In This Life, The Greatest Star In The Universe

Translator: MarcTempest

Editor: Rxel

Chapter 16

The sound of a car horn came from outside the dorm.

“Looks like the manager is here. Let’s go down.”

It was Yoon Seokhwan, who came to pick them up at the same time every day.

Afraid of getting scolded, they quickly put on their clothes and grabbed their shoes that were scattered around.

By the way.

He was sure Kim Bijoo cleaned everything up the day before, but when did it become a mess again?

“Wang Jiho, that’s not mine.”

“Hyung! That’s mine.”

While the culprits who took up 90 percent of the shoes at the entrance were making a scene, Seo Rihyuk opened the shoe cabinet and looked at them with disdain.

Meanwhile, Kim Bijoo checked the gas and electricity cords.

After finishing all this and getting into the Starex on the first floor, that was the end of their morning routine.

“Hello!”

“Good morning, Manager.”

Recently, the company’s staff had quit one after another, so Director Yoon Seokhwan was in charge of picking them up from the dorm to the practice room.

Of course, today was a little different from usual.

Director Yoon, who was dressed dandy.

They were also not wearing their usual tracksuits, but rather decent casual clothes.

“Are you all ready?”

The corners of Yoon Seokhwan’s eyes rose through the rearview mirror.

Today was the day.

The day they went to Hwai Entertainment for the collaboration work.

Collaboration.

It was an industry term that meant working with another artist.

To be more specific, it was when artists with different genres or musical colors sang together.

It was different from featuring, which was often marked as ‘feat. Hong Gil-dong’ in songs, where the other musician only participated in a part of the song. Collaboration meant that the two musicians had equal weight.

It didn’t really matter.

It was just a convenience to distinguish them, and even the people who worked in the industry were confused.

“I really had a hard time with the featuring terminology.”

Director Yoon brought up the behind-the-scenes of the negotiation with Hwai Entertainment.

“I thought I was going bald because of them.”

“Who? The President?”

Everyone in the car burst into laughter at the youngest who suddenly joined the conversation.

Sorry, President.

Manager Yoon laughed as he took out the memory of the black box in the car.

“I have to erase the black box recording every day because of him. What if someone listens to it, really.”

“You can turn off that function.”

“It’s okay. I sometimes use it anyway.”

He plugged the memory into his phone and continued his interrupted story.

“It was a mess because of the song title. Hwai Entertainment said that you weren’t even artists who debuted. They wanted to do it with ‘Feat’, and we said that it was obvious that they had equal weight.”

“They fight over that too.”

“That’s why we have a planning company, you bastard.”

“Manager.” Seo Rihyuk, who was munching on a banana in the back seat, asked, “So what happened?”

“We tied it up somehow. I told them that we had a talented kid who could compose among us. He’s not just singing, but also participating in the song work.”

Manager Yoon looked at me and asked, “Why did I say this?”

“…To do well?”

“That’s right. You have to do well. Whether the song title will be ‘Jang Sowon X New Black’ or Jang Sowon ‘Feat. New Black’ depends on your hands now.”

It was a word that felt a lot of pressure.

“By the way, I’ve never been to Hwai Entertainment.”

“You haven’t been there?”

“Seo Rihyuk Hyung, I originally went to audition for acting. That’s why I came to our company in the first place.”

So his dream was to be an actor.

Seon Woojoo thought he looked like an actor every time he saw him.

Seon Woojoo asked Seo Rihyuk, “Have you been to Hwai Entertainment?”

“I’m probably the only one who’s been there among us. I went there to audition for vocals.”

“Oh, the one you got eliminated in 10 seconds?”

“It wasn’t 10 seconds.”

“You said it yourself, right? You got eliminated as soon as you entered the audition venue.”

“Why did you get eliminated?”

Seo Rihyuk answered reluctantly to his question.

“…They said I looked like I could sing well, but they made me dance first.”

Everyone laughed, except for one person.

Seo Rihyuk, who was ranked fifth in the New Black dance hierarchy and had been swallowing tears in his heart, rationalized.

“It was a company that I wouldn’t have joined anyway, even if they begged me.”

“Oh, really? Hyung?”

“Can you please be quiet…”

While the youngest smiled at his sincere request, Seo Rihyuk started to talk about the Hwai Entertainment building.

“I was going to give up because of the facilities.”

“Facilities?”

“It looked decent from the outside, but it was weird inside. I went into the practice room and there were toothpaste stains on the mirror.”

“What. That was a long time ago.”

He said as if to summarize, “It could be different now.”

“But Hwai Entertainment has a lot of money, right? It was the second largest company among the ones that participated in the year-end evaluation, after us and DNS. Why was their practice room like that?”

“That’s true.”

“Wasn’t that when the seniors of Sugarfish were doing well?”

They all wondered at Kim Bijoo’s words.

Hwai Entertainment.

At one time, it was a company that ordinary people would say “Ah!” when they heard it was the agency of Sugarfish, because the power of Sugarfish in their heyday was enough to threaten the top girl group at the time.

They must have made a lot of money back then, but why were their facilities like that?

The more Seon Woojoo thought about it, the more it seemed like a sloppy company.

They didn’t even have an official website.

Usually, if they had a certain size, they would have a website with pictures of their artists, but Hwai Entertainment didn’t have anything like that.

Well.

It didn’t really matter.

Anyway, Hwai Entertainment was one of the well-known agencies then and now.

I’ll show you the dance moves I prepared for you

Follow me, Honey

A girl group song with a lot of electronic beats mixed in came out of the radio.

The familiar chorus tickled his ears after the bridge part ended.

Baby Lalala Baby Lalala

Kim Bijoo hummed the song and nodded his head.

The other members also sang along to this song, which was hot on the charts recently.

The singer was none other than Girls On Top.

Hwai Entertainment was their agency.

“Girls On Top are really hot. Isn’t this still number one?”

“Probably.”

“No, it’s not. They only got first place on the music show once in the first week.”

“Really?”

“Scarlet made a comeback in the second week. They must have been second place for the whole period.”

That was why their nickname was Beans on Top.

Girls on Top.

A four-year-old girl group that was doing well.

They were famous among the general public for their variety shows and dramas, and in the industry for their good songs.

A line of digital monsters that followed their senior group Sugarfish from the same agency.

Their debut album was a flop, but after that, all their title songs ranked within the top 10 on the charts, showing their great popularity.

The only drawback was that their songs were all similar in vibe.

Girls on Top succeeded with a second-place marketing strategy.

They didn’t aim for the first place, but solidified their image as the second place.

Thanks to this strategy, Girls on Top approached the public as a friendly second-place girl group, while the first place kept changing.

Until Scarlet appeared the next year.

In 2012, a rookie girl group called Scarlet, produced by Director Jo Gyuhwan, emerged and started to push Girls on Top out of their second-place position.

Their nickname Beans on Top also changed, and their presence in variety shows also diminished.

But they were still a well-known girl group.

“Come to think of it, Hwai Entertainment has an amazing lineup of girl groups, really.”

“They probably feed the company.”

“I guess so.”

“But wasn’t Sugarfish more awesome? They were huge when I was in elementary school.”

The 90s-born kids who shared the same memory nodded.

Sugarfish.

They were once called the top group of their peak, boasting an incredible popularity, but their glory was short-lived.

It was because of the controversies of the members.

One of them was arrested by the police for smoking marijuana with her boyfriend, Seon Woojoo thought.

It was a shocking incident at the time.

The most popular member of the girl group that sang well on music shows the day before appeared on the social page of the newspaper the next day.

Somehow, Sugarfish tried to continue their activities after kicking out the member, but they completely lost their lifeline when another member was reported to have an affair with a movie director.

Five members.

Jang Sowon was one of the three remaining members.

She was a really amazing person.

It took a long time for Jang Sowon, who fell from a popular singer to the bottom, to make a comeback.

The path of a singer-songwriter.

Using her own composing skills, Jang Sowon succeeded in building a new image by taking advantage of the fact that she was an unpopular member.

And now she was the most successful member among the five.

She participated in drama OSTs and released single albums.

Unfortunately, she didn’t have a hit song yet.

The song Seon Woojoo sang at the audition, or the one he used for the arrangement at the end-of-year evaluation, was an average song that ranked 70th on the monthly chart.

Of course, it was an amazing achievement for them who hadn’t even debuted.

“What happened to the other Sugarfish seniors?”

“I don’t know, except for Jang Sowon Senior.”

“I heard that Baek Hyang Senior quit and went to school or something. Lisa Senior is living as a musical actress.”

“They’re all doing well.”

“Then what about the other two?”

“I don’t know. They’re probably not doing well.”

The topic of the conversation moved to another direction.

Maybe it was because of their status as trainees who had a foot in the entertainment industry, but they seemed to have a lot of rumors they heard.

They were telling each other what they knew.

Seon Woojoo frowned as he watched them.

What were they talking about?

It felt like watching entertainment reporters on TV saying things like ‘Miss A’ or ‘Mr. B’ and gossiping.

And it seemed like he wasn’t the only one who thought that way.

The eyes of Seokhwan Hyung, who he could see through the rearview mirror, were grim.

Were they going to get scolded?

But before Seon Woojoo could say anything, Yoon Seokhwan cut in.

“Hey, kids.”

His voice was cold and the air froze.

The four trainees who were chatting in the back seat widened their eyes.

He looked angry, unlike usual.

“What are you doing now?”

The members stiffened at the manager’s sharp gaze.

“I’m asking you.”

The atmosphere was like before a storm.

“What are you doing now?”

“…”

“Are you not going to answer?”

“…We were talking, sir.”

Kim Bijoo looked around nervously and Yoon Seokhwan stared at the kids in silence.

A cold silence.

Seon Woojoo was also tense, sitting in the passenger seat.

“…”

He drove without saying a word for a long time.

It was as if he wanted them to think about what they did wrong.

Unlike the youngest and Junghyun, who didn’t catch on, Seo Rihyuk sighed and Kim Bijoo made an ‘oops’ expression.

After about five minutes, Yoon Seokhwan spoke calmly.

“Kids.”

Thankfully, his tone was gentle.

“I don’t mind if you gossip about the entertainment industry among yourselves. That’s fine.”

“…”

“But don’t you think you should keep those stories to yourselves?”

“We’re sorry.”

“I don’t like how it looks either, but how do you think it looks to others?”

He shook his head.

“It doesn’t matter if I’m the only one here. I won’t spill anything you do wrong. But you’re not going to debut? You’ll have a road manager or a stylist soon. Are you going to do this then?”

At this point, Kim Junghyun and Wang Jiho also made an ‘oops’ expression.

“Road managers are really tough, kids. When celebrities make 10 million won a week, they barely make a hundred a month. It’s common for them to quit for a mere 100,000 won more. Do you think they won’t spread what you said when they go somewhere else?”

Yoon Seokhwan emphasized.

“The entertainment industry is small, kids.”

“…”

“You haven’t experienced it yet. A story you tell in the car can spread to the whole set the next day.”

He looked around at the nodding kids and turned to the youngest.

“And Wang Jiho.”

“…Yes?”

The youngest shrank his shoulders, afraid of being scolded.

“You know you were careless with what you said about the President, right?”

“I’m sorry. I’ll be careful next time.”

“Stop saying you’re young, you’re young. Be careful. Got it?”

The youngest nodded at Yoon Seokhwan’s emphasis to think before he spoke.

They might have felt bad depending on the person, but they all agreed with his calm tone.

They had no choice.

He wasn’t speaking with emotion, but telling them what they did wrong and how to be careful in the future.

It was a manager-like action.

Unlike fans who loved them no matter what they did, managers had to tell singers what they needed to hear from an objective standpoint.

“And Seon Woojoo.”

“Yes, sir.”

Here it came.

“You know you made the biggest mistake, right?”

“I’m sorry.”

“The younger ones might not know better, but you’ve been to the army. You know what kind of remarks are problematic. If this happens again, you have to step up and take action. Got it?”

Seon Woojoo wanted to say that he was going to do that, but he admitted it was his fault.

So Seon Woojoo bowed his head and said, “I’m sorry, sir.”

“Please do well, Woojoo.”

Seokhwan Hyung’s eyes looked gloomy as he looked out the window.

“I can’t always be by your side.”