Chapter 63
Official SNS accounts and a YouTube channel, even the ‘White Room’ YouTube channel. ‘Group Sound’ had quite a few avenues of communication. That is, if you overlooked the fact that none of them, except the White Room channel, were ever updated.
Twitter (calling it X felt a little odd) posted only a few tweets after its creation and then went silent. The official YouTube channel had merely been created. Ha Suyeon’s personal channel, White Room, had no Group Sound-related content whatsoever.
‘Don’t these kids have any intention of promoting themselves?’
That was what Ayoon thought. The bands she had seen while going to concerts for several months tended to keep promoting themselves after performances, or appeal to fans by socializing with the audience.
Compared to them, Group Sound performed often, but afterward they just said, “Thank you. Have a nice day,” signed a few autographs, took a few photos, and left, giving the impression that they paid no attention whatsoever to things like promotion.
As someone who had declared herself Group Sound’s No. 1 fan, Jeong Ayoon simply couldn’t let this go.
So Ayoon took action. She created a Twitter account called ‘Group Sound Social Club,’ calling it the ‘unofficial Group Sound fan club.’ She even made a café and started posting various things.
After continuing those activities, quite a crowd had gathered before she knew it… and that was where things stood now.
[Does anyone know what happened with the Band Pioneer situation?]
The online competition was so good that I went around promoting them and went to vote, but Group Sound wasn’t on the voting list.
I’m not sure what happened, but could someone explain? ㅠㅠ
- I asked the organizers, and they said they withdrew.
ㄴ What?? Why?
ㄴ They only said it was personal reasons ㅠㅠ They don’t want to tell us.
[Watching the Top 6 online competition this time]
To be frank, there was a huge gap between the other bands and ours.
If they hadn’t voluntarily withdrawn, they were practically guaranteed to win, so why did they withdraw voluntarily;;;
- Exactly. Why did they withdraw;
- Has anyone asked the band?
ㄴ They don’t really use SNS, there haven’t been any recent uploads or livestreams on the personal channel, and their next performance isn’t until next week;;
ㄴ Gasp, could something have happened?
- I called to protest and even spoke with one of the judges, but they said they couldn’t tell me anything beyond “personal reasons”; the band apparently didn’t want them to reveal anything ㅠ
Most of the posts on the fan café said things like, ‘It’s frustrating not knowing what’s going on.’ There were posts like, ‘Does the café owner perhaps know?’ too, but if Ayoon had known, she would have told them; there was no way she would keep it to herself.
Frustrated, Ayoon searched for a few videos related to it. Maybe someone had written something in the comments.
While digging through YouTube like that, she spotted a comment.
- Hanseung High’s Ha Suyeon was a notorious school bully in Jongno-gu lol. I guess that’s why she withdrew.
“School bullying…?”
Ayoon pictured the face of Group Sound’s leader, Ha Suyeon. No way was that girl a school bully? She was pretty, sure, but she went around without even wearing makeup. Going by appearances alone, the bass player, Choi Iseo, seemed more suited to being a school bully than Ha Suyeon. She wore flashy makeup and was big, too. Wasn’t that more the type?
But Ayoon thought the theory itself was plausible enough. Of course, she didn’t want to believe it. Her first favorite group turning out to be a band with a bullying scandal? What kind of insane nonsense was that?
The results of digging around the internet with that thought in mind were rather devastating. There were posts that made it clear she had “been something of a delinquent,” at least in the past, even if not now.
‘But couldn’t she be perfectly fine now? Maybe she turned over a new leaf.’
Of course, judging from the school-bullying cases she had seen so far, that possibility was extremely slim. But overflowing with devotion, Ayoon ignored all those cases and kept digging through the internet.
And when she came to her senses, she was standing in front of Hanseung High. She had been shrinking before teenagers, the most intimidating age group in the world, going around trying to strike up conversations when…
“Why are you looking for Suyeon?”
The person she met was a girl who called herself ‘Park Dain.’
* * *
“Let’s talk while we take a break. Gather round.”
At Suyeon’s words, Iseo and the others huddled around the table. Suyeon, however, went over to her bag, rummaged around, then took out egg tarts and several desserts and laid them out.
“Whoa! What’s this?”
“I bought them for you to eat. I heard it was some famous café, but the line was ridiculously long.”
The desserts looked extremely appetizing, and Iseo’s mouth watered. But there was no dessert in front of Suyeon. Iseo held out a pastry to Suyeon, telling her to eat, but Suyeon waved her hand.
“You guys eat plenty.”
“But still…”
“No, I’m really fine. And listen while you eat. I think we’ll have more than enough time to finish practicing by the deadline. They’re vocal-focused songs to begin with, not the kind that put the emphasis on the instrumental parts.”
‘There really weren’t any difficult songs.’
Iseo thought as she chewed on an egg tart. Juhyeon was a ballad singer with enough clout to put his new song in the upper reaches of Melon even in this age of rampant chart manipulation.
As one would expect from someone at that level, Iseo had assumed the songs would be extremely difficult or hard to master, but they were nothing like that. Every element had been constructed meticulously to support the vocals.
“There are a lot of things like sound effects, so it’d be a little difficult for an ordinary band, but we have a keyboard, so it’s perfectly doable. It’d be great if Hyuna could handle it… We’ll have to try arranging it further, and bring in other session players to deal with whatever we can’t play.”
“So is this it?”
“I don’t know.”
At Iseo’s question, Suyeon twisted a strand of hair slightly. Was there some kind of problem?
“If you think about it normally, we could just keep practicing like this. But judging from the way they talked, I get the feeling they won’t accept us as session musicians, insisting that this clearly isn’t enough.”
“Do you… think so?”
“The looks on their faces when they talked to us, among other things… Listening to them, they didn’t seem bothered because the work would increase; they seemed to dislike the fact that we’d gotten involved at all.”
Iseo wondered if Suyeon was worrying a little too much. Surely they couldn’t be that bad? But then again, the way the staff had lectured them at the end—“We need it in writing”—made her wonder if that really had been their intention.
“Then what do we do?”
“This whole thing started with us being asked whether we could serve as the jazz session musicians for this OST. So what if we serve as session musicians at the concert? It’s not a bad idea to do the full session, either, you know? That sort of thing. But the people handling things on-site really don’t like it….”
Was that so? Iseo glanced over at Suyeon’s face as she considered it, her gaze turned slightly away. So they hadn’t been the ones to request this? Suyeon had gone out and secured this opportunity herself.
Iseo felt something tug at her heart. Suyeon had brought them an opportunity like this for their sake, despite being at the center of the school-bullying scandal—no, maybe “false accusation” wasn’t right… Either way, despite being the person involved.
Had they really just been playing their instruments without enthusiasm, spirits dampened by their previous failure, thinking, ‘If a job comes in, we should just do it,’ without giving it a second thought?
After thinking that, Iseo decided to throw out whatever idea came to mind. She wanted to liven up the slightly subdued mood and rekindle the band’s motivation.
“Me! I have an idea.”
“What is it?”
“Well, it’s not anything specific, but… what if we went beyond simply serving as session musicians and planted the idea in them that working with us was guaranteed to be a smash hit? Like, ‘There’s no one else who can do this for you.’”
She had said it without giving it much deep thought, to be honest. It was vague, something anyone could have suggested. But Suyeon seemed to find a hint in those words; she fell into thought for a moment, then…
“What if we change genres?”
She murmured it softly.
* * *
“Mr. Juhyeon. Are you going to use those kids as session musicians?”
“Well, since the director mentioned it, shouldn’t we? I’ve wanted to try using a band’s sound at least once, too, and it’s not like we have to use them for every concert. They said we only have to use them for the Seoul concert.”
At Juhyeon’s words, the employee’s expression stiffened slightly. Instead of answering, Juhyeon just grinned and told the employee to get back to work.
‘This is tiring…’
That employee had also worked with Juhyeon for a long time. More precisely, most of the people who worked with Juhyeon had been with him for over five years. As a result, they handled things quickly and neatly, and concerts, albums, and the like were generally tailored perfectly to Juhyeon.
But perhaps for that very reason, it also felt as though things had become too stagnant.
‘This is the same.’
Of course, they couldn’t help being negative when their work routine was being disrupted. Even Juhyeon felt somewhat annoyed at the thought of the tightly scheduled work they had maintained for years being thrown out of alignment by some kids who had suddenly appeared.
But the staff were rejecting the band members even more strongly than their annoyance warranted. They would deliberately let comments like “They don’t seem very good” or “What concert uses a band these days? That’s just a fad that’s already passed…” reach Juhyeon’s ears.
‘They’ve gotten too set in their ways.’
Juhyeon thought of the reputation his team had within the company. People said it was a team that had fun among themselves but where newcomers could never fit in. He hadn’t understood when he first heard that, but after seeing this situation, he thought he understood it a little.
“You can go over there.”
As he was lost in thought, a curt voice came from the opposite hallway. Then came the tap-tap of footsteps. It seemed the kids in the band had arrived.
‘Their song was really good…’
Juhyeon recalled the OST song he had received from those kids, [Before the Meeting Ends]. A springy, tingling jazz-style band song with a hint of tension. It had been a fairly refreshing stimulus for Juhyeon, who had sung nothing but ballads every day.
Other than that song, the rest would probably be just like his previous songs. After all, the kids had come as session musicians. He felt a faint sense of regret as he entered the practice room.
“That’s about it.”
When the performance ended, a faint round of applause could be heard. Thinking, ‘Oh, boy…,’ Juhyeon clapped loudly. The others followed suit.
“It’s okay. You did well. It definitely feels different from an MR track since it’s a band song.”
“That said, it might not suit our current concert setup. I know you worked hard, everyone, but…”
The stage manager abruptly hijacked Juhyeon’s words of praise and twisted them in a strange direction. Several employees took up the cue, saying things like, “Ah, I don’t think this is quite right,” and “Do we really need to change this? I think the old version was better,” loudly enough for Juhyeon to hear.
“No, let’s try to think about this positively. We’ve been using nothing but MR tracks. Switching to a band might be a good idea.”
“That’s not how our setup works, Mr. Juhyeon. We’re optimized for MR tracks right now. If a band comes in, everything from the setup onward has to change, and I don’t think it’ll necessarily make things better.”
‘Do they not want to work?’
He got that sort of feeling. As if they simply didn’t want to add to their workload. As if they were thinking, ‘Do we really need to do better than what we already have?’
Of course, his concert team had been improving its work every year—in videos, stage effects, and many other areas. But that was progress in the direction they themselves wanted. To these people, was a band something that would change the very environment in which they had settled?
Juhyeon sighed. They were opposing it this strongly, and he had no justification for forcing the matter. Of course, the singer did have decision-making authority over performances and various other things. But Juhyeon had no reason to side with those kids at the cost of alienating all his staff.
‘The director will just scold me. I’m the main product, anyway, so how badly could he scold me…’
Thinking that, Juhyeon was about to open his mouth to apologize, but a single gesture stopped him. A hand raised at precisely the right moment.
“Just listen to one song, then decide.”
Suyeon said that, then picked up the other guitar propped beside her and began plucking it. It was a melody he had heard somewhere, but the playing was unmistakably different. Compared with the melodic, gloomy ballads Juhyeon made his specialty, it was a plaintive performance that seemed to sink much lower…