Prince From Another Dimension Becomes An Idol [EN]: Chapter 100

#100.

—Sunshine on me

—Bring it down, bring it to my side—

It was the chorus, harmoniously crafted by Do-jae, Kyu-sung, and Louie.

In the bright yet somewhat melancholic melody, subtle glances exchanged between the male and female leads heightened the tension.

That’s how episode 1 ended.

The members stared blankly at the screen where the song was playing.

It felt completely different from watching the music video, where they appeared and music continuously played instead of dialogues.

At this moment, MOST’s voice wasn’t the main focus.

However, thanks to their voices, the excitement felt by the two people in the scene was maximized.

“Ugh!”

Louie groaned, clutching his heart.

Do-jae looked at him in surprise, but he was simply overwhelmed with emotion.

Louie explained that when he listened to OSTs [original sound tracks] while walking, he naturally pictured scenes from the drama and became immersed in its world.

Because a story was attached to the song, he could quickly immerse himself in emotions of laughing, crying, and getting angry just by listening to it.

The members clearly understood what that meant.

From now on, whenever they sang this song, they would likely recall the faces of the two men and women, and the emotions they conveyed.

That meant the scenes in the drama were that good.

It also meant the scenes and the song matched well.

“It’s amazing. Our song is playing while the actors are acting.”

“But it’s really fun, isn’t it? It’s a bit cheesy, but… that’s what romantic comedies are like. It reminds me of the old days. When I was in middle school, I hated studying so I watched dramas.”

Kyu-sung and Heung-min said.

Heung-min suddenly hummed the OST of as if lost in memories.

was a hugely popular drama at the time, and its OST was played on the streets every day.

“If even hyung [older brother/male friend] says it’s fun, it must be really fun!”

Louie said excitedly.

Woo-chul showed his phone to Do-jae and Louie, who were sitting next to him.

The reactions in the drama community were remarkable.

Even though it was Oh Hye-young’s and Park Seung-ho’s work, and it was the first broadcast, generating a lot of initial interest, the praise continued from the first page to dozens of pages of online forums.

There were quite a few posts asking about the OST that played at the end, with many praising the song.

“Gosh!”

Louie muttered in admiration.

Even to Louie, a drama enthusiast…

This reaction indicated a complete hit.

***

For several days after the first two episodes aired, gained positive word-of-mouth.

The drama was broadcast not only on the broadcasting station but also simultaneously on the OTT platform [Over-The-Top media service, e.g., Netflix] Netflix.

Therefore, viewers who missed the live broadcast could watch the drama anytime, anywhere, 24 hours a day.

The reaction to episodes 3 and 4 of , which attracted even more viewers in a week, was truly explosive.

The first broadcast’s viewership rating was also in the 9% range, which was a pretty good start for recent dramas.

It was already proving Park Seung-ho’s drawing power.

The topicality index was naturally number one.

And the viewership rating for episode 4 was a whopping 14%.

It was a tremendous upward trend.

And that upward trend wasn’t just reflected in viewership ratings.

OSTs from were also steadily climbing within the top 30 of the music charts.

even took first place on the music charts.

It stayed in the top ranks, hovering around 2nd and 3rd place for quite a while.

“I didn’t know I’d be topping the music charts again like this.”

“Life really is unpredictable.”

Leaving the waiting room, the members blankly had moralistic and somewhat old-man-like thoughts, such as ‘In the end, you never know when or how things will turn out, so you should always do your best.’

The reason the members can always do their best…

It might be because of their innate nature, but it might also be because they are rewarded for doing their best.

They were lucky, the members said in unison.

Of course, riding that wave of luck was also possible because they were prepared.

In any case, thanks to the immense popularity of , the members unexpectedly ended up on the MVS stage in the first week of December.

***

At that time, in front of the SVS broadcasting station.

Team Leader Kim Seok-cheol got into the driver’s seat of the black sedan with a frown.

He moved separately from the members to negotiate with SVS, but things didn’t go well.

His heart was heavy and 답답했다 [frustrated/suffocated].

As if representing Team Leader Kim Seok-cheol’s feelings, the weather was gray, as if it would rain or snow soon.

Team Leader Kim Seok-cheol connected to Jung Gil-joo via Bluetooth earphones.

“Gil-joo.”

—Yes, Team Leader. Did things go well?

“It’s not easy. I think I should go straight to the company.”

—Aish. This is driving me crazy. There’s a limit to how much they can treat us like pushovers!

Jung Gil-joo exclaimed excitedly.

It was a complaint that had been building up since last year.

Team Leader Kim Seok-cheol and most of the internal staff at Kingdom Company felt the same way.

—Anyway, I understand. I’ll drop the kids off at the dorm after the broadcast and stop by the company.

“Yes. Do that.”

After ending the call with Jung Gil-joo, Team Leader Kim Seok-cheol immediately contacted Vice President Jung Hyeong-seok.

He reported that the discussion with SVS had not gone well and that he would explain the details in person. Vice President Jung Hyeong-seok calmly replied that he understood.

However, when Team Leader Kim Seok-cheol arrived at the vice president’s office, Vice President Jung Hyeong-seok, who was usually stern but polite, looked quite angry.

“Even if the broadcasting station is in a position of power, this is too much!”

The quiet vice president’s office.

Vice President Jung Hyeong-seok’s cold voice echoed.

It was a well-known fact among people in the industry or those even slightly interested in the industry that the SVS entertainment bureau, especially Oh Jong-hwan PD [Producer-Director], who was in charge of music broadcasts, and his superiors had a cooperative relationship with New Entertainment.

There were often cases where artists from other agencies were harmed to favor artists from New Entertainment, causing friction.

But this time, they were openly harming Kingdom.

It started last year at the awards ceremony when SVS was the only broadcasting station that gave the rookie award to D.Origin, unlike other broadcasting stations.

Clearly, MOST should have received the rookie award based on their performance without the judges’ scores.

But what could they do?

The judges chose D.Origin.

But what happened after that was even more problematic.

MOST was not invited to any entertainment programs.

Other broadcasting stations also seemed to be wary of New and avoided MOST despite their popularity, but SVS was even more blatant.

Even Big Boyz had their invitations cut off.

Thanks to this, MOST and Big Boyz were unable to appear on the shows that singers usually go through when they make a comeback.

The agency had no choice but to let this go, as they could simply say that they didn’t call them because there were many other alternative singers.

“1 or 2 minutes of stage time. It may not seem like much from the outside. But every second is precious to a singer.”

However, Vice President Jung Hyeong-seok’s position was that he could not tolerate playing around with the stage.

“And that’s at an awards ceremony. It’s a year-end review. Big Boyz was last year’s grand prize winner, and MOST’s achievements this year cannot be denied by anyone, even if they try to deny it. They’ve become so popular that there’s even talk of manipulating the music charts!”

He poured out his words as if he couldn’t believe it.

His voice inevitably got a little louder.

Team Leader Kim Seok-cheol sighed with a dark face.

The problem was the stage time allocation for the SVS year-end awards ceremony.

The stage time was appropriately allocated to other singers according to their popularity and seniority.

..REGINA 3 minutes 30 seconds

Candies 4 minutes

MOST 4 minutes

Infinite Boys 5 minutes 20 seconds

D.Origin 8 minutes

Big Boyz 6 minutes 30 seconds

Cindy-ah 9 minutes

HOH 12 minutes

Team Leader Kim Seok-cheol and Planning Team 2 were speechless after seeing the stage order and time allocation.

They had nothing to say about giving HOH, who was likely to win the grand prize again this year, the most time.

But Big Boyz had less stage time than D.Origin.

MOST was clearly achieving better results than D.Origin, a rookie who was New’s ambitious project.

It seemed to be reviving with , but it wasn’t enough to catch up with the speed at which MOST was taking off because MOST topped the music charts in various genres.

In addition, Big Boyz was the only singer in the current market who could chase after HOH, although they were still not at the level of HOH.

It was clear that New was desperately trying to break Kingdom’s momentum.

And the fact that SVS was working with New to disadvantage Kingdom was now clearly revealed.

“It seems New is in a hurry.”

At Team Leader Kim Seok-cheol’s words, Vice President Jung Hyeong-seok pressed his temples as if he had a headache.

He couldn’t just let this obvious discrimination pass.

However, he didn’t want to ‘sell’ singers by lobbying broadcasting officials like New or other agencies.

Of course, Kingdom Entertainment was also producing singers and songs for the public to consume.

However, they would put them in prettier packaging and even add ribbons to make them more appealing to the public, but they would never do anything shady behind the scenes.

That was the belief of CEO Oh Jeong-ho, who founded the company, and Vice President Jung Hyeong-seok, who followed him.

Even if that belief hindered Kingdom Entertainment’s growth.

Even though it might seem foolish, they also believed that it would be a wise choice in the long run.

“At this rate, we won’t be able to appear on the broadcast.”

“Vice President.”

“Even though we don’t have much power, they’re not treating our singers who are working hard to prepare for the stage properly and making fun of us… what can we do?”

He seemed to have gone through a lot of 고민 [agonizing thoughts/worries] in his own way, and his tone was quite firm.

“Let’s focus on other broadcasting stations’ awards ceremonies.”

***

The next day.

The members gathered in the practice room to prepare for the awards ceremony.

Before Yang-mal, who would be practicing the choreography with them, arrived, the members gathered in groups of three or five to analyze the stage from yesterday.

In fact, yesterday’s stage was a hastily prepared special stage, so they had to perform without proper choreography.

Instead, they received a lot of praise for their live performance, but the members couldn’t help but feel that it was a disappointing stage.

Yang-mal said that the choreography was now prepared, so fortunately, they would be able to showcase a pretty decent stage at the awards ceremony.

“We’re performing not only at MVS but also at N TV, right?”

“Yes. We’re also nominated for the OST category award.”

Do-jae answered Heung-min’s question.

“It’s another broadcasting station, so we won’t be performing at the SVS awards ceremony, right?”

“Probably…”

In fact, the SVS awards ceremony was the earliest this year in terms of timing.

But they weren’t preparing for the SVS awards ceremony.

This was because the stage time had not been confirmed, so they couldn’t start the arrangement work.

Of course, it wouldn’t be a big problem even if they started preparing two weeks in advance…