Free Web NovelIam’s trip to New York wrapped up well.
- Great work. Rest well today, and starting tomorrow, let’s get back to work. Our comeback is right around the corner, so please understand that we can’t give separate vacation time.
- No, sir. Thank you. That alone is enough.
- But last time, at dawn—no, it would’ve been daytime over there. What on earth was that text that said, 'That was absolutely not me, sir'...?
- I-it... it was nothing! Please forget it!!!
There had been something a little suspicious, but since all of Iam’s members and all the staff who went to New York returned safely and healthy, it was definitely a schedule that ended well.
I still hadn’t seen it, but they said the music video shoot finished without problems, and the content team members were smiling too, saying the content they decided to film while they were in New York also came out well.
Now, really, now—there were no problems as long as they got through Iam’s comeback schedule, which was basically right in front of them.
All the company employees knew that, so everyone was working hard for a perfect comeback.
"Yes, that broadcast schedule is possible then. Of course. If you call us then, we can go out right away."
"I’d like to adjust the sizing a little more on the outfits you sent last time."
"You have to finish packing the album goods by this week so we can hand them over to the distributor on our end."
When you saw everyone working day and night for Iam’s comeback, even Sanghyeok, the CEO, naturally felt like he needed to do something too.
Even if he lacked knowledge about idols and the entertainment industry and couldn’t help directly, he couldn’t be the one holding things back.
So whenever he had time, Sanghyeok was turning Iam’s statistical figures into data and studying the latest music industry trends as topics.
'After the July comeback, once the four-week promotion period ends, Three Kingdoms starts right away. Since it’d be a waste to miss the university festivals in the second half of the year, I guess September and October won’t be rest months either.'
University festivals, which they sadly couldn’t attend in the first half of the year because it overlapped with their promotion period, were an important part of idol activities, so it felt like a shame to miss them in the second half.
And that wasn’t all.
- Please get Iam on our show!
For some reason, Iam’s members were getting an unusually large number of love calls from all kinds of variety shows.
Especially Lee Sion.
Variety show PDs were saying that if they just let Lee Sion appear, they would play Iam’s song music video at the ending of the program, starting with ads Iam appeared in.
'It’s true Iam’s YouTube got huge.'
Not only were the reactions extremely good on the few variety shows Iam had appeared on before, the original YouTube content the content team was uploading every week while practically grinding themselves down was pulling in enormous popularity.
Thanks to that, popular variety programs that, in the past, they had to swallow their drool over because there were no invitations even if they wanted to appear were now sending casting offers first, to the point where it was difficult just deciding which ones to go on and adjusting the schedule.
While Sanghyeok steadily thought through how to adjust the schedule in a way that could benefit Iam more and searched through materials—
Sanghyeok noticed something strange.
"What is it?"
While looking through Iam’s YouTube channel to check comment reactions, Sanghyeok caught a peculiar point, and without realizing it, the words slipped out.
Usually, Iam’s YouTube content view counts were in the hundreds of thousands, and if it was a lot, they even passed a million.
But those view counts, compared to when he checked a few days ago, were each up by anywhere from tens of thousands to nearly a hundred thousand.
Especially the debut song music video for "Something Feels Like It’s About to Start"—he couldn’t know the exact number, but it looked like it had increased a lot more.
Of course, video views going up was a natural thing, but in a situation where they had no particular activities because they were busy preparing for the comeback, the view count was rising too suddenly.
This was increasing as fast as when Iam was in an active promotion period—no, even faster than that.
Knock knock.
Just as Sanghyeok fell into thought, wondering what on earth was going on, there came the sound of someone knocking on the CEO office door.
"Yes, come in."
Creeeak.
As soon as Sanghyeok answered that it was fine to come in, the door opened, and the person who appeared was none other than content team leader Lee Hakyeon.
Sanghyeok had been about to call Lee Hakyeon to ask about the YouTube views anyway, so the timing was perfect.
"CEO, can you check YouTube right now?"
"I’m looking at it right now."
"Is that so? Have you seen the comments?" frёewebnoѵel.ƈo๓
"The comments? No. I was about to check the comments, but something else caught my eye for a moment."
"Please check them once!"
Hakyeon’s voice was excited in a strange way.
Sanghyeok scrolled down from the screen that had been fixed on view counts and checked the comments.
"This is..."
What came into view were the newest comments written in various languages—not Korean.
***
"Jackpot! Nayeon, look at this! The views went up again already."
"Suyeon, how many times a day are you checking the views?"
Even at Nayeon’s scolding that sounded sick of it, Suyeon couldn’t take her eyes off the smartphone screen.
[IAM Central Park stage video]
(A video of Iam members performing on stage in Central Park)
Views: 6,320,332 Likes: 120,000
↳Hard to believe girls this young are doing choreography that intense
↳Koreans surprise me every time. Last time it was some ridiculous person doing a horse dance, and now angel-like girls are dancing like Michael Jackson
↳This is live, right? How can they sing while dancing like that?
↳I watch this whenever I have time these days. Looking at the girls’ faces on stage gives me energy
↳Can someone upload subtitles for the lyrics?
↳(link address) Go here and you can see the music video and English subtitles
↳These singers are called Iam, and if you search their YouTube channel it comes up right away, so go check it out. Their content is really fun
↳I agree. A few days ago I followed this video to the channel, and I ended up watching their content for days
It was about a week ago, maybe. Suyeon happened to see a video of Iam members’ Central Park stage that was uploaded to YouTube by chance.
Even though Suyeon failed to debut as Iam, since Suyeon had close teammates who went through Agbaek together starting with Lee Sion, she had been paying attention and cheering for Iam’s activities like it was her own business.
To the point where subscribing not only to Iam’s official YouTube account but also all the fan-tube channels, and checking every time a new video went up, had become a habit now.
Then, while searching Iam on YouTube like usual, Suyeon happened to find one video.
-A Central Park stage video?
At that time, the view count for Iam’s Central Park guerrilla performance video was only in the thousands at most, but Suyeon clicked it as if possessed.
Maybe it was filmed on a smartphone, because the image quality was a bit disappointing, but the atmosphere of the scene was still vivid, and even though it was about twenty minutes long—not a short video at all—Suyeon couldn’t help watching it from beginning to end without skipping.
Suyeon knew, since she had been in touch with them regularly, that they’d gone to New York for a music video shoot, but she didn’t know they’d done a guerrilla performance like this, so it was interesting for that reason too, but—
'So cool.'
Because seeing Iam performing in front of hundreds of people—Americans, not Koreans—was cool.
When the video first started, the audience gathered in front of the stage didn’t even look like there were twenty people.
But as the stage began, and every time they performed a song, the audience gradually increased.
The highlight of this video was the scene near the end, where hundreds of people—so many you could barely even count them by eye—gathered in the Central Park plaza and responded passionately to Iam’s stage.
That scene, like something out of a movie, never got old no matter how many times Suyeon watched it, so she replayed it over and over.
And maybe there were a lot of people like Suyeon, because the view count that kept increasing by the day—no, by the hour.
The surprising thing was that those views were made up not by Koreans, but by foreigners.
Of course there must’ve been Koreans too, but for whatever reason, this video where the majority were foreigners who didn’t know anything about Iam didn’t end as just a single video.
Some people followed the link to Iam’s YouTube channel in the comments and fell into the channel, and others continued on to fan-tube videos.
And—
[Agbaek Lee Sion coup scene edit]
(A scene where Lee Sion tempts Kim Nayeon together with Im Yunkyung)
↳Lee Sion, she is insane!
↳Nayeon becomes the leader of the coup without knowing anything
↳Yunkyung is so cute. If I had a younger sibling like that, I would do anything
↳I want to watch this show from beginning to end, how do I do it?
↳It’s so nice that these videos have subtitles
Some of them were even showing up in Idol Ground 100 videos.
Because Agbaek had such high popularity and buzz, there were people overseas—especially in the neighboring country Japan and in Southeast Asia—who watched it here and there.
Those people edited Agbaek videos and added subtitles, and since those were the only Iam-related videos that had subtitles, people naturally flocked there.
"Sion, even now, you’re messing with me when we aren’t even together!"
"Still, a lot of foreigners know your name and my name now."
Nayeon didn’t look pleased that the Agbaek F-class coup video—basically her black history—was trending again, but Suyeon was just happy.
Zero One Entertainment.
- We want to bring you in, Suyeon.
After Agbaek ended, countless agencies sent love calls to Suyeon, who had no agency.
Among them were fairly famous big agencies, all the way to rookie agencies that were only just getting started.
Some even offered to give a fairly large signing fee, so Suyeon hesitated a lot over which one to choose.
But—
- Come to us. We have to band together as eliminated trainees and start a rebellion once.
She didn’t hesitate for long.
Kim Nayeon, who also got eliminated by a hair like Suyeon did, and Yoo Jihye and Park Garam too.
With Nayeon at the center, Nayeon persuaded everyone to try again together, and they all accepted that offer, so now they were Agbaek members under Zero One Entertainment, preparing for debut.
However—
[Iam becomes the first girl group to achieve a debut-song grand slam!]
[Iam collaboration news with high-end brand Thom Browne]
[Iam, the rising blue-chip of the advertising industry]
When Nayeon saw teammates who had been laughing and practicing together in the dorm just a few months ago debut and rush toward the top so quickly, Nayeon’s heart was getting impatient.
If they debuted and their results were bad, when they met later, would Nayeon really be able to smile at Iam’s members?
- Isn’t Nayeon the Brat messing with you? Jihye is nice, so Jihye can’t control Kim Nayeon properly.
- Nayeon is going to be our team leader. The agency people were totally shocked. They said you came in like a completely different person after Agbaek.
- This is my value. Nayeon the Brat denies it, but everyone who received Lee Sion’s remodeling training showed excellent results.
- I’m listening right next to you right now, and she said if you meet her, Nayeon will smack you on the back.
- Tell her to come at me. I’ll show the dignity of a senior.
Of course, even now, whenever Suyeon talked on the phone, Sion greeted them with the same vibe as back in the dorm, but it would be a lie to say Nayeon wasn’t worried about whether it could still be like this later if Sion really became a top idol.
In the middle of that, because of this video, Suyeon hoped that the renewed buzz around Suyeon and Nayeon, who were about to debut soon, might help their success even a little.
'Did she see this too?'
Recently, Suyeon had been busy preparing for debut and Sion had been busy preparing for a comeback, so they hadn’t been in contact, and Suyeon was curious whether they knew this video was exploding right now.
***
"It is I, Kurosawa Yuri!"
"Yuri is the god of vocals!"
"Jackpot! Yuri, there are a ton of Japanese comments too!"
"Yuri did sing well."
It was unbearable.
Right now, in the middle of the practice room, Kurosawa Yuri was dominating the space with her chin lifted.
Her nose had gotten so high that it felt like the practice room ceiling might get crushed by Yuri’s nose soon.
"Yuri’s vocals are world-class, beyond Japan and Korea!"
Now she even put her hands on her hips, and as Yuri got even more puffed up, not only the members but even the backup dancers practicing choreography with us were sending cheers toward her.
"Kgh···"
"Sion, what are you unhappy about now?"
"That spot should’ve been my spot!"
"You attention addict! You were scrunching up your face because you were jealous of that?"
"I should’ve sung a solo song!"
After we returned from New York for the music video shoot, our daily life was repetition: practice, album jacket photo shoots, finishing recordings.
With the comeback right around the corner, we matched choreography dozens of times a day to pursue perfection on top of perfection, and once the schedules ended, we went back to the dorm and fell asleep like we were knocked out. freewebnσvel.cøm
But in that repetitive daily life, an interesting incident happened a little while ago.
[Iam New York guerrilla performance video goes viral!]
「The video of Iam’s surprise guerrilla performance in New York is recently going viral on YouTube.
That video, uploaded to YouTube a week ago···」
↳Isn’t it too much to make a fuss just because they performed in front of a few hundred people?
↳It ◈ Nоvеlіgһт ◈ (Continue reading) wasn’t even an official concert, it was a surprise thing, and it’s crazy that that many gathered
↳Yeah, and blowing up on YouTube is huge. It’s not even Korea, it blew up because foreigners watched it like that
↳For real, if you look at the comments, every language in the world is there, so for some reason my national pride is swelling
↳KJ’s media play is insane lol. How many celebrities got wrecked after getting hyped on America clout?
↳They haven’t even entered yet and it’s already this big, that’s huge. Why are there so many twisted people?
Our last New York schedule, the guerrilla performance.
When we heard that a performance we did lightly—more like just for YouTube content than anything—was now doing well not only in Korea but even in America, all of us couldn’t help being shocked.
However—
[Ryu Ayeon and Kurosawa Yuri, showing Korean idols’ skills properly!]
[Americans amazed by Kurosawa Yuri’s voice covering Sam Smith’s I'm Not The Only One]
[Ryu Ayeon makes the audience marvel in the birthplace of hip-hop dance!]
It was hard to accept this reality where praise was pouring onto Yuri and Ayeon, who took the solo stages in the guerrilla performance.
Tap.
Just as I was regretting why I didn’t do a solo stage, a hand patted my shoulder.
When I turned my head to see who it was, Ayeon was patting my shoulder.
"Sion."
"Ayeon···."
"This buzz didn’t happen just because Yuri and I did well."
As Ayeon slowly continued, like she was comforting me, her expression looked unbelievably merciful.
"You’re getting attention for your looks too, aren’t you?"
"···What?"
"Of course, your vo!cal! skills and da!nce! skills are pathetic, so you couldn’t take a solo stage, but you can just think of it like you contributed with your looks. It can’t be helped, I’m your opponent, right?"
"Y-you... you crazy!!!"
For a second I thought she was comforting me, but she immediately showed her true colors.
I couldn’t possibly let that provocation slide, and I was about to lunge—
"Sion, being pathetic isn’t embarrassing! What’s embarrassing is not being able to admit it!"
Yuri’s strike landed exactly where it hurt, adding a second hit.
"Kyaaaaaah!!!!"
"Hey, stop Sion! She’s losing it again and going wild!"
"The boss is sensitive about the word pathetic."
"Sion, endure it! Isn’t it true that you’re pathetic?"
I got held back by the other members and had to get teabagged by Ayeon and Yuri.
