In This Life, The Greatest Star In The Universe

Chapter 56

Sometimes life throws you some absurd situations.

Like right now.

A person who hadn’t spoken to me for almost ten days since our debut, and who wasn’t on good terms with me, came up to me and handed me a hundred thousand won.

How was I supposed to interpret this?

For a moment, I had a blank expression like a computer with ‘no response’. I looked back and forth between Shin Saimdang and the person.

“Are you giving this to me?”

“Yes.”

Hanjo nodded slightly and asked.

“Didn’t you lose this?”

I was wondering what he was talking about when something caught my eye.

It was a wallet that was under the bill.

An old wallet that was very familiar to us.

The person explained as I took it nervously.

“I went down to the basement to greet the seniors and I found it lying in the hallway. I looked inside and saw a ID card with ‘Kim Jung-hyun’ written on it… I tried to return it to you at the waiting room, but you weren’t there.”

“Oh… Thank you.”

“Do you want to check if anything is missing? I took the money out as it was and brought it to you in case you lost it.”

“That’s not necessary.”

I thanked the person.

“Thank you. My friend who lost this is looking for it right now.”

I wondered why Kim Jung-hyun had sneaked out to go to the cafeteria.

He must have taken only his same-age friend with him, knowing that he would get scolded.

I smiled as I imagined the wallet expedition team bickering.

“We should give you something in return.”

“No, it’s okay.”

Hanjo waved his hand and smiled.

Suddenly, I saw his diss rap from the showcase flash over his face.

But business is business and life is life.

I was about to offer to buy him a sandwich or something, but he waved his hand again.

“It’s not a big deal, really. Besides, we…”

We?

Hanjo looked at a corner table in the distance and we followed his gaze.

Oh, wow.

Eight pairs of sharp eyes.

The street boys, dressed in hip-hop concept outfits and gold necklaces, were looking at us.

But.

What’s going on?

As soon as our eyes met, they flinched and turned their backs.

What’s up with that?

By their looks, we should be the ones hiding, not them.

They looked like thieves who were caught by the police at a crime scene. No, more like gangsters.

Hanjo chuckled and gestured.

“Kiwon, come here.”

I didn’t need to look for who Kiwon was.

Seven of them turned to look at one person.

It was like watching a mime show.

The member who was singled out turned pale and shook his head.

“Come on.”

After a brief tug-of-war, the person came over hesitantly.

We watched him curiously as Hanjo pulled him over and said.

“Jang So-won sunbae-nim, we’re going to be guests on your radio show. We’ll be doing some comments and stuff, but it might be awkward to greet you there. So we wanted to say hello in advance and ask for your favor…”

In other words, he wanted to get acquainted with us before the broadcast.

I smiled inwardly, but I played along.

I introduced our main vocal, who still had a cold face.

“We’re going to be on the show as a duo.”

He nodded silently as a greeting.

That was the end of the conversation.

We didn’t have much to talk about, even though we started talking because of the wallet.

Hanjo and Kiwon exchanged eye contact and went back to the table where their members were.

I turned my gaze to my younger siblings.

Then I remembered something I had forgotten.

Oh. Right. Jung-hyun.

I was about to call him, but Ji-ho was already talking to him on the phone.

I heard a relieved voice from the other side.

Meanwhile, my eyes were drawn to Ri-hyuk, who was staring blankly out the window.

“Ri-hyuk, what’s wrong?”

“It’s him.”

“Who?”

“The guy we just greeted. Yoon Kiwon.”

Ri-hyuk lowered his voice as he glanced at the youngest, who was happily chatting on the phone.

“I just remembered who he is.”

***

That day, as soon as I returned to the company, I had a brief meeting with Director Jo Gyu-hwan.

It was because of the radio schedule.

I wouldn’t have needed to talk to him otherwise, but I had something I wanted to show the listeners on this radio show.

I asked for a consultation just in case.

“I’m here.”

The studio at 10 p.m.

Ri-hyuk, who was lying on the sofa listening to music, took off his earphones and got up.

“What is it?”

“He said I can do whatever I want. He said it’s a good plan, and he’ll let the A&R team staff know in advance.”

“Well, that’s good.”

I turned on my laptop and sat down at the studio table. Ri-hyuk pushed his wheel chair over and came closer.

“Shall we pick a song then?”

The plan I told the director was simple.

-There’s a live corner on this radio program, right? Can I perform a song I composed there?

He asked me why, and I told him about the interview I had with Oh So-hee, a reporter from Entertainment IN, earlier today.

The side effect of Fireworks’ success.

The song was good, too good, and some people thought that an idol member couldn’t have written it.

Someday, that doubt would fade away.

But why should I refuse an opportunity to show off my skills, that was my argument.

He thought for a moment and agreed.

With one condition.

“Why is the self-cam on?”

“The director told me to. He said he would let us go on the radio with our own song, so we have to record our working process.”

“I don’t like being filmed.”

“You’re a celebrity, Ri-hyuk. How can you be afraid of being filmed?”

“Who’s afraid? Wait, why are you always avoiding the screen?”

He caught me.

I deliberately adjusted the laptop angle to focus on Ri-hyuk, but the sharp-eyed guy noticed it.

I apologized with a sorry expression.

“I lost some confidence after removing my makeup…”

“Didn’t you always say, ‘I don’t care about my appearance,’ while wearing sweatpants? Where did that person go?”

“The fans will be disappointed if they see my bare face.”

“Excuse me. Don’t you know that your bare face is similar to our makeup? You’re making me angry at this late hour.”

“I’ve always felt this way, but you have such a pretty way of speaking, Ri-hyuk.”

He snorted and handed me a black mask from his hoodie pocket.

“Here, wear this.”

“Oh…”

“Don’t make a touched expression and just wear it. Give it back before you leave.”

“It’s new. I’ll use it cleanly and return it.”

“Take it.”

Right. He doesn’t share things with others.

I put on a baseball cap that Jung-hyun had left behind and hung the mask on my chin. I looked at the self-cam and it seemed decent.

I looked like a pro idol.

He looked at me pitifully and I coughed to change the subject.

“Let’s pick a song then.”

We had a week left until the live radio broadcast.

It was a tight schedule to make a song, let alone a decent beat.

But the reason I was confident was…

“What are you, a song collector? How many sources and melodies did you make?”

There were tons of song files in the folder.

He looked bored as I explained.

“I was so stressed out when I made Fireworks. I made these things to relieve it. You know how it is at school. Everything is fun except studying. That’s the logic behind it.”

“Amazing. Amazing.”

“Right?”

“That’s why your eyes were like that then.”

“…”

I clicked the mouse and said.

“Anyway, these are stress-relief works, so most of them are low quality. There are only two or three that are worth showing to the public.”

“I’ll listen to them all anyway.”

He took out an A4 paper from the printer and clicked his pen.

Then I played the file.

As time passed, the expressionless main vocal gradually immersed himself in the songs.

He had the least facial changes in daily life, but when it came to music, his expressions were the richest among us.

He was the kind of person who deserved to be called a born singer.

He focused on the songs like he was in a different space and wrote notes after each song ended.

Which one would he like best?

I had three candidates in mind.

The first was a medium tempo song similar to Something, with autumn leaves as the theme, the second was a song with the mystery of a garden in a fantasy as the theme, and the third was a song with the night sea with the Milky Way as the theme.

The one I wanted the most was…

“I listened to them all and I think three of them are decent. But the mysterious one is impossible to prepare in a week, and out of the two, I liked ‘Night Sea’ better.”

“Yeah?”

“It has a poetic atmosphere that suits the radio. And this might be just me, but…”

He looked into my eyes and asked.

“Did you write this based on your experience?”

“Huh? How did you know?”

“I’ve sung a song or two. I can tell by listening. It looked like you had the most fun writing this one.”

“Yeah. I was so stressed out then, so I wrote this song thinking of my grandmother.”

“Oh.”

He blinked and paused.

His eyes flickered like a mouse cursor spinning in buffering.

He seemed to feel obliged to say something nice to me.

The problem was that compliments and nice words were not his major.

“Maybe, that, your heart was, um…”

“It’s okay, you don’t have to worry about it. Let’s decide to perform ‘Night Sea’ live. And from now on, you have to do something with me.”

“…What? What do you mean?”

“You must have sensed it when I said I wanted to go with my own song.”

“What are you talking about? I never had such a feeling.”

He looked uneasy as he moved his wheel chair away. I handed him an A4 paper.

“You have to write lyrics, Ri-hyuk.”

“This is a scam. I never agreed to this.”

“You know writing lyrics pays well, right? This is all because I want my younger siblings to be rich.”

He looked like he had realized that the company he joined was a pyramid scheme.

I smiled apologetically.

I’m sorry.

It’s because I don’t have much talent in writing lyrics.

***

At first, he sighed heavily and gave me resentful looks, but once we started working, Ri-hyuk did his part well.

No.

He soared.

I thought he had talent when we made Fireworks, but he definitely had a knack for writing lyrics, probably because he read a lot of books.

Of course, I wasn’t resting either.

Since it was a song that contained my personal experience with my grandmother, I made the skeleton of the lyrics, and Ri-hyuk polished the important parts and the sentences I wrote.

In the meantime, I also coordinated the work with the A&R team.

“Our Woojoo, you must be worried that the A&R team’s work will decrease?”

“I’m sorry, I’m the culprit…”

I must have spent at least a hundred thousand won on Americanos for the staff.

Fortunately, thanks to the success of Fireworks, the A&R team grumbled verbally, but they enjoyed working with me.

Most importantly, this song was basically a ‘song that looks like it was made by ourselves, even if it’s a bit clumsy’ rather than a ‘song that was touched by an expert from start to finish’, so it didn’t need much intervention.

That’s how [Composition: Woojoo], [Lyrics: Woojoo/Ri-hyuk]'s <Night Sea> quickly took shape.

It was possible because we already had a nearly finished song.

But everything was going smoothly when an unexpected problem popped up from nowhere.

“Hmm…”

Three days before the Wonderful Night guest broadcast.

I was practicing live with Ri-hyuk in the studio when I felt a strange discomfort in his singing.

“Ri-hyuk.”

“Yes?”

“Are you sure you can sing this?”

“What do you mean, can I sing this?”

It was hard to pinpoint exactly what was wrong.

But…

“I don’t know, it’s just a feeling, but this song seems a bit hard for you.”

“What? Did I make a mistake?”

“No, I’m not talking about the technical aspect. The vocal trainers always say that sincerity is important when singing. You have to feel, empathize, and convey the emotion in the song.”

Sincerity.

A song is a medium that tells you to feel the emotion I’m expressing.

Therefore, before I sing to the audience, I have to have that emotion in me.

“I don’t feel that in your song right now.”

“…”

“Honestly, you sing much better than me. But it’s like you’re missing two percent. We made Night Sea with our own experiences in mind. My experience of falling asleep on my grandmother’s lap when I was young. The memories of my childhood that grew under her warm touch, that’s what we chose as the theme…”

I don’t feel that in Ri-hyuk’s song.

I was careful not to sound too harsh, but he answered calmly.

“You’re really a ghost when it comes to work.”

“Tell me, what’s the problem? If you think you can’t do it now, just be honest. We can prepare something else.”

If it was a ready-made song with guidelines on how to sing it, we could get ready in three days.

“To be honest, it’s really hard to catch the emotion.”

“In what way?”

“Night Sea is about remembering and longing for the person who treated me warmly when I was young.”

“Right.”

“This might sound weird, but I don’t have that kind of memory.”

I have to react well to this.

“I didn’t have much contact with my relatives or grandparents. And, well, my family had some personal issues.”

“Uh… I see.”

“Don’t make that face. I’m not saying this to make you pity me. I’m just telling you objectively how I am.”

“Then, did you have someone you relied on? Anyone?”

“No.”

“Really?”

“There was a decent vocal teacher at the academy.”

But?

“He got arrested for drunk driving a few years after I left. I can’t sing a beautiful night sea~ while thinking of that kind of person.”

“Yeah, I guess not.”

I racked my brain and asked.

“Then let’s think the other way around. What if you were that kind of guardian, and you took care of other people? Any experience like that?”

“No.”

“You’re answering too fast.”

“Because I really don’t have any.”

“You have a younger sister.”

“Hmm. That’s different.”

He said to me, who was embarrassed.

“I don’t like it when someone takes care of me, but I don’t like the opposite either. I’ve never seen anything good happen so far.”

“Is that so.”

“Don’t you remember what I told you last time?”

He bit his tongue and said.

“Yoon Kiwon of Street Boys, I got fired from the company for helping him.”