Chapter 6

Chapter 6

To be honest, I don’t know either.

No, more precisely, it’s hard to choose.

In my head, ‘If’ always followed me around.

If I had continued the band with my friends, what kind of music and what kind of activities would we be doing now.

While hip-hop became major music, and K-pop later advanced into the world.

What music would we have been doing, and what expressions would we have been making?

Of course, further in time a future where a band boom comes exists, but would we have held out well until then?

Since it was imagination, the future was always rose-colored.

In the imagination, we rebuilt Korea’s band scene with the identity only we had, and were a world-famous band.

This wasn’t simple imagination.

It was the only hobby I had, the remedy that let me endure reality, and the method of picking up regrets.

But imagination became reality.

It meant the moment had come to choose one among the countless appearances I had drawn so far.

So I still don’t know.

But at least if I gather all the members, I had no intention of quietly doing music.

I’ll cause a stir.

I’ll make the people of the world listen to our music.

‘For now, is the school festival the turning point?’

While thinking that, my thoughts returned to the starting point.

“How do I seduce Kang Min and Kim Jihu.”

Keyboardist Kim Jihu at least has a point of contact since he goes to the same music academy as Heo Junseong, but drummer Kang Min I really don’t know.

‘Where is a place Kang Min might appear in this period...’

That guy was a genuine otaku doing ordinary person cosplay, so is he dwelling on Japanese music sites or something?

While thinking that, a call came from Heo Junseong.

“Yeah, what.”

-Hey, at the academy where I learn instruments there’s a Kim Jihu? He plays keys and guitar.

“Yeah?”

-I’m a bit close with this kid. He’s rude though.

“Yeah.”

-But he showed interest after hearing I joined a band? Don’t we need a keyboard?

“Yeah...”

-What? Why’s the reaction like this? Forgot how to talk?

At Heo Junseong’s scolding I came to my senses with a start.

“Yeah yeah. Kim Jihu. Good. Very good.”

-You know him?

“Seems like I’ve roughly heard. A bit rude and plays keys well.”

Suddenly that kind of thought came.

It’s a bit much to call it fate, but we might have been people who were drawn to each other.

Thinking about it, meeting Lee Doyoung at Nakwon Sangga was excessive coincidence.

-But he says he has to hear your song?

“Song?”

-Yeah. He called me an idiot. How have you not even heard your own band’s vocal song yet.

As expected, Kim Jihu.

Rude but sharp.

He’s right.

We’re in the same class and became one team fatefully at Nakwon Sangga, but normally you join a band while weighing the members’ music.

Especially what kind of songs the vocal does is very important.

“Good.”

-What’s good?

“You guys have to hear it too, right? Let’s all look at it together at once.”

-Confident? This guy is picky.

Does Heo Junseong know when I debuted solo?

It was when the group internal discord rumors spread widely, the members who were excluding me posted unhappy on SNS, and the agency put out shitty press releases.

Well, to be exact the order of before and after is the opposite.

The members pulled schemes because they were afraid I’d hit it big solo.

Even in that situation, it was me who satisfied the public with their arms crossed.

Surely Kim Jihu won’t be pickier than those people.

“Set a date.”

-He says how about now?

“Now? You’re with Kim Jihu?”

-Yeah. He’s listening beside me.

“Then call Doyoung too.”

-Where to?

* * *

Heo Junseong, Lee Doyoung, and Kim Jihu.

It was exactly one hour later that I met the three people.

The place was the school band club practice room that could be borrowed thanks to model student Lee Doyoung.

It was a space filled with dust because it wasn’t being used now.

In the midst of that, a familiar face wearing Cheongsol High uniform opened his mouth prickly.

“Sorry for making you sing out of nowhere, but I’m a person who thinks vocals are something you’re born with.”

Well, he’s probably not deliberately trying to speak prickly.

He’s just that kind of guy by nature.

If Lee Doyoung is a kind and gentle model student who only knows studying, Kim Jihu felt like a foul-tempered and picky elite student council president.

He was really the student council president too.

The sharply raised eye corners and tightly closed mouth seem to amplify that feeling.

“Yeah. It’s fine. Because I was born with it.”

“...Credibility is dropping a bit.”

“Is there a song you want to hear?”

“The one you’re best at.”

At Kim Jihu’s words, I can feel Lee Doyoung and Heo Junseong looking at me.

They must have been curious too.

How much I can sing.

I grinned and took the guitar and took my place.

What song should I sing?

The deliberation was short.

As expected, this song seems good.

* * *

Late night. I can’t sleep

I’m Chasing something brilliant.

The moment the fluent voice brushed past between the clean tone guitar, Kim Jihu felt a mood like something was wrong.

It was a song he was hearing for the first time.

But the moment he heard the first verse, he wanted to know, and that mood of something being wrong became concrete.

It wasn’t the kind of wrong like it was different from expectations, or regretting his cold attitude.

‘Can someone sing this well?’

The metaphor is a bit strange, but he sings well to the level of feeling something is wrong.

Someone might think he’s overreacting after only hearing the intro so far, but music isn’t like that.

One measure, one riff, one note.

Putting a lot on the line in a fleeting moment is the art that is music.

From that perspective, Cha Seoha knew how to throw everything.

It’s dark and scary.

But you’re my Moon

Emotions pile up neatly over the melody.

There was no dramatic change in note value, but the emotion is truly rich.

It feels like something will burst any moment.

Night on. I can’t stop

I’m chasing something glorious

But it doesn’t burst right away.

While delicately pointing out the changes, it leads appropriate tension.

People say this kind of vocal has good immersion.

The words are easy but it’s by no means an easy thing.

Even if I fall apart

I’ll rise with your light

Notes continue, sound flows, emotion spreads.

At some moment the thought of evaluating disappeared.

This wasn’t a song he was qualified to evaluate.

Even if he appreciates it he doesn’t have the confidence to contain it all.

He just wants to hear the completed track.

He could probably listen to it over a hundred times.

At that moment, the chorus burst out.

I’m a moon chaser-

Following the moon of you--!

Not a clean high note, but desperately.

A messy, high note.

That feeling of pushing through unknown darkness to find the moonlight that is you.

The moment the tightly constricted throat produced a hoarse tone, Kim Jihu also felt a mood of something blocked in his chest.

At the same time the guitar strum surged and vocal ad-libs poured out.

The thought that entered Kim Jihu’s head was only one.

‘I have to join this band.’

An instinctive, or fateful intuition arose.

That this is the place where I do music.

That together with Cha Seoha he could decorate the stages he had only imagined until now.

But that was the moment.

“Huh?”

Some change happened to Cha Seoha.

* * *

The moment Heo Junseong and Lee Doyoung heard Cha Seoha’s song, they snapped to their senses.

In their eyes Cha Seoha was a fun person, and a reckless friend.

While also having quite excellent guitar skill.

However, since they gathered like friends at the same high school, they had unconsciously thought they were standing on the same line.

But the moment they heard Cha Seoha’s song everything changed.

This...

This isn’t that kind of song.

Cha Seoha was standing in a place so high they couldn’t dare reach out their hands.

Reality came rushing in.

It all depends on them.

They mustn’t ruin such an excellent song with their own playing.

Then doing the band together with Cha Seoha would be holding his ankle.

So...

‘I want to follow.’

‘I want to stand beside.’

If they practice hard and can follow behind Cha Seoha, they can present perfect music.

The impulse to take out instruments right away and start practicing wells up.

The two people recalled thoughts of the same color and concentrated their gazes on Cha Seoha.

At that moment, the song suddenly stopped.

“Huh?”

Because something strange happened.

* * *

There’s a saying I heard a lot while active as an idol.

Cha Seoha doesn’t get nervous.

He never gets scared in any situation.

The reason I went straight to the debut team after a short trainee life is also because of this, and the reason I quickly gathered a fandom is also because of this.

The company’s trainers said it was because he was a taekwondo athlete so he was used to competition.

That he was trained to produce performance under high-intensity pressure.

Managers or team leaders said I was someone born with a big heart.

And my fans...

They said I was a genius idol who crash-landed from idol star.

All grateful words, and thankful things.

Thanks to that I could succeed quickly as an idol and prepare Grandma’s surgery costs.

But those aren’t the answer.

The reason I didn’t get nervous was simple.

Because it felt like I left the real thing behind.

No matter how flashy a stage I went up on, the real me was in the Hongdae practice room.

In the boiling hot rooftop room in midsummer where the air conditioner didn’t even come out properly.

In our nest so cold in midwinter that white breath came out.

And, beside my friends.

I was there.

So I didn’t get nervous.

So...

Suddenly I got nervous.

The me who was fine even at a solo concert that filled Gocheok Dome, even at the year-end music stage the whole nation watched.

Was feeling nervous in the school practice room where the audience was only three people.

Because, this is the real thing.

The moment I realized that, my thoughts headed a bit to the past.

“Ah, these guys have tin ears.”

“That’s guitar riff carry.”

“You’re ignoring guitar? Why do a band?”

“Guys, do you guys really like that...?”

“Let’s just listen to Japanese music.”

The song that we, who had different personalities, different individuality, and even different tastes so it was hard to find a ‘song we all liked together,’ all liked together.

Adam Fritz’s.

That was the song I was singing now.

It wasn’t a famous song.

Because Adam Fritz is a minor singer even in America.

Then why did we like this song?

This was the OST of a movie we all watched together by chance in the workroom.

This movie released about 10 years ago was damn boring.

Kim Jihu had cursed at Heo Junseong for why he rented this kind of DVD.

But the moment the OST came out everything changed.

Because while watching the movie all together on the musty-smelling sofa obtained for free, the moment the music was heard everyone shot up.

So this wasn’t a song.

It was a memory.

It’s absurd talk, but suddenly it hit that I had regressed.

That day, that moment.

That space, that smell, that temperature.

Isn’t it that I can face that once more?

The most beautiful moment I thought had disappeared from my life.

Suddenly the front of my eyes blurred.

Because of tears.