The Test
There were two conventional paths to becoming a singer. You became a trainee, or you auditioned. Or you walked into a company yourself, demo CD in hand.
But I'm none of those three.
Because his method was anything but ordinary, a worry had begun to take root — that someone inside Ares Music might look at him sideways. Put bluntly, rumors could easily start circulating that he had gotten in on Lee Hae-jin's connections and nothing more.
It might be a needless worry. But society isn't always a beautiful place.
The experience of having lived to forty-six sounded the alarm. Walk in like this, and it would not be easy.
And so Kim Se-jun swallowed the urge to call Lee Hae-jin and sat down in front of his computer instead.
Let's prepare a little more thoroughly.
The moment he launched a familiar program, a flicker of fondness rose in him.
Cbase.
One of the most widely used sequencers in South Korea. Among the various options — Roel, FE Studio, and the rest — this was the software Kim Se-jun had always favored.
The melody and the chords are already locked in. What I need to focus on is the arrangement and the MIDI sequencing.
Sheet music lay scattered all over his room, the pages packed with melodies and chords he had composed himself. On top of those were the songs he had written now and then even after turning twenty-six. They existed only in his memory now, so the exact chords and melodies escaped him — but a handful he could still hum well enough.
That's enough.
A confident smile touched his lips, and Kim Se-jun's hands set to work.
A week later, having finished arranging both of the songs he had envisioned, Kim Se-jun placed a call to Lee Hae-jin.
"Hello?"
"Ah — hello? Is this Lee Hae-jin's number? This is Kim Se-jun. I sang at the Open Mic that night."
A brief silence followed, and then the answer came.
"Ahem. Yes. That's right."
"I'm sorry it took me so long to get in touch."
"It's fine. You needed time to think it over, I'm sure."
"Thank you for understanding. It wasn't so much thinking as preparing, actually."
Preparing. The word sparked a flicker of curiosity in Lee Hae-jin, but he let it pass.
"This isn't a conversation for the phone. Shall we meet in person?"
"That works for me."
"Hmm. Give me a moment."
Lee Hae-jin checked the calendar on his desk, then spoke again.
"Three days from now, two in the afternoon. Can you come to the company building?"
Ares Music Headquarters sat in Cheongdam. From Kim Se-jun's studio apartment near Sinchon, an hour would be more than enough.
"Understood. I'll be there."
"I'll let the staff know you're coming. See you in three days, then."
"Yes. Thank you."
With Kim Se-jun's last words, the call ended, and Lee Hae-jin laughed, amused.
He did not enjoy saying this kind of thing about himself, but Lee Hae-jin knew better than anyone that his name did not come cheap. He knew, too, what a single one of his business cards was worth. He knew how badly street singers wanted one, and how a single phone call with him could set a rookie singer's heart racing. That was the typical attitude of newcomers facing a man who was both an artist nicknamed a music genius and the president of a rock-solid management company called Ares Music.
Kim Se-jun was different.
Calling a week late — that much he could let slide. The kid had said he needed time to prepare. But even after receiving Lee Hae-jin's card and waiting a full week to call, there had not been a trace of anxiety or impatience in him. The voice on the other end of the line had been strangely, almost unnervingly, calm.
In Lee Hae-jin's experience, rookies like that came in two varieties. A cocky little fool who overestimated himself — or a bold, once-in-a-generation talent brimming with real confidence.
On the day of the appointment, Kim Se-jun set out for Ares Music Headquarters.
It was about a ten-minute walk from Cheongdam Station. The neighborhood was thick with entertainment agencies, and as he drew closer to the building, he felt the atmosphere shift. It was an ordinary street, and yet here and there among the pedestrians were the aspiring idols — striking faces, expressions brimming with confidence.
"Weird," he murmured, watching them, and snuck a glance at his own face in his phone's front camera.
"This should be fine..."
He whispered it in a gloomy undertone, already picturing the future waiting for him. Even if he debuted, he suspected, people would call him a singer of skill rather than looks.
He folded the gloomy thought away and walked on, and a four-story building rose up to greet him. A modern structure, with the sign for Ares Music hung large across its face.
"I'm finally here."
The corner of Kim Se-jun's mouth lifted, just slightly. How long had it taken? Even a rough count put it at around twenty years. Twenty years of wanting to walk into an agency like this.
Heart lifted, he stepped inside, and the woman at the reception desk caught his eye — neatly tied hair, striking wide eyes.
"I have an appointment with CEO Lee Hae-jin."
He approached and spoke, and she smiled, answering in a warm, courteous voice.
"May I have your name?"
"Kim Se-jun."
"We've been told to expect you. Please go to the room on the far left of the fourth floor."
He bowed his head in thanks at the kind directions and stepped into the elevator. A moment later, hurried footsteps echoed behind him. The doors, just beginning to close, were hastily caught, and a man scrambled in.
He was out of breath, disheveled from the sprint, and even that could not hide his charm. A straight, high bridge of a nose. Dark, striking brows. A handsome face, and a tall frame that had to be six feet — a refreshing, open-looking man who wore the height well.
He's still so young, too.
The familiar face pulled the thought out of him before he could stop it.
"Jang Jun..."
It had been a mutter, nothing more — but in the tight space of an elevator, it was more than loud enough. The man named Jang Jun turned toward him.
"Huh? Were you calling me?"
"Ah, no. I was talking to myself."
Jang Jun studied him, unconvinced, and tilted his head.
"You don't look like you work here. How do you know me?"
It was a fair question. Right now he was a rookie singer barely anyone had heard of, and the debut album he had put out not long ago had sunk without a ripple.
But in a few years, he'll release a nationally beloved masterpiece and become the face of Ares Music.
Kim Se-jun had loved his songs. Once he had fallen for them, he had gone looking for the rest of the discography — the debut album included.
"I'm a fan. You put out your first album not long ago, right? I enjoyed it."
Jang Jun let out a breath of genuine wonder.
"Wow... I can't believe anyone actually listened to a song that vanished without a whisper. Thank you. If it were up to me I'd even give you an autograph, but I've got a meeting with my team leader right now. Anyway — really, thank you."
The fourth floor was too short a ride for much more, and when the doors opened Jang Jun stepped out first, tossing a goodbye over his shoulder.
He seems like a good guy.
Cool and easygoing, like a midsummer breeze. Kim Se-jun found himself smiling, a little dazed.
I wonder who I'll run into next.
The thought of the Ares Music artists he would soon be sharing a roster with set his heart knocking against his ribs. And the thought of actually working with them — of course it would. Carrying that pulse of anticipation, he made his way, unhurried, toward the room the receptionist had indicated.
He knocked. Lee Hae-jin's voice told him to come in.
"I'm Kim Se-jun. We spoke on the phone."
"Lee Hae-jin. Have a seat."
The office was a small room, maybe a hundred and seventy square feet. A desk and shelves buried in papers and file folders made it abundantly clear that this was the office of a company president. And yet the photographs and drawings from fans hanging on the wall, and the albums packed tight along another shelf, proved just as plainly that this was one of Korea's great singers.
Lee Hae-jin greeted him with a warm smile, rose from his chair, and led him to a seat set in the middle of the room.
"It's been a while, Se-jun."
"It has. And thank you for thinking well of me from the start."
"No need. That performance left a real impression. It was genuinely my kind of song."
Well, of course it was. I wrote it aiming for your taste.
Kim Se-jun only smiled, saying nothing.
"That song. You didn't write it as a gayageum solo, did you? The way I heard it, you composed it with drums, piano, and bass in mind as session parts."
Wow...
So the nickname "music genius" was no empty boast. A single listen, and he had seen straight through the arrangement Se-jun had in mind. Kim Se-jun was privately stunned.
"Yes, that's right. And I had a few other things in mind as well. A sanjo daegeum, for one..."
"A sanjo daegeum?"
"It's a modified version of the daegeum — the traditional wind instrument, the one with that breathy timbre."
"Ah! It goes in the pre-chorus, doesn't it? Am I right?"
Unbelievable. He was reading him like a book — as if he had plucked the thoughts right out of Se-jun's head. How could anyone not be impressed?
Watching Kim Se-jun's eyes go round, Lee Hae-jin let out a short laugh, then spoke again in a voice that had gone serious, pulling the air in the room taut.
"Right. Let's put the song talk aside for now. I should tell you why I asked you here."
The moment he crossed his legs, the atmosphere shifted. The man who had been showing Kim Se-jun nothing but warmth was suddenly a weathered businessman. The smiling creases at the corners of his eyes went deep and cold. The aura rolling off him turned dense, almost viscous. It was the look of a man appraising not a musician, but a product.
It might have been enough to rattle him. Kim Se-jun met it evenly. The twenty-six-year-old he had once been might have flinched at the change. But this young man had already lived to forty-six. Among the people he had dealt with back when they called him a legend of the gugak world, businessmen far harder than Lee Hae-jin had been a dime a dozen.
"I'll be honest. I like you, Se-jun."
"Thank you."
"That said, liking you isn't enough to bring you into this company."
Kim Se-jun nodded in silence. He had expected as much. It was precisely for this that he had spent the week preparing two more songs.
Should I just make the first move?
He drew his phone from his pocket and set it on the desk.
Oho. Lee Hae-jin smiled, intrigued by the sheer nerve in Kim Se-jun's words. It was a proposal so audacious it nearly drew a laugh.
"That confident?"
"I can't stand people whispering behind my back. I want a clear guarantee that I got in on skill."
"I like that. Let's hear it."
Watching him state his case with such unshaken confidence, Lee Hae-jin felt his interest sharpen into something keener. Kim Se-jun took out a pair of earphones, plugged them into the phone, and held them out. Lee Hae-jin fitted them in and closed his eyes, and Kim Se-jun played the file he had saved.
The song came through the earphones. And as the music unfolded, Lee Hae-jin's expression began to shift — subtly, then unmistakably. Just as it had the first time he had watched Kim Se-jun's stage at the Open Mic.