Finals (4)
Hoo, haah—.
The instant I stepped offstage, I released the breath I had been holding in.
I gave it everything I had.
It was a performance that left not a single second of regret.
The judges’ reactions? Honestly, I never even had a moment to glance their way.
The entire time I sang, I looked not at the camera lenses but at the people.
The audience members who nodded along to my voice, the ones who swayed their hands to the beat.
I met their eyes one by one and smiled for them.
And for the woman sitting in the very front row, eyes shining as she watched me—my mother.
I stopped in front of the dressing-room mirror and quietly studied my own face.
The bright, unguarded smile I had worn onstage still lingered there, and the sight startled me.
What the hell did I just do?
The me of my previous life would never even have imagined acting that way.
But I had just realized something.
That had been nothing more than the careless thinking of a past self who had never truly stood on a stage.
It was fun.
Standing under the lights, singing, exchanging energy with a living crowd in real time—that act itself was absurdly joyful.
My ultimate goal is not chart number one in Korea.
It is to tour the world and carry my voice to people everywhere.
Tonight’s final stage felt like taking a huge step toward that vast dream, and I felt proud of myself.
Now I can finally relax and just watch.
Being first in the running order had actually been a blessing.
All that remained was to sit back and enjoy my fellow contestants’ performances.
I had already cleared it with the production staff in advance.
Once my stage was over, I was free to watch the others from the audience seats instead of waiting backstage.
I slipped between the rows and headed straight for the empty seat beside my mother.
Thankfully, the place they had saved for me was still vacant.
“…….”
I padded over like a cat and plopped down next to her.
Mother spun around in surprise, then, the moment she recognized my face, her expression melted into the smile of someone who had just been handed the entire world.
“Jiyoung!”
She seized my hand tightly.
“My girl, you were absolute perfection. You were so, so good. Do you have any idea how full my heart felt the whole time I was watching?”
“Yeah. Thanks, Mom.”
Her praise made a warm, ticklish feeling bloom in my chest.
Ordinarily I would have brushed off anything that sappy, but right now I simply savored the warmth.
Just then the MC, who had been tidying the stage, walked down into the house.
I was finally ready to enjoy the rest of the night as pure audience.
I had no idea how the time slipped away.
Before I knew it, only the last performer remained—Han Doyun.
So he really went with the indie-band sound after all.
I recalled the brief conversation we had shared backstage.
The resolute look in his eyes when he said he was temporarily leaving the safe harbor of country to walk a new road.
I found myself clenching my fist, wondering what kind of result he and Producer Seo Geonwoo had forged together.
Then, cutting through the darkness, he appeared.
“…….”
I sucked in a sharp breath without meaning to.
The leather jacket, the guitar slung across his body—he looked both unfamiliar and somehow exactly right.
The image overlapped perfectly with the first time I had seen him at the audition.
While every other contestant had chased dazzling choreography or overwhelming vocal power, he had once again walked out carrying the pure essence of who he was: his instrument.
At that moment the lights behind him slowly rose.
A drum kit, a bass amp, and a keyboard stood ready at his back.
He’s not performing to a track?
Goosebumps raced over my skin. It was a full live band.
Bringing a live band onto a nationally televised final stage was an enormous gamble—and pure guts.
But this could not have been Han Doyun’s idea alone.
I looked toward the corner of the judges’ table where the white-haired master Seo Geonwoo sat watching the stage with a calm face.
You put him up to this, didn’t you.
It was a choice so smart it bordered on cunning.
Nothing gives a live performance more raw advantage than the unfiltered sound of real instruments.
Then the kick drum began to thud through the house.
The music started at last.
Han Doyun’s fingers scraped down the guitar strings, and a dreamy yet heavy sound filled the space.
I’m still clumsy with the warmth you handed me.
Maybe that’s why everything always felt so hard.
I’m smiling right now, and that only scares me more.
Because the quiet always comes before the storm.
The song slowly built, the drumbeat accelerating.
The vibration of the bass climbed up through the soles of my feet and thumped against my chest.
Then every instrument exploded at once as the chorus hit.
The traces of our youth are hard to see now.
Drunk on the blinding light, they slowly fade away.
Ah—my chest ached.
Blinding white light poured down from the stage screens, and Han Doyun threw his head back, singing as if he were howling.
Aaaaaaah, aaaaaaah.
The song moved into the second verse, and before long Han Doyun’s final breath faded away.
Han Doyun… you really have become one hell of a musician.
“Waaaaaaaah—!!”
Applause erupted from every corner of the house.
Center stage under the lights, Han Doyun dragged in ragged breaths and wiped the sweat from his forehead.
He carefully resettled his guitar, then bowed deeply toward the audience.
When he slowly lifted his head again, his gaze cut straight through the thousands of eyes and locked onto me.
He had found me sitting in the front row.
I simply looked back at him and let a quiet smile curve my lips.
Seeing it, Han Doyun broke into a brilliant grin of his own before disappearing backstage with the band.
Just as his figure vanished completely, a firm hand settled on my shoulder.
“Ms. Han Jiyoung, it’s time to move.”
A staff member who had been waiting nearby.
“Go on, Jiyoung.”
Mother gave my hand a warm squeeze of encouragement.
I nodded once to her and rose from my seat.
I walked through the dark corridor and stepped out beneath the flood of white light.
On the stairs leading up to the stage, the other contestants who had survived the semifinals were already lined up. I took my place among them.
“All right, heading in!”
At the staff’s call we climbed onto the stage.
Multicolored moving lights swept wildly across our five faces.
Then, to bright music, the MC strode to center stage.
He glanced once at the cue sheet in his hand and offered the audience a gentle smile.
“Please give another thunderous round of applause to the five contestants who have walked this long, fierce journey with us on Voice of Legend!”
The packed house roared and clapped as one.
Some wiped their eyes.
Others shouted the names of the ones they were rooting for.
“Now it is time to crown a single Legend. While the final results are being tallied, our judges are making their last, most careful deliberations.”
Seo Geonwoo sat utterly still, staring at the tablet screen, lost in deep thought.
The stage Han Doyun had just delivered had been flawless.
The gamble of a live band had paid off perfectly.
The raw sound of the instruments and Han Doyun’s voice had been beyond reproach.
It was more than even Seo Geonwoo himself had hoped for when he produced the track.
Han Doyun has truly become a monster.
Even as he thought it, his eyes kept drifting to one particular corner of his mind.
The afterimage of Han Jiyoung’s performance—first in the order—refused to leave him.
Opening the show was normally a disadvantage.
The dazzling high notes and flashy stages that followed usually buried the first memory.
Yet something was strange.
Even after Han Doyun’s powerful drums had pounded against his eardrums, what kept rising unbidden in the quiet was the city-pop melody Jiyoung had woven.
The other judges were wrestling with the same confusion.
Park Jinwoo tapped his pen against the table, brow furrowed.
When Han Doyun’s stage ended he had been certain: That’s the winner.
But the moment he sat down to assign final scores, Jiyoung’s performance began circling through his head.
This is tough.
The impact belonged to Han Doyun, yet the lingering aftertaste belonged overwhelmingly to Han Jiyoung.
Kang Soyoung pressed her lips together and closed her eyes.
In her mind she could still see Jiyoung in those short pants, stepping lightly, rhythmically across the stage.
That peculiar ease that could captivate people without a single flashy technique.
Her earlier worry that city pop might simply get buried in a competition now looked groundless.
Terry Oh fidgeted with his orange-tinted sunglasses and kept clearing his throat.
All five stages had been excellent, yet every time he tried to write a number on the score sheet, Jiyoung’s voice drifted back into his ears and scattered his concentration.
The judges avoided one another’s eyes.
But every one of them knew.
The most intense stage versus the most unforgettable stage.
The longer their agony stretched, the damper the contestants’ palms grew under the lights.
“The tally is complete.”
The moment the MC spoke, every light in the studio went black.
In that absolute darkness, only five beams dropped onto the heads of the contestants onstage.
Boom. Boom. Boom—.
A deep bass note rolled through the speakers.
Then the five lights began to spin wildly.
Click. Click—.
The first two lights snuffed out; those contestants bowed and disappeared into the dark.
Only three remained.
The lights whirled again.
They danced across the three faces, torturing the audience’s nerves, until a sharp crack shoved one more into darkness.
Only two lights left onstage.
Han Jiyoung, and Han Doyun.
Zing. Zing—.
The lights above their heads began to flicker.
On and off, the white beams alternately erased and restored their faces.
Just as the tension in the room was about to explode, the final light locked into place.
Fwaah—!
The frantic flashing light finally settled, solid and unmoving, above Han Jiyoung’s head.
At the same instant, the light on Han Doyun faded into quiet darkness.
“Waaaaaaaaaah—!!”
A bright fanfare blared and glittering gold confetti burst from the studio ceiling.
Through the paper snow that fell like real snowflakes, only one figure shone.
The MC’s cry filled the entire studio.
Jiyoung stared blankly up at the light pouring over her, then closed her eyes against the thunder of applause.