Chapter 45
After sleeping soundly for a whole day, I felt a little more clearheaded.
Was it really right to contact the composer and go to his studio just to record a single song?
These days, people don't debut with full albums of nearly ten songs like they used to.
It was more like debuting with a mini-album.
Still, they had to put together at least four or five songs.
One of them might become the title track.
Or there could be three.
If the songs were good, it didn't matter whether there were three or four.
But that meant we'd have to plan that many music videos and choreographies, too.
Everyone would just have to put in a little more effort on that front.
“By the way. This isn't plagiarism, is it?”
I woke up to this shitty—
No. That wording seemed too harsh.
Waking up to a song recorded in the composer's rather underwhelming voice had me worrying about all kinds of things.
At least, in the version recorded in the composer's voice, it was impossible to imagine it was plagiarized.
‘Plagiarism controversies keep breaking out these days.’
Of course, I understood how composers felt.
We lived in a world where there was hardly any such thing as an original musical process anymore.
Even when they built songs around chords infused with as much of their own style as possible,
plagiarism still happened.
“No, wait. Maybe that wouldn't happen with Composer Kim Gi-bok, at least.”
This man's chord progressions were truly one of a kind.
I'd briefly worried whether this would really appeal to the public,
but after actually listening to it, I didn't think I needed to worry about that.
The lyrics were the same.
They were so pure and refreshing, it was hard to believe they came from a composer who'd only written lewd lyrics of one sort or another.
“So. What should I do? Go see him or not?”
[Stop dropping hints. I'll tell you.]
[This kind of information won't make much difference to the outcome, so I'll tell you.]
“Thanks. I knew Nobel was nice.”
[Tsk. Honestly. I guess I should expect that from someone in the management business. You're shameless.]
[First of all, it's much better if you go.]
[The reason Kim Gi-bok was able to make this kind of song in two days was that he genuinely fell for the girls.]
[He hardly ever leaves his house. In fact, the only time he'd ever seen a singer perform was from a distance at a university festival. But seeing the girls perform in person, in a way no different from an actual concert, shocked him deeply.]
“Huh. Really? That's unexpected.”
Judging by how he looked,
how should I put it,
with tattoos all over and piercings in his ears and lips, I'd thought he liked roaming around outside, at least.
[Kim Gi-bok chose the path of a composer—and the adult-oriented side of it—because he doesn't really like interacting with other people.]
[The truth is, he doesn't like being the center of attention.]
[You could say he has no ambition.]
For someone like that, he seemed pretty good in front of people, though?
[He's the kind of man who can do it when he has to. You saw that yourself, Master.]
Ah.
[Anyway. He's in a similar situation to Eun Hee-ju. He used up almost all the flame inside him composing and writing lyrics over those two days. So he needs someone to rekindle that flame.]
“Should I have the girls put on something a little sexy and dance in front of him?”
[That'd probably backfire.]
[Just take the girls with you and work on the recording together. That's enough.]
“Okay.”
If it had been anyone else, I wouldn't have agreed so readily.
But it was Nobel.
[It goes without saying that I'm a god-tier AI. Still, how should I put it? It feels nice. Hmph.]
Tsundere, huh.
After finishing my thoughts and stepping out of my room, I saw the girls getting breakfast ready as usual: salad.
For the record, yesterday's crab rice bowl was the first proper meal I'd eaten in almost thirty days.
Other than that, even our girls' meals weren't exactly luxurious.
The blessing of sex wasn't invincible, after all.
“Team Leader. You're up?”
“Yeah. Give me a bowl, too.”
“You don't have to eat salad, Team Leader. And I heard men need a bit of a belly to be nice to hug.”
“What are you talking about? We're on the same team. We should suffer together.”
Still, mine at least has plenty of dressing on it.
The girls' salad doesn't even have dressing on it.
Crunch. Crunch—.
Was this a dining table,
or a rabbit hutch? All that echoed was the sound of them chewing greens.
“Ah. Maybe I'll have some water.”
Seeing Seong Se-ri pull out plain water instead of the sparkling water she usually liked,
I grabbed her wrist.
“Hold on.”
“What are you doing, Team Leader? I can't even drink water?”
“Do I look like some clueless fool to you? You've got soju hidden in that bottle. And when you open it, it'll smell like alcohol.”
“Can you take responsibility for saying that?”
“I'll stake my wrist on it.”
Seong Se-ri stared at me for a moment,
then clicked her tongue.
“You're so damn sharp. I was only going to have one drink.”
“You should start getting over your alcoholism.”
“I have no desire to get over it. If we screw up our debut, I'll go right back to drinking my life away. The more weight I lose lately, the more I crave it. It's driving me crazy.”
“That's why I'm helping you.”
“I'm barely holding on because you're helping me, Team Leader. In that case, let me have a shot after the meal for dessert. With my mouth. And down below.”
Here we go again.
Even more amazing was the fact that the girls just ate their salad and went about their own business, without paying any attention to this conversation.
“What are you doing, Min-seo?”
“Oh. I'm sending my parents messages asking if they had breakfast and checking in on them. I'll video call them later, too.”
“Good. It's important to keep in touch with your parents. They're probably really worried, too. What about you, Da-young?”
“I'm studying the parts I'm lacking in while watching a drama. Once we make it, I'll have to start filming dramas right away. You know the only reason I'm trying to become an idol is so I can do that, right? By the way, the song seems intense. The choreography won't be intense too, will it? I'll seriously die if it is.”
“Hee-ju?”
“I'm waiting to do whatever you tell me, Team Leader.”
It was hard to find a group with more distinct personalities.
Still, well.
“We're going to Composer Kim Gi-bok's today to record, so keep that in mind.”
“Yes!”
“Okay.”
“Will do.”
Even Da-young, who was focused on her drama, only nodded.
They were all just individualistic.
They never neglected what they were supposed to do or anything like that.
“Ah. Right. We really need to decide on our group name soon.”
I said as I put my empty plate in the sink after finishing.
Other than Min-seo, the girls didn't seem all that interested.
“Just pick one for us, Team Leader. It's a hassle.”
“Me! Me! How about Happy Virus? Happy Virus! A group that spreads happiness!”
“Dramatic Girls?”
“I'll go with whatever you say, Team Leader.”
Uh. Um.
I knew coming up with a group name wasn't easy,
but I thought something would come to me if I just gave it a little thought.
Nothing came to mind at all.
Happy Virus? Dramatic Girls?
“I don't think even a group debuting in the '90s would have debuted with a name like that.”
“Maybe there was one if you look?”
Seong Se-ri said as she did the dishes.
“Team Leader and the Girls would be fine, too.”
I wondered what the hell she was talking about,
but Hee-ju agreed a little too enthusiastically.
Don't do that.
Even a group with a chance of success would fail.
“Cookies? Teddy Bear?”
“Teddy Bear doesn't sound bad. It comes up as a song title pretty often, too. And introducing yourselves with ‘Hello, we're Teddy Bear!’ would be a little weird. You saw the Oasis girls before, right?”
“Yes.”
“They said, ‘We're Oasis! The meaning of Oasis is blah blah blah.’ A group name needs to have a meaning behind it. Same with White Pink. They said they chose it to give a fresh feeling by adding white to pink, remember?”
“It's hard.”
“It is.”
Now that I was actually trying to decide, it wasn't easy to think of one.
It had to encapsulate some special meaning.
“Miracle? Like we want to give everyone a miracle.”
“It's kind of a common name, and honestly, I don't think it's a name a girl group would use.”
Da-young, who'd finished watching her drama, raised her head and pointed that out.
Next was Hee-ju.
“I think that name from earlier is good, too.”
“Which one?”
“Team Leader's Girls. It means we're the girls you raised like daughters. I think it's nice.”
“Let's have Hee-ju stay quiet.”
“Yes. I will.”
There were all kinds of factors to consider.
“Well, as you all know, White Pink, Newsia, La Seras, and so on are a little unusual, but still approachable.”
They also need to be unique names that roll off the tongue and stick in people's minds without overlapping with another group's name.
“Ugh. W-whoa. I had no idea choosing a name was this hard. I suddenly feel grateful to my parents again for giving me such a good name, Min-seo.”
“Yeah. It must have been hard to come up with your names, too.”
Even after that, all kinds of names came up,
but none of them met the conditions.
“Let's not rush it.”
“Nobody's in a rush.”
At a glance, it might've looked like they were just contradicting me,
but Da-young and Seong Se-ri said the exact same thing.
“We trust you'll take care of it, Team Leader. We really do. You're the one who brought all of us here.”
“All of us? Every?”
“Every sounds kind of lame. ‘Hello, we're Every, meaning everyone!’”
“Ahem. I was kidding. Kidding. Anyway, like I always say, all you have to do is work hard and do what I tell you. Got it?”
“Wait a second. What did you just say?”
It wasn't just Seong Se-ri who flinched.
Everyone except Hee-ju looked at me as if they'd just had a good idea.
“Just listen to what I say, you brats.”
“Not that. The word you said at the very beginning. ‘Always,’ always.”
“What's wrong with always? I should always do my best. So should you.”
“Isn't that good? Always? The word ‘always’ can hold a lot of different meanings. Honestly, it wouldn't sound weird at all when introducing ourselves, either.”
Min-seo nodded, too.
“Hello, we're Always! We chose our name because we want to always be there for you, whether you're tired or happy. And beyond that, it also means we'll always show you our best.”
“Always, huh. Always.”
The more I kept repeating it to myself, the less bad the name seemed.
Like Min-seo said, there weren't many words easier to come up with a decent meaning for than ‘always.’
Just in case, I checked whether any other group had the same name.
There was one that had been active in Thailand for the past five years, far away.
It might sound a little mean to say this,
but they seemed like such nobodies that I didn't think we had to worry about them.
It looked like they'd already disbanded, anyway.
“Okay. For now, let's promote under the temporary name Always.”
“Sounds good.”
“I like it, too.”
In the end, all a group name needed was a bit of impact.
What mattered was how well the girls could perform onstage for people.
With the group name settled, albeit in a daze, we contacted Kim Gi-bok and started heading to the studio for the recording.
When we got there and all faced Kim Gi-bok,
everyone except Hee-ju, and I mean everyone, said the exact same thing.
“Um. Are you okay?”
This guy.
How is he even still alive?