Seon-ho leisurely finished his lunch and headed to work.
Although he was only required to clock in by 3 PM, he had come in early to process accumulated expenses like parking fees and toll charges.
After submitting the receipts to the accounting team, he stepped out to find the company unusually quiet.
It felt as if hardly anyone was around.
It’s seriously quiet.
Apparently, MOK’s flagship idol group, Blacklist, who were currently promoting in Japan, had gotten involved in a scandal. They were accused of plagiarizing a song by a beloved Japanese national singer.
However, the real problem wasn’t just the plagiarism allegations — it was the aggressive actions from anti-Korean extremists that came with it.
And then came the footage of Blacklist members responding with harsh insults when confronted by those extremists.
The videos captured them using extreme slurs like “chonpa” and “island monkeys,” and had fallen into the hands of paparazzi.
Rumor had it that if the situation worsened, Blacklist might cut their activities in Japan short and start promoting back in Korea earlier than planned.
That explained why the company was practically deserted.
Everyone was busy fighting to handle the Blacklist crisis.
If Blacklist returns to Korea, wouldn’t that mean the end of the opportunities for Personal Color?
The thought crossed Seon-ho’s mind.
Since the manpower in the company was limited, the number of artists they could actively promote was naturally limited too.
Right now, flagship groups like Blacklist and July Girls were active overseas, but if they came back, no one knew how things would shift.
That was why it was crucial to lay down a strong foundation during this window of opportunity.
It would be great if the Idol War could mark that beginning.
Thinking through these things, Seon-ho headed toward the meeting room on the 6th floor of the company building.
He still had about an hour and a half before starting work.
He wanted to listen to the song he had worked on yesterday in a quiet space.
However, the moment he arrived at the singer team’s meeting room on the 6th floor, Seon-ho realized that quietly listening to music was out of the question.
Voices close to shouting could be heard coming from inside the room.
“Manager Kwon, holding onto Personal Color won’t do you any good either.”
“Team Leader Kang!”
Because the door was slightly open, it wasn’t hard to figure out who was speaking.
It was Manager Kwon Hosan, who was in charge of Personal Color, and Team Leader Kang San from the Actor Division 1 team.
As an idol group, Personal Color was, at best, a C-tier team.
Even considering the strong backing of the agency MOK, they barely, just barely, reached B-tier status.
But that wasn’t the case for An Jia.
As a drama actress, she was S-tier. As a movie actress, she was A-tier. As a commercial star, she was S-tier — a true top star.
Because of that, drama producers and advertisers weren’t too fond of her continuing her idol activities.
If Personal Color had been a wildly successful team, it would be a different story, but they couldn’t understand why she was wasting her efforts in a floundering group.
From their perspective, it was only natural that they wished for An Jia’s image to be preserved, not worn down by meaningless activities.
This sentiment clearly existed within MOK as well.
“Personal Color is a dead group anyway. Isn’t it better to just pull An Jia out?”
“Rather than letting her waste her image, it’d be smarter to manage her purely as an actress.”
“She’d be better off getting some more sleep instead of memorizing useless choreography. Looking fresh on screen would raise her value faster.”
Such remarks were openly thrown around within the company.
And they mostly came from the actor management team members.
In fact, the actor team members had every reason to feel bitter.
An Jia had originally been scouted by the actor team and trained as a “pure actress.”
The public believed that An Jia had discovered her acting talent by chance.
But that wasn’t true.
From the beginning, MOK had carefully planned An Jia’s career to make her the next major actress on the big screen.
Her debut as an idol was simply a strategic move.
While An Jia was good at acting, she didn’t yet have the overwhelming presence needed to leave a deep impression as a top actress.
Team Leader Kang San, who was fully invested in making An Jia a star, found this frustrating.
He didn’t want her to slowly build her career like a typical actor starting with small roles — he wanted to accelerate the process.
Then, an opportunity presented itself.
An Jia landed a supporting female lead role in the Wednesday-Thursday drama Isis on the major IMC network.
Since there were still eight months before Isis aired, Kang San devised a plan: debut An Jia as an idol in the meantime.
When an idol starts acting, the public usually views them with suspicion.
Before even seeing their acting, people assume they got the role just because they’re an idol.
But what if the idol actually acts well?
The skepticism could swiftly turn into admiration and interest.
It could even lead to popularity and marketability beyond what their actual skill might warrant.
That’s what Kang San was aiming for.
In his assessment, while An Jia might not yet be strong enough to stand as a leading actress on her own, she had more than enough skill to earn praise for her acting.
Thus, the team Personal Color was created.
A team by An Jia, for An Jia.
But three major problems arose.
The first problem was that Personal Color crashed and burned.
Despite the group being composed of talented, seasoned trainees with long practice periods and strong individuality, they utterly failed.
In the end, Personal Color contributed nothing to An Jia’s success.
There was no idol “halo effect” to speak of.
An Jia made it on her own through her acting and gained popularity independently.
In fact, people were surprised to learn that she had ever been an idol at all.
The second problem was that the members of Personal Color realized why they existed.
After their first album and single flopped, and around the time An Jia was gaining explosive popularity through Isis, MOK signed a large number of free-agent actors.
With the actor team suddenly overwhelmed, CEO Kim Dong-han transferred An Jia to the singer team.
He believed that Personal Color had failed because of poor teamwork.
Since An Jia was being managed by the actor team and the rest of the members by the singer team, no real team chemistry could form.
His judgment wasn’t wrong.
However, the actor team members, who had suffered the hard work but now saw all the results go to the singer team, started to grumble — and word got out.
Eventually, the reason for the formation of Personal Color reached the members themselves.
And with it, misunderstandings mixed with the facts.
While it was true that An Jia’s prospects and Team Leader Kang’s influence accelerated the formation of a new team, it wasn’t like the other members were just thrown in as extras.
They had all trained for years and were individually worthy of debut; they had simply lacked the right project before.
Still, by the time the truth reached the members, the damage was done.
The team began to crumble from within.
Even though Manager Kwon Hosan, known for his talent in building strong team dynamics, was dispatched to help, it was too late.
Personal Color was already racing toward its end.
The final issue was An Jia’s heart.
In truth, Team Leader Kang San wasn’t particularly upset when An Jia moved over to the singer team.
He just thought, I’m too busy anyway, so it’s fine if the singer team looks after ‘my actress’ for a while.
If An Jia succeeded with just a few more projects, she would gain enough influence.
If she then announced that she wanted to give up being a singer and focus solely on acting, the company would have no choice but to accept it.
That way, An Jia would naturally return to the actor team.
And just as he expected, An Jia kept succeeding in her projects.
She appeared in a film that drew 8 million viewers, kicking off a successful movie career, and the network drama she starred in achieved a massive 28% viewership rating.
Meanwhile, Personal Color had fallen apart even further.
So, Team Leader Kang San told An Jia she should quit being a singer.
He suggested she focus entirely on acting.
He had no doubt that An Jia would agree with him.
However, An Jia shook her head.
Before he realized it, she had grown attached to being a singer, and to the team called Personal Color.
“So? Are you really insisting on going ahead like this, Chief Kwon?”
At Team Leader Kang San’s words, Kwon Hosan frowned.
“And what’s the problem?”
“Finding something that isn’t a problem would be quicker. Even setting everything else aside, Jia is struggling, isn’t she?”
“Isn’t it really because of Team One’s performance?”
“Ha, come on. Let’s be honest here — it was our team that discovered and nurtured Jia, right? It was the singer team that swooped in and took her away.”
“Did we ask for her? It was the CEO who decided it would be better.”
Kwon Hosan continued.
“And who suggested debuting her as an idol first? It was you who submitted the proposal.”
“Yes, it was me. That’s why I waited three years. Because it was my proposal. But look at the results. Has it helped Jia even 1%? No, if anything, hasn’t it just gotten in her way?”
“……”
“Chief Kwon. I’ve waited a long time too.”
“I know, Team Leader Kang. But give it just a little more time.”
“Chief!”
“Just a little longer. This time, it’s really different. If the team breaks up now, everything will fall apart. Three years of work will vanish into thin air.”
Despite Kwon Hosan’s desperate plea, Team Leader Kang remained unmoved.
He had already firmly made up his mind.
“I trusted you and waited all this time. But I can’t do it anymore. I’m bringing Jia back to our team.”
“Then Personal Color will disband!”
“It’s a team that should’ve been dissolved two years ago anyway, wasn’t it? Jia’s been holding onto failed projects out of sheer attachment!”
“Kang San!”
A shout loud enough to startle Seon-ho, who was standing outside the door, rang out.
Thankfully, there was no one around the meeting room.
“Failed projects?! How can you talk about our own singers like that!”
Although Kang flinched at Kwon’s outburst, he didn’t stop.
“Chief Kwon. Be honest. Have any of them even charted on a music show ranking in the past three years? Have they charted in digital sales? Have they even been invited to variety shows?”
“……”
“No popularity, no digital sales, no success in variety shows—what are we supposed to do?”
“So what? Are you saying we should just give up? If we give up now, there’s no coming back. They’ll lose their chance forever!”
“Chance? Chief Kwon, you know better than anyone. You must have tried everything to get them booked on shows, to push their digital sales. But it hasn’t worked, has it?”
“……”
“If there was even a glimmer of possibility, I would’ve waited. But even Juicy flopped off the charts. You said next week is their last scheduled music show appearance, right? What am I supposed to hold out hope for?”
“……”
“University festivals? Even those gigs are only coming because of Jia, aren’t they? But the profits are still being split.”
Every word pierced Kwon Hosan like a blade.
The truth was, he knew Team Leader Kang was absolutely right.
He knew it was no longer sustainable.
But if Jia moved back to the actor team now, Personal Color would officially be stamped as a failure.
He couldn’t quite explain it, but lately, he felt a faint glimmer of hope.
It wasn’t time to give up yet.
He just needed something—anything—to justify holding on.
But no matter how hard he racked his brain, nothing came to mind.
At that moment—
“I didn’t mean to eavesdrop, I’m really sorry.”
Someone entered the meeting room.
“Who is it?”
“Hello. I’m Han Seon-ho, the new manager assigned to Personal Color.”
Seon-ho bowed to the startled Team Leader Kang.
“Ah, you’re that…”
Team Leader Kang frowned belatedly, realizing he’d thought Seon-ho was a celebrity.
“Why were you eavesdropping on your superiors’ conversation?”
“The door was open, so…”
“Sorry, Kang. The meeting room door still isn’t fixed.”
Kwon gestured apologetically at Kang.
It was true — the door to the singers’ meeting room hadn’t been closing properly for a while now.
“But seriously, kid, why’d you come in? You should’ve just quietly shut the door and left. Don’t you have any sense?”
Chief Kwon snapped at Seon-ho loud enough for Kang to hear.
Since his direct superior was already scolding the new guy, Kang couldn’t say much more.
“Anyway, Kang, let’s talk later. We’ve got a lot of university festivals to get to today. Okay?”
“Senior — no, Chief. I’m submitting my proposal.”
“Let’s talk about it later.”
“No. I’m not letting this slide today.”
“It’s not about brushing it off. I’m just saying I’m busy right now.”
“That’s brushing it off. If you want to persuade me, show me some convincing potential.”
Chief Kwon’s face grew grim.
He had dodged a few times before, and now it looked like Team Leader Kang had come fully prepared.
Then Chief Kwon heard something that made his blood boil.
“From outside, I heard you say you need clear potential, right, Team Leader Kang?”
“Yeah. Something obvious. Not vague.”
“I agree. Vague possibilities won’t cut it. So, what level would be enough?”
“One of the things I mentioned earlier. Either clear popularity, strong digital sales…”
“Or successful variety show appearances?”
“Exactly.”
Thinking this new kid was finally being helpful, Kang nodded.
“What counts as successful? These days, there are internet variety shows, cable shows…”
“That won’t do. It has to be an A-list cable show or a public network program.”
“Yeah, it would have to be at that level.”
Seon-ho nodded.
Chief Kwon muttered under his breath, glaring at Seon-ho.
“Stop messing around and keep quiet.”
This time, it wasn’t a staged outburst — it was real anger.
Seon-ho met Chief Kwon’s eyes.
His eyes were smiling.
And then Seon-ho spoke.
“A pilot program for KBM, running for eight weeks—would that be good enough?”
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