Chapter 55
Chapter 55
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Translator: Vine
Chapter: 56
Chapter Title: Invincible's Resonance
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Now, there was no need to even check the fairies. Yeonwoo's ears could precisely pick out exactly what was wrong with their playing.
“Uncle Park Soo-hyuk, your drums are faster than the other sections. And why did the bass throw in parts I didn’t even include? That’s why all the instruments ended up playing separately. And the keyboard? It’s completely awful!!”
At Yeonwoo’s words, everyone in Invincible stared at him in a daze.
“Try it again! Don’t forget what I said.”
“O-okay.”
“Got it.”
Park Soo-hyuk tapped his sticks again to set the timing, then started on the drums.
Yeonwoo, who had been watching him intently, shouted.
“You’re still too fast! Slower!”
Du-gu-du-gu-du-gu……
“Even slower! Yeah, that’s it!”
As Yeonwoo matched the drum tempo with his ears, they perked up.
“I told you not to add that!”
Yeonwoo caught the bass trying some weird intro part out of habit again, and he frowned at the keyboard.
“Stop, please stop!”
At Yeonwoo’s shout, the music halted once more.
“It’s all good except…”
Yeonwoo approached Ahn Sang-gil at the keyboard.
“That’s not how you play it, Uncle Ahn Sang-gil.”
“Huh?”
Yeonwoo pushed Ahn Sang-gil aside, pulled up a chair, and sat down at the keyboard.
The fairies, who had been indifferent to Ahn Sang-gil’s playing, swarmed around as soon as Yeonwoo got into position, like they’d been waiting for it.
Yeonwoo immediately began playing the keyboard.
Anyone who wasn’t an idiot could tell the difference between Ahn Sang-gil and Yeonwoo.
Moreover, everyone in the room was deeply knowledgeable about music.
They stared at Yeonwoo in even greater shock.
Meanwhile, only Jiyeong and Shunji, who already knew Yeonwoo’s skill, watched him fondly.
“They say a great tiger doesn’t sire weak cubs…”
Yoo Jae-hyuk thought of Heo Ok, the jazz pianist who had conquered the world, and clicked his tongue in amazement.
The other members finally got it.
‘This kid really is a genius.’
They only realized Yeonwoo’s genius for real after seeing him play, something they’d only vaguely believed until now.
Was that really the playing of a kid who’d just turned seven?
“If jazz is swing, then what’s rock? Energetic? Powerful? But Uncle, I don’t feel any of that. You’re just chasing the beat with no thought behind it. Who’s gonna like that? My grandma would probably yell that it’s soulless and you don’t deserve to play it.”
Yoo Jae-hyuk shivered involuntarily at those last words.
He’d only been learning for a little over a month, but Heo Ok’s sharp glare as she scolded him came rushing back.
“S-sorry.”
“This might be your last chance, Uncle.”
“……!”
“So do your best. Okay?”
“Yeah.”
It might be the last.
At those words, Ahn Sang-gil’s eyes changed.
‘I’ve already been through… the last time.’
After the death of Invincible’s leader, Park Sang-jun.
He hadn’t been able to play rock anymore. No matter the genre, he just tinkled away on piano or keyboard as a session musician.
Just to make money.
Maybe the kid was right—maybe his playing had lost its soul because of that.
Ahn Sang-gil recalled the distant past.
The dingy basement practice room he’d patched together with egg cartons and scavenged styrofoam, shocking himself as he hammered the keyboard every time the power cut out and he had to reset it.
When he was hungry, he’d stretch out ramen; when even that was gone, he’d fill his stomach with water.
Back then, even starving and exhausted, he’d been happy, his mind and heart always ablaze with passion.
Back then, Ahn Sang-gil himself had been rock incarnate.
Yeonwoo’s words didn’t just stir Ahn Sang-gil.
The other members, who had all experienced their own “lasts”—together or alone—couldn’t help but be spurred on.
Shunji Datemura let out a chuckle as he looked at their gleaming eyes.
“Alright, let’s go again?”
Yoo Jae-hyuk, who had taken over as Invincible’s leader after Park Kang-jun, looked to the members.
“Let’s do it.”
Park Soo-hyuk spoke for them and launched into the drums.
His powerful playing drew peak concentration from the members as they listened intently.
Then, perfectly timed, all the instruments joined in.
A powerful sound that shook the chest, and beneath it, Yoo Jae-hyuk, eyes closed, opened his mouth.
*[Ashes have cooled my frigid…]*
A weary beast growled low.
But its eyes still burned bright.
Red light poured out, and red fairies appeared, mingling with the surrounding blue glow.
A purple light that only Yoo Jae-hyuk had been able to produce until now began slowly overtaking the practice room.
But Yeonwoo wasn’t satisfied yet.
The lights were blending, but the fairies born from each player still weren’t harmonizing with each other.
For a band, Yeonwoo thought, they should all become one— the fairies playing together as a single unit.
The members sensed it too.
*We haven’t resonated yet.* They realized it, belatedly but on their own.
They looked at each other, ears tuned to one another’s playing.
It wasn’t easy.
But whenever it faltered, the guitar dove in powerfully, embracing them.
Shunji, the most experienced and skilled, was leading the whole session with his guitar.
They naturally followed his lead.
And they resonated.
The fairies did the same. Ones that had been playing around their own instruments began to notice the others and join in.
It didn’t take long for parts to become the majority, and the majority to become the whole.
At the climax, Yoo Jae-hyuk roared a note higher than his usual range, and the fairies united, emitting a dazzling, beautiful light.
“Whew.”
Yoo Jae-hyuk finished the song with a short breath and looked at Yeonwoo.
“How was it?”
Yeonwoo watched the fairies swimming in the faint lingering glow for a moment, then gave a thumbs-up.
“Great!!”
“That’s a relief.”
Yoo Jae-hyuk grinned broadly back at him.
“So, we start recording tomorrow?”
Yeonwoo looked to Jiyeong at the question. She answered for him.
“Tomorrow’s just setup. Full recording’s the day after.”
Band recordings usually went two ways.
One was recording instruments separately and mixing them. The other was the whole band playing together live.
Most chose the first to boost album quality.
But both Yeonwoo and Invincible wanted live energy in the album, so they preferred the second.
Still, for quality, the second buried individual instrument sounds under the live feel, which wasn’t ideal.
So they compromised: record the digital single the first way, and when they got a live show, record that for a live album.
“Oh, and…”
Yoo Jae-hyuk brought up what he’d discussed with the members.
“My debut song, Sky.”
“Yeah.”
“I’d like to re-record it with the band. It was originally meant to be our group track, not a solo one.”
“Sure. I’ll prep that too. For the arrangement… I can tweak just the parts that feel too dated, right?”
“Do whatever you want with it.”
Yeonwoo accepted without hesitation.
It was Sky that had changed his mind about rock being just noisy after hearing Shunji’s guitar, and he vaguely knew the song’s backstory.
* * *
PD Park Sung-guk was in despair.
He’d begged JOP again, but the answer was the same: no, and no meeting.
“Ha, seriously… Since when did Shin Jiyeong become so impossible to meet?”
She’d only produced one idol group and a few hit albums, right?
Not like she’d nurtured global chart-toppers on Melboard or anything.
But she was harder to reach than those stars.
“Fuck, this is so gross…”
His grand plan to slap an oxygen mask on Avalon, teetering on the brink of oblivion, was slipping away.
He sat silently in his office, puffing away on his e-cig.
“Fine, screw it. Screw it all.”
Mind made up, he got up and left.
“Huh? PD, where you going?”
“Home!”
He brushed off his junior’s attempt to stop him, left his car, and took the subway to Yeongdeungpo.
He strolled the familiar alley lined with bars and slipped into his usual one.
“Hyung, sis-in-law! I’m here!!”
It was still early for dinner, so the place was quiet.
It was his cousin’s place—his cousin and his wife ran it.
His cousin had grown up in the same neighborhood since childhood; they were more like blood brothers than cousins.
“Oh? Sung-guk’s here. What brings you so early?”
His sis-in-law was from the same hood too—a neighborhood noona.
“Life’s just shitty, so I came for a drink. Where’s hyung?”
“Your brother’s at practice. Should be back soon, judging by the time.”
“Practice? What practice?”
“Oh, didn’t I tell you? Your brother’s back in a band these days.”
“A band?”
He remembered his cousin doing a band in his youth. But that was decades ago.
The long-forgotten memory surfaced, and he asked curiously.
“Hobby thing? Picking up the band again out of nowhere? He still play drums these days?”
“They’re putting out an album, he said.”
“Wait, an album? What album…?”
“Hey, fuck, you think I can’t drop an album?”
A voice came from behind.
“Shit, you scared me. What, sneaking in without a sound?”
“You just didn’t hear. What’s up? Door bell’s broken again? Why does this thing break so easy?”
The man who entered was Sung-guk’s cousin.
He glanced at Sung-guk, then pulled soju and two glasses from the fridge.
“What’ll you have?”
“Anything’s fine by me.”
“Honey, give him some cucumber.”
“Ugh, why cucumber?”
Park Sung-guk, who hated cucumbers, scowled, and his cousin chuckled as he cracked open the soju bottle, then winced.
“Ow, stings.”
“What? Why? You hurt?”
“Drumming after so long, blisters keep forming. Back in the day, my hands were all calluses—no blisters.”
His cousin proudly held out his hand. Sure enough, it was covered in blisters.
“No way, at your age, suddenly a band?”
“Didn’t I tell you? Jae-hyuk came calling to restart the band. When Jae-hyuk says go, doesn’t my chest just ignite? How could I say no?”
“Jae-hyuk? Yoo Jae-hyuk?”
Yeah, he’d forgotten that too.
His cousin used to brag nonstop that the guy he’d played with became the king of rock ballads.
He’d stopped mentioning it after the guy vanished years ago.
Suddenly, sparks flew from Park Sung-guk’s eyes.
“Yoo Jae-hyuk—he’s with SSHIN, right?”
“Huh? How’d you know?”
He grinned at his startled cousin, Park Soo-hyuk.
Yeah, this industry was tiny.
How did it all connect like this?
“Thing is, I commissioned a song from SSHIN and got rejected.”
Park Sung-guk explained the situation. Park Soo-hyuk nodded sympathetically at his poor brother’s plight.
“That sucks.”
“So, hyung, could you hook me up with Shin Jiyeong—or Yuin? Just let me see her face and plead my case. Even if she rejects me, at least I’ll have tried.”
“Uh, well…”
Park Soo-hyuk thought of Yuin and looked troubled.
“It… won’t be easy.”
“You too, hyung? Come on, we’re family— just put in a word.”
“Well, I’ll… talk to her at least.”
Park Soo-hyuk said that, then continued.
“And if you do meet her, don’t freak out, okay?”
“Freak out? What’s there to freak out about? I’ve been around this biz for years.”
Park Soo-hyuk chuckled.
“We’ll see about that.”