Episode 21. Grand Debut (1)
It has already been a year since Kang Yera officially signed a contract with Irowool Entertainment.
Kang Yera, who advanced to the second grade of elementary school, began preparing for her debut, going in and out of the company with her manager during that time.
Kang Yera’s original plan was to debut immediately once the songs were ready after joining Irowool Entertainment.
However, a big problem arose in the middle.
It was.
“Irowool was much more disappointing than we expected.”
At a suddenly convened family meeting, Kang Yera launched an unexpected critique.
Kang Dae-oh didn’t quite understand Kang Yera’s words.
“Didn’t we support Irowool because we saw its future growth potential? Even if the company was difficult in the beginning, everything would eventually work out later. That’s why we went with them, right?”
Plus, Kang Dae-oh also liked the mindset of the CEO there.
Thanks to these factors, Kang Yera chose Irowool.
Because it was the early days of the company’s establishment.
She thought all of this had already been taken into account when she joined.
But there was a problem.
“Much, much, much, much, MUCH worse than my lowest expectations! The company’s situation was really bad.”
Just looking at the shabby building, it seemed so.
Kang Yebin let out a deep sigh at her unnie’s belated regret.
“See? I told you. I said Dandelion would probably be better. You could have built up some recognition by piggybacking on Dandelion during your early debut. Then later, you could re-debut as a solo artist, or move to another agency and continue your activities. Wouldn’t either of those options have been better, unnie?”
Unnie’s problem is that she’s too short-sighted.
Kang Yebin was pointing this out.
If it had been the usual Kang Yera, she would have immediately flared up.
This time, however, she maintained silence, seemingly acknowledging that her dongsaeng’s words were entirely correct.
But she couldn’t terminate the contract with Irowool now and go on an audition tour again.
Because that would build up a bad image even before her debut.
“Since it’s already happened, we should think about the best possible move in this situation.”
“What kind of debut do the company and unnie want?”
“As grand as possible!”
She wanted to have a debut stage that would immediately attract a lot of attention and focus from the very beginning of her debut.
However, there was a problem.
Irowool couldn’t immediately create a debut stage opportunity at the level Kang Yera had just described.
So, even though Kang Yera had enough skill to debut soon, her debut date was continuously being postponed indefinitely.
Given the situation, it was no longer just Kang Yera’s concern.
That’s why the whole family came out.
Min Seung-yeon, who hadn’t been able to join the conversation until now, finally asked Kang Yera.
“You said you’d debut as a solo artist, right?”
“Yes. After trying group activities, I think solo activities are better for me. I couldn’t openly mention it before my regression, but the group atmosphere wasn’t always good.”
That’s why Kang Yera didn’t try to find members who were in the same group as her when she went to auditions.
In fact, she even showed signs of wanting to erase them from her mind.
When the topic of her former members came up after a long time,
Kang Yera vented the residual anger she still held.
“Thinking about that time after so long makes me angry again. I mean, they called it a group, and then when one member seemed to get a bit popular, everyone started moving around her. I couldn’t help but get angry.”
The gap between popular members and those called “background” members is a shortcut to discriminatory treatment from the company.
Kang Yera herself had experienced that.
That’s why she thought solo was better this time.
She had deliberately moved to a different agency for this very reason.
She never expected to encounter yet another problem.
Kang Yebin asked further.
“So what did the company decide to do? Unnie, they said your skills for solo debut are already fully verified. All they need to do is debut you. You can’t just keep waiting for the right timing until a good opportunity comes, can you?”
Currently, Irowool had not a single artist who was properly making money for them.
Only deficits, deficits, deficits.
Just a procession of minuses.
At this rate, the company might go bankrupt before Kang Yera even debuts.
The situation was that bad.
Kang Yera asked her dongsaengs directly.
“Do you guys have any good ideas?”
At her unnie’s request for help, Kang Yeyoung raised a question.
“Why are you asking us that?”
Perhaps because she was a bit older, her pronunciation had improved to some extent now.
To her youngest dongsaeng’s question, Kang Yera replied:
“Your regression point is later than mine, so you’d know more information.”
Kang Yeyoung shook her head slightly.
“What unnie needs right now isn’t the far-future knowledge we have, but information that can actually help unnie right now. You’re not debuting decades from now.”
A precise point.
Thanks to Kang Yeyoung’s sharp advice, the family once again fell into a swamp of contemplation.
Is there no good idea?
At this moment, Kang Dae-oh casually let slip a remark.
“When you watch audition programs, it seems like trainees debut getting a lot of spotlight.”
“……?”
The daughters’ gazes simultaneously fixed on Kang Dae-oh.
Kang Dae-oh said to his daughters with a wry smile.
“I just said it, so don’t take it too seriously.”
Unlike Kang Dae-oh, who asked them to take it lightly,
His three daughters did not.
“Appa. That’s a good idea, isn’t it?”
“It’s a totally nice, Jesus, gorgeous idea!”
“There was such a method! I had completely forgotten about it!”
Starting with Kang Yebin, Kang Yera, and even the youngest,
They showered Kang Dae-oh’s single idea, which he had just uttered, with endless praises.
Perhaps not expecting his daughters to react so positively, Kang Dae-oh was simply flustered by the situation.
Still, it was true that Kang Dae-oh had given great help to his daughters, one way or another.
‘It’s a relief… right?’
His fatherly dignity could be maintained a little.
Thanks to Kang Dae-oh, who dropped the crucial hint of an audition program, Irowool’s project to debut Kang Yera gained rapid momentum.
First, they needed information on whether there were any broadcasting stations preparing to launch an audition program.
Originally, company officials would have had to mobilize all their connections to find this out.
However, when it came to matters related to Kang Yera, there was no need for that.
Because,
All three sisters, including Kang Yera, already knew everything through their future knowledge.
What programs would become popular in the future and how.
For them, who had already personally grasped everything before their regression, figuring out when a survival audition program that their young unnie could appear in would come out was as easy as pie.
Coincidentally, a program that would later receive a good response from viewers was in preparation.
Kang Yera subtly leaked information about the program to CEO Song Jin-hoon.
Thanks to this, she was able to apply early to the survival audition program, ‘On The Stage’.
‘On The Stage’ is a cable channel entertainment program that gathers talented individuals who claim to be able to sing and selects the best among them.
Starting with Season 1, which is opening now, it is expected to gain great popularity, being produced up to Season 7.
However, during the production of Season 1, the overall opinion within the broadcasting company was more skeptical about the success of ‘On The Stage’.
Perhaps because of that,
The responsible PD was extremely happy when Kang Yera, who was preparing for a solo idol debut, said she would participate.
This was because the more skilled participants there were, the higher the quality of the audition program would be.
However, that didn’t mean she got a free pass to the interview.
Even if the production team had high expectations, they still had to do what was necessary to avoid suspicions of preferential treatment.
Today was.
The day of that interview.
But before that, there was something essential to do.
Kang Dae-oh looked for Choi Sein.
“Sein-ssi.”
“Yes, boss.”
“I have something to do for a bit. I’ll be away from my desk.”
“Understood. Are you going far?”
“No.”
Kang Dae-oh pointed to the side of the store.
“I’m going to stop by Myung-woon’s hair salon. If something urgent comes up, it’ll probably be faster to come here and find me than to call or text.”
Because it was just a stone’s throw away.
Kang Dae-oh’s words might actually be true.
Kang Dae-oh, having informed Choi Sein of his destination, hurried to Oh Myung-woon’s shop as if he was being chased.
Upon arriving at the shop, Oh Myung-woon, who was in the middle of dyeing a female customer’s hair, welcomed his friend’s visit.
“You came, brother.”
“You seem very busy.”
“It only looks that way from the outside; it’s not really that chaotic. But why? Want to have some coffee together?”
Oh Myung-woon always welcomed coffee time with his friend.
It was also just when he was craving coffee.
However, the reason Kang Dae-oh visited today was not to enjoy a leisurely cup of coffee.
“Could you perhaps do one customer’s hair later?”
“What? To boost my sales? I’m always thankful for that. Who is it? Your wife?”
“My eldest daughter.”
“Yera? Got it. Not difficult.”
Oh Myung-woon occasionally cut the hair of Kang Dae-oh’s family, including Kang Dae-oh himself.
At first, when his friend asked him if he could cut the hair of young children, Oh Myung-woon wasn’t very confident.
Babies and adults. This was because the difficulty gap in cutting hair for babies versus adults was enormous.
It was common for them to burst into tears if they didn’t like it even a little.
So, at one point, he was incredibly worried.
However, once he actually did it, it ended so smoothly that he felt foolish for worrying.
Kang Dae-oh’s children, who had never cried even once.
So Oh Myung-woon even wondered if he might be a hairdresser specialized in cutting children’s hair.
But he clearly realized this was a huge misconception when he cut other children’s hair.
They were crying and making a huge fuss.
It was Kang Dae-oh’s daughters who were exceptionally well-behaved.
Thanks to this experience, Oh Myung-woon tended to immediately say okay if it was about cutting the hair of Kang Dae-oh’s three daughters.
Once Oh Myung-woon gave his approval, Kang Dae-oh said he understood and contacted someone.
A short while later,
A woman he had never seen before brought Kang Yera to Oh Myung-woon’s hair salon.
“Hello! I’m Hong Yuna, Yera’s manager.”
Oh Myung-woon, taken aback, received the business card she offered.
He had already heard from Kang Dae-oh that Kang Yera had passed an audition and was with an agency.
But he hadn’t expected her to bring a manager even for a simple haircut.
Oh Myung-woon clapped his hands briefly with an “Ah!” expression.
“So, Manager-nim, you also came to get your hair cut with Yera!”
It made no sense without that interpretation.
This was the conclusion Oh Myung-woon reached.
However, Hong Yuna shook her head and said:
“Yera is going for an audition program interview later. We were told it would be good to get her hair styled here before going. So that’s why we came.”
“Huh?”
Oh Myung-woon looked back and forth between Kang Dae-oh and Kang Yera with a bewildered expression.
And then he asked:
“Why here at my hair salon…?”
Why they came to a common neighborhood hair salon for styling instead of the shops celebrities usually go to.
Oh Myung-woon was both flustered and incredibly curious.
