Chapter 16
“What are you doing?”
“I hate it when someone listens to my conversations. I’m sure it’s the same for you.”
“You’re the one with plenty to feel guilty about, not me. I didn’t care.”
“Fine. Let’s say I’m the one with plenty to feel guilty about. I don’t care.” What an annoying man. Se-rang only glared at him and did not add anything more.
“You took one of our company’s trainees.”
At those words, however, she turned her head back slightly. “Yes. Is there a problem? Ah, though I should be the one raising the problem.”
“There’s no problem. I only asked because I found it cute.”
“…Cute?”
Has this man lost his mind? Se-rang’s mood instantly soured. “Who are you calling cute? Unless you mean Trainee Seo Dowon is cute, I don’t understand.”
“I meant you were cute. Yeon Se-rang.”
Ugh…. Se-rang mimed vomiting and straightened her back.
“Don’t tell me you’re misunderstanding that I cast Trainee Seo Dowon because he’s from your company?”
“If not, why would you cast a trainee whose skills are far, far below standard? This studio is full of talented kids. You may be a beginner, but even an ordinary person could tell Seo Dowon’s stage was disastrous. So… it looked like you were only trying to save my face.”
So this man really misunderstood. Se-rang let out a hollow laugh.
“Listen. Do you think I’d use one of my only five casting tickets just to save your company’s face? There’s a limit to delusion, seriously….” Suppressing the urge to tear her own hair out, Se-rang continued. “I cast Trainee Seo Dowon because I really saw potential in him. I didn’t sacrifice myself to save face for a man who doesn’t even know how to save his own.”
“Are you serious? You really saw potential in that kid?” Baek Do-gyeong looked down at Se-rang while barely holding back his laughter, his face full of mockery. “Then there’s no need to look any further. You won’t even be able to enter the successor competition. With that kind of eye, you won’t survive at any entertainment company, let alone Imperial.”
“Look who’s talking. Trainee Dowon belongs to your company. Your people cast him, your people trained him, and your people brought him here. Are you tearing yourself down just to put me down? Is this what they call self-destruction?”
“I didn’t cast him. Our company’s casting director did. I dropped that trainee from the debut team. As you saw, his skills are below average.”
“Even so, he’s someone you chose and put in as an ace, isn’t he?”
“Yes, because I planned to let him make an impression here and turn him into an actor. As you saw, his face and physique are fairly decent, so I intended to have him train in acting and debut him as an actor.”
“…….”
Baek Do-gyeong gave his signature elegant smile and glanced at Seo Dowon, who was smiling brightly in the distance without knowing anything.
“I wondered why you cast him. If it wasn’t to save my face… then I suppose he was simply your type. Then again, he is quite similar to your past lovers—”
At that moment, Se-rang grabbed Baek Do-gyeong’s tie and yanked it hard.
“!”
At the unexpected action, the smile vanished completely from Baek Do-gyeong’s lips, but Se-rang’s smile grew even deeper.
Se-rang leaned close to Baek Do-gyeong’s ear.
“If you run that filthy mouth about my trainee, you may find yourself in real trouble.”
“!”
“I can be generous and overlook you acting obnoxious toward me, but that kid is no longer your trainee. He’s my trainee now. And I—” As if warning Baek Do-gyeong, Se-rang pretended to straighten his tie and tightened it hard around his neck. “I don’t leave bastards who mess with my trainees alone.”
“…Yeon Se-rang.”
Se-rang released the tie at once, shoved Do-gyeong away, and smiled brightly as if nothing had happened.
“See you later, Do-gyeong. Thank you for coming all this way to cheer me on. It gave me so much strength.”
It really did give me strength. Because now, if only to bring you down, Baek Do-gyeong, I’m starting to truly want to make that kid succeed.
After forcibly driving Baek Do-gyeong away, recording resumed at perfect timing.
And despite Se-rang starting again full of venom, she could not use the remaining four casting tickets.
No, even if she wanted to use them, she could not. The trainees Se-rang wanted to cast did not cast Se-rang.
In truth, Se-rang had already planned out which trainees she wanted to pick to some extent from the beginning.
Just by looking at the list and trainee videos she received before recording, she could clearly see who had talent.
However, Se-rang was also clearly aware of one fact.
No matter how much she planned which trainees she wanted to pick, those trainees had no reason to pick her.
So even though Se-rang could read the entire board, she could not become the ruler of the game.
This is driving me insane.
If she had been Kang Iwon in her previous life, she would not have been treated like this. After all, Iwon had been a fairly promising composer and producer.
What was the point of having talent and recognizing talent when that talent did not choose her? Se-rang swallowed her frustration.
Then,
Ah, that kid is….
A familiar-looking trainee stepped onto the stage.
“Hello, I’m Jung Taeha from Blue Royal.”
He finally appeared.
The trainee Se-rang recognized at a glance had a completely different image from Seo Dowon.
If Dowon had the image of a refreshing, upright, wholesome young man, Taeha had an atmosphere that seemed somewhat gloomy and dark.
But if there was one thing they had in common, both of them had something that drew the eye.
“The song I prepared is ‘New Shape.’”
Jung Taeha did not look nervous at all. His shoulders were not stiff like the other trainees, nor did his eyes burn as if he had to show everything he had right here and now.
It was the opposite. Taeha was merely calm, as if he did not want to show anything at all. To the point that he gave a rather indifferent impression.
But unlike that—
The shape of your body is completely new
And I threw myself
into that shape
Taeha’s voice alone shone clearly.
It was a very calm and sincere voice, one that was not loaded with techniques out of burning ambition or packed with emotion.
That attitude of staring at the camera without trembling was only possible for someone who knew his own skill exactly.
And of course it was.
Because Jung Taeha was guaranteed to rise.
“Trainee Jung Taeha…. Thank you for that. First of all, your voice itself is good. It’s a voice that pulls people in.”
Even Eden, who was picky about singing ability if nothing else, acknowledged Jung Taeha’s stable skill.
He might not be among the best vocalists of currently active idols, but with this level, he was good enough to be the main vocalist in any group.
A visual main vocalist at that.
Se-rang slowly examined Taeha from head to toe. His height was roughly around 181 centimeters, and his face was the kind currently in demand. He had a slightly sharp fennec fox feeling.
With that face and that skill, all three judges here would definitely raise their casting tickets.
There had been many skilled trainees until now, but almost none had that level of visuals and that level of skill together.
So she had to secure him no matter what.
Moreover, Se-rang already knew that Taeha was guaranteed to rise. If the people here had eyes, they would also think Taeha was certain to rise, but Se-rang’s certainty went beyond that.
Of course, the process of him rising would be extremely rough.
“Judging by your skill and how polished you are, you’re more than ready to debut. Why haven’t you debuted yet? Didn’t Blue Royal debut a new boy group last year?” At Seungha’s question, Taeha’s mouth stiffened faintly.
Hmm, his expression control needs to be retrained.
“Ah, I’ve… only been at Blue Royal for two months.”
“Two months? Then before that….” Seungha flipped through Taeha’s profile, then froze. “Ah….”
Of course she would freeze.
The entertainment companies Taeha had been with before were all very small, and every single one had gone under.
Who was Jung Taeha? Among industry people, he was the very person called the embodiment of bad luck.
Whenever he was about to debut, his company collapsed, to the point that people even joked whether he would make the sturdy Blue Royal collapse too.
Of course, in her previous life, Blue Royal had not collapsed.
“Well, the past isn’t important. What matters is the present.”
Jung Taeha had simply dropped out of <Cast the Future>.
But in this life, I absolutely can’t let him drop out.
“Yes. I will approach this with that mindset too. I look forward to working with you.”
The venom had completely drained from Taeha’s eyes as he said that. Eyes that had completely lost motivation, shoulders sagging slightly without hope.
It was a look one could only recognize by observing carefully. No, one could only know it after experiencing it personally. That was the look of someone lost in despair.
Feeling as if she were looking at herself not long ago, Se-rang exhaled deeply.
Because she knew all too well what it felt like when everything you did ended in failure.
“But aren’t you lacking too much motivation?”