Chapter 11
Chapter 11
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Translator: Ryuma
Chapter: 11
Chapter Title: Confrontation at the Salon
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I entered the salon.
The scents of coffee and subtle cosmetics mingled in a pleasant harmony. A female staff member wearing a headset at the counter bowed her head and spoke.
“The haggard one…”
All the salon staff turned their heads toward me in unison. It seemed a radio call had gone out.
Haggard one?
Was that slang for someone without makeup?
The staff member, who had trailed off, tilted her head and looked at me again.
“I’m sorry, but your name is…”
“It’s Min-jun.”
“Ah… but you’re not on the reservation list. Which company are you with?”
Should I start dressing down a bit?
They were mistaking me for an idol again.
“I’m Answer’s manager.”
“Oh! Ah, I thought you were…”
A woman in her forties with an extraordinary presence approached.
“Who is it that you only got as far as ‘the haggard one’?”
She seemed to be the director of the salon.
“Ah! My mistake, Director. He says he’s Answer’s manager.”
“A manager? Are you new?”
Her eyes quickly scanned me up and down. It was an intense feeling, as if she were seeing right through me.
“It’s a pleasure to meet you, Director. I’m here to pick up Answer.”
“Yes, hello… You have the perfect look to be the visual of a boy group. Why choose a tough path like being a manager?”
*You think I’m just a pretty face? I write songs and sing well, too. Dancing is just a bonus.* I grumbled inwardly with a bitter smile.
“Thank you for the compliment.”
“We’re just waiting on Seol-ah to finish. Is this your first time at the salon? Follow me.”
“Yes.”
I was led past clients who looked quite wealthy and into a private room. The blonde girl napping on the sofa, her legs exposed, was the youngest, Yi-na. The one getting her makeup done must be the leader, Seol-ah.
“Unni, could you add just a little more glitter under my eyes?”
“You’re already pretty enough. Any more and your eyes will look like they’re floating on their own.”
“What if I’m the only one who looks old? I heard the company recruited new trainees.”
Her large eyes stretched long to the corners. The dark irises, almost indistinguishable from her pupils, contrasted with her purple hair, giving Seol-ah a strange sort of elegance.
But belying that elegance was a flicker of anxiety. I immediately pulled up Seol-ah's stats.
[Name: Chae Seol-ah (Age 21)]
Status: Anxious, On Edge
Vocal: 83/92
Dance: 72/78
Rap: 33/45
Charisma: 45/56
⁝
[Career Aptitude]
Girl Group: 60/90
Opera Singer: 59/92
Did she study classical singing?
Though she was in an unstable state, she had decent skills and a lot of potential. With the right producing, she was a kid who could succeed.
[Name: Shin Yi-na (Age 17)]
Status: Longing, Sleepy
Vocal: 60/76
Dance: 67/79
Rap: 33/51
Charisma: 45/87
Her potential stats were low. But Yi-na’s strength lay elsewhere. Her visuals.
Her puppy-like face suggested she'd be fiercely loyal, and her fair complexion, tinged with a subtle melancholy, was captivating.
Did her beauty stand out because of that sense of lack? Her pretty face, which seemed to hold a story, made it clear she was the group's visual.
Now I understood Seol-ah’s reaction. She must be terrified of the uncertain future that awaited if their activities ended here.
The fear of being ridiculed for having an "entertainer's disease" the more you struggled to survive was a future every celebrity dreaded, and a pretty teenage maknae was more than enough to amplify those worries.
“Alright. I’ll add a little more.”
“Thank you.”
She was so focused that she didn’t even notice me watching from the doorway. A translucent white cosmetic was applied to the area under Seol-ah’s eyes.
Glitter, was it? As the shimmering pearl was layered on, she did seem to look a little younger…
“There.”
“Thank you!”
Seol-ah turned her head from side to side, then stood up with a satisfied smile. She scanned her full reflection in the mirror, checking her subtly curvaceous figure.
“!”
Only then did she spot me standing in the doorway and jump in surprise.
“I’m Min-jun. I started working today.”
“Ah… hello.”
“Manager Park is waiting outside.”
At the mention of Manager Park, Seol-ah’s eyes widened in alarm.
“Yi-na! Yi-na!”
Seol-ah shook the sleeping Yi-na awake.
“Manager Park is waiting!”
“Hmph!”
Yi-na shot up, wiping away non-existent drool. It was obvious they were both afraid of Manager Park.
Yi-na hurriedly smoothed down her blonde hair. Perhaps because she had arranged it carefully before lying down to avoid messing it up, it shimmered silkily even though she had just woken up.
Where was the other member?
“Where’s Seul-bi?”
“…That girl, again!”
Instead of answering, Seol-ah grabbed the bewildered Yi-na and hurried to a corner of the salon.
Cutting through the scent of coffee was a foreign smell that didn't belong in a salon.
The smell of fried eggs?
It was the rich smell of a Maillard reaction, something you'd expect from a toast shop. Was the salon making toast?
“Lee Seul-bi!”
Seul-bi, who had her back to them while eating toast, startled.
“Would you two like some toast?”
A salon staff member asked kindly as she set down a plate of French toast sprinkled with sugar.
“We’re fine… Are you crazy?”
Seul-bi gulped down the bite she was chewing.
“…Unni, I’m starving. If I have to get through rehearsal and stay until the ending today, I’ll die.”
Her ash-blonde hair and small pupils, which seemed even smaller in her large eyes, gave her a determined look. Her limbs, though slender, looked strong and fit a rapper’s image well.
But the sugar dusting the corner of her mouth completely ruined her rapper image. A smile crept onto my face.
[Name: Lee Seul-bi (Age 20)]
Status: Hungry, Hungry
Vocal: 45/65
Dance: 85/93
Rap: 75/80
Charisma: 77/93
*Is she possessed by a food spirit? Why does ‘Hungry’ appear twice?*
The members of Answer were, on the whole, exceptionally talented. They just hadn't been able to make their talents bloom.
It was a shame that kids with enough talent to hit it big if polished correctly were just wasting away like this.
“Lee Seul-bi. Aren’t Yi-na and I hungry?”
“Sorry, Unni.”
Seol-ah let out a deep sigh, calming her anger before speaking again.
“…Manager Park is waiting. Let’s go, quickly.”
At Seol-ah’s words, Seul-bi stuffed the remaining toast into her mouth.
“…”
I could see Seol-ah and Yi-na swallow hard.
From the pre-debut team to the final debut lineup, and then to their debut—trainees who ate nothing but salad for years.
*As a former trainee, I know exactly how you feel. You must be starving.*
“Answer!”
The small but sharp voice of Manager Park made all three of them flinch.
“Get back inside.”
The three, who were about to leave the break room, retreated at Manager Park’s command.
Their faces were pale.
“These bitches are completely insane…”
Despite the presence of a salon employee, Manager Park began to spew verbal abuse. The employee, sensing the situation, quietly disappeared.
Manager Park’s tirade stabbed not only at Answer but at my own heart, making it pound violently.
“So, you just had to stuff your fucking face, even got sugar on your snout?”
“…”
“At ease.”
The three of them put their hands behind their backs and bowed their heads low.
“Hey, Chae Seol-ah. You’re the leader, what the hell were you doing, not stopping her?”
“I’m sorry…”
“Do you all want to get kicked out? You want to pay back all the investment money we’ve poured into you bitches?”
“We were wrong…”
Seeing Seol-ah get berated, the youngest, Yi-na, began to sniffle.
But the look on Manager Park’s face as he spewed his venom wasn’t one of anger. He seemed to be relishing his position and authority, a strange hint of pleasure in his eyes.
*Is this guy some kind of pervert?*
“Fucking bitches. Get on the ground!”
I couldn’t just stand by and watch him cross the line.
“Hold on.”
The members, frozen in an awkward stance, and an incredulous Manager Park all turned to look at me.
“Don’t you think you’re going too far?”
“What?”
“There are things you can and can’t say to artists.”
Manager Park put his hands on his hips and glared.
“Are you crazy on your first day?”
“And telling girls in skirts to get on the ground? You don’t have some other motive, do you?”
“This son of a bitch!”
*Grab.*
“Gasp!”
The members let out small screams as Manager Park grabbed me by the collar. I stared back, my eyes wide, meeting his gaze.
“You gonna hit me?”
“…What the hell is wrong with this guy?”
Manager Park’s face showed his bewilderment at my complete lack of fear.
“Go on, take a swing if you’ve got the guts.”
“…”
His face turned beet red, as if he’d reached his limit. *Go ahead, throw the first punch. I’ll make sure we both go down for mutual assault.*
*Ting.*
Just as my fighting spirit ignited, a flurry of notification windows appeared.
[The members of Answer are moved by your courage.]
[The members of Answer and the system are synchronizing.]
*Ting.*
[The team you will produce has been designated as Answer, which has a high synchronization rate.]
A jolt ran through my body as my aura and the members’ auras swirled and mixed together. Then, the vision I had glimpsed through the ‘Third Eye’ with Chae-ron appeared clearly before me.
It was Lee Yoo-ah’s funeral from my past life.
⁝
My mother, who had been wailing and pounding the floor, collapsed as if fainting, and her son carried her to her room. My father sat alone in his wheelchair, a look of utter devastation on his face.
Three women, their glamorous figures not quite hidden by their dark attire, bowed before Lee Yoo-ah’s brightly smiling funeral portrait.
After bowing, the three passed by me, their heavy perfume filling the air. The smell, mixing with the somber incense of the funeral home, made me fight back a wave of nausea.
“Fucking trash bastards.”
“Yi-na, they’ll hear you.”
At one woman’s curse, I looked at them.
It was Answer.
The ‘fucking trash’ she mentioned was a derogatory nickname for SJ’s CEO Gyeon Sang-jin (‘Gae’), External Affairs Director Park (‘Mak’), and PR Director Jang (‘Jang’).
Did this mean the Answer members, who are at JD Enter now, would go to SJ Enter in the future? In any case, it was clear they were victims, just like Yoo-ah.
⁝
A strange sense of wonder washed over me, realizing I had crossed paths with Answer in my past life. The vision faded, and a system notification jolted me back to the present.
[Main Quest]
Use your talents to produce the group Answer.
Objective: Reach #1 on the 3 major music charts, secure 50 million Tube subscribers.
Reward: ‘Tell Me Your Wish’
Failure: Game Over
[Time Remaining: 2 years, 254 days, 1 hour, 49 minutes, 23 seconds]
*An unavoidable quest?* The timer was already counting down. Just like that, Answer had been designated as the group I would produce.
[The members are worried about you.]
“Producer-nim, we’re sorry. Please forgive us!”
Starting with Seol-ah, the members dropped to their knees. The image of them overlapped with my own foolishly conditioned self from my first life, and a curse escaped my lips.
*Smack!*
I shoved away Manager Park’s hand that was gripping my collar.
“What did you do wrong to be kneeling? Get up! Now!”
My furious shout made the three girls’ pupils tremble. A whirlwind of indescribable emotions, a mix of stress hormones and the endorphins of being moved, crashed through them.
Perhaps these kids, like me, had been gaslit and groomed into making the wrong choices. Regardless of the system or the quest, I couldn't let them become another set of victims.
“What’s going on here?”
As the salon director entered the break room, Manager Park slowly lowered the hand he had raised.
“The kids have been slacking lately, so I was just disciplining them a bit. Everyone, get up! Why are you kneeling?”
I let out a hollow laugh at his sudden change of demeanor.
“We don’t have much time before the music show check-in. Hurry up and come out.”
“Yes, Manager-nim.”
There was no way the company would treat its artists like this. I knew that just from watching the actions of Director Lee Sun, the real power player. This was clearly Manager Park’s own sick game.
“Sorry, Unni.”
“And you’re not sorry to Yi-na?”
“Sorry.”
Only after the manager left did the three of them get up, dusting off their knees. It was frustrating how they’d been conditioned by him, but they had still knelt for my sake.
A resolve solidified within me: I would take full responsibility for these girls’ futures.
“Does Manager Park always talk to you like that?”
“…Thank you for what you did earlier.”
*What kind of non-answer is that?*
“What kind of world do we live in that you just take everything a manager says?”
“…We need to leave soon, so our things…”
The Answer members went back into the room where they had gotten their makeup done.
“Unni, our schedule runs late today.”
Seol-ah acted as if this was all just a part of their daily routine.
“Really? Then I’ll pack some for you.”
The makeup artist scooped some lipstick into a small plastic container. The dejected look on the girls’ faces was painful to see. The youngest, Yi-na, was still sniffling.
*She’s a crybaby.*
“From now on, don’t let Manager Park intimidate you.”
At that, Seol-ah’s heavy lips finally parted, a venomous tone in her voice.
“…If he marks you, your career in this industry is over.”
So this was how they’d been brainwashed…
For kids who believed their last chance at success was in the entertainment industry, it was a threat they couldn’t dare to ignore.
Right now, restoring Answer’s confidence was the top priority.
“Manager Park doesn’t have that kind of power.”
“…What?”
“And I’ll be taking over as your manager soon.”
A flicker of light appeared in the Answer members’ eyes.
“The real power in our company is Director Lee Sun, and I’m close with her, so just trust me. I’ll make sure Manager Park is out of here soon.”
“…Really?”
Seul-bi asked boldly.
I nodded confidently, but the members still looked unconvinced.
The truth was, I didn’t have that kind of power right now. But I would use any means necessary to get rid of that man.
Because I knew all too well what a foolish mistake it was to fight a despicable opponent with honor.