“...Use the note from just now instead of this one here, and set this part to D7...”
Haaah.
I stretched while taking a short break in the middle of piecing the song together.
Chanhwi was using the virtual instruments on his computer screen to create Yujin's song. But then.
‘This is proving harder than I expected.’
Chanhwi did not possess some genius talent like perfect pitch or the ability to remember everything he had experienced once.
So he had no choice but to feel his way through his memories as he adjusted the song.
Even so, by Chanhwi's reckoning, this was a song from a full ten years ago.
‘I couldn't help being stunned back then.’
How could anyone sing that well? He continued shaping the song as he traced that vivid shock through his memory.
Yujin's debut song, ‘Blue Rose,’ was his first declaration to the entertainment industry. It was a song filled with that ambition.
It began with calm music at a steady tempo.
This was the everyday life we experienced. Yet the song dreamed of a sudden escape from the sameness of every day.
And finally.
BOOM.
The bass drum signaled the shift in the song's mood, after which it became bright and powerful.
The hi-hat and snare breaking through at intervals gave it more rhythm.
The melody at the turning point, where ordinary life became an escape, was still lodged vividly in his memory.
He did not record a separate vocal guide. He knew the lyrics, but this was a song that held Yujin's life, so it was only right for Yujin to come up with the lyrics himself.
Though they probably would not differ much from before.
After adding the last instruments the song needed, he smiled in satisfaction.
He could not call it perfect, but he had recreated as much of its original feeling as he could.
It embarrassed him to say so himself, but the song was so complete that he could hardly believe he had truly made it with his own hands.
It was not merely provocative music, but a song that offered a glimpse into one person's life.
Chanhwi intended to give this song to the owner it suited.
“Chanhwi. I'm sorry, but we've already decided to give him Mr. Yoon Seung-pil's song.”
That was what Trainer Park Mi-yeong said when he came to deliver Yujin's song.
After Ha Dong-hun, the Head of A&R, declared a boycott, the company had no choice but to find another composer. As luck would have it, they had managed to contact composer Yoon Seung-pil and decided to take one of their songs.
The trainer thought highly of Chanhwi.
The fact that he had written a song for his friend was touching enough to move her, but surely a professional's song still had to take priority?
“Please let him hear it at least once anyway.”
Chanhwi spoke as though he knew for certain that Yujin would listen to his song.
***
Chanhwi and Yujin sat at the table among Chanhwi's family.
A pot of steaming budae-jjigae sat before them, but both of them stared at each other as if something else mattered more.
“Did you two have a fight?”
Unable to keep watching them, Chanhwi's mother finally spoke up.
“No.”
“What fight?”
They both denied it, but something had clearly happened between them.
“I don't know what it is, but resolve it quickly.”
“Leave them alone. Little bastards grow up by fighting.”
Between his worried mother and indifferent father, Yujin was the first of the two men, who were like brothers, to speak.
“Come outside for a minute later.”
“......”
He was the type who could not stand leaving a question unanswered.
***
The two of them went up to the villa's rooftop.
As soon as they arrived, Yujin asked the question he had been holding back.
“What is the story behind that song?”
“What about it?”
“The song you gave me.”
It was the song Yujin had been humming only in his mind all this time.
He had kept it with him, always thinking that this was the kind of song he wanted to sing first if he became a singer.
But unlike humming it in his head, expressing it in concrete terms was difficult.
He had never formally learned composition.
He had never even played an instrument.
Drawing notes on staff paper was the limit of his ability, and even he knew he was not doing that properly.
He felt helpless, as if an enormous wall had blocked him from the very beginning.
Then, amid all that, he unexpectedly found his ideal song.
To his astonishment, it was almost identical to the song he had been imagining all along.
How could anyone have made it exactly the same?
Tears welled in his eyes, and he felt like bowing to whoever had created it.
Yet of all people, that person turned out to be...
‘He made that song.’
He honestly could not believe it.
That was why he wanted to hear it directly from the person himself.
“I made it.”
“You're lying.”
Chanhwi told him the truth, but Yujin denied it.
Chanhwi shrugged.
“Right. I'm lying.”
“Tell me the truth. This is a melody I'd been thinking about all by myself. So how did you make it......?”
“Right. You created this song.”
It must have taken him an incredible amount of time to turn the song he had kept to himself for so long into something concrete.
Yet during that time, he must also have endured every jealous stare alone.
Chanhwi could already see the same thing happening again.
He worried Yujin might become the same person he had been before.
So Chanhwi decided to help him just this once.
“All I did was bring forward the song your future self created over many years.”
“What kind of nonsense......?”
Yujin frowned when Chanhwi suddenly began spouting nonsense.
Chanhwi gave a light laugh at his reaction and spoke as though he were joking.
“The truth is, I used your sheet music as a reference.”
Yujin thought of the scores he had scribbled over the past few days.
“You really made it from those?”
“Yeah. It looked like they only needed a few corrections, so I worked on them a little. Are you satisfied now?”
“......Yeah.”
Only then convinced, Yujin nodded.
Chanhwi nodded too, rose from his seat, and headed for bed.
“Aah. I'm tired, so I'm going to sleep first. The song's finished now, so you should go to bed early too.”
“...ng.”
“What?”
Thinking he had heard something, Chanhwi turned his head, but Yujin shook his.
“It was nothing. Just hurry up and go to sleep.”
“Sure, sure. Yes, Mom.”
Chanhwi lay down with his head turned away so Yujin could not see his face.
‘Somehow, I fooled him.’
His claim that he had seen Yujin's sheet music was a lie.
It would have been difficult to finish the song by looking at those notes that resembled crawling ants.
That bastard would probably never know the truth for the rest of his life.
He had brought up his past life only because he knew Yujin would never believe it anyway.
He had needed to get it off his chest somehow to feel relieved.
It seemed some part of him had wanted to confess, even in this form, because he alone had returned to the past.
“......”
After confirming that Chanhwi had gone downstairs, Yujin took Chanhwi's USB out of his pocket.
He stared fixedly at the USB for a long time.
The next day, Yujin went to see Trainer Park Mi-yeong.
“I see. Do you want to use that song?”
Yujin nodded at the trainer's question.
“Yes. And......”
Yujin asked the trainer for something even she had never expected.
***
“Why am I being called in all of a sudden?”
Chanhwi had been in class when the division head abruptly summoned him, leaving him bewildered.
Unexpectedly, Yujin was also in the division head's office.
“Why are you...?”
“Your name was Chanhwi, right? It's been a while.”
At the greeting, Chanhwi thought for a moment and remembered that Director Park Hyeong-hun had been one of the judges at the audition.
“Yes. Thanks to you, I became a trainee.”
“How was that thanks to me? You made it because your dancing was good, Chanhwi.”
“Yes. But why did you call both of us......?”
His voice trailed off as he looked at Yujin, but Yujin's lips were sealed as though he knew something.
“Do you remember what the CEO said after the judging ended?”
“After the judging... Do you mean the duo?”
But Yujin must have refused that, right?
“Yes. Are you still interested?”
“As for me, if you'll let me debut quickly, I don't care what I have to do.”
Chanhwi looked at Yujin again.
You're the one who refused this, aren't you?
Then Director Park said something completely unexpected.
“Good. Since you've both accepted, I'll move the two of you onto the debut team together starting now.”
“What?”
Chanhwi looked at Yujin one last time.
“......You're going to bore a hole through my face.”
“No, you...”
He had made such a fuss about wanting to debut alone.
Chanhwi could not fathom what Yujin was thinking now.
“You should be grateful.”
Yujin had agonized over the decision.
The song Chanhwi had given him. Its quality was outstanding beyond question.
It felt as though he could debut immediately with that one song alone.
Yet he could not understand why Chanhwi would give him such a good song.
‘Why on earth?’
From the day they first met, Chanhwi had even let him stay at his home and looked after him in all sorts of ways while calling him ignorant of how the world worked.
And now he was giving him a song this good too?
Out of gratitude, Yujin had tried to thank him the previous night, but the words would not come out.
He decided to save his thanks for another time and wondered if there was any way he could help instead.
‘If I take this song, his debut will be delayed even longer.’
That bastard must have entered this agency dreaming of debuting too.
Come to think of it, he remembered being asked on the day they passed whether they wanted to debut as a duo.
So that morning, he asked the trainer about the duo proposal.
From what he heard, the conditions were not all that bad.
Even as a duo, they could release solo songs. Apparently there were also cases where both members wrote lyrics and composed together.
Since he had no talent for composition, he wondered if he could simply leave it to Chanhwi.
‘He said he fixed it just by looking at my sheet music.’
He entertained that thought without a care, even though Chanhwi would have clutched the back of his neck and collapsed if he had heard it.
After weighing everything, Yujin concluded that the conditions were not bad for him either and accepted the duo in the end.
Yujin smiled proudly to himself, but Chanhwi's expression, on the other hand, was complicated.
‘I can't believe I'm going to form a duo with this guy.’
What should I do?
‘His music isn't to my taste.’
***
“CEO, what brings you here? I would have come upstairs if you'd called for me.”
The A&R Team employees were flustered by CEO Kim Dae-myeong's sudden appearance in their office.
“This is my company. Where would I be forbidden from going?”
CEO Kim Dae-myeong's gaze landed on Ha Dong-hun, who sat brooding by himself.
“Dong-hun, are you still sulking?”
At the question, the audio engineer began sweating profusely.
Anyone could see that Ha Dong-hun was already in a bad mood over what had happened a few days ago, yet the CEO had just tossed kindling onto the fire.
“What did you come here for?”
“You bastard. Is that any way to speak to the CEO?”
Judging by their tone, one might think the two men did not get along, but they were actually old friends.
Back when Kim Dae-myeong was an idol, the person who had composed ‘Butterfly Fragments,’ the third album that turned his group Beat into national idols, was Ha Dong-hun, who had still been a high school student at the time.
That brought Beat and Ha Dong-hun together, and the two men became extremely close friends. Their bond had endured from those days until now.
“I asked if you're still sulking.”
At the repeated question, Ha Dong-hun snapped back indignantly.
“No, then wouldn't you be angry too, hyung? Who does he think he is to say he doesn't like my song?”
Kim Dae-myeong clicked his tongue at Ha Dong-hun's complaint.
“Dong-hun. Do you know what people these days call the way you're acting right now?”
“......If you came here to talk nonsense, leave. Aren't you busy?”
Ha Dong-hun waved him off, but CEO Kim Dae-myeong showed no intention of moving.
CEO Kim Dae-myeong answered his own question.
“An old. They call that being an old fogey.”