Unplugged Album (3)

“Well, wouldn’t that be a little difficult?”

He first voiced his opposition to the suggestion. Perhaps surprised, the band members looked at him, and Hyuna in particular even opened her mouth to speak.

“Why… why?”

“What do you mean, why? We’re professionals now, and we’re signed to a company. We can’t just move around however we please, and we shouldn’t even if we could. For example, if you, Hyuna, performed at your school, it would just be a personal gig. But if all the members of our band went, wouldn’t that cause problems?”

This case, he thought, was somewhat different from an ordinary busking performance or free concert. Those had been performances they had deliberately planned and done for promotional purposes from the outset, whereas this was basically, ‘Sorry, but could you do one free event for us?’ The nature of it was completely different.

“Still, I think it’ll be okay.”

“I think so too, but that doesn’t mean we can perform on our own without discussing it with the company at all. Unless, say, we were performing in exchange for our session fees. We haven’t earned much, but we have been paid session fees regularly, haven’t we?”

Hyuna’s friends nodded in agreement. But even as he said that, he tried to find a way to take advantage of this opportunity.

‘There’s hardly anything more lucrative than a university festival.’

The workload was incomparable to a concert or festival. At university festivals, three or four songs was the norm, while performing seven to ten songs earned the generous title of an incredible ‘bargain.’ If they could enter that market, it was the kind of place where, as the current slang put it, they could ‘print money.’...