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Chapter 9

It was the first time I was experiencing something like this. As soon as I saw the dance, I could see their exact movements and what kind of emotions they were expressing. The krumping movements looked like fighting moves and expressed strong, raw feelings that made my adrenaline rise.

I thumped my feet on the ground and swung my arms hard into the air. Before, I would’ve thought of these moves as simply extending out my arms and stomping my feet on the floor. But now I sensed where to pour my energy, at which moment I was supposed to retract my hands and feet and heave, and what kind of feelings I was supposed to convey to my viewers with these movements.

As if I had known these facts all along, this information immediately became absorbed into me. After just one glance at the video, I was able to naturally copy all The Jack’s movements. After finishing my dance, all my group members looked at me in shock like a cluster of meerkats.

“...”

“Tae-Yoon...?”

“Ah, um.”

“...What happened to you?”

Simultaneously, my ‘Insight’ ability wore off, and the speed of the world’s flow came back to normal. I felt a light ache inside my head and looked around. It was then I realized what happened. I was supposed to be someone who barely managed to get by in dancing and singing. It must have been unbelievable for my group members that my skills suddenly improved so dramatically almost overnight

“Um...” I tried to quickly come up with the most persuasive explanation. “This is the song I had been working on for a long time by myself.”

“Hm?”

“You worked on this one?”

“Yes.”

“When?”

“Just sometimes. Alone in the night.”

“Really...?”

As expected, they all looked like they had a hard time believing me. Woon especially looked at me suspiciously. He seemed to be almost wary of me.

“We decided on practicing a dance all five of us didn’t know well. Why would you suddenly suggest doing a dance you already practiced on your own?” Woon said in a slightly cold voice. Perhaps, he was angry though I didn’t know the reason why he would be. But my priority was making excuses.

“Um, I’m sorry. Because you guys said you will go super hard on practicing from now on, I got scared and said a dance I already knew. It was so that I could do a little less practice,” I spat out a reasonable enough explanation.

Woon narrowed his eyes and replied, “Tae-Yoon, I understand that you’re worried, but you shouldn’t try to pull any tricks on us.” Then, Woon’s expression turned gentle and soft like his usual self. It seemed I was able to pass over this hurdle somehow.

Then, I felt a strong gaze from my side and slightly turned my head.

“Tae-Yoon! You were just like The Jack just now! How much did you practice for this!” Yeon-Hoon’s eyes shone like he was genuinely impressed.

“Haha,” I laughed awkwardly in response.

“Then, let’s try a different song instead of this one,” Woon then brought another dance instead of The Jack’s krumping performance. This time, I controlled my ‘Insight’ ability when dancing so that I was a bit better than my usual self but not at an abnormally surprising level. Like that, the afternoon dance practice continued for some time.

***

Inside the WD conference room, the management’s head manager—Yoon Tae-Hyung blinked rapidly while sitting on a chair.

“Ah, it’s killing me.” The width of his waist increased quite significantly after he entered his mid-forties this year. Perhaps, the problem wasn’t his age but alcohol. Even if he was still in his twenties, he would’ve gained this much weight with all the alcohol he poured into his body night after night.

Just yesterday night alone, he had gone through three rounds of drinking and drank anything he could grab his hands on. As a result, he was still suffering from a hangover while staring blankly at the wall. On top of the desk, the bottle cap of a hangover drink was rolled around.

“I can’t get rid of my hangover even with medicine now,” he murmured and looked around. Though he was attending the company’s top conference meeting, there were only three people in the room, including him. He was the only manager in the group, and when the bosses didn’t come to work, he acted as their replacement. And since the bosses stayed in their individual studios most of the time, he was basically the true head of this company.

“When will we get these guys to debut and put them on stage? This is giving me a headache~” Tae-Hyung said, but in his heart, he possessed no real desire to debut his trainees. He planned to push off their debut as long as possible until the bosses gave him an earful because he knew once their idols actually began their debut, he wouldn’t be able to push off work any longer.

When that happened, he would have to prepare promotional materials to market the group, network with producers to allow their idols to come out in music shows, prepare ways to get their outfits, hair, and make-up done whenever they had events on their schedules, and prep the stage set. Furthermore, even if they got the music from the bosses, they would need to hire out of the company to get the choreography for their song.

“Ah, my head hurts.” In the past, there was a time when he used to have passion for these matters, but that was all gone now. His only goal was to work under rich bosses and fill his pockets with easy money. It had been three years since the Siren members came to this company, and only a little more than a year since the past head manager left, and he came to fulfill the position in their stead. He thought he could drag another half a year before he had to finally let their trainees debut.

“Should we eat some hangover soup today?” Tae-Hyung asked and scanned his surroundings. One member of the design team and another member from the administration team smiled awkwardly at Tae-Hyung.

“Didn’t we also eat hangover soup yesterday too, sir...?”

“So, what about it?”

“N-No, hangover soup sounds good, sir. Haha,” the employee from the administration team smiled sheepishly.

Then, the employee from the design team cautiously asked, “Um, sir did you happen to see Siren’s video by any chance?”

“A video? There was a video?”

“Yes, The Showcase application video.”

“Ahh, that’s right. I think I heard something about that.” He remembered. It was something Bong Tae-Yoon asked him one morning. Tae-Hyung thought it had been incredibly rude for that young twerp to bother him so early in the day.

“Just leave them be. I’m sure nothing much will amount to it,” Yoon Tae-Hyung swished his hands around disinterestedly.

“But why don’t you take a look at it once, sir...?” The design team employee asked.

“I will watch it later,” Tae-Hyun said like he couldn’t be bothered and closed his eyes while leaning his back on the chair. “I’m going to sleep for one hour now. Wake me up if the bosses come.”

“...Yes, sir.”

“I understand, sir.”

The employees replied and turned their eyes back to their monitors.

Riiiing.

It was then their company phone, which had never rung before, sounded. The first one to get the phone was the administration team’s employee.

“Hello, this is Lee Hyuna from the WD administration team.” Hyuna felt tense from getting an outside call for the first time since she joined this company.

“Yes, ah, sorry?” She responded ineloquently because of how shocking the content of the call was. Seung-Yeon from the design team carefully approached Lee Hyuna and mouthed the words.

—What’s going on?

Hyuna read Seung-Yeon’s lips and after sending a signal with her eyes, she placed the phone back to her ears and replied, “Ah, yes, I understand. I will contact you again after passing the news to the management team and the artists.”

Then, after ending the call, Hyuna called her fellow employee in a daze, “S-Seung Yeon.”

“Yes, what is it?” Seung-Yeon appeared anxious to hear what the call was about. Hyuna still looked a bit in a daze as she replied, “O-Our kids got an offer to appear on The Showcase 2...” She looked as if she couldn’t believe it even after saying the words aloud.

“What? Gasp!” Seung-Yeon also blocked her mouth with her hands and muffled her gasping. If they could, they both wanted to scream their hearts out. They both pitied the Siren group members, who had their own charms and talents but weren’t able to spread them out to their full potential because of how horrible this company was. It was to the point that they wanted to help the trainees transfer to another company if they could.

“Will the head manager be happy to hear this...?”

“Who...knows?”

The two knew intuitively that the head manager, Tae-Hyung, wouldn’t be pleased about this news. Yet, Seung-Yeon cautiously approached Tae-Hyung’s side. Tae-Hyung was so deep asleep that he was snoring. This was normal since he always napped during this time.

“Um...sir?”

“...Erm, what is it...?” Tae-Hyung responded sleepily.

“Well, the Siren was offered an opportunity to appear on The Showcase...?” she stated and asked, “...What should we do?”

Considering the head manager’s personality, he might tell them to not do it because it was bothersome. Yet, Seung-Yeon desperately hoped for that to not be the case.

“...The Showcase?” Tae-Hyung responded with great annoyance.

“Yes, sir. It’s The Showcase 2.”

“Ha, did they seriously get into that?” Tae-Hyun asked with his eyes still closed. Then, he smacked his lips in displeasure. “This is so bothersome. But I know those guys will keep whining if I refuse...”

He furrowed his eyebrows while Seung-Yeon prayed in her head that Tae-Hyun wouldn’t refuse.

“Why don’t you guys do it?” Tae-Hyung finally said.

“Sorry, sir?” This was an unexpected response.

“You and Lee Hyuna don’t do anything in this company anyway. So you guys handle this and just give me the reports of it later on,” Tae-Hyung replied and gave the managing role to Yoon Seung-Yeon and Lee Hyuna.

“B-But we never did something like this before, sir” Though it was true that the two didn’t do much work in this place, they had never done management work before.

“Just use your common sense and do as you see fit,” Tae-Hyung replied and waved his hands. He was telling them to shoo away since they finished their reports. Thus, Seung-Yeon went back to her spot and approached Hyuna.

“D-Did he really tell us to manage the Siren members just now?” Hyun asked, baffled.

“...Yes, he did.” Seung-Yeon also appeared astonished. She thought at worst, Tae-Hyun would refuse the offer, but she didn’t imagine she and an employee from the administration team would be put in charge of managing their company’s idols. Her head felt like it was in a mess

“But maybe...this is for the better.” Perhaps, it was better for them to be in charge of the group rather than the man in front of them. They had already been feeling great guilt towards the Siren members and were planning to quit their jobs this year anyway.

‘I should leave after helping them out.’ Seung-Yeon was determined to work her hardest before leaving the company, but it was hard to tell how well both Seung-Yeon and Hyuna would do when they both had very little experience in the entertainment business.

***

We then began our vocal training in the afternoon. The training was led by the team’s main vocalist, Yeon-Hoon.

“You need to loosen up your lip muscles well. When you think your voice can’t rise any higher, it can slightly go a bit more up if you stretch out your mouth,” Yeon-Hoon said and then opened his mouth wide like a baby hippo and made strange yelling sounds. Though it was funny to look at, it was an effective method, and all of us followed him. I could clearly feel the muscles around my mouth relax.

Knock, knock. Somebody knocked on the practice room’s door while we were busily training.

“Hm? Did somebody order food?”

“No, nobody did.”

“We just ate.”

“That’s true.”

‘It must be the news.’ Though we were wondering who it was, I intuitively knew that people from the company must’ve come to tell us that we were offered a spot in The Showcase.

“I will go open the door,” I said and opened the door.

“Hello!”

“Has everyone been well?”

Two women popped out of the door and greeted us. They felt unfamiliar now because it had been five years since I last saw them, but before my regression, I had seen them plenty of times before.

‘Aren’t they WD employees?’ Yet, I remembered them as not being part of the management team.

“Oh? Hello!”

“Hi~”

“Oh, it’s people from the company.”

All the group members recognized the two and greeted them. I thought the head manager, Yoon Tae-Hyung, would visit us to tell us about The Showcase’s offer so I was surprised to see these two. What was this about?

“We came in place of the head manager to relay some important news to you all,” one of them spoke first. “The Showcase 2 offered you all a spot to appear on their show!”

Hearing this, all the group members’ mouths dropped open.

“Really?”

“To us?”

“What...wow...”

“What in the world?”

“This is crazy.”

They acted all surprised though they had half-expected this news; hearing the news in person had a different effect from knowing it beforehand.

“So, we are already discussing your team’s schedules with the broadcasting stations!”

“I see.”

“I can’t believe it’s already happening.”

“This is huge, guys.”

Everyone appeared excited, thinking that they could come out in a show.

“So then, will it be possible for you all to shoot tomorrow?”

“...Excuse me?”

A huge bomb seemed to drop over our heads. It was great news that we were able to appear in The Showcase since I already had it in my head what to do from then on. Yet, this was way too early.

‘Damn it.’

“Well, we asked, and they said it was difficult for other teams to match their schedules, so our only option was to shoot tomorrow. Haha,” the company employee said.

‘They have no sense about the entertainment business,’ I thought.

It was a common occurrence for people in the broadcasting area to exaggerate and bluff about their schedules. I couldn’t believe that they weren’t able to see through the broadcasting team’s bluffs and just accepted their terms. It was then I realized that the employees in the WD entertainment agency were either lazy or bad at their jobs. There were only those two worst options available.