“What do you mean, Mnet hasn’t confirmed anything?” Kangta asks, his voice firm and low. He presses both sides of his temples with his index and middle fingers as he shuts his eye, struggling to control his boiling anger.
 

The rather-young man standing in front of him flinches.
 

“I-I’m sorry, I tried to contact them yesterday but—”

“Yesterday?!” His tone follows as he rises from his seat. “Haven’t I told you tons of times already that this problem is supposed to be done at least last week?! How could you forget about this, how could you call yourself a manager?!”

The man completely silences in fear. And the way he plays with his fingers anxiously drives Kangta even crazier.

“I can’t believe I trusted you with this.” He curses under his breath. “I can’t believe I even hired you in the first place. Do you know how important this is for the girls? It’s supposed to be their debut performance, and now look what you have done! What if there are no timespot left for the girls in the show, what are you going to do about it?!”

“What’s going on here?”

Kangta snaps his head towards the door to see it half opened, a familiar figure entering the room. He quickly bows down to him. The young man mimics him right after.

“Oh, we’re really sorry, Seonsaengnim, did we disturb you?”

“No, I was just walking around, don’t worry about it.” Lee Soo Man spreads out a slight smile. “I heard shouting coming from here and I decided to take a look. What’s wrong? It’s unusual for the cold-headed Kangta to burst like that.”

“Incompetent managers.” The new director breaths out a sigh after glaring at the young manager. “He was supposed to contact Mnet for DiVA’s debut stage next week weeks ago but he failed. Now I’m afraid there will be no timespot left for the girls’ performance.”

What if DiVA’s debut is forced to be delayed because of this?He thought to himself. What if people starts to talk bad behind the girls back; behind my back? What if I wake up to a newspaper headline that says “The K-Pop Music Legend, Kangta, fails as a director right from the start!”?

Lee Soo Man moves forward to his protégé, hands reaching out to pat Kangta’s shoulder caringly as if he could read Kangta’s mind.

“Now, now, don’t stress yourself. Controlling your emotions and always thinking with a cool head is the basic root to be a good director.”

Kangta lets out another sigh and nods in understanding.

“Do you want me to help you with this?”

Lee Soo Man is the best director-slash-mentor he has ever known, Kangta concludes. His way of handling the never-ending problems that comes his or his artists way amuses Kangta to no end. He always wanted to be a director a few years after H.O.T disbanded, but his small guts took him nowhere; at least until Lee Soo Man encouraged him to, and even opened him a huge opportunity door to be one of SM Entertainment’s. 

Directing is definitely not an easy job. You do auditions, as well as mentoring and guiding each of your trainees and artists yourself. And Lee Soo Man earns Kangta’s full respect from this. He knows each and every one of his artists (he is pretty close to some, too), he has such great eyes to see whether a person has a potential to be a star or not, and he always helps to solve every problem his artists are getting into; earning him even more respects and gratitude from them as well as other people around him.

“No, Seonsaengnim, please let me handle this myself. I need more real-life training.”

The mentor throws a fatherly smile. “I respect your good intention, but the problem you have here is huge. It can get out of control if you don’t handle it carefully. Let me help you just this once, I know someone from Mnet who can help you.”

“But—”

“Consider this a congratulatory present for you to finally take the big step.” Another comforting smile spreads across the elder’s face.

Kangta might act all confident and strong earlier, but to be completely honest, this is a rather huge problem and he just barely started as a director! He knows, even though he is still very new at the field and that he can make mistakes too easily, he needs to sharpen his capability on his own; but the burden is just too big to handle for a beginner like him.

And so, sighing in relief, he thanks his mentor and shakes his hand firmly as a sign of deep gratitude.

“Oh, and,” Lee Soo Man says when he got to the door, glancing over Kangta’s shoulder to the young manager, “don’t fire him just yet. I know he can do better. He’s just starting to adapt to things.”

Kangta nods for the umpteenth times today, and bows deeply as the elder goes out the room.

“One chance.” He mutters to the young manager, emphasizing the words with his solid-as-steel tone. “I hope you won’t blow it.”

He slumps back at his chair after the said manager storms out of the room with face full of determination and apology.

This is going to be a long journey.

A/N

My dear GOD I hope this is good enough as a prologue ARGH THE PRESSURE ;A;
You guys are like so awesome, I hope I can keep up with your awesomeness by writing good stories...
/crosses fingers until they're red/

Oh yeah! If you guys happen to find my choice of words out-of-the-context, please please message me!
English is not my first language so I'm pretty sure there will be plenty of them. /le cries/

The first few members will be revealed next, I guess? Or probably just another teaser :D
But either way, please anticipate and keep on supporting me! :3

I SARANG YOU GUYS ALL. /throws hearts/