My Greatest Award (나의 제일 좋은 상)

Five Years Later

"Yeah, sure thing, Daeyong, I'll send it over once I'm done with it."

"I'm not very worried in terms of quality. That first demo you sent exceeded my expectations."

"Thanks, I try my best," I reply, instinctively bowing my head slightly.

Honestly I have him to thank for way more than just a compliment. He'd been the one who'd managed to get me a stable job as an accountant at Big Hit Music after I'd left YGE as a trainee about 5 years ago, with his connections and all. It really was a lifesaver, considering most of my music at the moment are covers which can't be monetised because of copyright. And after the disbandment of The Third Eye, he'd become a freelance music distributor, or something like that. I'm not very sure what he does exactly in all honesty, but I'd sent him a demo of my original song "Can't Forget", and he'd agreed to settle all the complicated distribution stuff. He said it was 'as a favour', though I don't fully understand what he meant by that.

"Oh, by the way, someone came over to the studio yesterday," Daeyong brings up. "Apparently they're interested in a collab with you."

"Really? How do they even know me?"

"Let's just say you two have met in the past."

My mind shuffles through the possibilities. "Is it one of the members of The Third Eye?"

He chuckles lightly over the line. "Y/N, I haven't heard from any of them since they disbanded."

From what I know, which isn't much considering I left the company, YGE had rebranded the group I was supposed to be in to be named 'The Third Eye', reflecting the new number of members. They'd debuted about a month after I came back to Seoul, and I remember hearing their debut single 'Vision' everywhere back then. Of course, it was a mixed experience of shame, disappointment, and being impressed for me at first. I think they managed to achieve instant PAKs, and were nominated for a bunch of year-end awards. Heard they won a Daesang, too.

They'd just released their second single album when scandals had started to surface, mainly surrounding Taylor, funnily enough. There were articles on all the big media platforms about misconduct, low effort, rude treatment, and most prominently, a dating scandal. Apparently, Janet had moved to Seoul to be with him, and he hadn't even tried to hide the fact that he was dating. Literally talked about it openly in interviews. Can't imagine what hell Hwang would've given him afterwards. Taylor's constant negative image was met with absolutely no attempt at correcting it, from Taylor himself or from the company. Instead, the group continued as usual, and Taylor's scandals kept piling up. There were even a few which dragged Haejoon and Daniel into his mess, and I couldn't help but feel sorry for them. After their popularity kept dropping further and further with little to no counteraction by YGE, they disbanded about a year ago in July 2026, and apparently no one's heard of them since.

"I wonder how Daniel and Haejoon are doing..." I wonder out loud, still on the phone with Daeyong.

"And what about Taylor?" Daeyong questions.

"Well, it was kinda his fault they disbanded," I say uninterestedly. "His own incompetency dragged the other two down with him."

Daeyong doesn't respond to this; I can't tell if he agrees or not. From all my years of knowing Taylor, I'm pretty sure he's off sulking somewhere, blaming everyone else but himself for what happened.

"Anyway, who's the mystery artist who wants a collab?" I quickly revert back to the previous topic.

"I'll leave it for you to find out." I can practically hear his smile. "I gave them your new phone number, so you should be hearing from them soon."