Chapter 16
The sound of a car horn comes from outside the dorm.
“Looks like the manager is here. Let’s go down.”
It was Yoon Seok-hwan, who came to pick us up at the same time every day.
Afraid of getting scolded, we quickly put on our clothes and grabbed our shoes that were scattered around.
By the way.
I’m sure Bi-ju cleaned everything up the day before, but when did it become a mess again?
“Ji-ho, that’s not mine.”
“Hyung! That’s mine.”
While the culprits who took up 90 percent of the shoes at the entrance were making a scene, Ri-hyuk opened the shoe cabinet and looked at them with disdain.
Meanwhile, Bi-ju checked the gas and electricity cords.
After finishing all this and getting into the Starex on the first floor, that was the end of our morning routine.
“Hello!”
“Good morning, manager.”
Recently, the company’s staff had quit one after another, so manager Yoon Seok-hwan was in charge of picking us up from the dorm to the practice room.
Of course, today was a little different from usual.
Manager Yoon, who was dressed dandy.
We were also not wearing our usual tracksuits, but rather decent casual clothes.
“Are you all ready?”
The corners of Yoon Seok-hwan’s eyes rose through the rearview mirror.
Today was the day.
The day we went to Hwai Entertainment for the collaboration work.
Collaboration.
It was an industry term that meant working with another artist.
To be more specific, it was when artists with different genres or musical colors sang together.
It was different from featuring, which was often marked as ‘feat. Hong Gil-dong’ in songs, where the other musician only participated in a part of the song. Collaboration meant that the two musicians had equal weight.
It didn’t really matter.
It was just a convenience to distinguish them, and even the people who worked in the industry were confused.
“I really had a hard time with the featuring terminology.”
Manager Yoon brought up the behind-the-scenes of the negotiation with Hwai Entertainment.
“I thought I was going bald because of them.”
“Who? The CEO?”
Everyone in the car burst into laughter at the youngest who suddenly joined the conversation.
I’m sorry, CEO.
Manager Yoon laughed as he took out the memory of the black box in the car.
“I have to erase the black box recording every day because of him. What if someone listens to it, really.”
“You can turn off that function.”
“It’s okay. I sometimes use it anyway.”
He plugged the memory into his phone and continued his interrupted story.
“It was a mess because of the song title. Hwai Entertainment said that they were not artists who hadn’t even debuted. They wanted to do it with ‘Feat’, and we said that it was obvious that they had equal weight.”
“They fight over that too.”
“That’s why we have a planning company, you bastard.”
“Manager.”
Ri-hyuk, who was munching on a banana in the back seat, asked.
“So what happened?”
“We tied it up somehow. I told them that we had a talented kid who could compose among us. He’s not just singing, but also participating in the song work.”
Manager Yoon looked at me and asked.
“Why did I say this?”
“…To do well?”
“That’s right. You have to do well. Whether the song title will be ‘Jang So-won X New Black’ or Jang So-won ‘Feat. New Black’ depends on your hands now.”
It was a word that felt a lot of pressure.
“By the way, I’ve never been to Hwai Entertainment.”
“You haven’t been there?”
“Ri-hyuk hyung, I originally went to audition for acting. That’s why I came to our company in the first place.”
So his dream was to be an actor.
I thought he looked like an actor every time I saw him.
I asked Ri-hyuk.
“Have you been to Hwai Entertainment?”
“I’m probably the only one who’s been there among us. I went there to audition for vocals.”
“Oh, the one you got eliminated in 10 seconds?”
“It wasn’t 10 seconds.”
"You said it yourself, right? You got eliminated as soon as you entered the audition venue."
"Why did you get eliminated?"
Ri-hyuk answered reluctantly to my question.
"…They said I looked like I could sing well, but they made me dance first."
Everyone laughed, except for one person.
Seomo, who was ranked fifth in the New Black dance hierarchy and had been swallowing tears in his heart, rationalized.
"It was a company that we wouldn't have joined anyway, even if they begged us."
"Oh, really? Hyung?"
"Can you please be quiet…"
While the youngest smiled at his sincere request, Ri-hyuk started to talk about the Hwai Entertainment building.
"I was going to give up because of the facilities."
"Facilities?"
"It looked decent from the outside, but it was weird inside. I went into the practice room and there were toothpaste stains on the mirror."
"What. That was a long time ago."
I said as if to summarize.
"It could be different now."
"But Hwai Entertainment has a lot of money, right? It was the second largest company among the ones that participated in the year-end evaluation, after us and DNS. Why was their practice room like that?"
"That's true."
"Wasn't that when the seniors of Sugarfish were doing well?"
We all wondered at Bi-ju's words.
Hwai Entertainment.
At one time, it was a company that ordinary people would say "Ah!" when they heard it was the agency of Sugarfish, because the power of Sugarfish in their heyday was enough to threaten the top girl group at the time.
They must have made a lot of money back then, but why were their facilities like that?
The more I thought about it, the more it seemed like a sloppy company.
They didn't even have an official website.
Usually, if they have a certain size, they would have a website with pictures of their artists, but Hwai Entertainment didn't have anything like that.
Well.
It doesn't really matter.
Anyway, Hwai Entertainment was one of the well-known agencies then and now.
I'll show you the dance moves I prepared for you
Follow me, Honey
A girl group song with a lot of electronic beats mixed in came out of the radio.
The familiar chorus tickled my ears after the bridge part ended.
Baby Lalala Baby Lalala
Bi-ju hummed the song and nodded his head.
The other members also sang along to this song, which was hot on the charts recently.
The singer was none other than Girls On Top.
Hwai Entertainment was their agency.
"Girls On Top are really hot. Isn't this still number one?"
"Probably."
"No, it's not. They only got first place on the music show once in the first week."
"Really?"
“Scarlet made a comeback in the second week. They must have been second place for the whole period.”
That’s why their nickname was Beans on Top.
Girls on Top.
A four-year-old girl group that was doing well.
They were famous among the general public for their variety shows and dramas, and in the industry for their good songs.
A line of digital monsters that followed their senior group Sugarfish from the same agency.
Their debut album was a flop, but after that, all their title songs ranked within the top 10 on the charts, showing their great popularity.
The only drawback was that their songs were all similar in vibe.
Girls on Top succeeded with a second-place marketing strategy.
They didn’t aim for the first place, but solidified their image as the second place.
Thanks to this strategy, Girls on Top approached the public as a friendly second-place girl group, while the first place kept changing.
Until Scarlet appeared the next year.
In 2012, a rookie girl group called Scarlet, produced by Director Jo Kyu-hwan, emerged and started to push Girls on Top out of their second-place position.
Their nickname Beans on Top also changed, and their presence in variety shows also diminished.
But they were still a well-known girl group.
“Come to think of it, Hwai Entertainment has an amazing lineup of girl groups, really.”
“They probably feed the company.”
“I guess so.”
“But wasn’t Sugarfish more awesome? They were huge when I was in elementary school.”
The 90s-born kids who shared the same memory nodded.
Sugarfish.
They were once called the top group of their peak, boasting an incredible popularity, but their glory was short-lived.
It was because of the controversies of the members.
One of them was arrested by the police for smoking marijuana with her boyfriend, I think.
It was a shocking incident at the time.
The most popular member of the girl group that sang well on music shows the day before appeared on the social page of the newspaper the next day.
Somehow, Sugarfish tried to continue their activities after kicking out the member, but they completely lost their lifeline when another member was reported to have an affair with a movie director.
Five members.
Jang So-won was one of the three remaining members.
She was a really amazing person.
It took a long time for Jang So-won, who fell from a popular singer to the bottom, to make a comeback.
The path of a singer-songwriter.
Using her own composing skills, Jang So-won succeeded in building a new image by taking advantage of the fact that she was an unpopular member.
And now she was the most successful member among the five.
She participated in drama OSTs and released single albums.
Unfortunately, she didn’t have a hit song yet.
The song I sang at the audition, or the one I used for the arrangement at the end-of-year evaluation, was an average song that ranked 70th on the monthly chart.
Of course, it was an amazing achievement for us who hadn’t even debuted.
“What happened to the other Sugarfish seniors?”
“I don’t know, except for Jang So-won senior.”
“I heard that Baek Hyang senior quit and went to school or something. Lisa senior is living as a musical actress.”
“They’re all doing well.”
“Then what about the other two?”
“I don’t know. They’re probably not doing well.”
The topic of the conversation moved to another direction.
Maybe it was because of their status as trainees who had a foot in the entertainment industry, but they seemed to have a lot of rumors they heard.
They were telling each other what they knew.
I frowned as I watched them.
What are they talking about?
It felt like watching entertainment reporters on TV saying things like ‘Miss A’ or ‘Mr. B’ and gossiping.
And it seemed like I wasn’t the only one who thought that way.
The eyes of Seok-hwan hyung, who I could see through the rearview mirror, were grim.
Are they going to get scolded?
But before I could say anything, Yoon Seok-hwan cut in.
“Hey, kids.”
His voice was cold and the air froze.
The four trainees who were chatting in the back seat widened their eyes.
He looked angry, unlike usual.
“What are you doing now?”
The members stiffened at the manager’s sharp gaze.
“I’m asking you.”
The atmosphere was like before a storm.
“What are you doing now?”
“…”
“Are you not going to answer?”
“…We were talking, sir.”
Bi-ju looked around nervously and Yoon Seokhwan stared at the kids in silence.
A cold silence.
I was also tense, sitting in the passenger seat.
“…”
He drove without saying a word for a long time.
It was as if he wanted us to think about what we did wrong.
Unlike the youngest and Junghyun, who didn’t catch on, Ri-hyuk sighed and Bi-ju made an ‘oops’ expression.
After about five minutes, Yoon Seokhwan spoke calmly.
“Kids.”
Thankfully, his tone was gentle.
“I don’t mind if you gossip about the entertainment industry among yourselves. That’s fine.”
“…”
“But don’t you think you should keep those stories to yourselves?”
“We’re sorry.”
“I don’t like how it looks either, but how do you think it looks to others?”
He shook his head.
“It doesn’t matter if I’m the only one here. I won’t spill anything you do wrong. But you’re not going to debut? You’ll have a road manager or a stylist soon, are you going to do this then?”
At this point, Jung-hyun and Ji-ho also made an ‘oops’ expression.
“Road managers are really tough, kids. When celebrities make ten million won a week, they barely make a hundred a month. It’s common for them to quit for a mere hundred thousand won more. Do you think they won’t spread what you said when they go somewhere else?”
Yoon Seok-hwan emphasized.
“The entertainment industry is small, kids.”
“…”
“You haven’t experienced it yet. A story you tell in the car can spread to the whole set the next day.”
He looked around at the nodding kids and turned to the youngest.
“And Ji-ho.”
“…Yes?”
The youngest shrank his shoulders, afraid of being scolded.
“You know you were careless with what you said about the CEO, right?”
“I’m sorry. I’ll be careful next time.”
“Stop saying you’re young, you’re young. Be careful. Got it?”
The youngest nodded at Yoon Seok-hwan’s emphasis to think before he speaks.
We might have felt bad depending on the person, but we all agreed with his calm tone.
We had no choice.
He wasn’t speaking with emotion, but telling us what we did wrong and how to be careful in the future.
It was a manager-like action.
Unlike fans who love us no matter what we do, managers have to tell singers what they need to hear from an objective standpoint.
“And Seon Woojoo.”
“Yes, sir.”
Here it comes.
“You know you made the biggest mistake, right?”
“I’m sorry.”
“The younger ones might not know better. But you’ve been to the army, you know what kind of remarks are problematic. If this happens again, you have to step up and take action. Got it?”
I wanted to say that I was going to do that, but I admitted it was my fault.
So I bowed my head and said.
“I’m sorry, sir.”
“Please do well, Woojoo.”
Seok-hwan hyung’s eyes looked gloomy as he looked out the window.
“I can’t always be by your side.”