Chapter 88
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Translator: 8uhl
Chapter: 88
Chapter Title: Disharmony
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Kim Seungjun forcibly swallowed his anger.
And after a deep breath, he opened his mouth in as calm a voice as he could manage.
"Manager Moon, isn't this a different story altogether?"
[What do you mean?]
"Last time you said Claire's schedule would be cleared, right? And now you're saying it's not possible?"
The person on the other end of the smartphone call, Manager Moon, responded leisurely even to Kim Seungjun's pointed question.
[Why are you asking something so obvious?]
"......Obvious?"
[Think about it logically. Claire's so popular right now—do you really think her schedule is still open just because it was back then?]
"Didn't you agree to reserve her schedule when we talked before?"
[Come on, we never signed a formal contract. Don't have misunderstandings like that.]
Grind.
Kim Seungjun ground his teeth.
It wasn't entirely wrong.
Except that to recruit Claire, he'd lavished Manager Moon with extravagant entertainment fees, making it practically a verbal contract even without the paperwork.
"Fine. Say I was mistaken. Can't you adjust the schedule starting now?"
A pitiful creature that must kill personal feelings before business—its name is the working adult.
His guts boiling, Kim Seungjun struggled to come up with a solution.
But rendering his efforts pointless, Manager Moon's response cut like a knife, cold and unyielding.
[Hey now, we've already got a contract in place. How can I change the schedule?]
"If it's a penalty fee issue, I'll somehow..."
[It's not about the penalty fee. It's a matter of basic decency, decency.]
'This %[email protected]!$%%@.'
No matter how Kim Seungjun cursed inwardly at those utterly shameless words, Manager Moon continued nonchalantly.
[Besides, do you even know what Claire's schedule is that day before talking about covering the penalty?]
"What schedule is it?"
[It's the Midas Guild branch leader's 80-level achievement party! He personally begged me to set it up, and now you want me to cancel it?]
The moment he heard those words.
Kim Seungjun finally understood.
Why this bastard Manager Moon was suddenly throwing a tantrum like this.
"......Not that the branch leader begged you earnestly?"
[Hey, what are you saying! You know Claire isn't the type to go around begging for gigs when she has plenty, right?]
'Not Claire, but you are, you son of a bitch.'
Kim Seungjun felt a surge of rage.
But he couldn't spit it out.
Even though the fault clearly lay with the other side, calling them out directly would only backfire and leave him humiliated.
[Anyway, there's still time before the deadline, isn't there? So look for someone else.]
"......"
[If you really can't find anyone, give me a call. For old times' sake, I can send a substitute. Our trainees are pretty good these days. Haha!]
After ending the call with Manager Moon.
Kim Seungjun, his fists trembling, finally bellowed out.
"WIM Guild, you goddamn bastards!"
They'd reserved a spot in the restaurant with a tablecloth and everything, waiting.
But after making him wait over 30 minutes, Manager Moon had called with nothing but bad news.
His curses at the manager were short-lived.
Kim Seungjun clutched his head, lost in thought.
'Damn it, what do I do? It's too late to find a real substitute now......'
Manager Moon had blabbered about time left on the deadline, but they both knew that was bullshit.
This whole project hinged on Claire's appearance.
Finding someone else—let alone to fill the spot of the top domestic singer—in just a few days? Impossible.
In the end, the project would collapse entirely, and the blame would fall squarely on Kim Seungjun.
No one would dare hold WIM Guild accountable, after all.
That was when despair over reality hit him.
The customer seated right behind him suddenly stood up and started singing.
Aren't you hungry?
I want to eat a sweet pie.
I want to eat warm soup.
It is the food of my soul.
'......What the hell? Is there some event going on?'
Out of professional instinct.
He glanced around briefly.
Confirming no cameras anywhere, Kim Seungjun furrowed his brow.
'Just a drunk, I guess.'
Kim Seungjun clicked his tongue.
The song coming from behind was so atrocious—pitch and rhythm all over the place—that it was impossible to believe it was sung sober, regardless of whether the singer was an amateur or a pro.
But after sneaking a glance back.
Kim Seungjun felt puzzled.
The singing was clearly at the level of someone who'd downed five or six bottles of soju.
Yet the customer's face showed not a hint of intoxication.
'Hmm, one of those types who doesn't show it when drunk?'
His brief moment of curiosity passed.
Having reached a conclusion, he started to rise from his seat.
The meeting was already a bust anyway. No reason to stick around listening to this racket.
If the man across from the singing customer—Rimon—hadn't suddenly started strumming a guitar.
Ding— ding ding.
'......!'
That instant.
Kim Seungjun froze solid.
It wasn't from shock at the group egging on the singer with accompaniment, no.
Unlike Yujin's singing, the performance was flawlessly smooth.
Each note so delicate and precise, slicing into his heart like a blade.
'A guitar can make a sound like that......?'
Kim Seungjun, who fancied himself knowledgeable about music, couldn't help but marvel.
And he muttered unwittingly.
'What a shame.'
He wasn't the only one.
The customers with wide eyes.
The staff who'd forgotten their work.
All wore expressions of awe mixed with regret at the beautiful playing they'd never heard on TV or at concerts.
The clearer and purer the guitar rang out, the more the muddled mess of the singing stood out.
If only there were no singing.
If only they could hear just the guitar.
In the clashing disharmony of performance and song heading to extremes, they thought and wished unwittingly.
Until a subtle shift rippled through the smooth melody.
Diring.
'Huh?'
At first, he thought it was his imagination.
But as he listened, the change became undeniable, twisting his face into something bizarre without him realizing.
'The guitar's following the singing?'
The rhythm drifting further off.
The beat warping more and more.
As time passed, losing its innate delicate beauty and devolving into the same mess as the song, Kim Seungjun stared in disbelief.
'Isn't it usually the other way around?'
He'd have been impressed if the singing followed the accompaniment.
But with the playing dragged into the vocals, the result was utter disaster.
The wildly erratic song and ruined performance playing perfectly separately, screaming chaos.
'No, what the......!'
Noise pollution?
Mental terrorism?
On the verge of snapping at what seemed like deliberate sabotage—an insult to music itself.
Kim Seungjun's eyes widened.
Diding, diding.
'......?'
The song and performance.
Still a total wreck.
Yet he forgot even his anger for one reason.
'A harmony... it's forming?'
Two sounds that alone were nothing but random noise overlapping perfectly for a fleeting moment, creating an eerily pure resonance.
At first, just coincidence.
It appeared and vanished in an instant.
But as overlaps happened twice, three times, the harmonies grew more frequent and rapid.
And so, after a change longer than eternity.
Shorter than an instant.
No longer did the performance or song sound like a cacophony.
Only a fantastical, mystical single melody remained, devouring all other sounds as it flowed grandly.
"Harmony......"
Kim Seungjun murmured blankly.
Rhythm, the basic flow of sound.
Melody, linking sounds harmoniously.
Harmony, the blend of multiple sounds.
Among the three elements of music, he'd always been skeptical of harmony.
Music without rhythm can't exist, without melody it's monotonous, but plenty of great music lacks harmony.
So he'd never agreed with calling it one of the core three.
But in this moment.
He realized.
And thought.
That harmony deserves its place among the three—perhaps the most important.
The scene before him was that shocking.
'My God, something like this is possible.'
Performance that breaks the melody.
Song that ignores rhythm.
Each alone just chaotic noise, not music.
But together?
The performance fills the skipped rhythms, the song bridges the severed melodies—music beyond imagination.
Amazingly, the two sounds still played entirely independently.
'What is this—like using hellish screams as chorus to hear heavenly music?'
A single blink's timing.
Microscopic pitch in hertz.
Volume too fine for decibels.
One slip, and it's horrific dissonance between utterly different song and performance.
Precisely because of that, their perfect harmony transcends mystery into the ineffable.
'This...... no idea what genre to call it.'
Even the harmony they produced kept mutating endlessly.
Sometimes heavy like classical.
Sometimes soft like ballad.
Sometimes calm like jazz.
Sometimes fierce like rock 'n' roll.
No intro or prelude, genres shifting every beat at worst—like a reed leaf whipping in a typhoon.
Leaf and stem twisting wildly, yet the root unmoving in noble melody.
'Insane tune.'
It was madness itself.
A revolution and provocation against all existing music.
No sane musician could imitate it, let alone attempt.
A deliberate disorder.
'But... it's good.'
Thus, unbound by form, its freedom was so beautiful it enchanted listeners, stealing hearts.
Don't think too much.
Life is fun, Alive is lucky.
Don't waste happiness.
Enjoy your life today.
(Don't overthink it)
(Life is fun, being alive is lucky)
(Don't waste happiness)
(Enjoy your life today)
How had it ended so soon?
As the melody echoing through the restaurant faded.
Its afterglow brushing his ears like late spring flowers, melting like a mirage.
Kim Seungjun, frozen in a daze, finally shouted inwardly after a long while.
'Found it—the substitute!'