I'll Protect My Man! (2)
“Are you two serious?!”
Seola exploded. The two of them, completely failing to follow the flow of the conversation, blinked in confusion.
What's with her? Didn't she say she wanted to check if there were any issues before marriage?
Indeed. Sir, what do you think the problem is?
Seeing the way they whispered to each other, she decided they needed a proper education.
“Mister. Ah! I can call you 'mister', right? And you, Sis!”
“Uh... what?”
“Miss Seola? Haha...”
“This is between Saebyeok and me. Do you understand? I want to get married right this instant, but we still have a long way to go. So don't you dare put any pressure on Saebyeok. If you do, you'll see just how much of a nightmare I can be.”
“Little sister... business is, by nature...”
“Marriage isn't a business! Are you seriously not going to snap out of it?”
“Miss Seola. Wouldn't it be beneficial for both parties if you and the young master tied the knot quickly? I admit the term 'business' is a bit excessive, but it is difficult to deny entirely.”
“Whew... I know. I'm the youngest daughter of AQ, so I'm not completely clueless. You're worried Saebyeok's family might get greedy and make unnecessary demands, right?”
“Precisely.”
“Yes. It's highly possible, Seola.”
Seola glared at the two of them and fired off words like a machine gun.
“Saebyeok has the potential to succeed globally without any help. I'm just grateful that I can be his supporter at best. Mister, you don't even know how sincere Saebyeok is about his music, do you?”
“Haha. The young master has indeed been doing music for quite a long time.”
“You too, Sis. You heard it yourself. Is it not enough?”
“Hmm... the potential is certainly there.”
Seola made eye contact with each of them again, emphasizing her point.
“I protect my man! You adults just need to watch from outside the ring!”
“Seola. Didn't you just ask me to let him use AQ's resources earlier?”
“That was because you lost the bet. Why are you bringing that up now?”
“What kind of absurd logic is that...”
“Hahahahahahaha!”
Kim Jehak laughed heartily, pointing a finger at Seunga.
“...Mister?”
“Miss Seola, I am impressed. There was no need to bring up business at all. Seunga, you lost.”
“Mister, you still owe me an apology too, right?”
“A-Ahem...”
“As you can see, Sis will pay the price for invading our privacy. And you, Mister, must stop the Moonwol family from doing anything stupid.”
“...Perfect. Miss Seola, I accept your proposal.”
“Hehe. Then, Mister~ could you tell me some stories about Saebyeok's childhood?”
Choi Seunga was dumbfounded by her sister's 180-degree attitude shifts, while Kim Jehak burst into hearty laughter once more.
“Haha... When the young master was a child...”
“Ah! Who's talking behind my back now?”
Saebyeok, who was reviewing his MIDI work, shuddered.
“I guess that's my cue to take a break.”
He stood up and stretched, his joints popping with a groan.
“Ugh... polishing existing tracks is surprisingly exhausting.”
Originally, he had planned to release them as they were.
Was it because his body had changed? Because his mental age had lowered? Because his attitude toward music had shifted?
Or because he now had a woman he loved...?
Every circumstance had brought about change, and he could now see the flaws in his old music.
What he was still torn about was...
“But there's a certain charm to the raw, unpolished version from back then. Hmm.”
He let out a dry chuckle, realizing he was reminiscing like an old man.
“I can just do both. Why am I even stressing over this?”
He checked the numbers he had scribbled down. [Original], [Remake].
Nodding in satisfaction, he checked the clock as a sudden wave of hunger hit him.
“It's already dinner time.”
He walked over to the refrigerator out of habit and looked through the meal kits.
After rummaging around, he decided he should eat the one closest to its expiration date.
“Yukgaejang it is!”
He poured it into a pot, turned on the stove, and hummed a tune while heating up a bowl of instant rice in the microwave.
The melody he hummed unconsciously was melancholy.
“Eating alone really ruins the taste.”
He thought about how fickle humans could be.
After all, he had eaten alone for the past year, and for most of his life as Moon Saebyeok.
Still, it would be pretty pathetic to break my promise to my girlfriend to wait for her.
He tried to take a brave, hearty bite, only to burn the roof of his mouth.
“...I'm going to compose a bunch of depressing songs!”
Channeling his frustration into a useless outlet, he soon deflated and turned on his computer.
Should I just do a surprise stream?
Fortunately, he had a shred of conscience left. Before doing anything crazy, he opened YouTube.
[Recently Watched Videos]
The video of his live performance in Hongdae played. The title was: A super handsome guy busked in Hongdae and ran away.
What kind of title was this? Was it a web novel?
He watched it for a moment. The fun memories came rushing back. Connecting with the audience was always a joy, and a desire to stand on stage began to creep up on him.
“Well... the day will come.”
Thinking he could always just go busking again if things didn't work out, he kept watching.
Since both he and the busking girl had their hats pulled down low, their faces were barely visible.
The comment section was filled with people wondering the same thing. However, most of the curiosity surrounding Saebyeok had already been resolved. It was only natural, given the performance video uploaded on Angry Bird.
Seeing that a link to his Tweety TV channel had already been posted, his karma was catching up to him. Among them, one comment caught his eye.
Saebyeok clicked the link as if possessed.
The background, overflowing with excessive pastel tones, featured colorful ice creams flying around like CG effects.
A disco-style intro, a messy blend of familiar money chords and EDM, signaled the start, and four girls burst out, each holding an ice cream cone.
“What is this? Is the target audience toddlers?”
Do you like ice cream?
I like ice cream!
It was a song praising ice cream while performing repetitive disco steps.
Then, his eyes locked onto a pink-haired girl. The girl in the video, constantly winking with an overly joyful expression, was indeed the girl he had busked with.
“Ah, so this is the kind of music she does.”
After shouting "ice cream" repeatedly in the verses, they danced a perfectly synchronized disco routine to the chorus, which was literally just "I love ice cream so much."
His mind went numb. The lyrics, the song... what on earth was the producer thinking when they made this monstrosity?
His patience was wearing thin, but he forced himself to watch it to the end.
He thought they might confess their love in the second verse, but they just asked to go eat ice cream together.
In the bridge, an aggressively out-of-place disco beat repeated, and finally, the outro ended with the four girls staring gloomily at melted ice cream as the video faded out.
“What is this even about?”
The comments were mostly along the same lines. Occasionally, there were people who praised their visuals, saying there was at least something to look at.
Since genres are diverse, even in this reversed world, such a peculiar song could exist...
“Even psychedelic rock—which is all about capturing a dreamy, hallucinatory vibe—isn't this trippy!”
Trying to stay as positive as possible, he fell back into thought.
“Is LSD or cocaine more prevalent in Korea than I thought...?”
He quickly shook his head. No matter how he looked at it, the busking girl hadn't seemed like she was on drugs.
In that case, was it the producer...?
He reflected on his assumption that he knew the Korean music entertainment industry well.
Had he been taking the idol industry too lightly?
“Happy Day... Happy Day...”
He searched further on YouTube.
A few music show performances and what looked like the music video for their debut album popped up.
“So 'Ice Cream' was the title track of their second album, and their first album was...”
Oh my God.
The intro of the first album was just as formidable. Was the concept Amazone warriors?
The girls, dressed in what looked like rags, showed off their martial arts skills.
It was unnecessarily high quality.
The genre was none other than art rock.
The pink-haired girl must have had black hair back then. He barely recognized her by her guitar skills.
As he watched blankly, she popped out during the bridge, looking like a beggar, and shredded a guitar solo.
“...Just what kind of life have you been living?”
Saebyeok finally understood the feelings of Jeong Dain, the pink-haired girl who had shed tears while singing.
It was a miracle they had even released a second album. Even he, armed with a pioneer spirit, couldn't help but feel respect. Yet, a question arose.
The visuals of the four girls weren't bad, and though their voices were likely tuned to some extent, they weren't bad either.
Furthermore, perfectly synchronized choreography was no easy feat. This meant that regardless of their raw talent, they were skilled enough to cover it with pure effort...
“Why on earth would they make music like that? Even in a reversed world, ah...!”
Suddenly, it clicked.
In a world with a skewed male-to-female ratio of 2:8, the Korean music system was dominated by idols.
Where there is light, there is shadow.
It was a case where excessive gimmicks, used to package a group that lacked a distinct edge, had turned into poison.
“Even if you're insanely pretty, it's hard to succeed as a singer.”
Top actors often released an album or two. But that didn't guarantee success.
They might get bonus points for novelty. But on the flip side, if their vocal skills didn't match expectations, it would only remain a dark history.
Therefore, the standard business practice was to test the waters through safer routes, like participating in OSTs.
That was how brutal the music market was.
Because it was a cold, hard business world, he could reluctantly understand.
“But did they actually want to sing those songs? Probably not.”
As a former producer, it was an assessment born of both understanding and pity.
As he was closing YouTube with a bitter taste in his mouth, his messenger pinged.
Saebyeok understood Harang's urgency.
“But a simple collab stream doesn't really suit my style... What should I do?”