Don't Be Surprised When You See This
I told Chie that the issue with her SN Entertainment contract had been resolved. “So, your trainee contract with SN Entertainment has been terminated. There won’t be any penalty fees or anything like that.”
“Then… I mean, does that mean Chie is free now?”
“That’s right. From now on, you can do whatever you want. You can go back to Japan, or you can keep chasing your dream of becoming a K-pop idol here in Korea.”
“I don’t want to go back to Japan. I’ve already endured two whole years. If I go back now, it’ll be like I never did anything at all.”
As she spoke, her fingers fidgeted restlessly. It looked like she had something she wanted to ask.
“Um, Manager Oppa. Can I ask you one thing?”
Chie also called me Manager Oppa, just like Sera did.
“Sure, go ahead.”
“Why are you going this far for my contract too?”
She seemed to think that offering her a place to stay was one thing—an act of kindness—but personally stepping in to resolve her contract issues was strange.
“Is it because… you want something from me?”
Her deer-like eyes were filled with a mixture of expectation and uncertainty. After spending a few days together, it seemed I’d grown genuinely attached to these girls.
“What if I do want something?”
“Summer Unnie, Sera Unnie, and Lina all told me the same thing. They said if I listen to Manager Oppa, I’ll get tteok even in my sleep, so I should do absolutely everything he tells me to.”
Behind her, the three of them nodded vigorously. They looked like those nodding toys people put on car dashboards. Had I ever bought them tteok from the mart before?
“You know Red Blossom only has three members right now, right?”
“Yes.”
“My goal is to bring the group back with five members for a comeback. That means we need two more. I’d really like you to be one of them, Chie.”
Chie’s pupils trembled violently.
“D-does that mean… I could become a member of Red Blossom?”
“If that’s what you want, of course you can. But it won’t be automatic. Even at SN Entertainment, they carefully check monthly evaluations and training scores before letting anyone debut. We have a similar process here.”
“So… I’d have to become a trainee again?”
“Member recruitment is a special case, so we don’t start from scratch. Instead, you’ll need to audition in front of the AR Team Leader, the choreography team, and the producers. Obviously, you’ll need good evaluations to officially join.”
“I’m not sure if I can get good evaluations from them…”
“You were the top prospect in C Unit. Here, there are no members who dislike you, and no managers trying to use you. All you have to do is properly show off the skills you’ve built over those two years.”
The words You’ll definitely become the fourth member rose all the way to my throat, but I swallowed them back. Right now, I wanted to be a ‘normal’ manager who simply encouraged and supported her from the side so she could shine. Though the way the girls were looking at me was anything but normal.
I had told Chie that everything would work out if she just worked hard, but there was a separate problem. The company still had no intention of saving Red Blossom.
“It’s because Red Blossom became famous as a side branch.”
Baek Hagyeong, the team leader, leaned his arms on the rooftop railing and exhaled a plume of cigarette smoke. Since I didn’t smoke, I simply popped open a can of coffee beside him.
“A failed idol group that no one remembered suddenly blew up with one video of them moving into a new dorm. Then they hit back-to-back home runs with their live streams. Recently they even made it into the social affairs section of the news. What role did Red Blossom actually play in any of that?”
Ah.
“It was all because of Cha Soyeon and you. The girl who never even came out during the move-in video and refuses to appear on variety shows suddenly turned on a live stream. Twice, no less.”
Thanks to Cha Soyeon, Red Blossom’s channel and social media accounts had come back to life.
“You’re the same. You saved Cha Soyeon in a parking lot, destroyed a cult, and even rescued a kidnapped member. People don’t remember Red Blossom itself. They only remember Cha Soyeon, who’s close to the group members, and the group’s manager, Shin Juwon. That’s why the company can’t feel confident about them.”
“This is tricky.”
“In times like this, the best things are either getting good results on a survival program or having an old song do a sudden reverse climb up the charts. The company interprets even one of those as a positive market signal.”
“It’s like the chicken or the egg dilemma. We don’t have enough members to promote, and because we can’t promote, neither the group nor the songs get any attention.”
“That girl you brought in—Chie—she absolutely has to do the audition. Only then can I go lie down in front of the executives and insist that we can’t do this without her.”
“They won’t even hold an audition unless we get approval for member recruitment first.”
“Exactly. Honestly, I’d love to grab the head of the division by the collar and threaten to quit if they don’t save Red Blossom, but that doesn’t work on the chairman or the division head. They won’t move unless they get a real feeling about it. Even if every single team leader threatened to resign, if they don’t get that gut feeling, they’ll never approve it.”
Those two men’s instincts were what had built Pine Entertainment into what it was today. The fact that there had been no talk of recruiting members meant they still hadn’t felt anything from Red Blossom.
How can I create that feeling for them?
A little while later, Cha Soyeon accomplished this difficult task. The more I thought about it, the more I realized what an incredible woman she was.
“A housewarming party?”
“Now that Chie’s issue is resolved, it’s time for a housewarming. I’ve been waiting so long.”
She suggested it almost every single day. It felt like she had asked dozens of times by now.
“I already talked to Summer. She wants to do it on a Friday night since it’s the start of the weekend, so please come straight here after work on Friday.”
I wondered what Friday night even meant to someone who played around every day, but I kept my mouth shut. Ever since she met me, she had been showing interest in all sorts of things and trying to express her feelings in her own way. I didn’t want to pour cold water on that.
Well, it means I get to spend Friday night with beautiful girls, so that’s nice.
“I don’t have any intentions toward them?”
Huh?
*
I ran into the studio PD and cameraman at the entrance to the dorm.
“There’s no filming scheduled for today.”
“Cha Soyeon asked us to come shoot a housewarming video.”
“…?”
When I went upstairs, everyone was busy preparing for the housewarming. Summer was chopping and grinding ingredients so fast her hands were a blur, while Sera and Cha Soyeon wore aprons and bustled around the kitchen.
“Wow, this is a painting.”
The sight of a top actress and two girl group members completely focused on food preparation was a rare scene even for variety shows. The PD and cameraman, eyes practically spinning, followed the three beauties around as if they didn’t want to miss a single frame.
Lina and Chie had turned on the MR and were matching choreography moves. It was Love Connect, the only song from their second album that had received decent reviews. Even now, recommendation comments for it occasionally appeared on Red Blossom videos.
“Oppa, you’re here!”
“Hello, Manager Oppa.”
“I thought this was a housewarming. Why are you practicing?”
“We have something planned later, so I was running through it with Chie. Chie, you’re good now, right?”
“Yeah.”
I had thought it was just a simple housewarming, but it looked like they were going to insert something in the middle. A camera was already set up in one corner of the living room.
“Prep work done!”
The three of them took off their aprons and came out of the kitchen. Cha Soyeon and Summer swept their hair to one side as they walked over, and the sight was so breathtaking it nearly stopped my heart. I unconsciously swallowed hard. Summer noticed and lifted the corners of her eyes in a sly smile. It was a bewitching smile that no man could resist.
“Wasn’t this supposed to be a housewarming? What’s with that camera, and why were Lina and Chie practicing choreography?”
I asked Cha Soyeon, but Summer answered from beside her.
“We mentioned on the live stream that we were having a housewarming this week. Since Soyeon Unnie was coming too, we asked the viewers what they wanted to see. A ton of comments came in with all kinds of requests.”
So they had decided to do the two things that received the most requests.
“They wanted us to cook within a set time limit, like in Destroy the Refrigerator. The cooking video we uploaded before must have done well. So we decided to do it properly and prepped all the ingredients in advance.”
Summer’s cooking videos did have high view counts. They planned to make housewarming dishes within a time limit, just like on those cooking variety shows.
“The second most requested thing was a girl group cover dance. After thinking about what to do, we decided to use our own song. So we created a new choreography for Love Connect.”
Love Connect was the only track from their second album that had charted. The song itself was good, but it had been criticized for its strange choreography and bizarre costumes. Obviously that old choreography wouldn’t work, so Summer—who had a real talent for dance—had created a brand new one.
“Since the food has to be eaten right after it’s made, we’ll start with the live stream.”
The five of them went off to change clothes. Why was Cha Soyeon changing too…?
*
She wore a short top that showed a glimpse of her midriff and slim training pants. It was comfortable sporty wear commonly seen in girl group dance practice videos, but with her perfect figure, it looked more stunning than most stage costumes.
“Why did you change clothes, Soyeon?”
“I’m dancing too.”
“Huh?”
“Once people heard I was coming, the comments begging me to dance with Red Blossom flooded in. I was debating what to do, but the new choreography Summer created isn’t that difficult. So I decided to join.”
The PD and cameraman looked like they were about to die of happiness. Who would refuse when Cha Soyeon offered to dance in front of the camera?
“Do you… even know how to dance? No matter how easy it is, it’s still a girl group routine.”
“I’ve done ballet and contemporary dance for quite a long time. Don’t be surprised when you see it.”
Her expression overflowed with confidence. She must have been certain she could pull it off. I had never seen Cha Soyeon dance in any of her movies or dramas. Moreover, she was someone who never appeared on variety shows. And now that same Cha Soyeon was attempting a girl group cover dance. On top of that, the fourth member, Chie, would be joining them.
This is going to get an insane reaction.
And so, the legendary cover dance video that would become the signal flare for Red Blossom’s revival was born.