Chapter 5
Since Singer Star is both a nationwide audition and a competition judged directly by the heads of major entertainment companies, auditions from the third preliminary round onward are held all across the country.
However, because the preliminaries are held nationwide, it is impossible for the busy heads of active companies to participate as judges in every audition.
That is why Singer Star recruits temporary judges to conduct auditions in all but a few major regions.
Naturally, Incheon, being a major city, always has the heads of the Big Three entertainment companies come as judges.
“I wonder who it’ll be this time.”
To get to a park in Guwol-dong, where the audition was being held, I rode the subway alone, organizing in my head what I knew about the heads of the major entertainment companies who would be there today.
The other two would be fine, but Yu Sang-hyeon of PU Entertainment would be an especially bad match for me.
One of the so-called Four Heavenly Kings of top-tier ballad singers, he was a singer who recognized the potential of the idol industry early on and entered the entertainment business.
He had essentially created the K-pop idol industry, and the top idols active during the first generation had been born under his guidance. Even in the eras that followed, his sense and producing abilities continued to shine.
Although he was famous as a singer, Yu Sang-hyeon was now even more famous as one of the pillars of the K-pop industry.
That was why the public considered him the oldest of the Big Three heads and believed he had an old-school view of music. I agreed with that to some extent.
As a result, PU Entertainment’s idols were, for the most part, particularly skilled when it came to vocals.
Objectively speaking, my vocals were not that exceptional.
I sang well for a child, but that was all. No more, no less.
Honestly, if Yu Sang-hyeon ended up as one of my judges, I might have to prepare myself for elimination.
The key point would be how he evaluated my original song.
[The next stop is Ye……]
“Already? The subway really is fast.”
I slung the mini-guitar case Mr. Park had lent me over one shoulder, clutched the vitamin drink the PC bang owner had given me in my other hand, and toddled up the station stairs.
A tiny 122-centimeter child carrying an instrument nearly as large as their own body would look like a lost little child to anyone.
I swept my surroundings with sharp eyes.
A moment later, I saw all kinds of people streaming outside through several different exits.
I checked which direction the people in particularly unusual outfits were heading and followed them.
I once saw a meme like this on the internet.
It was a screenshot of a KakaoTalk message his younger sister had sent him, saying that although he was going to an otaku doujin event for the first time and didn’t know the way, he had simply followed someone talking about VTubers and made it to the venue.
My current situation was roughly the same.
I followed people who looked like they were obviously involved in music and arrived at a site where all kinds of filming equipment had been set up.
‘The Jimmy jib is in a good spot, and they haven’t raised all the lights yet to save power. Is the head writer that short-haired woman running around over there?’
In any case, there was a line that clearly looked like an entrance queue, so I joined the end of it.
The group standing in front of me had the sort of look that would let them swagger around Hongdae claiming to be in a band.
Their eye-searing fluorescent hair and dangling accessories spoke for themselves. Judging by the instruments they carried—a keyboard and an electric guitar—they were unmistakably a band.
Seeing how noisily they had dressed themselves up, they seemed intent on winning a spot through their concept rather than their skill.
Unfortunately for them, an elderly gentleman in a suit was entering from a distance, accepting greetings from the staff.
At the same time, loud cheers erupted among the contestants.
Yu Sang-hyeon, Korea’s greatest vocalist and one of its greatest producers, entered the filming area to cheers as the head and chief producer of PU Entertainment.
That was unfortunate for the band in front of me, but it wasn’t exactly a good sign for me, either.
At the prickling anxiety I felt, I unconsciously bit my upper lip.
* * *
“Your fundamentals are lacking. It sounds less like singing and more like a baby babbling.”
Representative Yu’s voice came through the door. It was not so much cold as tinged with regret, which made the advice all the heavier.
Soon afterward, the Hongdae band standing directly in front of me entered with swagger. They had walked in confidently, tossing their fluorescent hair, but their bravado lasted less than three minutes.
콰아앙-!
The sound of them enthusiastically scraping their electric guitars came to a stop at a single gesture from Yu Sang-hyeon.
“Guys, is this really the music you want to show people? Riding the rhythm however you please just because you don’t have drums or bass isn’t freedom—it’s license. And especially you, vocalist. You have a bad habit of trailing off at the ends of notes because you’re trying too hard to look cool. At PU Entertainment, you’d have trouble even beginning life as a trainee at this level.”
“W-We have our own color……”
“Before you start painting in colors, you need to draw the sketch properly. Right now, you’re closer to noise. I’m sorry, but that’s all I’ll listen to. You’re eliminated.”
A little while later, the waiting-room door opened and the band members poured out.
Their previously boastful fluorescent hair was uniformly crestfallen as they busied themselves collecting their instrument cases.
The master’s gentle yet piercing criticism made the air in the waiting room sink even more heavily.
‘Whew, this is brutal.’
Thinking that, I plucked the guitar strings. I had tuned it in advance, so it produced the clear tone I wanted.
The audition was about halfway over, but only one contestant had passed.
The production staff were probably racking their brains, wondering how they were supposed to deal with this situation.
“Contestant number 147, Seo Si-yeon. Please come in.”
Number 147 was next. That was me.
Breaking the heavy silence in the hallway, I walked toward the center of the stage.
When a tiny 122-centimeter child appeared, struggling under a guitar case nearly as large as their body, the atmosphere of the filming site, which had been so brutal moments earlier, stirred strangely.
Even the staff staring coldly at their monitors and the other judges who had been sitting tense and rigid found smiles spreading across their faces at the sight of such a tiny child who looked ready to topple over.
“Oh my, careful, careful. Is the guitar carrying you instead of the other way around?”
A writer sitting beside the judges’ table blurted that out aloud without meaning to, and a small ripple of laughter spread through the filming site.
Representative Yu also softened his sharp eyes slightly as he looked at me.
Still, I felt strange being treated like such a baby. No matter how you looked at it, there was the consciousness of an adult man inside me……
“……Contestant Seo Si-yeon? You’re nine this year? Come on in.”
Yu Sang-hyeon skimmed the paperwork and greeted me with an expression halfway between a fatherly smile and a sharp producer’s gaze.
“Si-yeon, you must have had a hard time getting all the way here. I was worried you might be frightened after seeing those older boys who just left getting scolded so harshly.”
An ordinary child might have bowed deeply or smiled shyly at that point, but I calmly retrieved the mini guitar from my back, placed it on my lap, and answered him.
“It’s okay. You’re only saying those things because you want them to do well. But, Representative, I don’t think having fundamentals means simply doing whatever a teacher tells you.”
Yu Sang-hyeon’s eyebrows rose slightly with interest. The rather sharp statement from the little child’s mouth erased the laughter from the filming site, replacing it with curiosity.
“My breathing might be a little short, and my vocal production might not be textbook. But I think a song that isn’t textbook can still move people’s emotions!”
As I said that, I gave him a confident smile.
It was a scene in which a barely nine-year-old child was dissing a legendary figure who had accomplished extraordinary things in the industry.
If I had been middle-school age, I would have looked incredibly arrogant and unlikeable, but I was still only a second-grader.
Even if I acted this way to some extent, adults and viewers would probably find me cute rather than offensive.
Perhaps Yu Sang-hyeon found me cute above all else, because he gave a genial chuckle and responded in a playful tone.
“Haha. That’s an interesting perspective. Things are bound to look different through the eyes of a child and an old man like me.
Si-yeon. Then shall we see whether you can truly move our emotions? If your music sounds like nothing more than a child’s tantrum, I’ll have no choice but to judge you a little strictly. Is that all right?”
“Of course. I came all the way here to be judged fairly.”
The atmosphere at the filming site had relaxed, and the writers and judges all looked as though they were enjoying themselves.
The moment I confirmed that, I knew instinctively. I had already passed.
There was no way the production staff would eliminate a contestant who had given them this much material. Even if I did fail, they would probably save me with a special review.
But that didn’t mean I grew complacent or had any intention of giving a halfhearted performance.
I lightly plucked the strings of the mini guitar. Its clear twang split gently through the tense air.
The feel of a stage I had calibrated hundreds of times in my previous life. My small, delicate nine-year-old fingers settled onto the fretboard.
“Please listen. My original song, ‘Me and You.’”
As soon as the calm introduction ended, my fingers slid across the mini guitar’s narrow fretboard.
An arpeggiated melody filled the empty space piece by piece, and a quiet vocal, seemingly packed with tightly suppressed emotion, settled over its transparent resonance.
Yu Sang-hyeon’s eyes filled with astonishment.
This wasn’t simply a matter of singing well.
It was a pop ballad built on the groove of a hip-hop beat. The arrangement could easily have become monotonous with only a single guitar, but I brought out the song’s depth by placing tension chords in exactly the right spots.
That seasoned skill of filling the gaps in the empty rhythm with vocal breaths had already far surpassed anything an eight-year-old should have been capable of.
And then came the chorus, where all the emotions I had suppressed until then burst out.
I haven’t done anything for you……
Even someone like me, today at least, I’ll play a melody for you.
The poignant yet composed lyrics flowed from the tips of my lips.
This song had been the first solo song of an idol who had shone most brilliantly in Si-yeon’s memories. It was also the song that had garnered millions of views in short-form videos as people remembered the fallen star after the dazzling flames had died down.
That song, which had felt like the full stop at the end of an era, was gaining an entirely different kind of life in this moment, being recreated in a parallel world.