Chapter 67. An Ominous Pre-Meeting
〈Homesick girl〉 was complete.
The members had practiced the choreography enough, and now all that remained was enduring the wait until their first performance.
Before that, we decided to put together a small internal stage so we could check how the members' movements and expressions looked during an actual performance.
It was the final inspection.
Somehow, Hong Young-hye had heard that we were doing the last rehearsal.
She came driving her truck again, dressing the members in different outfits one after another and taking up our time.
We had already hired proper stylists, but they barely had any chance to show what they could do.
Hong Young-hye was just that good.
She wasn't even an employee, but whenever we had an important shoot, she always came over and handled the outfits herself.
And it looked like she would keep doing that for quite some time.
We weren't even paying her.
What exactly was she after?
Her kindness was so suspicious that I almost wanted to make her sign a contract just to feel safer.
Unfortunately, she wasn't the type of person who would ever become an employee.
"A rich lady wants to spend her free time helping us for free. Why are you so suspicious of everything?"
Yang Seung-tae asked.
In Seung-tae's case, we were seriously discussing whether he should become our exclusive choreographer.
As for Choi Joo-hong, we'd let him go for now.
"Even a hobby needs to be fun. If she likes dressing people up that much, she could just put clothes on mannequins. What if she's planning to start something like 'Young-hye Entertainment' later and steal the girls from us?"
"If Young-hye Entertainment ever happens, she'd probably recruit you first, hyung. As an actor or an idol."
It still felt suspicious...
But I was sure she meant no harm, so I decided to accept her kindness.
"We're ready now!"
Serin shouted from behind the curtain covering the stage.
Lee Ha-na began setting up her cameras.
Dae-hun and I stepped forward and pulled the curtain open.
The members were already in position, fully dressed and waiting.
With the work of our new makeup team combined with Hong Young-hye's outfits, honestly, we could have filmed them exactly like this and uploaded it to the internet.
"Q-Quick! The music! Play the track!"
I hurried off the platform and rushed to my seat.
The backing track began.
The song opened with Serin's vocals.
The members looked as comfortable as if they had already performed it more than a thousand times.
Perfect vocals that sounded like an MR recording.
Free, expressive facial changes full of individuality.
Especially Youngchae.
She had dyed her hair khaki this time, and she made every piece of choreography Seung-tae had created shine at two hundred percent.
With a song like this.
A dance like this.
A performance built like this.
How could anyone not do the challenge?
The melody was so addictive that it kept ringing in my ears even after the song ended.
And the choreography fit so perfectly that it felt impossible to imagine any other movements working with it.
It was the perfect song to carry on the success of 〈N.Dolphin〉.
"That was amazing! You guys must've practiced like crazy."
"Of course."
When the song ended, Kim Jin-hee applauded and praised them.
The quality was on a completely different level from what we'd seen in the practice room.
Their first stage absolutely had to look like this.
I'd been so mesmerized that I felt like I hadn't even enjoyed it properly.
Once everything was over, I'd have to ask Lee Ha-na for the recording.
"All right, let's give some feedback. CEO, what did you think?"
Dae-hun asked.
Every member immediately turned toward me.
"What rank did 〈N.Dolphin〉 reach again?"
"Why are you asking something obvious? It was number one."
"That's disappointing."
I said.
"This song is obviously going to be more popular than 〈N.Dolphin〉. You're telling me it's only going to reach number one?"
"He's saying you just need to keep doing exactly what you're doing, girls."
The members cheered lightly and bounced around with excitement.
"Then everyone rest properly today and tomorrow. The CEO has the 〈Rebooting〉 pre-meeting tomorrow, and once he comes back, we'll need to have another meeting too. So don't make any plans for tomorrow."
Dae-hun neatly wrapped things up.
The members answered, "Yes," and Jin-hee quietly mocked him from the side.
"Dyet's mek nuu plens fer tumurro~"
The next day, as if celebrating the 〈Rebooting〉 pre-meeting with fireworks, articles announcing that Turb's CEO had received a prison sentence filled portals and social media.
But the people gathered at the meeting venue showed absolutely no reaction.
It was as though a family member who had left home was no longer family.
Just in case, I examined the people appearing as judges.
Turb's CEO, who had once shared the pie with them, was now headed behind bars, yet every one of them looked cheerful, ready to enjoy themselves.
I'd kept wondering why Shin Hyung-geol had bothered warning me.
Looking at their expressions, I started to understand.
If I fought with people like this and started digging through their dirty laundry, I'd probably only end up hurting myself.
Dae-hun came with me to the meeting.
We would need to discuss countermeasures constantly while the show was airing, so he also needed to know these people.
Meanwhile, the members were spending time in the indoor performance hall, checking the stage where they would actually perform.
Root Entertainment had sent CEO Shin Hyung-geol himself.
There were nine companies participating in total.
Most had sent their CEOs personally, but companies like Scale Media and Pantheon had sent department heads or regular managers instead.
-Pantheon Entertainment Management Division 2_Kim Dae-hyuk
Kim Dae-hyuk.
He was pretty capable.
But when I had still been at Pantheon, he'd been part of Division 1.
Pantheon must have gone through such a severe internal shake-up that they eventually reorganized positions based on ability instead of old affiliations.
It wasn't exactly an atmosphere where we could casually talk, so I only gave him a small nod and moved on.
There were nine companies, but including people who had accompanied them like Dae-hun, there were more than twenty people in the room.
Tak Hyun-mo entered the meeting hall.
"This is our first pre-meeting, correct? We gave you an earlier production outline, but there have been some changes to the original plan, so first, let me introduce CEO Do Jun-hyeok of Universe Entertainment."
Tak Hyun-mo briefly introduced me, Dae-hun, and Blue Moon.
Lukewarm applause followed.
"So Universe, the company that's really on a roll right now, has joined us."
"I've been enjoying Blue Moon."
The executives each offered a few polite compliments.
Tak Hyun-mo joined in.
"That's right. He's very ambitious. CEO Do was the very first person to contact us as soon as a seat opened up."
"Wow."
Everyone here was clearly a master of empty compliments.
Maybe Tak Hyun-mo genuinely meant well, but he probably knew to some extent that certain trainees had already been unofficially assigned.
If he truly supported us, I'd gladly accept it.
But there was no reason to depend on him anyway.
To be honest, Tak Hyun-mo looked like the least powerful person in the room.
"Then let's go over the rules once more."
Excluding Universe and including Turb, ninety-nine trainees or unpopular idols were currently practicing their introduction stages.
For convenience, they would all be called "trainees."
First, after watching their stages, the representative group from each agency would perform.
Then, after seeing those performances, the trainees would apply to become, for the purposes of the program, "trainees" under whichever agency's stage they liked most.
Each agency could accept a maximum of nine trainees.
If all ninety-nine trainees applied evenly across the nine agencies, and every agency filled all nine available spots, at least eighteen trainees would still be eliminated immediately.
And there was no chance every agency would accept the maximum number.
In reality, several times eighteen trainees would probably be eliminated right away.
I'd been thinking of choosing around five or six.
Should I give as many people a chance as possible instead?
Anyway, once trainees were assigned to each agency, active idols from those agencies would take on the role of "mentors."
The CEO would plan the stage, and the senior and junior groups would practice together.
After each performance, the judges would give scores.
"The weight of the scores increases with each round. If the first competition is out of ten points, the second will be out of twenty, the third out of thirty, and so on. Once the final competition ends, we'll total the scores and rank each trainee individually, regardless of group."
The trainees ranked from first to eleventh would debut as the 〈Rebooting〉 project idol group.
Once their activities as the 〈Rebooting〉 project group ended, the agency that had been responsible for each idol during the show would receive priority rights to sign them.
"Since everything is live and the rankings are individual rather than group-based, it's fairly balanced, right? Even if the group itself doesn't do well, a standout member can still make the debut lineup."
Tak Hyun-mo handed out detailed profiles for twenty of the major trainees.
Photos, height, agency, and previous groups if they had any.
Pretty detailed information.
They had already arranged everything among themselves, yet they were still putting on this much of a show.
Too bad.
I'm not an actor, so I can't follow a script.
As though Tak Hyun-mo somehow noticed the thought that had briefly crossed my mind, he cut in.
"You already know that practice footage and the trainees' daily lives will be pre-recorded, while every competition stage will be broadcast live, correct? There will be some recorded broadcasts due to scheduling, but that's the basic structure."
Perhaps they felt guilty about having arranged things in advance, because they had decided to use live broadcasts under the excuse of transparency.
I already knew that.
Then Shin Hyung-geol spoke.
"For the first episode, we need to decide the order of the mentor stages, correct? How about giving our Universe friends the first slot?"
The executives around him smiled and agreed.
Being first in a competition is a disadvantage, you old man.
In the first episode, each agency's mentor group would perform and attract applications from the trainees.
If Blue Moon performed first and eight other stages came after us, by the end, the trainees might not even remember our faces.
The ones smiling and agreeing were probably the executives who obediently followed Shin Hyung-geol.
Kim Dae-hyuk from Pantheon's already-chaotic Division 2 looked like he had no clue what was going on.
Something felt strange, so I watched Shin Hyung-geol.
He simply nodded at me with a look that seemed to say he understood exactly what I was thinking.
If I'd promised not to cause trouble, then I should accept this opportunity.
"All right. We'll go first."
If doing what I was told counted as not causing trouble, then fine.
I'd behave.
That didn't mean I had to sit quietly and do nothing.
"But I have one condition."
The executives all turned toward me in surprise.
"Let me decide the performance order after us. If we're deciding it here anyway, it's not like the audience is voting on the order during the broadcast, right?"
You were all going to split the order among yourselves with rock-paper-scissors or something anyway, weren't you?
Shin Hyung-geol looked slightly suspicious, but he still nodded.
"Oh? Shall we do that? Would that be all right, PD Tak?"
Shin Hyung-geol passed the decision to Tak Hyun-mo.
Tak Hyun-mo silently nodded.
"It's nice seeing you after so long, but you really haven't changed at all, Jun-hyeok hyung. Dae-hun, it's been a while for you too."
"Yeah. Division 2 Manager is a pretty big promotion, isn't it? You and I were both nobodies back then."
"What could I do? Some crazy bastard whose name starts with 'Do' and ends with 'hyuk' chopped the heads off all the people above us. Even if there weren't enough capable people, they had to drag the juniors up and fill the seats."
After the pre-meeting ended, Kim Dae-hyuk and Dae-hun stood around chatting.
As far as I remembered, those two hadn't even been particularly close.
Maybe because they weren't close, they were overdoing the friendly act now.
"What is Cheon-woo doing these days?"
"CEO Ji?"
When I asked, Dae-hyuk carefully chose his words before answering.
"Just living, I guess. He's gotten pretty quiet these days. But seriously, hyung, what did you eat for your liver to get that big? Foie gras or something? CEO Ji was running his mouth because he'd prepared himself to fight you, but Shin..."
Dae-hyuk glanced around before continuing in a low voice.
"...CEO Shin Hyung-geol is basically a tiger with blood on its fangs."
The older people get, the more they like watching younger guys act cocky.
Just wait.
Shin Hyung-geol would either end up like Ji Cheon-woo...
Or he'd end up liking me.
It would be one of the two.
Anyway, I'd secured the right to decide the order, so we discussed that.
Kim Dae-hyuk asked me to put Pantheon exactly in the middle.
We had history together, so I could at least do that much.
Being too early would be bad, but being too late might also make him look bad.
"Dae-hyuk oppa, what are you doing here? Why do we have to wait for your schedule? Hurry up. We have a performance to get to."
We had barely chatted for a moment when a young woman walked over and snapped at him irritably.
At that exact moment, my phone vibrated.
With timing like this, it was probably spam.
"Yeah, yeah. I'm coming. Everyone's already in the car, right?"
"Of course we're in the car. Where else would we be waiting?"
Dae-hyuk and the girl walked away.
Looking at her, I realized she was a member of Pantheon's Silky Red.
I'd learned about the group while preparing for 〈Rebooting〉.
Apparently Dae-hyuk had become responsible for them after moving to Division 2.
As she walked away with him, the girl glared once at me and once at Dae-hun.
It was a vicious look.
Dae-hun spoke.
"Look at her. Hyung, you and I really are blessed."
