Chapter 12
Chapter 12
“Honey. What exactly was that song just now?”
“Oh, that? It’s just... been popular lately, so I listened to it once.”
His father hurriedly shoved his phone into his pocket.
“The lyrics are a little extreme, but the song itself is good. I listened to it once, and it kept getting stuck in my head.”
...Come to think of it, I think Dad did like hip-hop.
Sometimes, while cooking in the kitchen, his father would happily bob his head to the music. Whenever that happened, foreign hip-hop was playing through the speakers.
“The beat is really good too.”
I made that beat, Dad...
He could not bring himself to say it.
His father would probably faint if he found out.
If he learned that his own son was the person who had put such obscene lines into the lyrics.
“A-anyway. Geon, enough about the song.”
“What kind of lyrics are these? Is this person insane?”
“...Ahem! Honey, that’s enough.”
His mother’s criticism made Park Geon feel embarrassed too.
...It almost felt as though he had committed a crime.
He trudged back to his room.
He closed the door and lay down on his bed.
Dad said the beat I made was good.
He did not know.
It felt strange.
But why did it have to be a diss track of all things...?!
He was depressed.
He decided to just sleep.
Three days later.
UCLA’s Westwood campus.
Students moved beneath the shade of palm trees.
This place is seriously peaceful.
Perhaps because he had grown used to South LA, the campus felt like another country.
Instead of gunshots, there was the sound of lawn mowers, and instead of hands throwing gang signs, there were hands holding Starbucks cups.
He took out his student ID and entered the student affairs building.
After receiving a leave-of-absence application form, he sat down in a chair.
[Reason:]
To work as the producer for a rapper affiliated with the Crips.
...He could not write that.
He simply wrote “personal reasons.”
After submitting the paperwork, he headed toward the law school building.
None of the students he passed in the hallway greeted him.
That was how it had always been.
He had walked these halls for two years, yet the closest relationships he had formed were with people who would merely nod if their eyes happened to meet.
Only one person, Brian, who had studied with him for a constitutional law class, waved from a distance.
“Park Geon!”
Park Geon raised a hand.
“You taking Professor Marshall’s constitutional law class this semester? I heard it’s brutal.”
“Ah, about that. I’m taking this semester off.”
“Seriously? Why?”
“It’s just... something personal. No comment.”
“Really? Well, contact me when you come back. I’ll save you a spot in the study group.”
...He doesn’t seem very disappointed.
Park Geon had thought they were close.
Had that only been his own misunderstanding?
Third floor of the law school building.
Park Geon knocked on the door of Professor Marshall’s office.
“Come in.”
Surrounded by shelves filled with legal codes and casebooks, Professor Marshall looked up over his glasses.
“Oh, Park. What brings you here?”
“Professor, I’m taking a leave of absence this semester.”
“...A leave of absence?”
“Yes.”
“Sit down first.”
Professor Marshall took the seat opposite him.
“Park, do you remember what you wrote in your constitutional law final essay last semester?”
“...Yes.”
“Due process. A modern reinterpretation of Roper v. Simmons. Most students summarize the precedent and stop there. But you analyzed the dissent as well and systematically argued why the majority opinion was logically superior.”
(Translator’s Note: Due process — A legal principle requiring the government to follow fair procedures before depriving someone of life, liberty, or property. In U.S. constitutional law, the Due Process Clauses appear in the Fifth Amendment (ratified 1791) and Fourteenth Amendment (ratified 1868).)
(Translator’s Note: Roper v. Simmons — A 2005 Supreme Court of the United States decision holding that imposing the death penalty on offenders who were under eighteen at the time of their crimes violates the Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments.)
“...”
“To be honest, you are one of the five best students I have ever taught.”
...He thought that highly of me?
Park Geon had not known.
He always sat quietly in the back of the classroom and took notes, and he only spoke when he was called on.
“Honestly, it is disappointing to see a student like you take a leave of absence. May I ask why?”
“...It’s a personal matter.”
“I see.”
Professor Marshall nodded.
He did not press further.
And unlike that bastard Brian, the professor clearly looked disappointed.
If someone asked who Park Geon was closest to at this school, should he answer Professor Marshall now...?
He closed the office door behind him.
Standing in the hallway, he let out a sigh.
Ah!
He did not have time for this.
He needed to hurry to HOOVER SOUND.
He remembered the first time he had come here.
Back then, Dustin had dragged him in and thrown him in front of Big Joe, while the studio composers had looked him up and down and whispered among themselves.
Their expressions had openly shown their displeasure at the fact that an unknown Asian was receiving Big Joe’s money and even getting publishing rights.
But today—
“Ayyy! Shotgun!”
A composer he passed in the hallway held out a fist first.
As Park Geon walked toward the recording room, one of the beatmakers sitting on the sofa nodded in greeting.
“Is it true you destroyed B.I.G? Those lyrics were insane, you ruthless bastard.”
“...”
“Honestly, I’m fucking terrified of you. I’m scared, but... I still have to ask you this, Shotgun.”
“...”
“Listen to one of my beats sometime. Just once. Please.”
Park Geon never made a promise.
He knew even less than they did, so what kind of feedback was he supposed to give?
Then he heard the man’s dejected voice from behind him.
“...I just asked Shotgun for a favor, and he turned me down.”
“Asshole. Shotgun isn’t some idle guy with enough free time to give you feedback.”
“Yeah, I guess so.”
...What?
After walking a little farther, another person greeted him.
“Wassup, homie.”
“...?”
Until that morning, Park Geon had walked alone at UCLA.
But here, gang members were calling him homie.
What is this?
At school, he was invisible.
At a gang-affiliated studio, he was a VIP.
Creak—
The studio door opened.
The atmosphere changed the moment Lil D walked in.
Since the diss battle, there was a new confidence in Lil D’s expression.
“Yo.”
“...Yo.”
“Let’s get right to it.”
They were finishing the final recording for the official release.
Through the glass, Park Geon’s eyes met Lil D’s.
The moment the verse section began—
“Shorty next to me ask what I do for a living.”
The girl sitting beside me asks what I do for a living.
“I just smile and say, baby, I run these streets.”
I smile and answer, baby, I run these streets.
Wow.
Why was he so good?
Park Geon stared blankly like an audience member.
Actually, he practically was one.
Lil D had a habit of coming in half a beat late during the middle of a verse, but that delay actually created tension.
He was the type of person who had rhythm ingrained in his body by instinct.
The final hook ended.
Lil D lowered one side of his headphones and looked through the glass.
“...”
His eyes were waiting for a reaction.
The problem was that Park Geon’s facial muscles were still completely stiff.
Whenever he came to the studio, his heartbeat sped up and his face froze.
“...”
Lil D nodded, then silently put his headphones back on.
No, why? That was good!
Second take.
This time, he lowered his voice by one tone at the beginning of the verse.
He started almost in a whisper, then pulled his voice sharply upward just before the hook.
The emotional progression was clearer than in the first take.
Finished.
Lil D looked at Park Geon again through the glass.
The other composers were also quietly watching Park Geon’s reaction.
I think this one might be better...
But if someone asked him exactly what was better, he would have trouble answering.
It was just a feeling.
Park Geon was not a real producer.
He did not have the ears to analyze subtle differences.
Ah!
If he stayed silent like this, Lil D would obviously move on to a third, fourth, and fifth take.
Then it would be dawn, and Park Geon would be trapped here until the next morning.
So he nodded.
Still expressionless.
Just once.
“OHHH!”
A composer shouted behind him.
“Nah, did you see that?! Shotgun nodded!”
“He nodded on the second take! He had no reaction to the first one!”
Inside the booth, Lil D looked strangely proud.
“The second take, right? Lower at the start, then bring it up at the hook?”
Park Geon merely nodded again.
“Aight!”
Ah.
He understood now.
In situations like this, all he had to do was nod.
There was no need to make any other kind of reaction.
It might have seemed trivial, but to Park Geon, it was an important discovery.
The rest of the session proceeded smoothly.
After Lil D finished recording the verse and moved on to the hook, he recorded two different versions.
Park Geon nodded at the second.
Accepted.
The ad-lib section.
Lil D tried three versions.
Park Geon nodded at the first.
Accepted.
“Damn, Shotgun makes the call after hearing it once.”
At the same time, Park Geon felt uneasy.
What if the song failed because of this?
What if the quality dropped because he had nodded randomly?
But when they played the completed recording from beginning to end—
...It sounds good, though?
Still, he could not be sure.
How would people react after the release?
They decided to leave the mastering to a professional engineer who regularly worked with HOOVER SOUND.
Park Geon was relieved they had not told him to do that too.
“Shotgun.”
Lil D, soaked in sweat from recording, spoke to him.
“Want to go for a drive to celebrate finishing the session?”
...No!
“Hm?”
“S-sure. Let’s go!”
“Let’s bounce~!”
“...!”
Th-this is insane...
A Lamborghini Huracán Spyder.
A convertible.
The ignition button looked like the missile launch switch of a fighter jet.
Lil D pressed it.
Vroooooom—!
The exhaust note climbed straight up Park Geon’s spine.
I-is this a car or a spaceship?
He thought of his own car.
A 2009 Honda Civic.
The engine groaned as though it were dying whenever he turned on the air conditioner.
There was an evolutionary gap between that Civic and this Lamborghini.
“...”
The roof was folded down, leaving the open sky above his head.
The evening sky of Los Angeles.
A gradient of orange and purple filled his entire field of vision.
“Shotgun, want me to be honest?”
Lil D spoke with one hand resting on the steering wheel.
“This car is leased.”
“...Huh?”
“I’m making monthly payments on it. It’s not really mine yet.”
Lil D grinned.
“But you know what? Once this single comes out, I’m going to buy it outright.”
They drove west along Sunset Boulevard.
(Translator’s Note: Sunset Boulevard — A major boulevard in Los Angeles extending from downtown toward the Pacific coast, long associated with the film, music, and nightlife industries.)
The hills were packed with mansions.
The people living up there were the ones who moved the music industry of this city.
“...That’s impressive.”
Park Geon had not expected Lil D to admit honestly that the car was leased.
In this world, people usually pretended to have money even when they did not.
“So, Shotgun. Let’s make this single blow up properly. It’s the first official release for both you and me.”
“...”
That was true.
The diss tracks had been unofficial tracks uploaded to SoundCloud.
When [Drive] was released, it would officially go up on streaming platforms.
It would become the first official work released under Park Geon’s name.
[Prod. SHOTGUN]
Those words would appear on streaming apps.
The result of the hobby he had tinkered with alone since elementary school would be added to people’s playlists.
...This feels strange.
The traffic light turned red.
The Lamborghini slowed to a stop.
Seventeen-year-old Park Yul was walking with three white friends, each of them holding an iced latte.
“By the way, does anyone know Lil D?”
“Of course. He’s hot right now because of the diss battle.”
Jessica pulled out her phone and showed them the screen.
Four heads immediately gathered over the phone.
“He’s totally my type!”
“Let me see, let me see.”
Suzy snatched the phone away.
“Oh? He’s handsome. I thought he’d be scary because he’s a rapper, but in the pictures where he’s smiling, he looks really cute.”
“He’s not cute. He’s sexy.”
The four girls giggled around a single phone.
“But isn’t Shotgun even more interesting than Lil D? Nobody knows who he is at all.”
“Oh, right! That silhouette photo! The one where he’s standing in the smog wearing sunglasses and a chain!”
Emily placed a hand over her chest and sighed theatrically.
“Ah, a mysterious man. Unknown identity. You can’t even see his face, yet his aura alone steals your heart...”
“Emily, stop writing a novel.”
“Oh, come on! I’m curious! I want to see his face!”
“I want an autograph. Either Lil D’s or Shotgun’s.”
“If Lil D performs live again, I’m definitely going.”
“How is a minor supposed to get into a club?”
“I’m still going! I can sneak in!”
Park Yul quietly listened while sipping her latte.
She did not really listen to hip-hop, but people at school had been talking about the diss battle too, so she knew the basic story.
“Oh, Yul. What has your brother been doing lately? You said he’s a UCLA law student, right? Doesn’t that mean he’ll become a lawyer later?”
“Yeah, probably?”
“Your brother is so cool.”
“Come on, he’s not that—”
At that moment—
Vroooooom—
An exhaust note split through the street.
All four of them turned their heads at the same time.
A yellow convertible was stopped at the traffic light.
“Whoa, it’s a Lamborghini!”
“Can I take a picture?”
Jessica raised her phone to take a photo, but her hand froze when she looked at the driver’s seat.
“...Wait.”
“What?”
“The driver. That guy.”
A Black man sat behind the wheel with one hand resting on it.
“...Huh?”
Jessica’s mouth slowly fell open.
“W-w-wait?!”
Emily grabbed Jessica’s arm and shook it.
“Hey, hey, hey! That! Isn’t that Lil D?!”
“No way! It is Lil D! I saw his face on Instagram earlier!”
“Seriously?! That’s really Lil D?!”
“What do we do?! What do we do?! I need an autograph!”
While her friends bounced excitedly in place, Park Yul’s gaze was fixed on the passenger seat.
The person sitting there wore sunglasses and stared straight ahead with an expressionless face.
“...Oppa?”
Her friends stared at her with wide eyes.
“Yul?”
“W-what did you just say?”
“Don’t tell me the person sitting next to him is...”