Lee Ye-eun (3)
A scream ripped from his sister's room, and Lee Joo-sung nearly leapt out of his chair.
"Why—what's going on?!"
He yanked the door open and rushed inside. Lee Ye-eun was clutching a pillow, her eyes brimming with tears.
"Ye-eun?"
"Oppa..."
The sight of those swimming eyes left Lee Joo-sung unable to hide his panic. His sister had always been emotionally volatile; tears were nothing new. But weeping this bitterly was something he hadn't seen in a very long time — not since their parents' accident three years ago.
"I... I became a trainee at Ares Music..."
"...! Wh-what?"
"*Sniff*... I... I got a contract with Ares Music..."
She repeated herself through hitching breaths, but Lee Joo-sung couldn't quite take it in.
"What happened? Calm down and tell me. You're signing with our company, just like that?"
She had kept it a secret, afraid of putting needless pressure on him. The higher the hopes, the harder the fall — and she hadn't wanted to plant expectations in her brother that might come to nothing. But the result was in now, and she told him, as steadily as she could, everything that had happened. Her busking. Meeting Kim Se-jun. The audition that had followed.
The more he heard, the more his face transformed — surprise, then a swell of raw emotion, all of it aimed at Kim Se-jun.
Hahh... Hyung-nim. Thank you so much...
Lee Joo-sung dropped his head, the feeling rising too fast to hold.
I'm really blessed, aren't I...
Kim Se-jun. His kind, considerate artist. Just being that singer's manager had felt like a blessing. To receive a grace this large on top of it was more than he had ever imagined.
The two of them had lived alone together since their parents' accident. His feelings for his little sister ran tender and deep in a way that was entirely their own. After the accident, music had been her only joy in life, and her dream of becoming a singer had grown from that joy as naturally as breathing. He had chosen the manager's path specifically to help that dream from the sidelines — to become the reliable support at her side.
"You have to do well, Ye-eun. You understand?"
"Yeah... Oppa..."
The tears still wouldn't stop. Lee Ye-eun nodded as she wiped them away, and Lee Joo-sung stepped close and stroked her hair, the words coming out with everything he felt behind them.
"Congratulations. You worked so hard, Ye-eun."
When Kim Se-jun heard that Lee Ye-eun had entered Ares Music as a trainee, he dove straight back into his own work. He had done everything he could to help. The path from here was one she would have to carve out herself. Trainee life would not be easy — but she would manage it. He was sure of that.
"Which means the immediate problem is the duet with Kang Yu-na..."
His next plan was a duet with Kang Yu-na — a plan still sitting on a blank page, without so much as a sketch.
"What concept should we go with..."
Tapping the desk with his fingers, Kim Se-jun sank into thought.
"Honestly, with Kang Yu-na, any concept would work."
Ballad and dance, folk and R&B, even hip-hop. Kang Yu-na had a spectrum wide enough that genre simply didn't apply. Her ability to pull off a sexy concept as skillfully as anything else was one of the reasons the public loved her so much — you could call it a pillar of her popularity without stretching the truth.
"Is there something even Kang Yu-na hasn't done?"
That very strength — the way she could summon any color on the spectrum — was, for Kim Se-jun, the problem.
"An ordinary song wouldn't satisfy her."
The rhythm of his fingers against the desk quickened.
"And I want to do something original too..."
His brow furrowed of its own accord. One worry piled onto the next. He clutched his head and thought until thinking itself felt useless, and still no idea came.
Kim Se-jun let out a long breath, stretched, and switched on his computer. Hanging on like this never produced anything good. To air out a clogged head, he opened MeTube.
They were videos he put on whenever he needed to sort a cluttered mind: covers of all kinds of songs, played on the gayageum. Listening with an empty head always left him feeling clearer. He scrolled lazily, chin in his hand, debating what to watch — and at the same time, another thought surfaced.
"I should start a MeTube channel soon too."
A new ambition quietly poked its head up. MeTube was already a wildly popular global platform — and with every passing year, that popularity would only double.
"I could upload cover videos of other artists' songs there, couldn't I?"
Gayageum covers. Not just Korean pop — famous overseas hits sweeping the Billboard charts, even the immortal classics that had endured indifferent years and were still talked about. It had been an old hobby of his. Now it was a weapon that would serve him well.
"It might even catch on globally."
In the future, there had been idols who built global fame through the internet alone, without ever setting foot on an overseas stage. There was no reason he couldn't become one of them. The thought of that rosy future drew a smile to his lips all by itself.
"I'll think about MeTube too... huh?"
As he finished the thought, still scrolling out of habit, a peculiar video caught his eye.
"This... looks interesting."
The monitor was etched into his gaze. What filled Kim Se-jun's eyes was a fresh, unexpected face of gugak — traditional Korean music, made new.
When the two-week break ended, Kim Se-jun headed for Kean Entertainment Headquarters. He climbed into Lee Joo-sung's car, which had come to pick him up, and let himself sink into the swaying ride.
"Hyung-nim. Thank you."
"Hmm? Ah... Ye-eun?"
At Lee Joo-sung's deep voice, Kim Se-jun opened his eyes. He didn't need an explanation. He could guess easily enough what this was about. The eyes watching him in the rearview mirror were full of emotion.
"Ah, don't look at me like that. You're making it heavy."
Kim Se-jun answered playfully, but Lee Joo-sung's gaze didn't change.
"I'm sincere, Hyung-nim. Thank you so much. Because of you, Ye-eun got into Ares Music."
"No, it's nothing..."
Even without his help, she was fated to join Ares Music someday. Accepting Lee Joo-sung's excessive reverence at face value was more than a little uncomfortable.
"To tell you the truth, after our parents passed, Ye-eun had a very hard time."
Lee Joo-sung's confession came carefully. Kim Se-jun listened in silence. He already knew. As a fan of Lee Ye-eun, there was nothing he wouldn't have known. In interview after interview, she had said it like a habit: after her parents died, the things that had comforted her were music, and her only older brother.
"What gave that Ye-eun her vitality back was music. Watching my sister, who had been wasting away, slowly come back to life — I made a vow. That I would make her dream come true, no matter what."
Moisture had begun to enter Lee Joo-sung's voice. At that honest confession, Kim Se-jun swallowed a sound in his throat. Knowing a fact and hearing it from the person who had lived it were two different weights.
"That's why I started working as a manager, too. I thought if I entered the industry first, it might somehow help."
"I see..."
"But I truly never expected to receive a favor like this from you, Hyung-nim. Thank you. Truly. Thank you."
If he hadn't been driving, he looked ready to climb out and perform a full ceremonial bow.
"That's enough. Don't thank me so much. Just be like usual. It'll be awkward if you go all stiff on me like when we first met."
Kim Se-jun waved the gratitude off, tossing the joke as if to lighten the air, and Lee Joo-sung nodded with a small smile. Seeing that, Kim Se-jun closed his eyes again and leaned back into the seat. Lee Joo-sung looked at him and engraved a deep resolution in his heart.
I will serve Hyung-nim as my benefactor for the rest of my life.
Kean Entertainment, located in Samseong-dong, Gangnam-gu, had been acquired by Hyoun Group — and the headquarters was built to match.
"Wow..."
Ares Music occupied a four-story building of its own, which was hardly small. Kean Entertainment, though, used an entire eight-story building.
"Having money really does make a difference."
A scale that would have been impossible without conglomerate power behind it. As he looked around the building, he sent Kang Yu-na a message. A reply came almost immediately.
Annoying person?
He wondered if she'd picked up a stalker, but he didn't pry. She'd handle it just fine without him sticking his nose in.
The conference room Kang Yu-na had named had three desks arranged in a U-shape and a massive screen on the wall. He and Lee Joo-sung waited there, sipping water. Twenty minutes passed. Then Kang Yu-na pushed the door open and hurried inside.
"I'm sorry. The conversation ran long."
The thought that Kim Se-jun had come all the way to the building only for her to be the one who was late made Kang Yu-na bow deeply at the waist.
"It's fine. It's been a while. Have you been we— huh?"
Kim Se-jun, who had risen to greet her, froze in an awkward half-standing crouch. A man had come in on Kang Yu-na's heels. He was middle-aged, though he looked younger than Lee Hae-jin — a neatly handsome face in a clean suit, with dissatisfaction carved into it as if something had already displeased him.
"Please say hello. This is our company's CEO."
"Cha Tae-gyu."
At Cha Tae-gyu's nod of greeting, Kim Se-jun bowed deeply.
"Kim Se-jun."
The CEO of Kean Entertainment. Moreover, the very man who had discovered Kang Yu-na. Not someone to take lightly. Lee Joo-sung, too, was clearly startled by Cha Tae-gyu's sudden appearance.
Don't tell me the 'annoying person' is the CEO?
The text Kang Yu-na had sent earlier floated back. Whether there had been some kind of trouble, the two of them were looking at each other with matching dissatisfaction. Kang Yu-na was shooting Cha Tae-gyu a sidelong glance, and the inference came easily.
She can call the CEO annoying?
He was still processing Kang Yu-na's bluntness when Cha Tae-gyu sat down, and Kim Se-jun sat as well.
"You're not uncomfortable that I tagged along, I hope?"
"Not at all. The CEO's input will be a great help."
Kim Se-jun answered with an easy smile. Kang Yu-na grumbled beside him.
"Old fogey..."
"Ahem... getting to the point. Yu-na's spectrum is extraordinarily wide. When people think of a duet, they usually think of a love song — but she's already done that."
He knew. The album she'd released not long after debuting. A song that had hit number one on the charts and been loved across the country. The idol who'd been her duet partner had ridden that wave to considerable fame of his own.
"So this time, we want something different... a song that can also serve Yu-na's career. That's part of why we chose you, Se-jun. Because you're unusual. Distinctive."
"I feel the same way. I wanted to try something different with Yu-na."
He had already anticipated what Cha Tae-gyu wanted. That was why he'd been racking his brains for days.
"I heard from Senior Lee Hae-jin that Oppa has a lot of songs already written? Is there anything good among them?"
Kang Yu-na leaned forward, her eyes sparkling.
The songs I've written so far...
Tracks still in his hands, including With Alcohol. He could proudly call them masterpieces — but Kim Se-jun shook his head. They weren't different enough to satisfy what Kang Yu-na and Cha Tae-gyu were hungry for.
"They're not bad, but I don't think they'd suit you, Yu-na."
At that, Kang Yu-na pouted. Disappointment sat thick on her face — and so did a considerable amount of cuteness.
"Then... do you have something in mind?"
"Hmm... I do have something pretty fresh."
Color rushed back into Kang Yu-na's face at the confidence in his voice. Cha Tae-gyu, too, looked at him with a sudden spark of interest.
"It's love, but... a special kind of love."
"A special kind of love?"
"Family. Love for family."
In that instant, the anticipation drained from Kang Yu-na's eyes. Maternal love, paternal love. Songs that told those stories weren't common — but they weren't unheard of, either.
"A family story as a duet... it's novel, but it's a little disappointing."
She blurted it out without a filter, and Cha Tae-gyu thought, figured as much, and let his expectations drop. Kim Se-jun shook his head at the two of them, a smile of quiet triumph on his face.
"A cl... classic?"