Became The Leader of a Girl Group Destined To Fail - Chapter 99

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com

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Chapter 99.

“This is… real.”

The members stared at me with wide eyes.

“Our music video views are climbing at a much faster rate than BunAsh’s teaser video.”

I didn’t bother responding.
I’d already told them.

“It’s because the competitive dynamic is driving up the buzz.”

What’s the most important thing in the entertainment industry?
Buzz.
Without buzz, nothing happens.
Even if you have talent, visuals, and great songs.
If no one knows about you, it’s all worthless.
Whether it’s positive or negative attention, you need eyes on you before popularity follows.
Of course, honestly, I don’t prefer this kind of atmosphere.
Because it attracts plenty of antis too.
I’m sure there are quite a few BunAsh fans who’ve started disliking us.
Of course, they probably understand it intellectually.
That we’re not at fault.
But if people could only act rationally, the world wouldn’t look like this.

[BunAsh VS StillBlue, Family Feud Beginning?!]
[Rising New Girl Group VS Undisputed Top Boy Group, Who Will Claim Victory?]
[BunAsh Breaks 1 Million in Record Time, Can They Defend First Place Again?!]
[Colors’ Strange Movements… Internal Discord?]

Portal site articles,

▶

[12 Reasons Why BunAsh Can Never Beat StillBlue]
▶

[StillBlue? They’re nothing compared to Burnash]
▶

[Why Burnash rushed out a teaser.bunseok]
▶

[2X Year First Half Music Show #1 Score Comparison (Boy Groups VS Girl Groups)]
▶

[Burnash’s Popularity Bubble VS StillBlue One-Hit Wonder]
▶

[StillBlue’s Title Track is Bound to Flop]

OTube cyber trolls,

★
Seriously though, they’re in their second year and these guys just debuted—why do you keep trying to start fights and get scared? They’re not even both girl groups, you’re comparing a girl group to a boy group. Different genres entirely lol. You think all idols are fighting over the same pie?
Stop bringing them up. You’re just trying to boost your own mentions by clinging to our girls. Get your group’s album sales over a million first^^ Oh wait, you can’t, right?^^
└Lmao for real though, we were the first to hit a million in first-week sales in their second year. The audacity is insane. Anyone here not expecting this album to break records?
Lol for real, we’re the first ones to hit 1 million initial sales in our second year and the hate is crazy. Is there anyone who didn’t expect this album to do well?

SNS,

But seriously, why does Colors manage traffic so poorly?

Is this marketing or something? Do all the other agencies do this nonsense too?
I’m new to being a fan, so I’m asking
Why pit groups against each other when each could easily take #1 on their own?
I’m asking because this is my first time being a fan like this.
Why are you pairing up kids who could easily take first place on their own?

That’s something only Colors knows… Their executives are good at discovering talent, but they have no idea how to actually manage a company.
According to rumors in securities circles, there’s internal conflict happening within the company right now.
└Internal conflict?? Isn’t it Hong President’s one-man show?
└└It was like that at first, but now the scale got so big that Hong President can’t handle it alone.
└└└Wait, seriously? How big could it even be;;>
I heard that story too lol the teachers there apparently really don’t like people…
[Workplace App]
Please don’t ask our employees why our company operates so strangely.
Colors

We’re the most frustrated about it.
The executives are all fighting among themselves over their own interests, and that’s why things are like this…
Would we want to not take proper care of our artists?
We genuinely care about the artists… They’re all good, gentle kids…
But we have no choice but to follow what the executives decide.
There’s no structure for proper communication at all.
There are more people than you’d think who have this strange misconception that entertainment companies should be horizontal.
But there are few places as hierarchical as the entertainment industry.
And among them, Colors has a top-down vertical structure.

Dude, the higher-ups at the company are so famous lol
└HaㅠㅠㅠI’m the most frustrated. Reallyㅠㅠ The king’s ears are like donkey ears…
I used to work at Colors but moved to another company—the executives there are no joke. Whatever you imagine, it’s worse than that.
└Huh, why…??
└└First of all, the president’s interest in management is completely inconsistent. He does whatever he feels like.
hahahaha
What do people inside the company think about the GRO situation?
I’d rather not comment on that… I’m worried they might sue me haha
“I guess there’s something going on, but who knows.”

Even in the community.
Everyone was talking about us.
We’d inadvertently become the subject of constant gossip.
…I’d been thinking about this since the Make a New Color days.
For some reason, I seem to attract controversy.

“Hmm.”

I was reviewing our schedule once more.
Originally, our first music broadcast stage was supposed to be two weeks away.
But circumstances had changed.
There was no reason to delay.
We’d already captured all the buzz—now we had to seize the moment.

“Senior.”
“Hmm?”

Lee Sol rubbed her eyes as she spoke.
It was understandable.
It was four in the morning.
Both Lee Sol and I had barely slept for two days since the Burnash comeback announcement.

“Let’s just release it right away.”
“Release what?”
“The album teaser.”

Lee Sol paused, as if trying to process my words.

“What?”

Now she seemed to be getting it.

“I revised the schedule.”

I handed Lee Sol a new schedule with only the dates changed from the original.
Everything had been moved up by three to seven days from the original timeline.

“….”

Lee Sol stared at the schedule, lost in thought.

“This way, we can definitely come out about ten days before Burnash. At minimum, we’ll be a week ahead.”
“Yes. This should give us the maximum gap possible.”
“So we’re going on music broadcasts starting Wednesday of the week before Burnash’s comeback.”

We can avoid getting entangled with them as long as we don’t owe them anything.
Someone will probably ask why we have to avoid them at all….
But what can you do? The weak have no choice but to retreat.

“This works. I like it. Let’s go with this approach.”
“The problem is, if we do this, we’ll need to reschedule all the Broadcasting Program slots… will that be alright?”

When it came to Broadcasting Program schedules, I had no choice but to rely on our manager and Lee Sol.
The manager currently overseeing us used to manage Lee Sol’s group, Greysh.
Essentially, the manager who practically raised Lee Sol from the ground up.

“It’ll work out. We’ll have to juggle things a bit… but that’s something we can handle.”

Lee Sol laughed softly.

“Don’t worry about us—you should be worried about yourselves.”
“Pardon?”
“I’m not sure about Yun Chung, but if you’re saying you need to take the Stage starting next week….”

Ah.
A chill suddenly ran down my spine.

“Will your members really be okay?”

I hadn’t thought about that.

***

“…so I was thinking we should move everything up to next week.”

I gauged the reactions of the four members.

“What do you all think?”

We’d agreed to use formal speech during official meetings.
Business is always conducted formally, after all.

“Today’s Wednesday… so we’d release individual teasers at midnight tonight—Thursday, then the teaser video Friday, highlight medley Saturday, and group teaser photos Sunday, right?”

It’s already getting complicated.
I could see the members’ eyes spinning in their heads.

“So next Monday we’re releasing the music video, dropping the audio track and album, then doing a showcase on Tuesday, and starting the broadcast rounds in earnest from Wednesday onwards?”
“Yes. And the Tuesday showcase will be broadcast live on K App. We’ll perform the pre-release track, the title track, and two other songs from the album.”

Even hearing it casually, it was an absolutely grueling schedule.

“And we’ll be doing one live broadcast per week. Since our vlog also needs to come out every two weeks, we’ll need to film that as well.”

I felt apologetic even as I spoke.
But I couldn’t avoid saying it either.
Our manager took over and continued the explanation.

“There are also radio appearances, and aside from next weekend, we have schedules booked almost every day. But not everyone will go to each one—we’ll split into groups of two or three, so please don’t worry too much. Only one or two appearances will have everyone together.”
“But… there are two broadcast recordings next week…?”
“Not next week—tomorrow. The schedule just got finalized a moment ago due to changes. We have two idol-targeted variety show recordings on Thursday and Saturday.”

Everyone gradually fell silent.
Even Ryu Bora, who’d grown accustomed to intense schedules from drama filming, had turned pale.

“I know this is tough for everyone… but the schedule got packed because we coordinated to overlap as little as possible with our seniors at Burnash. We’re trying to fit two weeks of work into one week…”

I felt for my members too.
But… it really was unavoidable.
If this were just my album, I honestly would have pushed even harder.
But these people had never handled a schedule like this before.
I’d coordinated with Lee Sol as much as I could on my end.

“I’m actually grateful?”

Then Seo Baek-young spoke up quietly.

“More schedules are always better, right? We’re so grateful that there are people calling for us.”
“That’s right!”

Yeon Ju-hong nodded enthusiastically in agreement.

“I think having a packed schedule would be nice too. It sounds exciting. But we can’t do too many fan signing events, right!?”
“If we add more on top of this, you could literally work yourself to death.”
“I know….”

Kim Geum had looked pale at first, but she seemed to have adapted by now.

“It’s more intense than I expected, but I’m fine with it. But we haven’t booked any events for us, have we? I really love performing on stage.”
“…How could we already be booking events when we’re nobody yet?”
“Ugh.”

That left Ryu Bora.
I turned my gaze toward her and…

“Ryu Bora.”
“…I don’t know why you’re looking at me like that.”

Ryu Bora’s voice was ice-cold.

“What do you take me for? I became an idol knowing full well what this entails.”
“Oh… really?”
“You keep treating me like garbage, but do you have some complaint about me, unnie?”

No….
I couldn’t exactly tell her that her expression gets the most vicious when we’re running through practice routines.

“I want to repay the fans who chose us. Honestly, looking at how the company operates, I want to tear up my contract and run away right now, but I’m so grateful to the people who picked me that I’m just going to shut up and push through for now, so don’t worry about me like that.”

…For now?
A slight unease crept over me.
What if that “for now” meant… wait, how long exactly was that….
But I didn’t want to bring it up and upset Ryu Bora any further.

“So we’re releasing the teaser photos tonight, right!?”

Yeon Ju-hong suddenly popped her head in.

“Yes.”
“I need to call Mom.”
“Oh, me too….”
“I should do that as well.”

Finally, we could breathe easy.
We’d reached an agreement.
Now all that remained—

Ding!

★
StillBlue

1st Mini Album
【Light Steel Blue】 Concept Photo #RyuBora

#StillBlue #StillBlue #Light_Steel_Blue
#Blue #StillBlue_Blue #1stMiniAlbum #DebutAlbum

20xx. 11. 23 MON 6 PM (KST)

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com

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