Chapter 77
It was around the one-year mark since I had entered my hiatus.
By then, I had fallen into a severe rut.
“Do I really have to make a comeback?”
The epidemic was raging at its peak, so I didn't even feel like going outside, and every class at school was being held online. All I did back then was go to the studio and loaf around.
Since I was producing NOIRIS and Blooming at the time, one might wonder whether I didn't have anything to do.
However, ninety percent of NOIRIS's songs were ones I had already written in my previous life, while Blooming had entered a short break after releasing their full-length album and holding their concert.
(Yuseolha)-Siyeon, did you finish watching AOT?
I read Yuseolha's message with a blank expression.
Thinking that anyone who tried to show an elementary schooler an anime where people dropped dead one after another had questionable judgment, I sent her a reply.
-I already finished the whole thing in the manga.
Seo Siyeon was ten years old, but her identity was that of a man over thirty, so there was no problem with me watching even the most violent or erotic material.
My recent routine was simple.
Wake up in the orphanage dormitory, wash up quickly, and head to the studio.
As soon as I arrived at the studio, I first checked the delivery I had ordered. Since I ordered something almost every day—whether books, albums, or drinks—there was always a box waiting outside the studio.
“Heave-hooo…”
Unfortunately, a shipment of drinks had arrived that day.
It was also before zero-sugar drinks had really caught on, and the taste was nothing special, so I had given up and was just drinking regular Coke.
By the time I dragged the box inside and arranged everything in the studio refrigerator, quite a bit of time had passed.
“…Should I watch a drama?”
I spent the entire morning watching dramas on N's streaming service. Since the content and trends were slightly different from the dramas I had seen in my previous life, they were surprisingly enjoyable.
By contrast, there were far too many anime I'd already seen in my previous life, so I wasn't inclined to watch them.
Then, around lunchtime, I started wondering what I should eat.
At first, I packed a lunch, but these days I was too lazy even for that, so I either bought something or went hungry.
That day, I chose malatang.
“Hello, boss.”
“Oh, Siyeon's here?”
The malatang restaurant run by the (former) PC bang owner was located not far from my studio.
Since he was one of my benefactors in his own way, as soon as the epidemic broke out, I advised him to abandon the PC bang and switch careers to malatang, a promising industry of the future.
He was skeptical at first, but when I casually mentioned the chairman who financed our company, he immediately sold the PC bang for a key-money payment and used it to open a malatang restaurant.
It struggled a little at first, but by now it had grown into a restaurant with a consistent taste and decent sales.
“You put beef in twice?”
“Wooow. Thank youuu.”
Two servings of meat was the right choice.
After enthusiastically inhaling my malatang, I went back up to the studio.
“Maybe I'll read a book.”
I began reading the latest novel by Kim Yuhan, the father of Kim Seol.
I got about halfway through the book, but before long, I felt an overwhelming sense of emptiness and collapsed onto the cot.
“…Why am I so depressed?”
As expected, I could only look to music for the cause.
For the past few months,
I hadn't made a proper song.
It was, in other words, a slump.
* * *
There are many ways for people to overcome a slump.
In my previous life, I usually overcame mine by traveling abroad.
Or by drinking with fellow composers or getting advice from senior composers.
But at this point, both of those methods were impossible for me.
Because I had no fellow or senior composers, and I couldn't travel abroad because of the epidemic.
On top of that, it had been several months since I had barely met anyone, just in case someone found fault with me.
With the industry already in an uproar over several celebrities who had thrown parties in violation of the gathering ban, avoiding any potentially risky behavior was the right choice.
(Joo Jin-woo)-You have depression.
When I explained the situation in the Singer Star group chat, Joo Jin-woo diagnosed my condition.
And I could agree with him to some extent.
“…I guess that might be right.”
Maybe I wouldn't feel this way if I at least went to school.
Being cooped up alone at home watching nothing but dramas and anime was starting to make me feel like I was going insane.
(Yoo Ina)-Siyeon, can I come to the studio?
Yoo Ina contacted me in the midst of those monotonous days.
* * *
Yoo Ina.
A girl who looked exactly like the little girl who had lived next door to my father's house in my previous life—the same girl I had promised to debut ever since I was still a rookie composer.
Naturally, she wasn't the same person.
Unlike that girl from my previous life, Yoo Ina was from Incheon, and her family was fairly well-off.
Yoo Ina said she wanted to visit my studio because she lived in Incheon, which was quite close by.
Given the circumstances, even NOIRIS, which was soaring up the charts, didn't have all that much to do, so the members had each received vacation time and were resting at home.
Yoo Ina also seemed somewhat bored, so when she said she wanted to visit my studio, I simply told her to come over that day.
“Whoa. It's pretty big.”
“I suppose it is.”
Because this was effectively my home.
Since I did everything here except sleep, it was fairly spacious and filled with all sorts of odds and ends.
She opened my refrigerator, her eyes lighting up as she looked at me.
“Could I maybe have just one Coke…”
“How much do you weigh, unni?”
“…51.”
“Do you think that's okay?”
In the end, after a bit of arguing, I gave her a can of Coke. While I was at it, I ordered a whole chicken too.
We put on a mellow drama and started tearing into the chicken.
It was a trendy romance drama, and since only actors I knew appeared in it, it felt as though I'd seen it before even though it was my first time watching it.
While I was devouring the boneless chicken as earnestly as though it had bones,
“Have things been hard for you lately?”
Yoo Ina asked me that.
I had never directly told Yoo Ina about my situation.
She might have vaguely guessed, but if she was asking so openly, she must have had some confidence in her assumption.
“Who did you hear it from?”
“…The unnies.”
Lee Hyena or Haruka must have been the culprit.
I wasn't particularly angry. Instead, the fact that she seemed worried about me made me feel a little warmer inside.
“Is it because of the pressure?”
“I suppose it's something like that.”
The reason I kept digging myself deeper into this hole was simple.
Two WMA awards.
Four KMA awards.
No. 1 in Watermelon's annual streaming rankings.
I had practically accomplished everything a singer in Korea could accomplish.
What was left? A concert at one of Korea's three major stadiums?
But with my current stamina, I was barely capable of singing three songs on a college stage, let alone holding a concert.
I exercised consistently, but I would have to physically mature into an adult before I could properly hold a concert.
So while I thought, ‘What the hell do I do now?’ I was also afraid of the expectations the public had for me.
Even if I had been a fairly successful composer in my previous life, I had only won an award at an end-of-year ceremony once.
In other words, I was flying far higher than my abilities warranted.
“Then why not just make sure people don't expect anything from you?”
“What… do you mean?”
“You know… what do you call it, an alter ego? Why not just make an account under another name and make the music you want?”
I fell silent for a moment.
I was briefly confused because I couldn't tell whether that was really the right thing to do.
Make an alter ego?
Would I really be able to make music that way?
Honestly, I wasn't confident it would work.
“Let's try it right now.”
Still, it was worth trying.
“First, I can't show my face.”
“Our musical styles can't overlap.”
“People can't figure it out easily.”
I was far too famous in Korea to build an alter ego there in the first place.
The moment I released a song, I'd inevitably be found out.
No matter how much I changed my singing technique or altered my voice, I wouldn't be able to escape the netizens' investigative squads.
That was why I needed a country that shared some sensibilities with Korea without being completely identical,
and whose sensibilities and music I understood well.
There was only one country like that.
And so, I became Japanese.