Sol-woo, noticing the room sink into complete silence, exhaled slowly. He was entirely calm. He rested his leg to the side in a relaxed position and his fingers began to move across the strings with impeccable ease. Not a single trace of tension in his shoulders — he projected a composure that was almost absurd for a trainee performing in front of two industry giants.
LE, watching him intently from her corner, understood immediately: this kid is no beginner.
She knew that stillness well. It was that state of deep immersion that only artists reach when they manage to disconnect from their surroundings and merge with the music. Like putting on an oxygen tank to breathe underwater — the outside world switches off completely, the stares and the pressure vanish, and suddenly only two things exist: the beat of your own heart and your voice flowing as a channel of pure expression.
And so it was. Sol-woo half-closed his eyes and let the first lines of Lost Stars break the air of the studio:
"Please, don’t see, just a boy caught up in dreams and fantasies... Please, see me..."
The guitar resonated in perfect harmony with his voice — deep and crystalline at once. But the real impact came just after, when he made the transition into the adapted chorus. Sol-woo linked the verse, shifting smoothly into Korean with impeccable poetic meter:
"Is it that we are all lost stars trying to light up the darkness...?" he sang — the resonance clean and deeply felt.
The Korean syllables that days ago had sounded stiff and clipped now flowed with a harmonic ease. He shaped the diction of each word with a vocal openness so natural that the pronunciation seemed to melt over the guitar’s strumming — fitting into the melody as if it had always been the original version of a first-rate Korean soloist.
The song moved through the studio wrapping everything in absolute silence. Everyone in the room watched with sincere, captivated expressions — like someone witnessing a newborn draw its first breath of life. For the producers and the team, seeing Sol-woo so deeply immersed while he sang was an overwhelming and deeply satisfying feeling.
His connection with the music resonated once more. Though his Korean didn’t flow as naturally as his native English, he adapted in a remarkable way — shaping a pronunciation and a meter that were practically perfect for the song.
Then came the final section. That vocal rawness arrived — the dramatic shift from quiet melancholy to something aggressive and searing, like someone who has endured too much and finally erupts from the deepest part of their chest.
Sol-woo leaned his torso forward and began strumming the guitar faster and harder, connecting completely with the emotional weight of the piece. He released the line in Korean with a ragged, intense voice:
"But are we all lost stars... trying to light up the dark...?"
(¿Pero es que acaso todos somos estrellas perdidas... intentando iluminar la oscuridad...?)
"And I thought I saw you out there crying..."
(Y creí verte allá afuera, llorando en medio de la sombra...)
"And I thought I heard you call my name..."
(Y creí escuchar que pronunciabas mi nombre...)
"And I thought I saw you out there crying..."
(Y creí verte allá afuera, ahogándote en lágrimas...)
The rawness in the Korean vocals reverberated off the studio walls. The frustration and pain of the lyrics felt so real in his delivery that the language ceased to be a barrier.
Gradually, after reaching the highest point of the climax, he began to bring his voice and the strings back down. The nostalgic melody returned — no longer carrying the rage of before, but the quiet resignation that remains after a storm has passed.
With a thread of warm voice and his Korean diction dissolving into a final breath, he closed on the last note:
"But are we all lost stars...?"
(Pero ¿no somos todos solo estrellas perdidas...?)
The Producer-nim couldn’t take his eyes off him. He had never expected that in just five days this young man would show such an advance — not only in diction, but in his command of the atmosphere inside the studio. And what excited him most as a creator was knowing he could still draw so much more out of him.
Having discovered and shaped so many talents over the course of his career, Shinsadong Tiger recognized immediately what he had just witnessed: Sol-woo had only shown a surface layer of everything he carried inside. He knew that the day this young man fully mastered the fluency of Korean, he simply would have no rival — he would have the capacity to overshadow them all. He felt glad for the young man, but also for himself. For him, the greatest satisfaction of his career had always been exactly this: guiding exceptional individuals who would eventually show the world what they were made of.
Shinsadong Tiger turned his head slightly toward the studio window and broke into a wide smile directed at the glass.
On the other side, Director Yoon and Manager Tae-shik felt an enormous weight lift from their shoulders. To them, Sol-woo’s performance had been pure art — but they knew they weren’t the experts. The real judgment belonged to the man at the console. Seeing that smile on the producer’s face, they understood the approval was absolute.
In the studio, Shinsadong Tiger settled back into his seat and broke the silence, looking at Sol-woo:
"Sol-woo-ssi... I never expected you to master that section of the Korean this quickly. I can see you understood something fundamental: true music has no borders — only different ways of expressing itself. Language is simply the channel for showing that expression from another angle. With time, I’m certain you’ll be able to express your own songs in our language. I’ll be waiting for that moment."
Just as the producer finished speaking, he noticed LE shifting restlessly in her seat, visibly eager to speak. He gave her a nod, handing her the floor.
Ahn Elly stood and fixed her gaze on Sol-woo as if she were studying a raw diamond just pulled from the ground. She looked at him with complete seriousness and said without cushioning it:
"You have a terrifying amount of potential... but why force yourself to perform in such a small country? With your talent, you belong on the world stage — don’t you think?"
Sol-woo looked at her with complete respect. He didn’t let the praise carry him away, nor did he show any pressure from the question. With a calm voice, he answered:
"I like Korea. I want to honor my mother’s country. And besides... do you believe in fate, Sunbae? That’s my answer."
LE raised an eyebrow, caught off guard by his composure.
"Seeing how serious and calculated you are, I didn’t expect you to believe in something like fate..." she remarked with a half-smile before returning to her critical stance. "I like your style of music. But I think that beyond polishing your musical Korean, you should focus on finding yourself."
She paused briefly and continued analyzing him:
"There are parts of the song where your own emotional rawness pulls you so deep that you simply let yourself go. That can work here, in a closed space... but on a real stage it’s dangerous. The audience in Korea is extremely intense — one second of looking vulnerable or down, and by the next day the press and social media will say everything about you."
As she said this, LE glanced sideways at Ji-soo — as if wondering whether the image team had explained those industry realities to Sol-woo. Ji-soo, feeling the pointed look, could only exhale quietly in resignation.
The Producer-nim stepped in gently before the atmosphere grew too heavy:
"Alright, alright — Elly. He’ll come to understand these things in his own time. The kid is just getting started. In the end, it’s exactly what I told you years ago: the best thing for an artist is to let go and flow. Even if you don’t always reach the planned end of the road, the most valuable thing a musician can hold onto is their authenticity."
LE looked at her PD-nim with a slight expression of resigned acceptance. She nodded in silence and returned to her seat. She knew perfectly well that when her teacher and superior spoke that way, there was no room left for further objection.