Chapter 134
I headed to the only coin noraebang in the neighborhood.
True to the quiet neighborhood, the coin noraebang was almost empty.
“No minors after 10.”
Leaving the cashier’s soulless voice behind, I headed into the most secluded booth.
It was my first time ever at a coin noraebang. Everything was fascinating.
I started by setting up my phone.
“Let’s start the recording first.”
The only reason I came to the noraebang today was for this.
To upload a song and rake in attention.
Recording audio alone would have been enough, but I thought it would be better to keep it on video and edit it later.
More than anything, I was curious about how my expressions and movements would come across.
“Then what should I sing?”
The problem was that I barely knew any songs.
All I knew, being addicted to online communities, were AI-generated meme songs.
Or parody versions, or maybe background music from shorts.
But there was no way I could sing those here.
“Should I check the popularity rankings first?”
The top ten songs displayed on the screen.
Most of them were songs I only knew by title and had no idea of the lyrics.
“Whatever, I guess.”
I’d be singing with Siren’s vocal cords anyway.
I picked one that looked about as difficult as it could get.
As soon as I pressed the button, the accompaniment started. A little tense, I cleared my throat and grabbed the mic.
“Loved you like crazy~.”
Even though it was my own voice, I was impressed from the very first line.
A clean, crisp voice flowed through the speakers—hard to believe it came from the cheap equipment in a coin noraebang.
I didn’t know the lyrics, but there were no mistakes.
I sang along on the fly, following the lyrics and notes on the screen.
A perfect performance, not missing a single beat or pitch.
It was as if my vocal cords were finding the melody on their own.
“It’s raining all day~.”
The highlight.
I belted out the high note with everything I had.
It was a range I normally would never have reached, but now my voice rose there effortlessly.
There was no feeling of strain or cracking at all.
“This feels better than I expected….”
It was the kind of exhilaration that made me feel like my chest had been blown wide open.
It was enough to make me regret all the years I’d lived without knowing this.
On a roll, I sang three more songs back-to-back. Ballads, rock, even hip-hop.
Siren’s vocal cords handled every genre flawlessly.
“Hoo….”
After finishing the last song, I wiped the sweat off and sat down. Who knew singing alone could make me sweat? Yet another first-time experience.
A sound came from the noraebang machine.
Baam-pa-ra-baam-pa-ra-baam~.
[100 points! Are you perhaps a singer?]
“Of course, mm-hm.”
Honestly, I’d probably sing better than most singers anyway.
Satisfied, I ended the recording and gathered my things.
“Heheh….”
I could already see the views stacking up. Which gallery should I upload this to?
As I was happily imagining that, I opened the booth door.
“Huh?”
People were clustered together right in front of me.
Unlike when I came in earlier, the place was almost empty, but now a group of uniformed students were chattering in the narrow hallway.
Everyone’s eyes were fixed on me.
“Wh-what is it?”
I even felt like going back into the booth.
Then, as if they had been waiting, the students suddenly burst out with bombshell questions.
“Oh, an elementary school girl?”
“?”
“No way, seriously?”
“Hey, I can’t see! Move!”
Reactions mixed with shock and confusion.
“She looks younger than my little brother.”
“She really is an elementary schooler….”
“Whoa, that voice came from her?”
“How old are you?”
“But she’s really cute…. Is she a child actress?”
“Why would an actress be singing? Isn’t she an idol trainee?”
The students crowded around me, studying me up and down as if they couldn’t believe it.
Some even grabbed my hands and asked me all sorts of questions while locking eyes with me.
“Our baby, how old are you?”
“I’m not a baby.”
“Pff! Hey, she’s seriously cute.”
“Mm…?!”
A high school girl pulled me into her arms and started patting my head.
“Uu….”
No good. I felt like my intelligence was dropping in real time.
At this rate, I might really regress into a little kid.
That was when it happened.
Click!
I heard the sound of someone taking my picture with a phone.
Starting with that sound, the other students also began pulling out their phones one by one.
“Ah, I should’ve recorded you singing earlier.”
“Want to sing one more?”
My mind snapped back to attention.
“Wait!”
I raised my palm to block the cameras.
“No filming.”
Peals of laughter burst out around me.
“Okay, okay, we won’t take pictures. But let us touch you just once.”
The girls’ hands mercilessly ravaged my head and cheeks, leaving me all squished and scrunched up.
But I said it firmly. This had to be made clear. My voice carried only the faintest trace of mana.
“Delete everything you recorded, too.”
“Uh, uh…?”
“And don’t think about backing anything up—delete it all cleanly.”
“S-sorry. I’ll delete it right away….”
Only then did the students nervously delete the photos from their phones.
Fortunately, the mood didn’t turn ugly. If anything, they seemed to like my attitude even more.
“There, I deleted everything. See? Nothing left.”
“By the way, do you happen to run a YouTube channel?”
“I don’t.”
“How about Instagram or TikTok?”
“…I don’t use those.”
Naturally, the only community I use is the gallery. I don’t use sites like Instagram, where the popular crowd hangs out.
“Aw, is that just because you don’t want to tell us?”
“Who doesn’t use Instagram?”
“…….”
I felt tears welling up for no reason.
“What a shame. You sing so well.”
“Seriously. I feel like you’d really blow up….”
Seeing how sincerely disappointed the students were, I felt a little puffed up with pride too.
Just as I was about to leave.
“Wait, student.”
A cracked voice came from behind the students.
The crowd parted, making way for the owner of the voice: a middle-aged man in a long padded coat.
In one hand, he held a shopping bag from Daejeon’s famous bakery.
The moment I saw the bag, I knew who that man was.
‘An outsider. A Seoul guy.’
***
Park PD thought today was the worst day ever.
As Korea’s top producer of music variety shows, he was out here buying bread in this freezing weather.
When he told his daughter he’d be late because of a business trip to Daejeon, she sent him a KakaoTalk message.
[Bring me strawberry siru on your way back.]
Maybe because puberty had hit this year, his daughter had suddenly started talking less.
The message was a little curt, but if it was for his beloved daughter, he could do it.
“Seriously, why does buying bread mean standing in line for five hours?”
Standing outside in this weather had left his toes without any feeling.
“Sold out?”
And of course, the strawberry siru was sold out. He had no choice but to buy a fried soboro bun.
“Like hell I’m ever coming back here.”
Cursing under his breath, Park PD headed for the train station. There was still quite a while before his train arrived.
He needed a warm place to sit and rest for a while.
But the train-station area on a weekend was hell.
Every café was completely full. There wasn’t a single seat left in the waiting area inside the station, either.
“… Maybe I should go in here.”
The place that happened to catch Park PD’s eye as he wandered aimlessly was this coin noraebang.
A place completely unsuited to Korea’s top variety-show producer.
A man in his forties carrying a bread bag in one hand and a microphone in the other looked pitiful beyond belief.
His annoyance suddenly rose again.
He’d already disliked the fact that he’d been assigned a business trip to Daejeon.
“Come on, what is there even to see in this backwater town….”
That was when it happened. A snippet of song drifted from the room next door.
“—♫.”
Crash—!!
Park PD’s phone, which had fallen to the floor, shattered into pieces.
Without even thinking to pick it up, Park PD stared blankly at the wall.
“…What was that just now?”
Was that a backing track? Had someone left the original song playing?
No.
The original singer of this song had been a man.
And there was also the faint sound of breathing and the echo of a microphone.
It was definitely live. From the room right next door, no less.
“This is insane.”
He was a veteran who had spent more than twenty years in the broadcasting industry.
He had listened to countless top-tier singers.
He had directed audition programs and discovered geniuses himself.
Park PD had never once doubted his own ears.
“I’ve never heard anything like this…!”
But even for him, that voice had been a shock in itself.
Perfect breath control and a naturally gifted tone.
No—there was a kind of magic in that voice that words like those couldn’t explain. It had an appeal that seemed almost capable of moving people’s hearts.
This wasn’t something technique or experience could create.
It was pure, innate talent.
“Who on earth is it?”
Among the top singers he knew, there wasn’t a single one who seemed likely to be singing in a place like this.
Besides, none of their voices matched.
Park PD got up from his seat as if in a daze.
He had even forgotten the bread bag he’d spent five hours getting, only to snatch it back in a fluster a moment later.
“Is it in there?”
When he stepped out into the hallway, he saw that several students had already gathered.
They had heard it too. That overwhelming song.
Park PD stood behind the students, held his breath, and listened carefully.
The three songs that followed.
“They’re all different genres?”
The genres were diverse too. They could pull off ballads, rock, even hip-hop?
‘It’s a monster.’
A chill ran through him. This was not something you could just brush off as mere talent.
‘I have to get them.’
What agency were they with? There was no way someone at that level was an amateur.
Could they be an unknown rookie? Or maybe a trainee who’d had terrible luck and never gotten a broadcast opportunity?
Either way, it was a problem he could solve.
Park PD was seized by a powerful impulse.
This was an uncut gem. All he had to do was polish it well and present it.
Then it would be huge—no, explosively huge. The birth of a superstar who would shake the very landscape of Korea’s music scene.
His heart pounded.
At last the singing ended and the door opened. He stared at it with a tense expression. Who would come out?
“Damn it, I can’t see! Move!”
He couldn’t see who was coming out because of the students surrounding the door.
“Wait…. How short is this kid that I can’t even see them?”
Could it be dwarfism? That wouldn’t be bad either. It’d make for a story.
Park Sang-cheol pushed through the crowd and moved forward. Then he froze completely.
“An elementary school student?”
Thud.
The fried soboro bun bounced out of the bag and rolled across the floor.
“N-no way.”
What had come out of the booth was obviously an elementary school student, at most a first-year middle school girl.
That tiny body made that sound? She could express that kind of feeling?
For a moment, Park PD stared blankly at the child.
The way she sent the swarming students back with a single word.
Bold and composed. A charisma that was hard to believe came from a child.
“…She’s got star quality too.”
Her looks didn’t even need to be mentioned.
Hair that had grown long with absolutely no care taken.
A sloppy outfit that looked like she’d borrowed clothes from an unemployed uncle.
Even the dark circles under her eyes.
Every one of those traits should have worked against her, but none of them could diminish this child’s charm.
A cute yet mysterious aura.
This would absolutely work. Even someone with no eye for talent at all could confidently say that.
Park PD stepped forward.
“Wait, student.”
“Is this a casting offer, by any chance?”
“!”
A shameless answer.
A bead of cold sweat trickled down Park PD’s forehead.