Midnight

Quite Distant

Almost another month passed by. aeri's lack of individual promotion has come to her fans' recognition and it somehow raised voice on many platforms.
The only interactions she had with fans are through social media posts, and live. Those are the platforms she's able to share her interests, unreleased songs, or small unofficial covers. Somehow, these were not enough for the fans.

She had joint many meeting with the creative team, but none of their suggestions seem to not meet her personality. She did tried joining shows and such, but none of those got the attention as expected.

"What do you want us to do, Giselle? You're too demanding for a two months old rookie." The team leader bursted to which aeri predicted. Not entirely his fault, nor any of them.

Actually, she really thinks the team had done a very great job for coming up with these variety, reality shows existing out there for her to fit in. But, this is not about fitting in, it's about choosing what is fitted.
Going to a talk show when she doesn't really talk? It's no surprise she'd been dragged to mud by haters.

"I really appreciate the hard works these past few meetings, but would you please take my proposal into consideration?"
"Doing music, really?" The older man crossed his arms, and sat back down. "You know that your talents have to be capitalized correctly. The top management is not going to get your output wasted on a show where nobody is going to watch."

Here, he goes again. Clearly, they did not trust her.

"Isn't the sole purpose of individual schedule is for my exposure?" She tried her best to be composed, and respectful. "Besides, it's clear that someone like me would not be profitable in variety shows."

"Still, Giselle." Mr. Kang shook his head. " There are two problems here.
One, Making a music content on Midnight's official YouTube channel would only be exposed to your own fans. We need more audience, especially when you're just a rookie.
Two, less exposure means less profit."

Aeri sighed. These problems were not new to her. Instead, she had thought about this before coming to this meeting.
"I do have solution, if you wouldn't mind listening."

The creator glanced at her manager who's sitting just behind her. It's odd that usually these types of negotiation or discussions are done by the managers, instead of the artists themselves. It's not that he had not worked with manager yoon before. In fact, manager yoon was one of the best people he's worked with. She's dependable, considerate, and most important of all, responsible.
So, letting aeri speaking for herself actually implied that manager yoon trusted her.

Getting an assurance nod from her manager, mr. Kang decided to give aeri a try. "What is it?"

Light smile raised, just as her hope. "I heard rumor that one red velvet's member is going to make her first solo comeback."
The team creator frowned. "Yeah, my team is also assigned with her upcoming schedule. But where did you get that information?" He eyed manager yoon who gave him a shrug.

"Producer lee told me." Mentioning her own brother in proud. "He's working on her comeback song and whole album concept."
Now, her smile could reach her ears.
As if mr.kang caught onto her clue, he scoffed. "You want to make a music for Irene? You get her approval?"
"Technically no. But I'd rather say 'not yet'." She sighed and scooted closer with convincing gazes. "I'm hoping you can talk to senior irene about my show. You see, this will solve both problem. I work on the song which is going to be profited, and capturing two group of audiences."

Somehow, mr.kang was kinda impressed. "Lovely idea, giselle."
She's very delighted until his another comment was added. "This won't last long."
"What do you mean?"