Chapter 124

“...Huh?”

The screen changed.

The setting was the living room of what looked like a quiet private home.

All six members of Young Ace were seated around a low table.

On the whiteboard behind them, the following had been scrawled in rough handwriting.

Young Ace Emergency Strategy Meeting

(a.k.a. NEW Song Camp)

Cha Yensu looked around the room once and murmured with a smile,

“Feels like we went back about ten years....”

Half the screen overlaid his face from ten years ago.

Just as he had said, there was barely any difference.

Then Baek Hanje, seated at the head of the table, rapped his knuckles against it.

“Okay, attention!”

The other five members turned toward their assertive youngest.

“Everyone. A blank slate also means anything is possible, right?”

“Yeees.”

“We’ll need a more in-depth discussion for the group tracks, so for now, tell me what concept each of you wants for your solo. I’ll produce it for you with the new, reborn version of Hansel. Young Ace is all together, so what could possibly be impossible!”

The fan’s heart broke even more at the sight of him delivering words no one could possibly say so casually with such determined cheer.

The members in the video showered him with praise.

“Wow, our youngest is so cool.”

“Our producer is the best.”

“You’ll really do anything?”

“Of course. Yensu, was there a concept you wanted to try?”

“Then should I trust Hanje and say it?”

Cha Yensu smiled brightly, like spring flowers bursting into bloom.

“Dirty sexy.”

“...?”

“I’m over thirty now, so I thought I’d finally give it a try.”

“Uh....”

Baek Hanje’s expression subtly shifted into something that clearly said, This isn’t what I meant...?

He tapped the tip of his ballpoint pen against his forehead for a long moment, then lifted his head with grim determination.

“...Okay, sure! Something with a Hong Kong noir vibe... a dangerous, muddy kind of atmosphere... I think I can somehow make that work!”

“Wow, our genius producer actually managed to save that one.”

“Next. Yeban, what do you want to do?”

“Hmm... I’ve played so many different roles through acting that I can’t really think of a concept I specifically want. Can I listen to everyone else first and then decide?”

That made sense.

Kim Yeban had already played everything from a hopelessly devoted romantic lead to a completely deranged lunatic.

“Okay. On hold for now. Next.”

Baek Hanje turned his gaze to Yunjin, who was sitting beside Kim Yeban.

Yunjin spoke with an excited expression, as if he had been waiting for his turn.

“I-I know! I’ve always wanted to play a bad guy...!”

“?”

“Like, a total piece-of-shit bastard concept!”

...said the idol industry’s king of charitable donations and icon of volunteer work.

“Should I ignore that or not?”

“...Isn’t that usually the kind of thing you only think to yourself?”

“Good grief.”

Baek Hanje did jot it down in his notebook.

His handwriting was so careless it looked like he considered it barely worth remembering.

“Next... Bangwon.”

Baek Hanje appeared to place what little hope he had left in the rapper least capable of joking around.

“A cappella.”

“Excuse me?”

“Six-part harmony, featuring Young Ace.”

“...What happened to your number-one-in-Korean-hip-hop spirit?”

“True hip-hop is about challenging yourself.”

“.......”

The genius producer stared at the ceiling with a dizzy expression.

After going all the way around, it was finally Kwon Taeyoung’s turn.

Kwon Taeyoung smiled, his face now carrying the fully matured air of an adult man.

“Fresh and youthful.”

“Have some shame, old man!”

In the end, Baek Hanje flipped the meeting table.

We Are Coming Back Anyway -And with that, Episode 0 ended.

The fan sat there stunned for a moment, then slowly dragged the playback bar backward.

They needed time to verify whether the parade of insanity they had just witnessed was actually real.

And the moment they confirmed they had not imagined it, they burst into the laughter they had been holding back.

? No~! Kwon Taeyoung is K-Dom’s division head and the strongest leader, the pillar of Young Ace, Cha Yensu is the second of the two oldest members who wraps Kwon Taeyoung’s bluntness in kindness, and Hansel is the genius producer of the century—fuck it, yeah, they’ve always been like this

?? Young Ace Girl, you should’ve held out just a little longer, how could you expose the whole scam already^-?

? ?? Wasn’t Hanje just being used as an excuse here?

...

***

“I’m fucking dying.”

Baek Hanje looked exactly like his words suggested.

He staggered along the wall like a zombie until he reached the front door, his eyes so exhausted that the whites beneath his irises stood out even more.

Dark shadows hung beneath his bloodshot eyes, making his already delinquent-looking face even more vicious.

The moment he saw his housemate stiffen from head to toe, he beckoned him over.

“Gowon. Drive me to the company.”

Gowon thought,

Is that really what you say to someone you kissed out of nowhere a few days ago and haven’t seen since?

In the end, all that came out of his unfairly opening and closing mouth was,

“...It’s only ten minutes by car.”

“What if I take a taxi, the driver recognizes me as Hansel from Young Ace, and kidnaps me?”

“.......”

Gowon exhaled twice, then turned back toward his room.

A moment later, he came out wearing a black baseball cap pulled low.

Before the distance between them could shrink, Gowon pressed down the brim to hide his face.

But his own cheeks felt hot enough that Hanje had surely already seen how blotchy and flushed he was.

“.......”

Baek Hanje, meanwhile, walked right past him with perfect ease, as if nothing had happened.

When they arrived at the company, Hanje headed straight for the studio.

Two Young Ace members were already there.

And there was one more familiar face that Gowon was happy to see.

“Damn it... I can’t believe I’m back after only three months....”

“You’re not technically back. Young Ace hired you as a freelancer.”

Former Team Leader Shin, currently Shin Namwon... freelance visual director.

He had been resting in a distant country when he heard about Hansel getting hacked and nearly had a heart attack.

Namwon

Hey Hansel, are you okay?

What the hell happened? You got hacked?

The instant Baek Hanje received the worried messages, his eyes lit up.

Then he handed his phone to the member who was better than anyone else at writing sentimental messages.

Capture him alive.

...Did you capture me like this at that festival too, baby?

And so, Shin Namwon panicked after receiving Yunjin’s damp-eyed reply beginning with, Ah... I have to be okay. I’m trying to get better... and hurriedly returned to Korea.

The moment he got back, he was effectively detained inside the K-Dom building and thrown into preparations for Young Ace’s new album.

From the outside, Young Ace’s seventh full album looked like a spectacular return to the throne.

In reality, inside Miracle Label, all six members and the working staff were running themselves ragged every single day.

And Hansel’s studio, the central hub of the music production, was inevitably always crowded.

Today, not only Gowon but also Nam Jeongho and Eden of Newton, both of whom had developed an interest in producing after the competition, had been given a chance to observe at Kwon Taeyoung’s recommendation.

The first person scheduled to record was Kim Yeban.

Before stepping into the booth, Kim Yeban looked over the youngest member’s gaunt face with concern.

“Baby, are you really okay? How are you supposed to stand onstage like this?”

“I’m fine. I have a plan.”

“What plan...?”

“I finish recording and mixing the remaining B-sides in four of the next twenty days, sleep for forty-eight hours, then spend two weeks learning the choreography and getting my body back in shape.”

“Oh dear....”

Apparently deciding it was impossible to stop him despite feeling sorry for him, Kim Yeban merely patted Baek Hanje on the head once before entering the recording booth.

After confirming that Kim Yeban had put on the headphones, Baek Hanje pressed the talkback button.

“Can you hear me clearly?”

Yeees.“Yep. Thank you for confirming. We’ll begin recording. Just sing straight through from the beginning of your part.”

Understooood.The way the two of them spoke suddenly became rigidly formal despite having been chatting so familiarly just moments before.

Seeing the juniors’ confusion, Yunjin, who was sitting with them on the sofa, explained.

“Rule number one between Young Ace members is that we speak formally during recording. It’s so we respect each other and nobody gets offended.”

“Wow, that’s really great. You really are professionals.”

Beside the impressed Newton members, Gowon understood the context on a much deeper level.

Well, considering how demanding Hanje was when he recorded my song....

As a merciless artist, Hanje had extremely high standards.

That was also why anything that passed his approval ended up with an extraordinary level of polish.

Of course, perhaps he had been harder on Gowon because Gowon was his junior, but Hanje probably would not go easy on the members either.

Still, since he was the youngest, surely he wouldn’t tell his older members things like Again. Again.

“Stop.”

Baek Hanje abruptly cut the song off mid-recording.

“Actor Kim Yeban.”

...Is this part of the formal-speech rule too?

Judging by the sulky look covering Kim Yeban’s face, apparently not.

Why are you calling me thaaat?“Oh, I was wondering whether you’d quit being a singer and switched over to acting full-time. Are you kidding me right now?”

Every junior witnessing the savage criticism froze solid.

All three pairs of trembling eyes dropped toward the floor.

Producer, you’re so meeean.“What exactly is mean? You showing me your singing for the first time in about three years and sounding like this is much meaner to me. Your mouth isn’t warmed up at all. Go do ten lip trills and come back. And the third line—what did I tell you in the message yesterday? When you express this part....”

Only the grammar was polite.

The atmosphere was vicious enough that no one would have been surprised if a fight broke out on the spot.

Gowon revised his earlier thought.

Was he actually going easy on me during my recording...?

At that moment, Yunjin shifted over among the terrified juniors and patted their backs.

“They’re not fighting. They’re not fighting. Don’t worry.”

“Ah....”

“They already... did all the fighting years ago....”

The empty look in Yunjin’s eyes as he gazed at the members seemed steeped in memories from some distant past that he did not especially miss.

Once Baek Hanje started producing for Young Ace, he truly showed no mercy.

“Division Head Kwon Taeyoung. I guess executive work suited you?”

...I’ll do it again.Even Kwon Taeyoung, the oldest, was no exception.

Despite suffering an outrageous reversal of hierarchy at the hands of the youngest member, he obediently followed the instruction to record it again.

Youngest-on-top.

When it came to producing, the term was no exaggeration at all.