After I ruffled the admirable guy’s hair and let him go, he flapped away the part my hand had touched and distanced himself far from me.
He wanted to run away right now, but seemed to suddenly realize that I was blocking the door with my back.
Go Won glared at me with his fur bristling, ready to push me aside and run if necessary. He wasn’t even thinking about hiding his expression anymore.
In front of him, I scrolled through my phone and found a certain song.
The moment I pressed the play button, bitterness and relief burst out simultaneously.
—♪♬
It was a song with only the top line without lyrics, but it was enough to understand the composition.
A ripping electric guitar sound, intense beat.
“Junior-nim, how’s this song?”
“……”
The guy’s eyes that had been sharply raised upward gradually came down. Though he ended up with a suspicious expression.
“…What kind of song is this?”
I let out a laugh mixed with the sound of wind.
It’s killing me how much of a waste this is.
But on the other hand, I also felt relieved, as if it had found its owner.
“Pre-release song.”
The strategy was this.
“Let’s go to my room. Junior-nim. I’ll protect your song.”
I understand why Go Won’s quest came to me.
This was something only I could do for him.
Among all the adult bastards who’ve been selling him dreams until now, there probably wasn’t anyone like this.
‘So just trust me this once.’
Go Won’s eyes were full of anxiety. But amidst that, a faint hope took root.
I felt like I could hear the sound of the slump that had tormented me for so long breaking apart.
***
The past where I’d been stuck on one song for months seemed like a lie.
It took exactly 10 hours to arrange the raw audio file and add lyrics.
It was a situation with good inspiration as well as a time attack. While my nose was buried in the monitor, my chronic slump had somehow been completely cured.
Thus, crossing the long dawn, a song was newly born from the aged cloud storage.
Next, I called Go Won to the recording studio.
I just told him to open the door and come in, but today too he stood for a long time stuck between the double doors, hesitating.
“Sunbae-nim, hello.”
Hitting the wall was also still the same.
But it wasn’t like before where he tried to push me away—a glimmer of hope and a question of ‘can I really trust him?’ were draped over him.
“Junior-nim.”
“Yes.”
“My recording booth has quite a notorious reputation.”
“……”
“Let’s have a good time together today, shall we?”
“…Yes.”
Since he was so tense, I additionally showed him the performance of clicking the studio door locked. His eyes expanded so wide his pupils were clearly visible.
“Go in.”
I pointed inside the recording booth.
And I rested my chin in front of the screen.
“Again.”
I tilted my chin in the air, then pressed the talk-back button.
“Again. Mmm. This time you were off from the start. Let’s do it again.”
The accompaniment I’d heard dozens of times played identically. After overusing ‘again’ that many times.
“Now my mouth hurts from talking. Just do it again when you hear my finger snap.”
Go Won, who had been inside the recording booth, finally looked outside the recording studio glass window at those words.
—…Sunbae-nim.
“Yeah.”
I answered half-heartedly while glancing at the time.
Seeing that the pushback only came out now after rolling him for about 5 hours, he did have quite a bit of patience. At first there was at least some directing, but the past few hours had been an overuse of ‘again.’
—If you tell me what the problem is, I’ll fix it.
“What? You’re saying you haven’t even figured out what the problem is until now? That’s ridiculous. You still don’t have the will to do your best. Is your desperation only this much?”
—……
‘Well now.’
For a moment, fierce eyes appeared. Though he immediately covered them with a mask.
—…I’m sor…
“Out of a hundred bastards who half-assedly say this kind of thing, a hundred of them don’t know what the problem is either, so ignore it.”
I laughed and looked inside the recording studio. Go Won had a bewildered face, unable to adapt to the sudden topic change.
“To be honest, there’s nothing I’d call a problem. There’s no part that really stands out. Even if I just string together the parts you’ve sung so far, it’d roughly be 80 points.”
My fingertips tapped next to the talk-back button.
“But every time you redo it, 81 points, 82 points… it goes up 1 point at a time and the feeling comes alive. That’s why I keep making you do it.”
—Ah… So we’re going all the way to 100 points.
“What 100? It’s up to 120. Even if we record excessively, it’s uncertain whether it’ll all go in when we mix.”
—…I understand.
The Quest Scenario title is ‘The Sunbae Who Paves a Flower Path’?
That flower path was a path of flames.
Since I had full producing authority, I had no intention of letting things pass easily.
“Don’t worry. There’s only been one person who recorded to my satisfaction in just a few hours. You’re average.”
—Who’s that one person?
“Me.”
—……
“Shall we try again?”
—Yes.
Actually, in most cases I would have given directing in the middle out of frustration.
But from a few ‘agains’ onward, Go Won started trying various things on his own. Some were clumsy, some were fresh, and some I muted without even listening again.
The interesting thing was that when I rolled him dozens of times like that, he really did pull out phrases that stuck in the ears.
‘I heard that <Debut Chart> was his first experience receiving proper training.’
Then this is talent. In the realm of expression.
After repeating the recording a few more times, I gestured flutteringly at Go Won to come over here. Then Go Won put down the headset and came out of the booth. I confidently held out my hand in front of him.
“Give it here.”
What Go Won held in his hand was only the lyric sheet.
“It’s messy because I made a lot of notes.”
“That’s why I’m telling you to hand it over. It takes half a day to drag out what’s in your head through your mouth.”
“……”
Go Won ended up having his lyric sheet extorted.
In front of the restless Go Won, I conspicuously scanned the lyric sheet and pointed to one spot.
“What did you write here?”
“I was thinking if I should sing it falling gently…”
“Wow, you really can’t write. What are you going to do about fan signs later?”
“…I’ll fix it.”
“Modify it?”
“Should I rewrite it clearly for you?”
“No. I’m asking if you want me to modify the song in the direction you want to sing it.”
“……”
Go Won was half surprised, half uncomprehending.
Well, this would be a first experience. Until now, he must have only received completed songs.
“It’s your song, so it should fit you. If there are parts you want to modify, tell me. I’m not saying I’ll do everything, but let me hear it.”
I picked up the guitar leaning against the studio wall. My fingertips plucked the strings.
“Falling gently—is it like this?”
“Ah, yes like that…”
“Anything else? Tell me now if there are any parts of the lyrics where the pronunciation pops.”
Go Won’s eyes scanned the lyric sheet confusedly but busily. I pointed to the door attached to the studio wall.
“I’m going to rest while you organize your thoughts. If you want to lie down, come in there. Just lie down on the sofa or something.”
I finished speaking and went inside, lying down wearily. It was a studio apartment-sized bedroom attached next to the studio.
After pulling an all-nighter and then forcing myself on without time to close my eyes, my energy was completely drained.
I was sprawled out for about 10 minutes, but I didn’t hear any sound from outside.
‘They say when a kid is quiet, they’re getting into trouble…’
Instead of looking outside, I opened the CCTV monitoring app installed in the studio. You didn’t know about this, buddy.
“Oh.”
Go Won had gone back into the recording booth.
The guy repeatedly sang and earnestly wrote something on the lyric sheet. His expression was as serious as if taking the college entrance exam.
I realized that what I’d said had become a task for Go Won to earn the opportunity to make modifications.
‘Well now.’
After wrestling with the paper for a while, he soon got up from his seat and even tried the choreography.
We were both equally sleep-deprived, but that side became more energetic as time passed.
‘What resignation?’
His expression now was completely different from when he was frustrated in the meeting room. His face was full of reddish ripples. Desire and passion for his own song, joy about the opportunity, desperation, etc.
‘You must be the type who’d die if you can’t stand on stage too.’
Watching that, the bed that had been sucking me in until just now seemed to be kicking me out instead.
In the end, I got up and came out the door.
“Hey, Go Won, Go Won!”
“Yes?!”
He in the booth snapped his head up. I spoke to him in a serious voice.
“You, go down to the first floor.”
“…Why?”
“I got a call from the desk that a very important item for your recording arrived, so go quickly and pick it up! Use my name!”
When I fired off urgently, the panic was smoothly transmitted.
“Ah, okay.”
Go Won sprang up and left the studio.
I picked up the paper he’d been scribbling on.
Perhaps because he received criticism earlier, I could see traces of trying to write more clearly. He was also going through it quite meticulously from the front.
I took the paper the guy wrote and sat in front of the studio desk. This is nonsense so rejected, this looks okay so should I try it, this is…
“…Sunbae-nim.”
Go Won, who soon returned, held up what was in his hand with an absurd face. It was sundaegukbap for two.
“You need to eat to have energy to finish the rest, right? It’s an important item, isn’t it?”
“……”
“If you’re not going to eat it, fine. Wow, even like this you’re not hungry—you’re young.”
“I’ll eat.”
As expected, physical hardship makes distracting thoughts disappear.
When he first came here, he sat barely perching his butt, but now he knows how to sink deeply into the sofa and even stuffed his mouth full of rice.
“Go Won.”
“…Yes.”
“Eat a lot. I’m going to roll you more after eating.”
“……”
Since he spits out results as much as I stuff him, it’s quite fun to roll him around.
It might be unfortunate in many ways for junior-nim, but I quite liked Go Won. It felt like discovering a muse after a long time.
Ah, wait.
‘If you have any wishes left, please send me a muse this time.’
I think I added ‘preferably a pretty rookie’ to that…
“Fuck, no way.”
‘The quest started, no way, please…’
“…Why are you looking at me like that?”
“Fuck…”
“What again…”
“The gukbap is too hot. Get me water.”
“……”
“If you’re annoyed, debut 12 years earlier. Or have songwriting and composing abilities.”
Go Won got up from his seat with a doubly upset face.
