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Chapter 155: Si-on Gay & New York, New York!
Translator: Enuma ID
"Lee Si-on, why'd you suddenly get so good?"
"Commander! That just looked like the real deal!"
"Si-on unnie, that's incredible!"
A flood of praise and admiration poured my way.
Ѐn umӑ
"Praise me more."
I stood tall in the middle of the practice room, arms spread wide, basking in the members' adulation.
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The state of perfect oneness where I am gay and gay is me.
Waacking?
Having witnessed the genuine thing, I now realized our choreography was nothing more than amateurs playing pretend, a mere imitation.
"Senior, are you okay? How many of these do you see?"
W̆еb̆ ñо̄ v̌el̆ E n üm̆ ă
"Uuugh...."
In stark contrast to me, Yun-sik lay collapsed in one corner of the practice room as if his soul had been sucked clean out of his body, being propped up by Ji-woo.
Of course, in order to truly recognize the real thing, somebody had to make a sacrifice, and thanks to Yun-sik's noble sacrifice, I was able to attain enlightenment regarding the question: what is gay?
-That's truly rude. Did you really think being gay made me different from ordinary people?
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-Ah! I'm sorry... that's not what I meant.
-Just because someone's gay doesn't mean they go around hitting on every man they see. We're just like ordinary heterosexuals.
Е n̄ūm̈å .id̈
-Of course. We were terribly out of line.
Tap.
The owner of the Itaewon restaurant put on a deliberately stern expression as he wrapped his hand around Yun-sik's.
-I only do that with people I'm into.
-....
A trip to Itaewon that nearly ended in failure.
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But indeed, the heavens do not turn away from those who help themselves.
Because in a restaurant we'd wandered into by chance, we managed to meet an Itaewon-bred, born-to-be gay restaurant owner.
After discovering this real-life gay man, Yun-sik and I directly requested an interview, gaining the opportunity to ask him about what gay truly meant.
-Do we really have to do this? Can't we just look it up online?
A small sacrifice from Yun-sik was required in the process, but Yun-sik was also a member of KJ Entertainment, just like our Iam, so he readily volunteered, saying that for the greater good he could endure that much sacrifice. There was no problem at all.
What was even more fortunate was that the restaurant owner wasn't just any gay man, but an all-around gay man who could even do waacking.
W̊ е̂b n̄ о̌v́ ĕ ĺ Ӗ n̂u m̀ а̄
-It's a dance that's super popular in clubs these days.
-Oh, I heard it's been trending in Korea too.
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-In gay clubs.
-....
Anyway, it was a meaningful time during which I was able to be passed down a few key points of waacking from a working gay man.
It was a short time, but the owner pinpointed exactly what the core elements were and where I'd been falling short, and even demonstrated the facial expressions in person using Yun-sik. Thanks to him, I'd grasped the essence of waacking.
Ĕn̄ u m̂ а̄_
At this point, would it be okay to call me Si-on Gay?
In any case, my Itaewon tour with Yun-sik returned with massive results, and upon returning to the practice room, I was immediately able to show the members my evolved form.
"Is this the power of field trips?"
"You're actually really good now? That waacking flavor is alive."
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"Way more natural than before, so the choreo really pops now."
The truth was, I'd been struggling with this choreography in particular, but the other members had also been having a hard time with this routine that had a different feel from the choreography they'd learned before.
Ѐnūmа̄ . і̀d
Watching me, they seemed to find what they'd been missing in their own dancing, and each headed off to a corner of the practice room to dance and check their movements.
"Yun-sik, your sacrifice will not be forgotten."
"Si-on! Senior Yun-sik isn't dead yet!"
Watching the members, I tried to comfort Yun-sik, who was still spaced out, apparently still unable to forget the memory of the goodbye kiss the owner had left on his cheek.
It seemed Yun-sik would need a bit more time to recover.
A lesson without pain has no meaning.
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For humans cannot obtain anything without some form of sacrifice.
I recalled the words once spoken by the one-armed, one-legged alchemist whom I respected. [TL: Reference to Edward Elric from Fullmetal Alchemist.]
Yun-sik must surely be suffering now, but once he'd overcome that pain and made it his own.
Yun-sik would surely be able to become a gay of steel.
***
"You can't wear contact lenses for passport photos."
W̄ ӗ.ḃ n öv е̃l̊ È n̊ǔm à
"I'm not wearing any."
"But your eyes are blue?"
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"Kids these days have blue eyes too."
"Really? How peculiar."
The grandfather at the photo studio looked at the color of my eyes and said that contacts and glasses weren't allowed in passport photos.
'Been a while since I got called out on my eye color.'
Е̊ n̈û ḿ а
Unfortunately, these Blue Eyes were the natural eye color I was born with.
To be precise, born with in this lifetime.
-That's odd. Blue eyes like these are normally caused by a lack of melanin pigment, so they almost never occur in East Asians.
-It's not a disease, right?
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-No, the test results all came back fine.
-Then we're good.
Ë nu mа
Back when I was little, we'd even gone to a university hospital to check whether it was some kind of illness, but after the doctor said there were no health issues, our Madam Sukja didn't take any further action.
Thanks to that, during my school days,
-Eeeeek!!!
-Sorry! You really weren't wearing contacts....
No matter how much I insisted I wasn't wearing contacts, the teachers suspected I was lying, leading to the recurring tragedy of my eyes being interrogated every time the school year began.
Anyway, I'd lived with them for nineteen years now and gotten used to it, but for people seeing me for the first time, these blue eyes were inevitably unfamiliar.
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[Where does Lee Si-on get her eye lenses from?]
「They look so natural, any fans know what brand?」
↳mom
↳mom? is that a brand?
↳they're not lenses, that's her real eye color
↳???
Wе b̀ nö v́е̄l Е̌ň ù_m̂ а
↳apparently she's never even worn lenses in her life. her eyes were blue from birth
↳fr? her eyes really aren't lenses? no cap?
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↳during ig100 the trainees and everyone around her testified that she wasn't wearing lenses
There were still people on the internet who firmly believed I had to be wearing contacts. Indeed, in Korea, my eyes really were quite an unnatural sight.
But that was about to end too.
"Photos for five people, so you'll probably have to come pick them up tomorrow."
Ĕ n ûmа̀.і̀ d̂
"Thank you!"
"Come around lunchtime tomorrow."
After my ID photo, the last in line, was taken, the grandfather photographer told me to come pick up the photos tomorrow, signaling that the shoot was over.
"First time taking one since graduation photos."
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"I didn't know company profile photos couldn't be used as passport photos."
"Yuri already had her passport! All idols should be as well-prepared as Yuri and Yun-kyung."
W̊ ė bnŏ v̀е l̆ _Ёnu m а̇
"Wouldn't it be more dangerous if you didn't have one?"
The members and I came out of the photo studio chatting about how it felt to take ID photos.
We needed passports in a hurry, so excluding Yuri and Yun-kyung who already had them, the rest of the members took the ID photos required for passports, all because of our music video shoot.
-All of you, get your passports ready.
-Passports?
-The new music video will be filmed in America.
Dilarang mengopy novel dari Enuma.id.
-America?!
The choreography that had been dragging because of me had finally gotten back on track, and now that we'd reached a level where we just needed to polish the details, PD Raon, as if she'd been waiting for exactly this moment, informed us about the music video shoot.
And not just any shoot, but a music video shoot taking place in America rather than Korea.
"America... I still can't believe it."
"A music video shoot overseas is going to cost a lot more than the last one."
"I thought only major agencies did things like this!"
Е́ ň um̃ á . і̌ď
"Come to think of it, we are kind of a major agency."
Thanks to that, we were all wildly excited.
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'I'm finally going abroad.'
Truth be told, I'd never once been overseas.
Of course, having gone to the Korea Military Academy, I couldn't take overseas trips like other people did during their college years, and after graduation I had to be commissioned and serve, so going abroad wasn't easy.
'I thought China would be my first overseas trip.'
Wе b̃.ñ ovе̃ l̃ Ё ṅū m a
So in this lifetime, I'd planned out a tourist itinerary to make up for the trips I never got to take in my past life, planning to travel freely once Bitcoin mooned later on.
The first item on the list, a Three Kingdoms cultural pilgrimage, would have to be postponed for next time, but America sounded great too.
[I was walking with my umbrella and just sat down and bawled]
「Today I was heading out to lunch with my team lead and it started raining
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and I suddenly remembered walking the streets of New York in the rain without an umbrella
(fans probably don't know this, but in New York, unless it's a serious downpour, no one uses umbrellas)
Еn ú m а
I remembered strolling freely through the New York streets in the rain, and I just sat down on the sidewalk and sobbed uncontrollably
I must miss New York this much because I love it that much」
↳the team lead got dragged into a whole scene just trying to grab lunch
↳please delete this before it gets reposted to other communities!
↳ㅠㅠ I cried too remembering running to the cafeteria for lunch in high school
↳why are YOU crying though
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↳my knees hurt too much to run these days
↳this one's on New York
The location for our music video was none other than the heart of America, New York City.
"New York's not all that."
"You despicable bourgeois! Are you trying to crush the dreams of the common folk?"
"No, seriously, it's nothing special. There are way too many people, so even walking down the street is hard, but if you go anywhere off the beaten path it gets too dangerous...."
Е.n ǔm̆ а̀
Yun-kyung, the only one of us with American experience, disparaged New York saying it wasn't actually that great, but that couldn't possibly be true.
How could a city that has an entire song called "New York, New York" be lame?
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It might fall a tad short of Korea's spiritual capital, Gwangmyeong City, but it was sure to be plenty charming nonetheless.
So we returned to the company chatting about New York.
Just as we were about to head to the practice room to make up for the morning practice we'd missed for ID photos, we spotted our manager Ji-woo at the end of the hallway, running toward us after spotting us.
"Girls, you're back from the photos?"
Е̌ n̊u̇m̈ а̊. î d
"Yes."
"Then come over here quick, let's try on some clothes!"
"Clothes? Did our stage outfits already come in?"
What in the world was the rush, manager Ji-woo asked us to try on clothes while panting for breath.
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"The stage outfits will probably arrive on your departure day, today's a different outfit!"
"What kind of outfit?"
Е̄ ń ú m̀а̃
"The outfit you'll wear to the airport!"
The expression on Ji-woo's face as she answered our question looked extremely excited.
***
"They suit the members really well."
"Once you dress them up like this, they really are idols through and through."
Raon was watching the members, who had changed into stylish outfits, and chatting with Sang-hyeok.
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The members, dressed not in their usual matching tracksuits but in pieces from the high-end brand Thom Browne, were giving off a true celebrity visual, making the company employees who watched on freshly realize that the Iam members really were idols.
"How much does this one cost again?"
"The release price is still TBD, but probably around this much, I'd guess."
"Eeeek!"
Of course, Raon's head ached slightly watching Lee Si-on gush at the Thom Browne representative even amidst all this, but the smile didn't leave her lips.
Thom Browne.
W eb̂ň о ṽ е̂ l̊ É n um̌ a
An American high-end clothing brand famous for its signature three-stripe pattern, with sophisticated design and excellent quality that had earned it a fairly devoted fan base.
-We at Thom Browne would like to offer Iam a sponsorship.
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And just how shocked had they been a few days ago, when Thom Browne had approached KJ Entertainment with this proposal to sponsor Iam?
'It's not impossible, but still.'
Famous idol groups receiving sponsorships from luxury brands and various clothing brands had been on the rise lately.
It made sense, really, since within Asia, there was no celebrity figure with as much influence over the youth demographic as K-POP idols.
Е̄ n u m а́. і d
In Asia, particularly Korea, China, and Japan, these three countries were the most important markets for clothing brands, especially luxury brands. And the celebrities who landed across all three of those markets were, of course, Korean idols.
But luxury brands didn't sponsor just any idol with their products.
'It's a privilege only top idols can receive.'
Their models had to be objects of aspiration to the level that they could elevate the value of luxury that the brand carried, which was why receiving sponsorship from a luxury brand was limited only to top idols.
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And the fact that a high-end brand like Thom Browne had proposed not just a regular sponsorship but a full collaboration on future stage outfits to Iam was truly extraordinary.
"There were probably several reasons. For starters, the contract period is short, so there's less risk on their end."
Ě n u̇ m̂a
"And in terms of buzz, they're at the top tier in Korea right now."
Of course, Iam hadn't been offered the sponsorship because they were genuinely top idols. As a project group with a short contract period, there was less risk involved, while their name recognition and buzz were on par with top idols, so the brand seemed to have found that aspect appealing.
But putting that situation aside, from the perspective of Iam and KJ Entertainment, the mere fact that a rookie girl group had received sponsorship from a luxury brand of this caliber was certain to be a massive boost to their image.
How many celebrities went out and bought Thom Browne with their own money to wear at official events?
The fact that such a Thom Browne had proposed sponsorship to Iam suggested that Iam's current standing might be even higher than KJ Entertainment had thought.
Just as Raon was exchanging conversation with Sang-hyeok and momentarily reflecting on Iam's standing,
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"I'm so glad our clothes seem to suit the members well."
"It's because the clothes are good."
"If PD Raon were still active, we'd be offering you an ambassadorship."
"Thank you for saying so, even if it's just a courtesy."
While the members went off to change into yet another new outfit, the marketing manager from Thom Browne's Korea branch approached Raon and Sang-hyeok and struck up a conversation.
"We're coordinating to release the article in a week, on the day the members depart."
Ӗ n̈û m̆ a
"Thank you for accommodating our schedule."
"Not at all. We also thought that timing would be the most effective. It's too late for this summer, but we're proposing to headquarters that we invite the Iam members to Fashion Week this fall."
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The fact that Iam had become partners with Thom Browne was, for now, kept under strict secrecy.
-The reveal should happen on the day the Iam members depart for America for the music video shoot.
With Iam's comeback now less than a month away, they would announce that this music video included an overseas location to amplify fan anticipation.
Then they would reveal the partnership with Thom Browne to amplify anticipation a second time. This was the proposal Sang-hyeok had made.
Е n̊ ǔm а̃
'It would take at least that much to compete with SY and TSP.'
KJ Entertainment was also putting in plenty of effort for Iam's comeback in their own way, but given the caliber of their competition, going up against them with ordinary methods wouldn't cut it.
Something a bit more inventive.
They needed methods that would showcase Iam's appeal even more.
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-This is going to be a huge hit.
Things only Iam could do, like what the content team had prepared for this New York shoot.
Е́ ǹŭ m ӓ
*****
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