Chapter 52
The members of New Black were in a state of panic.
‘What do we do?’
They had never experienced this kind of sound accident before.
The members naturally looked at one person.
Seon Woojoo.
Whenever something difficult happened, they always trusted that their leader would find a solution.
The bright lights made Seon Woojoo’s facial expressions visible in real time.
At first, he seemed as flustered as they were, then he had a blank look on his face, and then he nodded his head.
‘What is he thinking?’
As the Lemon Entertainment staff harassed the agency staff, and a cold chill spread from the reporters.
Seon Woojoo took a step forward.
A faint singing voice began to echo on the silent stage.
Where am I right now
A strange sea, a strange air
Seon Woojoo’s dance moves fluttered his loose sleeves, and everyone below the stage stopped their actions.
The staff who were hastily fixing the sound.
The managers who were nagging the site staff.
The reporters who had their hands on their laptops with displeased faces.
They all stared blankly at Seon Woojoo’s sudden behavior.
Where are you
I opened my eyes in a secluded place
The members who were spacing out also started their choreography after the leader finished the first verse.
It was a cappella, but it wasn’t hard.
They had practiced so much for the past month that their bodies moved automatically as soon as they heard the lyrics.
But they were still confused.
‘What is Woojoo hyung trying to do?’
They couldn’t communicate in this situation, and the members didn’t know the leader’s intentions.
As they were thinking that.
Seon Woojoo, who was doing a solo dance in front, showed four fingers behind his back.
The number 4.
They immediately understood his intention.
‘He wants us to go to track 4.’
They had been feeling uneasy because the pitch was slightly different.
The fourth track of their debut album was also Fireworks.
Unlike the original version that gave a refreshing feeling, it was a sing along version arranged for a concert.
It definitely suited a cappella better.
‘The song is a cappella with track 4. The choreography is the same.’
The members who understood the situation naturally took over the parts.
From Seon Woojoo’s part to Wang Jiho’s part.
From Kim Jung-hyun’s part to Kim Bi-ju’s part.
The confusion and panic that had filled their minds soon disappeared.
They weren’t scared now.
Someone had already walked the path they had to go.
‘Let’s just do our best.’
As they showed off their choreography that they had polished for a month, the members focused on the stage and didn’t notice.
The reporters stopped typing and watched them.
***
Oh Sohee, a reporter from Entertainment IN, sighed.
‘What are they trying to do by calling the reporters?’
It wasn’t a live broadcast, and they couldn’t even control the sound at a showcase.
It was ridiculous.
Of course, it wasn’t Lemon Entertainment’s fault.
It was entirely the mistake of the agency that managed the site.
But it was inevitable that she was annoyed anyway.
Reporters are human too.
They had to travel around for interviews day and night, and keep their antennae up for the incidents and accidents that happened constantly in the entertainment industry.
They were always tired.
That’s why they were always checking when the photo time and Q&A time were, when to post the articles and move to the next interview site.
Schedule delays were annoying situations for them.
‘It will take 30 minutes to recover.’
She tapped her laptop keyboard as she sighed at the staff who were running around.
-New Black debut showcase, poor site management disappointing…
She increased her typing speed as she saw others writing articles with similar titles.
Suddenly.
A pleasant voice echoed in the quiet hall.
Where am I right now?
A strange sea, a strange air
A soft song, like a hum.
Oh, the reporter looked up.
Was it because of the sudden voice?
The reporters who had been buried in their laptop screens leaned forward.
They saw a member standing in the center of the stage.
A face that looked like a painting with heavy stage makeup.
Seon Woojoo, the lead vocal of New Black, was singing without any accompaniment.
‘What is he doing?’
The reporters who had been pouring out their complaints about the organizers in their articles looked bewildered.
Oh, the reporter narrowed his eyes and looked at the stage.
‘Does he intend to do it without any music?’
Idols usually sing live with pre-recorded AR lyrics.
In other words, if 100 is a perfect live performance, they would lay down 30 of AR and add 70 of their own skills on top of it.
It was only natural.
It was impossible to sing perfectly while flying around and bending their waists in intense choreography.
That’s why it was better to be criticized for poor stage management than to choose what New Black was doing now.
If they made a mistake, they would only expose their lack of talent and be ridiculed. A bad move.
I wanted to give them some credit for diverting the attention of the disgruntled reporters, but that was the only benefit of their choice.
However, she soon changed her mind.
‘…They’re good, huh?’
She already knew that New Black had outstanding skills.
As seen from their senior group Scarlet, their producer Jo Kyu-hwan was notorious for being very picky about selecting people.
Besides, New Black had already showcased their talent once at a music cafe.
They were a team with solid basics and a harmonious combination of voices among the members.
Of course, she never thought they were impressive.
There were plenty of groups with that level of skill among the top idols.
New Black was just a team A with potential for the future.
But as she watched them perform naturally on stage, she felt like changing her mind.
They were in a situation full of handicaps, with no accompaniment and no friendly audience, but they could still pull off a stage like that.
How many teams could do that?
Probably very few.
‘Lemon is really producing some monsters.’
It was a splendid live stage that made her wonder if they had deliberately caused the sound accident.
Oh, the reporter, looked around.
She was not the only one who was amazed.
The other reporters also had expressions of curiosity as they watched the fireworks on stage.
In the midst of the lonely lights that sprinkled a dreamy blue, the five members moved gracefully.
There was no MR, but it didn’t feel lacking.
Rather, it felt more than enough.
As if coloring a blank paper, the colors of their voices filled the stage.
Look at our firework (Firework)
Our dazzling display in the night sky
The members spread their wings around the main dancer, Bi-ju.
Then they all sang the chorus of Firework in harmony.
Like a Firework
We’re gonna show you
Like a Firework
Our colors with you
A five-part harmony as if they were a choir.
Their faces were joyful, maybe because they enjoyed singing, or maybe because of the refreshing mood of the song.
Some of the spectators smiled at the sight.
Most of them were expressionless, but they all had the same thought in their minds.
They didn’t know when it would happen.
But the idol group in front of them would definitely make it big.
“…”
Oh So-hee stared at the blinking cursor on the Korean document on her laptop screen.
-New Black’s debut showcase, disappointing on-site management…
She shook her head and pressed the backspace.
Then she started to write a new headline.
It was completely different from the previous one.
***
At the same time. Backstage.
“Manager.”
“Yeah?”
“I heard from the staff on site, the sound system will take about 30 minutes to recover.”
“Really?”
Yoon Seok-hwan replied indifferently.
His eyes were on the members who were singing the last part of Firework.
“Tell them to let us know when the sound is fixed. And hold off on the performances scheduled after the title track. If they ask what to do first, say we’ll start with the photo time.”
“Yes, I’ll pass it on.”
“And Min-ki. These people don’t seem to be doing their job well. Keep an eye on them. The first mistake is the worst mistake. If they mess up once, they might mess up somewhere else. We have to be careful ourselves.”
Seo Min-ki nodded and ran off, and Yoon Seok-hwan turned his gaze to the press seats.
He seemed to have dodged a bullet.
If the number one target to avoid in the entertainment industry was the broadcasting stations and PDs, then the number zero was the entertainment reporters.
They were the ones who could spill blood over their profession, writing biased articles for the slightest reasons.
They were the reporters who could put their grudge into their articles for something trivial like being one minute late for an interview.
If he had made them wait for 30 minutes, he couldn’t imagine what would have happened.
-New Black’s debut, a shaky start from the showcase
-New Black’s debut show, marred by poor event management
-Oh! Then oops! New Black’s show, ‘the song was good’
He shook his head to get rid of the headlines that played in his mind.
Fortunately, that was no longer the case.
Because the reporters reacted well.
Every time the lights turned, the faces of the reporters sitting in the press seats were clearly visible.
They all looked at the stage as if they were mesmerized.
As if they were looking at a mysterious and exotic animal.
Yoon Seok-hwan saw the person who had elicited such a response.
Seon Woojoo, who was dancing hard enough to see sweat droplets flying in the air.
“You did it again. You son of a gun.”
Yoon Seok-hwan smiled contentedly.
He had felt it since he took care of him at TJ, but he was really something.
Such a judgment in an instant.
Most rookies would have frozen in panic, but how did he make such a decision in that short time?
Thanks to that, the accident that could have been a disaster turned out to be a blessing.
The expressions of the reporters, who usually looked bored at the rookie showcases, were different from usual.
Of course, it wasn’t the same as the emotion they felt when they saw a great performance.
It was curiosity, like ‘Hey, look at them?’
Or recognition of their skills, like ‘They’re the best among the rookies this time, aren’t they?’
Anyway, it was clear that they were close to liking them.
Building a positive image with the reporters was the goal of this showcase, so it was a perfect result.
When the stage was over, Yoon Seok-hwan was surprised.
“Huh…?”
Clap clap clap.
There was a small applause from the press seats, which had been quiet until then.
Quiet and gentle.
It was an applause that seemed to send encouragement to the people on the stage.
It was a very unusual thing.
‘Do the reporters clap at the showcases too?’
They were the ones who looked at TNT’s showcase with their arms crossed, as if saying ‘I’ll judge you’.
And they clapped, even though it was small.
They must have been surprised too, as they suddenly started typing.
“Geez.”
Yoon Seok-hwan finally relaxed at that sight.
He had been worried about how to deal with this accident, but it turned out better.
He looked at the stage.
The members of New Black, who had been bowing and greeting the reporters, were smiling as they looked at each other.
What was so good?
It seemed like honey was dripping from their eyes as they looked at each other.
“Manager.”
Seo Min-ki came back and breathed heavily next to him.
“I delivered what you told me. We’ll start from the photo time.”
“Okay.”
“By the way, manager.”
“Yeah?”
Seo Min-ki seemed to have thought of something and showed me his smartphone.
“The article is up.”
“Already?”
“Yes, it seems like it will be on the main page later in the evening. But the article is up for now.”
“Who wrote it?”
“It’s Oh So-hee from Entertainment IN.”
“What, Reporter Oh?”
A bad feeling suddenly crept up on me.
“Isn’t she the reporter who broke the news first during the Sixty controversy? Last time, she broke the exclusive story of the actor and idol dating.”
“Uh, I think you’re right.”
Yoon Seok-hwan took the smartphone with a look of embarrassment and scratched his cheek.
As soon as I heard the name of the reporter who had a bad reputation among the agencies, my heart thumped before I even saw the article title.
‘Did she post it when the sound accident happened?’
I was wondering if I should call the PR team and ask them to take it down, when Yoon Seok-hwan’s eyes widened.
-Ready rookie ‘New Black’, fall for their brilliant response
Yoon Seok-hwan paused for a moment.
And he scrolled down and then up again to check the reporter’s name.
It was her, Oh So-hee.
“…Although the site management was disappointing, New Black turned this crisis into an opportunity and proved their skills. Their calm and composed response to the sound accident was impressive to the reporters on the scene, and when the title song stage ended, there was an unusual applause… What, is this the same person?”
The keywords in the article were too flattering.
‘Calm’, ‘brilliant’, ‘not like a rookie’.
At a glance, there were adjectives that were close to exaggeration.
She must have liked them a lot.
“Especially Woojoo, the leader of New Black, attracted the attention of the audience throughout the showcase. As I saw at the music cafe, his sharp nose… She really became a fan.”
I relaxed as I read the article full of compliments.
That was the turning point, and news about the unexpected situation and the response of the New Black members came up one after another.
‘The reporters’ reactions are better than I expected.’
I used to think that it was a success if the reporters listened to the song and said, ‘Oh, this is good.’.
This result was something I never expected.
Yoon Seok-hwan’s brain started to roll.
If a singer is a player who runs on the field, the manager and the company are the coaches of the sports team.
As he was thinking about how to use this, a camera caught his eye.
“Min-ki. Is that camera in the center ours?”
“Yes.”
“When you do the photo time, go to the filming reporter and ask him to hurry up with the stage video.”
“Should I send it to the company?”
“Well, I’ll contact the PR team separately and have them prepare a press release. You send it to the staff who make the video. Edit it with the reporters’ reactions as the main focus, and only show a moderate part of the new song.”
“What should I ask for the title?”
Yoon Seok-hwan thought for a moment.
“‘The attitude of a rookie who responds to a sound accident.’ Let’s go with that.”
He smiled broadly as he watched the members go backstage.
The real fireworks were about to begin.