“Are you ready?”
“Yeah―!!!”
Everyone screamed at the top of their lungs over the flashy start. Kim Won looked towards the people, who answered his question, and spun around once, feeling the cheering from where he was standing. The audience made even more noise over his reaction.
“We didn’t know that this many people would come!”
Ahn Hyung Seo, who was passed the microphone, said with an expression full of emotion.
The size of Central Park, located in the center of the city, was incredibly big. Despite that, the various entrances to Central Park were paralyzed by the crowd that had gathered to watch the performance.
They wondered just how many people would come, but, seeing it with their own eyes, it was enormous.
According to the estimate at the time of admission, it was about 10,000 people. Central Park was ringing loudly with their cheers.
Even now, there were many people at the entrance running to see KK.
As originally planned, the announcement for the time and location was posted one hour before. It was hard for anyone to believe that they were able to gather 10,000 people in one hour.
It was always a precious moment, but because there had been an incident that had prevented them from being on stage, the moment was even more touching.
Most of them were local fans. Ahn Hyung Seo, wanting to personally convey how thankful he was, kept repeating, ‘Thank you’.
Do Wook was handed the microphone from Ahn Hyung Seo.
When Do Wook grabbed the microphone, there was an unexplainable excitement in the crowd.
Even in America, Do Wook’s popularity was substantial.
His face was definitely one that is liked everywhere. On top of that, he could sing and dance. He was perfect, without a flaw.
Do Wook’s acceptance speech at the Billboard Awards and the message he posted recently deeply touched the hearts of overseas fans, and they started to like the ‘person’ Do Wook.
Furthermore, there were people who liked Do Wook as the artist who composed the song for LIL, and the enthusiastic affection of Asian residents who watched ‘ Sweetheart from the Universe’ played a part as well.
“Everyone.”
Do Wook started his greeting in Korean.
Of course he could have done the greeting in English. However, at least for this event, he wanted to emphasize his identity as a singer who came from Korea even more. He meant that he would not cower because of the person who had sent the threatening message to them or the many other racists.
‘We’re not going to run away from it. It’s you guys who need to stop discriminating.’
He wanted to firmly convey that idea.
At the same time, Do Wook had to consider the people who came to the venue and had to communicate with them, so he said it in English after he was done saying it in Korean.
He was acting as his own translator.
“It was one week, but…it feels like so much time has passed. Sorry for making you wait long.”
As soon as Do Wook finished speaking, there was a resounding ‘No’ from all around.
They meant he didn’t have to be sorry.
Among them, you could also hear Korean fans yell, ‘It’s ok!’
There were Korean fans who had come abroad to study or had immigrated, but there were also Korean fans who had flown to New York and were waiting for KK’s New York performance that they didn’t know the date and time for.
About six of the fans who ran KK’s fan site got hotels as a group, figuring out food and lodging in New York as they solely waited for the day of KK’s guerilla performance.
Do Wook briefly looked at the area where the shout “it’s ok” came from.
There were over 10,000 people in the audience, but they were in the front row so they were within Do Wook’s eyesight.
He was thankful to local fans too, but their passion was amazing so Do Wook smiled towards the camera they were holding.
“ZOMG.”
The fan’s hands, which were holding the camera, trembled when Do Wook shot a smile at them head on.
‘Oh my gosh! Do Wook looked this way!”
They were so surprised and happy that they wanted to scream, but they couldn’t have their voice get on the recording so they tried to keep their mouths shut.
The fans, who had flown here from Korea and were recording a video of the performance, even felt a sense of duty.
These performances were going to be broadcast later as a part of ‘COME HERE’ so there were no other live broadcasts.
They wanted to share even a little bit of it with the numerous fans who couldn’t watch it live and had to wait until it broadcast to ease the disappointment of not being able to see KK in person.
It wasn’t just the fans who were recording the performance. Some of the world’s leading media, including the American ones, and a few Korean media showed up to cover the performance.
It was the first performance since the terrorist threat, so the attention was enormous. Whether or not the performance would be successful was going to be on the news.
Thanks to the popularity, even ordinary American citizens, who don’t really know what K-POP is or who KK is, joined the procession of people heading to Central Park.
For young and middle-aged White Americans, going to KK’s performance became a symbolic act against ‘discrimination’.
Of course KK was a group that had enough charm to turn even those people into their fans through today’s performance.
The performance the KK members had prepared was more than enough to accomplish that.
“We’ll do our best to give you a performance you won’t regret. Please enjoy!”
Do Wook spoke in a lively voice. As the remarks wrapped up and it was time for the song to start, Do Wook’s heart also seemed to beat fast.
Jung Yoon Ki, who was given the microphone last, yelled, ‘Thank you!’ in a refreshing way.
Along with Jung Yoon Ki’s signal, the prelude for ‘Connection’ played.
The members quickly got into formation on stage.
“Oh, my gosh!”
“Woooooowwww―!!!”
“Kyaaaaa―!!!”
Once again, an incredible cheering that could be heard all the way to the Statue of Liberty poured out.
“We keep going forward―!”
Almost like the song lyrics, the audience kept entering, even now when the song had started. Once the song started, people’s footsteps became more urgent.
The stage wasn’t visible from the back row anymore, but people were still gathering endlessly.
Manager Oh Baek Ho and Album Production Team Leader Shim Joon, who were in the reserved area on the outskirts of the stage, exchanged their thoughts as they observed the scene.
“Gee…They’re like the pied piper.”
Manager Oh Baek Ho said first as he looked towards the entrance. Team Leader Shim Joon replied.
“We can’t go around saying we raised them anymore. It’d be burdensome.”
“Let’s say they raised themselves.”
“Haha. That’s a good idea.”
The two of them watched the performance, trying hard to hide that they were getting choked up.
“We go on, We go―!”
The members’ expressions as they were dancing were very bright.
The endless rush of the audience, the voices responding back to them, the music that they had made themselves: they seemed happy.
***
“I heard the President’s health got worse.”
“I guess it wasn’t just false rumors that Director Seo will be appointed as President after the board of directors’ meeting next month.”
Ara Entertainment corporate office 7th floor employee break room.
A drowsy afternoon. The accounting team members at Ara Entertainment were whispering among themselves as they dispensed coffee from the vending machine.
Through a phone call from the Accounting Team Leader, they had learned that the health of the current President of Ara Entertainment, who was President in name only, had gotten worse.
Within the company, there were many people who already considered Director Seo Joong Won as the President.
“The Team Leader must be happy. He’s in the Director Seo faction too, isn’t he?”
“Yeah. Oh, then I wonder if our team will get a windfall.”
“Well. We just need to run the numbers well. There’s a Team Leader on the Planning team that isn’t on good terms with Director Seo, isn’t there? Sucks for them.”
“Ah, yeah…that…strong-willed person. That person doesn’t match well with Director Seo. Director Seo likes people who are…kind of soft. Even Division Head Chung has no power these days because he doesn’t get along with Director Seo.”
“He likes people who’ll openly kiss up to him. If you get on his nerves he’ll squish you like a bug.”
“Assistant Manager Kim, do you want to leave the company?”
“No…it’s just, everything is heavily controlled by what one person says, so what’s the point of having a system.”
“Ah, you said your college friend is on Planning Team 2, right? They must have a lot of complaints right now.”
“Yeah, well. If he fully becomes the President…you think he really will be President?”
“He’s practically already President anyways. If the new group does well on top of that, it’s set in stone.”
“And if it doesn’t go well?”
“If it doesn’t go well? Hmmm, he already messed up once during M2M, so…Department Head Chung would have a weakness to exploit.”
Assistant Manager Kim had an expression that seemed to say, ‘I hope that happens”. The other person shook their head and said,
“Hey, if you’re an employee, let’s just hope for the company to do well, ok? And don’t go around making it obvious that you don’t like Director Seo.”
“I don’t. I don’t have anywhere to vent anyways. Let’s just go to the roof and smoke.”
“I’m down. You can’t smoke indoors so the breakroom is useless too…”
The two people were leaving the breakroom talking about trivial things.
Just then, Director Seo Joong Won and his secretary passed by in the hallway.
The two were a little embarrassed because they were talking about him just now, whether it was good or bad, but the two quickly bowed their heads and said hello to Director Seo Joong Won.
With a greasy smile on his face, Director Seo Joong Won said, “keep up the good work,” then passed the hallway.
“You look like you’re in a really good mood…”
“Yeah.”
The two of them watched Director Seo Joong Won walk away, slightly uncomfortable expressions on their faces.
It was inevitable that Director Seo Joong Won was in a good mood.
‘Valentine’’s debut was tomorrow. Also, a date was set for a board of directors’ meeting regarding the appointment of a President. It was next month.
If it was a month after the debut, it would be a short period of time, but rookies from Ara Entertainment had achieved a certain level of success within one month.
M2M also had great sales records within one month as a rookie. Though, of course, all that had become nothing because of KK.
Among the large agencies around, there were no female idol group debuts or comeback schedules for the time being, and the current female idol fandom was back to a Warring States-like era without a large fandom.
It was a very good time to create a 1st place group.
‘President. It took longer than I thought it would to get to this point. I got my hands dirty a lot too,’
Director Seo Joong Won thought, a greasy smile on his face.
He wasn’t one to realize that rather than him getting his own hands dirty, he had gotten his people to do the dirty work much more often.
***
The next day.
The members of Valentine were gathered in the waiting room, about to have their debut performance.
Unlike other rookies, who had to gather with various other groups and share the waiting room, the waiting room for Valentine, who had come to the station for the first time today, was very pleasant.
It was because they were only sharing with one person, Oh Bin of M2M, who was currently the MC of ‘Life Song’. Even then, Oh Bin was constantly away because he had MC rehearsal, or had to visit other fellow singers’ dressing rooms, etc.
“Unni*! There’s wrinkles on the clothes here!”
(TL Note: How females refer to older females. Normally I would translate it as “hey” or their name, but their name wasn’t provided and “hey” would come across as very rude.)
Only the Valentine members and the staff were in the waiting room. The voice of Valentine’s leader, Han Yae Ri, rang sharply.
“Huh?”
The coordinator ran over and checked the clothes Han Yae Rin was shaking. They were inevitable wrinkles that naturally happen due to the type of material.
“You need to take better care of the clothes.”
“Ah, sorry, sorry. I’ll iron it for you.”
“Ok. Please do it quickly.”
The Valentine members, including Han Yae Ri, were all 19 or 20, younger than the coordinator who was 23, but were dealing with the coordinator without difficulty.
At that moment, someone knocked on the waiting room door. When the manager for Valentine answered, the waiting room door opened and a young woman who looked to be the same age as Valentine peeked her head in.
“Ummm…We came by to say hi to you, sunbae…”
They had come to say hi to M2M’s Oh Bin.
It was ‘Young Women’, who was to share a debut stage with Valentine today.
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