The Road To Glory [EN]: Chapter 961

< 96. Ask, and Double Down >

Near Gangnam Station on the Shinbundang Line.

G’s Korean branch.

Marketing Manager Park Dae-hyung cautiously knocked on the president’s office door at one PM, the president’s preferred time, holding a proposal.

“President, good afternoon.”

“Yes, what is it, James?”

Park Dae-hyung, called James in this foreign company where nicknames were used instead of titles, gave an awkward, bright smile. He had taken a calming pill, but it hadn’t kicked in yet, so he was a little nervous.

“I have good news and slightly difficult news regarding the sponsorship, President.”

“Good news and bad news, or difficult news? Can’t they both be good news?”

“Depending on how you hear it, it could be good news or bad news.”

*What kind of Schrödinger’s cat nonsense is that?*

The president gave him a puzzled look.

“Which would you like to hear first?”

“…The good one first. What is it?”

*Okay, I knew he’d ask for the good news first.*

Park Dae-hyung felt relieved.

“Do you know who I happened to meet yesterday?”

“Are you playing twenty questions with me? Who did you meet?”

“Well, it’s someone…”

Park Dae-hyung dragged out his words.

*This must be quite a big fish.*

Who could be a big enough name to get acoustic or folk guitar sponsorship?

The A-listers in the entertainment industry had already been swept up by Taylor and Gibson, so he couldn’t think of anyone. However, the president jumped up from his seat at the words that followed.

“…I met Mr. Noh Hae-il.”

…There was still a big fish that hadn’t entered the fish tank!

The president hit his knee on the desk while getting up, but he didn’t feel any pain.

“The Noh Hae-il I know, right? Not Noh Pung or Park Hae-il, but Noh Hae-il?”

“Hahaha, that’s a very funny joke, President.”

“No, James! I believed in you. I knew James was such a hard worker!”

Isn’t Noh Hae-il harder to meet than a legendary Pokémon?

The president smiled brightly, patting Park Dae-hyung’s shoulder and praising him. Then, Park Dae-hyung continued with a smiling face.

“President, you haven’t heard the difficult news yet.”

“Is it that important?”

“Yes.”

The president, feeling much more at ease with the name ‘Noh Hae-il,’ asked.

“What is it?”

Park Dae-hyung squeezed his eyes shut.

The memory of him rushing to show the boy the iPad flashed vividly in his mind.

The boy’s subtle smile when he proposed the sponsorship.

The one word he heard while reeling in the big fish.

-I’ll think about it.

“He refused.”

“…”

The brightly opened mouth slowly closed.

The president didn’t quite understand what he had just heard.

“He refused?”

“Yes.”

“Noh Hae-il did?”

“Yes.”

The president, who had been breathing quietly, picked up the nameplate next to him.

“C-calm down, President!”

“No, then why did you even say it?! Are you showing off now?! Did you come to brag to me about meeting a celebrity?”

“N-no, that’s not it. There’s a little more. Please listen. Do you know how much I racked my brain-.”

“…Alright, go ahead.”

He wouldn’t be bragging about getting an autograph.

If he said something like that, the president strengthened his grip on the crystal nameplate, ready to smash him.

Park Dae-hyung, unaware that he was about to be hit, recalled what had happened again.

He thought he couldn’t let Noh Hae-il go. He didn’t understand why he was refusing the sponsorship, but the reason wasn’t important. What was important was that he felt a red light. He had a feeling that if he let him go like this, he would never see him again.

“In that short moment, my billions of brain cells started sending electrical signals.”

“The conclusion.”

“Customer needs, targeting. The marketing theories you taught me, President, flashed through my mind.”

Click.

Park Dae-hyung snapped his fingers.

It suddenly occurred to him. What Noh Hae-il, who had been in hiding, had come all the way to Nakwon Arcade [a famous musical instrument market in Seoul] to fix. A celebrity wouldn’t come to Nakwon Arcade to fix a guitar by hand unless they had a special attachment to it.

“I wasn’t sure if my guess was correct, but I still thought it was my last chance and shouted.”

“What, did you shout ‘O genki desu ka’ [a famous line from a Japanese drama, meaning ‘How are you?’] too?”

Park Dae-hyung, ignoring the president’s words, recalled the thrill of that moment.

-What if I made you a guitar exactly like the one you have?

The pleasure of proving that his guess was correct.

-How would that be?

The boy, who had been walking ahead, stopped.

“And then I came back, saying I’d contact him soon.”

“…”

Park Dae-hyung said with a proud smile.

The president, who had been silent for a moment, asked.

“Did Noh Hae-il use our company’s guitar?”

“No.”

“Then how are you going to give him the same guitar?”

“We’ll just make it for him.”

“How?”

Park Dae-hyung closed his mouth.

The president asked again.

“Don’t tell me?”

It’s not just a sponsorship, but a signature sponsorship, right? The omitted words meant that.

Park Dae-hyung bowed and nodded.

“I, I found out about Mr. Noh Hae-il’s guitar model. President, can’t we do something about it?”

“Among the models we have, is there anything similar-.”

The president tried to salvage the situation. *If we give him something similar-.*

“Well, while G’s models all use redwood or mahogany, Mr. Noh Hae-il’s guitar uses light-colored spruce…”

“Get out.”

At that sound, the president felt his blood pressure rising to the top of his head. G had never used light-colored wood before.

“President, can’t we do something about it? Noh Hae-il isn’t just any artist, he’s the present and future of Korea! If we explain it well to the headquarters, wouldn’t they make it a signature model?”

The president scoffed.

“Manager Park, which artists have G’s artisans made signature models for so far?”

“Taylor Swift, Jason Voorhees…”

“Yes, Taylor Swift, Jason Voorhees! And Noh Hae-il?”

It was absurd.

The two were Hollywood stars with long careers.

The other is a domestic overnight star.

He felt like he had lost thirty minutes of time and emotion.

In the meantime, Park Dae-hyung calmly poured oil on the fire.

“Well… who knows? Maybe Noh Hae-il will hit number one on the Billboard charts within a year and become a global superstar that everyone wants.”

“Then bring him when that happens! Get out!”

“President… please.”

“I don’t know. I don’t know anything! James, you take care of it. Write a proposal to headquarters or don’t!”

“Sir, President? President!”

Park Dae-hyung, who had been scolded and kicked out of the president’s office, trudged back to his seat.

*Yeah, I was stupid.*

G doesn’t make signature models for most stars, so proposing to make a signature model for a star who’s just starting to rise was not something Park, who belongs to the Korean branch, should have said.

Park Dae-hyung scratched his head and felt regret.

The fateful meeting at Nakwon Arcade. That’s not an opportunity that comes often.

The fortune teller he met recently also told him to catch benefactors instead of lovers.

In fact, he might have given up cleanly if it were any other celebrity. But Noh Hae-il wasn’t just any celebrity, so he couldn’t easily give up.

Why are there people like that?

People who seem like they’ll rise higher soon, people who won’t stay in this place and will achieve great success.

Noh Hae-il’s current popularity isn’t just a small issue that’s grown, and his number one song, popularity, and star quality weren’t something to end in Korea.

Well, he might have rose-tinted glasses on because he’s currently enjoying Noh Hae-il’s music.

Still, he remembered the aura he saw in Noh Hae-il, in the small performance he saw at Nakwon Arcade.

“A man who has drawn his sword must cut something, even if it’s just a radish. Dae-hyung, let’s live up to the name your grandfather gave you and live big!”

Park Dae-hyung slapped his cheeks and began to show off his old TOEIC [Test of English for International Communication] skills.

The recipient is the person in charge at headquarters.

They might throw it away after reading it, but just in case, he wrote the data on Noh Hae-il with as much sincerity as possible.

Why they should catch the artist ‘Noh Hae-il.’ What value the artist Noh Hae-il has.

When he searched his activities, quite a lot of data came out, considering he had been in hiding. From the platform address where you can listen to all of Noh Hae-il’s albums to his music scores. Noh Hae-il’s YouTube and broadcasting history.

The Rendezvous Festival and the talk show he recently filmed in the United States.

“This might work.”

With the record of ‘Son of the Sun’ given by Belle Morrison, Park Dae-hyung looked at the last data to upload.

Hmm, should I send this too?

It wasn’t Noh Hae-il’s problem, and the quality and composition of the busking video taken with a cell phone were a bit disappointing.

Still, it’s not just a cover, and wouldn’t a Beatles cover work a bit?

Park Dae-hyung added the busking video address taken in Hongdae [a district in Seoul known for its indie music scene and street performances] one winter and pressed enter.

#

“Blessings come to those who recognize the sun.”

“Suddenly?”

When Seo-yeon asked, Nam Gyu-hwan calmly showed her SNS. It was a phrase left by Rill, the leader of the famous British metal band Scorpion.

“Ah. Isn’t this person the one who’s been controversial on SNS? He fought with a commenter who made a parental attack and-.”

“Seo-yeon, there are no bad people among those who like the sun.”

“…”

Seo-yeon’s expression turned cold at those words.

She liked the president’s songs too, but she couldn’t understand him making such a fuss.

So she looked at her phone and changed the subject.

“By the way, the company that the man I met yesterday works for. G is a very famous brand.”

“Seo-yeon, you really didn’t know G?”

Han Jin-young asked in surprise.

But she couldn’t help but not know, she had never played the guitar once, and G wasn’t a very famous guitar brand in Korea.

Experts would be different though.

“Yes, I’m not interested in guitars. Of course, I’ve heard of Gibson and Taylor a lot.”

“Everyone in the country knows that, right?”

“Whatever.”

The beginning of another war. Just as Nam Gyu-hwan and Seo-yeon were glaring at each other and about to fight again.

Laughter was heard from somewhere.

The sofa where the sunlight was coming in.

Halo, who was lying there, was laughing while looking at his phone. As Seo-yeon was about to ask what he was laughing at so happily, she paused at his burning eyes.

Ah, he wasn’t enjoying it.

His eyes weren’t laughing at all.

Of course. It’s not that he’s not enjoying it at all.

Halo was looking at his, or rather Noh Hae-il’s, criticism.

Unlike before, HALO’s criticism had become strangely mild and full of good words, so when he looked at Noh Hae-il’s music criticism and reviews, he thought, ‘I knew it.’

[Noh Hae-il Night Voyage Rating 2/5]

[What the boy needs is not praise, but advice on his lacking musical growth]

[It’s been innovative so far. But in the next album, I’ll criticize it as ‘as expected,’ and in the album after that, ‘again’]

[So what if a 17-year-old made the music? If a 17-year-old made it, do we have to unconditionally praise and compliment it?]

└I agree, they’re overhyping him because he’s young lol [laughing out loud]. Honestly, isn’t Noh Hae-il’s music all the same?

[The next album will probably be another ballad pop lol. It’s easy to get to number one on the charts with his tone~~]

Halo laughed coolly.

As in his previous life, he seemed destined to be close (?) to critics for the rest of his life. Well, being close is good. Living together, bumping into each other physically. Isn’t that all good? It’s fun. It’s consistent and good.

Then he suddenly stopped laughing.

“When I see things like this, I always.”

A sneer was placed on his expressionless face.

“Want to smash it.”

Halo jumped up.

The notebook he had placed on his lap fell to the floor with a thud.

He smiled and asked, noticing the people who were watching him with tension.

“Did everyone get enough rest?”

“Yes, yes! We’re perfectly practicing for the 8th album recording!”

“Yes, my lord.”

“The time has come.”

Seo-yeon, who was very serious

Nam Gyu-hwan, who always makes cheesy comments seriously

And Han Jin-young, who was cracking his knuckles.

When everyone agreed, Halo continued.

“HALO’s 8th album will be recorded today.”

Everyone nodded resolutely, saying they would do anything.

“And one more thing.”

Halo looked at the comment that was displayed largely on his phone.

[Is he really in hiding because of album work? He’s got a genius disease lol]

[It’ll probably be a ballad anyway lol]

[It’s so easy to get to number one with his tone~ Someone else can’t get to number one because their tone isn’t good, Noh Hae-il lives such an easy life]

“I’m thinking of making a new album this time.”

HALO’s 8th album is also a new album, but what Halo means is not that.

“Could it be…”

“What does that mean?”

Someone’s face turned white, and someone else’s eyes widened.

At that moment, someone said.

“Ask, and double down.”

Halo smiled brightly and nodded.