It was late. Seungcheol wanted to cry but he was faced with a wall of executives in suits. The numbers on the paper in front of him couldn’t lie. Even the name had tested poorly with the focus groups who had seen their music video. The song and choreography was rated pretty well but the costumes and concept were absolutely savaged.

He tried not to run his hands through his thick dark hair in exasperation. He believed in this group and he couldn’t believe it was all about to be snatched away from them and from him. He thought about asking to reshoot the video, re record the song, change the name and the concept. But there wasn’t a good enough reason. They were just one of a hundred boybands, they would be lost in a sea of faces and voices, with nothing to make them stand out.

Suddenly the door burst open. Kim Mingyu barreled into the room with his arms full of papers and files. “Sorry I’m late.” He gasped a little for air as he tried to collect himself. “I’ve got an idea and I hope you’ll hear me out.” The CEO looked around and nodded and Mingyu breathed a heavy sigh of relief. Seungcheol wondered what he was up to.

He began handing out pieces of paper to the CEO and other executives. By the time he got to Seungcheol the executives were all engrossed in reading the proposal. Mingyu looked exhausted but he smiled as he handed Seuncheol a piece of paper. It was brightly coloured with pictures of fish and unicorns and little dinosaurs all over it.

“Candy Crush”

A children’s group? Singing and dancing for kids? Seungcheol’s eyes widened as he looked over the paper. It was genius. He remembered back to the day on the set when he watched Minghao and Junhui playing with the twins. The children were drawn to them in a way that Seungcheol hadn’t understood at the time. He looked up at Kim Mingyu with a newfound respect for the man’s vision. He was a freaking genius. There was no other group like it in the market.

The waited with captured breath for the CEO to speak. Finally after reading the proposal, going over the statistics again, he looked at his executives. “I’ll give you one chance. Budget for one song and one video and then we will review. But it’s one shot only.” He looked Mingyu in the eye and held his hand out to shake it. “Make sure that other awful music video never sees the light of day. And ‘Candy Crush’ is awful. Come up with something more funky.”

They called the boys into the meeting room and explained