Chapter 44. Girl group start (2)
'Is this the place?'
Lee Hyun thought as he looked at the building in front of him. It was actually a high school located in the west side of Seoul.
He was here today to recruit a member for the girl group.
As Mango Entertainment has its own artist now, Lee Hyun didn't want to waste more time and work on creating an album with Minyuk, but before that, he needed to recruit the members of the girl group.
And start the girl group program.
"... I hope Uncle Dongsu succeeds in recruiting 'her'."
As they wanted to save time, both him and Kim Dongsu have decided to recruit different members.
The one he was trying to recruit today was the candidate for the rapper of the girl group and the candidate Kim Dongsu was trying to recruit was someone infamous in Hongdae.
It won't be easy to recruit her. So, Kim Dongsu has gone by himself.
'Main vocalist, main dancer, sub vocalist, sub dancer, rapper...'
Lee Hyun thought about girl group positions and sat down in the cafe that was in front of the high school.
He can't just enter the school without permission. So, the only thing he could do was to wait for the school to end and look for a way to talk to the candidate.
"Making a girl group is really hard."
Lee Hyun muttered as he leaned back on his seat. He would need to go through all sorts of troubles to make a girl group.
It would be easier for established agencies to start a girl group as they can simply pick the members from the trainees they have, but it was completely different for agencies like Mango Entertainment.
They needed to go through a lot of trouble, just to pick out candidates.
Recruiting those candidates was a completely different trouble. After that, you start to worry about if the members would get along or not...
'... I wonder how my father used to manage celebrities.'
Lee Hyun thought about his father who started as a manager and made his way all the way to the top.
He was apparently famous for managing celebrities and he has managed lots of famous celebrities in Top Entertainment.
One could even say that Top Entertainment was able to become big because of the efforts of his father in the past and then, the efforts of Lee Hyun in the future.
But...
'In the future, Top Entertainment would surely oppose us.'
Someone like Bae Hyunsung would try to do everything in his power to stop Harin from debuting.
It was inevitable due to what had happened with Harin in the past.
Bae Hyunsung would surely try to bury that incident along with Harin. He was a poisonous snake that Lee Hyun would have to fight against in the upcoming future.
'... A fight was destined from the start anyway.'
Since the moment Lee Hyun had returned to the past, a fight between Mango Entertainment and Top Entertainment was inevitable.
He wanted to make Mango Entertainment the best agency in Korea and for that, he needed to go against the other top agencies like Top Entertainment.
The only problem was that Mango Entertainment was too small currently. Lee Hyun was slightly worried because of that...
"Ah, the school finally ended."
As he was thinking about all that, he saw students coming out from the entrance. Most of them were in groups of three and four.
He was also able to spot some couples that were walking while holding hands. The sweet atmosphere around them made Lee Hyun remember the time when he was in a relationship in middle school.
For record, the girl had dumped him in two months, giving the reason that he liked music more than her.
"Ah, there she is!"
Suddenly, Lee Hyun sighted the girl he was looking for. She was the only person who was walking alone.
Her hair was tied in a ponytail and it was hard to recognise her due to her thick glasses, but Lee Hyun can tell she was the girl he was looking for.
A girl who was really famous in the underground rappers community two years ago.
Many agencies tried to recruit her at that time, but she refused and after a while, she completely disappeared from the underground communities.
Her name was Tae Soyun.
* * *
'I need to study for tomorrow's test after reaching home.'
Soyun thought as she frowned.
Just thinking about her studies was enough to give her a headache, but her parents were really strict about her studies.
Because of that, she even needed to go to cram schools after school.
She doesn't have time to do anything. All her time was spent on studying. She doesn't even have friends, much less something like a boyfriend.
'... I wish I can do what I want.'
Soyun thought about the only thing she likes.
Rap!
Her dream was to become a rapper, but her parents were against that. They didn't think that there's a future in being a rapper and wanted her to become a doctor or an engineer.
'Ah, something is weird!'
Soyun suddenly noticed something strange as she was walking.
She felt that someone was following her from her school. She became scared thinking about the possibility of a stalker and her steps stopped all of a sudden.
At the moment, she heard a voice.
"Excuse me."
"Kyaaa!! W-who are you?"
Soyun shouted out of fear and turned back suspiciously. There she saw a handsome guy scratching his head and looking at her.
It seems like he noticed that she was scared and opened his mouth.
"It looks like I frightened you."
"N-no, it's fine, but who are you? And why were you following me?"
Soyun looked over the man.
She calmed her beating heart down as she noticed that the man in front of him didn't look suspicious.
But she still kept her guard up.
"My name is Lee Hyun and I wanted to talk to you about something."
"What do you want to talk about? I don't like to talk with strangers nor I'm interested in older guys. So-"
"You are thinking wrong."
Lee Hyun waved her hands and interrupted Soyun from speaking further. He wondered if he really looked like a stalker.
He had heard that casting managers would often stalk people who they are interested in, but he had never thought that he would be labelled as one.
"Then, who are you?"
Soyun suspiciously looked at Lee Hyun and he pulled out his business card from his pocket.
He handed it over to her and Soyun's eyes widened seeing the title on the business card. She looked at Lee Hyun in a completely different way and he opened his mouth.
"I would like to have a talk with you."