INU KPOP AU
CHAPTER ONE: A KING’S PLAN, AND A VOICE WITHOUT A FACE
-MIROKU-
“Miroku?”
Miroku looked up from his phone, knowing he probably looked as bleary-eyed as he felt. Sesshomaru, always a fan of dramatic flair, kept the lights in his top-floor office purposely dimmed, and so even in the waiting room outside the double doors to the inner sanctum, it was hard to see very well. Or at all, really.
Kagura stood there in her smart straight-legged jeans and heels, chewing on the lid of a ballpoint pen and squinting down at her customary appointment diary. It seemed even after years of working side-by-side with her oh-so-famous household name of a client, she hadn’t completely adjusted to the lack of visibility either.
Miroku had thought to ask her about it once, several years ago, and she had just shrugged and laughed quietly to herself, saying something about Sesshomaru “having his quirks just like every other genius” but saying it with clear fondness.
“You can go in now. ‘The King’ is ready and waiting.”
They exchanged a smirk, and Miroku stood up from the plush bench (which wouldn’t have looked out-of-place in a museum exhibit about Louis XIV) and cracked his neck.
He’d only been waiting forty minutes. New record.
But then again, Sesshomaru ran on Sesshomaru time. And if Sesshomaru needed to delay a meeting to call his psychic and see just how the stars were aligning today for creative efforts...well, more power to him.
“Ah, Miroku,” Sesshomaru said, giving the slightest hint of a smile as Miroku poked his head in through the heavy office doors. “Come on in and have a seat.”
Miroku ambled up to one of the large high-backed chairs in front of the desk and dropped himself into it. This room was even darker, as Miroku had well known, and so when the chair on his right spoke, he had to fight not to jump in surprise.
“Sup, Rap Monk.” Inuyasha wasn’t smiling welcomely, but he did, at least, raise a single hand in greeting before returning the bitter scowl to his face and staring across the desk at his older brother.
“I wish you wouldn’t call me that anymore,” Miroku sighed, running a hand over his face. “I didn’t choose that stage name to begin with, and it’s haunted me ever since.”
“Would you like something to drink, Miroku? Coffee, tea, sparkling water?” Sesshomaru held up a hand as if ready to summon Kagura to retrieve whatever it was.
“No, I’m good, thanks. What’s this all about?”
Sesshomaru took on a solemn posture, folding his hands upon his desk. If he noticed Kagura scurrying around behind him and frantically lighting even more of the candelabras that dotted every other surface in the room, he didn’t give any indication as he heaved a great sigh.
“As you know,” ‘The King’ began, “my foolish little brother was just dropped from Naraku’s label. The group is disbanding and the label is reassigning the other members to various new projects.”
“Dropped? Fired, more like,” Inuyasha growled under his breath. “Thrown out like it was nothing, and after all these years I busted my ass - “
“There is obviously much to say about this,” Sesshomaru interrupted sternly, “but that is not what I’m concerned about at the moment. That’s not why you were summoned here, Miroku.”
Summoned. Like I’m a slave on retainer.
Well, to be fair, Sesshomaru’s album sales didn’t lie, did they?
Miroku would jump on command if he had to just to get a piece of the action, especially after long months of sporadic freelance producing work that were threatening to force him to - gasp - downgrade his apartment in Seoul. The very idea!
“I’m guessing you want me to produce some tracks to start Inuyasha off on a solo career?” Miroku awkwardly rubbed at the back of his neck. “Are you gonna finance him to start out or - “
“I can finance my own damn self if I need to, thanks.” Inuyasha leaned back in the chair and crossed a leg over his lap.
And that was probably true.
Inuyasha, in the very beginning, had purposely signed to a label unconnected to his outrageously famous brother, had done his best to gain fame the hard way with talent and commitment and that charisma of his. He’d been, inarguably, the breakout star of his group, and had become the face of Naraku Entertainment.
Until a few months ago. When it all came crashing down.
The press had freaked out. The fans had freaked out. But Naraku Entertainment’s decision stood, and all that momentum had been squashed like an unexpecting insect on the kitchen floor.
“We are of the opinion,” Sesshomaru said, in a way that made it sound like it wasn’t anyone’s opinion but his own, “that we need to keep Inuyasha behind-the-scenes for now, so to speak. In order for him to come through this unscathed, we will need the power of the fans behind us.”
That wasn’t going to be easy. The Japanese fans had at first been outraged on Inuyasha’s behalf, but in the span of twenty-four hours they had turned, blaming him for busting up their favorite group, blaming him for being selfish.
Sesshomaru must have seen the uncertainty on Miroku’s face (which was once again, a miracle in this candlelit room covered in crushed velvet drapery), because he quickly went on. “We’re going to extend this company of mine, this label, to include a whole new crop of Japanese idols and entertainers. And we’re going to concentrate almost entirely on the Korean market.”
“Ahhh, so that’s why you wanted me to fly up here,” Miroku said, breaking into a sly smile. “Because I’m based in Seoul now.”
“We’re going to start with a female group. A small one, no more than four or five members. I want girls fluent in both Japanese and Korean.”
“A girl group? Why not a - “
“Because if it’s a bunch of guys, the press is going to think I’m just forming a new group for myself, and they’ll go ballistic and call me an ungrateful egomaniac,” Inuyasha supplied, glaring down at his clenched fist on the arm of his chair.
“Precisely,” Sesshomaru said. “And besides, this will be something grand, something the world has never seen before. A group of Japanese artists performing entirely in Korean for Koreans. It will make the home market see what they are missing, and will drum up support for a glorious comeback for all.”
“Uh...huh…?” Miroku gave a bewildered frown. “So you want me to...what, exactly?”
“Oh for fuck’s sake, he’s hiring you, idiot.” Inuyasha’s tone was growly, but from what Miroku could see in this cave of platinum records and eccentricity, he was smirking.
“To…?”
“To help me, to help Inuyasha form this group, produce and write the songs, and grow the label’s influence in a market you must know quite intimately by now.”
Holy shit. “Oh, okay, yeah that sounds like a plan.” Understatement of the century right there.
“Your first task is this,” Sesshomaru said, “I already know I want Ayame in the group. She’s been going through a similar situation with her label as Inuyasha was with his, and she’s looking to make a change. I can handle that part; she’s a good friend.”
To a man this famous, Ayame, who at one time was built up as “Japan’s Newest Idol Princess,” a girl whom everyone between the ages of twelve and forty knew, was simply “a good friend.” Oh, to live the life these people lead every day.
“A-Alright.” This was happening so fast. One minute you’re thinking of selling your old memorabilia to make rent, and the next…
“I want the others to be largely unknowns. New discoveries. I don’t want the typical formula, where girls in their early teens sign horrific contracts and are reduced to dancing, singing soldiers by the time of their debut. I want the emphasis to be that here at Taisho Entertainment, we don’t need that kind of rote repetition to make stars from nobodies.”
Miroku was starting to pick up what Sesshomaru was putting down, and it both intrigued him as a concept and terrified him beyond belief. “You want to form a fully realized K-pop girl group using girls without any formal training in the system?”
“That’s exactly what I want.”
Miroku gulped. That meant combing through thousands upon thousands of Japanese girls, weeding out the ones who couldn’t speak Korean first, then weeding out the mediocre ones, then weeding out the ‘girls-who-sing-well-but-have-no-stage-presence’ and the ‘girls-who-can-dance-their-feet-off-but-have-voices-like-dying-cats’...
“You got it.” Why do I feel like I just signed up for guaranteed panic attacks and insomnia for the next several months, or even years?
“I’ll expect a list of some good prospects to explore by the end of the week,” Sesshomaru said, “You’ll need to work closely with my brother on this. The priority here is untapped talent, and if we find a girl who’s usable, we’ll help her learn the rest.”
Time to hit up karaoke bars and YouTube, I guess.
“You’re dismissed. I’ll summon you both again in a week’s time to look over what you’ve found and work out our plans from there.”
Like a good little soldier, Miroku stood and left the office. Inuyasha sighed behind him and followed, but at a more reluctant pace.
“Where do we even start?” Inuyasha griped, shoving his hands into his pockets and kicking at the ground.
Ding-ding-ding. Lightbulb.
“Wait,” Miroku said, pulling out his phone and going to his streaming app. “I can’t believe I didn’t think of it a second ago. I found this duo on my random playlist just last week. Apparently they’re based at Busan National University, they’re Japanese nationals, and they play the coffeehouse circuit.”
Inuyasha peered over his shoulder at the band’s profile page, emblazoned with the words ‘JxK, LOL’ which was, admittedly, a pretty terrible name for a band under any circumstances.
“No photos,” Inuyasha pointed out, raising an eyebrow. “That’s promising. You’re right, Miroku. Brilliant idea. I see why my brother’s gonna pay you a million gazillion - “
“Alright, alright,” Miroku said irritatedly. “Enough with the snark. I know we don’t know what either of them looks like, but just listen to this girl’s voice.”
He chose a song and hit play.
(AUTHOR’S NOTE: HI I WILL BE COMING IN LIKE THIS QUITE FREQUENTLY TO TELL Y’ALL WHEN TO HIT PLAY ON THE LINK FOR MAXIMUM IMMERSION. OF COURSE YOU DON’T HAVE TO DO IT ONLY WHEN I SAY SO, YOU CAN LISTEN TO YOUR HEART’S CONTENT HOWEVER THE HELL YOU WANNA, BUT STILL, CONSIDER THIS YOUR CUE TO PLAY THE SONG IF YOU HAVEN’T ALREADY OK BYEEEE)
They both stood there, both utterly enraptured.
As the song played, the skeptical furrow in Inuyasha’s brow seemed to gradually smoothe out, and Miroku had to fight back a laugh of triumph.
“Okay, so she can sing,” Inuyasha said stubbornly after the last notes rang out and they were left in silence once more. “She can really sing. But aside from knowing that she’s somewhere in the huge-ass city of Busan, how can we possibly find out more about her? We don’t even know her name!”
With a flourish that would have made Sesshomaru tear up with pride, Miroku pulled up the band’s tiny social media page. Still no photos or details, but there, aha, a small list of upcoming gigs (all coffeehouses and restaurants, of course).
“Guess we got a date,” Miroku snarked.
Inuyasha sighed, blowing a lock of silvery hair out of his face. “Guess I gotta pack for a flight to Korea.”
“Pack for a week,” Miroku called after his retreating back, “It’s gonna be a busy one.”
