The boss, who had been leaning against the sofa with one hand covering his lower face, answered instead.
“What kind of dating would a student do?”
“I have though? Three times.”
When Yeon Cheonguk responded into the microphone while showing three fingers, the boss had a quite surprised face. Yes, he himself acknowledged that like the saying ‘the quiet cat climbs on the stove first,’ he had been more passionate than anyone when it came to dating.
It was adolescence when he needed a place to immerse himself.
He admitted he was lacking and pathetic, but he wanted to defend himself that he didn’t let those moments flow by with just youthful foolishness. Whenever there was time he earned money, endured and tried hard in various ways not to ruin the family atmosphere, and the times he pretended to be bright were difficult in their own way. Well, even so, objectively speaking, he admitted he wasn’t such an excellent student.
So he couldn’t say anywhere that it was hard. He himself couldn’t tolerate complaining when he hadn’t even become a praised model student.
Yeon Cheonguk was a sloth who couldn’t hate to the end the family that stuck together like an iron fortress, excluding only him. While circling outside the fence, he envied the inside. Sometimes he wanted to be welcomed, and other times he wanted to be embraced.
*Is it the same for me not having a real home? Like Hwang Jegu.*
Even when such sad thoughts arose, he blankly let his mind blur and shook them off.
*I shouldn’t struggle.*
*For someone like me.*
*My easygoing and mild personality is an advantage.*
*Thinking about it, it’s not particularly painful or hard. Even if I get tired, I’ll just rot alone with nowhere to speak, so there’s no point digging into it from the start.*
*If I hurt, I get ignored more.*
*That’s a luxury.*
Such feelings must have roughly come through in his voice. If it ‘seemed like a kid whose life is hard,’ the pot-bellied man might have pinpointed it well.
“It’s an unrequited love song. Who did you think of while singing?”
“I didn’t particularly think of anyone. I’ve never loved anyone heart-wrenchingly. …I guess it wasn’t good.”
“No, rather than not good… the emotional expression is lacking compared to other aspects. For ballads, emotional delivery is life.”
The official regretfully fiddled with his mustache and suggested:
“For never having properly learned, this level means your natural vocal volume and vocalization base aren’t bad. Your vocal cord strength to sustain sound seems good. Um… it’s ambiguous so I’d like to hear one more.”
“With a different song?”
“Your voice is closer to a beautiful voice than husky, so I want to hear high note handling that brings out your original voice? Don’t you have another song you can sing as high as possible?”
If it was a song as high as possible, there was one that came to mind immediately. A ballad that goes up to ‘high C’ and gave Yeon Cheonguk a glorious nickname.
“Then shall I sing <Do You Know>?”
The official nodded and unfolded his arms.
“Good. This time don’t try to imitate! Just think of singing in my original voice. Because you’re forcing power trying to sing too roughly, your breath pressure becomes too strong. So your larynx rises and the sound gets crushed.”
As unfamiliar professional knowledge came out, it felt like being continuously hit on the head with a fly swatter. Yeon Cheonguk tried to gather the words while narrowing his brow.
“This time take out techniques as much as possible too. Try taking long breaths too… while relaxing strength from the throat, firmly gather the sound with stomach power.”
“Gather the sound….”
“Think that you can never see again someone you loved intensely. Put in as much emotion as possible. This time I’ll focus on emotional expressiveness.”
Yeon Cheonguk cleared his throat and clapped lightly. This time he was slightly nervous. Standing in a position to be evaluated while keeping someone’s criticism in mind was not ordinarily difficult. It was on a different dimension from singing however he liked alone.
This time the MR seemed to flow out unusually quickly. Following the clear melody like beads, a subtle string melody spread and flowed.
*Take out techniques.*
*Don’t try to follow the original artist.*
*Don’t sing too heavily.*
*In my original voice.*
*Put in emotion while thinking of someone as affectionate as possible.*
*Put in emotion……*
Yeon Cheonguk opened his mouth with his eyebrows faintly furrowed. As he fell into the accompaniment that touched his heartstrings as if sparkling small, he soon became an existence swimming through another world.
*Do you know how much I loved you*
*Tears kept coming when I saw you*
*So I couldn’t bear to look at you*
*And had to turn away*
Yeon Cheonguk personally liked the calm intro more than this song’s sweeping high note section. He thought the lyrics recited like a whisper when verses 1 and 2 started had the power to quietly move the listener’s heart.
When a calm beautiful voice combined with restrained melody, it pierced the heart much more deeply than sounds yelled out demanding sadness. Conveying emotions plainly with only the singer’s voice to move the listener’s heart was truly difficult and delicate work.
If asked what he held while singing, it was probably the various tragedies and comedies that had rushed into Yeon Cheonguk’s recent life.
*If I become deaf, could I tell you then*
*You didn’t know, my heart that aches like this*
*Even if you never know in the end, I’m okay*
*I’ve lived by the power of longing for you*
*Without you, I don’t exist either*
He knew sadness but didn’t know love.
He was too young to sing love songs and had never experienced heartache worthy of being called separation.
It was a clear fact. Yeon Cheonguk didn’t know the pain of love.
But one thing was certain. He knew sadness well.
He created and extracted sound while recalling when his father left leaving just one note and the dawn when his mother fell asleep collapsed over newspaper job ads. At some melodies he wrinkled the bridge of his nose in agony, and at some residual sounds his eyes grew hot.
But he didn’t burst out uncontrollably like before. He embraced and nurtured that emotion lest it explode pathetically.
Even when the pitch rose and intensified, he held it preciously. When what he held became a sharp crystal piercing deeply into his chest, only then did he send it flying to a far, far place. The vibration that soaked his head and chest spat out the chorus’s high notes.
*No matter how many times I’m reborn and leave again*
*Nothing compares to this world where I met you*
*The reason this world here is beautiful*
*Is because of the traces where you stayed*
*Perhaps…!*
It was when passing through the high note section rushing toward high C.
It was a world where both the obsession that he had to do well and the current disastrous situation were eliminated. What filled and flowed through Yeon Cheonguk’s world was the image of summer flowers.
Scarlet petals swaying in the summer wind climbing the wall, below that…
A payphone with raindrops on it.
And someone’s deep eyes standing inside the glass….
An intense and heavy emotion he’d never experienced filled his chest to bursting. Like hot seawater, rippling waves seemed about to pour out from inside at any moment.
When he closed his eyes and pushed the sound up high to send it away, he felt breath endlessly surging up from inside his body. Just as life somehow continued.
*Do you, know.*
Reaching the end, the beat slowed. After sending away all remaining waves with the final whisper, his furrowed eyebrows trembled.
His whole body was drenched in sweat. Yeon Cheonguk slowly opened his eyes.
It felt like he’d taken a time machine, going around and around through distant space-time and come back here again.
It had been a long journey.
It was just one song.
The moment he came to his senses, a flash sparkled from the wide-open entrance door.
Did he see an illusion? Did he get anemia from doing so much diaphragmatic breathing?
A white light shone again in Yeon Cheonguk’s eyes inside the sealed room. Roll roll roll… A small lighter reflected the lighting and fell with a plop, rolling on the floor.
It was a lighter someone had accidentally dropped.
As his gaze climbed up the door, he saw something fluttering. It was a familiar piece of clothing. It must be the owner who just dropped the lighter. It was a basketball uniform he couldn’t forget even if he tried.
Thank you for translating this novel😍