Chapter 45
They say words without feet can travel a thousand li. These days, though, words struck by lightning travel far faster than that.
The story of a session player who had screwed over music director Kim Jaehun—more famous in the screen-music industry for being a rotten bastard than for his actual talent—spread everywhere in the blink of an eye.
“Heard about that Hoon-bastard?”
“I heard it that very day. Heh~ I always knew that bastard would get what was coming to him someday.”
Most conversations centered on screwing over Director Kim Jaehun, a public enemy, but some went in a different direction. The staff who had been there that day had let slip stories that were hard to believe by anyone’s standards.
“You got all the guitar recording done in one take? What the fuck are you talking about?”
“No, seriously. My friend was on the staff that day, and they said they saw it with their own eyes.”
“It’s not like some veteran pros went in there. She was obviously a high school girl, wasn’t she? And you’re saying someone like that finished the recording in one take? Talk sense.”
“But I’m telling you, it’s true. This is so frustrating.”
There were people who denied what had actually happened,
and others who were already thinking of calling her in for their own work.
“If there’s anyone who can finish a recording that fast, shouldn’t we call her for the next job? I hear she’s incredibly good.”
“Yes. I happened to sit in during the post-production work, and there wasn’t much left to correct. She just recorded everything straight through, touched it up a little, and it was done.”
People with all sorts of thoughts were discussing the unbelievable ‘pretty high school girl guitarist’ who had appeared on the scene.
And the same thing was happening among guitarists.
“Junhong. I heard you found some kid worth keeping an eye on this time. Did you hear about her too?”
“Ah, that? I’ve been telling people about her. I think she might be Mr. Seomyeongjeon’s student.”
“What? Myeongjeon-hyung had a student? Wait, then the girl everyone’s talking about—is she Myeongjeon-hyung’s student?”
Conversations like that circulated at drinking parties, or—
“Ah, thank you, Babokiller-nim. ‘Jinseong-hyung, these days there really don’t seem to be any guitarists worth watching in Korea’s rock and metal scenes.’ Hmm… I suppose the scene doesn’t get quite as much attention as it should!”
= ㅠㅠㅠ
= Korea’s already a barren wasteland as it is
= Rock is dead
= I wonder when we’ll get to see something like Korea’s G3. Sigh, I really want to see it before I die.
“Honestly, something like G3 would be difficult. I’m not someone who lacks humility, but I think I was pretty incredible at my peak. Even back then, something like that would have been impossible.
Still, from what I hear these days, there’s apparently a guitarist worth paying attention to. Do you know Myeongjeon-hyung, who passed away? Ordinary people might not know him at all.”
= When Mr. Myeongjeon played a session on my song, he was seriously incredible
“Ah, you’re Gyu-roe-nim, right? Myeongjeon-hyung was so good at guitar that he was practically among the top three in Korea. Anyway, I hear he had a student. They say she plays so well, it feels like Myeongjeon-hyung has come back to life. But apparently she’s a high school girl?”
A ghost was haunting the internet: the ghost of a genius pretty high school girl guitarist.
It wasn’t setting the entire internet ablaze, but in a part of Korea’s band scene—so narrow it was practically on the verge of death—people who had been keeping their noses above the surface, waiting for fresh bait, began to stir.
And before long, they uncovered the identity of the guitarist who had previously existed only as a rumor.
Name, Ha Suyeon.
Gender, female.
Age, high school student (estimated).
Face, incredibly pretty.
YouTube channel, White Room. Around ten thousand subscribers. Maximum views, 250,000. The skill displayed in the videos was clearly at a considerable level.
However, videos edited by the person herself had one problem: she could keep trying until she got a good take. Therefore, they couldn’t be considered proof.
With that in mind, people began searching for material that could prove her skill… and found a video.
Specifically, a live performance of Eric Johnson’s ‘Manhattan’ that she had played on guitarist Im Junhong’s channel.
People went absolutely wild. At that age, she could play that smoothly while preserving the feel of the original? Was there any other performance? Near the end of the video, there was a song called ‘You of That Day.’ It was another excellent song that strongly evoked ’80s blues rock.
But the band’s name was Group Sound? Had this band ever performed?
So people went back through time and found a second performance, along with information that they had played an anime song and SNS posts like [This band called Group Sound is amazing… They played a song by Bojaro, and I almost fell in love].
On that basis, they eventually found the first performance.
A video captured with the crude quality of a school’s cameras and microphones, but one that clearly revealed the band’s skill. As people devoured the video, reactions like [Hey, this is their first performance ㄷㄷㄷㄷㄷ], [It’s an otaku song, but it’s not bad], and [A four-member girl band ㄷㄷㄷ] flew back and forth…
[Hey, but isn’t the bassist fucking terrible? Seriously, she’s practically just riding on everyone else’s work]
A single remark thrown out with a heart full of venom, because someone feared their favorite band would be buried, caused a small ripple in the internet discourse of the already tiny scene.
* * *
“L-let’s take a short break.”
Myeongjeon lightly brushed the strings once, then said to the other three. Seoha abruptly stood up to get coffee, while Hyeona stayed in her seat and practiced piano on the keyboard—though whether that was actually possible, he wasn’t sure.
Then Myeongjeon approached Iseo, who was sitting on the sofa and staring blankly ahead.
“What’s wrong today?”
“Huh?”
“Is something going on?”
Iseo hadn’t been able to focus from the very beginning. Rehearsal was already on track, and she had a look on her face like she was about to have a complete mental breakdown, so he couldn’t bring himself to scold her.
But shouldn’t he at least ask? As the band’s leader.
“Uh… nothing’s wrong.”
“If it’s not a star problem, is it a moon problem? Pff-hahaha… No, sorry.”
She showed no sign of opening up, so Myeongjeon tossed out a joke to lighten the mood.
But the mood sank even further. When he saw Seoha staring at him in shock, Myeongjeon quickly apologized first.
“Anyway, you wouldn’t be sitting like that if nothing were wrong. Are you on your period or something?”
“No… it’s not that.”
“If it’s not that, then what? Just a gloomy day? Even though it isn’t raining. A day when you’re sad for no reason? Gloomy Sunday? Though it isn’t Sunday.”
But Iseo merely looked at Myeongjeon with gloomy eyes.
‘It’s not like she’s asking me to figure it out. If something’s wrong, she has to say so for us to know…’
Thinking that she wasn’t a little kid, so why was she being this frustrating, Myeongjeon realized that all the kids in front of him really were children. Myeongjeon himself was only older in mind; he was a child too.
‘So it was just something appropriate for her age.’
Myeongjeon sighed inwardly. These days, there was something called middle-schooler syndrome, wasn’t there? Even if they weren’t actually in middle school, this was the age when people went through puberty. It was only natural for them to be sensitive about everything.
He, too, had done all sorts of things during puberty. He had slung an acoustic guitar over his shoulder and gone off, declaring that he would make money with it and travel all across the country, only to get the crap beaten out of him by his father.
Then he had gone to another musician older brother to complain that his parents didn’t understand him, only to receive a boast disguised as encouragement: “That’s right, Myeongjeon. Music is hard by nature. But you can become like me.” As it turned out, that fellow was running a rice shop later…
Compared to that, Iseo was quite well-behaved. She wasn’t throwing a fit because nobody understood her; she was simply participating in rehearsal while looking miserable.
“You have to tell us what’s wrong so we can help. It’s written all over your face that something’s bothering you. If it’s family-related, our house is big, so you can stay at my place for a few days.”
Seeing Suyeon say that, Iseo hesitated for a moment.
‘Can I really bring something like this up? It’s nothing important, but is it okay to talk about something so trivial with kids who are thinking this much about me?’
But Iseo decided to talk. If she didn’t say anything, it felt like things would never come to an end.
“I saw people badmouthing you online.”
“That’s not really cursing, is it? The fact that I’m not very good at bass… is just a fact.”
“What are you talking about! Somat-nim is good at bass. Protect Somat-nim! Who the hell is saying that crazy shit? I’m telling you, we need to report every single internet troll.”
Hyeona suddenly wrapped her arms around Iseo. Myeongjeon idly twisted a strand of hair. He wanted to say, “It’s true that your skills are lacking, but you’re improving, so don’t worry about that shitty talk and focus on practicing.” But if he said something like that, she would probably really believe she was bad at bass and run away from the band.
“And they weren’t even really cursing. Just things like saying I’m riding on the band’s coattails, or that I’m not as good as the other members…”
“That is cursing! Honestly, the moment people get their hands on a keyboard, they think they’re Mozart or Beethoven. There are tons of people like that among piano players too. But I bet they haven’t even made it through Czerny!”
In response, Hyeona and Seoha exchanged banter like, “Maybe they have played Czerny…” and “Horang, shut up!” Leaving them to it, Myeongjeon looked at the community page Iseo had shown him, where people were leaving comments about how the bass was this and that.
‘They don’t even sound particularly knowledgeable…’
They say the person who knows the least has the loudest voice. To Myeongjeon, this internet situation felt exactly like that.
Several internet users were parroting things like, ‘The bass sounds bad to me, anyway. It’s lacking this, lacking that, and doesn’t line up properly with this or that…’
Besides, this had been their first performance, and even the weaknesses they’d had back then had improved considerably by now. In the end, it was nothing more than nonsense from people who didn’t know what they were talking about.
‘But even if I tell her that, Iseo doesn’t look like she’ll listen at all.’
Myeongjeon shut off the internet on the laptop, then turned around and looked at Iseo.
“Speaking objectively…”
“Objectively?”
“Iseo, it’s a fact that you’re showing some very solid growth.”
Iseo was secretly relieved. The word ‘objectively’ coming from Suyeon was the very definition of a cold, impartial assessment.
“Of course, considering the lessons and coaching you’ve received from me, it’s only natural that you should be showing rapid growth. But even taking that into account, your rate of growth is fast. From an ordinary person’s perspective, you give off the feeling of, ‘Could she actually go pro?’”
“Uh…”
“Still, it’s also true that we haven’t shown our skills to people like this. There’s no recording of the second performance, and the first one was… several months ago. You’ve improved a lot since then.”
“So ultimately, these are people who know very little about your skill but are talking anyway.”
Myeongjeon shrugged, then asked Iseo a question: “Even if these evaluations still bother you… how about showing those people what you can do at this performance?”