Chapter 169. The Sound of Blue
While Do Jun-hyeok and the Blue Moon members were enjoying a hotel vacation in America, Dae-hun and Jin-hee were extremely busy setting up the trainee support foundation.
Much busier than they'd initially expected.
At first, all they had to do was establish the foundation, transfer over some spare funds for tax purposes, create an advertisement asking for donations, and put it on the website.
That should have been the end of it.
But somehow, word had gotten out.
Donations kept pouring directly into Universe's account.
And they weren't small amounts either.
They were coming in by the hundreds of millions of won.
"Ugh! Work is already exhausting enough, and of all people, I'm stuck here alone with Kim Jin-hee."
"Why? I'm in a good mood."
Dae-hun looked genuinely startled by her answer.
Normally, exaggerating their hatred for each other far beyond what they actually felt was part of their daily routine.
"You're in a good mood?"
"Yeah. Thinking about how this would've been my everyday life if we hadn't broken up sooner makes me really happy."
Of course.
There was no way Jin-hee would say something pleasant.
While transferring the donations into the foundation's account, Jin-hee thought about how famous some of the donors were.
The first person to contribute had been Sam Jason.
Michael Jason's older brother.
He had donated five hundred million won.
Kerins's side then donated around two hundred million won.
But apparently, after hearing how much Sam Jason had contributed, they sent another three hundred million to match him.
Both families had made plenty of money personally, so perhaps amounts in the hundreds of millions barely felt significant to them.
The trainee support organization, currently operating under the name Full Moon Foundation, had already become fairly well known in Korea, and countless trainees were applying for assistance.
To qualify, an applicant had to have spent at least three years as a trainee.
They also had to remain under a trainee contract for at least three years after the date of applying for support.
To prevent abuse, anyone who failed to complete those three years after receiving aid had to return all the money.
However, if their contract was terminated unfairly, they could submit an appeal for relief.
On the Full Moon Foundation website, a banner on the right side displayed the total amount of money raised so far.
It had already passed six billion won.
For an ordinary foundation, let alone one that had only just been established, donations were coming in absurdly fast.
Just as Jin-hee was thinking how strange that was, Dae-hun, who was reviewing applications, suddenly snorted.
"Why are you laughing?"
"No, look at this article."
Dae-hun showed her an online article.
It mocked the Full Moon Foundation as a "general union for trainees."
It looked like one of those web articles planted by an entertainment company.
"What does that even mean? How is the Full Moon Foundation a union?"
"I can see why they'd think that. Everyone who needs to know already knows Universe created this foundation."
"What? How would they know?"
Dae-hun clicked his tongue and explained.
The fact that Universe was behind the foundation had already spread completely because of Moon Hee-jung and Kerins's side.
Because of that, other agencies felt the Full Moon Foundation was making trainees more arrogant.
If Universe was wealthy enough to financially support trainees from other companies, then trainees naturally began assuming Universe could always take them in.
So whenever their agencies made unreasonable demands serious enough to count as contractual fault, the trainees had started resisting.
"Wow... Really? No wonder the donations were coming in so easily. So everyone already knows we're behind it."
"I know internet monitoring is technically my job, but don't you think you're a little too out of touch?"
Either way, if that kind of positive rumor had spread, donations would probably continue coming in smoothly.
They already had six billion won.
They planned to select around five hundred scholarship recipients.
Even if each trainee received five hundred thousand won every month, that was only two hundred and fifty million won per month.
About three billion per year.
Which meant they already had enough money to keep the program running that way for two full years.
And donations would continue coming in during that time.
"Hey. Looking at this, most of the donations came from broadcasters. The scholarship trainees could end up appearing on their stations too. Isn't this actually a business that benefits us?"
"It was supposed to be one hundred percent charity, but once word got out that it was a Universe foundation... well, it turned into this. I can't tell you how grateful I am to Ms. Moon Hee-jung. She spread the rumor like crazy."
The first production meeting had ended two days ago.
But I contacted Lewis separately and asked to meet him alone.
We met at a restaurant for an early lunch.
Lewis, the Super Bowl Halftime Show planning chairman who had always been in a suit both in the future video and during meetings, was dressed casually today in outdoor clothes.
At the NFL, he might be the dignified man at the top.
But at home, he was probably just another middle-aged American guy who spent his evenings watching boring National Geographic programs.
In other words, he seemed like the kind of person who might respond well to:
We're already this far in. Let's just talk honestly.
"Why are you staring at me like that...? What did you want to meet about?"
Lewis asked.
No point wasting his time.
I'd go straight to the point.
"We reviewed everyone's Halftime Show plans the other day, right? Are the initial plans always that sloppy?"
Based on everything so far, it seemed right to consider him our ally within the NFL.
Now I needed to confirm whether that was actually true.
"There's nothing I can say is 'always' the case. The Super Bowl Halftime Show has a long history, but there have only been around sixty editions so far. And it's not like we've personally planned all sixty of them. Every year is unpredictable."
Apparently, while having several singers participate at once had become less unusual in recent years, in the past, that alone had often been a defining feature.
Michael Jason and Kerins had both headlined the Halftime Show alone, after all.
"Still, this year is a bit unusual. Blue Moon isn't planning any collaborative stages either, right?"
"That's correct."
"Well... I have no idea how things will turn out. They'll all probably handle themselves. These artists all have strong pride, so I'm not really in a position to tell them what to do."
If the stage movements written in their proposals were actually followed exactly, the performances looked guaranteed to fail.
That was probably because once the featured artists arrived, they had no intention of following those routes anyway.
The melodies also dragged awkwardly in some sections or suddenly changed without reason.
That too would become natural once the featured guests were inserted.
"Looking at the plans, it seems obvious they all have featured guests. I don't understand why they're trying so hard to hide them. Even if everyone brings only one, we'll already have around ten singers..."
Unless you were an idiot, it was impossible not to realize featured artists were being hidden.
The fact that Lewis openly admitted that suspicion meant he genuinely didn't know what the other producers were plotting.
So in the future video, when they suddenly proposed moving Blue Moon to the opening show shortly before the performance, Lewis had truly been surprised.
"This is a secret between you and me."
I checked that nobody nearby could hear us, then lowered my voice.
"I don't think some of the other Halftime Show producers are happy about Blue Moon. Because we don't have any featured guests."
Lewis shook his head.
"That can't be right. Even if all the other artists use featured performers, Blue Moon is an exception. Blue Moon is allowed to be different."
That's what you think.
The other planners were going to use that exact lack of featured artists as the excuse to move Blue Moon into the opening show.
"Does your opinion matter if the other planners think otherwise? They could remove us from the stage entirely. Anyway, that's why we hurried and found featured artists too. This is absolutely confidential."
"Really? Who did you get?"
I showed him the recently successful 〈Candyman〉 episode featuring Kim Gwang-yeon.
Every time the hologram Kim Gwang-yeon moved and sang, Lewis reacted in amazement.
"Oh. The audience really loves this. Is that CG?"
