Chapter 33
Time passed quickly, and at last, the curtain rose on the TOP 8 competition.
During that time, under Yoo Sang-hyun’s coaching, I had honed “Starry Night” to perfection.
As befitting an expert at the pinnacle of the industry, his training and advice played a decisive role in bringing out the song’s details.
Taking Yoo Sang-hyun’s advice on song selection ultimately paid off handsomely.
Armed with my newly strengthened vocal skills, I waited for my turn.
My opponent, Lee Hye-na, also seemed to have dramatically elevated the quality of her stage alongside her mentor, Gina.
A real-time live competition was different from the outset, starting with the scale of the capital invested.
It was an environment where she could employ several flashy backup dancers.
In the past, she had left an unparalleled impact even while dividing her parts among the other trainees, being discriminated against for being unaffiliated, and having the spotlight stolen from her.
What kind of picture would she create this time if she performed “Fall for Me” with every light focused solely on her? Even I was thrilled just imagining it.
My stage was the first among all the participants.
I could have been overwhelmed by the pressure, but I was no longer at a stage where such emotions could crush me.
It was time to focus solely on the stage. At last, a staff member pointed toward it and gave me the cue.
“Let’s go.”
I muttered the words and stepped onto the stage.
* * *
A large lounge pub near Gangnam Station, packed with the heat of a weekend evening.
Amid the lively music and clinking glasses, the large screen covering the wall looked like nothing more than part of the décor.
People clinked their beer glasses and focused on their conversations, while the broadcast of <Singerstar 5> played like a silent wallpaper in the background.
Breaking through that quiet, an unfamiliar intro began to flow from the speakers.
“Huh? What song is this?”
The young man at the table near the entrance stopped talking and looked up.
It wasn’t a trendy Korean ballad or a typical idol dance song.
The guitar melody was rough yet gently stirred the heart. Even though it was clearly a song he was hearing for the first time, its uniquely ’90s analog sensibility began to tickle some corner of his heart and fill the pub.
-When nameless stars settle amid the thick darkness
As Seo Si-yeon’s voice burst forth, the noise in the pub subsided as if someone had cast a spell.
“I’ve heard this voice somewhere before…”
“You idiot, it’s Glassy Sky!”
“Oh! The voice in the chorus? Then that’s Seo Si-yeon.”
“Was today the competition? She’s really young when you see her like this.”
Even the in-crowd gathered there was familiar with <Singerstar 5>.
It was just that Friday-night revelry mattered more than watching the live broadcast.
The women who had been fiddling with their smartphones also began raising their heads one by one at the unusual atmosphere.
The girl on the screen had completely taken control of the stage.
The melody was unfamiliar, but the emotions within it summoned some period everyone had buried deep in their hearts.
The cold yet warm night air of the ’90s, the vague longing of waiting for someone beside a pay phone booth—things like that.
A weighty lyricism unavailable in modern songs grabbed people of every generation by the lapels and pulled them into the stage.
“Is this a new song? A remake? Why is it so catchy?”
People set down their drinks and fixed their eyes on Si-yeon’s lips on the screen.
As the song surged toward its climax and Si-yeon let out a harsh vocal scratch, exclamations erupted throughout the pub.
It wasn’t some ordinary remake imitating the sentiment of the past with nothing but a pretty voice.
Through the body of a nine-year-old child, she was pouring out a modern reinterpretation of the desperate romance of that era.
At some point, complete silence descended over the pub. Everyone stared at the little girl on the television without saying a word.
The owner watched the customers’ reactions and turned up the TV volume.
-It takes me… back to those days.
As Si-yeon softly recited the song’s final line in a low voice laced with breath and ended the stage, a moment of silence settled over the pub.
Then, before anyone could take the lead, quiet sounds of admiration and applause erupted from here and there.
* * *
[Honestly, I didn’t know Seo Si-yeon could pull off even this.twt] [HOT Board]
What genres has Seo Si-yeon done so far? Honestly, they were all things popular these days. Even the hip hop people said she couldn’t do ultimately fell within the trendy category.
But if she can even devour this kind of authentic ’90s sentiment, seriously, what the hell can’t she do? It feels like an out-of-spec monster has appeared.
-Honestly, I like Hye-na too… but this time, there’s no way I can’t vote for Si-yeon.
-Hye-na is my bias, but I cried after watching the stageㅠㅠ
-This song made me think of the night sky I saw in the countryside when I was young.
Even the sentiment on female-dominated online communities, where sympathy for Lee Hye-na and the resulting support had been boiling over after the recent Produce-rigging allegations, was this strongly in my favor. There was no need to check anywhere else.
“I did all I could.”
I had performed so perfectly that I couldn’t have made a better stage.
Then what would Hye-na’s answering stage be like? I gazed steadily at the TV in one corner of the waiting room.
* * *
The ordinary office worker Kim Seong-hun stopped walking when he saw an advertisement on the wall of a subway station.
“It’s her birthday.”
The words ‘Happy Birthday.’ It was a birthday advertisement for Lee Hye-na put up by her fans.
Seong-hun had been an enthusiastic supporter of Lee Hye-na when he watched last year’s Produce.
He had liked her beautiful appearance onstage, but what he found especially endearing was the way she encouraged those around her and quietly kept moving forward.
All he had ever done for idol fandom was buy an album or two during his military service, so watching the live broadcast and even making sure to vote had been a rather unfamiliar experience for him.
But after she failed to debut and he changed jobs and became busy with his own life, his interest had naturally drifted away.
“Come to think of it, what has she been up to lately?”
The news about her that he looked up after seeing the birthday advertisement for the first time in a while was shocking, to say the least.
“What? Produce was rigged?”
To someone who had lived cut off from entertainment news, that was more than enough to rouse his anger.
The realization that every vote he had carefully cast had been treated as meaningless made his blood boil.
“Singerstar’s on.”
It was such a hot program that he knew the name well.
Since it was Friday and he had no plans after work, he bought a can of beer on his way home and decided to watch it.
“Her opponent is Seo Si-yeon. This will probably be tough.”
Seo Si-yeon was currently the hottest person in Korea.
Everywhere he went, her songs were playing, and everyone was talking about her.
Since Seo Si-yeon’s victory was treated as a foregone conclusion even among his coworkers, he watched the screen without great expectations.
As expected, Seo Si-yeon was perfect from the very first stage.
Her peculiar timbre and nostalgic lyrics made Seong-hun feel a sting around his eyes.
“Yeah, no chance.”
Just when he decided he might as well go to sleep rather than watch his favorite lose miserably, the opening instrumental of the stage he had once replayed ten times a day struck his ears.
“Fall for Me? She’s singing this here?”
Seong-hun gripped the remote he had been about to set down.
As a wash of lights opened over center stage, Lee Hye-na appeared.
“…Wow.”
An exclamation escaped Seong-hun’s lips.
The woman on the screen was no longer the trainee who had smiled brightly and begged for votes.
The black leather outfit, her flying hair, and the gaze that seemed ready to chew up and swallow the camera.
The intense force felt like a declaration of war from a girl whose dream had been unjustly stolen a year ago, and Seong-hun involuntarily opened his mouth.
* * *
“She’s clearly improved since then.”
In my previous life, back when I used to look up idol stages at PC bangs, I watched her stage over and over again.
The reason was simple.
I genuinely wondered why someone with that level of skill had failed to debut.
I only knew now that it had been rigged, but back then, it had been an impossible puzzle with no answer.
“Fall for Me” had been especially breathtaking.
Even though there had been ten trainees onstage, the skill of the sub-vocalist—not the center—devouring everyone had been awe-inspiring.
And the Lee Hye-na of the present was showing the best stage she could possibly deliver.
That performance had been so intense and memorable that it would have been difficult for any active idol to match, no matter who came.
Now, all that remained was the viewers’ vote.
The results would be announced after all the stages were over, but I could predict the winner to some extent.
It was because of the song’s range and mass appeal.
“In the end, the one who earns more people’s empathy wins.”
No matter how strong a fandom was, from this stage onward, it would be difficult to win without earning the public’s empathy.
Singerstar was not an idol-selection show but an audition to choose a popular singer who could appeal to every age group. If “Starry Night” was a story capable of reaching not only people in their thirties and forties but every generation…
“‘Fall for Me’ is a sensibility focused on a limited demographic—men in their twenties and thirties.”
I would probably win by a landslide in the general public vote.
But Hye-na had shown a stage every bit as good as mine. I might even be outmatched in the judges’ evaluation.
And if videos of both stages were uploaded to YouTube, Hye-na’s stage would get several times as many views.
I approached her as she came off the stage, breathing hard.
Even if the result was a victory for me, Hye-na had more than earned the right to hear this form of address.
“Well done, unni.”
“…Yeah, thank you.”
She smiled at me with a liberated smile, as if she had no regrets.