young & wild | chaeyu

twenty-two ; flop

"Well, this is a disaster," grumbled Irwin Young angrily. "We're nowhere near charting!"

Nayeon inhaled slowly. "We are charting, Mr. Young. Just not as high as we'd aimed for. Something is better than nothing. Besides, we still have two more singles to release, remember?"

The meeting was tense. It was still the inner circle attending, this time without their artist in question, Jihyo. They would hold another meeting in an hour with the other necessary employees, but Annie had requested that the seven of them meet up beforehand, so they could sort things out without appearing disorganized or off guard.

"She has a point," Jeongyeon says, not sparing Nayeon a glance. Still, Nayeon couldn't help but think, it's better than nothing.

Irwin exhaled angrily. Sunny and Annie seemed rather put off as well, but they were much less vocal about their frustration.

Minju was being quiet, as she usually was, so no one had gotten a good read on what she was thinking of the unfortunate way the public had received the first single. And to Nayeon's surprise, Sunghyun seemed somewhat amused by the situation. He sat perfectly calm, arms crossed casually and the tiniest of smiles on his face.

"Ahn, do you care to share what you find so funny?" Sunny asked him sharply, unexpectedly and somewhat agressively addressing him by his surname.

Nayeon couldn't help but look surprised. She hadn't seen Sunny like this before. She looked around at the others, wondering if anyone was thinking the same thing as her. To Nayeon's surprise, she caught Jeongyeon's eye. Her ex shrugged, the confusion on her face mirroring Nayeon's. The older girl broke eye contact, turning to focus on Sunghyun's answer. She too was curious what he thought, though she wouldn't have worded it quite like Sunny did.

Sunghyun shifted in his chair slightly uncomfortably. "I wouldn't say I find this funny. I just want you all to remember Jihyo's OST sales. They started off really low, right? And then they slowly grew and peaked at around two weeks. Only five days have passed, so it's a little soon to judge too hard."

"But the OST single didn't sell as good as her debut either," pointed out Jeongyeon critically.

Annie sighed. "We are again forgetting to factor in that Jihyo's debut was the company's first release. We had clout from being an all girls company with two young female founders. Naturally, we got a bit more attention." Irwin smiled a little at his wife's outspokenness.

"Fair enough," Jeongyeon said with a shrug. "So we wait and hope that this single picks up a little bit.

Minju nodded. The attention snapped to her. As she was their main comeback coordinator, most of the team was eager to hear her thoughts. "Well..." she began. "I think we shouldn't adjust her promotions schedule just yet. Finish her week-long promotions, a week of break and final touches, then the second release. We had hoped for more impact than this, but this makes sense, logically. We just had a big scandal, not long ago at all. It wasn't our fault, but it will obviously affect our sales."

"But there was no evidence of the scandal being true, so people shouldn't be affected by it," Irwin pointed out.

"People believe whatever they see and assume that someone else has already done the digging to prove it's true. And when it was disproved, I bet that information spread significantly less. It's more interesting to hear about the scandalous stuff than the normal news," explained Minju.

"This is why we let you plan stuff and not him," Sunny remarked with a thin smile. "Minju's got the brains of this group."

Irwin laughed, though it sounded forced to Nayeon's ears.

"How is the second single coming along?" asked Sunghyun. He was the only one of the small group that didn't dabble in the creative process, preferring to stick to being an assistant manager and stylist. "Sunny and Irwin are working on it, right?"

"Yeah," Sunny said. "Jihyo, Nayeon, and Irwin have all come up with lyrics for the basic melody. Irwin and I are going to do the rest of the production stuff. I was actually wondering if we could get a trainee to do some background vocals as a sort of cameo. And it would introduce said trainee to the recording process, and boost their confidence."

"That's interesting," mused Jeongyeon. "I have a couple trainees who'd do good with that."

Nayeon pursued her lips. "I have trainees in mind as well. But let's not get too far ahead of ourselves. Is there a time that Jihyo, Irwin, and I can smooth out the lyrics to the song?"

"I was thinking tomorrow evening," mentioned Irwin absentmindedly, looking at a calendar. "Jihyo has a big enough opening in her schedule I think it would work well."

"Alright," nodded Nayeon. "Sounds good with me."

"Okay," Minju said. "Now that that's settled, I'm intrigued about the trainee idea. Why did you suggest it, Sunny?" Annie leaned forward, looking equally curious.

"Wait a moment," Sunghyun intervened. "Why must it be a trainee? Jamie is our best vocalist, and most popular by far. Our only win is because of her last comeback."

"Because," Minju said suddenly, before anyone else could have the chance to intervene. "We don't need another opportunity for critics to point out that Jimin has more opportunity than everyone else. Besides, it could be a good way to layer and contrast vocals? Regardless, we may as well give the other trainees a chance, especially since Jimin is on break."

"That's fair," Sunghyun said after a moment of contemplation. "Is it reasonable to suggest Hirai Momo, then?"

"No offense to Momo," Jeongyeon sighed. "But I don't think our audience is very fond of her yet. And both her debut and comeback have been very... hype. This song is somewhat upbeat, but also very melancholy, to my understanding."

Sunny nodded. "So it seems a trainee would be best. But who?"

"The people who know the girls best are Nayeon, Jeongyeon, and Sunghyun," Annie ventured quietly. "Maybe they can sort that out after the main meeting officially ends?"

"I don't think I'm a good choice for this," Sunghyun said, slightly uncomfortably. "I help with managing, but I'm not very close with any of the trainees." Nayeon didn't blame him for his hesitance. She wouldn't want to be stuck with her and Jeongyeon either. Already, Nayeon could feel the awkwardness.

"That's okay," Jeongyeon told him. "Nayeon and I will discuss our choices after the meeting, then." Nayeon nodded along, hoping that it wouldn't be as awkward as she worried it might be.

a/n 22: i did some thinking, and it looks like i only have around 8-12ish chapters left of this story! it feels weird to think about.

of the trainees in this story (j-line and dubu), who do you think would be best for the background vocal idea they have?

also, thank you so much for 1.5k reads <3