Idols.
The alpha and omega of K-pop, sweeping across the entire world!
Say what you will, but idols are the ultimate crown jewel of any entertainment agency.
That's why top talent and countless companies launch group after group, dreaming of hitting it big—yet only a handful ever actually survive.
The rest vanish into the shadows without ever seeing the spotlight.
In that sense, Ebony had it a little better.
Or did they?
—Ebony, rumors of infighting among members!
—Ebony's shocking bullying controversy!
Their debut had landed them somewhere between a B-tier and C-tier group.
Not a total flop, at least.
Good enough that if they hustled through enough events, they could pull in decent earnings.
The problem was the scandal.
An individual scandal—like a sketchy sponsor or a drug rumor—would have almost been better. A bullying controversy is the absolute worst thing that can happen to an idol group—short of a past school bullying scandal.
If it had stayed a mere rumor, they might have found a way to bury it. But a fancam had caught the incident in full view.
Once the controversy broke, scandals flooded in one after the other.
—Ringleader of the bullying, accused of past school violence!
—Ebony, a group built on sponsorships? Member A spotted in a suspicious hotel meeting with a conglomerate chairman?!
All of it was baseless rumor, but the truth stopped mattering the moment the public bought into the narrative.
The trap had sprung: Ebony was a toxic group.
So the public threw stones without mercy, and in the end, Ebony flopped completely.
"…Are you really planning to have Ebony make a comeback?"
Head Director Soohyuk Kim gave a sly smile.
"As if. If I'd wanted them to come back, I wouldn't have destroyed them like that in the first place."
A shocking revelation.
It meant that Soohyuk Kim, the head director himself, was the mastermind who had brought Ebony down!
The reason was simple.
Team 1 now belonged to Soohyuk's faction, but back then, it had been under a different faction. And Ebony had belonged to Team 1.
In other words, he had sabotaged a promising rookie group just to bring Team 1 to its knees and eliminate his competition.
Would he go that far just to seize power within the company?
It might be hard to believe, but Soohyuk wasn't nicknamed the Viper for nothing.
"Going after Ebony was something CEO Kim approved of too. Of course, none of us expected an actual bullying case to happen and wreck them this badly. But thanks to that, CEO Kim managed to push out CEO Lee and become sole head of Star Entertainment—so it turned out to be a blessing in disguise."
Star Entertainment had been co-founded by two executives who ran the company together: CEO Lee and CEO Kim.
Because of this dual leadership, the internal power struggles had always been fierce.
CEO Lee had originally held the upper hand, but he'd unfortunately fallen ill and collapsed. He was still deciding whether to hand his shares over to his daughter.
CEO Kim was using his absence to swallow up all of Star Entertainment, and his most trusted loyalist was none other than Head Director Soohyuk Kim.
"Chanwoo Lim—with that meddling personality of his—will scramble to try and save Ebony somehow."
"…But what if Chanwoo actually manages to save Ebony? He's not exactly untalented, is he? Plenty of employees are already calling him the Midas Touch or whatever."
"Team Leader 4! Read the room! Why would you say that in front of the director?!"
"Well, isn't it true, though? Plenty of artists on our team have said they want to work with Manager Lim too."
"Just shut up!"
Normally, the sight of Team 4's utterly clueless leader would have given Soohyuk a massive migraine, but today he could let it slide.
He curled the corners of his mouth into a smug grin.
"Even someone like him can't save Ebony. There's a bomb inside that group that can never be defused."
Ebony's bullying controversy wasn't some lie Soohyuk had fabricated out of thin air.
The rot was real.
Even if Chanwoo Lim truly possessed the Midas Touch, there was no way he could ever save a group this thoroughly wrecked.
* * *
…Did I cross a line? Asking for script revisions—of course that'd be irritating.
I thought back to Director Hansung Lee's stiff reaction and shook my head. It was a request that could easily offend a veteran filmmaker's pride.
But the moment I looked out the floor-to-ceiling windows of my luxury penthouse at the Han River view—which cost me a casual twenty million won a month in rent—my chest puffed right back up with confidence.
Five billion won isn't pocket change. As an investor, it was a perfectly reasonable request. Let's own it.
What if the director refused my request out of pure stubbornness?
Fine, I just wouldn't invest.
Just then, a KaTalk notification went off.
「About what we talked about last time—I'll do it your way, Manager Lim.」
It was a yes!
And that wasn't all.
「To be honest, I was a little put off at first… but after thinking it over, your version really does seem a lot better. Thanks for the great idea. I'll add your name to the script credits too. And separate from the investment, I'll of course pay you for the creative work.」
Just as expected, the man hadn't directed two ten-million-admission blockbusters for nothing.
Not only was he putting my name in the credits, he was even paying me for the pitch. It was a class act, worthy of a true maestro.
「Can we talk about the details in person?」
I was about to reply「Sure」right away, but I paused.
Wait, isn't it the weekend…?
I thought it over.
Of course, it wasn't like I refused to work weekends on principle. If it was necessary, I was willing to do overtime or head into the office on a Saturday.
Since he's paying me a premium, I guess just this once—
But right then, another message came in.
「I'll make sure to pay you a generous 500,000 won for the consultation.」
"…"
500,000 won for an idea.
By film industry standards, that really wasn't a bad amount. Screenwriter pay in the movie business tended to be notoriously stingy to begin with.
But after gazing back out at my twenty-million-won Han River view, seeing "500,000 won" made my chest deflate a little.
Hmm… it's not urgent. Let's just meet on a weekday.
I tapped the KaTalk like button and closed the chat. More messages came in after that, but I decided to check them on Monday.
I'd hit like, so I'd done my part.
Let's just enjoy the weekend.
I'd spent all of last week lazily lying in bed, so today I decided to actually venture outside.
Along with admiring my river view, I'd recently picked up a fantastic new hobby: Going to the luxury department store's VIP lounge just to drink free coffee!
I'd bought a few clothes and pieces of furniture, and a VIP lounge card had come with it.
Free coffee and a taste of the rich life—two birds, one stone!
"Your coffee is ready, sir."
"Right, thank you. And I can grab a cup to go on my way out, too?"
"Yes, of course! VIP members can receive up to two free cups a day~"
Heh heh. Being rich absolutely rules!
I was definitely grabbing that second cup on the way out.
This is what rich people's coffee tastes like.
Honestly, it probably didn't taste all that different from a cheap 1,500-won coffee, but this kind of thing was all about the vibe.
But a little while later, I found myself tilting my head in confusion.
[An aspiring idol is nearby. Would you like to appraise them?]
…Out of nowhere?
From what I'd figured out so far, 'Appraise' only worked on people or works directly connected to me.
So why now?
[Soobin Lee]
Type: Aspiring Idol (Gold-Spoon Freeloader)
Potential: D
This is someone who should absolutely never be an idol.
I brushed the screen away without much thought.
As I people-watched around the VIP lounge, I ended up appraising one or two more aspiring idols. They were all pretty much the same.
Aspiring idols, sure, but with the kind of stats that had no business anywhere near a stage.
Plenty of people admire idols, but only a tiny fraction ever actually get to debut.
Just debuting at all meant you were already in the top one percent of raw talent and sheer luck.
Even if you managed to squeeze through and debut, making it big was an even narrower path.
It truly was a brutal, soul-crushing industry.
Hmm... anyway, why do these appraisal messages keep popping up today? Feels ominous.
Feeling uneasy, I was just about to head home when—
I heard the conversation of some young women sitting next to me.
"Why would anyone come to a place like this? Calling it a VIP lounge is a joke—it's basically a flea market for beggars."
"The coffee's free, isn't that nice?"
"Hye-na, you have so much money, yet you sure love free stuff."
"My grandfather and my dad are the ones with the money, not me."
"Ha. Please. This whole department store belongs to your family too, doesn't it?"
"The department store belongs to my aunt's side of the family, so it technically has nothing to do with me."
What a terrifying conversation!
Is she some fourth-generation conglomerate heiress or something…?
I glanced over without much thought, then flinched in surprise.
She was gorgeous. Easily gorgeous enough to hold her own against the celebrities I saw at Star Entertainment every day.
No, in some ways, she stood out even more. It wasn't just that she was visually striking—her face had a unique charm to it.
But I wasn't surprised just because she was pretty.
[Hye-na Lee]
Type: Aspiring Idol (Fourth-Generation Conglomerate Heiress)
Potential: A ⇨ S (with compatible group)
[Special Note: Granddaughter of the chairman of Mirae Group, currently a student at Oxford University.]
…What?
It wasn't even the A-rank potential that surprised me.
Thanks to the rank inflation in the entertainment world, honestly, A-rank felt a little played out by now.
The real kicker was her background.
Mirae Group… that's one of the top three conglomerates in the entire country!
On top of that, she was currently attending Oxford University.
And yet, she wanted to be an idol?
…Well, none of my business.
Thinking there really were all kinds of unusual people out there, I got up from my seat.
It was time to head home.
Chicken and beer with a Han River view sounded like the perfect way to end the day.
* * *
The sweet weekend passed, and Monday morning arrived.
I showed up at work in a thoroughly bad mood.
"There's Manager Lim!"
"The Midas Touch!"
"Ina Kim's rock and pillar!"
"Isn't Team 5 the most promising team now?"
"Shh, quiet! It'll be a disaster if the head director hears this!"
…It was way too noisy around me.
That part was fine, though. Whatever they said, I could just ignore it.
But the moment I opened my office door, I was greeted with a nuclear bomb.
"Hello! We're Ebony, transferring from Team 1 to Team 5!"
"We're Ebony!"
"Nice to be working with you, manager!"
So that was why those random appraisal messages had kept popping up over the weekend! The system had already registered that I'd been assigned to a girl group!
I really underestimated the head director! To think he'd screw me over like this!
It was an incredibly powerful attack.
So powerful that I seriously considered quitting.
…Should I just quit?
I was here to coast through with minimum effort, and if I couldn't do that… there was no reason to stick around at Star Entertainment.
As I made a run for the exit—
"Are you Manager Lim…?"
"…Yes?"
"I've heard so much about you! I look forward to working with you!"
…Please don't greet me like that, it's a lot of pressure. I might quit anytime, you know?
Then, I flinched.
The members of Ebony had the glamorous looks you'd expect of idols, but beneath their energetic greeting, their faces carried a heavy, suffocating shadow.
[Lia]
Type: Idol
Rank: F
Potential: A ⇨ S (with team overhaul)
[Special Note: Falsely accused as the perpetrator of the bullying controversy. Because of the deep psychological wounds she carries, she trusts absolutely no one and has lost all hope.]
"…"
I recalled the controversy that had wrecked Ebony.
"…I look forward to working with you all, too."
"We're in your hands!"
The members of Ebony kept up their spirited front to the very end before heading off.
But why was it that—the appraisal message from earlier wouldn't leave my mind?
Wrongly accused.
Hiding behind a desperate smile while having lost all hope.
…Damn it, they're still practically kids. So.
But right then—
"Manager… could I possibly ask for a brief word in private?"
It was one of Ebony's members.
In a way, she was the most famous of them—the "victim" of Ebony's bullying controversy.
The problem was—
—the system didn't lie.
[Mina]
Type: Idol
Rank: F
Potential: F (Bomb)
[Special Note: The true culprit behind the group's bullying controversy. Currently plotting to find a weakness in Team 5's Midas Touch (Manager Chanwoo Lim) and exploit him.]
What the hell…?
Get the latest chapter and best reading experience at www.novatls.com
Comments