“I’ve always liked making music on my own. Then I met good friends and did band activities with them. From the start we promised that after graduating high school, we’d each walk the path we wanted—so there’s no reason for bad blood.”
It was impressive how he could lie that long without blinking once.
“I agonized a lot when the casting offer came to me alone. That video that went viral—it wasn’t loved because I did well by myself…”
[Ash’s true heart: cherishing his friendship with the others.]
“He’s filming a drama up there.”
Once again, I prayed the others wouldn’t watch this broadcast. Especially Kwon Taejin—he’d definitely lose his temper and charge in saying we should post an exposé on Bae Shinwoo.
[Cheering on singer Ash’s bright future as he soars even higher.]
With that disgustingly heartwarming line, Bae Shinwoo’s debut stage ended.
***
Even after the new semester began in March, we gathered at the practice room every day. All five of us weren’t attending college, which made it possible. Go Hangyeol and Seok Dojae, who’d planned to start working right after graduation, didn’t even apply. Kwon Taejin and Cha Seonjae registered and immediately took leaves of absence.
Of course I wasn’t thinking about college either. Soon I wouldn’t have time to go anyway.
“Kwon Taejin, fine, but you, Cha Seonjae—don’t you feel like it’s a waste? It’s still a prestigious school.”
“Prestigious what? They told me to do an extra year because I didn’t make it into Korea U.”
“Wow… that’s brutal.”
“Well, I’m the only one in my family who didn’t make Korea U…”
Seonjae’s family was an old, venerable legal household. So for half a year leading up to the college exam, we practiced as a band without him. If he didn’t get into university, it was obvious he wouldn’t be allowed to do band or anything else.
In fact, after the band broke up before I came back, Seonjae did retake the exam and got into Korea U.
And then he became Lawyer Cha.
It was a wonder he’d gotten interested in music in the first place.
“But how’d you manage a leave?”
“I said I wanted to focus on the band for just one year. If we succeed, there’s no reason to go back—”
“For Real Music, college is nothing.”
“Dojae, it’s not that you’re not going, it’s that you can’t.”
“Seonjae, it’s not that I can’t study, I just don’t. If I actually study? Getting into a Seoul school is easy.”
I couldn’t help a snort. Because before I came back, Dojae really did quit music for a year, study like hell, and get into a university in Seoul.
At first, I thought he was lying.
Hangyeol said he’d been helping out at his mom’s shop.
The last to arrive at the practice room, Taejin, showed up huffing and puffing, unlike usual.
“Did you hear Bae Shinwoo’s song? If it’s gonna be like this, shouldn’t he be giving us the copyright?”
“What, Taejin—you said you’d never listen.”
“You think I searched it out? I heard it everywhere on the way here, had to come with noise canceling on.”
“I heard it hit the Orange Top 100 too…”
At Hangyeol’s mutter, the room went quiet. Hitting the Top 100 on Orange, the biggest domestic streaming site, is definitely hard. For unknowns and rookies, it’s a benchmark of success. To these guys who haven’t even debuted yet, it must look huge.
But compared to his popularity before I came back, it isn’t even one-tenth. Album sales are down by about half, too. In other words, there’s nothing to be afraid of.
“So what?”
“…Dude, I said Orange Top 100.”
“I know. And that’s why I’m saying it.”
Even without saying it aloud, I could feel their eyes asking, Is he out of his mind?
“Considering how obsessed JW is with blowing him up… isn’t that kind of underwhelming?”
“This is underwhelming?”
“Honestly, they rushed his debut so hard I figured of course he’d hit #1.”
“N—number one?”
Their eyes about popped out—adorably green reactions.
“I promise you, if we debut after the survival show, we’ll do way better than Bae Shinwoo.”
“Aren’t you a bit too sure?”
You just don’t know what songs are hiding in here yet, do you?
My tongue itched.
“You know JW’s promoting like crazy, right?”
The guys, who’d been looking at me like a lunatic, slowly nodded.
“Every time I open Witube, it shows up as an ad.”
Good thing this isn’t the short-form era yet, or we’d be forced to hear his song all day long.
“You know what people in the industry call JW?”
“Of course we don’t.”
“I overheard when Bae Shinwoo was on the phone—they’re the place that, once they debut you, they always shove you into Orange’s top ten.”
Half true, half false. It wasn’t something I heard from Bae’s call, but seven years from now the “JW Entertainment Chart-Rigging Scandal” would lay it all bare. Bae Shinwoo, stupidly lucky, happened to be up for renewal then; he jumped to another label before it hit the press and slipped free of the blowback.
Not that JW had any intention of renewing once they’d squeezed him dry.
“Really?”
“Now that you mention it, songs by JW debuts were almost all up top.”
“But after hitting top ten on day one, it’s been sliding nonstop.”
“Yeah. It’s down to #80 now.”
“He’s definitely sweating, too.”
Alongside the rigging scandal, JW Entertainment’s ugly underside got exposed—down to interviews with its artists.
[The truth about a famous entertainment company… chart-rigging isn’t all—there’s pressure on its own artists.]
Rigging the charts like it’s nothing was shocking enough, but if results fell short, there were verbal abuse and threats like “there won’t be a next album.” One artist said they were still seeing a psychiatrist.
It was an anonymous interview, but everyone knew the subject.
“So there’s no reason to shrink back.”
“Right, Taejin? You heard him—don’t shrink.”
“You, Cha Seonjae—stop pathetically screenshotting chart ranks by the hour and sending them.”
“Hey!”
Hangyeol wedged himself between the growling two.
“S-so, when are we going to reveal an original?”
At this point, Hangyeol was basically the dedicated firefighter for Taejin and Seonjae.
“Yeah, shouldn’t we start performing your songs soon?”
“Right, let’s hear the stuff on that USB.”
“It’s too soon.”
Their faces, so full of expectation, deflated. But it was premature. Those songs are for the audition. Kicking up too big a wave with busking would be a problem.
“For busking, we’re going to do only covers.”
“Why?”
“Think about it—if we keep doing covers, people will start to wonder, right? ‘They’re a band, and they don’t have a single original?’ When we show up on the audition, they’ll assume we’ll just do another cover. And if that’s when we drop an original?”
“It’d be… a reversal, right?”
“But if that’s the plan, the song has to be huge.”
Worrying about the wrong thing. Of course I’m confident.
“Obviously. You heard me last time, right? That was a song I made in two hours.”
“I believe—amen.”
“So this audition… when is it? It’s definitely happening?”
“Yeah. I heard the announcement will drop before summer.”
“Then why did the topic of auditions come up?”
“They were debating whether to debut us right away or have us build name recognition on the audition show first, then debut.”
Seonjae is dangerous. It was a sharp question, but I answered like nothing. Since coming back, I’d prepared my own hundred Q&As. I’m used to lies on this level now.
“Bae Shinwoo probably didn’t even listen—he’d have said he’d debut immediately. The latter is obviously about the band as a whole.”
“You never know. They might’ve planned to stick JW trainees with him and send them to the audition.”
That part is true. I heard it later from a guitarist I met doing session work. When Bae turned that offer down, his debut got delayed indefinitely, and that guitarist quit trainee life.
Taejin shivered, saying he had goosebumps.
I put on the fox mask sitting next to me.
“Okay. Worries gone now? Then let’s get to work.”
After deciding to build the next stage around Hangyeol, we carefully chose a piece: “Hwawolga,” from the film When Moonlight Falls. The members, who usually played faster-tempo songs, couldn’t quite hide their awkwardness at first.
But it didn’t take long for them to adjust. As we practiced, one thing became certain: their skill wasn’t “good for high schoolers”—it was objectively excellent.
It wasn’t because we lacked skill.
Back then, before I came back, there were times I blamed our lack of skill for why other labels never contacted us. I was scared too, thinking the world was too harsh for high schoolers who could barely handle their instruments.
But over the last ten years, I worked as a session player and collaborated with countless talents.
Maybe because of that? When I hear someone play, I’ve gained a sense of how far they can grow. Maybe that’s why these guys felt even more precious to me.
“Taejin, Seonjae—you two getting friendly lately? What’s with your timing being so on?”
“That punk finally got his head on straight!”
“Our Taejin practiced the latest last night; now he’s finally getting close to my level. Still way below, of course.”
“Shut it. Says the guy who came earliest today to practice.”
I guarantee it: our band will be one that doesn’t lose to anyone on pure skill.
I was excited—for our audition, for next year, for ten years from now.
***
At the Street Busker shoot, people who’d come early and staked out spots were already there at the news that Blank would appear.
“Good thing we came early. Any later and the front row would’ve been gone.”
“Which mask are you most curious about? I’m team rabbit.”
“Obviously the fox!”
Thirty minutes before the live, Blank arrived at the venue. Even through the masks, you could see their eyes go wide at the crowd, clearly larger than last time.
“Whoa, I’m a little nervous.”
“Looks like double last time…”
“Double? At least quadruple.”
“G-good thing I brought calm-your-nerves pills.”
Street Busker’s Yoon Jaejin rushed over like he’d just met his saviors.
“Oh my, Blank! You’re here!”
“Thanks in advance for today’s performance.”
“Of course, of course! By the way, about that idea I mentioned last time…”
“That won’t be possible. We plan to keep performing in masks.”
He won’t budge at all.
He’d had ambitions of “First-ever reveal of viral mask band Blank’s real faces!” So he’d dangled a fairly large sum and tempting conditions. But Juyeon shut it down in one stroke. Jaejin wavered at the unexpected firmness.
“If it’s because you’re not confident in your visuals…”
“We wear them precisely because we’re afraid we’ll overshadow everything if we don’t.”
So obnoxious—and yet I can’t refute it…
Because it wasn’t an aura a mask could hide. Deciding that even the hardest tree falls if you chop it ten times, Jaejin backed off to wait for another chance.
Blank stepped into the busking zone for sound check; cheers and the sound of cameras came from the crowd.
“But who are they really?”
“I heard some people say it’s Ash.”
“No way. I watched the video too—the instruments are different, and the vocal’s nothing alike.”
“True, and he’s been off the radar forever. And why hide that face with a mask?”
Since the first busking, public curiosity about Blank hadn’t died down. Commenters playing detective to unmask them were popping up everywhere.
When “Ash” came out of a fan’s mouth, the members looked momentarily rattled.
“Hey, Cha Seonjae.”
“Huh…? O-oh.”
“Did you tune and check your sound?”
“Ah, right.”
But Juyeon, as if nothing had happened, went down the line checking each member’s instrument sound.
He knew better than anyone that once their sound came through, the members would focus only on playing, so he watched each face one by one.
Not as bad as earlier, but they still seem tense.
While he was thinking about how to bleed off the rest of that tension, someone tapped Juyeon on the leg.
“Who…?”
He turned his head toward the sensation, but no one was there. When he lowered his gaze just in case, a chubby-cheeked little boy was looking up at him.
“Kitty!”
“…Huh?”
Everyone but the beaming child tilted their heads.
“I’ll give you this!”
And at the thing the boy handed over, Juyeon crumbled helplessly.