When it was revealed that Choi Jin-woo had pushed through his performance despite having a cold and body aches, fan reactions were split in half.
First, there were those praising Choi Jin-woo’s professionalism.
—He played like that while having a cold?
—And he endured it;;
—I had no idea ã… ã…
—Listening again, the tempo and such are a bit different from usual.
—Still, the performance itself was complete.
—Looks like the other members adjusted well knowing Jin-woo’s condition?
—Now that I look, Tae-ha also used more off-beat patterns than usual.
—Wow lol how did he pull that off without showing a single sign lol
—I told you, Pre-quel is more skilled than people think.
—Our Jin-woo ã… ã… He’s truly professional ã… ã…
—Jin-woo used to be the member with the smallest presence, but he was this devoted to the stage…
—Fans who saw it live say they didn’t notice anything wrong during the performance.
—In the end, no matter what, they successfully finished the stage lol.
—This was only possible because it was a real live performance.
—This is what it means to be a singer.
Then there were those blaming the members and the agency for neglecting Choi Jin-woo.
—If he was about to collapse, he shouldn’t have gone on stage in the first place ;;
—Ah, really, small agencies just can’t be helped.
—Even though Pre-quel is practically the senior group by age, this is how they’re treated.
—But they didn’t know? The members are really too much.
—Kang Tae-ha was pretending to be nice, but it finally came out.
—The music industry is insane because of money ;;
—I get that Kang Tae-ha has a lot to deal with, but what about the other members?
—Don’t excuse him! Kang Tae-ha is also at fault!
But the controversy didn’t last long.
Choi Jin-woo posted a handwritten letter on the fan cafe, and the situation was resolved.
The contents of Choi Jin-woo’s handwritten letter were as follows.
He said he intentionally hid his condition from the members and the agency in order to present the final stage of the mini album “Overcome Today” with the complete lineup.
He also said he would take better care of his health in the future to prevent such incidents from happening again.
Thus, once fans learned the full story—why Choi Jin-woo ended up collapsing and why the members and agency didn’t know—their opinions could only converge.
Of course, there were still critical opinions.
But neither Choi Jin-woo nor the other members paid much attention.
After all, regardless of the facts, there will always be a constant mass of hate commenters who just spew criticism.
Anyway, Pre-quel officially ended this promotion by putting the controversy regarding Choi Jin-woo to rest.
“Good work, everyone. Rest up, live some real life for a while, and then we’ll get back together.”
Seo Jong-woo brought this up at the after-party held at Alex’s place after Choi Jin-woo recovered.
Kim Gun-yul responded.
“Phew. Another midsummer night’s dream comes to an end. It was happy.”
“Right? Such a shame. By the way, Jong-woo hyung, are you really quitting your job?”
When Alex asked this, Seo Jong-woo replied.
“It’s not decided yet. I’m going to see if the income stays steady until the end of this year before deciding.”
Having achieved unprecedented success in a row, Pre-quel members were one by one considering becoming full-time singers.
After all, it would be better to focus on singing activities that way.
Of course, they couldn’t just quit.
As Seo Jong-woo said, the income from singing activities had to surpass a certain threshold.
So Seo Jong-woo also said he would look at the earnings until the end of the year before considering full-time singing.
Actually, it wasn’t just Seo Jong-woo.
The other members were also seriously considering full-time singing.
Even Choi Jin-woo had quit his job as a health trainer recently.
From what he heard, his goal was to earn money through singing and set up his own gym.
Indeed, with another successful album, many outside events were looking for Pre-quel.
Therefore, even without music revenue, making a living was not difficult.
For reference, Tae-ha could barely participate in these events.
It was a natural result since he was busy with various activities.
As the path to full-time singing opened up, Alex also scratched his head, deep in thought.
“Ah. I need to hand over the store to my younger brother soon.”
Tae-ha asked at that.
“You haven’t handed it over yet?”
“Yeah. My brother is a decent cook, but he’s not good at inventory management yet. I think I’ll have to stick with him until the end of this year. What about you, Gun-yul?”
“I’m not going to take on any new vocal lessons starting from the end of this month. Like Jin-woo, I’ll focus on singing activities and maybe open a vocal academy later.”
“Ah. I’m jealous. So when we meet again, Jin-woo and Gun-yul can focus solely on singing?”
Alex’s words resonated with Tae-ha.
“Right. I’m jealous. I’ll have a hard time focusing only on singing later.”
When Tae-ha finished speaking, the other members looked sympathetic.
All the members knew what difficulties Tae-ha was going through.
But then Seo Jong-woo comforted Tae-ha.
“Don’t worry. While you’re filming your next project, we’ll keep Pre-quel safe.”
Not only Seo Jong-woo, but Kim Gun-yul, Alex, and Choi Jin-woo were all comforting Tae-ha with reassuring smiles.
Watching those smiles, Tae-ha smiled back.
And replied.
“Yes. I’ll be back soon.”
Having a place to return to at any time.
That was one of the many reasons Tae-ha continued his singing activities.
***
After Pre-quel’s promotion ended.
Tae-ha took some rest, only doing commercial shoots and his role as a Prada ambassador.
After resting for about two weeks, he began planning his next steps in earnest.
Tae-ha was now at a crossroads.
Whether to take on a next project.
Or whether to write the next project himself.
‘The answer is already decided.’
Tae-ha quickly organized his thoughts.
The reason was simple.
More people wanted the latter than the former.
His agency did, and the production company did too.
Even Taecho seemed to prefer the latter.
If possible, Tae-ha also thought it was better to write the work himself.
‘Above all, I don’t have to be rushed like before. No, I shouldn’t be rushed.’
Tae-ha was now a writer and actor who had truly made a name for himself.
That meant there was no reason to worry about maintaining his position and rush to write or appear in a next project.
Rather, it was more important to present a high-quality work, even if it took time.
For that reason, Tae-ha decided to write the work himself.
‘Then it’s best to write that one, right?’
Naturally, Tae-ha’s mind was quite full of ideas for a new work.
While filming Byeonghwa and even after, new ideas for a project kept coming to him.
After Pre-quel’s recent promotion ended, Tae-ha closely examined the ideas he had been gathering one by one.
The purpose was to pick the best idea among them.
But as he looked through the ideas, his worries deepened.
The reason was none other than this.
The idea he liked the most was not something that could be made into a drama.
It wasn’t that the idea was too low-level to become a drama.
If it were that low-level, it wouldn’t have caught Tae-ha’s interest or even come to his mind.
Rather, it was a problem of volume.
No matter how much he thought about it, the new idea that had come to Tae-ha simply did not exceed three episodes.
Of course, if Tae-ha wanted to make a three-episode drama, no one would object, but it wasn’t necessarily a good choice.
Because there was clearly a limit to the revenue that could be generated from a three-episode drama.
Even those three episodes were only possible by cramming and compressing the story.
‘In the end, it would mean writing a two-to-three-hour single-episode drama. Would that even be meaningful?’
Tae-ha couldn’t help but become deeply worried.
After agonizing for a while, Tae-ha got up from his seat.
Staying here alone and brooding wouldn’t give him an answer.
***
So after leaving his seat, the place Tae-ha headed to was Salamander Studio.
Guided straight to the CEO’s office, Tae-ha unloaded his concerns to CEO Han and Kim Seo-an, who were already gathered there.
He judged that it was right to ask the two people who actually produced dramas for a living.
Above all, no one around Tae-ha had a better eye for works than these two.
Sure enough, as soon as Tae-ha explained what he was worried about, CEO Han and Kim Seo-an, who immediately understood, fell into thought.
The first to speak was Kim Seo-an.
“Indeed, the work you’ve envisioned would be difficult to produce as a series of twelve or more episodes. If it were at least four episodes, we could consider serving it on an OTT platform, but even that seems difficult.”
CEO Han nodded in agreement with Kim Seo-an’s words.
“I think similarly to Team Leader Kim. Given your style of writing very cleanly, it would be appropriate to write the script as a two-episode single-episode drama. But unfortunately, I don’t think there’s a place that wants a work of this volume. Naturally, the production budget would be lower, and consequently the quality of the work would not meet the level you desire.”
In fact, what CEO Han mentioned was exactly what Tae-ha was most worried about.
Typically, a work’s production budget depends on its profitability.
But for single-episode dramas, since profitability is low, the budget is inevitably small.
Therefore, it was as CEO Han had said.
It was obvious that the quality of the work would inevitably be lower.
‘At a time like this when I need to present high-quality works, I’m writing a work that has lower quality…’
It didn’t make sense.
Then there was no choice but to abandon this idea.
Fortunately, Tae-ha had many other ideas.
And unlike this one, those could easily be produced as a sixteen-episode series.
‘So it’s right to switch to that direction.’
Having organized his thoughts, Tae-ha opened his mouth.
“I was wondering if there was a way, but there isn’t. Then it’s right not to write a work with this idea. I’ll prepare a project in a different direction.”
Upon hearing Tae-ha’s words, Kim Seo-an nodded as if she expected that.
After working together for quite a while, she knew that Tae-ha made rational and swift decisions.
Just when things were about to be settled.
CEO Han suddenly brought up an unexpected topic.
“How about making it not a drama?”
At CEO Han’s words, Tae-ha, who had been getting up, sat back down.
And asked.
“What do you mean by that?”
“I mean, since there seems to be a limit, why not produce your idea as a film instead of a drama, making it a single-episode feature?”
“…A film?”
As he asked back, a picture simultaneously formed in Tae-ha’s mind.
And Tae-ha’s eyes widened involuntarily.
Because the picture in his mind was more concrete than he expected.