Top Girl Group Scenario Rewritten with My Own Hands - Chapter 36

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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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Episode 36
[Special Family Month Edition!]
[Guess EVER-GIT Members’ Childhood Photos!]
[Game Rules Explanation]
[Ko Hyun-seo: Ah, this has to be Han Byul, no question.]
[Kang Su-a: Ju Hye-rin!]
[???: I don’t think so. (laughs)]
[1. Each member receives five different childhood photos of the other members.]
[2. In the selection room, members match the other members’ names with their childhood photos, and the game ends.]
[3. Final matching and scoring take place in the conference room once all members have gathered.]
[4. The member with the most correct answers wins a big prize!]
[※Caution※]
[???: I chose this photo because it looked like (beep—), and I picked that one because it would look like a (beep—) photo for (beep—). The members still don’t know I ever (beep—). Won’t it be difficult?]
[???: Wow…… My questions seem way too easy…… .]
[???: I picked photos that basically scream the right answer!]
[※The past photos used as questions were chosen directly by each member and randomly arranged!※]
[And…….]
[Hyun Jae-yi: Ah, why do you never trust anyone, noona?! I also (beep—) when I was little, I’m telling you?!?! Seriously!]
[Zion: Children’s choir, who else besides Han Byul. Confess quick and I’ll let it slide.]
[Ko Hyun-seo: This is confusing…… . Honestly, if I had to trust only one of Jae-yi or Su-a noona, I’d pick Jae-yi.]
[Kang Su-a: You’re all too much, really!!!]
[Ju Hye-rin: Because noona pulls pranks way too often…… .]
[Han Byul: (watching the unnies nervously … )]
[Final Rule!]
[Before the final choice, bluffing is allowed in the conference room so the other side can’t get the right answer!]
[Family Month Special]
[Guess the Child]
[EVER-DO-IT!]
[Let’s START!]
Click.
Kim Yun-ju stopped the video with tired eyes.
Since EVER-GIT’s debut, most of the group’s in-house content had fallen to Kim Yun-ju to manage.
With limited personnel and budget at a mid-sized agency, it wasn’t unusual for one person to wear all the hats—but the content pressure had undeniably grown compared to the pre-debut days.
Even though she’d watched and edited the footage obsessively before upload, monitoring it again days after it went live felt different somehow.
Especially this time, regret weighed heavier than usual. If a professional production company had edited it, they could have made it so much more engaging… .
‘Looks like I really do need to hire a dedicated variety show PD or agency…… .’
Though with our company’s finances, squeezing out outsourcing money would be its own nightmare!
When a promotional video for Ashcode’s rookie girl group popped up in her YouTube recommendations, Kim Yun-ju often felt the sting of reality.
[Ashcode must’ve dumped serious cash into that MV]
The CGI and cityscapes…… practically blockbuster-level, right?
——————————
– But then why is the song so mediocre lolololol
└ International fans seemed to love both the song and the MV though—are they targeting overseas or something?
【The legendary big-budget Ashcode debut music video】
– This is why you debut at a major company—they don’t hold back on investment from the start. Ashcode’s been PN for 8 years, so they’re pushing hard with their first GG release
👍 1.2K
– The MV’s aesthetic is insane, matched the apocalypse concept so perfectly lololol
👍 982
– Domestic reaction’s lukewarm but international’s way better, basically all Ashcode fans in the MV comments
👍 827
The gap felt even starker when browsing internet communities and YouTube.
On one side, groups with artist involvement trying desperately to hide their lack of budget through self-production stunts. On the other, groups that could burn through money from debut promotion straight through to music video production…… .
Those kids weren’t wrong in any way, but thinking of herself and EVER-GIT’s members juggling everything just felt bitter somehow—like they had it too easy, and it made her frustrated.
Same with variety content like this.
Planning everything around a single tablet PC and solving it inside the company conference room just to shave every possible corner wasn’t easy at all.
[Kang Su-a: Whoa, is this really Jae-yi?! I definitely thought it was Hye-rin…… .]
[Hyun Jae-yi: Hehe, I did Figure Skating too! …though only for a super short time!]
[Ju Hye-rin: But you never told me anything like that?!]
[Hyun Jae-yi: I barely got to level 1, lost interest, and quit fast—couldn’t really brag about that in front of someone with national team experience…… .]
This was a project she never could have attempted if the members didn’t have such strong chemistry and wit.
With Hyun Jae-yi and Kang Su-a anchoring a smooth, natural conversation flow—the kind that shone through variety shows like 《So Ju Came》 and other content since their debut—they’d been able to pull this off; without it, she’d have scrapped every variety content project entirely.
She wanted to give them all the support she could, but it wasn’t easy.
That’s just reality…… .
– Lee Su-bin, Team Lead: Yun-ju, about that self-produced content concept you pitched. Budget constraints mean we can’t do this scale, so maybe we could cut it back a bit…
The perfectly timed work message detonated the anxiety she’d been holding in into raw anger.
That damned capital. Money. Budget.
Her idol, when Asera was small-scale before growing into a major label, was still young then; by the time Kim Yun-ju understood entertainment industry capital, most of Asera had left PN, and group schedules were limited to yearly comeback cycles—so as a fan, she’d never truly grasped how terrifying capital could be.
But now, facing it head-on, capital was the most impossible, most terrifying thing of all.
And how scary are modern idol fandoms? When an album or MV shows a company’s lack of funds, that becomes ammunition for a full day’s worth of attacks—that’s the reality for mid-tier idols with a little success.
She still didn’t emotionally understand why having no money was a weakness, but knowing it was absolutely used as a weapon, Kim Yun-ju had poured real effort into packaging EVER-GIT’s entire planning in ways that never let on about the company’s tight budget.
So seeing major agencies throwing money around like it grows from the ground up starting from debut just made her insides twist.
Not wanting to openly vent her frustration at the company, Kim Yun-ju squeezed a plush toy on her desk repeatedly.
The animal-shaped plush seemed to scream for mercy, but if anything, she wanted to be the one screaming right now.
But that frustration passed quickly—fighting back, Kim Yun-ju pulled up the project she’d been preparing for the next comeback.
Debuting at a major agency has its own hardships. Being chased by weird rumors from debut, getting torn apart for every little thing on internet communities—they definitely have their own struggles too.
Everyone faces different difficulties depending on their circumstances. Just like EVER-GIT keeps hitting the wall of capital, there’s definitely some ‘problem’ on their end as well.
Don’t complain about problems you can’t change, don’t envy others’ circumstances, don’t get needlessly annoyed—one of the few rules Kim Yun-ju had set for herself to avoid a draining life.
This wasn’t the time to be frustrated; it was time to refine the planning for the group she supported.
Please, let this comeback be the one where she doesn’t have to pull off every impossible stunt just to fit a tight budget…!
CEO, please spend some money! That was the only thing Kim Yun-ju wanted after seeing another company’s lavishly produced music video.
***
The Encore stage from the cable music broadcast crackling through her earbuds didn’t feel good at all.
First, the idol on camera looked so stiff they were visibly trembling.
Second, even with heavy backing track pouring through, not a single member was delivering proper vocals.
And finally…… .
‘It looks like they weren’t even trained for Live Performance…… or maybe not trained at all.’
Huh.
A scoff and sigh escaped unbidden, leaving her only to stare at her desktop screen in dismay.
This was the kind of disaster where no excuse could cover it—a complete lack of Live Performance preparation.
The excuse that they were nervous because they’re rookies wouldn’t even begin to wash here. This was a thoroughly botched debut Encore.
Had they really thought they’d place first? Around the same time, a bigger boy group had made a comeback, and there were solo artists with strong chart performance, so that might explain it.
Add in how that cable channel tends to favor certain artists’ broadcast scores, plus Ashcode’s initial album sales exceeding expectations—PN’s calculations could have gotten thrown off. That seemed plausible enough.
28,000 copies in initial sales.
Hitting nearly 300,000 units—a landmark in girl group history—Ashcode’s first Encore was so catastrophic it was hard to even describe it as a “disaster.”
‘Even so, I didn’t think it’d be this bad…… .’
Awkwardly.
This severe and the negative shockwave spreads wider, making it harder not to get caught in the fallout.
– lololol seriously what are these people calling themselves singers for, if you’re not going to sing then don’t debut as one
👍 8.3K
– The shock is insane, is looks all that matters now? You’re giving rookies way too much slack these days heh
👍 6.3K
I scrolled through the YouTube comments and just closed the browser altogether.
If even the relatively mild YouTube comments looked like this, the darker internet communities were probably an absolute warzone—she didn’t even need to check.
‘That’s why we pushed up the debut date…… right?’
You could call it the origin point of the Live Performance controversy.
There were specific reasons EVER-GIT hadn’t kept their original debut date and had moved it up significantly.
Ashcode captured overseas fans completely from their debut with a niche worldview, distinct sound, and quality music video—but some of their more extreme fans mixed in there, so avoiding connection was the safest move.
She’d already factored the Rookie Award mission into reasonable expectations, so advancing the debut date seemed advantageous overall.
And it had worked. More than working, the pathetic-looking Encore Live performance wouldn’t pull EVER-GIT in or suggest any scheming against them—there were no signs of that yet.
If there was one thing that nagged at her…… .
“…What are you doing? I knocked but you didn’t answer.”
“Ah, oh—you startled me…… It’s you, Hyun-seo.”
Hearing a voice suddenly from behind, I spun around reflexively, and there stood Ko Hyun-seo, who’d opened the studio door and was leaning against the frame, watching me.
“Did I knock?”
“Sorry, I didn’t hear it. What’s up?”
“…No, exercise. Have you eaten?”
“……Ah. I haven’t eaten yet.”
Remarkably, even now—winter gone, spring passed, racing hard into early summer, the last week of May—I was still working out regularly with Ko Hyun-seo.
Honestly, this girl’s mouth was the problem…… The moment her activity period ended, Ko Hyun-seo dragged me back into workout routines, and thanks to that, I fought down the urge to collapse after each session, zombie-walked back through more practice, and stumbled into the studio half-dead.
“When we first got to the dorm, who was it nagging at us about eating properly? These days it looks like we eat better than you, noona.”
“I don’t eat huge portions anyway, and when you’re in the studio, convenience wins out. Plus, I’m already past growth age as an adult, and you all were minors back then.”
“We’re only a year apart though?”
“You and I are a year apart, but Hye-rin and Han Byul are still kids.”
You’re over 170, so it probably doesn’t matter for you, but growing kids need good nutrition for height.
Even as I thought the comment was pretty boomer-coded, I swallowed the words and just quietly followed Ko Hyun-seo.
“Fine. I haven’t eaten either anyway, so let’s work out and grab food with Su-a noona.”
“You don’t drag Kang Su-a along on these? Her stamina’s gotta be pretty rough too.”
“That noona’s not someone you can convince with nice words.”
Wasn’t that just another way of saying I was an easy mark? I barely stifled a confused laugh and followed Ko Hyun-seo toward the gym.
“And these days that noona’s pouring all her stamina into learning that Dance Break for the new song…… so what’s the point?”
That actually made sense to me.
《Never Give Up》—the first monthly evaluation group song since I’d arrived.
And four days from now, the song we’d be covering as a special stage at Music City in Japan.
“But why do I…… have to do the Dance Break? I’m doing it the same as you.”
“Didn’t you make a promise with me?”
“When exactly was this promise made…… ?”
“You said you didn’t like it when I’d space out during practice. I still think you look like flimsy paper, so if you hate being noticed, hurry up and build some muscle.”
Ko Hyun-seo laid it out with shameless composure, gave me a look like ‘you can’t argue with that, right?’ and then headed into the gym to get on with her workout.
……I’m going to build muscle one way or another.
I don’t think my current state’s a real problem, but either way, I need to get to where that girl admits I’ve made progress.
My Rewriting Top Girl Group Scenario
Author
: Nam Seo-rang
Production Date
: January 5, 2026
Publisher
: Aces Media
Editor
: Aces Media Editorial Team
Address
: 4F, Urban Bench Building, 325 Teheran-ro, Gangnam-gu, Seoul, Republic of Korea
Email
: [email protected]
※ This work has been published by Aces Media in accordance with the copyright holder’s contract,
and the contents may not be used in any form or by any means without the permission of the company and author.
This e-book is protected by copyright law, and unauthorized reproduction or copying may result in legal liability.
UCI
: G720:N+A129-20260102083.0036

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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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