Chapter 1131: The Warmest Season, Winter (3)

"Wow...."

"Look at this. There’s even an article about us."

"Wahaha! Look at Kim Boksu’s photo. You look so stupid in that screencap—agh!"

"Be quiet."

The trainees had gathered in the second-floor practice room.

The smiles never left their faces as they stared at their phones.

People are talking about us!

They were incredibly nervous.

So nervous that they had to take deep breaths and rub their chilled hands together several times before they could bring themselves to open the article’s comment section.

-I love all of them so muchㅠㅠㅠㅠㅠㅠ

-Seriously, where did they find nothing but aces like these?

-When are they debuting?

-Jinhu is exactly my type

-Lemon really does know how to pick faces ㄷㄷㄷ

Every time they saw a compliment, their mouths stretched into wide grins.

The public attention they were receiving for the first time since becoming trainees in 2016 was that sweet.

Especially at this time of year.

Jinhu smiled.

So this is what it feels like for your heart to grow warm.

Like students preparing for the college entrance exam, trainees often fell into melancholy around this season.

They would hear that someone from another company had debuted, or that someone else had switched to acting and was doing well.

Or while they were drying sweat-soaked shirts in the practice room, photos of their friends traveling and having fun would appear on social media.

No matter how much they practiced, they only felt how much they still lacked. And while everyone else was busily moving forward during the year-end season, they felt as though they alone had accomplished nothing.

That was winter for trainees.

But....

-I’ll be rooting for the Lemon Boys

-You could really tell how hard they practicedㅠㅠㅠㅠㅠ Good luck, babies

-Hurry up and debut, guys

The supportive comments left by complete strangers felt warm to them.

Yoonsu murmured,

"I’m seriously going to screenshot these and look at them every day. I’ll practice while reading these comments until we debut."

"Me too."

"People are really so warm. Did you see this one?"

Among them, a long comment caught their attention.

-I don’t know much about dance, but even from a brief look, I can tell how much these kids have practiced. Every small movement reaches all the way to their toes, and when you look at their weight shifts and the shape of their legs, you can only admire how much attention they must have put into practicing. Even in terms of balance....

The comment was so long that it hit the character limit and continued across three more replies.

At the final line, which read, "Go, Lemon Boys! Stay strong!" Boksu, the main dancer, looked deeply moved.

"They must be a professional choreographer. To leave such a long compliment...."

"Let’s make sure we remember their name. Rain... Alchol?"

"Isn’t it RainAlcohol?"

At the nickname RainAlchol, Kim Ji Hyuk flinched.

As an active Souffle who went by the username SunnyPeanut, he alone knew Kim Biju’s secret.

That sounds like Senior Biju....

But he quietly let it pass.

It was not especially important right now.

"Whoa!"

Someone suddenly shouted.

"Did you see this too? Someone says we have social media accounts now."

"Really?"

When they checked, temporary accounts named Lemon Boys really had been created.

They already had more than 2,800 followers and subscribers.

Everyone cried out in amazement, but as the atmosphere became overly excited, Kim Ji Hyuk stepped forward as the leader.

"This is really good news, right?"

"Yeah. It’s incredible!"

"But the more exciting things get, the more we need to stay calm."

As the members nodded, Kim Ji Hyuk spoke coolly.

"Honestly, this isn’t something we earned. People are following us because we belong to Lemon and because we’re NewBlack’s juniors."

"...That’s true."

"That means we need to stay even calmer and keep practicing. So we don’t bring shame to our seniors when we debut."

Only then did everyone settle down and agree.

That’s right. We didn’t earn this ourselves.

It’s thanks to our seniors.

As their heated heads cooled, they all put down their phones and rose from their seats.

Watching them stretch and loosen up, Ji Hyuk smiled.

"Still...."

"?"

"It does feel good."

The trainees laughed in agreement.

Ordinarily, they would have practiced with gloomy expressions as winter arrived.

Now their eyes and faces were full of energy.

Jinhu, who had been a trainee the longest among them, looked around and smiled.

He had found good companions, and people were already showing interest in their debut.

Maybe this will be the warmest winter I’ve had since becoming a trainee.

With similar thoughts in their minds, they threw themselves back into choreography practice.

For the first time in a long while, the practice room overflowed with energy.

It was only some time later that we were finally able to promote the trainees’ newly created social media accounts.

[Real-Time Search Rankings]

That was because the Travel Diary production team had unexpectedly released several clips from the footage as a teaser.

Jiho said,

"Why did they upload it so fast?"

"I heard why."

Junghyun told us what he had heard.

"They received the gold bars and immediately worked through the night."

"My dad always says this: praise can make a whale dance, but money can make a whale perform one hundred and eight bows."

"What profound wisdom...."

Just as Chairman Wang had said, the Travel Diary production team had begun working like mad the moment they received the gold bars.

Ri Hyuk rubbed his chin thoughtfully.

"This is more efficient than I expected. If giving them gold bars gets us work at this level of quality...."

"Should we prepare diamonds next time?"

Everyone laughed at my joke.

But I could not help thinking that if we gave them actual diamonds, Travel Diary might come out like an acclaimed five-part National Geographic documentary.

Junghyun made an impressed sound.

"If they get diamonds, they might really make a documentary worthy of a Pulitzer Prize."

"Huahaha!"

We burst into laughter as we imagined a title like Pulitzer Prize-winning documentary, NewBlack’s Travel Diary.

In any case, even though the broadcast was still a long way off, the Travel Diary production team was already putting tremendous effort into it.

There was a great deal of footage and plenty to edit, so it would probably take another month or so before it aired.

"The trainees’ follower growth is good too."

Biju showed us the Lemon Boys’ MyTube account.

Our eyes widened.

"One hundred thousand...?"

"Already?"

"Doesn’t one hundred thousand get you a Silver Button?"

A notification showed that 102,000 people had subscribed even though there were no videos on the account yet.

Whether yesterday’s broadcast had been that effective, or the title of being our and Scarlet’s juniors carried that much weight, their growth was excellent.

Ri Hyuk nodded.

"At this rate, I don’t think we’ll have much to worry about when they debut. At the very least, no one will be able to say they failed because they couldn’t get attention."

"That’s true."

We exchanged satisfied smiles, pleased that things were going well.

After smiling as we read the posts people had written about the trainees....

"All right...."

I scratched my cheek.

"Now let’s talk about our work."

"Okay."

"Junghyun’s album comes out in a few days."

"Yep."

"Jiho and I are also preparing well for the movie."

Jiho nodded.

It was fair to say that everything was proceeding remarkably smoothly.

Except for one thing.

The problem involved the single we would release after .

The Overcooked album, scheduled for release early next year, was following the American promotion model.

In other words, after releasing the lead single, we would release several more singles before the full album came out.

was the single scheduled to follow Overcooked.

"I’m not especially worried about the song itself. Honestly, it’s not quite as strong as Overcooked, but I still think it came out really well."

"Right."

"Hot Sauce is a masterpiece too."

When we played it for Team Leader Na Sangyoon, the song’s quality had been so high that he ran out of the room with a sorrowful expression, sobbing, "Hngh...."

-What’s wrong with Team Leader Na?

-Producer Na? He kept saying he was going to be the star of the next single after Overcooked.

-I see....

-That man has suffered many wounds to the heart. Most of them were inflicted by someone whose name begins with Sun and ends with Wooju.

I remembered buying him marbled sirloin and showering him with praise, telling him our Team Leader Na Sangyoon was the absolute best.

In any case, Hot Sauce was good enough to follow Overcooked, which was currently becoming a worldwide hit.

"The key issue is this."

Ri Hyuk scrawled across the whiteboard with a marker.

-How do we promote this song during winter?

"Ugh...."

"There’s no answer."

Hot Sauce was exactly what its title suggested.

If described as food, it felt like a Thai dish made by tossing fiery, stimulating spices into an oiled wok and stir-frying them over scorching high heat.

Heat.

Sweat running down your skin.

Spicy flavor.

It was obviously not a song suited to winter.

Biju pursed his lips and hummed thoughtfully.

"It’s like releasing a Christmas carol in summer. Or releasing a winter ballad in August, or a summer song in December...."

"Exactly."

"This is difficult...."

Hot Sauce had originally been scheduled for release in November.

But Overcooked exceeded everyone’s expectations so dramatically that the release was pushed back to December.

We could not risk splitting the public’s attention by releasing Hot Sauce too soon.

The problem was that by December, the entire world would be entering the Christmas season.

It was the time of year when all the perennial carol powerhouses returned, English-speaking residents began sawing down trees, and stockings went up on Christmas trees.

The youngest member offered a suggestion.

"How about, ‘Try spicy food for Christmas’?"

"Hmm...."

"Or what about this?"

Junghyun said,

"We distinguish ourselves by being different from everyone else. While you sing carols and songs about Santa, we pour on the hot sauce~ Something like that."

"Junghyun, have you ever looked at the December Billboard charts?"

"No."

"By then, half the chart is carols. Our version of Jingle Bell Rock is in the top five, and inside the top twenty there’s Last Christmas, Sleigh Ride, Let It Snow, Feliz Navidad, White Christmas...."

"What exactly does Christmas mean to Americans?"

That was why all of us had been racking our brains without finding an answer.

Even Ri Hyuk, our brain, was stuck.

"What do you think, Ri Hyuk? Do you see any way through?"

"No. The timing is so bad that I can’t find an answer."

"Hmm... Let’s go to the meeting for now."

With that, we rose from our seats.

Our destination was the main conference room.

The reason we had met among ourselves first was to gather our thoughts before speaking with the company staff.

"Oh, you’re here?"

We greeted Seokhwan and Manager Hong Seoyoung, who welcomed us in the conference room, then took our seats.

But the TF team had run into the same obstacle.

"The timing is bad."

Seokhwan adjusted his glasses.

"Once that season starts, carols...."

"We were just talking about that."

"Right. Of course you already knew."

It seemed the TF team was no closer to an answer.

"If it had stayed around the originally scheduled November release, it wouldn’t have been too bad. But December is really...."

It was a problem created by Overcooked’s overwhelming success.

Various opinions were offered.

"What about releasing it right before the album comes out in January or February next year? We could make it a surprise prerelease and use it to refresh public interest."

"Hot Sauce is too good a song for that. It may not be on Overcooked’s level, but it still has clear hit potential."

"But wouldn’t using it during carol season be a

/N_o_v_e_l_i_g_h_t/

waste? It’ll get buried immediately...."

I listened quietly, then summarized the discussion.

"So the issue is this. How do we overcome a December filled with carols?"

Everyone nodded, and I continued.

"And if we want it to survive, we need differentiation. What kind of differentiation strategy should we use?"

"Right."

"That’s the issue, but...."

The people who met my eyes all let out hollow laughs.

No suitable solution had occurred to anyone.

A way for Hot Sauce to pop up among all the carols and instantly capture people’s attention.

"Ugggh...."

"Hmmmm...."

While all of us did nothing but groan....

Tap. Tap. Tap.

The only sound in the room was Manager Hong Seoyoung tapping the table with the pen in her hand, chin resting on the other.

Tap?!

The tapping stopped, and we turned toward her.

Manager Hong blinked, looking as though something had occurred to her.

"Manager? What is it?"

"Juuust a second...."

After taking a drink of water, Manager Hong Seoyoung began typing rapidly.

"What’s the current Hispanic population in the United States? It says around sixty million here. In percentage terms...."

Ri Hyuk calculated quickly.

"The US population is about three hundred twenty million, so that would be roughly 18.75 percent. Rounded off, about one in five people."

We tilted our heads as she began talking about the rapidly growing Hispanic population in the United States.

"But why the Hispanic population?"

"Wooju, about Hot Sauce. Could you change it in a slightly different direction?"

"??"

"Maybe add a little Latin pop flavor, or include a line or two in Spanish."

"That’s certainly possible. But I need to know why...."

Manager Hong Seoyoung asked with excited eyes,

"Where did the Hispanic people who immigrated to the United States originally live?"

"South America."

"And among those South American countries, where are you popular?"

"Quite a lot of places."

While we wondered why she was suddenly talking about South America, Manager Hong Seoyoung explained her change in perspective.

"Just because it’s December doesn’t mean it’s winter everywhere. Winter only comes to half the planet."

"!"

"One of the places where you have many fans, and a region emotionally close to a large segment of the American population."

"!"

"A place where December is midsummer."

As we stared at her with dawning realization, the promotion manager smiled.

"This time, we target them."

The top floor of Lemon Entertainment.

It was time for the executives’ regular meeting.

"Hmmmm...."

"Oh, hurry up and choose, CEO."

"Hmmmmmmmm...."

The general manager scolded CEO Park Gyuho, who was agonizing over whether to have chili shrimp or cream shrimp for dinner.

"I keep telling you to order both."

"A person still shouldn’t forget their humble beginnings. All right. Let’s go with chili shrimp."

The general manager selected the menu and made a reservation at a Chinese restaurant for dinner.

Beside him, Director Jo Gyuhwan rapidly reviewed a stack of documents.

"Hm...."

CEO Park Gyuho tilted his head at Jo Gyuhwan’s satisfied smile.

Director Jo noticed and handed him the documents.

"Ah. This is the NewBlack TF team’s promotion plan for Hot Sauce."

"Hmm."

CEO Park Gyuho looked troubled.

He had already been deeply concerned about it.

The song and the seasonal concept clash too much....

But the moment he read the proposal, CEO Park Gyuho understood why Director Jo had been smiling.

[For this release of , we plan to target South America and the Southern Hemisphere.]

Several advantages were listed beneath it.

[By taking advantage of the Southern Hemisphere’s summer season in December, we can naturally promote the heated atmosphere of a song titled ‘Hot Sauce.’]

[We can appeal to fans in the Southern Hemisphere, who feel excluded by a media environment that becomes heavily centered on Northern Hemisphere winter every December.]

[By building momentum in South America, there is a possibility of generating a favorable response among the Hispanic population in the United States and securing stable digital performance.]

The message contained in the ambitious proposal was simple.

-We crushed the Northern Hemisphere, so now it’s time to crush the Southern Hemisphere. Hehehe.

CEO Park Gyuho, who had been calmly reviewing the proposal like a monk reciting scripture, looked at the name of its author.

[Manager Hong Seoyoung]

He turned his gaze toward the other executives.

She had been involved in NewBlack’s overseas subtitle strategy from their earliest days and currently served as the TF team’s second-in-command.

"Has it been long since Manager Hong was promoted to manager?"

"Not long."

"Let’s move her up another rank at the end of the year."

"Yes."

Hong Seoyoung, future senior manager, confirmed.

In only four years, she had risen from assistant manager to senior manager.

She was a TF team talent writing a true legend of rapid promotion.