The First Broadcast
"Whew. Jin-ah's a massive hit — but will Se-jun be all right?"
"I don't know any more than you do. If I did, would I be sitting here with my hands shaking?"
"Is it greedy to just hope he cracks the real-time top hundred?"
"It is. Of course it is. He's a complete unknown. And yet... maybe it's because it's Se-jun, but I can't help feeling this flicker of expectation..."
Ha Dong-jun had no argument with a word of it. The song was strong, and everything had fallen into place with almost suspicious smoothness. The exclusive interview with Kim Se-jun had exploded across the press, and once Lee Jin-ah's track took off, Ares Music had seized the moment, blanketing every outlet they could reach with promotional pieces.
Even so, this was an industry where success never came easy.
"Well. Even if it doesn't happen right away, there's still the broadcast. He could always climb steadily."
No expectations, no disappointment. Muttering as if he could talk himself out of hoping, Lee Hae-jin opened a music site on his phone. It was one in the morning — an hour since Kim Se-jun's new song had gone live. As if mirroring him, Ha Dong-jun pulled out his own phone.
The screen of Music In, the country's largest streaming platform, loaded. The instant they opened it, the banner they had poured so much effort into securing was right there: Kim Se-jun, holding a gayageum.
Good banner.
They tapped through to the real-time chart. Sitting at the very top was Lee Jin-ah's Lotus. After that, they kept scrolling — thumb after thumb after thumb.
Once. Then once more. And once... more?
Lee Hae-jin's thumb, already moving to scroll again, jerked to a halt. His eyes went wide. Unable to believe what he was seeing, he snapped his head up toward Ha Dong-jun — who, having just seen the same thing, was staring back at him in equal shock.
"Hyung?"
"Is this real...?"
As if neither of them could trust his own screen, they held their phones out to each other.
It was an unprecedented smash.
"Whoa—oh—oh—oh!"
While Lee Hae-jin and Ha Dong-jun were still doubting their own eyes, Kim Se-jun sat at home with his lip bitten white, checking his phone with a palm so damp it nearly slipped from his grip — and let out a cry of pure, stunned joy.
"Th-thirty-sixth?"
A ranking he could see and still not believe. Lee Hae-jin and Ha Dong-jun had warned him, again and again, not to get his hopes up, and he had dutifully lowered them. The fate of his own song was a future even he did not know; he could not swagger the way he had over Lee Jin-ah's Lotus, and a small knot of anxiety had coiled in his chest whether he liked it or not.
"This counts as a smash, right?"
He had told himself that cracking the top hundred by the end of the day would already be a miracle. And now he was sitting in the mid-ranks of the chart. In a business where singers vanished without ever seeing their names listed once, a rookie like Kim Se-jun landing on the chart on release day was the kind of thing people called impossible — and the proof of it came pouring in, congratulatory messages from Lee Hae-jin, Ha Dong-jun, and everyone else who had been watching. Amid the ceaseless cascade of alerts, Kim Se-jun felt tears prick at the corners of his eyes.
It was the moment a dream he had cherished for decades had finally come true.
"But this is only the beginning."
His gaze climbed to the very top of the Music In chart and stayed there, greedy and unblinking. He was happy. He was not satisfied.
Reading review after review stuffed with nothing but praise, Kim Se-jun could not keep the warmth from spreading through his chest. The glowing comments alone were enough to soften something in him, and they made the walk to the office feel impossibly light. Overnight, his Lotus had climbed two more spots and settled at thirty-fourth, rising as steadily as anyone could ask.
The moment he arrived, everyone who saw him had a word of congratulations, and Kim Se-jun smiled and bowed to every one of them. He headed for Lee Hae-jin's office — a room that had grown familiar by now — and found not only Lee Hae-jin waiting, but Lee Jin-ah and a man he had never seen before.
"You asked for me, sir?"
"Hey. Se-jun! Congratulations."
"Congratulations, Se-jun."
"Congratulations."
Caught between Lee Hae-jin, Lee Jin-ah, and the stranger's slightly awkward well-wishes, Kim Se-jun scratched the back of his head, sheepish.
"Thank you. It's all thanks to you, sir."
He meant it. Without this man, he would never have come this far.
"Enough of that — you're going to make me blush. Introductions. This is Lee Joo-sung. Starting today, he's your manager."
"A pleasure to meet you. My name is Lee Joo-sung."
The man bowed at a full ninety degrees. Kim Se-jun returned it, a little thrown.
"Ah — likewise. Kim Se-jun. Did you say manager?"
"You're about to start promoting. You can't go running around without a manager. Things are only going to get busier. You'll need someone in your corner."
"I will give it everything I have!"
Watching Lee Joo-sung bow again, Kim Se-jun managed a slightly helpless smile. The man who was about to become his manager had, for lack of a better phrase, the air of a fresh civilian who had just been discharged from the army. This was the person he would be moving as one body with from now on. He looked wound far too tight — but that was not a bad thing. Better a man this stiff than one who showed up on day one already slouching. Once they got to know each other, the starch would come out of him.
Kim Se-jun let his gaze leave the new manager and turned to Lee Jin-ah with a bright smile, offering congratulations of his own.
"Congratulations, noona. On taking first place."
Kim Se-jun was thirty-fourth. Lee Jin-ah was first. If anyone in this room had been overdue for a celebration, it was her.
"Thank you. Let's grab a meal sometime. Honestly, I think the lyric concept did a lot of the heavy lifting."
Kim Se-jun waved the praise off with an easy laugh.
"You're the one who brought the song to life, noona."
It was not empty courtesy. She would have taken first without a scrap of his help.
"You're both doing too well right now — which is why a broadcast offer just came in for the two of you. This Friday. Both of you, get ready."
"Oh my god, really? Se-jun and I are going on together?"
Lee Jin-ah bounced on her toes, delighted, and a spark of anticipation lit in Kim Se-jun's eyes.
"Yeah. Bae Jin-goo's Music Festival. It's the teacher's own program. They did the remake, and he's always been fond of Jin-ah, so it looks like he pulled a few strings. Jin-ah's the main booking; Se-jun, you're just a guest. Still — you know this isn't the kind of chance that falls into a rookie's lap, right?"
"...Is that true?"
Kim Se-jun blinked. His first broadcast — and it was terrestrial television.
"Yeah. Sounds like the teacher leaned hard on the production team. And they figured it would make good television."
"Landing a network show for your first broadcast is a big deal, Se-jun. You get that, right?"
I know. I know it far too well.
Even in his previous life, when he had made his name as a master of the gayageum, the number of times he had been filmed for terrestrial television could be counted on one hand. And now his very first broadcast as a debut artist was a network show? The popularity of pop music settled over him all over again, freshly, viscerally real.
"Thank you!"
Kim Se-jun bowed once more. Lee Hae-jin waved him off.
"Go thank the teacher. Honestly, this was his doing more than ours."
The road home from the office was different from usual. Starting today, he was riding in a car driven by Lee Joo-sung himself. His body was certainly more comfortable. The atmosphere inside the car, however, was so thick with awkwardness that it was a strain of a different kind.
Not much of a talker, is he?
Watching the silent back of the man who did nothing but drive, Kim Se-jun ventured a word.
"Um. Joo-sung?"
"Yes?"
"How old are you?"
"Ah — I am twenty-five, sir."
"Oh. Younger than me, then. You can drop the formality. I'm twenty-six, so it's only a year. No need to treat me like I'm made of glass."
"Understood. If you speak comfortably, I will do the same."
What a tough nut.
Kim Se-jun clicked his tongue inwardly at the knife-sharp reply. This was not a fresh civilian just out of the service. This was a raw recruit who had just enlisted. He kept tossing questions at the rigidly upright man in the driver's seat — hometown, family, how he had ended up in management, the simple things — and Lee Joo-sung answered every one of them without a single question in return, steady and mute as a wall.
People this bad at small talk are rare, honestly.
It was a little stifling, he could not deny that. And yet there was nothing lightweight about the man, and Kim Se-jun found he did not mind it at all.
These are the ones who turn out to be gold once you get close.
"Nothing you want to ask me?"
It came out a bit like a senior addressing a new recruit. Lee Joo-sung, as if he had been waiting for exactly that, opened his mouth at once.
"I — would it be all right if I asked how you came to sign with Ares Music?"
Huh? Where did that come from?
The question was so unexpected that a question mark bloomed in Kim Se-jun's head, and a brief, startled silence filled the car.
"Ah — I have a younger sister who dreams of becoming a singer. I thought it might be of some help to her... If I offended you, I sincerely apologize!"
Taking the silence for displeasure, Lee Joo-sung blurted out an apology, and Kim Se-jun jumped.
"No, no — what's there to be offended about? I was just thinking how to put it. It was a coincidence, really. I ended up at an Open Mic, and CEO Lee Hae-jin happened to be there. That's how I got scouted."
"Ah, I see. Thank you! I'll have to tell Ye-eun. Open Mic..."
He muttered it to himself as if committing it to memory, and Kim Se-jun's eyes went wide at the name.
Ye-eun? Don't tell me — Lee Ye-eun?
A young woman's face flickered through his mind. He shook his head a moment later and swept the thought away.
No. Same name, that's all.
Bae Jin-goo's Music Festival. A music program broadcast on terrestrial BBS. It aired late at night, but it had a loyal audience and a respectable following as music shows went — five years on the air already, built on conversation between Bae Jin-goo and his guests and on live performances that offered viewers their quiet share of pleasure and feeling. Bae Jin-goo's gentle, considerate way with words was praised as much by the people who appeared on the show as by the people who watched it.
The moment they arrived at the BBS building, Kim Se-jun went straight to Bae Jin-goo's waiting room.
"It's an honor to meet you, sir! I'm Kim Se-jun — a rookie. I should have come to pay my respects much sooner. I'm sorry that I didn't."
He bowed deeply the instant he stepped through the door. Bae Jin-goo — a giant of the Korean music world, a man who commanded a respect from his juniors that words could barely hold. A senior of impeccable character who had passed sixty without a single whisper of scandal. Having remade one of this man's songs, Kim Se-jun should have come to greet him long ago; the timing had simply never lined up. For a junior standing this far down the mountain, it was a serious breach of courtesy.
Bae Jin-goo only smiled so brightly that the deep lines in his face folded even deeper, and welcomed him in.
"Aigoo. Come in, come in. When you're busy, these things happen. If anyone should be saying thank you, it's me — for remaking my song so beautifully. I listened. It was genuinely good."
"You're too kind, sir. And I heard you were the one who first suggested I appear tonight. I'm truly grateful!"
"How could I not? When a song is made that well, of course you get curious."
"Sir?"
Kim Se-jun blinked, and Bae Jin-goo smiled.
"A song that good — you can't help wondering what it'll sound like live. I'm looking forward to it."
Lee Jin-ah arrived right on time after wrapping another shoot, and filming for Bae Jin-goo's Music Camp got underway. Bae Jin-goo went up first, greeting the studio audience and opening the show; then, on his introduction, Lee Jin-ah stepped onto the stage. Kim Se-jun, by contrast, could do nothing but wait in the wings, fidgeting with his gayageum.
Today's main act was Lee Jin-ah. All Kim Se-jun had to do was appear after she finished Lotus and answer her with his own version — a response song, nothing more. It was not a large part, by any honest measure. His heart still hammered with anticipation all the same.
This was the day of his first official stage. His first time on broadcast.
My first official stage...
Trying to quiet the pounding in his chest, he stole a glance at the stage. Lee Jin-ah was in the middle of a song, her clear tone filling the hall, her face luminous under the soft lights and full of happiness. Watching her, Kim Se-jun murmured with something like envy.
"I want to get out there already."
The hunger to stand in front of people and sing rose in him all at once, and life flooded back into his face. Bae Jin-goo's words from the waiting room were still vivid in his ear. I'm looking forward to it. Remembering them, Kim Se-jun closed his hand into a tight fist and made a quiet vow.