Chapter 36
In the world of popular music, there are songs that climb into the upper reaches of the charts every season without ever dying, commonly known as seasonal zombies.
Songs that continue showing up on the charts every season despite being released more than ten years ago.
‘Actually, songs like that are the best when it comes to streaming revenue.’
It’s not for nothing that people say the creators of songs like “Cherry Blossom Ending” collect their streaming royalties like a pension.
To be honest, for composers like me, how well the idols who receive our songs do isn’t all that important.
Whether they sell a mountain of albums or fill Gocheok Dome with concerts, all that matters is that the streaming revenue keeps coming in.
“Honestly, this melody line is pretty good…”
Naturally, it was hard to imagine this song joining the ranks of those seasonal zombies. We had decided to release it in summer rather than winter, for one thing, and I couldn’t guarantee that it was good enough to reach that level.
The song I chose was a soft-pop ballad from my past life that had been used as a drama OST—a song known for its powerful atmosphere.
There were no flashy vocal techniques or ear-piercing high notes.
Instead, a dreamy electric-piano accompaniment lay over a dry acoustic-guitar riff like fog.
The moment the intro began, it felt refreshingly cool, as if the chill from an air conditioner were gliding across my skin, but the aftertaste was strangely warm and languid.
I began transcribing the lyrics from my past life, preserving their emotions exactly on paper.
-It was enough just to watch you, you who were like sunlight on a winter day
The lyrics were extremely ordinary and understated.
A familiar, fresh story of unrequited love. And later, remembering that person and looking back on those memories.
Coming through a child’s clear, youthful voice, those lyrics would create a vivid texture, like leaving the first footprints on freshly fallen snow.
The melody line that glided between full voice and falsetto in the chorus was especially the song’s highlight.
A few months ago, it would have been a song too difficult for me to even attempt, but now it was well within my reach.
-The little tree lights blooming in my heart—if I shine them on you, will this summer turn into winter?
Despite the blatant use of carol imagery, the song didn’t feel off-putting thanks to the polished pop sound running throughout it.
Rather, listening to it beneath August’s blazing sun would probably make you feel as if you had stepped into a secret ice cave known only to you.
“It’s a carol, but… it suits a summer night more than winter. Still, I’ll have to change the lyrics a bit. Maybe because it was a drama OST, but they don’t really suit me.”
I muttered as I took off my headphones.
In fact, in my past life, this song had been fairly famous among the singer’s fans as a carol to listen to in summer.
A cool tone that could soothe the beads of sweat on your forehead, and behind it, the depth of a mature soul.
When those contradictory charms came together as one, they might be able to convince people of the strange sentiment of a summer carol.
The song itself already existed, and all that remained was rewriting the lyrics in my own style. That process wouldn’t be too difficult.
Besides, I had someone to ask for advice.
‘I do feel a little bad… but wouldn’t he be happy if this song were born in a parallel world like this, too?’
I knew that, by bringing over hit songs from my past life, I had already become a hopeless plagiarizing composer, but this felt especially strange because I was acquainted with the person who owned the song.
I pictured the male idol who owned the song, someone I had once worked with.
He had soared incredibly high after I left the company… but he had continued keeping in touch with me regularly afterward.
Come to think of it, I suddenly wondered how my acquaintances from my past life were doing after I died.
I had spent a long time in the entertainment industry, so there had been many people I was close to, as well as many with whom I hadn’t gotten along particularly well.
How had they accepted my death?
I suddenly wondered who had come to my funeral and who had cried.
“I’ve gone and started thinking about something pointless.”
Now that I had some breathing room, all kinds of useless thoughts came to me.
When I was at Neulneul Orphanage, I used to sigh inwardly every night, feeling helpless about how I would survive in the future…
It was a remarkable change of circumstances that I could now worry about things like this.
The truth was, there was a good chance that financial worries would disappear from my life altogether now.
‘Still, I could end up crashing and burning spectacularly.’
As always, letting my guard down was forbidden.
I would have to stay active after Singer Star ended if I wanted to remain in the public eye.
Unlike other entertainers, singers in particular had a very short window before people forgot them.
If a singer failed to appear on the charts for about a year, the public forgot them.
It had long since ceased to be unusual for an idol who had reached the top of the annual charts to be forgotten in less than a year.
“Life isn’t easy…”
Should I be satisfied that I had essentially achieved my modest goal of making enough money to escape the orphanage?
Or should I continue working actively even after Singer Star ended in order to climb even higher?
That was the biggest dilemma I had been carrying lately.
“Siyeon! The package you ordered arrived!”
“Ah. Okay. Un…ni.”
“Hehe. I left it in the living room. Want to open it together?”
I gave a small nod at Yoo Seolha’s words.
Given the nature of this outfit, I needed someone to evaluate it.
* * *
Even in my past life, I hadn’t particularly liked buying clothes online.
Other kinds of things were fine, but with clothes, buying them without trying them on and relying only on online reviews often resulted in them feeling completely different when actually worn.
Still, it felt like too much to ask someone to take me from this mountain valley to a town in Gangwon Province just to buy a Santa suit.
So I asked the production staff to order one for me and have it delivered.
The children’s Santa suit I had seen on the online shopping mall had looked extremely modest.
“……No, this isn’t right, is it?”
When I came out after changing clothes and made an incredulous face at my reflection in the mirror, Yoo Seolha tilted her head.
“Why? It’s pretty. And the fit is perfect.”
The fit wasn’t the problem. This outfit was badly designed from the ground up.
When I first saw it, it had looked like a modest design that covered me generously down below the navel. The problem was the fabric’s stretch and the length.
To check, I slowly raised my arms in front of the mirror.
Swish.
The moment my arms went above my shoulders, the red velvet fabric slid upward without resistance.
In an instant, it exposed not only my navel but even the line beneath my rib cage.
Assuming I had to raise my arms, this revealed far more than the cheerleader outfit I had worn before.
”Un…ni, when I raise my arms, my whole stomach is showing.”
“Oh, you’re right? I guess it’s a crop-top style! It’s cute.”
Yoo Seolha poked me near the stomach with a finger, as if she found it fascinating.
I recoiled, thoroughly disgusted by the ticklish sensation.
Counting both lifetimes, I had never experienced such shocking exposure before.
”I-I can’t perform onstage wearing this. I’ll have to ask them to buy me a new one.”
“Come on, Siyeon. Compared to idol stage outfits these days, this is tame. And what’s wrong with showing your stomach? A baby’s tummy is just cute. I want to blow a raspberry on it…”
“The problem isn’t whether it’s cute! It’s embarrassing!”
I protested vehemently, but my standards and everyone else’s were very, very different.
“Still, it’s summer… Wouldn’t bundling yourself up too tightly make you look stuffy? A little skin showing whenever you raise your arms isn’t bad, is it? Honestly, it’s not even that revealing.”
“I-Is that so?”
“For you, Siyeon, this counts as cute exposure!”
But I knew perfectly well that the members of Blooming, who said things like that, had never allowed even the slightest exposure onstage.
The most skin-baring outfit they wore was a short-sleeved top with a miniskirt.
‘But seriously, these people have no room to say that.’
I would have readily agreed if Lee Hye-na, who was no longer with us, had said it… but hearing it from Yoo Seolha made it feel like sheer hypocrisy.
‘Still, at least the bottom is properly long.’
The skirt I had chosen reached just above my knees.
After all my experience wearing skirts onstage, I didn’t have much of an aversion to it anymore.
I still only wore pants in my everyday life, outside of performances… but perhaps because I was gradually getting used to skirts, I was starting to think that whatever I wore would probably feel about the same.
It was getting frightening how much I felt like I was becoming a girl.
‘At this rate, I might end up spending hours carefully applying makeup and touring Instagram-worthy cafés.’
Even more frightening was the fact that there might be either a man or a woman beside me.
Of course, there was a high chance I would do something like that alone.
”Huh? Jinwoo oppa. Why don’t you come over here?”
Yoo Seolha called Joo Jinwoo over as he happened to come down to the living room. He was someone who usually didn’t come over this way much, but perhaps because all the young men were gone, he had been showing up in the living room more often since this round.
‘Well, it must be uncomfortable to spend time with a much older university senior.’
“How is this? Siyeon’s outfit is cute, right?”
He looked at my outfit and tilted his head.
“A Santa suit? In this weather? But it is cute.”
I looked up at him and raised my arms in a victory pose. Let’s see if he could still call it cute after seeing me like this.
“Hey, kiddo. Are kids these days all… this quick to grow up? You already like dressing like that. Same as with the cheerleader outfit.”
“Jeez. I told you, it’s not that I like it! Ah, damn it.”
I glared at Joo Jinwoo with my eyes wide as a rabbit’s.
Joo Jinwoo looked at me and gave a small laugh, as if I were adorable.
Naturally, calling him an “old man” in an attempt to get under his skin hadn’t dealt even one point of damage.
That made sense. Even when I had been a man, being called an “ajusshi” had never bothered me.
‘This is kind of annoying.’