#47

I don't know why, but Roa always reacts sensitively to compliments from me. Even though he works so hard, he's extremely stingy with accepting my praise.

Whenever he hears even the slightest compliment from me, he becomes so embarrassed he doesn't know what to do.

Then, his confidence quickly drops and he becomes extremely withdrawn.

If the main dancer withdraws, it impacts the entire team's morale.

The youngest knows Roa better than anyone. That's why he's running around teasing Roa like that.

Forget the embarrassing situation, and get back to his usual self.

At that moment, Hanjoon suddenly intervened.

"Leader. Even so, can we leave those guys like that? All eyes are on them."

Come to think of it, that was true.

The M&E Center's third practice room wasn’t just occupied by us.

In addition to the fixed cameras and VJs, there were also MuteSeven, Möbius, and their managers and staff.

Everyone was staring at the kids, completely dazed, not sure what to make of the situation.

Some were bluntly expressing their inner thoughts, like, "Are they out of their minds?"

"Why should we feel embarrassed."

Siu seemed to have the same thought, quietly nodding at Hanjoon’s words.

Yeah, at this point, it’s getting a bit embarrassing.

If it goes any further, I have no idea what those kids might do.

"Rabbits!"

As soon as I called the kids who were passing by in front of us, they stopped running and quickly scurried over, as if nothing had happened.

"Yes."

It seemed like they had run enough, as both of them were smiling from ear to ear.

It looks like Roa has already managed to shake off his embarrassment.

As expected, Kim Jaewon is a special remedy for Park Roa.

"What are you doing? Park Roa, you need to teach the choreography."

"Yes."

Roa, even adding a clumsy salute, happily started setting up the music.

At that, Jaewon looked at me, his eyes sparkling as if to say, "Give me a command too."

Having firmly tied my sneakers, I had no choice but to give Jaewon a command as well.

"Stop talking and just learn the choreography perfectly."

"Yes!"

At that moment, Roa played Arche (ARECHE), and the atmosphere completely shifted.

As soon as the music played, the looks in both of their eyes changed.

Roa in the center, and Jaewon and I making slight wing formations behind him.

With a brief and simple explanation, Roa demonstrated the choreography.

Fortunately, it didn’t take long to learn the full dance break choreography.

What helped was that I had already seen Roa’s choreography when he was putting it together earlier.

Since I have over 50% Media Acquisition capacity, I was able to follow along quickly, and Jaewon, with his exceptional sense for dancing, learned the choreography with ease.

"Are you crazy?"

The same sound as earlier echoed again.

But this time, its meaning had completely changed.

"Did you already learn all of that?"

Since it was a dance break battle between three teams, the choreography had been quite challenging from the start.

Yet, we had already mastered all the choreography and were now attempting to upgrade it by adding more complex moves in between.

"Hyung-nim, do you think you can pull this off?"

"Like this?"

"Yes, with a bit of a popping feel. Then, Jaewon will step back, and I'll move into hyung-nim’s spot."

Following Roa's demonstration, I performed the move where I pushed forward from the right wing, and Jaewon took my place, stepping back from the center.

Roa, having revised the position rotation, made slight adjustments to the moves and finally perfected the choreography.

Ha, this guy, in this aspect at least, could really be called a "genius," don't you think?

"Alright, let's try it all the way through from the beginning."

"Okay."

After practicing the coordination a few times, we performed the 20-second choreography without stopping, checking the transition and the overall flow.

It was perfect.

As expected, applause broke out from all around.

Among the applause was even Kim Jeongsoo.

Clapping as he approached, Jeongsoo opened his mouth with an excited expression.

"Hey, damn. These monsters."

Jeongsoo, looking around us with eyes that couldn't quite believe what he was seeing, couldn't hide his excitement.

"What are you guys? You did that in 40 minutes? And even developed it further?"

"Jeongsoo hyung, why are you so surprised by this much?"

Jaewon, who had finished a bottle of water, frowned.

"We just finished memorizing the choreography. The real practice starts now, you know?"

At Jaewon's words, Jeongsoo's face went blank. He had just seen us running non-stop for 40 minutes, so hearing that this was just the beginning seemed to surprise him.

The youngest, with a bitter smile, started speaking without hesitation.

"Jeongsoo hyung, you don't even know how much of a monster Channie hyung is. Memorizing the choreography is the basic of basics, but he says if you're an idol, perfect synchronization is a given. He even wants us to match the speed of our heartbeats. Seriously, is that even humanly possible?"

"It is possible."

Jaewon, who had been grumbling, was silently stared at by Hanjoon, who then chimed in.

"That monster keeps making us practice, practice, and practice some more, repeating the same move two hundred times in a day, so it just naturally falls into place."

At that, Roa's eyes widened, and he quickly nodded.

"Yes. So, choreography like this is a piece of cake."

He accepts the situation like it’s the most obvious thing in the world.

"Hehehe."

Jeongsoo let out a light laugh.

Then, as if he hadn’t laughed at all, he suddenly became serious and turned to look at the Möbius members.

"Did you hear that? These guys don’t even count choreography memorization as practice."

Then, Jeongsoo walked briskly back to his original spot.

"Lee Eungyu. Get up. Who told you to sit with your butt glued to the seat? Junhee, stop grinning and memorize the choreography. Your friend already memorized it. Wani, move faster, make your body lighter, and get to the back quickly."

The three or four members of each team were doing the dance break, and it seemed like ours was the only team that had finished memorizing the choreography in just an hour.

Motivated, Möbius jumped back into their practice, and MuteSeven hastily turned on the music.

"We’ll take a 10-minute break."

After patting Roa and Jaewon’s backs for their hard work, I wiped the sweat off with a towel and started walking towards the practice room door.

Since HS Entertainment's CEO Jang Myungwoo had been waving his hand from beyond the door for a while, it was beginning to annoy me.

First, I should deal with that guy.

* * *

HS Entertainment’s Director Kim Chanyeong, and CEO Jang Myungwoo.

At first, I thought I might try to meet them and persuade them.

I was thinking about getting them to reveal who Who’s M is and try to convince them to return Kang Ichan’s copyright to its rightful place.

But my thoughts changed.

Now, I don’t care who Who’s M is anymore.

I figured I’d find the answer soon enough without having to worry about it.

“Is it one of MuteSeven?”

I asked the question to CEO Jang Myungwoo, who had come all the way here to find me. His eyebrows raised in a slight arch.

“Why do you think that?”

"To make a team successful, you need at least one composer, but Kang Ichan has no distinctive features... Was it a reckless decision born out of wondering who to push forward?"

That’s how it probably started.

They must’ve accidentally heard a song composed by Kang Ichan, and bought it on a wholesale deal.

But his songs were even better than expected. So they ended up buying five more songs, and they passed them off as songs by a composer named ‘Who’s M.’

"The reason why you guys put a mask on Who’s M is probably because you didn’t know how Kang Ichan would react, right?"

They should’ve explained the reason they bought the songs wholesale from the beginning. He's just a shadow composer, and there’s a separate figurehead for the face of the team. But if they said that, Kang Ichan wouldn’t have given them the songs, so they had to hide it at first.

Later on, when Kang Ichan found out the truth, he caused a scene, and HS must've tried to convince him. But it wasn’t going to be easy. Kang Ichan has an immense attachment to his music.

Then the accident happened, and rumors about him losing his memory reached HS through Kim Wooyoung.

Kim Chanyeong and Jang Myungwoo must have thought, "Well, this is a jackpot," and felt quite pleased.

"You were hoping he'd quietly pass by after losing his memory, but seeing how things are going, it looks like it'll get noisy. So, why not just re-sign him and give the name ‘Who’s M’ to Kang Ichan?"

I finished my sentence with a sly smile as I glanced at Jang Myungwoo, who was listening seriously.

"Well, isn’t that it?"

For a moment, Jang Myungwoo’s breathing slowed down.

It seemed like he didn’t know how to take this situation and was pausing to gather his thoughts. After a brief moment, he finally regained his composure and asked me with a serious look.

"Were you always this kind of character?"

"What kind of character am I?"

"A character who speaks their mind but is still attractive? I find it quite tempting."

I snorted at Jang Myungwoo's words.

"If Producer Pyo hears this, he'd probably faint."

The words I kept hearing while working with Producer Pyo recently came to mind.

"He’s the character who says everything, both what should be said and what shouldn’t, and makes everyone grab their necks, right?"

At that, Jang Myungwoo gave a cold laugh. It was clear that he was mocking Producer Pyo Cheonhee.

"I’m not like Pyo Cheonhee. I can make you a much more attractive person than you are now."

And then he dove deep into his world of meaningless self-promotion.

"Do you know why HS became the best in the industry?"

The way he curled his lips arrogantly was full of pride.

“It’s because my hands are the hands of Midas.”

He spread his two hands out in front of me, then gave a cocky grin.

"If you go through my hands, you too will become the top idol..."

"No-no."

I couldn't listen any longer, so I extended my index finger toward Jang Myungwoo and lightly shook it from side to side.

"You're wrong, Mr. Jang Myungwoo."

Even if your mouth is crooked, you should still speak straight.

T.N.: often used to call out someone who is perceived as being dishonest or distorting facts.

As expected, like a typical industry thug, his self-promotion was ridiculously low-class.

"First of all, the best in the industry isn’t HS. It’s Bishop Entertainment. If you just dig through some statistics or articles, you’ll find it. Didn’t you know?"

It seemed that my words had hit Jang Myungwoo’s pride, as the muscles around his lips tightened.

Yeah, seeing him react like that makes it worth the shot.

Keep getting pissed off.

"How can you claim to be the best when you haven’t even properly competed for years?"

I sneered with a mocking laugh, then continued.

"And 'the hand of Midas'? You’re the one who throws money around to make groups rise. That’s exactly what happened this time too. You threw money around to lift up MuteSeven, and we got stepped on."

Jang Myungwoo, who had been showing off his arrogance, had his face harden in an instant.

"Well, that didn’t go as planned either."

"Our Ichan must be really mad, huh?"

But, like a true professional, Jang Myungwoo quickly regained his composure. He even showed the confidence to smile.

"Tell me your conditions. I'll give you almost anything you want."

So, he’s going straight to the point and trying to wrap things up?

And with conditions like that... of course, he plans to solve it with money.

"Signing bonus, settlement ratio, housing, contract period. If you want, I can even give you an executive position. I’ll tailor everything to your needs. Come to HS."

Housing... that’s tempting, but...

The conclusion was already set.

"What should I do? Still, I don’t have any desire to partner up with HS."

Honestly, to me, a foreigner, whether it’s Blade or HS, there’s not much difference.

But since I’m sticking around in this world, my principle is to avoid the assholes.

"Look at how poorly the group you’ve painstakingly created, MuteSeven, turned out. It’s a joke. A so-called ‘big agency’ putting out a group that’s worse than one made by a small agency."

I sneered and then whispered coldly in a low voice.

"Who would want to go there?"

Jang Myungwoo’s face twisted as if he had chewed shit.

It’s no surprise, especially since he had felt the crisis after seeing the dance break rehearsal earlier.

The pride of a big agency crumbled pathetically in front of a small one.

Maybe that's why he’s been so restless and eager ever since.

With that mindset, I could probably throw in something even more provocative.

"Want to bet?"

"A bet?"

Jang Myungwoo's brow furrowed slightly.

"If MuteSeven beats us at the year-end awards, then I'll join HS."