.

So without wasting time, I pulled over an amplifier and played the track.

"...Oh."

Song Eun-bin quietly let out a sound of admiration.

The old drum beat that had sounded almost like karaoke accompaniment was completely gone.

So was the dated mix filled with heavy echo and xylophone-like sounds.

Sang-do had erased every trace of them without mercy.

If you only heard the opening, you wouldn't be able to tell whether this song had come out thirty years ago or thirty seconds ago.

I'd expected anything Sang-do touched to become trendy.

Everyone else had been worried it might still feel dated.

My concern had been different.

What if he modernized it so much that we couldn't ride the retro wave at all?

But Sang-do, who'd been born in the 2000s, had somehow captured the appeal of 〈I Love You So Much〉 like someone who had actually lived through the early nineties.

He'd done it by placing one cheerful trumpet line over the modern instrumental.

"Wow... Are the guide vocals Serena sunbae and Diana sunbae?"

"That's right."

Serin sang almost the entire song.

Anna handled the rap section.

Nineties rap usually had simple, rigid flows locked directly to the beat, making it difficult to intentionally sound off-time.

Anna had listened carefully to the instrumental, then pulled out one of her own lyrics and recorded it almost exactly as she'd written it.

"The song sounds seriously good! It feels like this is probably how it sounded to people back then. Honestly, the original is way too dated to listen to now."

"What did I tell you? If I'd thought this had no chance of working, I wouldn't have forced the idea."

The trainees who had looked miserable just moments ago began to brighten.

They were following the exact same steps Blue Moon once had.

First, surprise at the quality of the new song.

Next would be the choreography.

Then the album cover.

I'd been lonely arguing for 〈I Love You So Much〉 by myself this whole time.

Seeing everyone finally enjoy it made me feel completely relieved.

Sang-do had kept the original BPM unchanged.

But because of Serin's guide, the vocal style had changed quite a bit.

The trainees took the instrumental version and immediately began practicing again.

Last time, maybe the Root trainees had dragged down the mood.

Or maybe everyone simply lacked motivation.

Either way, things had felt flat.

But now, with three members gone, they quickly redistributed the empty parts and soon managed to sing the entire song.

"I told you that I love you so much.

All those words I'd prepared, I couldn't say a single one."

The highlight went to Choi Sarang, whose voice had the most distinctive character.

Her tone was unique but still unfamiliar to the public, which gave it its own strength.

If this song became a hit, Sea Girls would completely lose ownership of 〈I Love You So Much〉 in the public's mind to the debut group.

We repeated the song over and over while carefully adjusting the line distribution.

In the middle of that, Choi Gyu-sik called.

I stepped out of the practice room and answered.

"Yes, Director. This is Do Jun-hyeok."

"You've been working hard. You remember the audition we held last time, right? For 〈The Stranger〉. I'm calling to talk about casting Serin."

It had finally come.

I remembered at least three famous actresses auditioning for the same role as Serin.

Serin was a genius whenever she wasn't nervous.

And she'd managed to audition without getting nervous.

So it must have gone well.

"The actress who was originally cast really does fit the original role extremely well."

"What about Serin?"

"Ah, well..."