A few days after TeSTAR returned to Korea to begin preparing in earnest for the encore concert.
“Been a while since Seoul!”
TeSTAR’s first manager—
No, now their only manager—
headed toward the company with a broad smile.
It wasn’t that there were no inconveniences in having to handle by himself the work that two people had previously split between them, but overall, it was manageable enough.
TeSTAR wasn’t a particularly demanding group anyway.
They do seem to talk back a little more these days, but maybe because they got so much hate when they were younger, they’re not very forceful.
Besides, most of the serious work had been distributed among the newly contracted tour staff, so the manager had actually been enjoying an easier time on tour than he did in Korea.
Originally, checking and managing each individual member’s condition fell under his responsibilities, but little by little, he had started dropping even that out of habit.
That was because the leader, a former athlete who was already familiar with this sort of thing, had voluntarily taken care of it himself.
- Chungwoo, none of the guys are sick or anything, right?
- No. I think we just need to set aside a separate slot for Moondae’s upper-body massage.
In short, it was a little dereliction of duty.
By normal standards in this industry, it was an absurdly cushy job, but people inevitably grew accustomed to whatever seat they occupied.
I just need to hang on here through the kids’ prime, pad my résumé a little, then change jobs.
The company had already been putting less attention into TeSTAR lately because it was pouring its energy into the new girl group it was launching.
There were even rumors that girl groups, which generally had more mainstream appeal than boy groups, suited the current division head’s tastes better.
Looks like they managed to cash in a little this time too.
The manager recalled TeSTAR’s reactions from a few days earlier.
- Hyung, the fans really hate this… Didn’t the company say anything else?
- Even to us it looks way too obviously like Magic Boy~?
- Huh? Come on, agencies use little references like this between groups under the same company all the time, don’t they? The fans will forget about it soon! It’s hardly the first time something like this has happened.
The company had already told him beforehand to “brush it off appropriately if they push back.”
Naturally, placating TeSTAR was easier than raising an objection to the company.
And the manager had already been certain it wouldn’t be particularly difficult.
And just like I expected, it fizzled out~
It wasn’t as if TeSTAR was going to fail because of something like this.
One look at them told you they were going to keep doing well.
There was no problem for the manager’s own career.
So the best option was to soothe them gently and avoid creating pointless, exhausting trouble.
“Ah, I’m here~”
After arriving at the company while thinking about this and that, the manager unexpectedly ran into a familiar face in the parking lot.
“Hello!”
“Oh, hey~”
It was the second manager.
Well, he had now been reassigned as the manager of the junior group, Miry-nay.
Even while thinking the guy was an idiot, the manager continued making small talk.
“Waiting for someone?”
“Ah, Miry-nay is meeting with the department head right now. I’m waiting for them!”
“Oh~ Really? Which department head? What are they meeting about?”
“Uh, they said I’m not supposed to tell other teams… Is it okay?”
This sort of bumbling indecisiveness was exactly what made the guy so irritating.
Wasn’t office life all about reading the room?
He probably won’t last long.
He had been frustrating, so the first manager had been relieved to get rid of him, though he did miss having someone around to dump menial work on.
I hope the next guy they send is obedient and quick on his feet.
Thinking of the employee who would soon be added, the manager killed some time with coffee.
Then, after giving a perfunctory report at the company and hearing what he needed to hear, he slowly headed back to TeSTAR’s dorm.
Brief them on the schedule, shout “fighting” in an upbeat, team-spirit kind of way~
That was about all the manager expected from today.
However, the moment he entered the dorm, he realized something was strange.
“Oh, hyung’s here~”
“Welcome back!”
The table in the dorm had been covered with donuts and drinks.
And an unfamiliar man was sitting there fiddling with his smartphone.
What the hell??
“Guys, who is that…?”
“Oh, hello. I’m the new manager. Nice to meet you.”
“…??”
Only then did the seated man slowly stand and greet the first manager with a halfhearted bow.
Who the hell is this bastard?
A second manager he had never even heard about?
And what was with that careless attitude?
Unable to hide his suspicion and irritation, the first manager asked him directly.
Even if this guy really was the new manager, wasn’t this the kind of situation where someone needed to put him in his place?
“I never heard anything about a new manager. Who are you? No, are you actually a manager? Who are you?”
“My official first day is next week, but hyung told me to at least come introduce myself today. You didn’t hear about it today?”
“Hyung??”
Park Moondae joined in with a faint smile.
“I heard he’s the Head of Management’s younger cousin.”
“…!!”
“Ah, is this because you don’t believe me?”
The man claiming to be the second manager held out his smartphone with a crooked attitude.
“Well, want to call him or something?”
On the smartphone screen was a familiar name, accompanied by the label older cousin.
It really was the Head of Management.
What the hell is going on…?!
The first manager’s vision went dark.
“Get home safely~”
“Sure. See you next week.”
The guy who would become our second manager exchanged casual farewells and soon left.
I’d heard he was being shoved into the job after living as a completely unemployed bum, and he didn’t seem to have much enthusiasm for the work, but that didn’t matter.
I wasn’t expecting anything from him.
The first manager only did the bare minimum in the first place.
What matters is what the Head of Management is thinking.
The important thing was the gesture of that nominal department head beginning to build “his own line” inside the company.
That worked nicely.
I shrugged and turned away from the entrance.
“Hyung, would you like another donut?”
Kim Raebin happened to be holding up the donut box at the table.
“No, I’m full. You eat plenty.”
“Understood!”
Yeah.
Eat a lot.
The person who brought those donuts had practically gotten this job thanks to you.
I recalled the schedule from our first day back in Korea.
It had been a recording-studio session for a new song we would use at the encore concert.
Because the members generally preferred to finish the audio in advance before rehearsing, it was the first thing we got started on.
Naturally, it was also a setting where we worked directly with the A&R team.
- Hello~
- We look forward to working with you.
After greeting the A&R staff, whom we had grown fairly familiar with by now, we began recording by unit.
While Kim Raebin was waiting for his turn to record, I spoke to him.
At a distance where the employees scattered around the recording booth could hear us clearly enough.
- Is it bothering you a lot?
- Pardon?
- The fact that “Magic Boy” appeared in another group’s teaser.
- Ah…….
Kim Raebin’s expression darkened immediately.
- If it was something the company decided, then it cannot be helped, but I do wish they had asked for our understanding first.
- Feels a little unfair, doesn’t it?
- …Yes.
A couple of gentle nudges and he followed exactly where I wanted on his own.
Kim Raebin nodded, his shoulders drooping gloomily.
Excellent.
I borrowed the exact nuance of what Kim Raebin had said on our way back after meeting the junior last time and opened the subject again.
- Back then, so much of your input went into the arrangement and concept. Even if they didn’t ask us… I think they should have at least asked you.
- N-No! Moondae hyung was the one who decided the overall concept, right down to the imagery and symbols, so if anything, I think they should have discussed it with you…!
- Really? Thanks. Still, you put in more work.
Now let’s turn it a little more emotional.
I murmured in a slightly hollow tone.
- …We really did work hard back then, though. We barely slept.
- Yes……. We worked hard….
Kim Raebin now looked almost on the verge of tears.
Apparently remembering that period had made him even more immersed in the conversation.
Good.
I deliberately spoke to a nearby member of the A&R team.
- Excuse me, I’m sorry, but do you have tissues here?
- Ah, here…!
They had clearly been listening, because the employee immediately found a box of tissues and offered it to us with an extremely sympathetic expression.
To give them even more fuel for pity, I pulled out a tissue and held it toward Kim Raebin’s face.
Naturally, Kim Raebin wasn’t actually crying, so he tried to answer honestly.
- …? I’m fine—
- Just use it.
I personally dabbed the tissue against his completely dry face.
Kim Raebin looked like his head was filling with question marks, but the effect was unmistakable.
I could see the staff over there exchanging looks that practically said, What are we supposed to do?
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The A&R team has always had a soft spot for Kim Raebin.
He communicated well with them, and since he composed music, he interacted with them more than any of us.
On top of that, he had such a mild temperament that I knew they practically regarded him as the team’s honorary maknae.
And quite a few people on that team had been ground down right alongside TeSTAR while watching us suffer through our debut preparations.
Which meant there were probably plenty of people among them who were dumbfounded that the higher-ups had arbitrarily copied and used the concept from that debut song.
But there’s nobody who can actually speak up.
Because the team had been assembled out of genuine experienced professionals, there was ironically nobody who was personally close to the higher-ups or had connections with them.
So next, I stir up someone who does have connections.
That was why I contacted the Management Department.
First, I lightly sent a message along with a gift.
- Hello, sir. The reason I’m contacting you is that TeSTAR received a great deal of help from the Management Department during our recent tour, so as a token of our gratitude…….
Since the people we dealt with most often while touring were employees from the Management Department, the justification was decent enough.
If I sent an appropriate amount of vitamins for the number of employees over there, naturally, some gesture of thanks would come back from the department head.
Usually by phone.
- Ah, the vitamins arrived safely~ Thank you, Moondae-ssi.
- All the members discussed it and sent them together. Thanks to everyone in the Management Department taking care of us, we’ve been able to get through our entire tour schedule safely.
That was when I tossed out the bait.
And this bait was based on a fairly plausible understanding of the current situation.
The Management Department fell out of the current division head’s favor a long time ago.
The current division head wasn’t an idiot.
There was no way he didn’t know the decisive reason he had been brought in here.
The Management Department had suffered a massive incident involving an industrial spy.
The Head of Management had connections to headquarters, so maintaining his position wouldn’t be a problem, but influence was another matter.
He’s probably being excluded somewhat from frontline decision-making.
Still, he had seemed fairly tense and diligent ever since the industrial-spy incident.
Having to constantly grovel now was probably infuriating enough to eat him up inside.
If someone had entered the company through connections, chances were they hadn’t experienced being ignored very often in their life.
That would only make the current situation harder to endure.
So I gently scratched at it.
- And back during that strange assistant manager incident, you were the one who took what we said seriously…. Thank you. Some other people in the company pretended not to notice, so I even wondered whether I was being oversensitive about something insignificant.
I gave him a clue that would let him distort and glorify the industrial-spy incident in his own head as, I was the one who recognized the problem and responded quickly, and yet I’m being treated unfairly.
- Thanks to you, I feel reassured enough to keep promoting even now.
- Haha! Don’t mention it!
Look at that.
He swallowed the praise whole without even pretending to be modest.
If, on top of that, the A&R team spread sentiments among the working-level staff like, “The division head went too far this time,” or, “That was unfair to the TeSTAR boys,” it gave the department head an even stronger basis for rationalizing things.
The magnificent delusion that an incompetent division head is deliberately keeping me down.
If that state fermented properly for a few days, I knew it would provide enough momentum for him to confront the division head at least once.
He’s a parachute hire, so he won’t even have the fear of losing his job if things go wrong. He’ll just charge ahead on confidence and impulse.
And fortunately, it seemed the department head had gotten properly intoxicated by the idea, because by this very morning he had already gone so far as to insert his own younger cousin as TeSTAR’s new manager.
This company is going to become a mess.
I lay on the sofa and watched Cha Eugene finish off the remaining donuts.
“Stop eating! You’re a pig!”
“I’m a tiger!”
“Tigers are carnivorous animals that do not consume flour, whereas you are currently consuming sugar and flour….”
Hmm.
Peaceful.
The next one should be going off around now too.
Naturally, some of these could end up being duds, so shouldn’t I plant several mines?
That junior seemed pretty good at talking.
I decided to comfortably wait for the next bomb.