Page 26 of Damian & Jun, Episodes 9-12
It wasn’t a quick conversation. Jun lay on the bed with the phone near his face and let Habibi have tummy time, using his various toys—the quiet ones, not the rattles—to keep him entertained. In the end, what Habibi wanted to play with was Jun’s finger. He grabbed Jun’s pointer finger and little finger and shoved Jun’s middle finger into his mouth, gnomming on it. Jun sighed. At least it was a clean finger.
While Habibi gummed away, Jun gave the other 5N men and Mi Hi the rundown on his call with Yun.
“We need to plan a comeback,” Jaewoong said once Jun was finished talking. “And I’m guessing you want to do that here in Chicago.”
“In the US for now,” Jun agreed. “We don’t know if Bak will try a kidnapping again if we return to Seoul.”
“We’ve done a music video in L.A. before,” Su-jin pointed out. “But can we even call it a comeback if we don’t do the music shows back home?”
“I think we have to put together the song, the choreography, the concept photos, and the promo before we worry about whether or not we can tour the shows. If we have to, we apologize to the fans and book shows here or do our own streams.”
“Feeding the fans is more important than shows.” Mi Hi jumped in. “Shows aren’t the only way to feed fans.”
Geun grunted. “So full album, a mini album, or a single?”
Everyone on the other end went silent, waiting for Jun. He closed his eyes, Habibi still gumming his fingers.
A single would be easier, but it wouldn’t give fans a clear idea of who 5N was now.
They didn’t have the infrastructure in place to do a full album. Except…
“Let’s act like we’re going to do a full album. I want ideas from everyone, Mi Hi, you too, on what that could look like. What do you want to change? What have you never gotten to try? Give me whatever you have. Build on any of the new moves we worked on with Gigi, but don’t be limited by them.”
“And you? Do you have any more lyrics?” Yoihei asked.
Jun thumped his face against the covers. He’d been on babysitting duties for what felt like weeks now even though it had only been days. “Yes. Give me a few days. I’ll send more over. You have a few already. If anyone else wants to take a hand at writing something, add it to the pile. Geun, I want you to organize the ideas and put it in a shared folder. Jaewoong, special assignment.”
“Aye, aye, Captain.”
Jun laughed, just a little. “I want you looking into indie artists. What are they doing? How are they doing it? If we have to act like we have no budget and no infrastructure, how are other groups pulling it off?”
“In Korea or in the US?”
“Both, either. Yoihei, same assignment but for Japan. It’s not top priority, but we should keep an eye on a Japanese release, concurrently or right after. That’s one place we could do the music festivals.”
He should do the research on a Chinese language release as well, but as the only Chinese speaker, that was going to be so much work. It would have to be a later priority.
“What about the rest of us?” Su-jin asked.
“If we go very skeletal on staff, what can each of us do? And what do we want to do that used to be done for us? We’re going to need hair, makeup, choreo, outfits.”
“Damian for outfits,” Su-jin said right away.
Jaewoong and Yoihei chuckled.
“I was going to say Mi Hi, but she has enough to do,” Jun said, but he was grinning.
“Your boyfriend makes you look hot!” Jaewoong hooted.
“I can do makeup,” Mi Hi said.
Jun shook his head. “Mi Hi, you’ll be doing so much with a comeback coming out, we’re going to have to protect you. So no, I trust you with it, but we need you handling PR. We’ll keep you in as a voting member on aesthetic because you need to have a say as the PR person. Jaewoong, I’ll ask Damian, but he’ll only be minimally available at best.” Yet another thing for Damian to be drowning in, but perhaps it would be a welcomed respite. “Geun, write up a list of all the jobs that we usually have people for and share that in the folder. Then we can go over it and see what we can do and what we absolutely need someone else for.”
“I think we should be in Chicago,” Mi Hi said. “If we’re not in L.A. where there’s a lot of action, we should at least be in a big city. Then makeup artists or backup musicians don’t have to travel out.”
“L.A.’s been done,” Geun said, voice low and short. “Chicago is new.”
Jaewoong agreed. “But what about genre? Are we staying in the same place, shifting?”
