The “bomb” I had planted went off not long afterward, while we were rehearsing for the encore concert with a behind-the-scenes camera following us.
“All right, to the right~ Kick your foot, then back to the side… Hyung, be careful!”
“……Ghk.”
Bae Sejin, whose feet had nearly tangled together, reorganized the choreography with his ears bright red.
Even though his Dancing stat had risen all the way to C, he was struggling because the choreography had become correspondingly more vicious in difficulty.
Not that I’m in any position to talk.
I was just thinking that I should readjust my stats if I wanted to perform a unit stage with Cha Eugene—
when a small commotion broke out beyond the choreography practice room door.
It sounded as though someone was raising their voice.
It’s here.
I had a feeling.
But there was no need to act as though I knew anything.
“What’s that?”
“Hmm?”
First, the camera crew tactfully stopped filming.
The noise was loud enough that it would have been difficult to ignore.
Fortunately, the choreography had just passed the chorus and reached its ending.
The members finished the movement, then looked toward the practice-room door with a mixture of confusion and concern.
“C-Could someone be having a discussion out there…?”
“…There shouldn’t be anyone else here right now.”
“Wait a moment.”
Ryu Chungwoo left us a glance and stood to check the situation.
But before he could, the door opened first and an unfamiliar man barged into the practice room.
“…!”
He looked to be in his early or mid-thirties.
Behind him, the first manager hurried in as well, his face an awful mottled red and blue.
The man ignored the first manager, bowed politely toward us, then began handing out the takeout cups he was carrying.
“Ah~ Hello, our TeSTAR artists. Oh, it’s great to meet you! Here, I brought you something to drink so you can keep your energy up while practicing.”
“Who are you??”
The man answered Cha Eugene, who had already accepted a drink without hesitation.
“Ah, I’m the new manager who joined this time.”
“Pardon?”
Naturally, that overlapped with the department head’s younger cousin who had brought donuts a few days ago.
“Hmm, you’re someone different from the person we met a few days ago~?”
“That guy will be following you around as your road manager from now on, and I’ll be in charge overall!”
Overall.
In other words, the chief manager.
It also meant that the first manager, who had been our dedicated manager until now, had suddenly gained a superior who had appeared out of nowhere.
“With a schedule this busy, you really needed at least three dedicated managers attached to you for things to run properly… Goodness. But don’t worry anymore. I’ll handle everything from now on, so if anything is uncomfortable, contact me immediately!”
“No…….”
Hmm.
The first manager still looked stunned.
Apparently nobody had told him anything.
Only then did the man who had become chief manager look at the first manager and speak as if sympathetically.
“Manager Kim, you must have had a hard time handling everything alone until now. From now on, let’s manage the artists’ needs in a more systematic way. We can also conduct injury and condition checks every day according to set times.”
He was practically advertising that the first manager had failed to properly care for the group and had therefore been pushed aside from the promotion track.
Right.
That would be the new justification the Head of Management pushed.
Artist-centered care!
If all I had done was puff that guy up, the conflict between the department head and division head might have turned into the senior group versus the junior group.
Since the division head was clearly backing the juniors, there was a good chance the Head of Management would simply have chosen the remaining option—the seniors, TeSTAR.
Then we might have ended up in the needlessly exhausting situation of two groups being consumed as tools for internal politics.
But if you inserted one more variable, the story changed.
You fan the department head up from the junior side too.
That’s right.
As soon as we returned to Korea, I had contacted the second-place member of the junior group through the second manager.
- I’m sorry, sunbaenim. You gave me advice, but I couldn’t handle it properly….
- No. You got results. You persuaded them, didn’t you? Of course, it’s unfortunate that there were parts the company refused to compromise on, and I’m sorry you’ve been put through emotional stress because of it.
- Yes…. Ah, no, it couldn’t be helped, and if anything, we caused trouble for you and your fans, sunbaenim!
- We both took damage. Hmm… Still, if this is really difficult for you, one option might be to talk to the Management Department.
- The Management Department??
- Group care is handled by the Management Department. If you explain things step by step, maybe they’ll advocate for you.
And then I told the junior this.
Something along the lines of: The parts that have already been planned can’t be helped, but since this has been so difficult, you might at least be able to ask that your group not be tied to the senior group unnecessarily from now on.
Then the junior, having already used my advice successfully once before, would probably try it.
- …Thank you! I’ll look for an opportunity and try it.
They seemed like a sharp type.
They probably took full advantage of it.
That would suddenly give the Head of Management a dazzling common vision.
The division head is disregarding the artists’ wishes!
An incompetent division head is overreaching because he wants to piggyback on artists who are capable of self-producing!
It must have been a slogan perfectly suited to his tastes.
Polish that into slightly more official language and you got what he had just said.
Let’s center the artists—not the division head!
Of course, there was no way the department head genuinely cared that much about artist welfare.
What mattered was that he had seized on that justification because he wanted to defeat the division head.
The A&R team, which was friendly toward TeSTAR, and the production and marketing staff who were currently being worked to the bone repackaging an already completed concept would probably quietly join this side.
Then it really becomes a faction.
And apparently it had been fairly effective.
Just seeing the manager staffing, the symbol of “artist care,” being structurally reorganized like this told me that much.
Right on cue, the chief manager—the symbol in question—patted the first manager and continued.
“How about the three of us managers go have a quick drink tonight to celebrate becoming a dedicated team? We can talk a little too.”
“…Uh, yes, yes. Of course.”
The first manager ultimately surrendered with a sour expression.
Apparently, once his head cooled, he had barely managed to realize that throwing a tantrum wouldn’t do him any good.
You brought it on yourself.
I watched the scene with satisfaction.
Because I could practically see the current state of the company laid out behind it.
I hope they keep each other in check and tear into one another tooth and nail.
Was I not worried that the parachute-appointed department head might overpower the division head, seize control of the company, and start doing whatever he pleased?
Right.
I wasn’t.
That bastard is bad at his job.
All I needed was…
for the higher-ups who wanted achievements and credit for themselves in this entertainment business to waste all their energy fighting among themselves.
While the group took the initiative in pushing our work forward and the actual working-level staff were left to focus properly on their jobs.
“Well then, fighting with practice~ I’ll see you all again soon!”
“Yes!”
“Get home safely!”
The chief manager handed out his number, told us to “contact him anytime without hesitation,” and left.
Only then did the first manager begin turning the gears in his head.
“…Guys, don’t you find that person a little uncomfortable? He suddenly comes in here acting like…”
He wanted us to take his side.
Big Sejin smiled brightly as he spoke.
“Come on, it’s inevitable that it’ll feel a little awkward when we’ve only just met him! Still, it seems like he’s really going to pay attention to us, so I’m kind of looking forward to it! I’m grateful too.”
“The shake is delicious!”
Cha Eugene shook his drink beside him.
In the end, the first manager left the practice room wearing the expression of someone swallowing a curse.
Idiot.
I clicked my tongue.
It wasn’t as if the members were stupid.
They had probably realized long ago that Ryu Chungwoo was doing more of your job than you were.
Though there might still be one or two who hadn’t thought about whether that was actually fair.
“Ah!”
For example, someone like Kim Raebin over there, exclaiming in realization, probably hadn’t—
“Now I understand!”
“…?!”
At the exquisitely timed remark, I stopped mid-thought.
Kim Raebin continued with an admiring expression.
“Thanks to what Moondae hyung said in the recording studio, this situation….”
“Wait.”
There were seven staff members standing around us.
And he was bringing this up openly here.
No, more importantly—
This guy understood the situation?
Highly doubtful.
But Kim Raebin remained unwavering.
“Ah, what did Moondae say?”
“Yes! Because Moondae hyung publicly shared the hardships and emotional pain our group had experienced, it appears the company responded with positive feedback!”
“…….”
“Ooh, really? Moondae was saying he was, like~ really struggling?”
“Yes! He asked me about it as well. Through this experience, I realized that only by clearly expressing such difficult circumstances can the other party’s response change too.”
“Wow~”
“……Hmm.”
Good grief.
So what this guy had understood was an incredibly basic structure.
TeSTAR clearly showed that they were having a hard time. → The company started paying more attention to caring for the group!
That algorithm.
It was an utterly absurd theory.
But the ones whose interpersonal reasoning operated at a similarly basic level began reacting first.
Specifically, to the part about me having been in considerable distress.
“M-Moondae…….”
“…So that’s how it was.”
It wasn’t.
“Thank you for always teaching me.”
And this isn’t something you should feel proud about either.
Meanwhile, Big Sejin was grinning and applauding.
“That’s true, wow, everything worked out thanks to Moondae~ Amazing~”
This bastard was doing it deliberately.
It was subtly irritating.
Read only on MUGEX
…But what he said next carried a fairly pointed edge.
“Still, let’s not overdo it. Moondae-Moondae, we have mouths too, you know? Share with us, not just Raebin~”
“…!”
“Right, Moondae.”
Ryu Chungwoo met my eyes and nodded.
“We’re a group. There are seven heads here. If we discuss things, we might come up with a good solution.”
“…….”
Given my track record, it seemed everyone with decent intuition had already noticed that I had deliberately let those words be overheard.
And I wasn’t going to deny it.
It was a fairly reasonable point.
Was I a little too hasty?
Handling things alone was so much more convenient and faster that I kept overlooking the fact that my actions affected the entire group.
These guys were all affected too, so they clearly had the right to be consulted.
From now on, maybe it’d be fine to… talk things through before I act.
We saw each other every day anyway.
It wasn’t as though that would delay things very much.
I nodded.
“Yes. You’re right.”
“Exactly!”
Ryu Chungwoo added a joking remark.
“We each have things we can make up for in one another, so isn’t that why the fans—um, I mean… the ‘shareholders’ picked all seven of us?”
“I’m smart!”
“There are no official intelligence-test results for Cha Eugene. That is a subjective opinion….”
“I’m smarter than Kim Raebin.”
“Really? Then should we do psychological tests as content sometime? What was it, MBTI? We could do an official one of those too.”
“Sounds good!”
“I believe that would make highly entertaining content!”
The argument fizzled out before it could even begin.
He isn’t the leader for nothing.
I found myself looking over Ryu Chungwoo again.
The more firmly I came to perceive myself as a member of this group, the more the instinctive aversion I had built from past experience toward this guy clearly diminished.
Hmm. Not bad.
It felt like I had finally returned to roughly the level I’d been at before.
I acknowledged that inwardly.
Beside me, Seon Ahyeon’s eyes sparkled as he nodded rapidly.
“Th-Then from now on… whenever things are hard, let’s make sure we talk about it together a lot…!”
“Yeah.”
The atmosphere in the practice room was warm and cheerful.
And with the staff silently wailing in the background because of all moments, they had failed to capture this on camera, practice soon resumed.
A few more days later.
“Oh.”
In Miry-nay’s title-track music video, which was finally released, every trace of “Magic Boy” had been completely removed.
- Up through the rough edit, there was still a short video inserted between scenes!! I was really worried, but this is all thanks to you, sunbaenim! Thank you so much!
Through the manager came one-sided gratitude from the junior that sounded as though they were ready to perform a full ceremonial bow to me.
Clean.
The articles subtly encouraged by the agency that had unnecessarily tried to tie Miry-nay to TeSTAR also disappeared from the main pages.
Once TeSTAR’s fans stopped receiving any more irritating bait, they let the matter pass for now with, “T1 being T1.”
That was because news of the encore-concert unit stages broke, pulling their attention sharply in that direction.
- Holy shit Cha Goyoung + Moon Daengdaeng unit? They’re coming to restore discipline to K-pop, if I don’t see this death is the only option
Looking at reactions like that made me think we needed to prepare even more properly.
“Wahaha!”
Watching Cha Eugene roll around on the bed beside mine, I called it up silently for the first time in a while.
Status Window.
Except the first one I was checking wasn’t mine.
It was Cha Eugene’s Status Window.
Before the unit stage is finalized, I’ll check it one more time and finish preparing countermeasures.
That bastard’s stats had already been monstrous enough.
Let’s see how they had changed.