Celebrity Neighbor: My girlfriend is a big star?

To be honest, even though Bae Juhyun tells herself that the company's actions are perfectly fine, and they are trying their best to clear her name,

but...

that feeling of helplessness and disappointment still makes it hard for her to lift her spirits.

And when she appeared before Kang Seulgi in this state, Kang Seulgi, who is familiar with Bae Juhyun, noticed immediately that something was off with Bae Juhyun.

"What's going on?"

She didn't think that there was any conflict between Bae Juhyun and Liu Xin'an, mainly because she couldn't imagine Bae Juhyun having a conflict with Liu Xin'an.

Besides, based on her knowledge of Liu Xin'an, should anything happen between the two, Liu Xin'an would definitely not leave Bae Juhyun to fend for herself.

So...

"Did something go wrong with the reality show taping?"

She was aware that Bae Juhyun went to see Director Kim first when she returned.

Bae Juhyun looked at Kang Seulgi, nodded, then shook her head.

This suspense was driving Kang Seulgi anxious.

"The group variety show is fine, everything is going smoothly. But the director said they will give me a personal show this year."

Upon hearing this, Kang Seulgi had a surprised expression, then her face blossomed into a joyful smile.

Red Velvet is a five-member girl group.

Since there are five members, the popularity of each member indeed varies.

Take their group, Red Velvet, for instance, their popularity queen is without a doubt the one in front of her, with a face praised by everyone as the most stunning of her generation, Bae Juhyun, Irene.

And Bae Juhyun's personal popularity... It's no exaggeration to say, is more than the other four combined.

Generally speaking, when the popularity gap within a group is this wide, conflicts are bound to arise among the members.

Be it advertisers or events, they certainly prefer to invite the more popular, well-liked members.

But such situations usually don't happen with S-M artists.

Because, S-M intervenes directly, withholding resources from the popular members and turning to give some resources to the less popular members.

Commonly referred to as... blocking overexposure.

Of course, lucrative resources like advertisements definitely still go to the more popular members.

This way, S-M successfully prevents conflicts within the team, while preventing the already popular members from becoming overly exposed, further increasing their popularity, and at the same time, ensuring that the less popular members aren't left jobless due to their lower popularity.

This is indeed a win-win approach, but... this only applies to the company and those less popular members within the team.

As for those truly popular team members, or rather Bae Juhyun... what did she do wrong?

She clearly did nothing wrong but still lost out on the resources that were originally meant for her, becoming someone shelved by the company.

She would be busy as a bee during comebacks, music shows.

After it ended... she might not have a single job for half a year.

The relationship among the five members of Red Velvet is really good.

Although there are interest dynamics among them, one could even say that the incident two years ago involving Bae Juhyun affected the entire group not insignificantly... yet, because they have been living like a family for many years, and everyone knows how much Bae Juhyun has sacrificed for the whole team.

Even though Bae Juhyun did something that affected the team greatly, everyone still harbors no resentment, on the contrary, they've always been encouraging Bae Juhyun to cheer up.

Including this time with her romance with Liu Xin'an, of course, her romance with Liu Xin'an has helped the group far more than harming it...

And now, Bae Juhyun surprisingly has her first personal variety show in eight years since her debut, solely featuring herself. How could this not make Kang Seulgi, who always felt guilty towards Bae Juhyun, happy and excited?

"Isn't this great news!"

Kang Seulgi exclaimed excitedly, but seeing Bae Juhyun sigh, she quickly calmed down.

"Juhyun unnie?"

"The content of this project will be about my work and vacation life, with staff appearing in the show."

"The staff..."

Kang Seulgi's voice was full of astonishment, of course she understood what bothered Bae Juhyun the most, and the appearance of the word "staff" immediately made Kang Seulgi realize the reason for Bae Juhyun's disappointment.

She opened her mouth, but in the end, did not say any words to comfort Bae Juhyun, only hugged this hardworking sister, gently patting Bae Juhyun's back.

...

"So, when are you coming to Seoul?"

"Really? Make sure you contact me when you're here, I'll treat you to a meal."

"Sure, tell me what you want to eat, and I'll make it for you, although don't believe what they say, my cooking is quite ordinary... Why would I fool you."

"Alright, uh... the variety show? It seems to be going well, if there's any problem, I'll ask for your help, don't worry."

"Alrighty, call me when you arrive."

"Bye-bye."

Liu Xin'an hung up the call with Dai Zhiyuan, raising an eyebrow slightly.

This call wasn't just a simple catch-up or a means to maintain a relationship.

No surprises there, this was also a kind of signal released from over there.

The things his dad told him during the New Year still linger vividly in his mind, it seems... soon, both sides will start working on promoting him and Bae Juhyun as a "cross-national couple."

In this extremely sensitive period this year, it might not matter much domestically, but over here, it's considered a big deal.

It's just that Liu Xin'an doesn't have a particularly clear blueprint on how to specifically operate this matter yet.