88 Would You Like Me to Take Your Picture?

Normally, moving out of an orphanage and standing on one’s own would require quite a lot of procedures.

Since I was still elementary-school age, the idea of a child becoming independent on her own didn’t fit Korean sensibilities at all.

It was why Japanese anime had so many protagonists who worked part-time and lived on their own from high school onward, while there were almost none in Korea.

But was I an ordinary elementary school kid? Of course not.

I wasn’t merely famous; I was a super-elementary-school student with Yuseong Semiconductor backing me.

And even without going that far, Blue Sky Entertainment could handle problems like these.

That was why it didn’t take long for my independence to be finalized.

No matter how slow the Korean government’s bureaucracy was, it wasn’t particularly slow by global standards, and whenever a celebrity was involved, things sped up exponentially.

“Waaah… We’re going to miss you, Siyeon!”

“You should at least stay until your birthday…”

“Unni! Can’t I live at your house too?”

I gently stroked the little girl’s head and spoke.

“I’ll invite you over later.”

Though I wasn’t sure I would really have the time to do that.

Well, I would still have reason to come here from time to time.

There were benefactors here, from the PC bang owner who had switched to selling malatang to Park Han-su.

When I first possessed this body, I had thought of this place as a damn delinquent neighborhood, but I had learned that there was a surprising amount of warmth hidden beneath its roughness.

That didn’t mean it was a good neighborhood, what with middle schoolers constantly smoking cigarettes, though.

“When are you moving?”

“Sometime next week. I barely have anything to pack, so I’ll probably just bring one bag.”

“…How much is the place?”

I had no choice but to give an awkward smile at that question.

Because this move had eaten up every penny I’d earned.

Housing prices in Seoul in the 2020s were downright murderous.

And since I was a celebrity, I had to move into an expensive apartment with good security…

The money I’d earned from music royalties over two years wasn’t enough, so I even borrowed money from the bank.

“I’m in debt now. You can assume I borrowed that much.”

“…What am I supposed to do?”

The person I was talking to was Seo Ina.

She was an aspiring dancer who faithfully attended dance school and had passed choreography on to me during Jellypop.

She might have been the person who benefited the most from my existence, having made very good use of the Neulneul Orphanage name.

She had gone on a dancer survival show and attracted attention because of her friendship with me and the fact that she belonged to Neulneul Orphanage.

Backed by the skills to match that attention, she had placed fourth in the finals of an audition program.

She wasn’t a star, but she had become a reasonably well-known influencer.

That was where she stood now.

In other words, she was making quite a bit of money.

“You don’t really have to come to Seoul, do you, Unni?”

Was there really any reason for her to live alone in Seoul when her team was in Incheon in the first place?

“There’s romance in living in Seoul.”

“Do you really think so…?”

The cost of living was murderous, and so was the rent.

People’s opinions weren’t exactly great, either, and commuting by public transportation was practically like descending into hell.

I told her about how a month was enough to experience the romance, but the suffering lasted forever—something I had experienced in my previous life.

“You seem to know Seoul like you’ve lived there, Siyeon.”

“I-I just saw it on community sites.”

“Tsk, cut back on those community sites. I’ve never seen anything good come of them.”

“…I haven’t been looking at them lately.”

These days, I didn’t look at them all that much.

There was nothing about me on them, so they weren’t fun anymore.

“Oh, now that I think of it, how’s the choreography for the new song coming along?”

“Ah, I’m making it, but… it’s not easy.”

“Keep at it.”

What we had just been discussing was the choreography for NOIRIS’s new song.

Since they didn’t have the ability to produce choreography themselves, they usually outsourced it to several teams and selected the best proposal for their own use.

One of the teams they outsourced to was the dance team from the academy Seo Ina belonged to.

Now that she had taken her first steps as a professional, she was participating in choreography production as well.

After talking with the people at the orphanage for a while, I went up to my room and found that there was surprisingly quite a lot there.

Most notably, the awards I had received at various ceremonies were displayed on the table, and some of the albums and assorted merchandise I had bought had been brought into the room as well.

There were probably more of my belongings in the workroom than here. It had everything from my desktop computer to various instruments, and it had been my primary living space.

I felt a strange swell of emotion as I began organizing my belongings.

* * *

Actually, moving didn’t mean there was much for me to do.

I stamped the documents wherever they told me to and provided the information the company requested.

And then, voilà.

“Wow. I have a house.”

I had a home.

It was roughly twenty-one pyeong—not huge, but somewhat large for one person to live in.

I had tried to find the smallest place possible, but apparently it wasn’t easy to find a small unit in a secure apartment complex.

Still, it was somewhat puzzling that a place this size could cost so much.

That puzzlement was resolved when I visited the place for the first time, the day before I moved in.

“Wow…!”

The Han River spread out below in a sweeping view, and the interior was so clean it looked like a brand-new home.

On top of that, if I wanted, I could order all three meals through room service, and the apartment was equipped with everything from a fitness center to various other amenities.

Even when I had been a fairly successful producer in my previous life, I had never lived anywhere like this.

I did own an apartment in Seoul, but luxury apartments like this were far too expensive.

Honestly, I had managed to succeed while stuck in Neulneul Orphanage, located in the deepest depths of the demon world, but I had hardly ever felt like I was successful.

Even when I wanted to eat something expensive and delicious, it felt awkward to eat alone, and if I took the children from the orphanage, I couldn’t just buy food for a few of them—I would have to buy it for everyone…

‘There are too many of them.’

So I settled for handing out chicken or pizza, but that wasn’t exactly the sort of high-end food befitting a young-and-rich person like me.

And then COVID broke out almost immediately, making the idea of going out somewhere expensive feel rather awkward.

I didn’t have any expensive hobbies, either. The only things I spent money on were OTT subscriptions and the occasional web novel.

That was why this was actually my first time indulging in any real luxury since Singer Star.

Though this first indulgence was worth tens of billions of won.

“…I really have succeeded, haven’t I?”

It was the true taste of success experienced at a young age.

* * *

If you asked me what goals I had left in life now, I could name about three.

The first was conquering Japan.

That was a goal steadily progressing under the name Mikansei.

The second was entering the United States as a producer.

Perhaps NOIRIS could make that happen down the line. If not, I could always try it directly as Seo Siyeon.

The title of child genius would be marketable enough in America, after all.

The third was, naturally, holding a concert in a major stadium.

The Sangam concert, held at Korea’s largest stadium and symbolizing that one had reached the pinnacle of domestic music.

My goal was to stand on that stage someday.

But there was one thing I had to do first.

“Huff… hack…”

Improve my stamina.

Right now, like anyone my age, I had such poor stamina that even climbing a single mountain would have been difficult.

It wasn’t as though I was in an environment where going to a fitness center was difficult like before, and there was one inside the apartment complex, so I visited with the intention of sticking with exercise for once.

I walked on the Stairway to Heaven for five minutes and was completely drained, sprawled across a nearby chair.

“Th-this is horrible.”

I was talking about my own stamina.

I was at the point of having to seriously reconsider whether it was even possible to build myself up to concert-ready levels.

Just then, I felt people looking at me from nearby.

Apparently, quite a few people recognized me here as well.

Feeling a little awkward, I gulped down the water from my bottle.

No matter how I looked at them, I never got used to those gazes.

Just then, someone approached me.

He was a well-built man, and since his purpose seemed fairly obvious, I spoke first.

“Um, would you like me to take your picture?”

The man flinched, seemingly caught off guard by my words.

Then he carefully opened his mouth.

“Um, this fitness center only allows middle schoolers and up to enter.”

“…Oh.”

“Oh, could you take a picture of me too? I really enjoy your music.”

I felt so embarrassed that I wanted to crawl into a mouse hole.