After stopping by Top East Entertainment and finishing the arrangement with the help of Team Leader Sohyeon and composer Jeon Yosep,
I returned to the Shock Entertainment studio late in the predawn hours to do one final check.
Because additional mixing or arrangement work might be needed.
“Haa... Working at this hour of the morning...”
But Chae-rin unnie, dark circles heavy under her eyes, seemed less than pleased.
“We have to prepare for the year-end stages too...”
As I set up the track, complaints and grumbling kept coming from behind me.
“We have the Singapore tour this weekend... We have to leave the day after tomorrow. Haa...”
I decided to try soothing her a little.
“Unnie. Still, isn’t it emotional and insanely romantic to prepare an album named after the dawn at dawn?”
“Yeah, it’s insane...”
“Right?”
“I’m insane...”
It didn’t seem to be working very well.
“Haa... Why did I say I’d help?”
At times like this, there was no choice but to offer mindless sympathy.
“I know. Why did you do that back then?”
“......”
Chae-rin unnie glared at me in displeasure, then flopped facedown onto the sofa.
Then came her gloomy voice.
“You’d better be really good to Seoyun. I bet Seoyun was super nice at first too.”
“...? This unnie really must be out of her mind. That is seriously not true.”
“Haa...”
To be honest, at first, I had intended to guarantee at least Chae-rin unnie’s right to sleep for the sake of her mental health.
But once I saw the schedule, there was no helping it this time. We were extremely pressed for time.
What we were aiming for was the Grand Prize at the three major award ceremonies—WMA, MWMA, and Golden Disc.
And among those Grand Prizes, the Song of the Year award.
The most important thing for winning Song of the Year was visible metrics like annual chart rankings.
On the Watermelon annual chart I checked before coming here, “Unsatisfed,” released early this year, was at number two.
And on the Box, Gown, and Jennie charts, it was number one.
At this point, it was fair to say the conditions for receiving a Grand Prize were nearly in place.
‘And if there’s just one more catalyst on the Watermelon chart, we’re on track to reclaim number one in December too.’
But being number one on the annual chart did not necessarily guarantee winning Song of the Year.
In fact, there had consistently been cases where the artist who ranked number one on the annual chart failed to receive the Grand Prize.
That was because the evaluation criteria for the Grand Prize included public voting,
as well as the group’s impact and popularity that year.
That was why there was only one significance to this comeback.
To serve as the final catalyst, maintaining the buzz and influence that would otherwise wane while we were on our overseas tour.
And naturally, this also meant that we had to make our comeback two weeks—or at the very least, one week—before November 28, when our first year-end award ceremony, the WMA Watermelon Music Awards, began.
“But when are we supposed to prepare for our year-end stages? We’ll have to practice the choreography for this too.”
“You said you could do it...”
“I meant if we cut down on sleep. Well, if we only do music show appearances for the first week, that’ll give us time to practice, right?”
“Haa... Why did I ever agree with that nonsense...”
“It’s okay. Everyone else agreed by vote too. Except Kim Seoyun.”
While Chae-rin unnie started grumbling again, the MIDI equipment finished booting up.
Now it was time to let Chae-rin unnie hear the track we’d finished working on.
“Unnie, I’m playing it now?”
Without even answering, Chae-rin unnie waved her hand vaguely to signal yes.
And with a click, the demo version began to play.
It was a version with no proper lyrics yet, just meaningless words fitted to the rhythm, and on top of that, we had recorded it roughly thirty minutes after finishing the arrangement.
But personally, I was extremely satisfied with it.
And Chae-rin unnie’s expression seemed to say the same.
Even with her dark circles hanging low, her face was strangely flushed with excitement.
“Haa... There isn’t even anything to fix. I came for nothing. I should’ve just listened on my laptop.”
“Right? I don’t think it even needs mixing.”
“Yeah. We really made it well. I’m tired, but the song’s so good my fatigue is going away.”
“Then should we try writing the lyrics now too?”
At my joke, Chae-rin unnie’s face scrunched up again.
Her irritated response followed.
“Come on. Leave that kind of thing to the lyricists. We don’t even have time.”
“Then the dance?”
“Haa... You’re doing this on purpose, aren’t you? Since when have we ever made choreography ourselves?”
“Why not? You’re a dance genius, unnie. Oh, right. We have to decide on the outfits and concept too, don’t we?”
Now Chae-rin unnie left the studio without even responding.
“Unnie, wait for me~”
There was something oddly fun about teasing Chae-rin unnie too.
***
After news of SAVEN’s comeback broke, posts teasing fans who had gone overseas to see them in person often appeared in the SAVEN fan community.
[They’re coming back in November, so surely nobody paid big money to go see their overseas concerts like a sucker~?]
[Haa~ A November comeback and year-end stages in December? I’m already having fun lol]
[Watched both domestic concerts and am now proudly taking another W today while lying in bed watching VCRs of their overseas concerts from across the world]
Of course, since these posts hinted at envy toward the fans who had gone to the overseas concerts, everyone enjoyed them in good spirits.
However, that didn’t mean the overseas concertgoers took no damage at all.
After all, most of those who traveled abroad had made the difficult decision to go because they had expected SAVEN’s members to have no schedules except for the year-end stages this year.
-(Photo of bank account balance) You’re saying there’s another domestic new song stage...? There’s a comeback...?
└Student, go cry over there, you’ll bring bad luck
-I’m an office worker and I used up all my annual leave for this overseas trip... Going to music shows is out of the question now...
└Then just go on the weekend
└Are you a T? I’m asking you to sympathize
└For real, they’re saying they’re sad they can’t go to weekday music shows, hello?
But there were also fans for whom none of this mattered.
If it was Manila, then Manila.
If it was Bangkok, then Bangkok.
If it was Singapore, then Singapore.
They were the fans who had followed most of the tour schedule from the beginning. In other words, SAVEN’s fansite masters.
And for one of Dohee’s fansite masters, this was one such case where it didn’t matter. She simply wasn’t cool with being teased.
—Tap tap tap.
“Yeah... With the weak yen, the concert costs are cheaper, and I even get to travel. Total win.”
—Tap tap tap.
“Did you know a SAVEN merch shop opened in Akihabara, Japan to commemorate the tour? It was super cheap, so I bought everything.”
—Tap tap tap.
“Wow, the Tokyo concert was so much fun... The newly prepared stages were great, and maybe because the girls have gotten used to concert stages, they’re even better now...”
—Tap tap tap.
“Wow, Dohee’s twin-tail outfit at the Tokyo concert was totally kira-kira... Her Japanese is seriously so good too, you really have to hear it live. But if you haven’t even heard this, are you really a Shavenue?”
Only after finishing her comment work on her alt account did the fansite master feel refreshed enough to log into her own social media and begin fangirling.
Of course, calling it fangirling made it sound like more than it was.
She was simply scrolling through a timeline plastered with SAVEN.
And today, there was one post that was an especially hot topic.
[Is this a spoiler?]
It was a post with only that title and a single video attached.
Judging by the outfits, it seemed to be from the second day of the Tokyo concert.
When she clicked the video, footage played of Dohee communicating with Japanese fans in Japanese during the concert’s mid-show talk segment.
“Ah, this.”
She had also seen it live at the concert, but since she didn’t know Japanese, she hadn’t understood the conversation.
The translated subtitles said this.
The members once again didn’t understand Japanese and were merely nodding along, but from the viewer’s perspective, they certainly looked like they were agreeing.
“What is it? If it’s someone famous enough for all the members to like, are they really well-known?”
The fansite master opened the comments and looked at the list of PDs and composers the fans were guessing.
They were all top-tier composers anyone deeply into K-pop would have heard of at least once.
“Ah, this person’s good. But didn’t they set up their own company? Still, they do collaborations sometimes. Oh, it’d be nice if Blackfeel took it on too.”
In truth, the fansite master had been secretly worried after seeing the comeback article.
Because the time from the end of the tour to the announced comeback date was less than three weeks—an impossible schedule to meet even if the songs had been prepared in advance.
But if famous PDs were involved, she felt certain they would be able to take care of the members.
‘Yeah, no matter how dumb Shock Entertainment is, they wouldn’t decide something like this in a rush.’
Shavenues already knew this, but every SAVEN album and comeback had been carried out according to plan.
You could tell just by looking at the album titles.
Their first single, “Aurora.”
A deviant, hip-hop-like concept showing members beginning with their debut and declaring that they would not be confined to existing molds.
Their second single, “Daydream.”
A classic but universally loved, refreshing and innocent concept.
Their third single, “Dusk.”
A proactive, sophisticated, urban concept.
Album titles focused on the flow of time.
Since SAVEN’s slogan was “Seventh heaven,” meaning supreme happiness, the implication was that just as the colors of the sky changed with time, each album would show a different side of the members.
“Come to think of it, I wonder what the next album title will be...”
And she was able to learn the answer to that question in the near future.
Because it was revealed through an article one week later.
[SAVEN to Come Back on November 13... Releasing 4th Single Album “Wee Hours”]
“Wee hours,” a phrase meaning the middle of the night.
Translated literally, it meant small hours.
It was a double-meaning album title that implied not only the dead of night, but also SAVEN’s short time that would soon come to an end.
But what drew even more attention was, without a doubt, this article.
[SAVEN Reveals Tracklist for “Wee Hours.” Main Producers: Gong Chae-rin and Lee Dohee]
“SAVEN solidifies its uniquely ‘SAVEN-like’ charm with the B-side ‘All Kinds of Stars’ and title track ‘Rhapsody,’ both led by Gong Chae-rin and Lee Dohee as main participants.
.
.
Meanwhile, SAVEN’s fourth single album, ‘Wee Hours,’ will be released on domestic and international music sites at 6 p.m. on the 13th.”
And naturally, the fans who encountered the article erupted.
[The incredibly talented producers = Dohee and Chae-rin lololol Rahee lolol]