The Youth Who Rested
The championship trophy sat undisturbed in its display case in the living room.
Two full weeks had already passed since the glittering curtain fell on Voice of Legend. The world was still buzzing with the name Han Jiyoung, yet the person at the center of it all was living in perfect quiet.
Interview offers poured in. Ad sponsorships. Variety-show invitations. I turned every last one of them down.
As a result, all those money-making opportunities flowed straight to the runner-up, Han Doyun.
Thanks to me, huh.
Did he really believe that?
In the end it was his voice that stole the audience’s hearts on that stage, his passion that made the veins stand out on his neck.
Repay me? No need.
Just watching him do well was more than enough to satisfy the musical vanity living inside me.
I propped my chin in my hand and stared at the monitor. My game character stood blankly in the middle of the village square.
It was time to start thinking about the practical side of things.
Producing an album, distributing the tracks, coordinating a tangled schedule, reviewing legal issues… none of that belonged to the musician’s domain. That was the territory of management and business.
I could never handle it alone.
I need an agency.
The first face that came to mind was, of course, Kim Taesung.
Or maybe…
Should I just start my own company?
I considered it for a second and shook my head after one full second. Management skills? I didn’t have any. I couldn’t even picture myself poring over contract clauses. And I had zero confidence I could carve out a place for myself among the major labels.
In the end there was only one conclusion.
Take it slow.
I was only twenty. I had just begun to bloom. There was no need to rush.
“First things first—finish the album work.”
Honestly, agencies ready to welcome me with open arms were everywhere. For now I decided to focus on what I actually wanted to do.
The mood online was bleak.
Han Jiyoung’s Minor Gallery—one of the places that should have been the noisiest in all of Korea—had grown conspicuously quiet. Barely two weeks earlier, right after the final victory, posts had poured in so fast the servers nearly crashed. Now the place felt deserted.
The owner had claimed the trophy and vanished. The fans were left starving without a single scrap of bait thrown their way.
[Content: Who is this Korean singer? She perfectly recreated that 80s city-pop vibe. Her voice is a treasure.]
Looks like the city-pop feeling from the final is blowing up over in Japan? Makes sense—they went full 80s bubble-economy era so of course it hit their tastes dead-on.
New posts had slowed to a trickle, but the resentment of those who remained only grew deeper.
Han Jiyoung’s gallery was wandering, ownerless. Even though they were supposed to be staning a number-one singer, the fans refreshed the page every day with the empty feeling of chasing a ghost.
Tokyo, Shibuya. High up in a skyscraper sat the animation studio Studio Iter.
The air inside the conference room had frozen solid.
Dozens of profiles and demo CDs belonging to Japan’s top-tier musicians lay scattered across the table. On the large screen at the front of the room, scenes from the new theatrical anime currently in production—Your Name?—were frozen in place.
“……Director, the artist you just heard, Akari, is currently sitting at number one on the Oricon chart. She’s the hottest vocalist right now. From a commercial standpoint I believe she’s the optimal choice for the film.”
Even the music director’s careful suggestion failed to move the elderly man seated at the head of the table.
Kawaguchi Shunsuke, the living legend of Japanese animation, toyed with his reading glasses while staring fixedly at the screen—at the backs of the young man and woman standing on a sunset-drenched hill.
“Too smooth.”
The single quiet remark from Kawaguchi stopped every breath in the room.
“The technique is overflowing, but I can’t feel a soul. This is a story about a reunion that defies fate. I need a voice that makes a corner of your chest ache the moment you hear it—a voice that makes you yearn for some place in the past you’ve never even been to……”
The music director scrubbed his face in frustration.
“But Director, a voice that holds both nostalgia and sophistication at once is nearly impossible to find even in Japan. We’ve already reviewed every first-tier singer at least once.”
Kawaguchi answered with a sigh and looked out the window. The glittering Tokyo nightscape spread beneath his feet, yet his mind held only one melody—the single line that would complete the film’s final scene.
No matter how famous the singer, none had satisfied his stubborn standard.
That was when it happened.
In the corner of the room a young assistant director who had been quietly tapping at a laptop raised a hesitant hand.
“Um…… Director. Would you mind watching this clip once?”
Kawaguchi’s eyebrow twitched with mild irritation.
“Is this someone famous?”
“A contestant from a Korean audition program. But lately she’s been making serious waves on Japanese SNS and among city-pop fans……”
Kawaguchi turned his head without much expectation.
The video the assistant director put up on the screen was the final-stage performance from Korea’s Voice of Legend. The subtitle read: Han Jiyoung – Stand with me.
On screen, a woman in a pure-white suit stood with casual indifference. The moment she loosened her necktie and released the first line, Kawaguchi’s pupils trembled ever so slightly.
What filled the conference room was a wistful sensibility that felt as if it had drifted out of some back alley in 1980s Tokyo.
“…….”
For the full three minutes the song played, the master never once blinked. He took in every detail with every nerve stretched taut—the look in Han Jiyoung’s eyes, the faint tremor at the fingertips gripping the microphone, the unique timbre that gathered and converged through the air itself.
When the music ended and silence returned, Kawaguchi removed his glasses and set them on the table. The rims of his eyes had grown faintly red.
“Who is she.”
“Pardon?”
“The owner of that voice. Contact Korea right now and set up a meeting.”
The music director shot to his feet in panic.
“Director! Casting a Korean singer is completely unprecedented. The investors will push back hard, and the publicity team will refuse outright!”
But Kawaguchi was unyielding. He pointed at the frozen profile of Han Jiyoung on the screen.
“If there’s no precedent, then I’ll make one. The voice I’ve waited twenty years for is right there—what does nationality have to do with it?”
Certainty burned in the master’s eyes.
“Go tell them. The only person who can complete the name of this work is her.”
Kawaguchi stared through the frozen pupils of Jiyoung on the screen as if boring into them, then turned to the assistant director standing beside him.
“Which agency is she under?”
The assistant hurriedly scrolled through a tablet and answered with a flustered expression.
“That’s…… as of now she appears to have no agency. She recently took first place on a major Korean audition program, but she’s refused every single love call that poured in afterward and is operating independently.”
“Unaffiliated, is she…….”
Kawaguchi’s eyebrows lifted with interest. The fact that she was an artist unswayed by the logic of capital sank even deeper into his heart.
“Then her contact information? Is there a channel through which we can speak with her?”
“We can secure a personal email and contact details through the previous program’s production staff. I’ll start tracking them down immediately.”
Kawaguchi brought his palm down on the table with heavy finality.
“Understood. The final piece that will complete Your Name? is that voice. Use every means necessary and bring her on board! If I have to, I’ll go to Korea myself.”
The master’s thunderous order fell. In an instant the conference room erupted into noise.