Chapter 55
“Hello~ I’m Choi Iseo, the bassist of our band, Group Sound. Since this is the first YouTube video I’m filming, I thought I’d show you our practice session.”
“Somat, what are you doing?”
“Ah~ I told you, I’m not Somat. It’s Iseo, Iseo! I’m filming a YouTube video right now. I’m thinking of somewhere to upload it.”
“Is there somewhere to upload it?”
“I’m going to try uploading it to Suyeon’s YouTube first, and if people like it and the band gets bigger, we can make a YouTube channel for our band and upload it there.”
“Do we really need to upload it to someone else’s YouTube? We could just start uploading now...”
“The people who watch it are what matter with things like this. It’d be sad if we went to all the trouble of uploading it and got ten views, or a hundred. We’ll use another YouTube channel to get our foot in the door first, then keep it going from there. Huh? That’s strategy. That’s promotion.”
The moment he opened the practice-room door, Myeongjeon saw Iseo holding a selfie stick and talking about this and that instead of practicing as instructed.
“What are you doing? Are you planning to sit around playing all day, every day? Let’s get to practice.”
“No, I’m filming a YouTube videooo~ Dear subscribers, the owner of this channel is normally like this. When she films YouTube videos, she puts on this sweet, calm voice and goes, ‘Hello, everyone,’ but that itself is kind of fake...”
Myeongjeon sighed deeply and snatched Iseo’s phone away. Iseo clung to him, whining for him to give it back. While the other two watched with interest, Myeongjeon returned the phone to Iseo and asked,
“I thought you were doing a livestream or something. What are you doing?”
“I think we should start doing something like YouTube, too. A band YouTube channel.”
“What does that have to do with this?”
“What do you mean, what does it have to do with it? Haven’t you seen NewJeans? They uploaded things to YouTube with this actual-high-school-girl concept. What was it called? Anyway, something like that.”
After rambling on incomprehensibly, Iseo’s story, roughly summarized by Myeongjeon, went like this: when NewJeans released a new song, they adopted a concept as if they were genuine high school girls and made a sort of fake documentary—and it had succeeded, hadn’t it?
“So what if we tried something like that, too? We’re actual high school girls, after all, and we’d be filming our journey through the Band Pioneer competition, so it might be even more effective.”
“Isn’t that just a vlog? Like, a challenge vlog. A vlog of the hundred days before the CSAT, that kind of thing.”
Seoha spoke up on behalf of Myeongjeon, who was starting to feel slightly dumbfounded.
“Uh... Huh? That’s... not what it is, is it?”
“Choi Iseo. Have you ever thought that phones would be more convenient if they had removable batteries? Like, the back would open, and you could put a removable battery inside.”
“Oh... I’ve never thought about it that way, but it sounds pretty good.”
Iseo answered Myeongjeon’s question naturally, without giving it a thought. Myeongjeon said nothing and simply stared up at the ceiling.
Was the world really allowed to become like this? Even if young people didn’t know about old things, they might someday look at a pager and say, “Why did people use these? Carrying a phone around is so much more convenient.”
Still, setting aside Iseo’s disrespect for things from the past, the idea seemed decent. Filming their journey through the Band Pioneer competition for YouTube... and not only that, filming the band’s life itself for YouTube.
‘Would it become a sort of chronicle of their challenge?’
No matter how excellent a work of fiction was, the truth was that it could never match the sense of reality provided by events actually happening in the real world.
If Myeongjeon and the others properly filmed themselves taking on the government-supported program, advancing through the stages one by one, winning, and releasing an album, then uploaded the process to YouTube, Myeongjeon’s channel would surely grow quite a bit as well.
“It does seem like a decent idea.”
“Right? I’m saying we should give it a try.”
Certainly, Myeongjeon’s YouTube channel had recently hit a bit of a plateau.
Early on, he had uploaded one video a day, and he had still been uploading one every two or three days until the beginning of March. But from early March until now, there had been so much going on that he had not had time to upload anything.
= Where did they go? ㅠㅠㅠ
= Noona... I’m cold... cough cough cough
= You need to practice a new guitar song. But no song has been uploaded. I wonder if you’re feeling ill. I hope you’re doing well.
There were plenty of cries in the comments asking him to upload a video, but the subscriber count had definitely increased, reaching the high twenty-thousands. The revenue covered food expenses, at least, but even after recovering the Echorec, Fuzz Face, Big Muff, and so on, he still had a long way to go to restore Myeongjeon’s pedalboard.
“What do I have to do?”
“All right, then we’ll start filming again from the beginning. From the part I filmed earlier. No, actually, it might be more fun to have the video go out exactly like this. It feels more natural...”
* * *
The cigarette flame caught briefly, then went out with a sudden gust of the chilly spring breeze. “Ah, fuck~” The lighter sparked again. This time, perhaps determined to light it properly, he inhaled sharply the instant the red glow caught on the cigarette.
“Heeseong. What time did they say we could start using that studio?”
“Just a moment. I’ll check.”
Heeseong squatted down and checked the schedule on his phone. In the meantime, the man took a deep drag from his cigarette and exhaled.
Although it was daytime, cigarette smoke spread thickly along the street. Several passersby frowned at the smell, and some even glanced at him. But when he returned their looks with a scowl, the pedestrians hurried away, intimidated, as if nothing had happened. Finding the sight rather amusing, he chuckled.
“Hyung, they say three. Three o’clock, fixed.”
“Three? Why? Didn’t they say eleven last week? They said the morning was empty and that we could use it if no reservations came in.”
“They said that was only possible if it was vacant... Anyway, apparently another team made a reservation yesterday. They said they have to film that team first, so it’s only available from three.”
“What the fuck... How many times have we used that place? Shouldn’t they make an exception for us? They don’t treat us like regulars at all.”
Heeseong thought that was not really what treating regulars meant, but he did not answer. It would not change anything even if he said so.
“What about Gyeongyun?”
“They said he just arrived. Should I tell him to come?”
“Yeah. Tell him to come straight to the studio. What about Lee Junseong?”
“They say he’s on his way.”
“That bastard, what the fuck does he mean, ‘on his way’? He probably just got out of bed. Damn it, bringing people in from outside is useless. He doesn’t take the band seriously at all. He has no attitude for making music. Some of us are grinding our lives away doing this, while he thinks it’s enough that his family is well-off. Ah, fuck!”
The man’s constant grumbling made Heeseong feel like covering his ears. When had things become like this? He had definitely been a cool, decent hyung when they started the band together.
And so Heeseong and the man began walking silently toward the studio. Then, all of a sudden, the man threw him a question.
“Heeseong. What if we ask those people renting it whether they could let us use it next time instead? Tell them we’re in a hurry.”
“What? Of course they won’t agree, will they?”
“I don’t think it’s that urgent for them. We have no time except today. Even if anyone’s in a hurry, we’re the ones in greater need, not them, right? Let’s see what they say and ask them to step aside.”
“I don’t think they’ll...”
“You little shit! You just ask, that’s all. Fuck, why are you being so negative?”
Heeseong was suddenly subjected to a barrage of curses. As everyone on the street turned to look, the man muttered, “Seriously, this guy can’t understand a word...” and continued walking. Heeseong silently followed behind him. It was a common occurrence.
“Yoo Seoha? What are you doing here?”
“Yoon hyung?”
Heeseong and the man arrived in front of a studio somewhere in Hongdae. Gyeongyun was already there, standing with someone.
“Heeseong. Isn’t that Seoha?”
“Uh... looks like her.”
“What is she doing here?”
The person talking with Gyeongyun was Yoo Seoha, a promising drummer who was fairly well regarded in Hongdae’s indie scene. Both her drumming and her mouth were good, and people thought that with just a little more growth, she could become a pillar of Hongdae’s metal scene... To borrow the words of a hyung from another band, she was ‘a high school senior girl better than wild ginseng.’
‘I thought a lot of hyungs had designs on her. Why did she suddenly show up here? Didn’t she run away to avoid people like that?’
She had wormed her way through Hongdae’s live clubs and gone everywhere, but she had suddenly disappeared and stopped showing up sometime in the latter half of last year. As a result, all sorts of strange rumors had been circulating.
“What brings you here?”
“Ah... I came to record today.”
“Really? Record?”
“Oh. Seoha?”
“Huh? Gyusik oppa. Heeseong oppa. What brings you two here?”
As soon as he met Seoha, Gyusik lowered his voice slightly. Finding the sight rather pathetic, Heeseong waved at Seoha.
“We came to record, too. We’re regulars here. They said it was empty in the morning, so we came to see if we could use it for free... What are you recording for?”
“Uh... We came to record our entry for Band Pioneer. What about you, oppas?”
Band Pioneer. They, too, had come to this recording studio to participate in the support program. Just as the conversation was about to continue, the studio door opened.
“Seoha. Why are you standing out there? Come in.”
“Oh, just a second. There are people I know. I’ll be in shortly.”
The person who opened the door and looked outside was a girl with a slightly scraped forehead and long hair swept back. Heeseong and Gyusik paused slightly at her striking appearance. She dipped her head a little, then went into the studio.
“Who is she?”
“Our band leader.”
“You’re in a band? So that’s why you haven’t been coming to Hongdae—you’ve been busy with your band?”
Small talk followed. How had she ended up in a band? What kind of music did they play? How many members were there? The questions were filled with 20 percent curiosity, 30 percent sexual interest in Seoha, and 50 percent hostility toward a competitor, and Seoha struggled to keep answering them.
“A four-member all-girls high school band? Your genres are blues, J-pop, anime music, and alt-rock...? What the... You should be playing metal. Why are you sitting around doing something weird?”
“Hyung. Seoha’s right here.”
“What, is Seoha the kind of kid who turns her nose up at that? Seoha, what’s wrong with you? You can’t be doing this. I told you back then that oppa would help you make it big, didn’t I? I’m telling you, don’t waste your time in some weird social band like that.”
Gyusik poured out his feelings passionately, as if he genuinely cared about Seoha. Gyeongyun was saying things like, “Don’t waste your talent playing with amateurs,” as well.
“No, I’m telling you, we’re all good at music.”
“Even if high schoolers are good, how good can they really be? People at your level are the ones who are truly good. Hey, listen to your oppa. Friends from back then won’t help you anyway. If you’re going to do music, then building connections while playing in bands and making music—that’s what will really help you.”
Heeseong wondered how long this farce would continue. Seoha did not seem to be considering it at all, and he had never even heard the music they played. How long were they planning to keep this up?
Besides, although the others did not seem to notice, Seoha’s expression was steadily worsening.
“Seoha. Are you still not done talking? We’ve already started recording.”
Just then, the studio door opened again. The high school girl they had seen earlier strode over and stopped in front of them.
“Oh, I’ll be right there.”
“If you wanted to come right away, you should’ve come earlier. Sorry, but we have to record, so I’ll take this girl with me.”
The high school girl then tried to take Seoha inside. Just as the situation was about to end, Gyusik suddenly spoke up.
“Excuse me. We’re musicians, too.”
“Yes?”
“Would it be possible for us to sit in on the recording? Just for a little while.”
Gyusik’s question was based on a strange hostility and the unconscious thought that they should scout out their competitors in order to beat them.
“What? Oppa, no, we have to record our entry for that support program...”
“It’s okay to watch for a moment, isn’t it? Is that not allowed?”
Normally, this was a situation in which Seoha should have refused. But they were acquaintances, and older than her, so she was in a delicate position where she could not reject them that bluntly.
“Why do you want to sit in?”
“No particular reason. We were just curious. We heard you’re a new rookie band, and we wanted to see how good you are.”
Gyusik’s tone was thickly coated with emotions he had failed to hide. The traces were so obvious that anyone could have noticed them, but...
“Sure, go ahead.”
For some reason, Suyeon smiled faintly and allowed them to sit in.