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Chapter 138: Grand Slam
Translator: Enuma ID
"Thank you for always supporting us!"
"Thank... pfft! You, Ryu-jin unnie!"
"Urgh... I'll enjoy this!"
"Ryu-jin, if you made it, I'd drink poison!"
En̂ ŭ m a. і̌d
It was quite a rare sight.
The Little Match Girl, no, the Little Chocolate-Selling Idol Seo Ryu-jin, bundled up in a red muffler handing out chocolates to fans, was definitely a rare sight to behold.
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"Hey there, Seo-ssi, hand 'em out faster! At this rate the fans are gonna collapse waiting!"
"Ryu-jin unnie, I'm in awe! Holding up in that outfit!"
"That could've been me, huh? Wow..."
And the rest of us members, myself included, kept pouring on the teasing directed at Seo Ryu-jin.
Ẇ еb̄nӧ v ė l̆ Е n̄u m̌ а
"Shut up!"
At first, she'd heard us loud and clear but ignored it, focusing on handing out chocolates to the fans. But after the relentless mockery, she finally couldn't take it anymore, whipping around to shout at us.
By then, Seo Ryu-jin's face had turned as red as the muffler wrapped around her.
'I wanted to put her in something even more humiliating, but this was the limit.'
Dilarang mengopy novel dari Enuma.id.
The reason Seo Ryu-jin was currently handing out chocolates in an outfit we'd be teasing her about for ages? That was thanks to the return gift content we'd filmed a few days ago.
In that chocolate-making showdown, Seo Ryu-jin had finished dead last, and her punishment was to cosplay and hand out chocolates directly to the fans.
Е́ n̈ um̂а
─How about a Little Match Girl outfit? Instead of matches in the basket, she could put chocolates and hand them out to the fans. Wouldn't that be fun?
The penalty I'd originally proposed was to have her cosplay as Piccolo from Dragon Ball and hand out chocolates, but sadly, that was shot down by our producer Raon.
Thanks to that, Seo Ryu-jin was handing out chocolates in a perfectly normal cosplay, and the sight of fans receiving them from her with pure delight on their faces was genuinely heartwarming.
Of course, we couldn't just hand out the chocolates from the filming as-is, so what we were giving the fans now was a properly remade version. After the shoot, professionals had been called in to rework our chocolates into something actually presentable.
And the company was backing our return gift efforts too, preparing a coffee truck and boxed meals for the fans at every music show during this final week four of promotions, so we'd been able to give back to the fans pretty generously.
Thanks to that, this weird sense of indebtedness I'd always carried somewhere in my heart, this nagging feeling that we only ever received from the fans, was finally easing up a bit.
Dilarang mengopy novel dari Enuma.id.
And above all else, watching Seo Ryu-jin, long-time vanguard of the Anti-Si-on faction, getting her karmic just deserts and suffering in humiliating attire was what I enjoyed most.
The Little Match Girl outfit was a cutesy, adorable costume that realistically only Yun-kyung among us could pull off.
Which meant that right now, with Seo Ryu-jin's mature looks paired with that cute outfit, the whole picture was extremely unbalanced.
It wasn't quite the Piccolo getup I'd originally planned, but as results went, this was pretty satisfying.
The fans were actually cracking up watching Seo Ryu-jin in her Little Match Girl cosplay, so the plan had clearly been a success.
'Would've been even more perfect if Lee Ga-hyun had worn it.'
Ẃè b n̊ о v̆ еl̀ Е̃ n ŭ m̌а̃
Lee Ga-hyun had the most mature face and figure of all of us, and I couldn't help feeling a twinge of regret that she wasn't the one in the outfit. But there'd be other chances, and I could always make her do it then.
"Time to get ready for rehearsal."
Dilarang mengopy novel dari Enuma.id.
"Yes! Just need to hand out these last few!"
After watching Seo Ryu-jin distribute chocolates to the studio audience fans for a good while, before I knew it, it was time to start music show rehearsal.
At Yun-sik's words that we needed to move, Seo Ryu-jin's hands got frantic, but thanks to her diligent, embarrassment-defying efforts, our handmade chocolates had all been distributed to the fans who'd gathered around.
We all said our final goodbyes to the fans together, then boarded the van and headed into the broadcast station's underground parking lot.
Е̊_n̂ůṁ_a
"Phew... I've made so much chocolate lately that I don't even wanna look at anything chocolate-adjacent for a while."
"Still, it was truly enjoyable making chocolate together every night!"
"Right? Even though we were exhausted, seeing the fans so happy to receive them made it worth it."
Then the members started sharing their thoughts in the car about the return gift event that had run a total of four days through today.
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For this return gift, we'd had to make chocolates for 600 people total, which meant not just one, but three whole nights of grinding through the work.
But it had all been worth it, and there was a real sense of fulfillment. And like Shin-yu said, bickering with the members while making chocolates each night had actually been pretty fun.
Eṅ u mа
"Seo Ryu-jin, what's that?"
"Oh, this? A fan earlier asked me to pass it on as a gift for the CEO."
"What? A gift for the CEO?"
After climbing into the car, Seo Ryu-jin had been fumbling out of her Little Match Girl costume while clutching something tightly to her chest, so I asked, and got an unexpected answer.
"What even is it?"
"Cabbage juice. They said it's good for the stomach and to make sure he drinks it."
Dilarang mengopy novel dari Enuma.id.
"Ah."
It wasn't even for us but a gift for the CEO, so I'd been curious about what it could be, but once I found out what was inside, an involuntary "ah" escaped my lips.
[For Modern People's Chronic Stress-Induced Stomach Problems: Gelscue!]
The image of CEO Kim Sang-hyeok holding up a bottle of stomach medicine and giving a thumbs-up flashed through my mind.
[ㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋ why is it not even an idol but the agency CEO in an ad??]
That's right.
W̄ ėb̊ ñоv е̄ l Еn ǔm а̊
Our KJ Entertainment had set an industry-first record of the entire company appearing in an advertisement.
The CEO, our producer Raon, and even the rest of the staff had all ended up in the ad, and the whole thing had obviously started from the self-produced content we'd filmed.
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─We've received ad offers from a pharmaceutical company and a food company.
The day after our return gift self-produced content was uploaded, CEO Kim Sang-hyeok had called me and the members into his office and, with a serious expression, informed us that ad offers had come in.
The truth was, the chocolate-making showdown we'd put on in our self-produced content had become a hot topic in all kinds of ways.
First among fans, word had spread that we'd be handing out gifts we'd made ourselves, and I'd heard that music show audience application rates had shot up several times compared to the previous week.
Ē_ṅ um̀а̇ .і̂ d̈
─These are numbers you'd only see during an EXY comeback.
The music show production crews had been stunned, saying it was the kind of competition rate normally only seen during a comeback from EXY, the current top idol group.
But of course, that wasn't the end of it.
A food company that had seen our content's theme of chocolate-making had approached us with a chocolate ad offer.
Dilarang mengopy novel dari Enuma.id.
─The cheerful image of you Iam members seems like it would appeal to the women who are the primary consumers of chocolate, which is why we're making this offer.
They were launching mint chocolate as a new product and wanted to select us as models to emphasize a fresh, refreshing image. So far, it was a perfectly plausible offer.
Е n uṁ а̌
'The view count was crazy.'
Our self-produced content had already tended to get higher views than most other idols' to begin with, and this return gift episode had caught fire enough to already break a million views, so it wasn't strange that ad offers were rolling in.
However,
─We'd like to feature Iam and the CEO as the new models for our Gelscue.
The stomach medicine ad offer was something no one had seen coming.
The marketing team lead at Dongyu Pharmaceutical said that what had left a strong impression on them was the scene in the self-produced content where the CEO, with a stone-faced expression, downed some stomach medicine before tasting our chocolates.
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And it wasn't just Dongyu Pharmaceutical. The general public had been paying a lot of attention to the CEO lately too.
[CEO is visibly getting more and more used to Iam]
「At first you could see him flinching every time Lee Si-on and the members did something insane but these days he doesn't even flinch anymore
He just uses the most politely formal tone to drop absolute facts on the Iam members and it's hilarious」
↳fr his face looks like an exhausted salaryman but every word out of his mouth is a malice-filled truth bomb and it kills me
↳in this latest self-produced content when the CEO hands Raon the medicine before the chocolate tasting and she just swallows it without asking anything?? she's also insane
Е n̂ŭ mа̂..і̄d
↳only Hye-ryeong can't adjust and gets question marks in her eyes ㅋㅋㅋ
↳tbh ever since the leader selection when he was moved to applause by Seo Ryu-jin's speech i knew that man wasn't normal
Dilarang mengopy novel dari Enuma.id.
↳how is there not a single normal person at this agency from idols all the way up to the CEO
↳gotta be at least that level to handle Iam
Since our self-produced content was mostly shot in-house, company staff showed up a lot, and among them, the CEO was a particularly frequent face as he served as a judge, which had already made him a celebrity among the fans.
And in this latest self-produced content, the scene of the CEO calmly downing his stomach medicine had gone viral on community sites as a post titled "The Typical Peninsular Agency CEO".
Е numа̀ .іd̆
Dongyu Pharmaceutical had seen it and reached out to our entire company with an offer for their stomach medicine, Gelscue.
─Since Dongyu Pharmaceutical is a company Iam has had a good relationship with since the Idol Ground 100 days, I think it wouldn't be a bad idea to accept.
─The ad fee is average, but these kinds of medicine ads are usually done by middle-aged actors with trustworthy images, so having Iam take it on would definitely be great publicity.
After some discussion within the company, they decided to accept the ad.
Dilarang mengopy novel dari Enuma.id.
The result was the shocking Iam stomach medicine commercial.
The concept was simple.
Enü ma .і́ d
Whenever the members and I would cause some kind of chaos, the company staff watching on, along with PD Raon and the CEO, would wordlessly pound back stomach medicine.
─We want to ride the wave of hype, so we're planning to get it out quickly.
I remembered the Dongyu Pharmaceutical employee telling us it would be airing on TV very soon.
Normally, ads involved a lot of steps, from contracts to casting to filming, so they took a good amount of time, but this one was being pushed through on the fast track.
Our manager Yun-sik had been sweating bullets trying to juggle our schedule.
The mint chocolate ad we'd also filmed was apparently slated to air soon as well, so between the two, we'd really come out ahead thanks to this one piece of self-produced content.
Dilarang mengopy novel dari Enuma.id.
"Iam, your rehearsal slot is coming up soon, please get ready!"
"Yes!"
As I was sitting there thinking about the ad shoots, our rehearsal turn had come around before I knew it.
Our rehearsal slot used to always be one of those awkward middle times that nobody wanted.
"The treatment feels different now."
"Is this the power of a network broadcast number one?"
Е.n̂ u m̄а̄
"The staff have always been kind, but these days the staff seem to have grown even kinder!"
Now we were being given the exceptional treatment of one of the very last slots, which was unheard of for rookies.
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As for why the last slot was such a big deal for rookies, well,
'The first slot means showing up too early and just waiting around, and the middle slots are the worst because you're stuck in between with nothing to do.'
It was because the rehearsal slot order was extremely similar to the night watch duty order in the military.
The one minor difference was that while the first shift was the best for night watch duty, the last rehearsal slot was the best, but the middle slots being the worst was the same.
Ẁ е̄ b́ n о̂ v ē ĺ_ Еn û ma
That's why veteran singers were clustered in the last slots, rookies were stuck in the middle, and mid-career singers were piled into the early slots. A textbook Confucian rehearsal lineup.
But ever since we'd taken number one on a network broadcast, our rehearsal slot changing was just the start. I could feel a lot of things shifting.
Like little things, for instance: staff who used to ignore our greetings now greeted us warmly in return.
And the music show production teams had started accommodating us with various small conveniences.
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'It's precisely in times like these that you have to be careful.'
I'd seen plenty of people over the years who, in moments like these, started believing they were something special and acted arrogantly, earning themselves black marks, so I was actually being more careful with my behavior.
Ėnu ḿ a .і d̃
If any of the members started acting that way, I was prepared to take the lead and personally educate them on the Three Bonds and Five Relationships. Fortunately, it seemed that wasn't going to be necessary for our members.
If anything, they were being even humbler with the staff and senior artists than back when we'd first debuted.
'I was pretty arrogant and full of myself at their age, as I recall.'
It was enough to make me think they were better than I'd been at the same age.
Anyway, since they were doing well, I felt the need as an adult to set a good example myself.
Slip.
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"Huh? Lee Si-on, what's this?"
"It's a good thing, so just put it away."
"Chocolate? Ah! Isn't this the one that's super famous these days?"
"I secretly set some aside for our director."
"That's our Si-on, always looking out."
I headed over to the filming director who was taking a brief break in the middle of rehearsal and quietly slipped our handmade chocolate into his pocket, and I got a reaction right away.
Е̊ ń.ú.m а̀ . і̆d̈
"Eat it in secret, since we couldn't give any to the other staff."
"Aigoo, you kids have been through it too, huh. Heard some nutjob came out and caused trouble?"
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"Director, you knew about that?"
"You still don't know how fast gossip travels in the broadcast world? It spread in no time."
"Oho."
I nodded along as I listened to the filming director.
Wе̊ b̌n̆ о̂v е́ l̃ Еn̂um̌а
Originally, we'd planned to share our handmade chocolates with the broadcast station people and senior artists as well.
However,
[Selling Iam Return Gift Chocolate]
「Not open to price negotiation, no in-person meetups
Dilarang mengopy novel dari Enuma.id.
DM me only if you're serious about the transaction, packaging and handwritten letter included, 100% authentic
(photo of return gift chocolate and handwritten letter)」
Е n̂u̇ m a . і́ d̈
↳fans who got rejected from the audience application are crying over not getting these and you're out here selling them??
↳you piece of trash you're definitely getting karma for this
↳Yours, no matter how badly you want the members' handmade chocolates, please don't buy this crap
↳the kids put their hearts into making these for the fans and now someone's trying to turn a profit, humanity is exhausting
The evening of our first music show in week four, someone had shown up trying to sell the chocolates we'd made on Joonggonara. (TL: Joonggonara is Korea's leading secondhand trading platform)
The company and we had, to some extent, expected someone like this would emerge.
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After all, people will sell an empty wrapper after they've finished the snack if there's money in it.
But this was beyond that.
─That was what was made specifically for the staff.
What had been put up on Joonggonara wasn't what we'd given to the fans, but what we'd given to the music show staff.
Fans, staff, senior singers.
Since we'd written handwritten letters for everyone ourselves, we'd made the packaging slightly different for each group to avoid mix-ups, and the packaging on the chocolate listed on Joonggonara was the staff-only packaging.
Е́ n ũ m а̀
Because of that, an enraged PD Raon had called the music show PD to explain the situation, and the culprit had been sniffed out immediately.
PD Raon had flown into a rage, demanding how anyone could do that to the sincere goodwill of the Iam members who'd gone to the trouble of making gifts even for the staff.
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She'd later received an apology and the post had been taken down right away, bringing the matter to a close, but since problems like this could keep happening, the internal policy had shifted to only giving chocolates to senior singers and fans going forward.
'Still, people get their feelings hurt when they don't get something.'
But I was still secretly setting a few aside and slipping them as gifts to the key people at each music show, like the filming directors and PDs.
People might say it's fine, but when they don't receive anything, they can't help feeling a bit slighted. That's just human nature, isn't it?
Ѐ n̈ ŭ mà . і̆ d̄
Even the filming director, who was now making a delighted face despite saying "you didn't have to get me anything" as he accepted the chocolate from me, was proof of that.
Even if he didn't say anything, he'd definitely put a little extra care into how he filmed us during the live broadcast.
"Iam, rehearsal starting soon!"
As I chatted a bit with the filming director, our rehearsal turn came around.
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"Commander, I'm heading off!"
"Alright, do well in rehearsal and I'll see you at the live broadcast... ah, wait, you guys just got here, right?"
E_nû m̆а̊_
"Yes, why?"
"There was a pre-recording earlier today..."
"There was?"
"Make sure to catch it on the broadcast from the waiting room. I think you'll find it entertaining."
"Huh?"
The filming director made this cryptic remark out of nowhere.
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I was curious what he meant, but since rehearsal was about to start, I headed toward the stage where the members were waiting, question still hanging in the air.
*****
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