Chapter 7
“How much is it?”
“Two million won.”
Myeongjeon nodded, thinking, ‘So it really does cost that much.’ Unlike him, Iseo opened her mouth with a horrified expression.
“What kind of effects pedal costs two million won??”
“You must not know much since you play bass, miss. Classic effects pedals all cost around this much. This one’s even more expensive because there isn’t a reissue model.”
Leaving Iseo to continue arguing with the shop manager, insisting that it was still too expensive, Myeongjeon thought,
‘My pedalboard… and my equipment. If all of it has been scattered, I’ll need at least a hundred million won to put everything back together.’
Even without counting his most expensive piece of equipment, the Dumble Overdrive Special he kept as a collector’s item—something currently worth well over a hundred million won.
The pedalboard he used to carry around alone would easily be worth more than ten million won. Starting with the Sovtek Big Muff right in front of him, things like the Pete Cornish SS-2 and Chandler Tube Driver would each cost well over a million won on the used market.
And if he added things he kept at home for recording, like a Binson Echorec and a Hiwatt amp, along with equipment he had bought as collector’s items and only used occasionally, such as a Klon Centaur overdrive… even if he bought nothing but equipment, he would need at least that much.
Of course, if he had the money, he could simply buy different equipment through Reverb (see Note 1). The days of searching through Nakwon or Ochanomizu in person and hunting down equipment through the phone book were already over.
Or he could replace them with other equipment that served similar functions. A regular Big Muff instead of a Sovtek, or a newer Tube Driver. They might even produce a better sound.
However, he had personally modified the circuits and circuit boards of the equipment he used before, so if possible, he wanted to use his old gear exactly as it was.
But…
“I think I’ll have to buy this, at least for now.”
“Ah! Looks like you’ve got an eye for gear to match your looks. Card? If you pay in cash, I can knock about a hundred thousand won off the price.”
“But I don’t have the money right now.”
So she didn’t have any money.
When she acted as though she might buy it, the shop manager had begun sidling over with a fairly friendly attitude. But the moment he heard that, he backed away and hardened his expression.
“We don’t do credit.”
“I wasn’t planning on that. I just want you to put it on reserve.”
“That much is fine. Leave me your contact information, and if someone comes looking for it, I’ll give you a call. If you don’t make a decision right then, I’ll sell it.”
Myeongjeon nodded instead of answering.
* * *
“You’re really going to buy that effects pedal? It was a total piece of junk.”
“There’s a reason I need to buy it.”
Myeongjeon said that and fell silent. Two million won… He might be able to haggle it down to one and a half million. But where would he get one and a half million won? Of the two million won ‘Mom’ had given him, only six hundred thousand remained.
‘Mom’ seemed well-off, so if he asked her for money one more time, he could probably squeeze about one and a half million won out of her somehow. But what about the equipment after that? Was he supposed to keep asking her for money every time he found another pedalboard component? He couldn’t do that.
“But seriously, I really can’t believe you do music… You didn’t seem like the type at all. When did you start? You’ve been doing it for quite a while, right?”
Perhaps to make up for her earlier embarrassment, Iseo fired questions at Myeongjeon in a rapid stream, then suddenly thought, Oh, crap.
‘She put up with me earlier, but she doesn’t look very happy now. Is she angry? She wouldn’t slap me in the middle of the street, would she? If she tries to take me somewhere without CCTV, I’ll have to hit her first and run…’
“It’s been quite a while.”
In the sudden silence, Iseo flinched when Suyeon raised a hand. But the hand went toward Suyeon’s own chin. Suyeon stroked her chin this way and that, then opened her mouth.
“I need to make money.”
It had only been a few days since he had declared that he would make music for enjoyment, and already he was worrying about this. But it couldn’t be helped. Setup was a matter of feeling.
For example, consider the Boonar multi-head drum echo delay pedal, which was made to replace the Binson Echorec. Even David Gilmour used a Boonar instead of an Echorec, so it should be more than capable of replacing one.
But even while knowing that intellectually, the reality was that he somehow felt something was missing. Something… something was missing, anyway. He couldn’t explain it in words, but something was lacking.
But how could he make money? Myeongjeon fell into thought. In his previous life… he had simply attended every session he was called for, and that was how he made money. It would be difficult to earn money that way now.
As a session musician regarded as top-tier, Myeongjeon had been paid around five hundred thousand won per three-to-three-and-a-half-hour session. It had hardly ever happened, but there had been times when he could make ten million won a month if he really committed himself to working nonstop.
Things would be different now. Because he had no equipment for working sessions.
A session musician had to be able to meet as many of the client’s demands as possible. If someone said, ‘I hate the Fender tone. Bring a PRS,’ then even if he thought, ‘What the fucking hell kind of insane bullshit is that?’ he still had to bring a PRS.
Besides, people often called a session musician based on their tone. But Myeongjeon currently had no equipment with which to reproduce his old tone. A large part of the reason he had received so many session requests before had been the power of the tone created by his equipment and settings. But now that was gone…
“Money?”
Beside him, Iseo watched Suyeon walk along with a serious expression, deep in thought. Why did she need money? Her family must have plenty of it… Ah, was it because of that effects pedal?
“If you want to make money, you’ll have to get a part-time job or something.”
“A part-time job…”
He wondered whether he should return to plastering, something he had learned during the period when he stayed away from music. He had learned it by watching skilled workers for nearly eight years while teaching them music, and had even earned a craftsman’s certificate. Couldn’t he put that to use somehow?
… On second thought, that was also work he had done in his previous life, so it was impossible.
“I really don’t know.”
“What about YouTube? You could film Shorts and upload them, or if you get good promotion on Instagram, I hear you can make a fortune. Kim Hyejin from Class 2 makes a ton of money that way, doesn’t she?”
Who was Kim Hyejin, anyway? Myeongjeon felt his head growing more complicated. And YouTube? He had heard that people made money from it. Maybe three months before he died, a musician he knew had told him he had started his own YouTube channel and asked him to help increase the views. When Myeongjeon followed the link through KakaoTalk, he thought the video had had around fifteen views.
“You probably have tons of ways to make money, Suyeon. You have over ten thousand Instagram followers, so if you start posting slightly more revealing pictures, you could get sponsorships and…”
As she spoke, Iseo suddenly began stammering, “Uh, um, I mean, Suyeon, it’s not like you’re that kind of girl!” Myeongjeon had no idea what she meant, so he merely stared at Iseo.
‘I should check this girl’s Instagram sometime.’
* * *
“Did you go to bed late last night? You look awful.”
“Ah, yes…”
Her daughter got up unsteadily and began spooning up soup. Her face looked utterly hollow. Had she stayed up all night? Sometimes, when Hyein looked in on her in the evening, she could hear the faint sound of a guitar, so perhaps the girl had been practicing at night.
Thinking that made Hyein smile for some reason. The child had always gone somewhere at night, but now she spent more time at home.
Come to think of it, many things had changed since Suyeon was discharged from the hospital.
For starters, there was breakfast, which had begun after Suyeon came home from the hospital. Had it started after the accident and her discharge? Her daughter had begun waking up at the time her mother left for work and eating breakfast with her. It was something Hyein had never even imagined before.
At dinner, too, she always waited for Hyein to come home so they could eat together. Before, even when Hyein got off work on time, Suyeon had either already eaten or said she was going out.
Whenever she went somewhere, she always called or texted. ‘I’m going to Nakwon.’ ‘I’m going to Yongsan.’ They were only brief messages, but the fact that she told Hyein before leaving felt considerate in itself.
‘Maybe she feels embarrassed about the things she did before now that she’s been in an accident.’
‘I’m dying…’
Unlike Hyein’s thoughts, Myeongjeon was having the time of his life in hell. He had not slept a wink the night before. Because he had looked through the traces left behind by the former ‘Ha Suyeon’—her Instagram.
Shameless pictures exposing her cleavage. Pictures of her wearing skirts that reached up to her thighs or shorts that revealed the bottoms of her buttocks. Pictures of herself wearing decadent makeup and making bizarre expressions, or posing in ways that stimulated men’s sexual fantasies.
He didn’t deny that such things existed in the world. Myeongjeon had also lived as a wastrel once.
But if those things became associated with him, that was an entirely different matter.
‘What on earth is the world going to think of me…?’
Without realizing it, Myeongjeon clutched his head while eating soup. The urgent question from ‘Mom’—“Suyeon, does your head hurt?”—never reached his ears.
He couldn’t keep insisting that he didn’t remember anything forever, so yesterday Myeongjeon had told ‘Mom’ that his memories were gradually returning.
“Then you can go back to school now. What a relief. I was worried I might have to report another week of absence.”
Seeing ‘Mom’ smile as she said that, Myeongjeon thought he should have told her sooner if he had known how worried she would be…
‘If this was how it was going to be, I shouldn’t have looked. Was this how Pandora felt after opening the box?’
He had wanted another week to prepare himself to face a world that would look at him like a prostitute, but today was already his first day back at school, so that was impossible.
Myeongjeon could only let out a sigh.
* * *
“Suyonnie!! Why haven’t you checked KakaoTalk!! I really thought you were dead!”
“Ha Suyeon, you fucking bitch~ You goddamn cunt~”
“I heard you got discharged last week~ So why haven’t you posted anything on Instagram? Your followers keep coming to me and giving me shit~.”
Myeongjeon felt so exhausted that even the trip to class qualified as a journey. He ignored the three people waiting for him at the back door, walked to his desk, and dropped into his seat.
The classroom atmosphere grew strangely quiet.
“… What’s wrong with this bitch?”
“Suyeon, did something happen?”
“Who was it? Who made our Suyeon tired!!”
To break the tension, the three of them began putting on exaggerated acts. Watching the children’s antics—or something close to antics—Myeongjeon opened his mouth.
“Guys. After my accident—and this isn’t a joke at all—I don’t remember much.”
The trio looked so shocked their eyes nearly popped out of their heads. The news even prompted murmurs from the other students in the class.
“Seriously?”
“Yeah. So even if I seem a little strange, please cut me some slack.”
“… Come to think of it, the way she talks does seem kind of weird… Wasn’t she different before?”
“By now, you’d probably already be hearing her copy-pasting stuff like, ‘What the motherfucking fuck~’”
“But isn’t that serious?” the three said as they perched in front of Myeongjeon’s desk, then continued talking.
“So why didn’t you check KakaoTalk?”
“I told you. I don’t remember anything.”
“No, fuuuuuck~ If your brain’s too stupid to check KakaoTalk, you shouldn’t even be able to talk! You just ignored us because you couldn’t be bothered, you bitch. I bet you checked all the guys’ KakaoTalk messages. Such a man-crazy—”
As the girl continued spouting off, she suddenly snatched up his phone and unlocked it with facial recognition. She cheerfully checked something, then her expression abruptly stiffened.
“Why?”
“This bitch really didn’t check anything. She didn’t even read the homeroom teacher’s KakaoTalk message. No wonder the homeroom teacher said she couldn’t get in touch, heh heh heh…”
“It’s true. Hey~ Look at all the messages from guys down here. Is this the life of a celebrity with ten thousand Instagram followers? Please, if there’s even one decent guy, toss him my way.”
The girls kept chattering as they looked through his KakaoTalk. Watching quietly, Myeongjeon saw them start judging the men by their profile pictures.
Rather than say anything, Myeongjeon let out a deep sigh.
The day he had ended up trapped in this body, he had thought living an ordinary life would not be difficult. Attend school as a high school girl, go to university, get a job at an ordinary company. What could be so hard? He simply had to follow the path laid out for him.
But a few days later, Myeongjeon realized that this ‘ordinary life’ was not easy.
Even the conversation with the girl named ‘Choi Iseo’ yesterday had drained him terribly. And now? Not even a few minutes had passed.
“I have to keep doing this for more than two years?”
His mind was far too old for that… or so he wanted to say, but by now even his mental energy was perfectly fine. It was only Myeongjeon’s old, sick self that couldn’t endure it.