Chapter 92

Chapter 92. Men in Octagonal Caps

-[These dramas are getting weirder and weirder lately... I don't think they were like this a few years ago. Now the charts are packed with dramas full of men shooting guns, cursing, and fighting. I guess there are more male viewers these days... There are already plenty of male-dominated movies, so can't they just watch those? I don't understand why dramas have to lower themselves to that level too.]

┗ Unni, I think you should take this downㅜㅜ

┗ People are going to tear you apart if you post stuff like this...

┗ Dramas have gotten weird lately though. Honestly, even Good Pro annoyed me.

┗ Senior actors and PDs are going to see this too. I think this post crosses a line.

┗ We have freedom of expression. Since when are there posts you're not allowed to write? Our Jo Mi-won did nothing wrong.

It was already complete chaos.

The post hadn't even been up for more than a few minutes, yet dozens of comments had already appeared.

As though she had absolutely no idea what was happening, Jo Chae-won walked out with a perfectly calm expression and began presenting the awards ceremony.

"Now, we will present the Rookie Award."

She didn't just look calm.

She actually looked bright and cheerful.

Judging from the post, she seemed to have been holding quite a bit of dissatisfaction.

Maybe she was upset because the romance drama she'd appeared in hadn't ranked very highly.

As expected of an actress.

"The 2023 Video Culture Grand Awards Rookie Award goes to... Kim Serin of 〈Good Pro〉!"

Applause burst out across the venue.

Earlier, Serin had only been nominated for Best Actress and hadn't won.

And since she wasn't technically a complete rookie, I hadn't even thought about the Rookie Award.

Wait.

Serin won the Rookie Award?

The biggest award a rookie actress could receive?

Serin had actually won it?

No way!

"Kim Serin debuted four years ago as a member of the four-member girl group Blue Moon, promoting under the name 'Serin.' In addition to appearing in the web drama 〈Introduction to Unrequited Love〉..."

Serin stood up in complete shock.

She clearly hadn't expected it at all.

Then she looked straight at me.

I didn't expect it either, Serin.

Of course I'd hoped for something like this.

I just hadn't expected it to actually happen.

I gestured for her to go up to the stage.

Serin awkwardly rose and started walking.

Senior actors applauded to congratulate her, and Serin covered her mouth with one hand as tears gathered in her eyes.

"Um... I really didn't know this was going to happen, so I didn't prepare anything. Usually you're supposed to prepare a speech, right...?"

"It's okay. Just tell us how you feel."

A Rookie Award.

By now, the other members had gathered near the back of the venue to watch the ceremony.

At first, they had simply gasped in surprise when Serin's name was called.

But the moment Serin started crying, all of them started crying too.

"Um... First, I'm really grateful to my mom and dad, who passed away... And I'm grateful to my members too. And to CEO Do Jun-hyeok as well."

Thanking people was practically the standard formula for award speeches.

Serin went on to thank nearly everyone around her before finally leaving the stage.

Becoming successful as an actress was something she probably never would've dreamed of before.

I'd also been working toward making Serin successful as an actress.

And I had always believed she would succeed eventually.

But seeing how deeply moved she was made my own eyes sting.

Of course, this wasn't the end.

Plenty of actors won Rookie Awards, then spent the rest of their careers declining until viewers eventually forgot about them.

It would be better to treat this Rookie Award as encouragement.

Wait.

This wasn't the time to get lost in emotion.

No matter how much of a fan I was, my heart could burn hot, but my head needed to stay cold.

Whether Aran eventually got the opportunity to become a fixed cast member on a variety show could depend on what happened starting from Jo Chae-won's PeopleStar post.

I opened Jo Chae-won's PeopleStar again.

The post was gone.

I immediately called Kwon Dae-hun.

"I opened the link and saw it. It's deleted now, though. Did any articles come out?"

"No. It looked like the kind of post she'd delete quickly, so I took a screenshot. I don't think it'll make the news."

Dae-hun sent me the screenshot again.

He'd captured it fairly early, so there weren't many comments.

Still, the text was clear enough that it obviously came from the real post.

It looked like Jo Chae-won had checked the drama rankings, pretended not to care, then immediately posted that rant.

Was it because none of the projects she'd appeared in were on the chart?

If so, that meant she was extremely honest with her emotions and prone to losing her temper.

And the fact that she'd posted something anyone could tell would become controversial suggested she wasn't very thoughtful either.

For now, no articles had appeared and the post had been deleted.

But with a personality like that, there was no telling when she'd post something similar again.

"Hey, Dae-hun. Autumn's coming soon. Don't we have any charity performance schedules?"

"Charity performances? Why all of a sudden?"

Dae-hun thought for a moment.

"Wait. Are you planning to make us do good deeds while Jo Chae-won's getting criticized so we'll stand out? I get what you're going for, but is it really going to be that simple? She already deleted the post too."

He really didn't understand.

The post was deleted.

But sooner or later, someone would expose it.

Even the fact that the keyword from the future was fake made sense now.

If someone who normally hated male-dominated movies had made that comment, people might have just clicked their tongues and moved on.

To borrow the exact words from the future staff member, it was something that only became a problem if people decided to make it one.

But look at Jo Chae-won.

She kept making these "speaking my mind" posts too freely.

That was what would turn all the polite public-image behavior she'd shown for business reasons into "fake behavior."

It would've been better if she'd simply chosen one side.

She could've pushed a blunt, outspoken image on broadcasts from the beginning.

"Just do what I say. Good things happen even while you're sleeping. I'll put the rice cake right in your mouth."

"If I eat rice cake while lying down, I'll die."

When someone else was cutting down their own image on social media, all you had to do was watch carefully and opportunities would start appearing.

How romantic.

Since we'd appeared together once on 〈Shin Restaurant〉, there was also a very good chance Blue Moon would show up in related searches.

Dae-hun clicked around for a while before answering.

"Charity events... Maybe my imagination's too limited. The only thing I can think of right now is the military慰問 train."

"The慰問 train is good. Anything else?"

After the incident where Jin-hee nearly broke a stalker's skull, I wanted to avoid mentioning the military around the company whenever possible.

But this was serious enough that some risk was acceptable.

"Suncheon Bay National Garden Music Festa? It's outdoors, and admission is free."

"Good. Let's do those two. We said we'd focus on individual activities anyway."

"Wow~ I never thought I'd come back here again. It's been forever! Don't you think so, CEO?"

"Hahaha. Seriously. Nothing's changed."

Of all places, this week's慰問 train happened to be at the damn 1st Marine Division.

Dae-hun, that inflexible bastard.

If he knew my situation, he could've shown a little initiative and pushed it back a week.

Still, sooner was better...

And the慰問 train was actually a pretty good way to prepare.

The controversial post had been about men.

And if we were being honest, the real male-dominated environment wasn't Chungmuro.

It was the military.

I quietly called Aran over and handed her 400,000 won in cash.

"What's this?"

"If you do this event once, you girls normally get about a hundred thousand won each. That's the money."

"Yes! Aran's buying PX today!"

Aran held up the bundle of cash and ran around.

The much-younger Marines nearby started roaring enthusiastically.

My precious 400,000 won.

Since we'd forced ourselves into this schedule so suddenly, I couldn't really demand a proper appearance fee.

If this had been arranged through normal booking, we would've received at least 1.5 million won.

Still, we were planning to buy something more valuable than money.

So I decided to be generous for once.

"Haah. We were on Geoje just a few days ago, and now we're in Pohang. The day after tomorrow we're going to Suncheon. Why don't we just move the company down here?"

"This is serious. Remember what happened during the Zeus dove scandal? I posted those hanbok photos in advance and saved the company."

"Is this really that big a deal?"

You didn't get future spam, so what would you know?

Once an attention seeker, always an attention seeker.

Sooner or later, Jo Chae-won would put on some kind of fake act in front of engineering students and on 〈Tribe of the Jungle〉.

Then someone who saved a screenshot of this male-dominated-drama post would release it.

Somehow, everything would get connected and people would start making a huge fuss about her being fake.

If Blue Moon's image was strong by then, Na Young-hwan would probably cut Jo Chae-won without hesitation and put Aran in her place.

And yet Dae-hun was complaining.

How was he planning to control his expression when that happened?

"The members are really popular now. You haven't appeared on the慰問 train in a while, so I thought we wouldn't see you again. I was honestly shocked when you called us first this time."

The staff member from the Defense Media Agency responsible for the慰問 train smiled as he spoke.

We'd appeared on the program several times in the past.

The members seemed to like it too.

So I fed him a few polite lines about how we'd always wanted to come again if we got the chance.

He seemed genuinely moved and nodded several times.

"Then could we possibly invite you again next time? Part of the慰問 train's role is military promotion too."

"Ah... really?"

"Yes. The Blue Moon members seem to enjoy it a lot too. And next week we're heading to a frontline unit in the Gyeonggi area."

The members really did look happier than I'd expected.

Before I joined Universe, these events had probably been part of their everyday lives for two full years.

Maybe they were feeling nostalgic.

Serin was laughing while eating a Uiseong garlic hot bar with an octagonal Marine cap sitting awkwardly on her head because it didn't fit.

The place already felt like a festival before the performance had even begun.

Watching everyone scattered around enjoying themselves made me think that maybe what the members had wanted all along was simply stable activity.

Becoming famous and appearing on television were nice.

But perhaps what they really wanted was to keep promoting happily for a long time.

That was also how fans felt.

Weren't there more fans who wanted their idols to last a long time than fans who only wanted them to succeed?

"All right. Then we'll come back a couple more times."

"We'll make sure to pay you the highest possible booking fee next time!"

Still, we couldn't spend all our time doing small-scale events.

Two or three慰問 train performances and a couple of regional festivals should be enough.

The more positive image we built before Jo Chae-won's controversy broke, the better.

The performance began.

After the other scheduled singers finished, it was Blue Moon's turn.

There wasn't a proper waiting room, so I had to watch from the very back of the audience.

From where I stood, the soldiers' cheering was so loud I could barely hear the song.

Eventually, the song seemed to end and requests for an encore poured out.

A man who looked very high-ranking walked out instead and calmed the soldiers.

"Hey, hey, hey. It's bedtime now. The celebrities have other schedules, so they're busy too."

"Encore! Encore!"

"No encore. You're making things difficult for them. Instead, they came all the way to Pohang despite being busy, so let's give them a huge round of applause. They even came without taking an appearance fee, you punks!"

"Waaaaah! Appearance fee! Appearance fee! Appearance fee!"

"I said enough! You're trying to completely empty the sergeant major's wallet..."

The man pulled four 50,000-won bills from his wallet and handed them to the members.

I hadn't been to that many military events, but this was the first time I'd seen someone give the performers pocket money.

And so we went to Suncheon.

Then Paju.

Then Pocheon.

The last stop was Hoengseong.

The members walked onto the stage wearing headbands with little Korean beef horns, and the local residents burst into laughter.