Chapter 55
These days, if you were to name the person generating the most buzz in Korea, apart from the president, it would probably be Seo Siyeon.
Kang Junhyeong PD, who had taken Singerstar all the way to Season 5 and ultimately unearthed a monster like Seo Siyeon, had practically been handed a path to becoming vice president, and everyone involved with Singerstar was benefiting.
That was why the people at JBC were generally favorably disposed toward Seo Siyeon.
After all, an image had formed within the company of her as something like a guardian deity who brought promotions.
This was largely due to the Singerstar production staff, including Kang Junhyeong, going around praising Seo Siyeon.
Juhanam, the PD of Do You Happen to Like Music?, was a friend of Kang Junhyeong PD. The reason was that they both worked on music-related programs.
As a result, he had heard Kang Junhyeong praise Seo Siyeon until his ears were worn out.
Naturally, he had begun to want to film with Seo Siyeon himself, which was why he had expressed his interest in casting her to Blue Sky Entertainment even while assuming she would decline.
“I never thought she’d actually agree….”
Actually, his program was not particularly well suited to a rising star who had only just begun to make a name for herself.
Since they had to busk, performers needed solid skills, of course, as well as the nerve to stand shoulder to shoulder with the industry’s most senior veterans.
“I wonder what kind of performance she’ll show us.”
On Do You Happen to Like Music?, some people secured plenty of screen time by putting on legendary performances, while others ruined their stages and were almost completely edited out.
The thought of seeing what the young genius would show among her veteran seniors already had him trembling with anticipation.
* * *
“Passport… packed, and all my clothes too, right? Oh, that’s right. They told me to bring my violin as well, didn’t they?”
After sleeping just one more night, I would be heading to the airport.
And my destination was none other than Southern Europe!
“Hehehe….”
I couldn’t help humming with excitement.
In my previous life, I had traveled abroad until I was sick of it, but Seo Siyeon in this life had, naturally, never been overseas.
I hadn’t even traveled anywhere within Korea.
For Seo Siyeon, life had consisted entirely of school, the orphanage, and the old downtown district surrounding them.
How could I not be excited about my first overseas trip under those circumstances?
Since Season 1 had taken place in Europe and Season 2 in the United States, it seemed that Season 3 would be returning to Europe.
“I do like Europe a little more than the United States.”
In my previous life, I had traveled around the United States often enough to grow fairly tired of it.
I had visited for work, and I had also gone there several times simply as a tourist.
But I had barely ever visited Europe. That was why I had secretly hoped we would go there, and fortunately, my wish had come true.
We were apparently going to travel through three countries in Southern Europe—Spain, Italy, and Greece—for three weeks.
I looked it up and found that this was around the time when the heat had begun to fade along the Mediterranean coast of Southern Europe, making it a pleasant time to travel.
Even so, it was still hot, so I packed plenty of short-sleeved shirts, along with several cardigans and windbreakers in case of large temperature differences between day and night.
And since the filming involved busking, I decided to bring my main instruments: a children’s guitar and my violin.
I could play a few other instruments as well, but I decided to stick with these two, the ones I was most confident with.
Perhaps I would have to play the keyboard in an emergency? Though I doubted that would happen.
I went to sleep with my heart full of excitement, and I slept remarkably well that night.
The next day, at the crack of dawn,
I was waiting for the car that would arrive in front of the orphanage while lugging around my two instruments.
“Yaaawn….”
I rubbed my eyes at the oncoming yawn, but thanks to going to bed early the night before, my mind was relatively clear.
After I had stood there for a short while, an old van soon appeared in front of the orphanage.
“Hello.”
“Good morning.”
The person who stepped out of the arriving vehicle was a man in his early twenties with a somewhat stern-looking face.
Recently, Lee Hajun had hired two managers to handle me and Blooming, and this man, Kim Junhyeong, was the one assigned to me.
His generally fit-looking body and plain, unremarkable face were his most notable features, if they could be called features at all.
This was our second meeting, but he was still addressing me formally in that stiff manner.
I had already told him to feel free to speak casually, but he said this was more comfortable for him, so I decided to leave him be for now.
Still, he was someone I would be working with continuously from now on, and I thought it would be good to build some rapport, so I spoke to him from the passenger seat while he drove.
“Have you ever been to Europe, Mr. Junhyeong?”
“Not yet. So I’m looking forward to it personally as well.”
“Ah, me too. Of course, we won’t be able to sightsee leisurely because of the filming… but we should have some free time, so I’m planning to look around a bit then.”
Naturally, Kim Junhyeong had to come with me. They had assigned him as my manager precisely because they wanted someone prepared for a situation like this—and because he had apparently been a judo athlete in the past.
As we chatted intermittently, we arrived at Incheon Airport before I knew it.
Taking the car, we arrived in thirty minutes at a place that would have taken well over an hour to reach by train, and I was once again struck by how convenient cars were.
As soon as we went inside, I saw the filming crew tucked away in a corner with several cameras.
There were also several people nearby who appeared to be reporters.
With Kim Junhyeong’s help, I quickly joined the filming crew.
“Oh? You’re already here?”
“Hi! I’m Seo Siyeon!”
“Siyeon is the first one here. Now… would you like to come this way?”
That made sense, since I had arrived a full hour before the designated meeting time. Because this was my first shoot outside the studio, I had left early enough that being late was impossible.
Rather than simply stand around in front of the cameras, I decided to go over to the people gathered nearby and take pictures with them and sign autographs.
People were spread all around the cameras, apparently curious about what was going on, and quite a few of them recognized me.
‘Fan service is something I obviously have to do, after all.’
Showbiz performers like me can’t exist without fans.
That being the case, this kind of simple fan service was only natural.
Considering that this was an industry where so many people disliked even doing that… it really was a peculiar business.
After some time had passed, the other cast members began arriving one by one.
The next person to arrive was Saki of FYG, who had dyed her hair pink and was wearing pink-colored contacts.
I often listened to FYG’s songs as well, so we were able to chat quite a bit while discussing them.
“Oh. So you’re making a solo comeback now?”
“I suppose so. I’m planning to premiere a song during this shoot.”
It seemed that FYG had begun focusing on individual activities rather than group promotions.
They had all made plenty of money by now, so there was a strong tendency for each of them to pursue whatever they wanted.
Then, before long, people began gathering one after another.
Hanyul, the original singer of the song Joo Jinwoo had sung in the finale.
Lee Seunghyeon, the ballad singer currently known as a chart monster.
Jia of Bad Monster, the third-and-a-half-generation girl group unveiled last year by YRK of K-Sep, one of Singerstar’s judges.
Several other famous artists joined us as well.
“Ah, hello! I’m sorry I’m late.”
And the final person to join us was a face that was extremely familiar even to me.
“Yuyeon unnie, why are you late?”
“W-well… there was an accident up ahead on the way here….”
It was Baek Yuyeon, who had shared everything with me at the Singerstar dormitory until very recently.
She had quickly joined Yoo Sanghun’s PU Entertainment, and unlike me, who had dawdled around the orphanage and spent quite a while just looking for an agency, she had already appeared on one of Korea’s largest talk shows, whose episodes garnered anywhere from hundreds of thousands to millions of views.
And the place she was appearing now was here: Do You Happen to Like Music?.
“Hey, it’s okay. It’s okay! You were only a minute late anyway.”
“That’s right, Ms. Yuyeon.”
When the veteran seniors said that to her, the anxiety-filled expression on Baek Yuyeon’s face relaxed a little.
Then we immediately began the check-in process.
“Oh, Siyeon, you must’ve studied up on this. You look pretty familiar with checking in.”
“Uh—y-yes. Th-that's right.”
That was because I had done it countless times in my previous life.
And so, after a hellish fourteen-hour flight, we finally arrived at Barcelona–El Prat Airport.
“I’m dying…!”
What greeted us when we stepped outside the airport was…
“There wasn’t any rain in the forecast.”
“It rains so often around this time of year… We couldn’t predict it at all.”
A torrential downpour and hot, humid weather.