“Hey. Sit down.”
“......? What's wrong?”
When Yujin returned to the room after his shift, I sat him down on the bed.
In this cramped room, where the desk chair and the bed were the only places to sit, the two of us faced each other.
“......?”
I sighed as I watched Yujin tilt his head.
It was not as if we had ever sat down for an honest conversation like this before.
We had practiced for a month and lived in the same house, but the first time we had faced each other like this was when I composed Blue Rose. This was only the second.
Back then, all I had to think about was how to answer whatever questions he asked.
Now I was struggling to decide what to ask first. In the end, I held out my hand.
“Give me your phone.”
He immediately frowned at my words.
“......Why?”
“Stop scowling. I'm only going to look at your playlist, so hand it over.”
“......Don't look at anything else.”
Was he hiding dirty pictures or something? Why was he so serious about it?
I took Yujin's phone and immediately checked his MP3 list.
‘Well, would you look at this?’
<Park Jeong-sin – Wildflower>
<Kang Ye-eun – Setting Sail>
<Lee Ji-geum – Celebrity>
I had thought he simply liked ballads, but his playlist followed a rule of its own.
First, there were no love songs.
Maybe he could not relate to love yet, because there was not a single one.
Considering that love songs made up ninety percent of the ballad market, it was impressive that he had managed to find this many without one.
‘A challenge, huh.......’
Most of the songs in his playlist also had lyrics about taking on challenges.
“Give me......yours too.”
“What? Oh, my phone?”
The owner of the phone spoke up while I was analyzing his playlist.
Apparently unwilling to be the only one whose phone was taken, he held out his hand. I passed him the phone in my pocket.
“Unlike a certain someone, I have nothing to hide, so feel free to look at anything you like.”
Yujin gave me an offended look at my sarcasm, then turned on my smartphone and began searching through it.
I knew every song on my playlist from memory without needing to look.
<PTS – Explosive>
<Monsta – Rusy>
<The Guys – Show>
At some point, I had become obsessed with idol and hip-hop music, and before I knew it, my playlist was full of songs from those genres.
Since the music we listened to was completely different, Yujin stared blankly at the unfamiliar English titles on the screen.
The difference between ballads and hip-hop stood out clearly in our playlists, but I could still find one thing Yujin and I had in common.
I opened Notepad on my computer and began to type.
Theme – Challenge.
The atmosphere of a challenging situation was either tense or exciting.
Choosing the former would suit a classical genre like opera.
But since we would be singing to the public, should it not be something more exciting?
Mood – Bright and cheerful.
Emotion: Joy.
A challenge that felt light, like playing a game. But we could not leave out our goal either.
Message.
What message did we want to convey to our fans through this song?
What did I, someone who had undergone regression into the past, want to say to our fans? And what did this guy, as he was now, want to say?
‘This guy......’
Thinking he had finished what he needed to do, Yujin lay down on the bed. Looking at him brought back memories of those days.
To Chanhwi—no, to the other singers, including Chanhwi—Yujin had been a tyrant.
A tyrant who never relinquished first place once he climbed onto the popularity charts.
To that tyrant, the other singers, including Chanhwi, were nothing more than the kings of weak nations, minor nobles, or commoners.
But Yujin had reached that position because he had raced toward his dream with his eyes fixed on nothing else.
Though Chanhwi had only been the king of a small nation, he too had kept running because Yujin was racing ahead of him.
The two of them now were neither a tyrant nor the king of a weak nation.
They were merely two princes who wished to ascend the throne.
The message those two wanted to give their fans was.
Message: An invitation.
An invitation.
We would give them an invitation to watch the road we would walk from here on.
Take this invitation and enter my kingdo... Fuck.
My fingers curled from embarrassment, and I hurriedly hammered the Backspace key.
Part of me wondered if I had lost my mind, but I could not find a concept that suited us better, so I reluctantly put down a period.
Album concept: The Prince's Invitation.
***
Now that I had established the song's concept, it was time to seriously try composing it.
I planned to reflect Yujin's tastes based on his playlist.
‘First, the intro.’
Da--da, da-da, dadada, dada.
I arranged the intro so its slow tempo would gradually accelerate.
As if to announce that something was about to begin. And when the atmosphere reached its peak.
THOOM!
The bass drum and hi-hat kicked in, instantly creating a bright atmosphere.
I added piano and a chorus, lifting that brightness another level.
The performance began with bass and drums laying the foundation and a guitar cutting through the middle.
“I ran with all my might so I could meet you.”
I had not started recording the guide track yet, but lyrics rose naturally to my lips, and I hummed them aloud.
For the prince, this was his first challenge.
Running to meet someone.
“You, who look so lonely♪”
Instead of merely delivering an invitation, the premise was that the prince himself approached the princess to invite her.
Even I found it fascinating how naturally the melody and lyrics came to me.
It was different from the musical color I had possessed before. Did that mean it felt as though it was not my music? No, that was not true either.
This was my song.
And it was our song.
Before I knew it, Yujin's color had blended into Chanhwi's music.
There was tranquility within its exhilaration, and a powerful chorus amid its sweet notes.
“Ha-ha.”
Chanhwi laughed because this type of song was a first for him as well.
In the past, he would never even have dreamed of making a song like this.
Back then, he would have made something tailored perfectly to his own style. But now, for some reason, he wanted to try writing a song like this.
After a long time had passed, he finally pressed the Save button.
“Are you done now?”
Yujin peeked out from under the blanket spread across the floor.
He had tried to go to sleep first while Chanhwi concentrated on composing, but the music playing all night had kept him from falling asleep easily.
Only then did Chanhwi realize he had stayed up all night making the song.
“Yeah. Want to hear it?”
“I just did. ......It was good.”
“......!”
Chanhwi's face grew hot.
Being praised by Yujin left him with a strange feeling.
Was it the feeling of being acknowledged by someone he had thought would never acknowledge him?
“Thanks.”
“......It was nothing. Go to sleep.”
“Oh, right. This is a dance song, so we'll be practicing choreography too.”
“......”
“Don't pretend you're asleep.”
Despite Chanhwi's admonition, Yujin stubbornly kept pretending to sleep.
Did he really hate dancing that much?
It raised the reasonable suspicion that perhaps Yujin had stuck to ballads in his previous life because he wanted to hide the fact that he was a terrible dancer.
This must be another one of the new pleasures Chanhwi had discovered in this life.
As a final touch, Chanhwi saved the song under the title ‘Prince.’
***
“They've already made a song?”
“Has anyone heard it?”
“They said they're unveiling it to the staff today, so wouldn't that mean no one has heard it yet?”
“Well, we'll know when we hear it. All right, let's head in.”
People were filing into the third-floor conference room at DM Entertainment one by one.
They had come to the conference room for the presentation of a title song composed by the trainees.
Of course, that alone would not ordinarily have been enough to gather every senior figure in the company, but a recent internal incident had drawn everyone's attention to these trainees.
“Ahem.”
“Exactly. Why did you make such a fuss?”
“What did you say, punk?”
Ha Dong-hun, head of the A&R Team, entered with his team members, looking uncomfortable.
After causing such a commotion at the company, he could not help feeling self-conscious.
The trainees presenting the title song came in next, accompanied by their two trainers.
CEO Kim Dae-myeong entered last and checked that everyone was seated.
“Why did all of you gather for something like this? Don't you have work to do?”
“Well, no.”
At present, the only project underway was the pair of trainees before them, so everyone involved with the duo had inevitably gathered.
“Then let's begin.”
CEO Kim Dae-myeong took the seat at the head of the table, and the meeting began.
The first thing to catch everyone's eye was the title of the song the two trainees had made.
“‘Prince,’ huh.”
“The two of them certainly are handsome enough to be princes.”
The employee's banter made everyone burst into laughter, easing the tense atmosphere considerably.
Yujin, on the other hand, glared at Chanhwi as though he resented him for choosing that title. Chanhwi merely shrugged as if to ask what the problem was.
“Could we hear an explanation of the song first?”
“Yes.”
At CEO Kim Dae-myeong's question, Chanhwi rose from his seat and began to explain the title song.
“First, I did a lot of thinking while making this song. What is our music? Where does our goal lie?”
A goal.
Every singer had a goal of their own.
First place on the Melon chart, first place on Billboard, Best Song of the Year, and so on.
But many had collapsed without ever achieving those goals, so the word settled heavily in everyone's heart.
“The song ‘Prince’ contains the concept of an invitation offered by a prince who will someday become king—the starting point of that goal.”
Saying it aloud made him feel embarrassed.
“A prince, a prince. It feels a little cheesy, but isn't it all right? Like, ‘Watch the royal road we're about to climb from this moment on.’ Wow. It's overflowing with fantasy vibes.”
“Then who's the king right now? If we're judging by the Billboard chart, was it that foreign singer named Glass?”
“No, that's not right. Shouldn't we judge the king by who wins at the BMA? In that case......”
The employees launched into a lively discussion among themselves, apparently finding the concept entertaining.
“You can chat later. Let's keep listening.”
At one word from CEO Kim Dae-myeong, the employees fell silent again, and Chanhwi bowed his head to the CEO.
“The royal road you just mentioned. I thought of that expression too. But instead of giving the song a heavy atmosphere, I made it bright and easygoing, as though that road were our natural destination. We settled on accessible pop as the genre, but because we also brought out Yujin's strengths, it sounds a little like soulful house.”
Chanhwi smiled and bowed his head, and Yujin followed suit.
“This is our first time working together, so it may still be lacking in many ways, but we'd appreciate it if you'd listen kindly.”
‘What kind of song have they brought us this time?’
Most of the people seated there had been quietly anticipating this song.
Ordinarily, people did not expect much from rookies, but everyone there had heard their previous work, ‘Blue Rose,’ so they had at least some expectations.
At last, music began to flow from the speakers.
‘Huh?’
Those who heard the prelude tilted their heads.
It began at a slow tempo, then accelerated as the mood steadily intensified.
The listeners closed their eyes and imagined a castle.
They saw its tightly shut gates slowly opening.
That slow movement made them wish the closed gates would hurry and open.
It filled them with the desire to hear the song and see what lay beyond those gates as soon as possible.
When the gates finally opened wide, a fanfare rang out, and a joyous melody transformed the atmosphere.
Though the prelude offered not a single word of explanation, the scene appeared vividly before them.
‘......Not bad.’
Ha Dong-hun gave a wan smile as he listened.
Perhaps part of him had hoped they would fail.
Perhaps ‘Blue Rose’ had merely been beginner's luck. Perhaps they would need his help.
But he knew the moment he heard this song. It was complete.
It needed a few minor corrections, perhaps because it had been produced in an environment with inadequate equipment, but there was nothing substantial to criticize.
To reach his current standing as a hitmaker, Ha Dong-hun had studied countless famous songs from both Korea and abroad.
That was why he was not calling this song complete merely after weighing something like its technical quality.
The listeners' gazes alternated between Chanhwi and Yujin.
The song's greatest strength was how well the two complemented each other.
‘Chanhwi handles the rap, and Yujin the ballad.’
Then they sang the chorus together.
As if saying that this was how they would sing from now on, so the listener should take my hand and follow.
The two members had different musical colors and personalities, yet neither was buried by the other, and they formed a harmonious whole.
‘They're like the sun and the moon.’
They were stars of different colors, yet the two had merged and made themselves look like a new star.
CEO Kim Dae-myeong's greatest concern had been what kind of music the two would sing.
Their colors were so different that he had braced himself for the possibility that no matter what song he gave them, one of the two would inevitably be overshadowed.
But as if to prove those worries unfounded, the duo had created an excellent song that earned passing marks both musically and conceptually.
When the song ended, CEO Kim Dae-myeong asked Ha Dong-hun, the man responsible for this whole affair.
“What do you think?”
As if there were nothing more to say, Ha Dong-hun gave a short answer.
“Let's move forward with this.”