- Looking forward to working with you again.

My renewal wrapped up smoothly, without any issues.

'Kinda disappointing, honestly.'

It’d be a lie to say I wasn’t expecting something messier—some exciting tug-of-war—because all those “renewal negotiation” clips you see on TV popped into my head.

- We can’t play baseball.

A club owner with an annoyed face, docking ten percent of your salary because you “can’t play baseball,” and a general manager clashing back by giving up his own salary in protest—an intense psychological war.

Isn’t that what negotiations are supposed to look like?

So I came in today fully expecting an epic battle: CEO Kim Sanghyeok shoving a contract full of unfair clauses across the table to bind me tighter, and Ms. Sukja firing back and batting down his dirty tricks.

But—

- At this level, it’s basically top-tier for the industry. I can’t tell you what other celebrities’ contracts look like, but this is so good I don’t even have advice to add.

KJ Entertainment’s contract was so airtight that even the lawyer Ms. Sukja rushed to hire on an emergency basis was impressed, and my expectations went up in smoke.

The term was a reasonable three years, and everything—from the profit split, to the settlement ratio, to various rights—was written in my favor.

The lawyer praised the terms so hard I almost suspected CEO Kim Sanghyeok had used a hypnosis app on her.

And because of that, the renewal—something that could take over a month if it dragged out—got finalized the same day. I still remembered the lawyer marveling that it was practically a miracle.

Of course—

'It still feels kind of... off.'

While I was gone, Ms. Sukja had slipped in a brand-new condition, and it was deeply suspicious.

A ridiculous clause saying they absolutely weren’t allowed to kick me out of the dorm during the contract period—added behind my back.

I never even planned on leaving in the first place, but now that it was written down as a condition... did it make me want to break it?

When I pictured Ms. Sukja stretched out on the couch at home, watching TV in total comfort, I got this weird urge to go cause trouble.

"We’re here."

"Right here."

While I was thinking about today’s renewal, we’d already arrived at the dorm.

Today, I hadn’t gone to the company in a manager-driven car—I’d taken a taxi.

Because, well—

- Until we make an official announcement, I’d like you to keep today’s renewal secret even from the members. The managers and staff too.

CEO Kim Sanghyeok had emphasized it over and over: renewals always had a lot of complicated issues tangled up in them, so it needed to stay confidential.

And honestly, even if I could tell other people, I wanted to keep it hidden from the members.

'Those kids would definitely get influenced.'

After CEO Kim Sanghyeok brought up renewal last time, I’d been thinking hard for a while.

If I renewed, that meant I was staying in the entertainment industry.

But what I wanted wasn’t really “the entertainment industry.” It was Iam. It was continuing as Iam.

Seo Ryujin, Ryu Ayeon, Yuri, Lee Gahyeon, Geum Shinyu, Im Yunkyung.

Somehow, living with those six had gotten... fun, in its own way.

- Lee Sion, you’re on laundry duty today!

- Even right now, children in Africa don’t have drinking water, so they go to rivers more than ten kilometers away to scoop water.

- What?

- And even that water gives them stomach issues because it’s muddy. But if you calculate how much water we use to run the washing machine once, we could save enough for African children to drink for a whole month.

- What an inspiring message, Sion! And in that spirit, the price of that Chu-Han Contention Blu-ray set you bought last time could buy African children food for a month—no, half a year!

- ···Shinyu.

Seo Ryujin acting like she’d die if she couldn’t put me to work, and Shinyu always taking my side—while somehow still stabbing me right in the guilt.

- What’s with you, Lee Sion? You only play games—so why are you so trash?

- This is... a scam! You definitely cheated!

- This is the game you suggested.

- Sion, I told you last time too—your talent isn’t lacking. I’m just good.

- You insane Ryu Ayeon, die!!!

Lee Gahyeon and Ryu Ayeon, who—somehow—were absurdly good at KartRider when we gambled lunch, and left me eating dirt.

- Where is the pirate?!

- Yuri? Yuri said she wanted to go for a walk, so Yuri went out a while ago.

- She stole my snacks again! The ones I stocked up!

- Just buy more. You steal my snacks too, anyway.

- Me stealing yours is wealth redistribution. It’s a righteous act.

- Then Yuri is a righteous thief too!

- That’s different, kid!

Yuri the thief, who stole my emergency rations like it was her job, and Yunkyung the bourgeois, who couldn’t grasp the noble concept of redistribution.

It wasn’t every day you met people who could entertain me this much.

To the point my “Valley exploration time” and my “learn history from TV time” had both gotten noticeably cut down.

And then—

- I’m happy right now.

Suyeon’s words from not long ago—after we debuted, while we were in the thick of running music shows—were what made me decide to renew.

'Whatever. It’s the age of living to a hundred. Working a bit right now is fine.'

With just the Bitcoin I’d already saved up, I could live the rest of my life comfortably without any problems.

So for now, I wanted to do what I wanted.

In my past life, I was a soldier.

It had been kind of fun, and not bad—but I hadn’t gone because I wanted to.

'Come to think of it... I didn’t really have a dream in my past life or this one.'

At first, the job “celebrity” had been nothing but resistance.

But now, honestly, it was fun.

Practicing new songs with the members, going on stage for the fans who were waiting for us—there was a real sense of accomplishment in it.

During Agbaek, I’d been busy preparing stages every week, but I was still hyped.

And after debuting, I liked that I was learning a world I’d never experienced before.

There were so many things in the world I didn’t know. It felt like being a kid learning how life worked.

After doing that guerrilla concert at Three Kingdoms, I even started thinking I wanted to gather a whole crowd and do a /N_o_v_e_l_i_g_h_t/ real concert properly.

And not just that—acting, which I’d ended up doing by coincidence last time—

- Lee Sion’s on!

Sitting on the living room couch with the members and watching myself act on TV was honestly super embarrassing, but it was interesting how different it felt, seeing what we filmed turned into something edited and broadcast.

'Games are only fun when you clear every challenge.'

If you play games long enough, you run into challenge objectives.

Some are easy, and some make you wonder if they were designed by a psychopath.

And I was the kind of person who couldn’t be satisfied unless I cleared them all.

If I was going to be an idol, I figured I’d only feel satisfied if I hit the very top.

So I renewed because I decided I wanted to do what I wanted—and it was purely my own choice.

Which meant keeping it secret from the members was the right call.

Because even if the others didn’t, if Im Yunkyung and Geum Shinyu heard I renewed, it was obvious they’d immediately start making a scene about wanting to renew too.

Lee Gahyeon wouldn’t say it out loud, but she’d still end up torn, wondering if she should.

And Seo Ryujin and Ryu Ayeon—those two wouldn’t show it, but I could already see them agonizing over it inside.

I didn’t want that.

Continuing Iam was something the members needed to decide for themselves.

I didn’t want outside factors—like “Sion renewed”—to get mixed in, making them join with a gross, uneasy feeling.

You can measure the depth of water, but you can’t measure a person’s heart.

I didn’t know whether the members truly wanted to keep doing Iam.

Ding-dong.

While I was sorting out my thoughts about the renewal, the elevator had already arrived at the dorm floor.

'Good thing I stole the snacks.'

During the meeting, the refreshments the CEO personally prepared were pretty good, so on my way out I’d secretly packed some to bring to the members.

Ever since I suggested a palanquin at that guerrilla concert, the members had been kind of poisoned lately.

If I handed these over and said I bought them for them, they’d definitely calm down.

"I’m back!"

I kicked the dorm door open and marched in, holding the cookies—my renewal spoils—

"What?"

There was nobody there.

***

"Congratulations on first place, Ayeon."

"Thank you, sir."

Park Taesu couldn’t believe what he was seeing: Ryu Ayeon, sitting across from him, carefully sipping tea.

'Ayeon changed this much...?'

Right now she was working under KJ Entertainment, but officially, Ryu Ayeon still belonged to TSP.

Park Taesu had called her in for the first time in a while because he had something important to discuss with her.

But the moment he saw her when she arrived, he couldn’t help being shocked.

- Esther, this won’t work.

- What?

- You’ve gotten lazy. Was this just some half-assed stage because it was an event?

- What kind of bullshit is that?!

- Look. At 2:03, you alone get the move wrong. After I saw that, I got so frustrated I couldn’t sleep last night.

- Our CEO wouldn’t say anything over something like that!

- Something like that...? Just something like that?

- What?

- That was the gap between first place and third place... do you still not get it?

- Just die! Why are you scraping at people’s insides the second you come back to the company after forever?!

Esther and Ryu Ayeon—two people whose relationship had been so bad that even Park Taesu used to worry.

Seeing the two of them in the company lounge, bickering over videos on a phone... it was something he never could’ve imagined.

'If she’d shown me that side a little earlier...'

Ryu Ayeon was a trainee Park Taesu cherished.

A gem overflowing with talent and effort.

But because of her stubborn, one-track personality, she couldn’t get along with other trainees, and in the end, he had no choice but to remove her from the debut lineup.

[TSP really has no eye for trainees]

「If Ryu Ayeon was in LYNX right now, it’d be perfect, so why the hell didn’t they put her in?

And then why did they send her to Agbaek and just hand free wins to LYNX’s competitor group?!」

⤷Stop fighting over hypotheticals. Their paths were just different.

⤷Agreed. The current LYNX members have good chemistry. Why are you obsessed with Ryu Ayeon?

⤷But honestly, if Ryu Ayeon joined LYNX it’d be insane. Skills and visuals are both good.

⤷After Three Kingdoms, she was butting heads with Esther a lot. Their chemistry would probably be good too.

⤷Iam’s contract ends soon anyway, so isn’t there a high chance she joins LYNX?

⤷No. One of the things fans hate most is adding members.

⤷Then is she going solo?

People who didn’t know the full situation would post online about LYNX and Ryu Ayeon under headlines like “TSP’s mistake,” making Park Taesu’s stomach burn.

"The reason I called you in today—you probably already have a rough idea, but···."

"Is it that, after all?"

Park Taesu was the one who’d called Ryu Ayeon in for a meeting today.

After they spent some time sipping tea, he finally brought up why he’d summoned her, and Ryu Ayeon answered with a look that said she already knew.

"You knew?"

"Yes··· I’m not clueless."

Clueless.

Was there any word that didn’t fit Ryu Ayeon more than that?

When she said she knew why he’d called her, Park Taesu couldn’t help being shocked again.

"Then... is it because you’re here to punish the traitor?"

"Pfft—what?!"

But the second that completely random line came out of her mouth, Park Taesu ended up spraying the tea he was drinking.

"When Lee Sion said it, I thought it was a joke... but since KJ Entertainment beat TSP and took first place at Three Kingdoms this time, you’re going to scold me for it..."

"No!"

Ryu Ayeon looked resigned as she misunderstood something completely insane.

When Park Taesu immediately said it absolutely wasn’t that, Ryu Ayeon tilted her head with a what, then? expression.

And Park Taesu finally managed to get to the point.

"I called you because of what you’re going to do after this."

"My... future activities?"

"Your project group contract with KJ Entertainment has about half a year left."

"Ah···."

"After that, I want to make you two proposals."

At Park Taesu’s words, Ryu Ayeon’s expression grew serious.

A slightly sharpened look, like the Ryu Ayeon from before Agbaek.

"First: joining LYNX."

"Joining LYNX..."

"After Iam disbands, you’d join LYNX as a member and promote with them. Of course, for that to happen, we’d need to ask the existing members how they feel starting now—and you’d also need to make time here and there to participate in album production."

That wasn’t really Park Taesu’s personal opinion—it was the company’s stance.

- Wouldn’t it be best to bring Ryu Ayeon into LYNX?

Through Agbaek and promoting as Iam, her recognition had built past “enough” into “overflowing.”

She’d secured a fanbase too.

It was too much of a waste to just let talent like that go.

Park Taesu could understand their logic to some extent.

Adding new members to an idol group was often poison, but even so, Ryu Ayeon was valuable enough that the benefits looked bigger than the risks.

"No."

"···Really?"

But Ryu Ayeon rejected his first proposal without even the slightest hesitation.

She refused so cleanly it made him wonder if he’d misheard, and it was almost awkward.

"LYNX is a group the current members built with their own struggle from the start. Me joining LYNX would be something I can’t do to them—and it’s not something LYNX fans would want either."

"That’s... true."

It wasn’t just “I don’t want to.”

Ryu Ayeon gave a clear, logical reason, and Park Taesu couldn’t help admiring her.

'That’s exactly what I think.'

Back when she got cut from the old LYNX debut lineup, she’d come to him demanding to know how he could do that.

Now she’d grown to the point where she was thinking about the team instead of herself.

"Second: solo promotions."

Honestly, Park Taesu had never been that excited about the “LYNX” plan in the first place.

So he brought out the second proposal—the one he actually wanted to recommend.

"Solo..."

And unlike the first proposal, this one seemed to interest Ryu Ayeon, because her reaction was different from before.

"If you were just debuting, I wouldn’t recommend solo."

Solo debut had a huge amount of uncertainty.

A group could pull popularity by stacking members—figuring everyone would have at least one person they liked.

But solo meant exactly what it sounded like: you had to captivate the public alone.

The difficulty level was high.

But with the Ryu Ayeon of right now, there was a chance.

'She built a fanbase through Iam, and she has the skill to fill a stage alone.'

That was why Park Taesu could bring up solo as his second proposal.

And if Ryu Ayeon wanted it, he intended to support her solo career with everything he had.