Open Mic
Kim Se-jun walked as if spellbound by a siren's song. His steps came to a halt before a beauty with a slender, delicate frame — a woman whose husky voice sat at odds with her looks, singing as her hands moved over a keyboard.
She was already this good, even then.
His expression shifted into something subtle and distant, as if he had just come face to face with a woman from a long-cherished past. These were the songs he had truly loved. This was the singer who had first led him into the world of fandom.
"Lee Ye-eun..."
He murmured her name under his breath and stood watching her still-green busking set.
This is before her debut.
Including Kim Se-jun himself, fewer than ten people had gathered in front of her. Thinking of the stature she would one day reach — when scoring a concert ticket would be like plucking a star out of the sky — he let out a hollow little laugh. Even a singer beloved by an entire nation had started this humbly. The people watching Lee Ye-eun's stage right now had just scored drinking-story material for the rest of their lives.
He was lingering over that idle thought, simply enjoying her song, when a scrap of information suddenly flashed through his mind.
Lee Ye-eun ends up signing with Ares Music, doesn't she?
Ares Music. An agency stocked exclusively with genuinely skilled musicians, whose CEO, Lee Hae-jin, was known as a musical genius. He played the fool on variety shows often enough, but when it came to music his attitude was endlessly, almost fiercely serious. It was a major label that had housed a great many of the artists Se-jun had loved — and, at the same time, the agency he had seriously considered auditioning for around this very period. He hadn't just thought about it. He had been ready to act.
It was probably Se-hoon hyung who told me about it.
He opened his phone at once and pulled up his messenger. Among contacts crowded with longed-for names and familiar ones, he found his cousin's.
Kim Se-hoon. His cousin, and the only person in the family who had ever understood Kim Se-jun's inner conflict. A bear of a man — solid, dependable, and yet endlessly serious when the moment called for it. Someone who had been a real help whenever Se-jun needed to talk things through. More like an older brother than a cousin.
They had always stayed in casual, frequent contact, so he had to scroll a long way back through old messages before he found the one he was looking for.
A conversation from three weeks ago. At the time, Kim Se-jun's reply had been that brief little brush-off. But as the one who had actually sent it, he knew in his bones how much agony had gone into those two words. That agony had lasted a full week. It had taken seven whole days before he could even bring himself to type that answer.
He sent it off at once. Kim Se-hoon must have been busy; the unread mark still hadn't disappeared. Se-jun knew perfectly well his cousin wasn't the type to ignore him, so he closed the phone and turned his gaze back to Lee Ye-eun.
Crisp weather, and his favorite song, live. For the first night after regressing, it was almost too perfect a day.
When Lee Ye-eun's set ended, Kim Se-jun headed home, stopping at a convenience store for cup ramen and a cola. Part of him had wanted to walk up to her and offer even a word of encouragement, but he let the impulse go. It would only have been a burden. Even in his previous life she had been famously fragile — the kind of person whose heart could be undone by the smallest kindness. Better to pass by without making a fuss. That would be kinder to her nerves.
"What a mess."
He hadn't noticed on the way out; his head had been too full. The studio apartment looked like a pigsty. Sheet music packed so densely with notes they resembled clusters of bean sprouts sat in heaps across the desk and the floor, and in the corner, empty cup-ramen lids were stacked in layers. Crumpled beer cans decorated the space around the trash can.
"Well. I wasn't exactly in a good place mentally back then."
The Kim Se-jun of this period had been pushed to the absolute edge. Anticipation and responsibility had crushed down on him, while the hunger for his dream wriggled in his chest as if it might burst his heart. Those two counterweights had gnawed away at his mind until, eventually, even insomnia set in. He had gone so far as to get antidepressants from a psychiatrist. Looking closer, he could see the empty pill packets in the trash.
Remembering his past self drew a dry little smile onto his face. The pity lasted only a moment. He roughly cleared a path through the cluttered floor, then polished off the ramen and the cola. At the same time, his phone buzzed in his hand.
Kim Se-hoon's reply.
Hang in there?
I've got energy to spare.
Kim Se-hoon's worried reply pulled a pointless little laugh out of him. The man had known about the antidepressants, so the reaction made sense. Still — telling someone with depression to "hang in there" was basically a forbidden phrase. Times like this, his cousin really did have a hopeless side.
"Well. He said hang in there, so I might as well give it everything I've got."
In the least filthy corner of the filthy room, a gayageum sat neatly in its place. Kim Se-jun lifted it free and sank into thought.
The Open Mic was two weeks away. Generous, if you wanted to call it that — but for a musician, two weeks was never a long time. It was barely enough. And the goal he was walking into that Open Mic with was not a simple performance.
Lee Hae-jin. A genius musician, and the CEO of Ares Music. Se-jun had to capture the man's heart in a single stroke. Lee Hae-jin, who was endlessly serious about music, would not so much as twitch for an ordinary set.
"And I'll only get to do one song. I have to be even more careful."
The instrument he would play at the Open Mic was a twenty-five-string modified gayageum. It could be tuned to equal temperament, which meant he could perform a wide range of pieces — but it also had the rather annoying drawback of needing to be retuned from scratch for every new song. In other words, the gaps between numbers ran long, and given the nature of an Open Mic, where all kinds of people were setting up and tearing down, doing more than one song was simply impossible.
"Win over a genius musician with a single song..."
It was not going to be easy. And yet Kim Se-jun's face was full of a thoroughly confident smile. The Ares Music artists he had loved — Lee Hae-jin among them, of course — had taught him exactly what kind of singer that man favored. Lee Hae-jin did not simply want "someone who can sing well."
"What Lee Hae-jin always cared about was individuality. He wanted a singer who could sing beautifully while still sounding like no one else."
And as far as Kim Se-jun was concerned, he was a fairly distinctive singer. The gayageum. A vocalist built on the gayageum. People who made a guitar or a piano their signature were a dime a dozen — but a gayageum as a signature? Even he, a man who had come from the distant future, had never seen a personality like that.
"Not bad. And around this time I really did write one song in complete earnest. Aimed it straight at Lee Hae-jin's taste."
He had been serious enough to nearly act on it, and he had written a piece to match.
"It should be around here somewhere. I know I never threw it out. I even found the sheet music again when I moved."
He rummaged through the treasure-like scores scattered around like trash. Seeing those old pages again, he found them surprisingly solid. If he just refined them a little further, they could easily be reborn as genuinely good songs. After a long search, Kim Se-jun picked one up with a look of satisfaction. This score. This was the paper he had been looking for. A song that would hit Lee Hae-jin's taste dead-on.
He took the gayageum and a tuner from the case and began, slowly, to tune the strings — a fairly tedious job, though he hummed under his breath as if he were enjoying every second of it.
From that point on, Kim Se-jun lived inside his practice. Two weeks was barely enough if he wanted to play the piece perfectly, without a single gap. When the day of the Open Mic finally arrived, he headed for Hongdae Station.
True to its name as a street of the young, the station was packed, and Kim Se-jun slipped through the crowd with the case held carefully against his chest, as if even a scratch on the gayageum would be a disaster. He had only just managed to escape the crush around the station when the phone in his pocket buzzed. Kim Se-hoon.
"Hello? Hyung, where are you?"
"I'm in the alley between the New Balance and Adidas buildings. You know the spot, right? Come this way."
He headed where he'd been told, and there was Kim Se-hoon, smoking.
"Se-hoon hyung!"
"Been a while. How've you been?"
The moment he spotted Kim Se-jun, Kim Se-hoon flicked the ash from his cigarette, put it out, and came over to rest a hand on Se-jun's shoulder. Seeing his cousin's younger face up close made the bridge of Se-jun's nose sting for no good reason. He knew exactly how much Kim Se-hoon had worried about him in those days, how much he had helped. The one person who had always believed in him and cheered him on. Without that help, even this plan would have been impossible.
"So what made you change your mind all of a sudden?"
"I just... wanted to try. Felt like I'd regret it for the rest of my life if I didn't do it now."
He had, in fact, regretted it for the rest of his life. I should have at least tried, just once.
"Good. That's the right call. Living the way you want is what matters. Just don't put some huge burden on yourself like you have to do everything you want, either."
"Got it. I wouldn't even have this chance without you, hyung. Thanks."
"Forget it, man. Come on, let's go. You've still got time before your set, right?"
Kim Se-jun nodded. His performance was two hours away.
"Let's grab some food first. We can watch the other sets while we eat."
Se-jun agreed readily and fell in behind him. The place his cousin's friend ran was a two-story bar close to Hongdae Playground. The terrace stood wide open, giving it a genuine sort of charm, and the interior had been done up to match the current trend.
"Nice vibe in here."
"Yeah, they put a lot of work into the interior."
Dim lighting. The walls were plastered with neon signs of cringeworthy phrases, and off to one side sat a stage ready for performances.
"Let's eat first. Two hours is plenty of time."
"Order whatever. But... where's Lee Hae-jin?"
Kim Se-jun had been scanning the room, and when his target was nowhere in sight, the question came out uneasy. If the man didn't show tonight, this whole trip would have been for nothing. Kim Se-hoon took one look at his wildly shaking pupils and burst out laughing.
"Look at your eyes going all shaky. Hahaha. Relax. He'll be here in about an hour and a half. I asked my friend a million times. That's why I specifically lined up your slot for then."
Se-jun let out a long, heavy breath, and Kim Se-hoon laughed all over again at the sight of him. They traded small talk while the food came out, and by the time they had finished eating, those generous two hours had vanished in a blink.
As his turn approached, Kim Se-jun headed to a corner beside the stage and lifted the gayageum free. He checked that none of the pitches had drifted and was just loosening up his voice when Kim Se-hoon hurried over.
"Hey, hey, hey. Se-jun. Lee Hae-jin's here."
The table right in front of the stage. At the end of his cousin's pointing finger sat a man who looked to be in his mid-forties. A clean slicked-back hairstyle. A slim build and a long face. Not handsome, exactly — but he looked intellectual.
"He looks just like he does on TV."
Kim Se-hoon clicked his tongue at the offhand remark.
"What, you're not nervous? You're supposed to catch his eye today. I heard the other singers are going crazy now that they know Lee Hae-jin showed up."
"I am. Scared as hell."
Honestly, he was a little shaky. He had performed more times than he could count — but never on a stage like this. And he had to put on a set charming enough to capture a genius musician. Of course his heart was pounding.
"But hyung."
"Yeah?"
A moment he had waited decades for. He was wildly, almost insanely excited. Kim Se-hoon gave a helpless little laugh and clapped him on the back.
"Go kill it. I'll be cheering for you."
Kim Se-jun nodded, and a moment later the host called his name. Matching the cue, he walked slowly onto the stage, set the gayageum on its stand, and cleared his throat.
"Ah. Hello. My name is Kim Se-jun."
Applause rose with his greeting. He dipped his head in a brief bow, then laid his hands on the gayageum.
"The instrument I'll be playing is the gayageum, and the song is called With Alcohol."
Applause broke out again at the introduction. It's all right. Stay calm. Kim Se-jun drew a deep breath, gathering his trembling heart one more time — and then, slowly, his fingers moved, and he plucked the strings.
The melody that rose from his gayageum. Kim Se-jun's voice, filling the bar to its edges.
Lee Hae-jin, who had been watching the stage with a blank, indifferent expression, began to stir.