Remake
The main session of the song Kim Se-jun had written was, once again, the gayageum.
A simple main melody and a handful of chords, sketched out on a virtual instrument, drifted through the room. Nothing about them was complicated. And yet they locked together with an almost unfair grace. Over that foundation a violin slipped in and out, its soft lines brushing Lee Hae-jin's ears with a pairing so fresh it made him want to laugh — gayageum and violin, of all things.
This is... actually insane.
He could not believe a song like this had been written in a single week. And not one song — two. Inspiration did strike like that sometimes; a track could come together in thirty minutes. Lee Hae-jin himself had known that intoxicating rush, the sudden flood of a melody and a musical idea crashing through the mind. But that was, quite literally, a gift of chance. One song, maybe, could fall from the heavens. Two was impossible. At least, he had never known a singer around him who had pulled it off.
Which means this isn't luck. This is Kim Se-jun's skill.
He had not even heard the second track yet, and already Lee Hae-jin was certain it would not fall far short of the first. The song from the Open Mic. The one he was hearing now. Kim Se-jun had already spoiled his ears twice. Would a third time be any different?
When the first song ended, Kim Se-jun queued up the second. Lee Hae-jin swallowed dryly, his face already transformed by anticipation. The desire to hear the next song as soon as possible filled him to the brim.
The intro unfurled slowly, and the song began. Lee Hae-jin felt his instinct lock into place. A smile crept onto his face unbidden. Whether it was the satisfaction of being right or the pleasure of Kim Se-jun's music itself, he could not say — but his chest was packed tight with excitement.
A brighter, more buoyant melody than before. Instead of the gayageum, an acoustic guitar carried the main line, with drums and piano holding it up.
What instrument is that?
And then a sound that anchored the song like a bass, deep and weighty. Curious about the unfamiliar instrument, he cracked his eyes open — and Kim Se-jun, as if reading his mind, grinned and mouthed the answer.
Geomungo.
"...!"
Using a geomungo like a bass. An idea he never would have thought of. It felt distinctly different from a bass guitar. It still underpinned the song with a heavy low end, but the tone was softer, gentler than a bass — a sound that tickled his ears and seemed to whisper.
For three minutes and forty seconds, Lee Hae-jin was lost in the song. When it ended, he pulled the earphones from his ears.
Watching him, Kim Se-jun felt his own heart give a small, unsteady flutter. He had been confident. That was why he had made the proposal with such swagger in the first place. But even so, a little pounding in the chest was only human, wasn't it?
"What do you think?"
At Kim Se-jun's careful question, Lee Hae-jin let out a hollow laugh. That someone like this was still unknown. And how empty his own nickname — music genius — suddenly felt.
"Wait here. I'll go get the contract."
Ares Music was a solid mid-tier management company. Its roster consisted of singers — and most of them singer-songwriters. Record distribution, publicity, content planning, scouting and developing new talent: the agency handled every facet of management from end to end.
Needless to say, Ares Music had not always been a sturdy operation. It had been founded by a reasonably well-known singer and that singer's manager, joining forces. There had been no shortage of twists and setbacks, and more than a few moments when the company had teetered on the edge of bankruptcy. The two men who had refused to break under those failures, who had held on until Ares Music became the mid-tier agency it was today, were Lee Hae-jin and the man who had once been his manager — Ha Dong-jun.
Late that night, the same night Kim Se-jun signed his contract with Lee Hae-jin, the two of them sat down together to talk things over. The subject of that conversation was, of course, the newest singer on their roster.
"Well?"
The song playing from Lee Hae-jin's phone came to an end, and he looked across with an expectant face. Ha Dong-jun was not a singer, but he was the vice president of a management company — and he had been the manager of the so-called music genius. When it came to judging music, there was no one Lee Hae-jin trusted more.
The muscular, middle-aged man sitting opposite him with his arms folded had been lost in the track. At the question he opened his eyes and smiled, slow and easy.
"They're good. I'm not even exaggerating — I like both of them. He could debut tomorrow and nobody would bat an eye."
"Right? Hyung? And he's got guts, too. I told you, didn't I? He just shoved his phone at me out of nowhere. Raise him right and he'll be huge. The song he sang at the Open Mic that night is just as good. On the same level as these two."
"Now I really want to know what kind of kid this is. I'll hear that one later. But you already signed him?"
Ha Dong-jun asked it with a deliberately grave look. Unlike Lee Hae-jin, who still had an artist's temperament running through him, Ha Dong-jun weighed everything from a purely business angle. His creed was simple: no matter how good the songs were, a singer without commercial appeal was a failed singer. He could not bring himself to endorse Lee Hae-jin's call just yet.
"Yeah. I had a feeling I'd regret it the second I let him walk."
"Wasn't that a little hasty? He's still an amateur. He's not even a former trainee. Signing him on the spot was too fast. At the very least, I think you should have talked it over with me."
"You've been swamped lately, hyung. I didn't have a choice. If I'd waited to run it by you and lost him, I would have regretted it for the rest of my life."
"Hnn..."
Ha Dong-jun could hardly argue. He had been too busy today even to take a phone call, and he knew it, so he swallowed the rest of the complaint as a low hum.
"Look at the quality of the songs. Say YH Entertainment or Story Entertainment had found Kim Se-jun first. You think they would have sat still? This is a kid who's going to surface sooner or later. If it hadn't been us, somebody else would have snatched him up."
Lee Hae-jin laid out his case with absolute conviction, and Ha Dong-jun had no rebuttal. The songs themselves were overflowing with appeal, just as he said. And that was before any vocal or session recording had even been done. Bring in real players, add depth and feeling, then lay down the vocal and lift the atmosphere of the tracks — there was no telling what kind of songs would come out the other side.
Seeing the sense in it, Ha Dong-jun asked a few more questions about Kim Se-jun.
"How's the singing?"
"Not bad. Honestly, the vocal ability itself is average. But the tone is seriously unique."
"That's a plus."
A technically flawless singer with no personality, or a singer who sang in a fairly ordinary way but had something distinctive. Forced to choose, Ha Dong-jun would take the latter every time. The industry was already saturated with luxury-grade vocalists. A newcomer who could only sing well would be written off as a knockoff of those names. But a real point of character — that had commercial value of its own. The fact that Kim Se-jun at least had that much going for him put a satisfied look on Ha Dong-jun's face.
"Fine. You've already signed him, so there's no undoing it. But when are you planning to debut him? We've got the first half of next year already locked in. He debuts in the second half of next year at the latest."
Management companies almost never put their own artists on a similar promotional calendar at the same time. There was no phrase that described this ecosystem better than the law of the jungle. If you had no popularity, you got buried, ran at a loss, and had to fold your activities — it happened constantly. In a world that cutthroat, pitting your own people against each other for the number-one spot was simply irrational.
The major agencies did sometimes run overlapping schedules, but even then the target audiences were clearly different — a boy group and a girl group promoting at the same time, for instance. And they could only do that because they were big enough to throw the full weight of the company behind both. Ares Music was smaller. Looking after every artist on a simultaneous schedule was, physically, impossible.
Lee Hae-jin shook his head at Ha Dong-jun's words.
"A year is too long. I think the second half of next year would be just about right."
"I'm thinking along the same lines, but what about Jin-ah and Jae-hyun? They're both working their heads off right now with next year's promotions in sight."
"Hah. Times like this, I miss just making music without thinking about any of it."
Ha Dong-jun gave a wry smile at the complaint. He remembered the younger Lee Hae-jin — the one who had refused to re-sign, who had talked about building a company for artists and talked his own manager into walking out with him. Ha Dong-jun had fallen for that passion and that nerve, quit a perfectly good job at a major agency, and followed him out the door.
"Well. Somebody's got to do the hard part so the kids can breathe easy."
"Thanks for getting it, at least, hyung."
The consolation seemed to land. Lee Hae-jin allowed himself a small smile.
"I guess featuring is all we've got."
After a flicker of thought, Lee Hae-jin let the words out like a sigh. Featuring — a supporting role, joining another artist's track. For a still-unknown Kim Se-jun, it was also a clean way to get his name out. Ha Dong-jun had clearly been turning over the same idea; he nodded.
"Will the kids go for it, though?"
"That's the problem."
The crease between Lee Hae-jin's brows deepened again. Lee Jin-ah and Go Jae-hyun, both slated for the second half of next year, were artists with no small amount of ambition when it came to their songs. Neither of them was likely to welcome a feature from an unknown rookie with open arms.
"If you ask me, putting him on Jin-ah's track is the better call. She's at least more reasonable than Jae-hyun."
"She's a good kid. She's just ambitious, that's all."
Ha Dong-jun burst out laughing. He knew better than anyone that, whatever Lee Hae-jin said out loud, there was no one who thought more highly of Lee Jin-ah as an artist.
"Isn't her current track still unfinished, though? From what I've seen lately, she's been tearing her hair out over it."
"Remakes aren't easy. And the original is an exceptional song to begin with. She keeps pushing at it, but it doesn't seem to be landing. Worst case, she might just give the remake up."
Ha Dong-jun's voice had gone serious. Lee Hae-jin tapped the arm of his chair with his fingers. It was too good a song to abandon. He had pleaded with the original writer, Bae Jin-goo, to get permission for the remake in the first place. If he was being honest, he wanted to remake it himself. And the rumors kept drifting in — other agencies had their eyes on that song. If Ares Music let it go, someone else would snatch it up in a heartbeat.
"Hnn... that won't do..."
The mutter slipped out on its own — and then a thought struck him, sudden and complete. It had come out of nowhere, but it was a good idea, wasn't it? The gloom that had sat on his face all evening lifted at once. Ha Dong-jun read the change and asked the question.
"What? You just think of something?"