Chapter 99
‘I should have realized sooner that you could do something like that…!’
Myeongjeon thought as he stomped hard on the pedal. The broadcasting station had definitely said that deliberate acts would be punished severely. But what would they do about a “mistake”?
Of course, this was not a mistake at all. It only looked like one to people who did not know any better. Even so, there were plenty of people in the world who did stupid things while thinking, “They won’t catch me, right?”—like ostriches burying their heads in the ground.
To prevent that kind of stupidity, they should have prepared for it from the start. They should have taken precautions beforehand to make such an act impossible…
‘No, that’s not the important part. Am I supposed to raise my hand here and say, “He deliberately broke his string, so please let us perform again”?’
In the brief moment before the sticks crossed for the fourth time, Myeongjeon thought so hard that he could feel time slowing down.
He could leave out the rhythm guitar and just go with a normal solo. That would preserve the mood of the original much better, after all.
‘But then there won’t be any impact.’
Myeongjeon had arranged the song as a whole with two guitars in mind. He had put double guitars into the early and middle sections, and had likewise written the latter-half solo on the assumption that the rhythm guitar would be there.
Over the basic drums and bass, he had planned to reinforce the low-mid range with the rhythm guitar… then layer a high-register solo over that to create a “full sound” unlike an ordinary solo.
If he played a conventional solo in the latter half under these circumstances, it would obviously sound far too light.
‘…A loop station!’
As the fourth stick came down, it was time for the solo. Myeongjeon’s thoughts turned to the Boss RC-2 loop-station effects pedal he had brought just in case. It was a pedal that recorded a performance and played it back as-is, with unlimited overdubbing.
He had never used it extensively in a live performance before… but he had no choice but to make it work somehow.
The first sound that burst through the speakers was strong, but still a rather ordinary guitar tone. Just as the moderately rhythmic phrase ended and the audience was about to show its disappointment, Ha Suyeon stomped on the pedal again.
And then something amazing happened.
Even though no one was playing guitar at that moment… the exact same sound they had played earlier began to play underneath. Suyeon laid another performance over it.
“Ooooh—!”
People clapped as if they were seeing soap bubbles for the first time. But the process did not stop. Suyeon continued playing guitar and stepping on the pedal, and the sounds continued to overlap.
What she had first placed on the ground had clearly been no more than a small mound of dirt. Two performances repeating over roughly one phrase.
But as the number of patterns gradually increased, it began to take on an entirely different shape from the empty opening. Infinite tones and patterns piling up within eight bars. Performances accumulating steadily from the low register to the middle register.
The more the overdubs piled up, the richer and grander the sound became. What had been no more than a mound of dirt became a hill. Then it became a mountain.
Before anyone knew it, a colossal wall of sound had appeared onstage, looking down over and overwhelming the audience. Just as the audience began to feel crushed beneath the endlessly rising sound—
Ha Suyeon, who had been repeatedly stomping on the red pedal… took her foot off it and began clicking another pedal. At the same time, the drums came back in with another fill.
And the real performance began.
Guitarist Kim Jinseo, the “Seo” in [Dohwaseo], the mentor team assigned to Ha Suyeon… watched the guitar performance while gripping his slightly trembling hand.
‘It’s theoretically possible, and plenty of people do it in practice, too.’
The main PD had said the mentors would not have much to do in this competition. They only needed to offer advice to teams that came looking for help, so the mentors had not paid much attention to their assigned teams. While the mentors had been idling around like that, had those kids gone and created a performance like this?
A loop station was an effects pedal people sometimes used when performing alone, taking advantage of its ability to overdub endlessly. If you had bought the pedal, everyone tried something like that at least once, so the performance itself was not particularly special.
But just because something was possible did not mean everyone could do it.
How many people could perform like that live, with no plan, in front of an audience, during an audition where they risked elimination, while keeping even the buildup from becoming boring? Even Kim Jinseo, who had been around the block in the industry for years, could not guarantee that he himself could pull it off.
Just then, perhaps having completed the buildup, Suyeon took her foot off the loop station. Then she stepped on a Boonar and a Wah-wah—a delay effect pedal for adding reverb-like depth, and a pedal named for the “wah-wah” sound it produced.
And the solo that began then struck Jinseo with an impact powerful enough to make his ears feel as though they might fall off.
A high clean tone burst out with enough force to shatter the speaker’s tweeter. A guitar sound reminiscent of David Gilmour’s signature tone took over the stage.
Basic bass and drums. And guitar sounds in the low-mid range, as if they belonged to an orchestra. Over that solidly built foundation, a high-register guitar solo raced mercilessly through the open sky. Her fingers danced along the neck, freely wielding bends and hammer-ons.
Who was it that said it? “The performers who know how to reflect their feelings are the ones who last until the end.” By that standard, that girl would make it to the end. She was reflecting her feelings fully enough. She was making people dance with overflowing confidence, as if declaring that this music would make everyone rise to their feet.
The guitar, ringing out passionately and fiercely, kept changing its rhythm as it approached the latter half, raising the atmosphere higher and higher. The performance, enhanced by well-placed runs and the howls of picking harmonics, turned the mood around once more with the Wah-wah pedal.
“Whoa!”
The guitar’s howl was not something one generally got to hear. Like the name of the Wah-wah effect, it kept going wah-wah, driving the audience’s reaction into an even greater frenzy.
And before anyone knew it, the drum and bass fills filled the space left by the vanished background guitar…
With the sound that brought the performance to a close, the show ended.
* * *
After somehow bringing the performance to an end, Myeongjeon looked at the rhythm guitarist. Even then, the rhythm guitarist was busily replacing the string, trying to show that “I’m doing my best somehow.” The broken string had long since disappeared from the stage.
‘What am I supposed to do with that guy?’
While Myeongjeon was thinking that, the scoring was completed and the staff briefly halted the competition. The band was then escorted to the main PD’s office. While only the rhythm guitarist who had broken the string went inside, the others asked Myeongjeon questions.
“What happened with the broken string?”
“Um…”
In response to the vocalist’s question, Myeongjeon hesitated. Should he say, “I think he broke it deliberately”? Or what?
It might be best to give them a definite answer, but for now, he thought they should watch the situation and choose the course of action most beneficial to them—to Group Sound.
“I don’t know. I’m not sure.”
“Wasn’t it deliberate?”
“No way… Though it was a little strange.”
“It did look like he was doing something earlier.”
As they exchanged those words, a shout that could not be blocked by the office door leaked out. Someone was yelling at the top of their lungs. Myeongjeon guessed it was probably the PD.
“Jeez… Whatever happened, it’s pretty absurd. For the string to break at exactly that moment… More importantly, how did you play that solo?”
“Well, I just played it.”
Myeongjeon told them the truth. The other three looked at him as though it made no sense. What was the problem? Even if he said, “I had a feeling that bastard would cause trouble, so I brought a loop pedal!” the fact remained that he had played the solo on the loop pedal by simply playing whatever came naturally.
Meanwhile, the sounds inside the office subsided. The person who poked his head out was the main PD, Yoon Dongwook.
“Ms. Ha Suyeon, could you come in for a moment?”
“All right.”
After the PD said that and went back inside, Myeongjeon discreetly turned on the phone he had just gotten back, pressed record, and slipped it away again. Since he did not know what kind of situation this would be, he ought to record at least that much.
Dongwook looked at Ha Suyeon as she entered. The victim of this incident. But there was a somewhat complicated problem with leaving her as merely a victim.
“Have a seat first.”
The guy from [Muzaku] who had broken the string, Jung Jaehun, had denied it at first. He said he had not done it deliberately, that it had been an accident.
But when the staff hastily presented the recording and circumstantial evidence, he eventually said that the entire thing had been his own unilateral decision. He had no particular reason; he had simply hated “Ha Suyeon” and wanted to get her eliminated.
Did that make any sense? How could a person act for such a simple reason? In an environment where countless people were shoving cameras in his face, it made no sense to believe he could do something like that without being caught.
At least, that was what Dongwook thought. And that thought of his began to spread further.
‘Couldn’t all of this have been planned from the beginning? Wouldn’t that actually make more sense?’
If it had been a preplanned performance, surely the guy would have said, “It was actually planned in advance.” Dongwook therefore thought that possibility was unlikely. Then… was it right to think that she had turned it to her advantage?
‘From the start, she played completely calmly even though the string broke at the highlight. If I take that into consideration…’
Of course, Myeongjeon had only managed it thanks to his past-life experience, superhuman patience, and overwhelming talent…
Rather than think of it that way, Dongwook decided to choose a simpler explanation, one more to his liking: Suyeon had known in advance, somehow, that the guitarist would break his string, and had turned it to her advantage.
And when Dongwook arrived at the conclusion that, if so, she might tell other people or post about it online…
Dongwook decided to call Suyeon into the office. She could not go around telling people about it.
“We’ll investigate in more detail for now… but even just from the recorded stage footage, it looks clear from the circumstances that this person deliberately broke the guitar string.”
At those words, the guitarist lowered his head even further. Then Suyeon asked,
“Why did you do that?”
The guitarist did not answer. Seeing Suyeon’s expressionless face, Dongwook explained a few more things, then handed the guitarist over to the staff and sent him out.
“First of all, I’d like to apologize that this happened. Once this round’s competition is over, we plan to process that guy’s band, for the time being, as having voluntarily withdrawn.”
“Why?”
“Because pushing things too far wouldn’t look very good.”
Dongwook answered Suyeon’s question. As a matter of “custom” in the broadcasting industry, no matter how serious a problem was, they did not publicly hound someone by going to the press and shouting, “This bastard’s a fucking asshole!” That band would simply be put on the broadcasting station’s blacklist. The rumor would spread to all the other terrestrial networks too.
Besides, Dongwook intended to leak the incident online and draw in another round of attention. Just as he had created and distributed the [Invasion Participant Band Tier List] right before the first audience recording to stir up interest in the show… this was a strategy to spread the story in a more provocative tone, worsen public opinion of [Muzaku], and promote [Invasion].
“Wouldn’t it be better just to reveal the truth?”
“I’d appreciate your understanding on that point. It wouldn’t look very good, you see…”
But Suyeon seemed to think differently. Her tone implied that guitarist “Jung Jaehun” had fallen into his own trap and that she wanted to harvest her prey.
“What wouldn’t look good about it?”
‘Is she suggesting a public execution?’
Listening to Suyeon, Dongwook got a slight chill. Was she really saying that sincerely? Of course, it might be an understandable reaction, since that incident could have caused her to be eliminated from the audition. But if they put it out in the press like that, they would ruin the man’s entire life.
‘She’s scary… Kids these days are scary.’
Thinking that, Dongwook tried to dissuade Suyeon. “Don’t think of it that way. The people from Muzaku will come apologize to you as a group. You can discuss compensation with them and work something out,” he said, and so on.
Suyeon, for her part, had only been curious.
* * *
After finishing the arduous discussion with the PD, and then the belated discussion with the gathered members of [Muzaku], Myeongjeon entered the recording set looking exhausted.
“Suyeon, where did you go without watching our performance?! Why’d you go off somewhere else by yourself, huh?!”
Filming was already nearly over. Ignoring Iseo’s complaint that she had felt hurt after finishing her performance, Myeongjeon plopped down in a chair.
“I’m tired. So tired.”
“Did something happen…?”
Myeongjeon was about to answer Hyuna’s question unconsciously, but stopped and merely said, “Something happened.” In any case, the PD had told him something along those lines.
‘I don’t know what he’ll do for us, but…’
Myeongjeon figured that since the PD owed them, he would do something for them. There was not much to use as leverage, but he had recorded it, at least.
“Did you go eat something by yourself?”
“Huh?”
Seoha said something strange in an utterly matter-of-fact tone. Myeongjeon looked at Seoha for a moment, then watched the final band, whose performance had just ended. After the experts’ evaluations, the displayed score—an appropriate combination of the audience, expert, and mentor scores—was… 74 points. On the electronic board displaying first through eighteenth place, they fell all the way below twelfth place.
“You guys got a 92, didn’t you, Suyeon?”
“Yeah.”
“We’re probably safely through, then~ Everyone performed well. Except Hyuna. Ah! Our Teacher Suyeon must not have seen it because she disappeared somewhere strange instead of watching the performance. We were really good, weren’t we, everyone?”
Perhaps slightly offended, Iseo jabbed Myeongjeon repeatedly with her elbow, speaking sarcastically. Myeongjeon started to say something, then merely chuckled.
“I’ll have to watch it in the broadcast.”
“We were really good~”
“I’m sure you were. Who taught you?”
“Exactly! Who taught us? We practiced until our fingers practically rotted away. Isn’t that too much? While doing this round’s mission, I asked some other people about it. They said no one else practiced that brutally. Isn’t that really too much?”
After giving them a compliment, Myeongjeon got nothing back but a resentful complaint. Shouldn’t they be grateful that he had improved their skills?
As they continued talking, the competition procedures came to an end one after another. In front of the empty audience seats, now that the spectators had already gone home, the MC took the microphone and began to speak.
“With only twelve bands left, and Round 3 now over! The Round 4 mission is… the moment has finally arrived. Band versus band! It’s a one-on-one battle!”
‘Finally, a normal mission.’
Myeongjeon muttered that to himself. A one-on-one battle could still be called a pretty difficult mission. But after going through several insane missions before this, it felt practically like heaven…