“Fix your expression, Esther.”
“Huh?”
“You look really scary right now.”
“Really?!”
“You still don’t know your face freezes when you concentrate?”
At the words of Soyeon, a member of the same team, Esther quickly looked around and composed her expression.
Esther had a habit of her face stiffening without her realizing whenever she concentrated, but the problem was that her expression at those times looked terrifying, as if she were about to devour someone.
-Let’s be careful, since people might misunderstand.
The company people and members knew about Esther’s habit, so there was no real problem there, but when it went out on broadcast, it could lead to controversy over her personality or her attitude on air, so she always had to be careful.
That was why, whenever there were broadcast cameras, Esther deliberately tried to maintain a smiling impression.
But right now, even that had slipped her mind because she had no choice but to focus.
“This year’s girl group Rookie Award goes to··· Iam!”
Clap clap clap.
Along with the MC’s announcement of the Rookie Award, applause rang out from the audience seats where the singers were sitting, and from the side where the spectators were seated came cheers mixed with screams that seemed about to tear the place apart.
And the moment the MC’s announcement ended, Iam rose from their seats, bowed at ninety degrees to the people around them, and walked toward the awards stage.
Esther’s feelings were complicated as she watched Iam.
[Who’s going to get the Rookie Award this time?]
「For boy groups, it feels like SY’s boy group will get it, but girl group is hard to predict.
It wouldn’t be weird no matter which of the big three gets it this time.」
⤷What’s hard about it? It’s already set.
⤷For real, the only people still saying they don’t know who’ll get Rookie Award are Bloom or Chain.
⤷First of all, Iam released three albums, and their results are the best too, so it’s basically confirmed.
⤷Black Pearl was too huge, so the gap widened a bit.
⤷If Iam doesn’t get it, the only explanation is SY or TSP slipping them money under the table.
In 2016, which had now become last year, more girl groups than ever had debuted one after another and gained a great deal of popularity, so people’s interest had gathered around which of them would win the girl group Rookie Award.
Korea Music Awards.
After the terrestrial year-end music award ceremonies that had existed in the past were abolished, it was practically the only awards ceremony that divided the popularity scale of idols.
This awards ceremony, commonly called the KMA, could not be said to be free of controversy, but it was still certainly an authoritative awards ceremony with the bare minimum award standards the public could accept.
Because of that, not only fans but also singers treated whether they won at the KMA as an important event, and at this year’s KMA ceremony, attention was focused on the girl group Rookie Award more than even the Grand Prize.
That was only natural, because the three-way girl group battle represented last year by Iam, VYNNIA, and LYNX had been fierce enough to draw the interest not only of idol fans, but also of the general public.
When the result of the girl group Rookie Award, which had received everyone’s anticipation and attention, was announced, Esther felt a slight sense of defeat.
‘What more do I need to do?’
At first, she had resented the heavens.
Usually, major agencies adjusted the timing as much as possible so the idol groups they were presenting would not overlap with other groups’ comebacks or debuts, in order to help them draw attention.
But in LYNX’s case, as if some kind of demon had possessed them, Iam, a group they had not even been paying attention to, suddenly debuted out of nowhere, and then even SY’s new girl group, which people had thought would debut at the earliest in the second half of last year or early this year, debuted one after another.
Powerful competitors they had not intended.
Thanks to that, unlike their expectation of debuting glamorously and cruising forward, LYNX and Esther had to compete fiercely all year long in order to win the girl group war.
Of course, it would be a lie to say that competition had only been hard.
‘It was unexpectedly fun.’
At first, the competition had begun from the thought that she absolutely did not want to lose to Iam, the group Ryu Ayeon, who had been like an irreconcilable enemy, belonged to. But at some point, never mind the competition, it felt as if she had gained many new friends.
-Esther, want to hang out sometime this weekend?
Esther had never imagined the day would come when she would meet Ryu Ayeon at a café on the weekend and chat together about the time they had trained at TSP.
Besides that, there were also the other members who had grown close to Iam or VYNNIA’s members while filming Three Kingdoms.
They were rivals who had now become friends, beyond comrades whose absence would feel empty.
“First··· thank you to the fans who allowed us to receive such a big award. Because there were fans who supported us when we were nothing and helped us make it all the way to debut, we were able to receive the Rookie Award today.”
But watching those friends do well was incredibly lonely.
Seo Ryujin, who was tearfully giving the Rookie Award acceptance speech, entered Esther’s eyes.
It already seemed hard for her to hold back tears, with droplets welling at the corners of Seo Ryujin’s eyes.
Speaking one word at a time in a voice full of tears, Seo Ryujin seemed to have memorized her acceptance speech, and even though the hand holding the microphone and trophy was trembling, she delivered the speech clearly in that tearful voice.
‘It must be different from what she imagined.’
Watching that sight, Esther remembered the acceptance speeches she had practiced every night before debut.
-What are you doing?
-We’ll have to give an acceptance speech if we get first place, so I should practice in advance.
-Aren’t you getting too far ahead of yourself?
-Dreams should be big! All our TSP seniors got first place with their debut songs. If we receive an award somewhere like an awards ceremony later, we’ll have to give a speech then too, so I should do it in a cool way.
The days when she practiced the debut song with the members, then at night in the dorm imagined and practiced how coolly she would give an acceptance speech.
In Esther’s imagination back then, she had been standing on the Korea Music Awards stage more confident and cooler than anyone else, giving her speech.
But that role had gone to Seo Ryujin, the leader of Iam, and Esther could only watch it.
Tap.
“CEO···.”
“Are you jealous?”
As Esther watched Iam’s award presentation endlessly like that, someone’s hand came down on her shoulder.
Startled by the sudden touch, Esther turned around and saw TSP’s CEO Park Taesu looking at her with a slight smile.
“That’s not···.”
“I’m really jealous, though.”
“What?”
Slide.
Without waiting for Esther’s answer, Park Taesu sat down in the chair beside her.
“The Rookie Award is a precious award you can only receive once, so I wanted to let you girls receive it.”
“I’m sorry··· We were lacking···.”
At Park Taesu’s words, Esther had no choice but to lower her head.
She felt self-reproach at the thought that if they had just worked a little harder, no, if they had done a little better, they could have brought home the Rookie Award.
But,
“No. The ones lacking are me and TSP. You girls did your best, and you did even better than expected.”
“But···.”
“Do you know this? When TSP was first created, it was similar to now.”
“What?”
“What’s really fascinating is that somehow, within one year, SY was established, and YH and our TSP were created too. But you know, right? At first, SY and YH were incredibly popular?”
“Yes.”
“Back then, people compared us all the time and said a lot of things to me, like I should just keep working as a singer instead of getting swept up in some delusion.”
Before she knew it, Esther was absorbed in Park Taesu’s story from the old days.
It was the agency she belonged to, but she only knew its history vaguely, so she had not known such a story existed.
By the time Esther had dreamed of becoming an idol, TSP had already risen to the level of a major agency, so it was not strange that she did not know its early days had been that hard.
“But as we kept steadily running into things one step at a time, before I knew it, people looked at our TSP and called us one of the three major agencies.”
“You’re truly amazing, CEO.”
“I really am amazing, right? This was originally the timing when I should pretend to be humble, but I really do think I’m amazing.”
Park Taesu smiled at Esther for a moment, then continued speaking.
“If running fast is an ability, then running for a long time is also an ability. Somehow, it feels like you girls resemble TSP.”
“We do?”
“There’s nothing wrong with what you girls have done. You may be a little late, but you girls will be able to fly the highest and the farthest.”
“···.”
“Let’s do it together.”
“···Yes.”
After answering Park Taesu’s final words, Esther realized that she had begun to cry at some point.
For a moment, she worried about what would happen if the cameras caught her crying.
Through her tears, which had blurred her vision slightly, she looked toward Iam’s stage as they performed their celebration performance after receiving the award.
Even from the ashes
I bloom again
This sea is my stage
Survive to the end and dominate
The stage of Black Pearl was unfolding, Iam’s greatest hit that had made them receive the Rookie Award, and a song that could still be heard anywhere when walking down the street even though its promotions had already ended.
It was a live stage, as if they were proving why they had become the winners of that fierce girl group war.
‘Ryu Ayeon···.’
Among them, Ryu Ayeon caught her eye, dancing in the center with an intense gaze.
Back in their trainee days, Ryu Ayeon had been someone who could never be called good-natured, not even as empty praise. Even so, her dance skills had caught Esther’s eye every time they practiced.
That skill was now shining fully onstage.
-Why did you suddenly change?
-What did?
-How has there not been a single discord rumor until now? Are your members saints?
-What nonsense is that? Our members are saints? If you’d joined Iam, you would’ve run away without lasting a single day.
-Still, you’ve changed a lot since Agbaek started.
-Have I···.
Though Ryu Ayeon herself would never admit it, the Ryu Ayeon dancing onstage now, unable to hide her enjoyment, was exactly the image Esther had once imagined whenever she thought of becoming a team with her.
Slide.
Esther turned her head, moving her gaze away from Ryu Ayeon and toward another member.
Lee Sion.
She saw Lee Sion, who had come out wearing a stylish eyepatch, perhaps prepared specially for today’s awards stage.
Not only the eyepatch, but the way she had really dressed up like a pirate to match the song concept suited her quite well, naturally making the people watching smile.
As if she had not merely dressed like a pirate, Lee Sion swept through the stage passionately, refusing to lose to Ryu Ayeon.
‘It must be because of Lee Sion.’
The one who had achieved the dream Esther could not, the one who had brought together Ryu Ayeon and the other Iam members, each with their own special qualities, was undoubtedly Lee Sion.
Her first impression of Lee Sion, which had begun with a misunderstanding, had simply been that she was pretty.
Her appearance made it understandable why she had been able to debut with overwhelming popularity, holding first place throughout the survival program.
But as Esther came to know Lee Sion, she was able to understand that Lee Sion’s true ability was not something like appearance.
Who could teach Ryu Ayeon teamwork?
That was something even Park Taesu had failed at.
Beyond simply holding the team together, Iam always gathered tightly around Lee Sion as their center and displayed more than their own abilities.
After all, they had not shocked Esther and the other LYNX members only once or twice by overturning the skill gap that had clearly existed when they debuted.
Crown on my head now
No one can stop me
At the end of the world
Black flag queen—It’s me
It was the same right now.
Lee Sion, singing the final part of the celebration performance, and the other Iam members, who were carrying out difficult choreography and vocals without faltering despite it being live, were capturing the gazes of everyone gathered at the site.
‘My goal is you.’
As Esther looked at Lee Sion and Iam’s stage, which ended with bright smiles, she resolved that someday, she would catch up to them.
Friends.
Because she could not fall behind disgracefully in front of her friends.
***
“Good work, girls.”
“Thank you!”
When we came down after finishing the stage, the managers and Raon were waiting, having prepared towels to wipe off sweat and water to drink.
After a stage, I was always drenched in sweat and thirsty, so just as I was about to accept them gladly.
Thwack!
Yunsik and Jiu each grabbed one of my arms and restrained me as if they were detectives taking in a criminal.
“Isn’t this too conspicuous to do even here?”
CEO Kim Sanghyeok, who had been with them, glanced around slightly and tried to stop Yunsik and Jiu’s behavior, but.
“Be quiet. I know very well that you approved that plan, CEO.”
“I will go speak with people from other agencies for a moment.”
At Raon’s sharp glare, he pretended not to notice and immediately escaped.
“Water··· I want to drink water.”
Slide.
When I said I was thirsty, Yunsik put a straw into a water bottle and placed it in my mouth.
“Wasting straws like this is bad for the environment. The tears of sea turtles···.”
“Environment? You still haven’t come to your senses, huh?”
“The sea turtles do need their population controlled, sir.”
Sip.
If I said anything more here, the eyepatch I was wearing now might end up being used on the other side too, so I quickly sucked water through the straw.
“Take off the eyepatch for me, Jiu. Sweat’s built up under it, so it’s really stuffy.”
“Wait a second.”
At my words, Jiu checked whether there were any other people around, and only after confirming there was no one did she take off my eyepatch.
“The bruise is still there.”
“I should’ve seen Master Raon’s Flame Punch!”
“Don’t even mention it. If the employees hadn’t stopped her then, Lee Sion might really have died.”
I could not see it myself, but I could hear the members whispering after seeing the bruise on my eye.
It reminded me of how startled the stylists had been because of the bruise that had appeared right before the awards ceremony.
-Die! Just die already!
The hidden camera I had plotted with Team Leader Hakyun last time.
Even though we had clearly agreed to forget everything without hard feelings, the moment Raon found out she had been tricked by a hidden camera, she lost her reason and punched me hard enough to bruise one of my eyes.
‘It had the destructive power of 0.9 Sukja.’
Here, 0.9 did not mean Lady Sukja in her normal state, but the combat power of Lady Sukja in battle mode.
As Seo Ryujin said, if the other employees had not stopped Raon then, my second life really might have ended emptily too.
“Still, you have to keep your promise.”
“Don’t worry. Unlike you, I don’t lie.”
Even after turning one of my eyes into Fubao, Raon’s anger apparently had not subsided.
-From now on, except when Lee Sion is working, tie her up no matter what!
Even though she knew it had been a hidden camera, she threatened Yunsik and Jiu, who had cooperated, and had them watching me twenty-four hours a day.
Because of that, like now, I had to live without being able to use my hands, and even had to drink water through a straw, but fortunately, there was a set deadline.
“Please, don’t cause any trouble when we go to Japan!”
“Hai!”
After the Korea Music Awards ceremony ended, our Iam would immediately depart for Japan and begin our activities there.
Since I could not go around like this even in Japan, Raon had asked me to at least stay quiet until then.
‘Japan, huh···.’
I had gone to America to film a music video, but this was my first time doing full-fledged overseas activities, so should I say I was a little excited?
The blood of the Jeonju Lee clan flowing inside my body was boiling.
