4:00 PM.
At Bay Studio in Nonhyeon-dong, the team profile shoot for Tomorrow K-Star began.
Today’s session was for the latter half of the ten teams, meaning five teams were scheduled to shoot. The first five had already completed their profile photos.
“For convenience, we’ll refer to you as Teams 1 through 5. This here is Team 1, and that far end is Team 5. Does anyone not know which team they belong to?”
“Assistant director, are we shooting in order from Team 1?”
“No, Photographer Kim Tae-soo will observe everyone and call teams at his discretion.”
The assistant director, whom Han Seon-ho remembered as a chatterbox, spoke, causing the participants to murmur among themselves.
Some argued that being first was better, while others preferred going last. A few contestants even contacted their entertainment agency managers, asking to avoid the final slot.
This shoot wasn’t just for inserting profile pictures into the competition footage.
It was part of the Team Chemistry Mission—the studio staff would evaluate the chemistry shown in the photos and assign scores. The ranking would then determine the order of performance.
As a result, everyone was fiercely competitive.
Some, well-versed in the industry, had already started a subtle battle of nerves.
Watching this unfold, Jung Su-rim turned to Cha Hye-mi.
After spending all of yesterday together, the two had grown close enough to speak informally.
“Unnie, shouldn’t we ask our manager about this too?”
“About what?”
“You know… asking them to get us a good slot?”
“How would we even know what a good slot is?”
“Everyone says going last is bad. The photographer will be tired and rush through the shoot.”
Hearing that, Hye-mi shook her head.
“Last year, the final team got the longest shoot. The photographer got all fired up for the grand finale.”
“Really? Who was last?”
Cha Hye-mi pointed to a man with Western features chatting away at the studio.
“Wow, Kang Mir?”
“Yeah.”
Kang Mir had strikingly white skin, large eyes, and lips with a reddish tint—an incredibly handsome face.
Yet, his nickname was The Unexpected Charm.
Despite his refined looks, he had an innocent smile and often acted endearingly clumsy. Even his name, which sounded foreign, was actually a pure Korean word meaning dragon.
Perhaps due to this contrast, he had an enormous female fanbase.
He was also the winner of Tomorrow K-Star Season 2.
“Wow, Kang Mir’s profile photos turned out so good they even used them for cafe standees.”
“That’s why I’m saying we don’t know which order is best.”
“Come on, Mir is ridiculously good-looking. The photographer probably got fired up because of his visuals. It wasn’t about the order.”
Jung Su-rim made an exaggerated imitation of Kang Mir’s signature innocent smile, making a weird, yet oddly similar expression.
Hye-mi burst into laughter.
“You should use that as your personal talent.”
“Really? Did it look similar? That was my first time trying it.”
“Not really similar, but totally hilarious.”
Encouraged by the reaction, Su-rim mimicked Kang Mir a few more times before whispering:
“But honestly, the manager oppa is way better-looking than Kang Mir. How does someone like that end up as a manager? Look—studio staff keep sneaking glances at him. That’s the look of photographers with their creative instincts ignited.”
“Hm…”
“What if he’s actually an actor? Like, he got cast as a manager in a movie but doesn’t know anything about the job, so he’s going undercover for research!”
“Come on, that’s just your imagination running wild.”
“No, think about it! Yesterday was his first day, right? But he was so calm and confident!”
Jung Su-rim spun an entire novel in her head with her girl’s intuition.
To be honest, Cha Hye-mi had thought something similar.
When she first met Han Seon-ho, she mistook him for a fellow celebrity heading to the makeup salon.
Su-rim’s theory isn’t entirely baseless.
For a first-day manager, he wasn’t fazed by the unfamiliar TV station setting. Even when caught in awkward situations, he smoothly adapted.
With a face like that, he probably never had to worry about anything.
Hye-mi couldn’t shake the feeling that Han Seon-ho wasn’t just an ordinary manager.
A rookie actor being tested on a manager reality show.
A celebrity training to overcome camera shyness.
Or, like Su-rim said, an actor playing a manager role.
It was ridiculous, but the thought lingered.
Whatever the case, he definitely wasn’t going to stay a manager forever.
But then, yesterday…
Why did he say that?
The conversation they had in the car on the way home had been strange.
At first, it annoyed her.
But the more she thought about it, the stranger it felt.
—
“Hye-mi ssi.”
“Yes?”
“Are you really planning to perform Autumn Leaf with Su-rim?”
“Yes, that’s what we decided.”
Han Seon-ho fell silent for a long time.
At first, Hye-mi thought he was just making small talk to stay awake.
Then, he spoke again.
“That song can’t be performed on a big stage.”
“What?”
“You asked Su-rim yourself—whether she’d ever sung it in a large venue.”
“Well…”
Hye-mi had questioned whether Su-rim’s voice could bring out the depth and volume needed for a big stage.
But she had dismissed it as unnecessary worry.
Su-rim had assured her she had plenty of experience, and they still had the arrangement process ahead.
“There’s always rearrangement.”
“PD Joo Min-hwan holds a high position at MOK.”
“…Are you saying he won’t arrange it properly?”
“Most likely.”
Anger flared inside Hye-mi.
She didn’t know what made Han Seon-ho so sure, but that didn’t mean she wasn’t aware of the risks.
It was true that Su-rim’s voice might not suit a large venue.
It was true that MOK’s employees, wary of their CEO, might not give their full cooperation.
She knew.
But there was no choice.
The only way forward was to work hard, do her best, and overcome any obstacles.
Because she was the underdog.
She was the one without power.
Which meant this was not something someone like Han Seon-ho—a manager—should be saying.
Even if he really was just a manager, it was out of line.
Because…
“You’re an MOK employee too, aren’t you? You’re one of the people who don’t want me to succeed.”
“…”
“Are you saying this out of pity? Or just trying to show off your insight?”
“…”
Another silence followed.
She had reacted sharply without realizing it.
It was over.
How long had it been since they met, and yet she had let her true feelings slip? A clear mistake.
Cha Hye-mi thought Han Seon-ho wouldn’t say anything more.
But she was wrong.
“I thought about it while watching you sing, Cha Hye-mi. I hoped things would go well for you. That they could go well.”
Through the faint vibrations of the car—
“I hope things turn out well. For both of us.”
His gentle voice filled the silence once more.
“We’re a team now, after all.”
Hearing the word ‘team’ didn’t make her let her guard down.
A Cinderella who opens her heart just because a handsome man offers a kind word?
That only happened in dramas and movies.
But why did he say that?
It was strange.
His words contained a subtle criticism of MOK.
She hadn’t thought much about it at the time, but whether he was a fake manager or a real one, there was no reason for him to say something like that.
I really don’t get it.
As Cha Hye-mi shook her head inwardly, the overly excited Jung Su-rim suddenly went into meerkat mode.
“Hello, everyone.”
A photographer appeared, wearing gray horn-rimmed glasses that oddly suited his graying hair.
He slowly scanned the ten contestants.
Jung Su-rim whispered, “Unni, unni. Was this guy the photographer last year too?”
“Yeah, same guy. Photographer Kim Taesu.”
At that moment, the photographer’s gaze landed on Jung Su-rim and Cha Hye-mi.
“We’ll start with Team 4.”
Team 4 consisted of Jung Su-rim and Cha Hye-mi.
A&R Team 1, commonly called the ‘debut team’ because they handled rookie debuts, had their team leader Woo visiting the engineer room on the fifth floor of the company building.
Is there really no decent song?
With a sigh, Team Leader Woo booted up the computer.
Even after reviewing all the songs submitted for Low Five’s single over the past few days, none of them felt like the one.
There were plenty of tracks suitable for an album’s B-side, but nothing worth betting everything on for a major push.
When unsatisfied with the submissions, Team Leader Woo often searched the company’s engineer hard drives.
Most of the time, it ended in vain, but it wasn’t a completely pointless effort.
There had been a few times when a song discovered this way ended up as the title track.
Four years ago, he had found a guide track that no one paid attention to and turned it into a song that hit number one on every streaming platform.
That one was a real killer.
The moment he heard it, he knew it would work.
It was rough, covered in unnecessary noise and imperfections, but beneath it all, he could see the brilliance—a diamond waiting to be uncovered.
That moment had given him what could only be described as pure joy.
Ever since, he hadn’t been able to let go of that thrill. Whenever the song selection process didn’t go well, he found himself rummaging through the engineer hard drives again.
Then, it happened.
“Oh…?”
A completely unexpected discovery.
The project was saved in A.T’s self-composed folder, making it easy to miss.
If he hadn’t opened it absentmindedly, he might never have found it.
A lucky accident.
And with it, came that familiar rush—just like four years ago.
“This… Who made this?”
The song he had unearthed four years ago was a guide track composed by a trainee learning music production.
The composition was weak, the arrangement was sloppy, and the choice of VST instruments was terrible.
It was no surprise that it hadn’t even made it onto the submission list.
But hidden within was an extraordinary musical idea, and Team Leader Woo had caught it.
It was a classic case of finding a pearl in the mud.
But this song was different.
The track, saved under the uninspired title “HSH,” was already a finished pearl.
If anything, it was over-decorated, filled with unnecessary elements that needed to be stripped away.
As it was, there was no room left for a vocalist’s voice.
If I just trim it down a little…
As if captivated, Team Leader Woo started tweaking the track.
He cleared out excessive layers of sound, giving more space to the main melody.
He used reverb and compression to dry out the sound and adjusted the EQ to tone down the instruments.
Even without monitoring, he trusted his instincts—this should be the sound he was looking for.
“Huh?”
But it wasn’t.
The moment he altered the original track, its essence changed.
It wasn’t bad—if anything, it sounded better, more polished.
Had he heard this version from the start, he would have shouted Eureka! and immediately gathered his team.
But.
Without a doubt.
It’s not as good as the original.
It had become more commercially viable, but something had faded—something that had grabbed at his soul.
The hypnotic, intoxicating quality was gone.
Have I lost my touch?
His pride wounded, Team Leader Woo grabbed a monitoring headset and fully immersed himself in the task.
He took a different approach, keeping the essence intact while subtly adjusting the balance.
Instead of heavily compressing the track, he applied multiple weak compressors to preserve the original feel while just fixing the loudness.
Rather than outright adjusting the reverb, he subtly altered the depth.
But the result was the same.
No matter what he did, he could make it sound cleaner, more polished, and more mainstream.
But he couldn’t make it better.
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