At around 4 o'clock in the morning, a car was moving a little more than 100 km/hr at the highway with little to no traffic.
The manager is driving and Jun was just staring outside. He thought that the shooting will take place at the film studio within Genesis Town.
However, contrary to his expectations, the shooting location turned out to be at Daejeon, which is nearly 180 km away from Incheon.
Why take such a long trip just to shoot an mv?
It's because of the secrecy. Earlier, a few days ago, the Treasure Campus finale was aired.
And Jun who was the most popular candidate to win the throne didn't make an appearance. Even his vocal practice sessions were edited and removed altogether.
Of course, because of his busking video that went viral, everyone was indeed curious about his identity and the questions were already raised when his name wasn't present in the past articles.
But, after the episode, several theories popped up online.
One says that Jun was approached by the management and was told to exit the show because he was miles ahead of the other contestants.
Another says the truth about his mother's death as Dahyun is well known among the netizens but that was buried under conspiracy theories.
Eventually, the Treasure Campus producer revealed the truth, confirming that no unfair play had been carried out.
Once all the episodes were available on the internet, Jun's fame shot through the roof even before his debut. So, the CEO decided to change the plan at the last minute and talked with the director, shifting the location far away so that they can shoot peacefully.
Since it was going to take a while to reach the destination, Jun decided to use this as the opportunity to buy the songs too.
He already spent 100 credits on buying "Really Bad boy" by Red velvet.
Only 260 credits remained. After thinking for a while, he decided to buy a popular song, the one that has views in between 100-200 million, spending the remaining 200 credits.
Even though he was hoping that the three songs are going to receive an Okay from the CEO, Jun wanted to play safe. He thought of possessing a song that might even be given to a popular girl group. This way, in the future, he might give them the popular songs of TWICE and Black Pink.
After thinking for nearly one hour, Jun finally decided on the song that ranked in the 150s.
*Ding! You purchased the audio song "Latata." 200 credits have been deducted.
"Good. G-IDLE's debut song will really become popular no matter which girl group sings it." Jun was satisfied with his selection.
Leaning back, he spoke in his head, "Aria, open Audio Inventory."
A holographic screen appeared before him with the list of songs.
AUDIO INVENTORY:
Here I am Again, What 2 Do, Happy Death Day, Breathe;
I'm so hot, Time for the moon night, Really Bad boy, Latata;
****
"8 songs… If I was able to release the first four in my next comeback too, then, according to the contract, I will earn a total of 32 million won (~27k US $) with ease… Along with the insurance money, should I also deposit my earnings in bitcoin? It was only around 7000 dollars now. Hmm, there's also Shiba Inu, which rallied millions of times between 2020 and 2021. I need to wait for two more years for that. But, you never know what might change in this world. It wasn't just Kpop, there are a lot of changes in different fields too. It's a good thing that there's no trump as United states president but still, several variables will give birth to a different future. My own future self is so intelligent that he created false immortality like that Altered Carbon tv drama.
The tax rates are also different. How can there be a 25% fixed personal income tax rate for everyone, regardless of their income or job? And such fixed tax rates are even followed by several parts of the world. Seriously weird.
Maybe, there won't be Covid here. I can't take things that happened in my world for granted and need to be careful about where I'm stepping towards the future."
While Jun was busy thinking all kinds of things, the manager spoke, "Jun-ah, we are here."
By 5 o'clock in the morning, they reached the shooting location.
Thankfully, it is April and the current temperature at Daejeon is around 9 C. So, Jun was comfortable even without an extra jacket. Due to the constant increase of strength points, he had also developed extremely tough skin and strong bones, thereby, increasing the resistance to cold.
He walked into one of the buildings.
It appeared to be an unfinished apartment building with dozens of pillars on the first floor. Everyone was busy with setting up.
"You are here, Jin Cheol." A middle-aged fellow looking physically fit and wearing a hat called out to them with a smile on his face.
"Director Kim." The manager greeted him with a bow. Jun followed the suit.
"Jun-ah, this is Kim Jason. He directed many music videos for Big Bang and 2 PM." Manager Seon introduced him.
Jun bowed again, "Hello, I'm Han Sung-Jun, nice to meet you."
Director Kim nodded and said, "The stylists are running a bit late. You can get to the dressing room and wait there until they bring the clothes. I hope we start the shooting by dawn."
Jun nodded and went downstairs. Manager Seon escorted him.
Upon reaching the room, the manager told him to wait in the room and quickly.
Jun looked around. The room reminded him of entering a beauty salon with all equipment except for no cosmetic products on display.
He sat on the couch and casually browsed the internet for a while. "Oh, Resonance is going have a comeback?"
Jun found that his past group mates are having a comeback single, two days later. "Hmm, my debut is still ten days away. For suppose, if they promote it for even three weeks, we will collide in a music show, right? Even now, it's hard to believe that this brat used to be buddies with Korea's favorite group and is super close with Sehun."
Imagining they meet again, Jun let out a grin, "I want to see their reactions…"
*Knock* Knock*
The door was knocked and two young women and a young man entered the room, pushing a hanging clothes Rack and carrying a box.
"Ah, Annyeonghaseyo…" As they greeted Jun with a look of surprise, mainly due to his bare-face visuals, the latter stood up from the couch and returned the greetings with a bow, "Hello."
"Damn, he looks better in person." A woman whispered to another one, to which the latter nodded in agreement.
Meanwhile, the young man in his thirties introduced each of them.
Soon, they get to the work, starting with a light haircut and then, a dye, transforming his jet black hair into blue/neon-dark green.
Combined with his emerald eyes, Jun really looked flashy and is perfect for the concept of the video.
While they were busy applying cream to his face, a cameraman was recording it. Along with him, there's assistant director, Park Cheor-Hoon.
After everything was done, the assistant director Park asked the question as a part of the behind-the-scenes shoot, "So, how does it feel to finally get into the shooting of your debut album?"