Episode 116: Project Trinity (1)
Just another ordinary morning
Vrrrrrrrrrr.
What woke me from sleep was the dull vibration sound coming from beside my pillow.
Even though my mind was still hazy with sleep and I could barely open my eyes, my hand shot out like a predator on the hunt and snatched the phone with perfect accuracy.
I didn’t want that sound to disturb the person who was faintly leaning against my shoulder right now, quietly sharing their warmth.
“Hello?”
And right into my ear, through my still-hoarse voice,
“Yah, you okay?!”
A loud shout blasted away any remaining drowsiness in an instant.
Of course, separate from the fact that my sleep was shattered, the content of that shout wasn’t something I could easily understand.
With difficulty, I lifted my heavy eyelids and checked the caller’s name.
[Kyungmin hyung]
A familiar name.
After the success of Blind Singer and Shooting Star, Baek Kyungmin was one of the very few people who knew my new number—after I’d ditched the old one that had basically become public property in the industry.
‘What’s this… it feels like it’s been forever…’
Ever since I started working with MyWay, the frequency of seeing him in person had decreased, but we still kept in touch from time to time. Yet for some reason, hearing his name and voice felt a little awkward today.
‘Hmm… probably just because I was woken up from sleep.’
Our last conversation hadn’t even been a full day ago.
I brushed off the strange sense of dissonance as nothing more than lingering sleep fog and decided to first figure out why he was making such a fuss.
“What’s with the yelling first thing in the morning?”
“Yah, MyWay is in complete chaos right now! Yujin, are you really okay?”
Even after listening more, it still didn’t make sense.
But one clear fact quickly pierced through the fog of drowsiness and revealed itself.
The slight tightness I’d felt in my chest vanished in an instant.
“Ah, that’s not really a big deal. You don’t need to worry.”
That ‘issue’ was one of those events that had happened exactly as scheduled, even despite the countless changes brought about by my regression’s butterfly effect.
“How is that not a big deal, you idiot! AZ went independent! MyWay’s stock is literally about to hit the lower limit!”
Exactly.
Today was finally the day BNW Entertainment rose to the surface.
Just like in my previous life, MyWay’s stock price—which had risen due to the merger with Jooyul—was now falling.
“It really is a small thing.”
While calmly accepting Baek Kyungmin’s tirade, I sneaked a glance at the time on my phone.
[09:32]
Less than thirty minutes remained until BNW Entertainment’s shareholding structure would be publicly disclosed.
By the time the market closed today, not only would the fallen stock price recover, but it might even hit the upper limit again.
“Hyung, if you’re going to buy into MyWay, now’s the time.”
No matter how little I knew about stocks, I was well aware that insider trading was a terrifying crime.
Still, this much should be fine.
In my previous life, our connection hadn’t lasted very long and never deepened, so I hadn’t known this detail back then: Baek Kyungmin didn’t pour huge amounts of money into stocks.
‘I didn’t expect him to be that serious about marriage.’
Well aware that his profession was far from stable, he had honestly funneled most of his income into savings.
To Baek Kyungmin, stocks were just a minor hobby—something he did with the leftover 100,000 to 300,000 won after saving.
The seed money he’d accumulated that way was only about 1.5 million won at most. Even if he dumped it all into MyWay, it wouldn’t generate enough profit to raise suspicions of insider trading.
“Ah, this punk… hearing you talk so calmly like this, it really does seem like you’re fine.”
Baek Kyungmin’s voice, in response to my composed reaction, was now tinged with a hint of embarrassment on his own part.
“So are you going in or not?”
“Yah, you brat, it’s not even your money! You’re not supposed to stick your hand into a falling blade, idiot.”
“Ah, you really don’t believe me.”
From the way he was talking, it seemed there was no chance he’d get flagged for insider trading suspicions.
Well, once the announcement comes out, he’ll probably jump on it himself anyway.
The profit would be smaller, but it wasn’t going to be a huge amount to begin with.
“Alright, as long as you know. Yah, what time is it and you’re still sleeping? Get up already!”
“Yes. I should start getting up now. I’ll contact you later.”
“Got it.”
After ending the call and casually tossing the phone aside,
“…Who was it…?”
A slightly husky voice from around my shoulder drifted over.
Perhaps it had been a bit greedy of me to hope that Woo Zia, who was right next to me, wouldn’t wake up even after I’d been talking on the phone like that.
“Kyungmin hyung.”
“Hm?”
“Looks like an article about Ahjeong sunbae came out. He was asking if I was okay since MyWay’s stock is crashing.”
“Ahh… Heh.”
Woo Zia was also someone directly involved in that matter.
She let out a soft, silly laugh at something she couldn’t possibly not know about, then began wriggling her way between my arm and torso.
I lifted my arm slightly to wrap it around her shoulder, and through the thin pajamas now clinging tightly to her, I could feel the faint, pulsing warmth of her heartbeat.
“Nervous?”
“…”
Even without a subject, she somehow understood exactly what I was about to say and nodded quietly.
Looking at her like that, I wrapped my other arm around her from behind her shoulder and pulled her firmly into my embrace.
“It’s okay. Don’t worry. It’ll turn out well.”
Then I whispered softly into her ear.
The name of the declaration that BNW Entertainment had thrown into the world was the teaser video for the pre-released title track “Love Luck” from AZ’s mini 6th album.
In other words, it meant Woo Zia’s debut was now just one day away.
“I’m not… causing unnecessary trouble for unnie, am I…?”
Should I call it so typical of Woo Zia that the cause of that pounding heartbeat was worry for Lee Ahjeong rather than for her own future?
“Hmm? Shall we take a look?”
With both hands, I gently cupped the face of Woo Zia—whose eyes were tightly shut and lashes trembling adorably—at the sound of that impossibly lovable voice that no one else in the world would ever hear.
“Even with a bare face you’re this pretty… Honestly, I think Ahjeong sunbae should be the one thanking you, Zia. She got to choose someone who’s going to become a major actress someday for her debut stage.”
“Ah, what are you even saying. Seriously, don’t say that kind of thing anywhere. I’ll be so embarrassed.”
Her tone of voice, clearly fed up with my cheesiness, and even the strength of the little fists thumping against my chest felt different from usual—not so much out of embarrassment as genuine disbelief that it could possibly be true.
‘Well… even I can’t guarantee that one.’
Woo Zia’s debut was, among all the butterfly effects brought by my regression, the biggest storm of them all.
Unlike the other butterfly effects—Polaris, Hylliy, Orion, or E-GIS—that had moved more or less within the range of my expectations, what lay ahead here was truly beyond anything I could predict.
‘But why is that?’
Right now, that baseless confidence from a moment ago felt like it would absolutely become reality.
‘Because I’m this kid’s lover?’
I couldn’t say that factor was completely absent, but more than that…
‘Maybe my regression… was actually for this?’
The thought that the unprecedented stroke of luck that had come to me might actually have been for this very reason.
‘Well, thinking about it now doesn’t change anything.’
It’s something I can’t even identify the cause of, let alone explain how it happened—so what would pondering it now accomplish?
Right now, the priority was focusing on the precious person right in front of me.
“Zia, you appear in the teaser too, right?”
“Yeah. Only unnie’s face shows, but I do appear, don’t I?”
“Really? Then shall we check the comment reactions?”
“Eh? No, don’t. Seriously, don’t do it.”
The teaser video was at most thirty seconds long.
And since her face didn’t even appear, it was obvious that all the reactions would be focused entirely on Lee Ahjeong.
Apparently Woo Zia hadn’t thought that far ahead, because—
“Ah, Han Yujin!! You can look at it later by yourself! I said I’m embarrassed!!”
—she started flailing, reaching out to snatch the phone from my hand.
“Okay, okay. I won’t.”
“Really? Give me the phone.”
“Here. How would I even search for it right now anyway?”
Since I’d only been teasing her to begin with, I gave up immediately and showed her the phone. She quickly settled down.
Of course, her lips were still pouting out.
Naturally, to my eyes even that looked lovable, so
“What’s with those lips? Asking for a kiss?”
I tossed out lightly, but—
“Our little Yujin is really crossing the line today, huh? Ugh, whatever. I’m going to wash up. Don’t follow me. I’m seriously going to get mad?”
It seemed like this time the teasing had gone too far.
With a huff and a snort, Woo Zia stormed off toward the bathroom. I gave a small shrug at her retreating back and picked up the phone she had left behind.
‘Right. This was here too.’
What a coincidence.
An article about a topic I’d momentarily forgotten was still open on the phone in my hand.
[Sunshine Entertainment Decides to Join Music On Net’s Project Trinity!]
The conversation I’d had with Seo Yoonje last night flashed through my mind.
***
“Music On Net’s usual idol survival show. Saying it like that probably sounds a bit familiar, right?”
There was nothing wrong with the way Seo Yoonje described Project Trinity.
As the channel’s name suggested, Music On Net was a cable channel focused on music.
It was only natural for a channel that pumped out music-related programs to produce two or three shows a year related to K-pop idols, who had long since become the mainstream of popular music.
“So there’s no need to feel that burdened by it.”
But that part was definitely wrong—I could say that with certainty.
To be precise, it felt like he was downplaying it a little on purpose to lure me in.
‘Not grand? Really?’
Project Trinity was a survival program that remained intensely memorable even in my recollection.
‘All three major agencies are participating, after all.’
Sunshine, Overwhelm, JWY.
The mere fact that the three powerhouse idol agencies—each fully capable of creating a team to dominate the current idol market on their own—was enough to make the attention on Project Trinity sky-high, to the point of tearing the heavens apart.
Riding that wave of interest, Project Trinity achieved quite respectable results.
Even as viewership ratings lost credibility with the explosion of alternative media beyond TV, the program maintained double-digit ratings until the very end, proving it was a considerable success in its own right.
But there was no Season 2.
The reason such a successful survival program as Project Trinity ended as a one-off was simple:
‘The output was utterly disastrous.’
Just look at how Laira single-handedly ushered in the generational shift for fourth-generation girl groups represented by Pleiades—the winning group ‘Trinity’ that debuted with all the fanfare ended up completely bombing in a way that didn’t match its name value at all.
The cause was crystal clear.
It stemmed from the structural flaws inherent in the program called Project Trinity itself.
“There’s really no need to feel pressured. Actually, I already turned it down once. If you say you want to do it, I could overturn that, but it’s not like you absolutely have to. Just take a look at it for now.”
“Okay. Then I’ll just… read it for now…”
It was a program where participating would bring no real benefit.
While Music On Net reaped considerable profits from the show’s success, the agencies that got involved ended up only consuming—and wasting—the image of their trainees.
‘Even if I reject it, I should at least read it first.’
But that was knowledge only I possessed from the future.
For anyone else, it might be different, but Seo Yoonje’s face was not something I could easily disregard.
‘As expected, it’s exactly the same.’
The ‘structural problem’ that caused the girl group Trinity to flop so miserably was still there, unchanged.
‘In that case, it’d be better to just debut a group separately.’
The more successful Project Trinity was as a program,
And the more disastrous its output turned out to be,
The greater the rebound benefit I could gain by launching a group at precisely the right timing.
‘If I play it well… I might even accelerate the generational shift that Laira led by more than a year…?’
In that sense,
“Hmm, well…”
Just as I was about to tell Seo Yoonje I would decline—
‘Wait a second…’
A single possibility flashed through my mind in an instant.
‘This… if I handle it right, it might actually work…?’
A possibility had suddenly occurred to me—one where I could twist Project Trinity’s inherent ‘structural problem’ to fit my own taste.
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TL Note:
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[This series is in the “Regressed Idol” collection]
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