LIGHTNOVELSTORY Chapter 17
Translator: MarcTempest
Editor: Rxel
Chapter 17
Making the First Song
10 minutes later.
They arrived at the Hwai Entertainment building.
It was in the same Gangnam District as Lemon Entertainment, but quite far from it.
A street full of similar-looking buildings.
Unlike their company, which looked like a normal villa, Hwai Entertainment’s building stood out at first glance.
“Wow,” the youngest exclaimed, and Seo Rihyuk nodded.
“I told you, right? It looks decent from the outside.”
It reminded him of a Hollywood movie where a cutting-edge IT company had a branch in Korea.
A neat white building.
But their admiration from outside turned into horror as soon as they entered the building.
What was this, this gloomy atmosphere?
Seon Woojoo remembered an old building he saw in Gunsan downtown when he was in elementary school.
It had a creepy vibe.
They must have made a lot of money with Sugarfish and Girls on Top, but where did that money go?
“Do you want to come with me to the office?”
They all declined Yoon Seokhwan’s question.
It was already awkward to be in someone else’s company, let alone where the employees were.
He smiled and said, “Okay. Go ahead and wait in the studio on the third floor. Jang Sowon said she would be a bit late.”
“How late is she?”
“I don’t know. She had a schedule at dawn and she’s on her way now.”
They nodded and headed for the stairs.
Yoon Seokhwan, who was in the elevator, tilted his head at them.
“You’re not taking the elevator?”
“Ah, it feels like we should do this.”
“Whatever. Do as you please. I’ll contact you when it’s over. I’ll come and get you.”
It wasn’t that they couldn’t take the elevator.
But it felt like they should do this.
It wasn’t just Seon Woojoo, the others felt the same.
It was the kind of sense that trainees shared.
It was like a new recruit being careful about using the facilities in the base.
The five timid ones climbed up to the third floor by stairs.
A quiet hallway.
They peeked their heads over there and exchanged conversations like a strategy meeting.
In a low voice.
“Hey, where did he say to wait?”
“The studio.”
“There’s more than one studio, right?”
About seven rooms.
And they all had no windows, so it was hard to tell if there was anyone inside.
“Should we ask the manager, Hyung?”
“Yeah.”
As Seon Woojoo nodded at Kim Bijoo’s answer, he saw the members looking at him and doing nothing.
“What? You want me to ask?”
Nod, nod.
They must have remembered the scolding.
“Hyung is close with the manager. You know, birds of a feather.”
“Yeah.”
“Fine. You guys.”
Seon Woojoo shook his head and sent a message to Seokhwan Hyung.
While waiting for his reply, they just waited quietly near the elevator.
He must have been in a meeting with the person in charge, because there was no reply.
Then, the most nice-looking door in the hallway opened.
Click-
Their first reaction was admiration.
Girls who looked like dolls with delicate features.
They were wearing different clothes with their own personalities.
They didn’t need to explain who they were.
Girls on Top.
Seeing the faces they saw on TV in real life, it felt strange and also ‘they look exactly like on TV’.
There was no aura or anything.
It was just a very curious feeling.
“Ugh, I’m so tired.”
“The manager said the schedule is delayed and told us to hurry down.”
“Why are they so pushy?”
The ones who were chatting among themselves with pale faces from the exhausting recording session stopped talking.
Girls on Top had spotted them.
Their eyes met and they both felt awkward.
“…”
They heard them whispering to each other, ‘Who are they?’, ‘What are they doing here?’
Girls on Top seemed wary of the strangers.
They were also flustered, missing the timing to greet the senior singers.
One of them came out.
“Hey.”
She was a member with fair skin and a pure manga protagonist-like appearance.
Joo Hana.
She was the visual member who made Seon Woojoo’s seniors and juniors scream whenever she appeared on TV when he was in the army.
Her voice tone was a bit high when he heard it in person.
“Who are you? I’ve never seen you before.”
“Ah, hello.”
Seon Woojoo bowed politely and the others followed suit.
They would have to face them anyway once they debuted.
Seon Woojoo thought it would be better to make a good first impression and smiled.
“We came here to work on a song with Jang Sowon Senior.”
They heard them say ‘hello’ awkwardly from their side.
“Oh, you’re singers. You look like rookies. When did you debut?”
“We haven’t debuted yet.”
“…Excuse me?”
“We’re still trainees-”
“Ah. What?”
Joo Hana looked incredulous.
“You’re trainees?”
At that moment, the cautious atmosphere from the other side disappeared.
They saw their faces change as if they were thinking, ‘We wasted our greetings on them.’
Seon Woojoo felt sorry for his siblings who were trying to keep their expressions in check.
As for Seon Woojoo, he didn’t care much.
But he felt a bit bitter as he got a glimpse of the true face of the entertainment industry, where attitudes changed depending on the rank.
Joo Hana brushed her hair back and nodded.
“Ah, well… Good luck then.”
With that, she walked past them as if she had nothing more to say.
The others followed her.
They looked like a pack of lions following their leader. But one of them stayed behind.
What was her name?
Seon Woojoo didn’t know.
She didn’t seem to care about them at all. Her eyes were fixed on Wang Jiho.
But something was wrong.
Her eyes were burning with hostility.
“Hey. Wang Jiho.”
“Huh?”
“Don’t you greet your seniors when you see them?”
“Seniors?”
Wang Jiho tilted his head.
“Why are you my senior? We’re in the same grade.”
“I’m your senior in this field, you know?”
The member who had a prickly reaction glanced at them. Then she opened her mouth with a sharp tone.
No.
To be precise, she was about to say something.
From far away, they heard the other Girls On Top members calling her.
“Gil Chaekyung! Aren’t you coming?”
“Unnie, I-”
“Hey, the manager is freaking out and telling us to hurry!”
Gil Chaekyung sighed and glared at Wang Jiho. Then she walked away with a look that said ‘I’ll see you later.’
She hit Wang Jiiho’s shoulder that was blocking her way.
After she got in, the elevator door closed in the distance.
It went down from the third floor to the first floor.
They couldn’t get on that elevator. While it was going down, they got a message from Director Yoon Seokhwan.
-The last room in the hallway.
What great timing, Mr. Yoon Seokhwan.
As Seon Woojoo saw him, he recalled what had just happened. Then he looked around at his brothers, who had unhappy expressions on their faces.
They all looked at him.
Seon Woojoo struggled to find the right words for a while, and finally said:
“Let’s not do this again.”
They all nodded silently.
***
The last room in the hallway.
It was a space that served as a recording studio and a workshop, but it looked more like a storage room.
There was equipment piled up on the wall.
When they squeezed into the narrow sofa, Kim Bijoo opened his lips.
“Are we supposed to wait here? Or are we supposed to work here?”
“We’re probably waiting,” Kim Junghyun said, munching on a snack. “They wouldn’t make us work here.”
“Junghyun Hyung, how can you have an appetite in this situation?”
“What’s there to stress about? It’s just one of those things that happen.”
Kim Junghyun, who always spoke calmly, offered a snack to Seo Rihyuk.
“Here, have one.”
Normally, he would have refused because he had a small appetite, but he quickly took it and munched on it.
He must be feeling stressed.
Meanwhile, Seon Woojoo looked at the youngest, who was playing a mobile game without saying anything.
“Jiho.”
“Hm?”
“About Gil Chaekyung.”
Suddenly, his finger slipped and the game character fell off the ladder.
GAME OVER.
He pressed the restart button and said, without looking away from the screen, “What about her?”
“She was pretty harsh to you. What’s going on between you two?”
“She’s a kid from my school.”
“She didn’t seem like a simple schoolmate.”
“…”
Another GAME OVER popped up, and Wang Jiho opened his mouth.
“This is kind of embarrassing…”
“It’s okay.”
“Why is it okay for you, Hyung? I’m not okay.”
He sounded more annoyed than usual, so Seon Woojoo said, “You don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to.”
“She confessed to me before.”
Suddenly, the mood changed to confession.
The memories of sadness and injustice seemed to disappear for a moment, and the brothers’ faces showed interest.
Wang Jiho turned off the game and said, “We were in the same class in elementary school. We lived nearby, so we hung out a lot. But when we were in fifth grade, I think, she confessed to me on the way home from karaoke.”
“And then?”
“I rejected her.”
“…”
“She started picking fights with me every time she saw me. She would come up to me and start a fight when no one was looking at school. It was really…”
So that was what happened.
But to become enemies after being rejected once…
She must have a weird personality.
Seon Woojoo thought to himself.
Wait.
He felt like he was missing something.
“Wait, how did you reject her?”
The youngest looked embarrassed.
“Well, that… I mean…”
“What exactly did you say?”
“I was young and immature back then.”
“You didn’t say anything mean, did you?”
“…I told her she was ugly.”
Kim Bijoo sighed, Seo Rihyuk clicked his tongue next to him, and Kim Junghyun stopped eating his snack and sighed.
“I thought she was harsh, but I admit it, that’s really bad.”
“I would go and apologize to her right now, even if I had to bow my head.”
The youngest waved his hands at the brothers’ criticism.
“No, I actually hated her personality, okay? You’ll know if you spend five minutes with her. She would always text me and ask me what I was doing, and annoy me. And when she gave me food, she would say things like ‘You don’t eat this kind of stuff at your house, do you?’ and stuff like that.”
“That’s exactly you.”
“Right. What do you call this, Woojoo Hyung?”
“Self-hatred.”
The members chuckled at Seon Woojoo’s answer, and the youngest made a wronged expression.
Seon Woojoo said softly, “But you were a bit harsh.”
“No…”
“Apologize when you see her later.”
“I don’t know. I kept trying to say sorry, but she just left, and suddenly she went on a diet and became a girl group. It’s funny to say sorry now.”
“Still, say it. Got it?”
“…Okay. When I get a chance.”
Seon Woojoo smiled as he looked at the youngest who was nodding his head reluctantly.
Anyway.
He still seemed immature now, but he wondered what he was like when he was in elementary school.
But it was amazing.
Seon Woojoo didn’t think he had any romance when he was in elementary school.
These days, kids were already doing that, what did you call it?
The thing between boys and girls, where they were ticklish and shy, not dating but something like that.
Seon Woojoo didn’t know, or he would remember later.
They were waiting and chatting for a while, when the protagonist finally showed up after 40 minutes.
A person who came in with her hair flying.
A charming smile greeted them under her sharp eyes.
“Hi!”
They all got up.
“Hello, Senior.”
“What are you getting up for?”
Jang Sowon gestured with a cool smile.
“Sit down, sit down.”
“Yes.”
“Sorry, you guys must have waited a long time. Did you have breakfast?”
“Yes, what about you, Senior?”
“I just finished my schedule. I don’t usually eat breakfast anyway.”
She took off her wine-colored coat and looked around them.
“I’m going to have coffee. What do you guys want?”
The younger ones’ heads turned to Seon Woojoo at the same time.
They looked like they were asking if it was okay to eat since she was buying.
Seon Woojoo nodded OK with his eyes, and Jang Sowon laughed as if she found it amusing.
“Wow, the leader has you guys on a tight leash?”
“That’s not it.”
They were scolded for being clueless this morning.
Jang Sowon made a phone call.
“Hello, yes. It’s me, Kyuhyun. Are you still at the company? Sorry, but I need some coffee.”
She looked at them as if to tell them to order.
One cocoa and two americanos.
And one large iced caramel macchiato with whipped cream.
“Why, Hyung?”
“…No.”
A few minutes later, a man in a hooded tee who looked like a manager came in and handed over a box of coffee.
The mood relaxed as they drank coffee.
Jang Sowon took out a laptop from her bag and started to connect it to the devices in the studio.
“Are we working here?”
“Yes.”
She answered as if it was obvious.
“Isn’t it too small?”
“No.”
“The good rooms are all taken by other people. Well…”
She trailed off, but the intention was clear.
The treatment of unpopular celebrities at the company.
If Girls on Top were to work, the company would probably even take out the recording studio that had an owner.
“Let’s listen to this first.”
She clicked on a folder on the desktop and then clicked on a file labeled [Main Theme Ver.1] inside.
“This is the melody I’ve been working on for a few days, and I wanted to let you guys hear it before we start working.”
There were two types of melodies.
The main theme that was commonly known as the accompaniment, and the top line that listed the lyrics.
What she made was the main theme.
A fresh and light melody.
It might have sounded like a simple sequence of notes, but the moment Seon Woojoo heard the beginning, he felt something strange.
A chill ran up from his toes.
Seon Woojoo felt the hairs on his ears stand up.
The others looked calm or focused, but they didn’t react like him.
Oh my god.
Seon Woojoo rubbed his arms, covered in goosebumps, and opened his mouth.
This was amazing, right?
He felt like a miner who had found gold in the dark.