What If? (4)
The fireworks exploded, and the backing track began to flow.
By the time Jeong Seo-hoon stepped onto the stage stairs, he had already started singing.
The low notes of the gentle intro were easy enough for anyone to handle, but conveying the emotion properly was far more challenging.
—Walking through time to reach its end
My wish sleeps in that place
The scenery before his eyes transformed into a complex tangle of primary colors.
It was like watching the gravitational field being flung backward as one escaped the event horizon at immense speed.
The full spectrum of the audience's emotions scattered in all directions as colors and lines, mingling wildly in a frenzied dance.
Baek Hyeo-seon took over the next part.
—Where my shattered patience fades alone
All my scattered efforts wail in agony
In an instant, an explosive radiance burst from the colors enveloping Baek Hyeo-seon, scattering in every direction.
It swallowed everything in a vast, brilliant cascade of emotion, far more immense and dazzling than the bundles of temperature-hued colors poured out by the audience.
Jeong Seo-hoon could clearly see how Baek Hyeo-seon's singing overwhelmed the emotions of every single spectator.
'Shaking the audience's hearts indirectly through song. So this is a singer's stage...'
The vocal projection from Baek Hyeo-seon's mouth—and from the speakers—emerged as bundles of primary colors, brushing against the audience's emotions.
The emotional lines of singer and audience undulated together, drawing tantalizingly close without quite intertwining.
In Jeong Seo-hoon's eyes, that unbridgeable gap stood out plainly.
'What if I force that gap closed? What would happen?'
His own part again.
Singing as practiced, Jeong Seo-hoon focused intently on the pure primary colors, imagining his unique vibration infused within.
An invisible wave rode his voice, touching a color emanating from one audience member.
The moment the primary-colored tendril gently wrapped around the female spectator's body, she erupted in a blaze of white light, as if her form had ignited.
The light flickered out in a flash, and she collapsed limply.
"Kyaaah! She fainted!"
"Me too! I feel like I'm gonna faint! Kyaaaaah!"
Screams bordering on wails erupted around the fainted woman.
It was poor manners for a ballad performance, but Baek Hyeo-seon remained unflustered, singing on calmly.
—Close your eyes gently on that windy hill
The fainted spectator soon regained consciousness, rising to unleash even more intense colors amid her cries.
In his next part, Jeong Seo-hoon scattered a higher-pitched tone toward another audience member.
A burly man in his thirties rolled back his eyes and fainted, only to snap awake moments later.
The vivid blaze of his emotional heat was now unmistakable.
Now he was certain.
'I can directly stimulate emotions with my voice.'
It was possible because this was a stage.
With so many spectators opening their hearts wide, ready to immerse themselves in the singer's emotions, and their thousands—tens of thousands—of color temperatures creating vast synergy.
A mediocre singer or a street performance with scant audience would never produce such an effect.
—Lonely, I lie and cry out, sketching lost time
Faintings followed by recoveries broke out everywhere, but Baek Hyeo-seon poured even hotter emotion into his fervent singing.
He too was burning brighter from the audience's fiery response.
To Jeong Seo-hoon's eyes, that corona-like solar flare of color temperature gleamed sharply.
The final part was a duet harmony sung in unison.
—Stay there forever, within my reach
Locking eyes, they synced their breaths, phrase by phrase.
Jeong Seo-hoon gently closed his eyes.
Beyond his eyelids, the vast tangle of color temperatures overlapped with Baek Hyeo-seon's silhouette.
The plea of Baek Hyeo-seon, untouched by the lens's power, merely circled the audience's hearts without directly touching them as it did for him.
But...
'Is it possible?'
To test the hypothesis, Jeong Seo-hoon layered his own resonance onto the emotional lines Baek Hyeo-seon was spreading.
The spark he added raced along every line connecting Baek Hyeo-seon to the audience, igniting their hearts like a fuse in an instant.
Like tossing a lit flint onto the oil Baek Hyeo-seon had laid out.
A transcendent stimulation achievable only through the lens's power.
The thrill wrenched tears mercilessly from the audience's eyes.
"......"
"......Hic."
At last, the song ended, and the landscape filled solely with color temperatures reverted to normal.
Not a single one of the tens of thousands of spectators was left untouched—tears streamed down every face.
"Damn, why are my eyes...?"
"It's sad, so sad..."
"I didn't realize when I heard it in the drama, but live it's this heartbreaking..."
Unaware they'd been chemically stimulated, the audience chalked it up to the song's sorrow and their moved hearts.
Seeing everyone around them crying, they began chuckling awkwardly.
"I've done tons of concerts, but this is a first for me too. Never imagined so many people crying all at once. Anyone who didn't shed a tear? Raise your hand—I'll give you a prize."
Baek Hyeo-seon joked playfully, but no hands went up.
On the screens, every camera-caught face had wet eyes or reddened sockets.
"I sang well, sure, but this feels like it's thanks to our guest, not me. Let me introduce him again: the monster rookie actor making waves these days, Jeong Seo-hoon."
Jeong Seo-hoon's face filled the screens, drawing shrieks and cheers from everywhere.
Scattered cries of "Bee-lap! Bee-lap! Haksah! Haksah!" erupted too.
The natural emotional lines visible only on a singer's stage vanished.
But the sensation of resonating to touch the audience's emotions lingered.
'With so many people opening their hearts wide, focusing entirely on me right now...'
The stage was over, but perhaps it was still possible?
Time to test another hypothesis.
Jeong Seo-hoon deliberately paused his breath, drawing every eye tautly to him.
Imagining injecting the same trigger into the now-invisible myriad emotional lines, he spoke.
"Hello, everyone."
In perfect unison, as if rehearsed, tens of thousands roared in cheers.
The concert hall shook with the deafening thunder.
* * *
After the guest spot, Ha Tae-soo greeted Jeong Seo-hoon descending the stage with a look like he'd seen a monster.
"You could've been a huge singer too. You said you couldn't sing, but how'd you do it so well?"
"Nah. Baek Hyeo-seon handled all the high notes. I just sang the easy parts."
"Infusing emotion into easy parts is way harder. High notes you can polish with technique."
"Eh, vocal cords are innate. Baek Hyeo-seon sings casually and it flows endlessly like speakers, not a throat."
"You sound casual too, but the audience was bawling. His team leader manager asked if you'd really never had vocal training."
"I did the last few days. With Baek Hyeo-seon."
"That was just quick prep for the guest spot."
Song flowed from the stage again.
But now outside, the harmonic colors of singer and audience were invisible.
As they prepared to leave, a familiar team leader manager rushed over breathlessly.
"Wait! Mr. Jeong Seo-hoon! Hold on!"
Flushed and panting heavily, she finally spoke.
"You've really never had professional vocal training?"
"Yes."
"Unbelievable. Your tone and emotional delivery are perfect—you're a natural. A bit of training and top-tier singer status is inevitable."
She hesitated, then blurted it out.
"No interest in singing? Actors do both nowadays if they've got the talent."
"Live stages are appealing, but I'm focusing on acting right now."
"Still, think it over seriously. Call if you change your mind—our agency's top-tier at artist care, as you know."
"I'll keep it in mind."
"I'll check in occasionally, so don't brush me off too harshly."
She pleaded repeatedly before retreating.
In the car, Ha Tae-soo glanced at Jeong Seo-hoon in the mirror, impressed.
"See Park Team Leader's eyes? Totally smitten."
"What'd I do? Anyone can sing that level."
"Normally that'd be obnoxious, but you make it seem natural—that's your biggest strength. Even when you brag, it feels justified."
"That's for your manager, who's supposed to be on my side?"
"Exactly why I analyze objectively as a third party. I want my actor flying high forever. Thrilling."
Jeong Seo-hoon clenched and unclenched his fist, replaying the stage quietly.
'Hypothesis verified successfully.'
The hypothesis born from that wave of pure emotional colors at Baek Hyeo-seon's surprise live during the music video's final shoot days ago—today, splendidly confirmed.
'Another sense revealed by the camera lens... I can stimulate the audience's hearts by infusing resonance into sound. The more listeners, the stronger the sway.'
He could shake hearts solo, or amplify vastly by using a partnering singer as conduit.
"Keeps making me grin. If you'd debuted as a singer first, then acted on the side, it'd be insane. Or nah—maybe drop albums occasionally? Your fandom's solid."
"Gotta juggle grad school now—when for vocal training?"
Ha Tae-soo hummed happily, lost in imagination.
Unlike his words, Jeong Seo-hoon kept ruminating on the stage.
The thrill of freely stimulating and igniting tens of thousands of hearts mirrored the satisfaction of commanding a unit to victory.
'But can't use it for acting, huh? Kinda disappointing.'
To grip and shake emotional lines required shared real-time breath. More audience, better.
But dramas and films were pre-shot, edited, aired later.
No point making staff cry or laugh endlessly.
The power amplified with crowds primed to open wide.
* * *
The next day.
Awake, Jeong Seo-hoon checked hundreds of KakaoTalk bombs from the four actresses.
"What the—first thing in the morning..."
As he opened Han Seo-hee's barrage—the heaviest—the door burst open.
Jeong Su-ryeon, wild-haired, growled like a lioness robbed of hindquarters by a deer.
"What the hell did you do at Baek Hyeo-seon's concert yesterday? Drop a mass hypnosis bomb?"
"What're you talking about?"
"How else does a guest clip hit 9 million views overnight?"
She shoved a tablet with the YouTube thumbnail in his face.
"No joke. Comments begging for your solo full version of 'That Place' are flooding. Dude, at this rate, shouldn't the lead actor drop a cover for the ending credits?"