ABSRFITLHOI Chapter 101

I also turned on my phone’s memo app and wrote down my response to show them.

[No way, did you really win the lottery?]

[This can’t be explained by just winning the lottery. I’m sure a normal person’s soul just possessed the CEO. He wasn’t like this at the beginning of the meeting.]

Could it be that the CEO is also being controlled by the system? Like a project to restore the sense of a talent agency CEO who lost his touch or something. But then again, it felt like the CEO never had a sense of creativity in the first place.

Normally, I would have been horrified at myself for being influenced by Kim Dobin and coming up with such a nerdy theory. But since I was also being controlled by the system for the “Return to Basics” project or whatever, it seemed like a fairly plausible guess.

What on earth had happened to make our CEO—who, even seven years into REVE’s career in the previous timeline, was utterly hopeless—suddenly come to his senses six years early? Did he get electrocuted or something? Or is he really being controlled by the system?

As we reacted with uncharacteristic silence, still stunned by the unexpected situation, the CEO looked flustered and asked,

“Why? Do you not need lessons or directing? Do you want to do it on your own?”

“No! We really like it!”

“That’s impossible!”

Afraid he might make us fend for ourselves again, we all frantically shook our heads and hurriedly responded.

The loudest among us was Kim Dobin, who was finally free from the torment of involuntary choreography directing.

If he consistently took vocal lessons, even Seo Yehyun’s hopeless singing might improve to a somewhat acceptable level.

Even though his maximum vocal potential was only a C, a C was still better than a D+.

With that, the title track confirmation meeting ended much more smoothly than we had anticipated.

Before we officially began recording, we assigned the parts for our title track.

Of course, we had roughly divided them up during the song’s development stage, but since it had been rearranged, some adjustments were necessary.

Seo Yehyun’s vocal growth in this promotion cycle would determine his part allocation in the next one.

His rap and singing both left much to be desired, but if I had to choose, his rap was even worse. At least, in my opinion.

To be brutally honest, calling that “rap” was an insult to hip-hop itself.

That was just mumbling, not rapping, for f***’s sake.

“Make sure to take your lessons seriously until recording day. Especially you, Yehyun hyung.”

Even though I singled him out, Seo Yehyun nodded solemnly.

…Could he also be…?

[The “Return to Basics” project is only being conducted on ‘Yoon Eden.’]

Oh, uh… Yeah. Thanks for confirming that.

***

After relocating to a bigger building, our agency finally had a proper recording studio, a workspace, and a decent practice room.

I had visited the practice room a few times, but since I had my own perfectly functional workspace with top-of-the-line equipment, I never had a reason to check out the agency’s studio.

So, this recording session marked my first time stepping into the company’s recording studio.

The equipment in both the workspace and the studio was… decent. Not bad enough to complain about, but not impressive either. I saw no reason to work there when I had my own superior setup.

“How is it? Nice, right? Pretty good, huh?”

Our manager beamed with pride as if he had personally built the studio. Reluctantly, I nodded in response. Social skills were exhausting.

“What if we install cameras in the recording studio for behind-the-scenes footage?”

“Dobin, whether there’s a camera or not, the way you record will determine whether I come across as an angel or a demon.”

“Oh, so recording is basically a boot camp.”

Before he could spout more nonsense, I shoved Kim Dobin into the recording booth.

“I’m up first? Not Hajun hyung?”

“Yeah. I want to see if listening to Jun after your recording will improve my mood.”

“I’ve been taking vocal lessons seriously! I’m not the same Kim Dobin as before!”

Grinning with confidence, Kim Dobin warmed up his voice in front of the mic.

The instrumental began playing, and before his part even ended, I stopped the track with a grimace.

“Again. You are the same Kim Dobin, idiot.”

“Huh? No way.”

“Dude, if a few vocal lessons could dramatically improve someone’s singing, then everyone in the world would just take lessons and debut as singers. Try again. Focus.”

After multiple retakes, his recording finally ended.

“I can’t have Kim Dobin go first again. Getting this pissed off at the start is not ideal.”

Resting my chin on my interlocked fingers, I glared at the now-empty recording booth and muttered darkly.

Panicking, Ryu Jaehee quickly shoved Gyeon Hajun into the booth.

“Eden hyung’s favorite, Hajun hyung, is stepping in now!”

“This won’t— …Actually, my mood is improving. Jun, let’s go straight to the next line.”

As expected, listening to a voice that matched my preferences helped ease my irritation. Satisfied, I bobbed my head slightly before pausing the instrumental and speaking up.

“That was good. It was good, but at ‘catch me if you can,’ try raising the last note by one key.”

Gyeon Hajun flawlessly executed my request. I tapped my fingertips lightly on the desk, contemplating whether the previous version or the current one was better, then shook my head briefly.

“Hmm, I think it’s better to stick with the original. Jun, let’s go one more time. Yeah, don’t raise the key—just do the original version.”

Watching from behind, Kim Dobin murmured hesitantly.

“Please stop discriminating against Hajun…”

“Shut up, Dobbi.”

Oh, right. Relationship improvement, too. You might think a comment like that wouldn’t affect our relationship score, but my dear members always exceeded my expectations, so I couldn’t let my guard down.

Fortunately, when I checked the relationship score, it was the same as last time. Looked like Kim Dobin was finally growing up a little.

As Gyeon Hajun finished recording and stepped out of the booth, I handed him a water bottle. Kim Dobin, making sure I could hear, whispered,

“Hyung, what does it feel like to be the owner of Eden-hyung’s favorite vocal tone? I’m really curious about what it’s like to record without getting verbally smacked.”

…Never mind. He still had a long way to go.

“Next, Yehyun hyung, you’re up.”

“Not Jaehee?”

“I’m trying out a ‘hopscotch order’ to see how it affects my blood pressure and mental health.”

So far, the results were promising.

At least Kim Dobin was somewhat tolerable, even if he didn’t meet my absurdly high standards. His skills were decent, all things considered.

But the true final boss—the spiciest challenge—was still left.

“You can do it, Yehyun hyung! Show us how hard you’ve worked!”

“Hey, hey. Don’t get Eden’s hopes up for no reason.”

“Don’t feel pressured, just do it comfortably, hyung.”

“Yeah, hyung, no worries. I never had any expectations in the first place, so just relax. Like I said earlier, if a few lessons could dramatically improve someone’s skills, everyone in the world would be debuting as singers.”

With such warm encouragement from the members, Seo Yehyun hesitantly stepped into the recording booth.

Our eyes met through the transparent glass, and he flinched.

“Oh, come on. I haven’t even said anything yet—why are you already nervous? People are gonna think I’m some kind of monster.”

“Hey, do you know about Pavlov’s dog effect?”

“Why? Do you start drooling the moment you see a recording mic?”

“Do you think?”

Despite his heavy sighs, he looked a little less tense than before.

I prepared myself and played the instrumental.

As I listened to Seo Yehyun’s voice flowing in sync with the melody and beat, I blinked.

Oh. He really must’ve put in some effort. If his previous skill level was espresso, now it was an Americano with ten extra shots.

I clapped my hands in appreciation and spoke into the mic.

“Again.”

His improvement, however slight, was worthy of applause.

But he was still far from passing.

***

Every time we had a concept meeting, I was reminded of one thing—LnL was a hopeless, bottom-tier agency.

Even though REVE’s continuous success had expanded the company, its operations were still as unorganized as ever.

Normally, the staff would hold internal discussions to finalize the concept, then present it to the artists and the CEO for feedback and adjustments.

…But here?

“In this company, even the artists are the staff.”

The fact that we had to prepare the PowerPoint presentation ourselves was proof of how chaotic this agency was.

At least they had hired more employees now. In the past, the number of REVE members and agency staff had been nearly the same. Just thinking about it made me sigh.

Still, there was one silver lining: now, we could push our ideas through, and they actually had a high chance of being accepted.

Back in the previous timeline, my opinions had never even been considered. Heck, they rejected my properly produced songs without a second thought.

Not being able to escape from LnL before my regression was my second biggest regret.

This time, I would definitely make it happen.

Our title track was composed with a thief versus detective concept in mind—a game of cat and mouse.

This idea had originally come from Ryu Jaehee, but his inspiration?

None other than our ever-hopeless CEO.

“You know, I was thinking, this concept I suggested before would be perfect for this. Multiverse! Traveling through time and space to track down criminals from unsolved cases! And we can keep pushing this as a full album series!”

A wave of relief washed over me.

Ah, so he wasn’t sick, possessed, or controlled by the system after all.

The title track meeting had just been a temporary one step back for three steps forward kind of thing.

The debate within REVE about whether our CEO had truly changed or whether he’d push his usual nonsense had turned out to be pointless.

‘He’s definitely going to push that multiverse crime-solving concept from when we planned All Right All Night,’ some had argued.

‘No way, since a normal soul possessed the CEO’s body, he won’t push weird concepts anymore,’ others had countered.

…But our CEO had been the same all along.

Kim Dobin, who had firmly believed in the normal person possession theory, looked deeply disappointed.

I was telling you—it had to be a lottery win.

“But why is the CEO so obsessed with space?”

“No idea. Maybe he wanted to be an astronaut as a kid.”

“Or maybe… he’s actually a secret alien?”

“Does that even make sense?”

I half-heartedly responded to Kim Dobin’s nonsense while raising my hand to object to the CEO’s idea.

“I think the detective concept should be a one-time thing. It’s not like we’re running a Sherlock Holmes drama series. If we keep pushing this as a full-length album series, it’ll get stale fast.”

“Then what about the multiverse?”

“No.”

I took the USB from Kim Dobin and passed it to Ryu Jaehee.

“Jaehui, go ahead and pull up the PPT.”

“Yes, sir!”

Casually brushing off the CEO’s lingering attachment to the multiverse, I got up and walked toward the screen displaying the presentation.

Since this was a full-length album, I had to take the lead myself.

***

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