Chapter 52
[s.siyeon]
(A picture of me lying on the bed wearing white pajamas)
I intensely don't want to go to school tomorrow…
[luvseolha]Siyeon, if you're a student, you have to go to school!
ㄴ[k_snow] Skipping school as a group to take a trip to Hawaii…
ㄴ[n_aeun_02] zzzzz
ㄴ[ivoryeona] Why aren't you guys coming to the airport…
[hee_soo_low] You should sleep with your hair down.
-What, is this Seo Siyeon's main account?
ㄴ Judging by Blooming's members leaving comments, it seems so lol
ㄴ It's a freshly created account, huh.
-Wow, those pajamas are freaking cute ㅠㅠㅠ
-She's cute even from that angle… She's ridiculously unfair.
ㄴ Her face itself is a cheat code. It overwhelms everything, composition and all.
-Wow, she made it quickly lol
-Siyeon, make YouTube and Facebook accounts too.
-She's already got quite the figure… Mmm.
ㄴ You crazy bastard.
ㄴ Aren't you afraid of getting sued?
ㄴ There are a lot of kinds of trash in this world that ought to be put down…
[only_haena] Siyeon, follow me back too…
* * *
“Ugh, I don't want to go to school.”
When I lowered my gaze, I saw asphalt that looked like it was burning fiercely, and when I looked up, I saw the blazing sun.
The school wasn't far away, but even so, walking down the street in this sweltering heat was a chore.
Now that Neulneul Orphanage was finally free of the air-conditioning restrictions it had always been subjected to, we could run the AC in three large rooms, including the living room.
Naturally, my room was the exception. I could turn on the air conditioner—or anything else—in my room whenever I wanted.
If you asked who had decided that, the answer was obvious: the director.
“I already have quite a few followers.”
Roughly fifty thousand followers had gathered overnight—people who had found and followed the selfie I had posted without warning in the evening.
Could I consider this many people my core fans?
Honestly, I wasn't sure. With things like this, I'd have to sell albums or hold a concert to measure their firepower.
In any case, it was certain that several hundred thousand followers would gather once some time had passed.
If that happened, I wouldn't have to worry about money at all. Sponsorships and advertisements alone would earn me more than enough—more than I could spend.
But by now, earning a lot of money was no longer my goal, so I would only use my follower count as a springboard for my albums and songs.
“First, I want to release a full-length album as soon as possible…”
That was because I could only hold a concert after releasing a full-length album. With the number of songs I had now, I couldn't even put together a setlist.
And that would only be possible after I finalized my agency. I decided to think it over for about a week before deciding where to go.
‘Actually, it was obvious where I should go.’
Still, I ought to hear out what the others had to say.
After Blooming returned from Hawaii, I would also have to ask whether they wanted to continue their activities with me as their producer.
I wanted to keep making songs for them, but they might want to become independent in their own way.
“Sigh. There are so many things to think about.”
As I walked along with all those worries in my head, I checked the list of people who had followed me on Instagram… and found a verified account among them.
“Hmm?”
The account was named sakura_haruka. Haruka, the leader of Starlight and currently the most popular star in both Korea and Japan, had followed me first.
“Oh. What a windfall.”
I immediately followed her back.
‘Has this person liked me quite a lot for a while?’
From uploading the Jellypop video to her story during the preliminaries to following me as soon as I created my account…
“Is she a lolicon?”
Her tastes seemed a little suspicious.
As soon as I reached the school gate, I found a banner with exactly the sort of message I had expected.
[Congratulations to Seo Siyeon, a second-grader at Gyeong OO Elementary School, on winning Singerstar!]
“This is so damn embarrassing…”
As expected, this kind of thing was a little hard to deal with.
* * *
“Wow. So cute!”
“Is she really that cute? Unnie, I'm cute too…”
“Our Inyoung is cute too, of course!”
As she said that, Haruka hugged Yoo Inyoung and rubbed her cheeks against hers.
Although Yoo Inyoung made a pained sound, she showed no intention of escaping and simply seemed to be enjoying the situation.
The other members of Starlight watched the scene with slightly dumbfounded expressions.
Starlight was now only three months away from disbandment.
They were a project group to begin with, and since they would soon go their separate ways, they weren't all that attached to one another.
That was why Haruka and Yoo Inyoung being unusually close was somewhat surprising to the others.
“Are you two going to start dating at this rate? You never seem to plan on separating.”
“I'm going to date Siyeon, though?”
“Crazy lolicon.”
In truth, Seo Siyeon occupied a rather ambiguous position among the members of Starlight.
Well, no one here disliked a young genius who wasn't even their rival and happened to have an adorable face.
After all, anyone with a truly rotten personality had been filtered out during the auditions.
However, they all knew that their fandoms secretly weren't fond of Seo Siyeon.
They also knew that the reason was Lee Hyena, who had been caught up in the recent vote-rigging controversy.
Of course, that rigging controversy couldn't cause them any real harm. They would be disbanding soon, and a court ruling would take years to be issued.
So the members of Starlight didn't particularly harbor any ill will toward Lee Hyena. Some of them even still kept in touch with her.
“Tsk. She is cute, though. Should I follow her too?”
“Don't. They'll obviously go nuts on Twitter.”
“I-I guess you're right. Sigh, lately there hasn't been a single day when I haven't seen a fight pop up on my timeline.”
Seol Haeun, who had debuted thanks to the rigging, smacked her lips and turned off her smartphone.
Given the hostility Seol Haeun's fandom felt toward Lee Hyena and everyone around her, it was best to refrain from following Seo Siyeon for no reason.
Seol Haeun privately thought that being an idol was a truly exhausting job as she looked at Haruka.
She wished she could live as freely as Haruka, acting on her every whim.
* * *
It had been over a week since Singerstar ended.
I had been skipping school or leaving early to meet the heads of various entertainment companies, and, as expected, most of them reacted negatively to my proposal.
The heads of the Big Three—Jina, Yoo Sanghyun, and K-Sep—were likewise unwilling to accept even my first demand.
At least K-Sep offered me the authority to produce a next-generation idol group, but that fell far short of the terms I had previously received from Blue Sky Entertainment.
Some smaller agencies were willing to accept my conditions, but even they couldn't accept everything the way Blue Sky Entertainment did.
That was only natural.
Producing was one thing, but asking for the right to recruit artists was a crazy demand.
As a result, I visited the Blue Sky Entertainment office on the outskirts of Seoul to make my final decision.
The office, which was scheduled to move next month, was remarkably bare.
There was practically nothing there, so I was a little surprised to hear that they had instant coffee and hot water.
CEO Lee Hajun was a fairly good-looking middle-aged man.
‘The man behind Winter Girl's success.’
Winter Girl had once been one of the groups that dominated the third generation.
After suffering nothing but decline for the past few years, the group completed its seven-year contract last year and eventually began the process of disbanding.
However, they had once been successful enough to win even a grand prize at the WMMA.
It was well known that, rather than hire a professional producer, CEO Lee Hajun, a former manager, had personally selected songs and reviewed choreography drafts, effectively serving as the producer.
However, perhaps his eye had been limited to Winter Girl, because he spectacularly ruined the company's next boy group and caused it to disband after only three years—a major disaster.
With the boy group disbanded and Winter Girl going its own way, no one remained at Blue Sky Entertainment.
Only the experienced manager, CEO Lee Hajun, and the name of a company with a somewhat glamorous past remained, both existing in a sorry state.
And Yoo Hanseong had bought both of them—for his daughter.
The conversation I had with him was useful in its own way.
As someone with extensive experience as a manager, he knew how to support artists, and he had experience in many areas, including filming music videos and holding concerts.
I couldn't trust his musical instincts, but aside from that, he was clearly a highly capable person.
“Ah. Lastly, would you like to see our trainees before you go?”
“Oh. You said you had trainees, right?”
I heard Lee Hajun's proposal after I had already stamped and signed the contract in full.
I readily agreed to meet them before leaving.
I wasn't expecting much. Blue Sky Entertainment had long since fallen to the level of a bottom-tier agency, so its trainees were bound to have serious shortcomings as well.
When Lee Hajun made the call, a commotion came from the next room. Soon, the door opened and three girls burst out.
“Huh?”
And among them was the girl in the middle, who was a little short and had a youthful-looking face.
She was a perfect look-alike of one child I had treasured most in my previous life.