Chapter 9
Si-yeon gently closed her eyes. The dazzling lights and the judges staring straight at her were of no concern to her now.
Only the cold metal strings, the sensation at her fingertips, and the faint afterimage of her mother lingering in her mind remained onstage.
This was not a song that needed flashy technique or difficult high notes.
It was a song she had composed in the late-night sentiment of her high school years, not one written for a professional singer to perform.
That was why her own emotions mattered more than anything else.
-The young days of yours I've seen only in photographs…
-I feel it as I look at myself reflected in the mirror
The moment the first line left her lips, she had the illusion that the air was purified in an instant.
It was a crystal-clear, refreshing tone unique to a young child.
Yet that transparent voice held such dense sorrow that it was impossible to believe it belonged to a nine-year-old child.
No one else could know this, but the sorrow within her had been building for nearly thirty years, so it was only natural.
The clear, soaring high notes somehow made the listener's heart ache even more.
As the song entered its middle section, the guitar performance grew more intense.
The technique itself was nothing extraordinary. Yet the emotion that made the audience's hearts ache was contained in the picking of her left hand.
When rough strumming was added, the quiet confession gradually changed into a scream.
Si-yeon plucked the strings so hard that it seemed the body of her mini guitar might break, then let loose a high note.
-What is it like where you went, leaving me behind?
-You in the photograph are still smiling.
Her refreshing tone rode a wave of emotion and shot sharply toward the studio ceiling.
Even without forcing her vocal cords, the resonance of that clear sound alone drew suppressed sobs from every corner of the audience.
Even Kang Jun-hyeong, the head writer watching from the monitor backstage, trembled with his mouth covered by the cue sheet.
This song no longer felt like a simple audition piece, but rather a requiem for everyone carrying pain in the name of family.
And the person who had sung it was an elementary-school orphan!
Kang Jun-hyeong trembled like a pervert from the pleasure rising through his entire body.
After passing the climax, the song sank back into silence. With her slender hands trembling, Si-yeon quietly stopped the strings. Then she whispered the final lyrics into the microphone.
-I want to call out to you, just once
-Mother, no—Mom.
Even after the final note scattered, no one could bring themselves to applaud.
A strange pressure filled the studio, as though even the sound of applause would defile this sacred air.
After roughly ten seconds of prolonged silence, Representative Jina was the first to break it.
Jina grabbed the microphone to give her evaluation, but a tear slipped from her already reddened eyes.
Seeing that, a tear fell from Si-yeon's eyes as well.
She had no idea why.
Was it sorrow over being an orphan? Or longing for her mother that had accumulated since her previous life?
Perhaps she had simply become too deeply absorbed in the emotions she had created to immerse herself in the song.
In truth, being an orphan fucking sucked for Seo Si-yeon, but she was not particularly sorrowful about it.
If anything, she even thought it might not be so bad not having parents around to nag her.
Since she had a father and grandmother in her original world, even if she had had parents in this life, she probably would not have been able to give them her affection properly.
Even so, one thing remained unchanged.
The camera captured her reddening eyes in a close-up, and that image would be broadcast nationwide on a program that had broken through a ten-percent rating in an era when traditional media was dying.
* * *
Immediately after receiving an all-pass without any noteworthy variables,
I headed for the waiting room, wiping at my reddened eyes for some reason.
For the record, I declined the interview.
Because I thought that would generate more buzz. If not, whatever.
When I entered the waiting room, strange looks poured in from every direction.
If the looks directed at me before had been the expressions of people seeing a monster or a con artist, now they were simply the looks people gave a pitiful orphan.
Honestly, I did not particularly like it.
Because I wanted to be remembered as their formidable rival, not as a pitiful orphan.
That was why I had used the tearjerker angle based on my orphan status relatively early on.
In fact, this strategy would be most effective if I saved it for the finals after advancing to the upper rounds.
People instinctively turned their eyes and attention toward anything pitiful, and that attention would come back to me in the form of votes.
But if I did that, my image would become fixed as a pitiful orphan.
That was highly likely to become an obstacle in my future activities.
The public would find it hard to stomach an orphan they considered beneath them doing well, out of sheer resentment.
Those people would turn into something resembling antis, and they were highly likely to harm my future career.
“Sniff… Si-yeon, are you okay?”
“…Ms. Yoo Seol-ha?”
The first person to break the silence and speak to me was Yoo Seol-ha, the vocalist of the band Blooming.
Tears streamed down the face of the girl, whose features were fresh and cute in a way befitting a high school student.
“Waaah! It's so sad…!”
As she said that, Yoo Seol-ha hugged me.
Buried in a high school girl's bosom, the adult male ego inside me sensed danger and flailed in an attempt to escape her embrace.
“Umph…!”
“It's okay… Unnie will hold you!”
Our entire connection consisted of nothing more than exchanging a few words in the waiting room.
What an incredibly nosy person.
Still, quite apart from that, Yoo Seol-ha's embrace was rather cozy.
The sensation of soft flesh pressed against my cheek.
The adult male ego struggled, insisting that I had to get out immediately, while Seo Si-yeon's ego wanted to remain in those arms forever.
‘Fuck. It's because I don't have a mother. That's all.’
It absolutely wasn't because I liked a high school girl's breasts.
* * *
[I'm an orphan too, and I'm sobbing my guts out alone in my room after listening to Seo Si-yeon's song]
My parents both died in an accident when I was seven, and I grew up under my grandmother's care.
I normally fucking hate emotional manipulation, so even when I watch tearjerker movies, I just snort at them, you know?
But today, when Seo Si-yeon sang the first line, “The young days of yours I've seen only in photographs,” my heart genuinely dropped.
I have exactly one picture at home where my mother's face is clearly visible, too.
I remember staring at it and looking in the mirror by myself, wondering whether I looked like her, and it makes me feel like I'm going crazy.
When she called her Mom at the end, everything I'd been holding back burst out, and I cried out loud.
I'm old enough to wonder what the hell I'm doing, but seeing Si-yeon felt like looking at my own childhood, and it hurt so much.
Si-yeon, I really hope you make it big. Don't live like I did—succeed no matter what.
-Ah… This is… I don't even have words to tell you to stay strong.
-ㅠㅠ Stay strong, OP. Si-yeon's song was seriously brutal. Hearing her sing it in that clear voice made it even sadder.
-Tragedy is more heartbreaking when the person involved is stoic. Watching Si-yeon's expression stay blank in the middle of the stage, then seeing tears gather in her eyes at the end, was the real killer moment.
-But seriously, how does a nine-year-old write lyrics like that? Is our gallery owner really on her second life?
-I thought the edgelords would show up and call it a tearjerker stunt, but after reading this post, I'm quietly taking back my downvote and leaving.
-Look at the state of the replies this morning lolol. The gallery's gotten flooded with commie infiltrators.
-What, this made it to the real-time best? lol
-Fact) There is a 500% chance she didn't write those lyrics herself. I'll bet a producer is attached and ghostwrote them for her. A nine-year-old wrote lyrics like that? Lol.
-Are you an orphan, buddy? Who'd ghostwrite for a foster-home kid, you idiot? She doesn't even have a major agency behind her.
ㄴKang Jun-hyeong PD could have scripted it to milk the ratings. Is your brain for real?
-Why do the comments turn to shit the second this makes it to the real-time best? Lol.
-Anyone who falls for this scam is definitely an inferior species, these Joseonites.
-Voting is a crime, kekeke.
“Wow. What the hell happened to the comments?”
“Wah!”
“Eek…!”
The person standing behind me with a sinister expression and snickering was none other than Yoo Seol-ha, the vocalist of Blooming.
Because of what happened last time, we had started exchanging emails, and we had kept in touch from time to time afterward.
It was incredibly inconvenient that I could only contact her while I was at a PC bang because I did not have a smartphone, but after Park Han-su gave me a spare phone the day before yesterday, that inconvenience disappeared, and she began bombarding me with messages.
Honestly, it was burdensome enough that I considered pushing her away a little, but I was not particularly inclined to reject someone who approached me with goodwill.
In any case, she said she would buy me some clothes, and I initially intended to refuse, but I accepted immediately after learning that her family owned a home in Gangnam.
I had thought it was unusual for a high school student to already be playing in a band, and it seemed her family had quite a bit of money.
“Oh-ho! Si-yeon. Ego-searching already? Tsk, tsk.”
“I-I only happened to look once.”
That was a lie.
I had been so obsessive about ego-searching in my previous life that even the idols I managed had told me to take it easy.
I naturally did not look when people were insulting me, but when the situation was filled with nothing but praise, I had to check it a little to feel proud.
Onstage, Yoo Seol-ha always wore a school uniform and made thorough use of the fact that she was a high school student, but today she had shown up wearing thick glasses, a black hoodie, and jeans.
Dressed like that, she simply looked like an adult, which surprised me a little.
She had even dyed her hair brown, making it even harder to recognize her as a minor.
“Oh. You disguised yourself well too, Si-yeon.”
“Yes. It gets tiring when too many people recognize me.”
Naturally, I had pulled my hood deep over my head and put on glasses to conceal my identity completely.
Since I was an orphan and had no suitable clothes, until now I had spent the days I performed combing through the entire orphanage for something decent to wear.
But with the audition entering its serious phase, I was starting to need a few proper outfits.
Especially once the Top 10 was decided, we would have to stay together for about a month, perhaps even longer.
So when it came to clothes, more was always better.
As we walked side by side, the subject naturally shifted to the next round.
“By any chance, Si-yeon, have you heard anything?”
“Yes. The PD told me.”
“Huh? I didn't hear anything.”
Of course she had not heard.
The next round was a team battle, and the PD had only told the people who would serve as team leaders.
It meant we were supposed to decide in advance whom we wanted to select.
“The next round is a team battle. I was told in advance because I'm a team leader.”
“Eeeh?”
Yoo Seol-ha let out a scream befitting a high school girl.
I narrowed my eyes slightly as I glared at her.
Wasn't that reaction a little too contrived?
“But the second round of the main competition has always been a team battle…”
“And I'm going to fill my team entirely with Blooming.”
“Eek…”