Featuring
Today I came to the company for the featuring.
I wasn't recording today — just a pre-production meeting, more or less.
I stepped into the elevator and pressed the door-close button, but caught sight of someone sprinting toward me, so I hit the open button instead. A woman rushed in, panting hard.
"Haah! Haah! Thank you so mu—"
She looked at me and froze solid on the spot.
Hm. Right. It's been a while since this happened.
"Hello."
Studying her face, I got the vague sense that I'd seen her somewhere before — faintly, like a half-remembered dream. So she must be a celebrity, then.
I had no idea who she was, but we'd probably never cross paths again, so did it really matter?
With that thought, I headed for the composer's office —
Our paths were going the same way.
...Wait. Am I working with this person?
My guess turned out to be right; we entered the same room, and since she'd spent the entire walk fidgeting and sneaking glances at me, I offered the greeting first.
"Hello. I'm Lee Yeonwoo — I'll be doing the featuring with you."
"Y-yes! I'm Bae Seyeon, the singer!"
Hm? Bae Seyeon? That Bae Seyeon? Oh — right, it fits!
She just looked too young for me to recognize her.
Bae Seyeon was the kind of artist who cranked out number ones like they were meals on the very app where our song had charted before my regression.
Come to think of it, the song I was supposed to feature on was originally hers, wasn't it?
I sorted through my thoughts briefly and continued.
"I look forward to working with you."
When I held out my hand for a handshake, Seyeon grabbed it with both of hers.
"Um... you can let go of my hand now."
No, seriously, why are you still holding on?
At my words, she suddenly clasped my hand between both of hers and blurted out:
"E-excuse me! Are you, by any chance, Roze?!"
Hm...? She recognized me? How?
And for that matter, how does she even know Roze?
Curiosity stirred at how she'd figured it out, but I held it down and answered.
"No."
Curious is curious, but I'm not exactly going to serve the red medicine out of my own mouth, am I?
"Y-yes?! You're not?!"
Clunk!
Thankfully, the composer walked in at exactly the right moment, and while Seyeon's attention wavered, I extracted my captive hand.
"Ah..."
Why does that sound disappointed...?
"Everyone's here, I see. Well then, let's sit down and get started."
At the composer's invitation, those of us who'd been standing took our seats around the round table.
"Hello, I'm Park Junghyun, the composer of this song."
Ah, right — the composer's name was Park Junghyun.
"Um... I'm Bae Seyeon, the singer."
"And I'm Lee Yeonwoo, on featuring."
Seyeon kept darting furtive glances at me.
"Ms. Seyeon, is there something you'd like to say?"
"Y-yes?! No, I... um..."
Yes, it must be frustrating — but what exactly do you expect me to say about it myself?
Still, with her constantly distracted by me, the meeting looked like it would never get off the ground, so I made a decision.
Sigh... Fine. You win.
"Composer, what song did you work on with me before?"
"Sorry? That would be Our Story."
"Right, so I hear."
At those words, Seyeon's face lit up like a sunrise.
"Wow! Wow! Roze! I'm your biggest fan!"
"'Roze,' you say?"
"Ah! No! I mean Yeonwoo!"
Good grief. Even without any role-playing on my end, there's a limit.
Roze doesn't exist in this world, you know?
"Yes. Likewise, I look forward to working with you."
With the introductions out of the way, the meeting began in earnest.
"So then, let's discuss how much of the song the featured part will cover."
This was today's main topic.
Genre-wise it leaned city pop, and the runtime excluding the instrumental came to four minutes, so...
"About one minute would be appropriate, I'd say."
Hm, I agreed with the composer there too.
"Yes, something in the range of one minute should be plenty."
Honestly, that still felt like a lot to me.
"Yes?! Isn't that a bit much?!"
See? Even I thought it was a lot—
"It's way too little, is what it is!"
Oh. That's where you stand.
"Excuse me?! One minute out of four is actually generous for a feature!"
Seriously. Features that amount to a lone ten seconds are a dime a dozen in this industry.
"No way! Can't we make it one minute twenty?!"
Um, it's your song?
"It's Ms. Seyeon's song. It would be strange if my part swallowed too much of it."
"That's right — at that point it stops being a feature and becomes a duet."
"A duet?!"
Seyeon showed signs of working herself up into another frenzy, and in the end, I decided to resort to brute force for the sake of a smooth meeting.
"Ms. Seyeon."
"Yes?"
I called her name and held her gaze.
Then I simply stared at her, unblinking, and that was that.
"Ah... so this is what the members meant..."
"Around one minute."
"Yes."
"...Yes."
Sigh...
"Then how about this: I layer harmonies on the pre-chorus, and we count that as a second pass through my part?"
At my suggestion, Seyeon's face bloomed wide open.
"Hmm, that works nicely. Your voice layering the harmonies will give it even more distinctive color."
Fortunately, the composer — who in this meeting had the loudest voice — agreed as well.
"Yeonwoo! You're so kind! What they say about you being different off-camera is true!"
...How exactly am I supposed to respond to that?
I looked at Seyeon again.
"...I'm sorry about earlier."
Good. That's all I needed.
"Shall we move on to the next topic?"
After that, the meeting followed much the same pattern.
The composer and I would propose the most reasonable option we could manage, Seyeon would blow straight past the line of sanity, and I would put her down.
After a few more rounds of that routine, the meeting found itself drawing to a close before I knew it.
"Then, lastly — the music video...?"
The composer trailed off, glancing cautiously at me.
"You understand, right?"
"...Yes."
He seemed a little disappointed at my answer, but since everyone knew the reason, he reluctantly accepted it.
"Yes?! Why not?!"
...Apparently not everyone, then.
"Hiding a face like that from the world! Is such! A waste—"
My expressionless face creased slightly at the brow.
"It! Is! Not! I want to be the only one who knows it!"
Right.
And with that, the meeting came to an end.
"I'll contact you separately about the next schedule."
"Sounds good."
Sigh... With our first song, the company had handed us our part distribution, so this was all new territory.
"Um! Yeonwoo!"
Seyeon called out to stop me just as I was about to leave.
"Yes?"
"So...! By any chance! Do you know any of my songs?!"
"No."
"Oh."
Sorry, Seyeon, but "I don't know" is the correct answer right now.
None of the Seyeon songs I know are older than eight years.
The oldest one is, well, the very song I'm featuring on now.
And what if I said I did know them, and she asked me for a song title? What a disaster that would be.
If that's the risk, it's far better to just say you don't know from the start.
"That's my Yeonwoo! So honest!"
...Was there anything in what I just said worth being happy about?
It worries me that she might like me to a dangerous degree.
Well, I know a thing or two about how intense female fans of girl groups can get, so I can understand where she's coming from...
"Besides, I can get to know you and your music from here on out, Ms. Seyeon."
You can't work together without knowing each other's stuff, after all. I'll look her up when I get home.
"Haah!"
Ah. That came out sounding like a line from the flirtation playbook, didn't it.
...Let's just call it fan service and be done with it.
At first, when the company said they were launching a virtual business, Bae Seyeon hadn't thought much of it.
Just — oh, they're starting a new venture! That kind of thing.
But then there was the video posted on the company's official YouTube channel.
It was that video that changed her mind.
She felt it — that distinct flavor? that charm? — that belonged to someone called Roze.
After that, she naturally found herself drifting into Roze's YouTube channel, hunting through the videos.
And among them, she saw a title she simply could not resist.
Among anyone who knows what a VTuber is, a person who can resist clicking a video containing the red medicine must be a truly extraordinary human being.
And Seyeon, reflecting that she was not, in fact, an extraordinary human being, clicked the video as if in a trance.
Watching it, she saw Roze's charm all the more clearly.
The cool-headedness born of brutal honesty, and a primal, instinctive sense of fun!
That was the spark — and from there she binged every video on Roze's channel.
From the debut stream to the online collabs to the solo broadcasts.
Even after finishing the pitifully few videos available, her satisfaction remained unfilled, so she went looking for the live streams too.
And that very first day turned out to be the legendary Mir with Zero session.
There she discovered yet another shade of charm.
So starkly opposed to the usual persona — she fell headfirst into the gap moe.
From that day on, she became a Zero residing permanently in Roze's stream.
And especially! When the first single dropped, she was genuinely stunned!
Even Seyeon, whose voice was praised for its tone, felt something close to envy at how beautiful it was.
And! What about the s-ming campaigns!
She'd trembled with nerves the way she had back when her own debut song was released!
And she'd been every bit as overjoyed when it charted as she'd been then!
All that said, would it be a lie to claim she'd never wondered about Roze's red medicine? Of course it would.
So when Yesul — a friend she was usually close with — mentioned she'd be filming with Roze in real life, Seyeon probed her about it, ever so casually.
Yesul said no, of course, but Seyeon clung on with relentless persistence until Yesul gave up and told her.
And the answer that came back was the highest of praise: someone who deserves the word "celebrity" even among celebrities!
Hearing words like that, how could she possibly not get her hopes up?!
That's why she'd been anticipating it from the very first moment she saw Yeonwoo in the elevator!
That fearsome face, that stunning beauty, that aura of celebrity among celebrities!
Is this person Roze?! she'd thought!
And then! No way! No way — the person featuring on my song is Roze too?!
I am, without question, the luckiest person alive!
And when they exchanged introductions, it was confirmed beyond doubt.
The tone was different from the streams, but that signature cynical way of speaking!
When she said "no," Seyeon genuinely couldn't tell for sure!
Who stays perfectly still when asked about their red medicine?!
"Anyway! That's how it happened!"
[So it's all thanks to Yesul, then?]
"...I suppose so?"
[You do realize you did something wrong, right?]
"...I'm sorry."
That was Yeonwoo's verdict after hearing the whole story relayed to her.
I only asked how she recognized me. Why did I need the entire prequel?
Well, no need to worry, then.
"Phew..."
Truthfully I'd been a little spooked, but what a relief.
Bottom line: Seyeon only figured it out because of Yesul's testimony.
Nobody else would ever imagine a person like me running a VTuber channel, so I'm safe there.
But Bae Seyeon being my fan?
A person destined to become megafamous in the future... being my fan?
Hm... that gives me a strange kind of feeling...
Anyway, if she's my fan, she'll love today's stream.
With that thought, I clicked the start stream button,
and once the opening track — Our Story — wound down, I turned on the mic.
"Aah, aah."
Today was the day for the singing stream I'd promised as a milestone reward a while back.
She's my fan now — of course she's going to love it, right?