"Everyone, let us welcome our new head of the editing team—Cindy Jung."
A woman in her 50s bowed her head as the Rising Stars team warmly welcomed her. After Chris had been found out to be the person who assisted Alex and Hyunwoo in their plans to stab June, Yena and Yejin quickly searched far and wide for a talented editor to join their team.
And they just so happened to find Cindy Jung—an editing pioneer in the entertainment industry. For a long time, she had been with the "Crawling Man" team on a different TV station. However, there had been news that her contract was expiring with that certain TV station, so Azure did their best to recruit her.
"Thank you for welcoming me," Cindy bowed. "Let's keep Rising Stars at number 1!"
Cheers resounded in the room as they welcomed the famous editor.
"There are donuts in the lobby," Yejin said. "Take a break before going back to work."
The employees eagerly exited the meeting room and went to the lobby to devour the donuts. Yejin and Yena stayed behind to talk to Cindy.
"Thank you so much for joining the team," Yena said.
"No need to mention it," Cindy kindly smiled. "I have been working in the same workplace for more than ten years already, and honestly, it has taken a lot of time. However, the Azure building is much closer to my daughter's dorm. So, I might take this opportunity to hang out with her more."
"Oh, you have a daughter?" Yejin pleasantly asked. "I bet she's as pretty as you."
"You can say that," Cindy smiled.
"Well then, don't hesitate to call our attention if you have any requests. The team welcomes you warmly."
"Thank you," Cindy said. "Do you mind if I make a call? I haven't informed my daughter about the move yet."
"Go ahead," Yena said. "We'll be with the other crew members in the meantime."
As Yena and Yejin left the room, Cindy whipped out her phone and dialed "Boo Bear." Her eyes sparkled as the ringtone rang, excited to talk with her daughter.
"What?" her lovely daughter lazily asked.
"Where are you right now?" Cindy asked.
"At the dorms. We have classes next week so I'm going through our reading assignment."
"It's still next week," Cindy said. "So, why don't you hang out with your mother dearest in the meantime?"
The young woman groaned lazily. "I don't want to travel an hour just to see you."
Cindy clicked her tongue. "Lazy girl. You don't have to travel anymore. I'm actually near your school."
"What?" her daughter exclaimed over the phone. "When did you come here?"
'"Surprise! I have something big to tell you," Cindy excitedly exclaimed. "So, why don't you meet your mama, huh? Jia-bear?"
***
It was a Monday morning, and it was time for people to go back to their workplaces. For some students, it was still summer break, so they had some time to rest and engage in leisure activities.
And that's what Jia was planning to do.
Today, the songs from the Concept Mission were going to be uploaded on Durian Music, the largest music hub in South Korea. A lot of fans anticipated the official release of the songs, with 'Tie Me Up' and 'Skateboard Ride' garnering the most attention.
As the clock struck 12, Jia scrolled past through the other songs and clicked on 'Tie Me Up' without any hesitation. She saw June's name under the credits, and it made her proud to see him come so far.
When her mother called a while ago, she was lying when she said she was doing a reading assignment.
In reality, she was busy counting down the minutes to the release of 'Tie Me Up.' And that's also the reason why she settled on meeting her over dinner instead of lunch.
June was far more important.
As the familiar intro resounded in her room, Jia's heart beat faster in her chest. And when June's part came, it seemed as if her heart stopped.
It was almost like June was rapping the words straight into her soul.
As the song ended, she quickly scrambled to play it all over again. Jia let the song play in the background while she went on her stan account on Navel.
The first thing that greeted her was the trends list, and she was pleasantly surprised to see June's name on the very top.
1. Choi Joon-ho
Jia clicked on the trend, excited to read the supportive comments that June had gotten for the song. However, as she scrolled through the posts, all that greeted her were cryptic tweets that seemed to be sending him hate.
- June was the last person I expected to have a sponsor.
- It's not really a sponsor. It's his parents. He's fucking loaded!
- Bro, did you see those MJ shoes? That itself already proves that he shouldn't be joining an idol survival show. He can just pay companies to make him debut.
- His parents had something to do with the rigging of last year's Rising Stars? That's a big hit. I don't know how he's going to recover from that.
- Why are we blindly believing this? It hasn't even been proven that June is related to The Chois!
- Choi Joon-ho is a Choi. The evidence is already in front of us. Can a trainee even afford to go to Pierre?
- I hate June. He's dragging Jisung into this mess.
- Eat the rich, bitches!
- Are we all forgetting the fact that this is from BannChu? This site has a reputation for exaggerating their stories.
"BannChu?" Jia muttered. She quickly exited the trends list and went to BanChu's profile.
The pinned post with over 300,000 interactions immediately caught her attention since it was a photo collage of June seemingly going to Pierre and a picture of him sitting on a little duck swing with a bright red arrow pointing to his shoes.
She got distracted for a second because June looked cute while sitting on the duck swing.
However, she quickly snapped out of her thoughts when she read the article title.
"June, the Rising Star, Unveiled as the Son of the Investor Couple "Choi", Living La Vida Luxury! Did he Pay his Way to the Top?"
Jia's eyes widened in horror.
Looks like she has to postpone her dinner date with her mom, too.
