Three Copies of Off the Wall
My eyes met my brother's. Yugeon's. The rims of his were wet, and, afraid the feeling would show, he hurried to wipe the tears away. He had to envy me.
Hyung or not, he was only thirteen—a child, through and through. Old enough that it would have been no surprise if he rebelled. They were brothers just the same, so why should he be the only one to sacrifice? But Yugeon didn't. Perhaps he had decided this was the hour for blessing his little brother.
He grinned, straining for a smile that looked mature. Was it that old soul of his? The face he wore was painfully forlorn.
H-hold on. Who am I pitying?
Right. He'd have a hard time of it for a while, young as he was, but in the end he was the man who would inherit Hyeon-gang entire. Worry about yourself. I told myself so, and still another thought settled in. Park Yugeon and I were bound to the same fate.
If things went as planned, he would enter Seoul National University, finish graduate school at Harvard, and take Hyeon-gang over whole. I had not the slightest complaint about that future. If anything, I sincerely hoped the boy would shoot up strong and grow into a splendid heir.
But what if. What if my debut put the wrong ideas in his head? Sure, for now he was gritting his way through on nothing but a good heart. Even so—the little brother gets to, so why only me? If adolescence bent him crooked, if he threw himself into his hobbies and let his studies slide, and the day came when the line of succession itself shifted—
No. That absolutely cannot happen.
What else was there for it? If I wanted the future to stay unchanged, I would have to manage his mental state myself. The answer was already in hand, and once it is, the best move is to act at once.
"Mom, just a second."
I slipped free of Song Suhee's arms and strode over to where Park Yugeon stood.
"Can I play with hyung and sleep after?"
"Hm?"
Only then did Song Suhee turn.
"Oh—Yugeon was out here."
"Mom, I'll play in hyung's room and sleep there. That's all right, isn't it?"
"Of course."
"You're all right with it too, hyung?"
At my question, Yugeon nodded, his smile awkward.
The first thing to catch my eye in Park Yugeon's room was an enormous globe. Above it hung a row of clocks, each set to a different hour—Seoul, New York, London, Moscow, and on down the line—so he could check the time in the world's major cities. No chance Yugeon had asked for this. It would be a "gift" from Chairman Park, and the meaning was plain enough: take the world in your arms. Good grief. I get dizzy just looking at it.
Fortunately, one part of the room actually reflected Yugeon's own taste. The wall was plastered with posters—the Jackson 5, Stevie Wonder, Quincy Jones, Prince, all the way to Michael Jackson. Every last one of them Black. Beneath them stood a shelf packed tight with LPs. He looked so much like a model student that I had assumed classical, and yet the records were nothing but Black music. The funny part was that he had three copies of Michael Jackson's first album.
"Hyung, why do you have so many of the same one?"
A moment ago, this was the Park Yugeon who had been wiping away tears. And now look.
"Oh—that?"
Excitement washed over his face, as if none of it had ever happened.
"Jihun, have you heard of the Jackson 5?"
"Yeah."
"The little kid from that group just debuted as a grown-up singer."
Yugeon quickly pulled an LP free.
"This is that debut album."
I knew it. Off the Wall—one of the great records in the history of pop.
"It only made number four on Billboard's year-end chart this time... but the next album will take the yearly number one, no question."
Yugeon's prediction was exact. Through his second album, Thriller, Michael Jackson would rise as the King of Pop. Still, the human thing in a moment like this was to pretend I didn't know, and ask.
"Hyung... how do you know that?"
Sure enough, he launched in, delighted.
"You can feel a kind of resolve in this album."
"Resolve?"
"A fierce will to carve his name into the history of pop! That energy is soaked all the way through the record. When you listen, it feels like you wake up too."
"So that's why you bought three?"
"Yeah. One to keep, two to play. Keep listening to an LP and it's bound to get damaged."
"Hyung, can I listen too?"
As if he had been waiting for exactly those words—
"Yes! Of course."
He hurried to slip the record out. Third-generation chaebol or not, the audio system was nothing special, plain entry-level gear. Even so, Yugeon handled it like a treasure. Once the LP sat on the turntable, he let out a breath.
"Hoo."
Over the record spinning round and round, he lowered the needle with all the care in the world. He was so solemn that the gesture looked devout.
A moment later—
Thump-thump, ta-dang. Doom-doom, digga-dung.
From the speakers came that soft, warm sound only an LP has. Yugeon turned to me at once, eyes bright with expectation, his whole face asking whether it was good. He looked ready to say it that very second—and then, afraid he might spoil the listening, swallowed the words. So we sat side by side and took in the first track.
Around the time the second song began, he carefully asked what I thought.
"How is it?"
"It's so fun."
"Right? Then do you want to hear this one too? Stevie Wonder. He's a really incredible musician."
After that Yugeon bustled back and forth, bringing over quite a pile of LPs. We must have listened for at least thirty minutes that way. Little by little, a shadow settled over the face that had been bright the whole time.
"Do you like music, hyung?"
"Yeah. The way you like books, Jihun..."
"Are there times you want to listen to nothing but music all day?"
"Yeah. Every single day."
"Can't you put it on while you study?"
"Then I just let it wash past me... I don't like that."
"Why is letting it wash past bad?"
"The singers must have made those albums with everything they had. Listening with all your attention... feels like the courtesy you owe the people who created them."
By 2020, most people would listen to songs on their phones—an age of consuming music by streaming, without spending much of anything. Set beside that, the sight of Yugeon lowering a needle onto an LP was past devout. It was a religious rite. A bit much, maybe. But he was barely a sixth grader. Put another way, purity like that could become an enormous kind of fuel.
"Hyung, listen."
Open wide. One round of hope, for mental-care purposes—administering now!
"When you go into business later, you'll do something with music first, won't you?"
"Something with music?"
"Yeah. A record distributor, or an entertainment agency. That sort of thing."
"Th-that won't be easy."
"Why?"
"A giant company... can't go jumping into a little thing like that."
"What's little about it? The stage would be the whole world."
"...The world?"
"Yeah. Hyeon-gang would be the one doing it, so of course it has to be on a global scale."
He scratched at his head. None of it seemed to fit inside that head of his.
"I don't think Grandfather would allow it."
I only looked at him.
"It doesn't make any money."
At that, I pointed at Michael Jackson's first album.
"How many copies did this sell?"
"Ten million, at least."
"And that doesn't make money?"
"That's only because it's Michael Jackson..."
"If Hyeon-gang is stepping in, we ought to bring in someone on Michael Jackson's level."
"...How?"
"Couldn't we just acquire the label he's signed to?"
"M-Maryland Records?"
Yugeon shook his head hard. However great Hyeon-gang might be, buying a giant American record company must have struck him as impossible.
I grinned. He has no idea. In the years to come, Sonus, Japan's flagship electronics company, would acquire Maryland Records. Which was to say: if the money was there, there was nothing Hyeon-gang couldn't do either. How hard could it be for the thirty-five-year-old I actually was to persuade a little sixth grader? Ten minutes would be plenty.
"Later on, it won't be hardware that rules the world. It'll be content."
"What does that mean?"
"An LP or a cassette tape—either way, you're playing music. The machine can change, but the fact that people listen to songs doesn't."
"Oh!"
"So in the long run, you have to invest in content. Grandfather will understand that too, so of course he'll give his permission."
"But Jihun..."
"Yeah?"
"How do you... know all of that?"
"Ah. Well. That."
I could hardly say I had come from the future.
"...A book. Right—I saw it in a book in Grandfather's study."
"All of that is written in a book?"
"Of course it is."
"Wow."
If this led him to bury himself in books and let his studies slip, that would be no good.
"Hyung, you know I like books. I'll read them and tell you everything."
"Really?"
"Yeah. In exchange, you listen to lots of good music. That way, later, you'll recognize the good singers and bring them to our company."
His eyes flew wide.
"First, we start by bringing in the singers from the posters."
I pointed from Stevie Wonder to Michael Jackson, one after another. Maybe the mere imagining was enough to delight him.
"Hee hee."
For the first time, Yugeon laughed like a child. Right—he was a thirteen-year-old kid. He ought to get to laugh like that sometimes.
"Thanks, Jihun."
"For what?"
"I never once thought management and music could be put together."
"No?"
"Mm. At most... Hyeon-gang has an electronics side, so maybe we could make audio equipment. That vague guess was as far as I ever got."
A long way of saying it. What it amounted to, in the end, was that he would study hard.
"I'm really glad I have you, hyung. I mean it."
"Heh heh."
"It's late. I'm going to bed."
My brother looked sorry to see me go, but tomorrow's schedule was waiting, and soon enough his face showed he understood.
"Good night."
"You too, hyung."
Leaving Yugeon's bashful smile behind, I slipped quietly out of his room.
The corridor ran long. I had to pass two bathrooms before I reached my own, and the walk let me sink, briefly, into thought.
A music-content business. For something I'd tossed out on the spur of the moment, it was a fairly decent alternative. Sonus, which had once commanded the world, would suffer a brutal slump in the twenty-first century—because Hyeon-gang would overtake it in most of its electronics businesses: phones, laptops, televisions, all of it. And the signal flare of that company's resurrection would be fired, without question, by content. Thanks to the record labels and film studios it had acquired ahead of time, Sonus would make a new leap in 2020.
And besides. If we acquired a label— I could meet famous musicians in person. Not that I had any particular ambition in that direction. Dr. Dre, or Eminem... meeting them might actually be fun.
Ahem. Only if the chance happened to come up. That was all.
Maybe that was why the thoughts kept surfacing.
This music business... maybe it wouldn't be half bad if I were the one to do it.
A peculiar smile on my lips, I clicked the door open.