Chapter 13
Chapter 13
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Translator: Vine
Chapter: 13
Chapter Title: The Chained Fairies
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When Ellis suggested they meet, Yeonwoo started diving deep into her songs.
She was an idol nurtured by a mid-tier agency, the one who first made her name as a producer-idol.
The songs from that era were incredibly free and fresh.
Even among the Music Fairies of pop music, they gave birth to girl-like fairies that seemed so young and innocent.
Sure, just like always, they built money-making formulas and borrowed elements from others, but something special still shone through.
Yeonwoo couldn’t put it into specific words, but his instincts were telling him this was the boldness of a rookie.
Time passed, her team disbanded, and she took a few trainees who had stuck by her from the agency to start planning her own idols.
The agency caught a glimpse of the potential and handed her full authority to create them.
And they achieved even greater success than the group she had been in.
This was the peak of her seven years of honed composing skills and producing prowess.
The moment when all her potential fully bloomed, you could say.
Having succeeded with that team, she pocketed a massive signing bonus and transferred to Taein Entertainment.
He listened to the songs that came after.
They were the idols and tracks universally recognized as the high point of her career, but Yeonwoo remained detached.
No, more precisely, the fairies were the detached ones.
The instant he listened to the songs from this period, the fairies that emerged looked similar to those from her earlier tracks—but every single one appeared shackled.
Even to young Yeonwoo’s eyes, eerily identical fairies kept spawning.
As if they’d been copy-pasted.
Staring at these fairies devoid of any individuality, their faces blank as if they weren’t enjoying themselves, Yeonwoo thought:
So that’s how Ellis is these days.
There’s no other way the fairies would look like this.
That’s why he wanted to meet her.
He was curious about what this shackled version of her wanted from him.
“So I want to meet her. I’m not wrong about this, right, Grandmother?”
“Of course, you’re spot on, Yeonwoo. She’s great at music, but she doesn’t seem happy doing it, right?”
“Yeah. Why is that? I’m having fun.”
“Hmm... maybe she’s doing music she doesn’t actually want to do?”
“Why wouldn’t she want to? Is music boring to her?”
Heo Ok gently stroked Yeonwoo’s head as he spoke, her expression saying she just couldn’t wrap her mind around it.
“Adults are like that sometimes. Even if they want to make the music they love, other factors force them to churn out stuff they hate.”
“Yeah, then I don’t wanna be an adult.”
“You don’t wanna grow up?”
“Yeah, I don’t wanna be an adult. I wanna make the music I want.”
Would it really turn out that way?
Deep down, Heo Ok wished Yeonwoo could stay like this forever—a child.
“Alright, then just make the music you want, Yeonwoo.”
“Yeah.”
Yeonwoo nodded confidently and fetched his guitar from his room.
It was a kids’ mini guitar his dad had ordered online with rocket delivery.
Heo Ok watched him with wonder.
Yeonwoo was playing it using only his thumb, precisely—like the legendary jazz guitarist Wes Montgomery.
She was the one who had introduced him to Wes Montgomery, but whether Yeonwoo had fallen for it or simply had no other guitarist in mind, he was mimicking his style.
What was amazing was how decent it sounded.
It was as if Wes Montgomery himself were sitting beside him, teaching—the playing was that similar.
It reminded her of how she’d taught him piano, only for his style to end up mirroring hers.
Were geniuses just born able to imitate others so effortlessly and remake it into something new?
Not knowing that Yeonwoo was actually watching Wes Montgomery’s fairy and learning directly from it, she chalked it all up to genius.
Of course, that was true in a sense.
Who in the world could flawlessly imitate Wes Montgomery just because a mute fairy was teaching them?
But the guitar posed a bigger hurdle than the piano.
“It hurts now...”
Strumming barehanded for too long made his fingers ache.
Sure, overdoing piano could lead to tenosynovitis from the strain, but with guitar strings, delicate hands like Yeonwoo’s swelled and hurt in no time.
“Why don’t you use some chalk?”
“I don’t like chalk.”
Yeonwoo shook his head firmly.
It was like Wes Montgomery hadn’t used chalk either.
That’s what it felt like.
“Then let’s stop for today. Push too hard, and you might not be able to play tomorrow.”
At his grandmother’s words, Yeonwoo set the guitar down without a second thought. Then he headed to the piano.
Anyone watching would say: That kid’s truly obsessed with music.
But Heo Ok—who had once thrown everything away in her own music obsession—just smiled warmly.
Into this seemingly normal but oddly offbeat grandparent-grandchild dynamic, a third party inserted herself.
“Enough playing. Time to head out now.”
It was Jiyeong.
Yeonwoo hopped right up from his seat.
He was dressed in a short-sleeved shirt printed with a big Mickey Mouse and jeans.
“Even if the days are getting warmer, it chills off at sunset. Grab an outer layer at least.”
“Mom, are you actually worrying about me? What’s gotten into you? I already packed one. Hehe.”
“No, I meant Yeonwoo. Never mind. Forget it—I’ll handle it better than you anyway. Here, Yeonwoo, take this one Grandmother picked out for you.”
Heo Ok rose from her seat and headed to Yeonwoo’s room.
Yeonwoo toddled after her excitedly.
“A woman who used to cringe at being called ‘Grandmother’ is now calling herself that on her own.”
Heo Ok had never once referred to herself as “Mom.” Now she casually said “Grandmother,” and every time, Jiyeong felt like her mom didn’t seem mom-like at all.
It was awkward. Goosebump-inducing, even.
“Yeonwoo, how about this one? The blue’s nicer than the black.”
“Yeah, I’ll take it.”
Heo Ok, uncharacteristically attentive as she fussed over him, handed Yeonwoo over to Jiyeong with a face full of worry.
“Don’t worry! I’m not a kid myself! I’ll take good care of him!”
Calling it overly sentimental, Jiyeong headed out the door with Yeonwoo.
* * *
“Good.”
Ellis checked her outfit and nodded in satisfaction.
She was dressed in a semi-formal suit.
It didn’t quite fit a producer who mainly raised idols, but whenever she had business-like meetings instead of actual work sessions, she always stuck to this look.
Back when her group disbanded and she started producing in earnest, she’d dealt with plenty who looked down on her—so this was her way of avoiding seeming frivolous.
If she dressed casually as usual and acted lighthearted, even in contract talks, someone was bound to treat it all sloppily.
And her counterpart was Shin Jiyeong.
Of course, Yuin was the one she was dealing with, but surely the industry veteran Jiyeong would step in on Yuin’s behalf.
Or maybe Yuin was hiding her real identity.
If she was using someone of Jiyeong’s caliber as a proxy, she couldn’t be dismissed outright.
It might be overthinking it, but perhaps Yuin had made connections with Melboard chart-topping composers during her time studying abroad in the US.
Too far-fetched? Maybe, but with K-pop exploding lately, she could’ve just poked around half out of curiosity, half for fun.
Nothing could be ruled out.
That was her personality.
She was the type to map out dozens of scenarios and prepare contingencies.
In MBTI terms, a capital J—but more like JJJJ.
But the moment she laid eyes on the Yuin she’d been waiting for, every scenario flew out the window, and her mind ground to a halt.
“This kid here is Yuin. Oh, and he’s my nephew, by the way.”
Ellis’s brain short-circuited, but Jiyeong—unlike her—grinned like she was enjoying the moment and introduced the child beside her.
“...Hello. Yeonwoo—no, Yuin.”
The boy peeked out shyly from behind Jiyeong.
“Ah, uh, I... um...”
She tried desperately to reboot her scrambled thoughts and speak, but the words wouldn’t come.
The genius who made that incredible track... was the kid right in front of her?
Chubby cheeks full of baby fat, milky skin, big eyes with natural double eyelids and long lashes, a perfectly straight little nose...
‘So cute...!’
No.
‘She’s gorgeous!!’
Wait, no.
How could this adorable, beautiful child have created something like that? It was genius-composer level even for an adult.
Had Jiyeong made it herself and cooked up this drama to drum up hype and cash in?
But then there’d be no need for an NDA.
As her thoughts slowly rebooted, Ellis assessed the situation coolly.
Still, she didn’t buy it completely.
She didn’t even believe in ghosts.
Why?
She wasn’t the type to believe in anything she hadn’t seen with her own eyes.
With that in mind, she decided to test Yeonwoo. She crouched down to meet his gaze at eye level.
“Composer-nim, what were you thinking when you made those five songs of yours?”
If this kid was truly a composer, then as a fellow industry insider, she couldn’t just speak casually to him on a first meeting.
Ellis asked politely.
Yeonwoo fidgeted for a moment before murmuring in a tiny voice.
“......Boring.”
“Huh? What was that?”
“Boring.”
“Boring?”
Jiyeong jumped in.
“Yeonwoo listened to today’s idol music and thought it was boring, so he made those.”
“Wait, what...?”
What on earth did that mean?
The songs were boring?
“They’re all the same.”
“Ah...”
It was a razor-sharp critique of the current idol landscape.
Sure, the idols themselves had different concepts and styles, but the tracks? All the same.
Listeners might not notice, but industry folks knew there wasn’t much difference.
The kid was surely pointing that out.
“They’re all the same, so boring.”
“I see. What about my songs, then? How are mine?”
Ellis asked with her heart pounding. How would this kid judge hers?
Yeonwoo answered firmly.
“The same.”
It was so straightforward it embarrassed her for even asking.
“For now.”
“For now?”
At Ellis’s question, Yeonwoo pulled a tablet out of his aunt’s bag.
“Up to here, they’re good.”
“Mmm.”
The screen showed the cover of the album she’d made after some epiphany, back when she was working with her old agency.
“Starting from this one, they’re the same.”
Yeonwoo hit play on a track.
It was Volcano—her first project after joining Taein Entertainment.
A hot, passionate song armed with addictive sounds that matched its title perfectly.
Ellis gave a bittersweet smile at the sound, then nodded right away.
“I see. You really get it. That’s exactly how I feel too.”
Yeonwoo fiddled with the tablet some more as he replied to Ellis.
“You originally meant to make it like this, right?”
After hearing his grandmother say adults can’t always do what they want, Yeonwoo had dissected Volcano with the fairies.
Buried in the generic sounds, her original intent hadn’t been hard to uncover.
Among the identical fairies that popped out of Volcano, he’d spotted a small handful that resembled the ones from her early days—plus some in flashy outfits unfamiliar to him.
By chatting with those fairies through the keyboard, he uncovered Volcano’s true form.
A track even more vibrant and rich than the released version. Familiar somehow, yet with rhythms that felt oddly out of place for an idol group song.
“My aunt heard this and said it sounded like samba. She said samba’s a traditional Brazilian song. You were going for this rhythm originally, right?”
“Y-Yeah... not exactly identical, but... that’s what I was aiming for...”
Ellis muttered to herself, forgetting polite speech entirely.
Volcano—original title Carnival.
It had been a summer-targeted track based on Brazilian samba rhythms.
Taein Entertainment had kept the beat and melody but rearranged the instruments and every bit of substance to their own taste, then slapped on the title Volcano.
Back then, Ellis had buckled under the weight of the Taein name and hadn’t fought back.
“How did you... uh, how’d you figure this out? Wait, how’d you know?”
Staring at the wondrous boy who’d spotted the hidden skeleton beneath the flesh and divined her intent, Ellis asked in a trembling voice. Yeonwoo flashed her a bright smile—so cute it was suffocating.
“Just did.”
“Just... did?”
“Yeah. I could just ‘see’ it.”
He could see the song.
“I-I see.”
Who was it that said you can’t hope to understand a genius?
This boy seemed the perfect example.
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