Chapter 3
Evergreen Sky Orphanage.
A day at the orphanage called Evergreen Sky Orphanage—which is shortened to Evergreen Orphanage, or even called Double Evergreen—is extremely monotonous.
When I wake up in the morning, I fold the blankets of the girls who throw fits and make me do it for them.
And then comes the hellish commute to school.
Fortunately, the orphanage and school are quite close.
It takes only fifteen minutes to walk to school. Considering that my legs are still short and slow my pace, I might be able to get there in ten minutes once I reach the upper grades.
“Come to think of it, I am a little short.”
I was a second-grader, and my height was 122 centimeters. Since that was the result of the health examination the orphanage conducted last month, it should be accurate, with little margin for error.
I had no real sense of how short 122 centimeters was, but recently, when we had to line up by height, I learned that I was the second-shortest among the girls.
The average height for a second-grade girl was apparently 126.5 centimeters. I was a full four centimeters shorter than average!
Honestly, I wasn't sure height mattered much. Maybe if I were a boy, but I was a girl now, and I had little interest in romance anyway.
If I arrived at school while lost in such idle thoughts, I would enter a classroom where no one greeted me and take the seat at the very back.
That's right. Seo Si-yeon was the class pariah—in modern terms, she occupied the position of an “eun-tta,” someone quietly ostracized.
Several complicated factors had led to this situation.
To begin with, Seo Si-yeon had been extremely timid. She found it difficult to speak to people first, and even when someone spoke to her, she struggled to keep the conversation going.
On top of that, circumstances had conspired against her, and there was no one her age from Evergreen Orphanage in her class.
Normally, the kids from Evergreen Orphanage tended to stick together.
This was probably partly because they had grown up together, and partly because, after going through first grade, they instinctively understood that children outside their group were different.
This tendency could naturally have a positive influence, helping the orphanage's children avoid being isolated or bullied at school. But with bad luck, it could also force them into the miserable situation of spending the entire year at school without a single friend.
Although they were subtly shunned at school as the “Evergreen orphans,” most of them, influenced by orphanage seniors who had spent years as school delinquents, eventually became what people called punks.
In that situation, quiet residents like Seo Si-yeon could get through school relatively comfortably beneath the umbrella of their peers.
That was why Seo Si-yeon was such an unlucky case.
Considering that no fewer than twenty-five Evergreen orphans were in the second grade, it was terribly unlucky that not a single one of them had ended up in her class.
But that was how things looked from the original Seo Si-yeon's perspective. After I possessed her, things were different.
From my perspective, the fact that no one spoke to me was quite welcome.
Honestly, if a bunch of little brats tried talking to me, it would be difficult, as an adult, to give them an emotionally appropriate response.
If I spent class time daydreaming, dismissal would soon approach.
Perhaps because I was still in the lower grades, classes ended in the early afternoon.
I headed straight to the PC bang.
“Hello, sir.”
“Oh, Si-yeon. You're here?”
I had grown fairly close to the owner after greeting him every day recently.
We were close enough that he knew what I was doing and had even allowed me to audition for Singer Star using his smartphone.
“I made the iced Americano you like, Si-yeon. Want some?”
“Oh! Thank you.”
Legitimate coffee! To someone who had lived his entire life as a die-hard iced-Americano drinker, an iced Americano was like life-giving water.
I gave him a deep bow from the waist.
One thing I had learned from spending a little time living as a child was that you shouldn't refuse an offered kindness.
If you did, you might come across as too adult, creating an unintended sense of alienation.
Children were loved most when they acted like children.
Thinking about it that way, I could understand why the owner seemed to favor me so much.
How could anyone not like an orphan who was already working hard and was even pretty?
At first, half the reason for his kindness had probably been that he intended to use me, and the other half that I was cute. But now, I could feel from the owner's manner that he was taking such good care of me simply because he felt sorry for me.
“Stay hydrated, our future diva! I'll call you right away if you get a phone call!”
“Yes!”
I had already passed the first preliminary round of Singer Star Season 5.
I had submitted an audio file through the website and passed by singing a bouncy song by an idol who was popular at the time.
Once I passed the second round, a phone interview, I would have to go to the venue and stand in front of a camera from the third preliminary round onward.
‘Seo Si-yeon's voice is better than I expected.’
It still had the high pitch characteristic of a child, but I could use it to push my high notes higher than I normally could.
In my previous life, I had been able to sing reasonably well—well enough to record guide tracks myself.
When the company was still a crappy small agency, I had even coached the idols' vocals myself.
After possessing this body, I had practiced whenever I could and corrected my vocal technique. As a result, I had reached the level of a fairly good-singing elementary school student.
That certainly wasn't enough to have me called a genius, of course.
“Iced Americano.”
The song I was going to sing today was a pop song that had recently become extremely popular.
It was a song that called for making good use of a clear voice rather than showing off vocal acrobatics, so I thought it suited me fairly well.
Someone might ask why I wasn't singing one of my own songs, but with the nature of this kind of remote judging, it was better to sing something familiar to the judges.
Because every one of the people doing the judging was an ordinary person.
Proper experts wouldn't be judging until the third round.
They might recognize the true value of my original song then.
Well, if they didn't, it would be unfortunate. Either way, the title of an elementary school student who wrote her own songs would help carry me to a fairly high round.
They say that once you're famous, people applaud even when you take a dump. If I could make it to the higher rounds and secure some buzz, everything afterward would be easy.
“Si-yeon! You got a call!”
At the owner's booming voice calling me, the customers nearby glanced in my direction.
Concealing the burning embarrassment I felt under those stares, I hurried over to the counter with quick little steps.
* * *
At the same time, in a meeting room at JBC Broadcasting Station in Sangam-dong, PD Kang Jun-hyeong, the main director of ‘Singer Star Season 5,’ ran a hand irritably through his hair.
Was it because they had reached Season 5?
He could feel that the applicants' quality had become especially abysmal compared to previous seasons.
"By Season 5, there's no freshness left. Have all the genuine geniuses who were going to appear already shown up?"
If Season 4 hadn't achieved such unexpected success in the first place, there would have been no reason to produce Season 5.
At this rate, it looked as though it would be better to end the show with Season 4 and leave while people were still applauding.
Amid the flood of audition programs, viewers wouldn't even spare a glance for anything short of a harsh backstory or genius-level talent.
This season was full of nothing but average contestants with some ability, too. At this rate, the program's life would probably end with this season.
PD Kang sighed and skimmed the list of candidates for the second-round phone interviews.
The second interviews were being conducted by several PDs and staff members who had divided the work among themselves. As the main PD, he was given a list focused on applicants who seemed worth watching.
"Next applicant... a second-grader? Seo Si-yeon?"
Too young. Applicants around this age usually sang children's songs or awkwardly imitated adult singers before fizzling out. Having abandoned any expectations, PD Kang spoke flatly.
"Yes, this is PD Kang Jun-hyeong from Singer Star. Briefly tell me why you applied, then start your prepared song."
As expected, the voice that came through the phone belonged to a very young child. But the answer that followed made PD Kang's brow twitch.
"Hello. I'm Seo Si-yeon. I applied because I want to become famous."
‘What an honest little kid.’
He chuckled inwardly.
She was such a typical elementary schooler. At that age, it made sense to like the idea of becoming famous for no particular reason.
But his attitude was forced to turn 180 degrees the moment a song began on the other end of the phone.
There was no accompaniment; she was singing a cappella. Since she was in an outside location, some noise bled through, but the tone flowing through the phone was so clear and pure that it overwhelmed everything.
The opening of the pop song that had recently swept the Billboard charts flowed from Si-yeon's lips.
"I’m not looking for a hero to save you..."
‘Flyer?’
He had already heard it several times. Since it was a song currently on the rise, quite a few applicants had chosen it.
But this time, something was different from what he had heard so far.
It wasn't simply that her pitch was accurate. The way she controlled the force of her breathing, as if she fully understood and was delivering the lyrics' meaning, combined with the clear high notes unique to a child, created a strangely addictive quality.
Without realizing it, PD Kang stopped his ballpoint pen and leaned close to the speaker.
‘A little… fast?’
The tempo was slightly faster than the original.
But rather than sounding awkward, that faster tempo blended with her voice remarkably well.
When the song ended, a brief silence followed. PD Kang's heart began to race.
Maybe he had actually found something worthwhile.
"Ms. Seo Si-yeon, that song just now... Did you arrange and sing it yourself? It feels a little different from the original."
"Oh, I sped up the rhythm a little to fit my vocal tone. Singing it too squarely on the beat didn't seem right for someone my age."
At Si-yeon's calm answer, PD Kang became certain.
This was either a genius, or something pretending to be one. Either way, she was a talent who could become this season's ‘saving grace.’
"Good, Ms. Si-yeon. You've passed the second round. You know that the third preliminary round is an in-person audition, right? Bringing a guardian is the rule, but..."
"I'll tell the director at the orphanage and go alone. I'm good at finding my way around."
She even lived in an orphanage? Apparently so.
This was guaranteed to make good television. He had no choice but to be certain of it.
This was guaranteed to make good television. He had no choice but to be certain of it.