Episode 113: Audition (1)
I subtly lift my head to look at the building in front of me.
It’s not particularly tall—maybe six floors at most—but right in the middle of the wall is a sign that catches the eye immediately.
‘Ha… Why am I even here…’
Staring at the sign with its simple font spelling out the destination, a faint sense of injustice bubbles up.
The fact that there’s no way to avoid this suddenly assigned “homework” means that feeling of unfairness shows no sign of fading.
“Haa…”
I let out a sigh laced with that very injustice, but the letters on the sign my eyes are fixed on remain exactly the same.
[Jooyul Entertainment]
The reason I suddenly ended up coming to the main headquarters of Jooyul Entertainment.
The whole thing started two days ago.
***
June.
The sky was throwing tantrums like a newly turned four-year-old, alternating between sunshine and rain showers.
On the very day that one of the songs I released last year suddenly re-entered the charts—just as someone had once predicted—
Orion achieved a feat that none of the senior artists at their agency had ever managed.
Not just Hylliy, not even the incredible Lee Ah-jeong, and certainly not me in this life—
“Live broadcast HBS Music Square! The No. 1 song for the second week of June is… Orion, First Step!”
First place on a music show with their debut song.
And not just a one-week flash-in-the-pan achievement,
“Orion, congratulations on three consecutive weeks at No. 1!”
They accomplished the incredible feat of taking first place in every week of promotions except the very first.
In the second week—when E-GIS and Polaris had their comebacks—they swept all four major music shows.
In the third week, when those two joined the competition, they lost On Stage and Live Music Center to E-GIS, and Song for You to Polaris.
‘But this week already makes three.’
Even if they lose tomorrow’s Live Music Center—the one billed as the goodbye stage—to E-GIS, the final score will be 4:3:1.
They reclaimed the trophies they briefly handed over on On Stage and Song for You, and now hold Music Square’s trophy for three straight weeks.
In the royal rumble where three new boy groups clashed, the winner was clearly decided: Orion.
‘It’s a shame it wasn’t an overwhelming victory.’
That’s just my personal feeling.
Even though comeback momentum played a part, giving up the trophy three times still feels a little lacking.
‘Some people swept all the No. 1s with this song and even set the record for shortest time to first place after debut.’
Of course, E-GIS’s dazzling ‘Glaze’ and Polaris’s storm-like ‘Trident’ each had their own charms different from First Step, so comparing them directly feels a bit unfair.
Still, the fact that they left some room for counterarguments to the statement “the winner is Orion” can’t help but feel a little regrettable.
The call from Seo Yoonje came while I was thinking exactly that.
“Should I just not pick up…?”
I muttered it unconsciously because the thought of whatever deal Seo Yoonje must have made with Jo Dae-hwan came to mind.
“Who is it?”
“Nothing, never mind.”
That ended up drawing Zia’s attention, so I had no choice but to answer—but it probably wouldn’t have changed anything anyway.
Even if I avoided the call, I couldn’t avoid the message.
“Ah, Yujin-ssi. Did you see Music Square?”
The conversation that began with that opening was extremely simple.
It was about the bet between Seo Yoonje and Jo Dae-hwan.
‘I already expected this, but…’
No matter how much I wanted this kind of picture, this was literally an acquisition and merger.
The thought “Is it really okay to decide the outcome like this?” only lasted a moment.
“We’re going to fully take over employment from the Jooyul side. But there’s one issue we can’t just accept as-is. I’d like you to handle it, Yujin-ssi… Would that be okay?”
That was how the homework landed on me.
***
And now, back to the present.
I had no choice but to come to Jooyul to resolve the assignment Seo Yoonje had given me.
Actually, there wasn’t really much to do.
After realizing there was no way to remove only Zia’s voice from the bedroom concert fancam—where I’d accidentally recorded everything with one microphone due to overestimating the tech—I immediately started the re-recording process, and that was already finished.
There’s no need for me to personally oversee things starting from today’s uploads.
Since we were re-recording anyway, I also wrapped up the recording of the “new song”—the one I had painstakingly titled—in one smooth go.
Just as it proved that the reason Zia was able to rest during our 3000 days was nothing more than an excuse, Zia herself had already gone back to acting lessons quite some time ago. With no reason left to stay glued to the house, and nothing else to do in the meantime, the homework Seo Yoonje dumped on me doesn’t exactly feel welcome for one single reason.
“Let’s go, Yujin-ssi. I heard Jooyul has quite a few trainees too.”
That reason flowed from the mouth of Jeon Seon-woo, who had come along with me on this business trip to Jooyul.
‘Yeah… trainees…’
The assignment Seo Yoonje had given me was exactly that.
“We can accept all the staff without issue. Even if Jooyul becomes a sub-label under us, we were planning to respect Jooyul’s autonomy in management matters anyway. But trainees are a slightly different case.”
The reason MyWay keeps its trainee roster small and elite naturally comes down to strict standards and rationale.
But whether the trainees Jooyul accepted meet those standards… no one knows.
“We’re going to have Jooyul’s trainees re-audition.”
So the decision was only natural.
The problem was,
‘Seo Yoonje is busy…’
Even though the result came from a bet, an acquisition is still an acquisition.
It’s a major undertaking, so as the CEO, Seo Yoonje needs to stay at the top of the control tower and directly oversee the working-level staff.
He doesn’t have the time to personally check each trainee.
With Jeon Seon-woo—the leader of the rookie development team—and me, the new producer, solidly in place as the working-level team, there’s no real need for him to.
‘I understand the choice, of course…’
I just can’t bring myself to accept it emotionally.
This kind of thing wasn’t exactly pleasant even in the previous timeline.
‘One word from me can change someone’s future…’
Having had countless demo tracks ignored and passed over in the past, sitting in a position like this could never feel comfortable.
Even so, the reason I ended up here was,
“These are kids who will eventually have to be polished by your hand anyway, Yujin-ssi. So it makes sense for you to see them and make the call.”
—not only because Seo Yoonje’s reasoning was impossible to refuse,
“MyWay’s position is understandable, but these are kids who already passed once. If we’re going to re-evaluate them, then the person doing the judging should be someone valuable enough that even if they fail, the kids can accept it.”
—and because there was no one more suitable than me according to the justification Jo Dae-hwan put forward.
‘The CEO is out of the question, and Ah-jeong sunbaenim—who’s about to make a comeback—doesn’t have the time to come here either…’
In the end, I had no choice but to accept the adult dilemma of doing something I don’t like because I have to.
“So… Yujin-ssi, if you’ve loosened up a bit, shall we head in now?”
“Yes.”
I wasn’t particularly tense, but…
I followed Jeon Seon-woo’s lead and stepped inside the building.
After taking the elevator up a few floors, we entered Jooyul’s office, which was in disarray as they prepared for the move to MyWay’s headquarters.
“Ah, you’re here.”
One of Jooyul’s staff members quickly recognized us and approached.
He was smiling, but the smile felt so forced and bitter that it was painfully obvious.
‘Of course he would.’
The staff are all transferring over intact, but the trainees’ futures are still uncertain.
If he had looked genuinely happy, I might have been the one to feel uncomfortable.
“Are all the kids here?”
Jeon Seon-woo didn’t seem any different—his voice carried the faint sense of someone suppressing their eagerness.
“Yes. We’ve prepared them as you requested. This way, please.”
Of course, the staff member—who couldn’t possibly know the full context—seemed to find Jeon Seon-woo’s stiff expression a little intimidating.
Jeon Seon-woo watched the staff member’s retreating back, silently lifted one corner of his mouth, then turned to me and winked with one eye.
If I were to put that slightly chilling gesture into words, it would probably be something like,
“I’m not that kind of person. Why does he look at me like that?”
I gave a small shrug in response and followed behind him while thinking about the kids I was about to meet.
Jooyul has only five female trainees.
In absolute numbers, you could say “That’s all?”—but…
‘It’s unusual for a new entertainment company.’
Normally, the process is to properly care for and achieve some level of success with the first launched group before accepting new trainees.
Yet here they are, with five trainees already—even though E-GIS hasn’t even been debuted for a full year.
That means one of two things.
‘Either Jo Dae-hwan is the type to recklessly take on projects, or the talent is so outstanding that he had no choice but to take them on despite everything.’
Which one is more likely? I’m not sure.
To avoid preconceptions, neither Jeon Seon-woo nor I looked into the trainees’ detailed personal information.
‘And in the previous timeline, Jooyul never produced a girl group anyway.’
There’s no way to even guess what kind of kids we’re about to meet until we actually see them.
“Here we are.”
The place we were guided to was what should have been a practice room buzzing with trainees dancing.
On the small table placed with its back to the mirror sat one file each containing the personal details of the kids we were supposed to evaluate.
“Should we have them come in one by one in order?”
“Yeah. With only five, taking them one at a time gives us plenty of time.”
“Um… but…”
Just as we were about to step inside, the Jooyul staff member hesitantly stopped us.
“Uh… by any chance…”
Even after grabbing our attention, he couldn’t easily continue.
His hesitation made his intention immediately clear.
“If you have any questions, feel free to ask.”
Of course he’d be curious.
What we came here thinking.
Whether we were planning to cut all of Jooyul’s trainees entirely.
Even so, he still couldn’t bring himself to speak, so
“There’s no fixed TO (table of organization) for passing the audition. It’s possible all five pass, or none do. One thing is certain: Team Leader Jeon and I didn’t come here to fail them. We’ve already decided that even if only one of us gives a pass, they come with us. So please tell the kids to give it their absolute best.”
“Y-Yes… understood.”
I gave him the maximum reassurance I could within what I was allowed to say.
He bowed with a noticeably more relaxed expression and left.
“He looked like he was about to die before we arrived. Now that we’re here, he’s suddenly full of energy?”
“Well… if the person evaluating you is sitting there with a stone face, even things you could do become impossible. Since we’re here anyway, might as well go all out.”
Jeon Seon-woo only responded with a laugh.
A laugh that unmistakably carried the nuance of “That’s exactly why Seo Yoonje entrusts work to you.”
‘Well, what can you do.’
It’s a fact I can’t deny, and there’s no real need to.
“Number 1, coming in!”
Right then, the staff member who guided us here called out loudly.
It seems what I said gave him some comfort after all.
“Ah, cute. Looking forward to working with her.”
“Pfft.”
I couldn’t help but let out a small burst of laughter at Jeon Seon-woo’s muttered comment.
Ding.
The opaque glass door opened,
“Hello.”
The moment I saw Jooyul’s first trainee bow with a slightly muffled voice,
‘What the…?’
An extreme sense of déjà vu crashed over me.
And not some vague one—the kind I could clearly pinpoint when I last felt it, because it wasn’t that long ago. Goosebumps instantly rose on my arms as a bonus.
Flip.
I hurriedly opened the file to confirm her identity.
[Name: Baek So-young]
It only proved the déjà vu was real, spreading the goosebumps from my arms across my entire body in a brand-new sensation.
But that only lasted a moment.
‘Well… people can even go back to the past… so maybe connections like this can exist too…’
Since I’d already experienced it once, I regained my composure faster than expected. The moment I faced her face,
“Hello! I’m Baek So-young, Laira’s main vocal!”
Just like at that fancy restaurant dinner not long ago, someone else’s voice overlapped perfectly over the face in front of me right now,
“Hello. I’m Baek So-young. I’ll do my very best.”
Another connection from the past had returned in a slightly different form from my memory.
I couldn’t help but break into a grin, forgetting even the discomfort.
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TL Note:
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[This series is in the “Regressed Idol” collection]
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