Taking It Slow (2)
Saebyeok's time flowed slowly but steadily.
For someone who had spent most of his life as a celebrity, this level of discipline was nothing.
An endless routine of exercise, meals, studying the world, and sleep.
Even when musical inspiration struck or he found himself craving music, he held back for the time being.
He had made music his entire life and planned to do so again, so he wanted to enjoy a brief hiatus.
In the midst of this, while consistently visiting the psychiatrist, he realized one thing.
It wasn't just "Saebyeok" who was the problem; "Ed" was a problem too.
In a way, he might have been trying hard to ignore it.
Honestly, his conclusion was that his current state was no different from schizophrenia. But he couldn't exactly blurt out during therapy, "Actually, there's a little child living inside me."
He'd be lucky if they didn't diagnose him with schizophrenia and just increase his medication.
On the other hand, he also had a desire not to let go of either identity.
The desire to record Ed's past life.
The desire to fulfill Saebyeok's dream.
The intersection of the two was, without a doubt, "music."
"Hmm... Do I really need to force them together? The day will come when they merge naturally."
Saebyeok's local roots were in Korea, while Ed's past life was in the United States.
"And since this kid is half-British... I've suddenly become a triple-mix."
In a global era of music, there was no need to draw regional boundaries, making it a pointless worry.
Being unemployed didn't mean he was completely idle.
He even tried his hand at cooking, something he had never done in his life, and realized nothing was easy.
Trying to handle everything on his own meant there were countless things to worry about.
As he grew accustomed to living alone, he began to prioritize.
"Registering copyrights is going to be a pain... I'll have to find a trustworthy agent for that later..."
For now, he excluded public activities. He had experienced the life of a top star enough.
He already knew that the industry in Korea wasn't vastly different from the US.
He had no intention of crawling up from the bottom while walking on eggshells, nor did he need to, and he wasn't desperate for it either.
Besides, assuming he would definitely succeed in this world was pure arrogance.
Anyway.
Even if he was living a past life again, he planned to choose a different path this time.
The interesting thing was...
Moon Saebyeok already had a YouTube channel, and he had even opened an account on an internet broadcasting platform like Tweety TV.
It wasn't for a dream of becoming a singer; there were traces of him contemplating playing instruments or composing.
It was a pity that he had only created the accounts and never uploaded a single thing.
The channel name was simple. The English word for Saebyeok and his birthday.
Ed stared at his empty Tweety TV channel for a long while.
He had streamed on YouTube once or twice before.
He had appeared on talk shows and variety shows, so it wouldn't be too difficult.
"Personal broadcasting... It sounds like it could be fun."
He decided it would be best to fulfill Saebyeok's wish.
All that was left was to explore internet broadcasting...
But it was quite different from what he had expected.
He lost his appetite when he saw men acting cute to collect donations, and he felt pity when he saw women doing street-hunting broadcasts.
He really didn't expect one of them to get slapped in the face.
Most of the mainstream content seemed to be gaming or sexually suggestive broadcasts.
It wasn't that there were no music broadcasts. They were mostly instrumental performances.
There were surprisingly many talented people. Maybe he could collaborate with them later?
Among them, one particular field caught his eye...
"VTubers... That's fascinating."
It was a concept where people active under a virtual persona and avatar. He didn't find it repulsive, and it was certainly interesting, but it was far from the direction he wanted to take.
A "Dullahan" suited him better.
Since he already had two concepts anyway.
Looking into it further, not showing one's face came with its own set of disadvantages.
He also noticed "semi-celebrities" who gained recognition by crossing over between YouTube and personal broadcasts.
It was impressive to see them creating content with their own unique competitive edges.
Honestly, in his past life, he only had a vague concept of these things, as he had been too busy releasing new songs and going on world tours.
He tried to defend himself, but he flinched at a single word from the broadcast he was watching.
Boomer!
Well, since he was in his late thirties in his past life, maybe it wasn't entirely wrong...?
Watching the banter between the streamer and the viewers, he had no choice but to admit it.
There were so many abbreviations and internet slang terms.
His head was spinning.
Saebyeok's memories weren't enough, to the point where he had to study them separately.
"Should I upload music to YouTube and start my personal broadcast in a radio format?"
He decided on his initial concept.
He would start with just his voice over a suitable background screen.
After checking the appearance of the male streamers, objectively speaking, Saebyeok's looks were far superior.
He wasn't going to do a "donation-grinding broadcast" like them, and he became quite curious about how far he could succeed with just his wit and music, like a radio show.
"As expected, the world is wide and full of interesting things."
Postponing that pleasure for later, he focused on building his body again.
If there was anything added to his routine, it was vocal training.
Ah, right. He had to leave a trace of his past life.
He added a channel to YouTube.
Would he be able to get a Custom Creator Award again?
Time flowed mercilessly.
"Is it finally presentable now?"
Since Ed was no stranger to diet management and maintaining physical condition, his mistake was thinking it would be easy.
He hadn't realized gaining weight would be this difficult.
His initial estimate of three months was a vain hope. Even now, entering the fifth month, he was still quite thin.
Since he wasn't going to do any public activities immediately, he hadn't planned on waiting five months.
The problem was his abysmal stamina.
Reviving a body that had once reached the brink of death required truly grueling effort.
The road ahead was clearly going to be rough.
But what could he do?
He had no choice but to work slowly and steadily.
He was now quite used to watching internet broadcasts.
After sending a small donation to a streamer he watched quite often, he understood why viewers were so enthusiastic.
The feedback was as fast as the affection given. It was thanks to the power of two-way communication.
That wasn't all.
The cyclical structure of broadcasting and then uploading the highlights to YouTube was also appealing. Streamers who were content themselves also used platforms like Starstagram as a channel for communication.
He had felt the influence of influencers deeply in his past life.
After all, he too had been a person with hundreds of millions of followers.
Learning with a beginner's mind was quite enjoyable.
Among other things, he realized that YouTube editing required a lot of time and effort.
He offered a brief moment of silence for the staff members who had worked hard for him in the past.
Was it his turn to pay the price now?
Those who volunteered out of pure fandom were especially respectable.
"There are so many talented people..."
Becoming humble by observing them, he compromised by deciding to edit and upload only the music for the video portion.
He had also roughly decided on the concept of his broadcast.
The problem was that it was extremely difficult to attract initial viewers for a music broadcast.
Even to his professional eyes, there were quite a few skilled individuals worth watching.
Yet, in the slang of this world, their viewer counts were "bottom-tier."
Streamers who showed their bodies while wearing masks, or those who broadcasted with their faces fully revealed, were much bigger "conglomerates."
Even if their skills were clearly inferior.
"No matter how much I deny it... looks can't be ignored."
He decided to proceed as planned, even if he had zero viewers for the time being.
Because it would be rewarding to see that number grow to one, ten, and then a hundred.
Now that he had made up his mind, all that was left was to execute it, so he ordered a secondary computer.
He set up a large monitor and quietly ordered a high-definition digital camera as well.
He didn't plan on living as a faceless broadcaster forever.
Of course, he had no intention of revealing his face right away.
Getting recognized for his music came first.
However, he re-examined Saebyeok's friendships and family relationships.
Problems could arise if his face became known through broadcasting.
Korea, true to its reputation as a Confucian society, demanded high moral standards.
Unlike in the US, where artists worked on songs while high or frequently wrote about drugs.
Putting that aside, the real issue, both in his past life and now, was external pressure...
The Moon family was a well-known Korean chaebol family behind the "Moonwol Group," and they had enough issues to be talked about in financial papers and news.
Even if their business ranking had dropped quite a bit due to management disputes, they were still a force to be reckoned with.
But what did he care?
Since they were worse than strangers, he decided to ignore them.
His social circle was disastrous.
How could he not remember a single person around him?
In a word, he was a "ghost."
It had been suspicious since his memories were so faint.
This was the first time he truly felt like he was in a novel's world.
Since there were only brief descriptions of his character, did he even exist during his school days?
He was an extra, pure and simple.
He hadn't thought much of it, but the more he pondered, the more goosebumps he got.
Taking it to the extreme, the expression "a prepared vessel" naturally came to mind.
The fear of having his freedom of life stripped away at any moment was just the tip of the iceberg.
He might be a character following a set script, or it could be like the old movies The Truman Show or The Matrix.
But letting his imagination run wild changed nothing.
"Perhaps life itself is a dream. Well, when has it not been?"
He decided to just stop thinking about it.
Living this life with a beginner's mind.
If he had a wish, it was to live without regrets.
He hoped it would be so.
Scratch, scratch—
Sharpening pencils had become familiar to him before he knew it.
Did it bring a strange sense of peace to his mind?
There was no need to make a grand plan, but doing it completely haphazardly felt wrong.
Or maybe he was just making excuses to use a pencil.
Ed stared at the blank notebook.
"First, in two versions..."
The overall framework was similar.
1. Cover songs
2. Original songs
With a slight variation, he planned to restore the original songs that had vanished from the world on the ED channel, while Saebyeok would focus on cover songs or Korean music.
Maybe a spoonful of classical music?
Instrumental performance videos would be good too.
"The only issues would be the voice and singing style, right?"
He wrote down his plans in the notebook for a long time, a subtle smile playing on his lips.
From his perspective, having dropped into a gender-reversed world, knowing the original songs—specifically, the vocal tendencies of the original singers—could be a massive advantage.
No matter how identical the song was, if the gender changed, the feeling would inevitably be completely different.
With the difference in vocal range, it could become an entirely different piece of music.
Since he had never been bound by genres in the first place, it posed no difficulty.
"This is getting quite exciting."
Ed's part was easy. He just had to do the music he had always done.
Except for the fact that he would be uploading it to YouTube without any promotion.
In the past, the standard was knocking on labels' doors with mixtapes or getting called up from the underground scene.
After thinking for a moment, he concluded that plagiarism wouldn't be an issue anyway.
He just had to make sure his songs weren't stolen by others.
"Saebyeok... that is, I need to build from the basics."
If others saw him, they might wonder why he was preparing so meticulously.
But in reality, the problem was quite significant.
His body itself had changed, so there was no way he could suddenly play perfectly.
He had set up a decent arrangement, but he couldn't produce studio-quality sound with home recording.
"I'll have to make some compromises."
A few things were added to his routine.
Instrument practice, songwriting, composing, vocal training, and so on.
Music began to echo.