4
# Chapter 4
Kim Jin-woo realized something once again.
Even for someone who had become a rich man with total assets of 2 billion won, including real estate, returning to the
military after leave was absolutely dreadful.
Still, it was not quite the same as feeling like he was crawling back into hell as it had been before.
‘My discharge isn’t far away anyway.’
After transferring between the subway and buses several times, Kim Jin-woo finally returned to the military base in Paju
and walked at a leisurely pace.
Looking back, he had made good use of his four days of leave.
He had bought a brand-new apartment, filled it with all the necessary appliances, and spent the rest of his time with
his older sister, Kim Ha-young, and his niece, Sua.
He had only managed to tear himself away from Sua after promising that he would take another leave soon.
‘I already paid all the hospital expenses in advance, so there shouldn’t be any problems for a while.’
In any case, Kim Jin-woo now had roughly 400 million won in remaining assets.
Even after subtracting the 1.5 billion won he had spent on the house, it was still a considerable amount of money.
After his discharge, he planned to buy a car and then spend his money carefully.
He could not afford to waste it.
Except today.
“Attention. Sergeant Kim Jin-woo, reporting back from leave.”
After passing through the guard post and entering the command and control room to report his return, the duty officer,
who had been slouching around with a bored expression, widened his eyes.
“Oh, you’re back? Wait... what’s all that?”
The duty officer’s surprised gaze was fixed on the plastic bags hanging from both of Kim Jin-woo’s arms.
Kim Jin-woo smiled slightly and placed the contents of the bags on the desk.
“It’s nothing special. I bought some things on the way back. Would you like some?”
There were three pizzas.
Even after taking them out, the bags were still heavy.
“Why’d you buy all this? Thanks, though. Three pizzas should be enough for everyone here.”
Bringing food back after returning from leave was not particularly unusual.
Naturally, if you only took care of the people in your own barracks, the duty officer would be displeased.
On the other hand, taking good care of him put him in a considerably better mood.
“Jin-woo, come down after roll call later. Let’s have a cigarette together.”
“Yes, sir.”
After responding to the duty officer’s friendly words, Kim Jin-woo called over a nearby junior.
“Buddy.”
“Private First Class Seong Yo-han!”
“I’ve got a lot of stuff here, so could you help me carry it upstairs? You can eat some too.”
“Yes! Understood!”
He had only called one person, but every junior nearby came rushing over to carry the bags.
‘Discipline is really something.’
Kim Jin-woo smiled bitterly.
There was easily enough food for more than ten pizzas.
This was not some kind of hazing or abuse. He genuinely needed help carrying it all.
“Huh? Sergeant Kim, you’re back?”
When they went up to the second floor where the barracks were, the soldiers began appearing from all over the place,
seemingly lured by the delicious smell of pizza.
Among them, Kim Jin-woo’s immediate junior, who had accumulated a fair amount of seniority, spoke to him.
“What’s all this? Pizza?”
“Call everyone. Let’s eat together.”
“Wow! Did you really buy all of this yourself? How could you afford it on a salary of only two hundred thousand won?”
“Don’t go stealing the others’ food. Share it properly. Got it?”
Kim Jin-woo clicked his tongue and cut off his junior.
“What do you take me for? I absolutely won’t steal any!”
His immediate junior answered with a sly grin.
He did not look convincing at all.
The world was beautiful.
That thought felt even stronger when everyone else had been dragged off to work and was being worked to death while he
alone lay on his bunk in the barracks.
He wondered if he had ever felt this relaxed before.
In the past, he had racked his brain every day worrying about how he would survive after being discharged.
Now, he was actually looking forward to it.
The reason was simple.
‘Because I’m not in a hurry.’
He had gained breathing room.
It was fair to say that he had been freed from matters concerning his very survival.
‘I’m bored.’
Kim Jin-woo absentmindedly watched an idol music video playing on the TV and scratched his side.
This had become his daily routine lately.
There was still about a month and a half until his discharge, but he was also the company’s highest-ranking senior, so
nobody dared bother Kim Jin-woo.
The attention caused by the incident involving the lawyer had quickly died down as well. The company commander had
personally stepped in and told everyone not to pay attention to it.
Thus, with no duties and no work to do, Kim Jin-woo was practically unemployed.
‘There’s nothing to do.’
Watching TV and laughing stupidly at it was fun for a day or two at most. His juniors were busy with things like
fortification work, so he had to spend most of his time alone.
Eventually, Kim Jin-woo dressed like a veteran soldier nearing discharge, wearing a military undershirt and shorts while
dragging his slippers along the floor as he headed to the military computer room.
He planned to kill some time by browsing the internet.
While scrolling through an online community, one post suddenly caught his attention.
[Interview with a First-Prize Lottery Winner — “From now on, I’m going to live doing whatever I want.”]
Curious, Kim Jin-woo searched for the lottery prize money.
Roughly 2 billion won per person, and after taxes, they received around 1.3 billion won. It varied depending on the
circumstances, but that had been the case recently.
‘In a way, is winning the lottery basically the same thing as what happened to me?’
He had received the full 2 billion won, so perhaps he was even luckier than an actual first-prize lottery winner.
‘Whatever I want to do...’
Kim Jin-woo repeatedly thought about the words of the person in that interview.
Perhaps because their circumstances were similar, he naturally placed himself in the interviewee’s position.
He thought about the dreams he had been forced to give up in childhood in order to make a living.
‘There were a lot of them. There wasn’t a field I hadn’t tried.’
Naturally, the first thing that came to mind was music.
Considering it had brought him a whopping 2 billion won, that was only natural.
‘Although I didn’t achieve it through my own ability.’
If that American pop star had not plagiarized his song, Kim Jin-woo would still be an unknown composer whom nobody knew.
‘I thought I had already let go of all my regrets...’
For a moment, a feeling of regret welled up inside him.
Except for the plagiarism incident involving the pop star, had he not ultimately left behind absolutely nothing through
his own abilities?
It was not as though he was determined that he absolutely had to succeed.
He simply wanted to create music that he himself could be satisfied with.
‘Yeah. Let’s do it.’
He had more than enough free time now, so there was no reason not to.
Kim Jin-woo immediately straightened his posture and stared at the monitor.
The military computer room was absolutely not an ideal environment for composing music, but a true craftsman did not
blame his tools.
There was a way to create music without any special equipment.
‘I hope the site hasn’t shut down.’
It was a website that could provide the functionality of most ordinary music composition programs using nothing but an
internet connection.
Back when he had not had enough money to buy composition software, he had relied on it quite a lot.
Fortunately, the site was still functioning.
Kim Jin-woo recalled his old settings and recreated them exactly as he had used them before.
With that, he was ready to make music.
‘What kind of concept should I go with?’
Music was divided into various genres.
Popular music, folk music, classical music, jazz, religious music, and so on...
Of course, Kim Jin-woo chose popular music.
‘Ah, there was a song I gave up on while working on it before.’
A suitable subject suddenly came to mind.
He had almost finished the song, but had abandoned it because his enlistment date was approaching.
It seemed perfect for getting his composition skills, which had become rusty during his military service, back into
shape.
Private First Class Nam Dong-yoon had a secret.
He had been an active rapper before enlisting.
He was not merely some wannabe hipster who grabbed a microphone, spat out a few words, and called himself a rapper.
His rapper name was Kite, and he was fairly well known in the hip-hop scene.
People even said that if he improved his skills just a little more, he could place highly on one of the famous hip-hop
programs.
Anyway, the reason nobody in the military knew about this was simple.
Nam Dong-yoon had thoroughly hidden his past.
His efforts had paid off.
No one had recognized his identity even after he reached his fourth month as a Private First Class.
And honestly, there was a slight sense of disappointment in Nam Dong-yoon’s heart.
‘I even deliberately went to karaoke with everyone when we went out...’
As far as Nam Dong-yoon was concerned, all artists, and especially entertainers, were attention seekers.
Regardless, he was proud of his profession as a rapper.
‘Those other wannabe rappers put on all kinds of airs, but whenever it’s time to enlist, they run away claiming they
have panic disorders or depression.’
When countless rappers received alternative service assignments citing panic disorders and depression, Nam Dong-yoon had
released a diss track criticizing them before proudly enlisting in active duty.
‘At least I thought it would become a big topic online.’
In reality, it made a brief splash for about half a day before disappearing completely.
‘Is that guy still doing well these days? I can’t find out anything about what’s happening outside, so I have no
idea...’
Nam Dong-yoon was walking down the hallway, envying a fellow rapper who had once been at a similar level to him but had
since become so famous that Nam Dong-yoon could never hope to reach him.
Then—
“Huh?”
He heard music.
As a rapper, he recognized it immediately.
Hip-hop.
More specifically, Boom Bap.
A style that had been popular in the United States, the birthplace of hip-hop, long ago. It would not be an exaggeration
to say that it had led hip-hop through its golden age in the 1990s.
‘Is it a new overseas hip-hop song?’
That was what he thought because the beat of the music was insanely exciting.
A song with this level of skill had to be from a highly renowned rapper in the United States.
However, Nam Dong-yoon soon denied his own assumption.
‘There are no lyrics. If it hasn’t been recorded, that means it’s unfinished. Did someone just make the beat and
rhythm?’
Either way, Nam Dong-yoon’s interest had been thoroughly piqued.
As someone who took pride in being a rapper, how could he simply ignore such a good song and walk past it?
There was only one problem.
The music was coming from the military computer room.
Even Nam Dong-yoon, a Private First Class with four months of service, was hesitant to enter that place without
permission.
It was a forbidden realm where the senior soldiers of the unit could always be found.
‘Damn...’
After thinking for a moment, Nam Dong-yoon made up his mind.
‘...With my seniority, I should be allowed to at least go inside, right?’
With his hands drenched in cold sweat, he knocked on the door.
“Private First Class Nam Dong-yoon. I came here because I have business in the military computer room. May I come in?”
“Yeah. Come in.”
Nam Dong-yoon swallowed nervously and entered.
He immediately regretted the decision he had made ten seconds earlier.
“A-Attention! Thank you for your hard work!”
The undisputed highest-ranking senior in the company, Kim Jin-woo, was sitting squarely in a chair.
Even though Kim Jin-woo’s reputation was practically that of Jesus reincarnated into the mortal world, he was still a
senior that Nam Dong-yoon, a mere Private First Class, found difficult to approach.
“What is it?”
Kim Jin-woo asked in his usual tone, seemingly unaware of Nam Dong-yoon’s feelings.
Now that he looked closely, the music that had captivated Nam Dong-yoon was coming from the computer in front of Kim
Jin-woo.
It took Nam Dong-yoon roughly five seconds to realize this.
In other words, he had ignored the senior’s question for five seconds.
Nam Dong-yoon hurriedly opened his mouth.
“It’s just that I was passing through the hallway and heard an incredibly exciting song! I was curious about what song
it was, so I came to ask!”
“Oh, really? You liked the song?”
“Yes! I haven’t heard a new song worth listening to lately, but this one sounds really good.”
“You like hip-hop?”
“Yes!”
Kim Jin-woo stroked his chin with a strange expression before casually asking,
“What did you like about it?”
“I like it overall, but if I had to pick the best part, obviously the beat. Isn’t hip-hop a genre where the beat does
most of the work? Unlike ordinary genres, the beat is much more important than the melody. No matter how good the rapper
is, if the beat sucks, the song doesn’t work. But this song completely destroys you right from the beat.”
“...Destroys you?”
“S-Sorry. I meant it was excellent. It sounds like it might be a new song written by one of the great American rappers.
May I ask where you found it?”
Nam Dong-yoon finally could not hold himself back and asked.
As he continued listening to the song pouring from the speakers, his patience was reaching its limit.
The more he listened, the more thrilling the beat became, enough to make his soul feel as though it were being sucked
out.
“Ahem...”
Kim Jin-woo looked strangely awkward before speaking.
“That? I made it.”
Nam Dong-yoon’s mouth fell open.