The Price of a Failed Escape
To tell the truth, Suyun had actually cosplayed before. She only thought of it as "putting on a disguise in some cumbersome clothes," but it definitely fell under the category of cosplay. It was just that back then, the outfit hadn't been all that different from everyday wear... and since she was in Japan, she figured no one would recognize her, which was the only reason she had agreed to it. But now? Judging by what they were saying earlier, I doubt they'll make me wear something normal... On top of that, they weren't just going to laugh and enjoy it within the company; they were planning to post it on social media. For Suyun, this was a penalty she had to avoid at all costs.
Still, Suyun reminded herself of the old saying: Even if you're dragged into a tiger's den, you can survive if you keep your wits about you. Now was the perfect time to put that proverb into practice. First, I need to throw them off their game.
"All done! Let's take a break!"
"What are you talking about? We have to do the song meeting now."
"Argh!"
"Did everyone... bring their... references?"
Lee Seo, who had been twisting her body in a clear display of reluctance, jumped up and screamed the moment they finished. Seoha scolded her, pointing out that they were far from done, while Hyeona brought up the very topic everyone wanted to avoid. Seeing this, Suyun stood up, pulled out chairs for the girls, and offered them a bright, beaming smile.
"...What?"
"Is something wrong?"
"N-no, nothing. I just thought I misheard something."
Lee Seo stared at Suyun with wide eyes, shook her head slightly, and sat down. Her reaction was as if she had just witnessed a hallucination. That was exactly the response Suyun was aiming for. Confuse the girls so they wouldn't bring up the cosplay nonsense, and then, by the next meeting, she would bring her own reference materials so they couldn't say a word.
"You guys sit here too. Should I get you some water?"
"No... why are you acting like this all of a sudden?"
"What... is going on..."
"What do you mean? Is there a problem?"
"It's not that there's a problem, but..."
The girls sat down with deeply suspicious expressions. Suyun placed three cups of water on a tray and brought them over to the table. Even the staff members watching them looked as if they had just witnessed the impossible. I wasn't expecting the staff to react like that too, Suyun thought.
"Your mouths must be dry. Should we get some snacks to eat while we work? Is there anything you want?"
"What is wrong with you!"
"What?"
"She's suddenly gone crazy! No, she was perfectly normal just a second ago! Did you get hit on the head when you went outside earlier?"
"What are you talking about? Not at all."
"Ugh, gross! This is giving me goosebumps. She's definitely up to something. Are you guys filming this right now? Is this a hidden camera prank or something?"
Lee Seo suddenly jumped up and shouted at the staff. However, the staff members merely shook their heads in response. Naturally, they weren't filming any prank.
"Am I the only one feeling this way? Wasn't she completely normal a few minutes ago?"
"I don't think you're the only one."
"Suyun... did you take some weird medicine or something?"
"No? Not at all. I'm perfectly fine."
"Just hearing you talk like that is giving me major chills!"
Lee Seo's face cycled through three different expressions in a split second as she wrapped her arms around herself, shivering as if she were freezing. Seoha raised a single eyebrow, looking at Suyun with a face that clearly asked, Are you out of your mind? Meanwhile, Hyeona was staring at her with genuine concern, wondering if she was actually okay.
"Did we do something wrong? I don't know what it is, but we're sorry, and we'll fix it. Okay?"
"You didn't do anything wrong. And of course, there is absolutely nothing wrong with me either."
"If there was nothing wrong with you, would you be saying stuff like 'there is absolutely nothing wrong with me'? Normally, you'd look at us like we're pathetic and say, 'Stop talking nonsense and go study'!"
"She's right..."
"I really am fine..."
"You don't have a fever, do you?"
Lee Seo placed her hand on Suyun's forehead. But of course, there was no fever to be found. While Lee Seo stared at her own hand, muttering, "That's weird..." Suyun began to wrap up the chaotic atmosphere she had stirred up to achieve her goal.
"I'm not sure why you all think I'm acting strange... but since you say so, I'll go close my eyes for a bit. I think you guys were talking about the beat earlier... Once I'm back from my nap, let's move on to the next segment. We can't afford to starve tomorrow morning, right?"
"U-uh, yeah..."
Saying so, Suyun gathered the laptops scattered across the table. But just as she turned around, a split second away from flashing a victorious smile, Lee Seo's voice shot out from behind her.
"Wait a minute."
"What?"
"Are you... by any chance...?"
Before Suyun could even react, Lee Seo snatched one of the laptops and immediately opened the cloud folder. There, clearly visible, were the reference files uploaded by Lee Seo, Hyeona, and Seoha. But Suyun's name was nowhere to be found.
"Hey! You were trying to run away!"
"Ah, you caught me."
She just had to get past this one hurdle. As Suyun scratched her head in frustration, the complaints poured in.
"Look at her face change!" "And here I was, actually worried." "I was seriously worried about you..."
Listening to their grumbling, a thought suddenly occurred to Suyun.
Just what kind of image do they have of me that acting polite gives them goosebumps and chills...?
Having thrown away a golden opportunity, Suyun had to face the consequences of her failure. Fortunately, because there were many people from other companies at the shooting location today, and they hadn't brought any outfits, she managed to avoid being sentenced to immediate cosplay execution.
"That's that, but let's start the meeting first. Based on what we discuss here, you guys will be writing a song with the composers in a bit, so try to visualize a concrete image in your minds while we talk."
"Ugh, I still have goosebumps."
Suyun glared at Lee Seo as if to ask what she was talking about. Instead of flinching, Lee Seo met her gaze with a look of pure, refreshed satisfaction.
"You have to put yourself in our shoes to understand! A girl who was perfectly normal just minutes ago suddenly starts talking all polite like she's been possessed by some villainess noble girl. How could that not be weird?!"
"I feel like... I kind of understand... why villainess stories are so popular now..."
"What the hell is a villainess, you weebs?"
"Yeah. What is that?"
"You don't know what a villainess is?"
Suyun wondered why on earth she was supposed to know that. It was undoubtedly some term from an anime. Waving her hand to clear the air, Suyun pulled up the reference materials on the 60-inch smart TV hanging in the corner of the pension's living room.
"Anyway, let's start with what Hyeona brought, since she's the one who proposed this concept."
Hyeona's pitch was similar to before. She brought scene references from various anime, talking about things like "the faint nostalgia of adolescence." Still, her explanation was much more tolerable this time, mostly because she had brought references that actually made sense.
"What I was thinking of was... do you know about Koshien? The Japanese high school baseball tournament..."
"I do. The Handkerchief Prince..."
"Who's that?"
"Just someone."
Thinking that Lee Seo would have teased her for being old if she had caught on, Suyun shut her mouth. But unfortunately, the example Hyeona brought up was exactly that.
"How... did you know? That was back in '06..."
"Seriously, do you have an old man living inside your brain?"
Suyun ignored Lee Seo, whose comment had hit surprisingly close to home. Meanwhile, Hyeona continued her explanation. The "Handkerchief Prince" referred to Yuki Saito, a Japanese pitcher who threw 950 pitches across seven games in about two weeks during the 2006 Koshien, throwing even though he knew it would ruin his body. If Yuki Saito had been the only one, it would have just been remembered as a historic case of player abuse, but he wasn't. In Koshien, while maybe not to that extreme, many players literally grind their bodies to dust for the games. The reason was...
"Because it's a stage... that only comes once in a lifetime..."
A fading youth that burns its own body just to spark a flame. Hyeona explained that this was one of the core emotional themes often explored in Japanese anime.
"But... in Korea, people don't really... relate to that feeling as much..."
"Well, in our country, instead of burning brightly in our youth, it's more about suffering through those years to get into a good college and all that."
"But even if it's something... we haven't experienced ourselves... we can still make people empathize with that emotion. That's how our first EP, Plastic Nostalgia, was too..."
Hyeona twiddled her fingers as she spoke. Suyun thought she understood the general vibe she was going for.
"Next, Lee Seo's turn."
"Uh... okay, here's what I was thinking! Ahem."
Lee Seo cleared her throat and began explaining the material she had prepared.
"In my opinion, since Hyeona-unni was the one who proposed this graduation concept, her take might be the correct one, but..."
"There's no such thing as a 'correct' take, so just speak."
"Anyway! I was thinking, we usually look at graduation as a kind of beginning, right?"
"Is it?" Seoha muttered. Lee Seo replied, "For example, when you graduate high school, you start thinking about your life after high school."
"But if you think about it, graduation is also about putting an end to that era. How should I put it? Like when you graduate middle school, you think, 'Ah, now that I'm going to high school, I shouldn't do the embarrassing things I did in middle school!' High school is the same. Don't you think?"
"Don't bother asking us, just keep going."
"Anyway, college has a graduation too. Once you graduate from there, there's no turning back, right? You become a member of society. You become an adult. And once you're an adult, you can't live thoughtlessly anymore. You have to prepare to face the world seriously... graduating from that childish era. It's like, I'm not ready to be an adult yet, but I'm being dragged into an arena... like a funeral or something... Hey, don't laugh!"
One of the staff members holding a camera let out a snort. Lee Seo threw the pen she was holding right at him. A sharp "Ow!" echoed as it hit its mark, while Lee Seo huffed in frustration.
"Seriously! You guys asked me to talk about this, so I swallowed my pride and shared, but you keep laughing at me! Do you guys really want to catch these hands?"
"We wouldn't laugh if you said something worth not laughing at—gah! Urgh... ack..."
Before Seoha could finish, a liver blow exploded into her midsection. Leaving Seoha drooling in agony, Lee Seo continued her explanation.
"Anyway, that's the kind of vibe I'm getting. I think Hyeona-unni sees graduation as something a bit more wistful? Like that classic Japanese anime sentimentality... Ah, you really have to watch Euphonium to understand this."
"Euphonium... is really good... You must watch it..."
"I have no idea what it's about, but I really should watch it sometime. I keep hearing you guys talk about it."
"Anyway, that's the feeling. Like a funeral, or maybe getting released from prison? But still, 'I will carry on'? Wouldn't a song with that kind of vibe be cool?"
"Are you talking about something like 'Welcome to the Black Parade'?"
Seoha, who had somehow resurrected, chimed in. At her words, Suyun recalled the music video of that famous song. It was indeed an incredibly famous track, and it fit the theme Lee Seo described perfectly... but Suyun herself didn't particularly like it. It wasn't because of any deep story; she just disliked Emo music.
"Anyway, I get what you both mean."
It was a bit hard for Suyun to fully grasp. But then again, she hadn't really understood things when they made their first EP either. Even without fully understanding, she could still visualize an image. As she scanned the references Hyeona had brought once more, a melody suddenly popped into Suyun's head. Regret over the past. The kind of feeling that makes you look back and think, I could have done better. Yet, because there was no going back, you had no choice but to let it go with a sense of relief—a melody in a minor key. The tempo would be quite slow. Maybe around 80 BPM?
"Huh?"
Suyun began to hum softly. While Lee Seo looked at her with a puzzled expression, Suyun set up a microphone and connected the synthesizer from the adjacent room to her laptop. As the cable plugged into the audio interface, a brief burst of static hissed from the speakers. Taking that as her cue, Suyun began to play the keyboard. She laid down chords that fit, entirely by feel. Just following her whim.
"Oh... wait, what is this? Are you writing a song right now?"
"Whoa, what is this?"
"This feels a bit like... wait, is it a different vibe?"
She deleted the chords she had just entered and recorded a new take. She tweaked the melody slightly. Dissatisfied, she deleted it again and re-recorded. Through this repetitive process of constant changes and refinements, the song began to take on a rich, colorful shape.
"Oh my god, are you composing right now?! We need to film this! Hurry, hurry!"
People began to gather around the scene. As the staff whispered among themselves at this rare glimpse of Suyun's creative process and the cameras started rolling, the external composer who had come to mentor the members today asked a question.
"Do you always work like this? Just suddenly, right on the spot?"
"Usually, yes. When an idea comes to mind, I try writing it down like this. I add instruments, and then I roughly handle the mixing and sound design."
Suyun answered casually, without much thought. Perhaps because her tone carried the weight of simple truth, the external composer muttered, "So this is what a genius looks like..." It was a bit embarrassing to hear.
"Wait, but!"
"Yeah?"
"Since the song is basically done now, does that mean we can eat all our meals tomorrow and just go sightseeing?"
"What are you talking about?"
At Lee Seo's energetic suggestion, Suyun stopped playing chords and turned around, staring at her with utter disbelief. Lee Seo flinched at her expression.
"What I wrote is what I wrote. You guys have to write your own. If you don't make decent progress on your songs today, none of you are sleeping."