96 YG’s New Girl Group

With the end of the world tour, LUXIA could rest easy for the upcoming winter and holidays.

Although, they did still have to work a little for their next comeback by gathering up all their ideas and initiate the creative process of combining them all together cohesively. A winter single was also a must for their first Christmas and New Years together as a debuted group.

It was during this lapse that YG Entertainment's new girl group struck the music industry with their highly anticipated debut. These girls were collectively known as "Baby Monsters." This name was one that Black Pink was almost called, and one that YG had trademarked long ago in preparation for this debut.

So it wasn't a surprise when indeed the group's name was officially revealed to be this. And now they were junior groups of YG along with "Treasure," the new boy group who debuted last year.

It looked like YG was finally making a comeback after the music drought and various scandals. Baby Monsters' success was basically in the bag, similar to LUXIA when they debuted, although more certain than Big Hit's somewhat riskier endeavor.

However, the welcoming tone for this new group was still grudging from the fans that grumbled about Black Pink having so few comebacks while still being at their peak.

Yet knowing that Baby Monsters had a different concept of cute but fierce where they could fit alongside Black Pink and YG's style while still being fresh and not completely overlap, the fans didn't overly carp about it.

And thus, the battle of cute-fierce versus LUXIA's chic-cool began. Both had variations of the popular girl crush genre in fierce and cool while offering a twist with cute or chic. Both of their fans would argue which was better and the 'wave of the future.'

Some called "cute" overly well done in the past to make it completely refreshing for the current times, while chic was slowly rising up in small forms from previous groups and artists.

Examples could be found from A-Pink's cute but chic combination with their poppy sound yet elegant flow and costuming. And Chungha exuded chic-cool of her own as a solo artist in her last comebacks. Everglow as well often had an elegant flair to their girl crush too.

Despite these glimpses and preludes, LUXIA made chic-cool aesthetic and meaningful with their storyline rather than just having a gorgeous concept and catchy song. So on this frontier, they were very much leading and trend-setting pioneers.

YG and Baby Monsters would find LUXIA a difficult competitor indeed for becoming top girl groups of the new generation. And there was still yet new groups from JYP and SM to contend with.

This was starting to look like a Black Pink, Twice, and Red Velvet face-off between the longtime Big Three music entertainment companies and Big Hit, the hard-hitting dark house that could rival each one of them.

The four way clash between these new girl groups marked an era of unique and daring ingenuity and stiff competition in the music charts. For multi-fandom fans, it was heaven when they all made comebacks together or one after the other.

"Ahrie!" Rinah gestured with her hand for the other girl to quickly join their group huddle backstage.

The LUXIA maknae hopped off her perch in front of the vanity for makeup and exited the dressing room to the corridor. The other four members were waiting outside for Ahreum's makeup artist to finish.

"I'm hereee~" The girl cheerfully announced with her arms at her side like some penguin kangaroo hopping-waddling over cutely and enthusiastically.

Jiyeon hooked an arm over the maknae and drew her close into the huddle as they bent their heads a bit to do their team cheer. They would be going onstage after Baby Monster's debut music show stage.

While their winter release was just an official single, LUXIA's popularity and rookie status enabled them to perform it onstage a few times at some music shows. The song even had a music video in which the time was set during before all the LUXIA members met in their fictional storyline.

Thus, the video was a little melancholic and lonely at first to match the coldness of winter and passing of a year, but it ended with hope and warmth of serendipitous chance meetings between some LUXIA members and an aspiration towards living a better new year.

While the five girls waited for their name to be called up, the Baby Monsters had finished performing and were now heading offstage into the very waiting room that LUXIA was now inside after moving from their corridor huddle.

Noticing the unmissable LUXIA girls, the members of Baby Monster politely and curiously came over to greet them for the first time.

"Hello, we are Baby Monsters! It's nice to meet you, I'm Vicky!" "Jane~!" "Subin!" "Hayeon~!! "Eunkyul." "Seojin!" Each of the "Baemon" girls as they were called for short, extended a friendly and eager hand to LUXIA.

Because they had one more member than LUXIA, one Baemon girl, Eunkyul, was left with no one to shake hands with. And so, to not leave anyone out, they shook multiple hands to the point that they all greeted exactly one of the other group's members once each.

The sight was quite hilarious as the groups mixed up so much that they had to separate and reform again upon finishing their greetings. But this funny situation is what inadvertently made them open themselves up to one other a little in terms of of seeing the opponent group in a good light.

Although the music industry was fierce, it didn't mean that idol friendships were uncommon. In fact, it was in both groups' interests to get to know one another.

However, YG's groups didn't often collaborate with other company groups. Only their solo artists sometimes featured with another artist of a different company.

But Iris hoped that perhaps Baby Monster could be the first to break this wall as other companies had been collaborating more often. She had particular thoughts and tunes envisioned that could make for an interesting song concept that they could perform together.

"I hope to see you all again some other show!" A Baby Monster member, presumably their leader, Vicky, cheerfully said with a wave.

"Yes, maybe we can meet onstage together one day." Iris hinted at her words with a dazzling smile.

Caught off guard, Vicky blinked at her in passing surprise before widely grinning upon understanding the underlying meaning.

"Yes, let's meet one day!"