The Fractured Sound
What would Yoo Tae-hyuk be feeling in this scene?
Seated behind the drum kit, Yoon Jay drew a light, steadying breath. The director had given him a bold directive for this scene: play freely and improvisationally, without watching anyone else's performance — his own music, his own way.
"You're comfortable with that?"
"Yes, I think I can manage."
Even the director's sudden proclamation didn't faze him. Jay possessed an exceptional talent that set him apart, but he was no passive imitator of others.
He had an aptitude for absorbing the gestures of masters and making them his own. For Intermission, he had watched every performance he could get his hands on — and it had been more than enough time to reinterpret them in his own voice.
Wow, this actually feels pretty good.
Chae Jinhyeok, who frequented the set as the production's music consultant alongside Director Shin Ji-won, found himself falling under the spell of Jay's improvised playing.
"Wow······."
But gradually, the onlookers stopped focusing on his playing and fixed their attention on his acting instead. What stood before them was not Yoon Jay at all — it was Yoo Tae-hyuk, pure and simple.
He had to sustain a complex physical act — playing the drums — and act at the same time. Somewhere along the way, Jay had abandoned the question he'd been muttering to himself over and over — what would Yoo Tae-hyuk do here?
Stop digging for it. Just accept it.
His hands flew across the kit in a feverish blur, so deep in the moment that he didn't even notice his vision going hazy.
Sweat ran down him of its own accord, and the line between I am playing the drums right now and I am acting dissolved into something formless.
At last, only a single thought seized his mind.
Jung Yi-hyun.
A curse tore out of his mouth before he could stop it.
I have to struggle like this just to barely manage — so why is it so effortless for you?
That's it.
That emotion seeped subtly into his expression — present, but never excessive. The director's face glowed with rapture.
Kang Hajun, Baek Do-kyung, and Nam Chan-hee were all superb actors, good enough that one could hardly believe they'd only debuted last year — yet every so often they'd let slip that they were thinking about their instrument, and it had cost them a fair number of NG takes.
Jay, however, played the instrument himself without ever letting his immersion slip. The Yoo Tae-hyuk the director had spent years imagining was standing right before his eyes.
"······Cut!"
"Wow!"
"That gave me chills. Actual chills."
The moment the director's signal rang out, a wave of awe broke across the staff. The virtuoso performance, and the image of Yoo Tae-hyuk sinking deeper into madness until nothing remained but fury — they could already see it becoming one of Intermission's defining scenes.
The director's loud shout pulled Jay back from his immersion.
He dragged in a ragged breath. As a former soldier and firefighter, his stamina was exceptional — he rarely tired from anything ordinary — but right now, he genuinely felt spent.
"Mr. Jay?"
"Haah······ yes."
He reached up to sweep back his sweat-drenched hair, and only then noticed the blood dripping from his own palm. The moment he saw it, the sting finally registered.
"Let's get that wound looked at."
"Ah, I can do it myself. It's fine."
Taking the first aid kit from a staff member, Jay examined the cut. Fortunately, it wasn't torn badly. He'd picked up an EMT certification out of boredom once, so a wound like this he could handle on his own.
Is it because there's a medium — the drums?
More than that, though — he had felt it again. That same sensation he'd experienced in The Child, the moment he became Park Donghwa completely, and briefly in Daldongne. The moment when he wasn't merely thinking about the character, but truly became them.
While playing the drums, a lifetime of memories had flickered past him like a lantern show.
Yoon Jaehee, who should have been filming The Child, had instead been playing the violin — and the memories surfaced: entering a competition, winning it, drawing the attention of the press.
Except none of that had ever actually happened to him. He had immersed himself so deeply in the role that the character's past had slipped into his own, conjured whole from imagination.
"How was my acting just now? Wasn't it too much?"
"You can't seriously be asking that as a real question?"
The staff all turned to look at him as if he'd lost his mind. After delivering a performance like that moments ago, he was the one who couldn't believe it.
"I just······ my head's still foggy······."
Watching him mumble blankly, the veteran crew members nodded with knowing looks.
An actor becoming the character itself, falling wholly into immersion — and the camera, sensing the allotted time had passed, refusing to break the spell and simply rolling on.
The pleasant thrill of watching a masterpiece scene birth itself, the euphoria of having stood in that very place when it happened. That perfect convergence of every element was why they could never let go of film.
"Will you not be checking the monitor?"
"What's there to check? That's the take."
The director gave a thumbs-up.
And so the band Agitato turned its back on the small pond of the indie scene and set its course for open water.
Their media debut was a triumph. They had already made a name for themselves on the indie circuit, and their music — complete with a devoted fanbase of diehards — was finally beaming out to the wider world.
Their names climbed the streaming charts, and they even swept the trending videos on MyTube.
"What's Agitato's identity, exactly?"
"Me. I am Agitato."
And of course, there was also the matter of Yoo Tae-hyuk's striking looks and his addictive, drug-like star quality. Arrogant, yet impossible to hate — with that kind of magnetic character on top, offers flooded in from every direction.
"Hey, we got another casting call from a terrestrial broadcaster."
"At this rate we need to hire an actual manager, don't we?"
For Oh In-soo and Min Joon-young, every single day had become pure joy. Even the families, relatives, and friends who'd once sneered — you're going to make a living playing in a band? — had started looking at them differently.
Even Jung Yi-hyun seemed to welcome the fame, though Yoo Tae-hyuk, in contrast, brimmed with dissatisfaction.
"One appearance is enough. Why do we have to keep going on these things?"
"Hey. How do you expect us to cancel a schedule we've already locked in? Got some kind of grudge against being on camera?"
There seemed to be some unspoken reason why he couldn't afford to become famous through television — but since he never voiced it himself, the other members never caught on.
And so began Agitato's whirlwind days. Radio appearances, growing attention from TV programs.
They could be seen receiving a headliner invitation to the very festival they'd always dreamed of standing on, while the OST tracks various bands had composed for Intermission came to life through the vocals of Jay and Kang Hajun and wove their way into the film.
"To celebrate cracking the Top 10 on the charts — everyone, hands in."
"Yoo Tae-hyuk, what are you doing? Raise your glass."
"Cheers!"
The humble dinners at cheap pork restaurants were a thing of the past now. These days they even had company dinners at premium Korean barbecue joints.
Even Jung Yi-hyun, who'd only ever drunk cider, could now manage a glass or two of alcohol when the members pressed it on him. Little by little, he was blending in.
Yoo Tae-hyuk, on the other hand — the one who loved his liquor — found his glass refusing to empty.
Agitato Sweeps the Music Charts... Can They Revive Ailing Band Music?
Agitato's New Release Dominates Streaming Charts, Ushering in a New Golden Age for Bands
"Should we look for a bigger practice space?"
"Sounds good to me!"
Amid the members bouncing around in excitement, Yoo Tae-hyuk's face showed little joy.
"Yi-hyun, can you match this one too?"
"I'll give it a try."
"Whoa! That's correct? Wait — is that perfect pitch or something?"
As Agitato's popularity swelled, the spotlight shifted gradually onto the individual members — specifically, onto Jung Yi-hyun's genius.
Yi-hyun's name recognition climbed, while Yoo Tae-hyuk found himself noted only for his looks. Something had gone wrong.
All the while, Yoo Tae-hyuk had practiced in secret to catch up with Jung Yi-hyun, bottling up his jealousy where no one could see it.
"A Chapman Stick? When did you order that?"
"Wanted to try playing it once."
"Ugh, you really were born gifted, weren't you?"
Jung Yi-hyun, who had rebuilt his self-worth through music, grew increasingly resentful of the way Yoo Tae-hyuk kept treating him and the members however he pleased.
The two of them had long teetered on a razor's edge between simmering conflict and open rupture — until a single spark blew the whole thing sky-high.
Yoo Tae-hyuk, hungover and passed out after a drinking session, was nearly at the practice room when the sound of a violin melody reached his ears.
A violin?
No way. No way. He practically sprinted into the practice room.
Jung Yi-hyun was playing the violin. And not just any violin — the dust-covered one that Yoo Tae-hyuk had never been able to bring himself to open.
"What do you think you're doing?"
"Huh?"
"Put that down. Now."
It was surely the first time he'd ever touched that violin — and yet he played it with practiced ease. Watching him, Yoo Tae-hyuk felt the complicated emotions he'd kept so carefully buried come bursting to the surface.
"Ah, it was just sitting here, so I figured any instrument in here was fair game······."
"Do you have any idea what that instrument even—"
Yoo Tae-hyuk had always been Agitato's tyrant. Everyone knew he had a vicious temper, but no one had ever seen him seethe with rage like this.
Yet Jung Yi-hyun felt wronged too. You all said I could use anything in here. The violin had happened to be sitting in the corner, so he'd given it a try. He'd had no idea anyone would come at him like they wanted to kill him.
"If it meant that much to you, maybe you should've taken better care of it."
"What did you say?"
"Hyung, be honest with me. Is this really about me touching the violin?"
A crack split across Yoo Tae-hyuk's face. Don't say another word.
"Or are you jealous because I'm better than you at it?"
"You little—"
Having a truth he secretly knew confirmed out of Jung Yi-hyun's own mouth wounded his pride beyond bearing.
Yoo Tae-hyuk seized Yi-hyun by the collar and raised his fist. Yi-hyun squeezed his eyes shut.
"What the hell is going on here?"
Min Joon-young's voice cut like a blade. Yi-hyun flinched — he hadn't meant to provoke things this far. He'd endured every time Tae-hyuk needled him, over and over. But he was only human, and he'd snapped.
Min Joon-young closed the distance in a flash and physically pried the two apart.
"Were you about to hit Yi-hyun just now?"
"N-no, I—"
"Yi-hyun, you stay out of this. Hey, Yoo Tae-hyuk. Talk."
Ordinarily, everyone would have bent and placated him, cowed by his temper. Nobody in Agitato could replace him. But the absurdity of the situation struck him, and an unsteady laugh began leaking out of him.
"You're laughing? You find this funny?"
"Yeah. Actually, it is pretty funny."
Min Joon-young's patience snapped, and he threw the first punch; Yoo Tae-hyuk, staggering, drove his own fist into Min Joon-young's face. Oh In-soo and Jung Yi-hyun grabbed the two of them and wrenched them apart.
"Min Joon-young, hey! What's gotten into you!"
"Hyungs, stop fighting! Both of you!"
They tried to hold them back, but Min Joon-young and Yoo Tae-hyuk would not stop.
"Let go of me. I have to say this."
"Go ahead. Try me."
"Everything you've pulled, every single thing — I swallowed it all! Because even when you acted like a complete, fucking miserable piece of work, you were still my friend and my bandmate!"
"So what?"
"You keep this up, we're dropping you."
"What?"
Yoo Tae-hyuk, who'd been bristling and snarling, froze mid-breath. Shaking off Oh In-soo's restraining arms, Min Joon-young closed in until their faces were inches apart.
"Are we your emotional garbage can? We follow whatever you decide to do, we take whatever tantrum you throw — is that what bandmates are to you? Huh? Is that friendship? Fuck — you're not our boss."
"······."
"I told you to knock that shit off, didn't I? You won't even listen to a word we say — so what's the point of keeping you around?"
Only Jung Yi-hyun, caught in the middle, stood there squirming in wretched helplessness.
It was precisely why Yoo Tae-hyuk couldn't bring himself to hate him. The boy stoked his jealousy to a fever pitch, but he knew in his bones what a genuinely good person he was underneath.
Yoo Tae-hyuk turned to look at Oh In-soo, who was gripping Min Joon-young's shoulders.
"Hey, Oh In-soo. Are you the same as him?"
"Honestly······ I can't find a single thing Joon-young got wrong."
The Oh In-soo who would normally have dodged the question met Yoo Tae-hyuk's gaze head-on and said it without flinching.
To be fair, what had drawn the early attention to Agitato was Yoo Tae-hyuk's looks and his raw talent.
But he'd stopped holding his tongue on broadcast, and just as the band was finally stretching toward real fame, one careless sentence from him sent their reputation into free fall.
To keep a band that had finally found its orbit aloft, a leader who manufactured controversy inside and out was a luxury they could no longer afford.
"If I'm gone, then who sings? Who plays bass?"
"Yi-hyun's right there. Do you even know how much of our album is his composing credit?"
Yoo Tae-hyuk took two steps back. He could see Min Joon-young and Oh In-soo standing protectively in front of Jung Yi-hyun.
Where before everything had been riddled with conflict, the three of them now looked like members who fit together perfectly. The bug throwing everything off — was Yoo Tae-hyuk.
"So that's it, then. Since we have Jung Yi-hyun, I'm not needed?"
"It could come to that. If you'd just fix that attitude of yours, then we—"
"You're saying you'd throw me away?"
"A band isn't a one-man show. And you've never once thought of us as partners. The way you look down on us, treat us like dirt—"
"So I'm being pushed out?"
"Damn it — YES!"
Ask him again and again, Min Joon-young would not back down. When he roared it, Yoo Tae-hyuk's face twisted with a wounded, aching look. But only for an instant.
"Fine. Fuck it. See how well you do without me."
Yoo Tae-hyuk let out a long exhale and roughly wiped his split lip with his sleeve. Then he walked out of the practice room without a backward glance, his footsteps hard and unrelenting.
"······And that's how it happened."
"Hyung."
Min Joon-young and Oh In-soo made no move to stop him. They simply turned around and looked at Jung Yi-hyun.
"Still... don't we need Tae-hyuk hyung? For the band, I mean?"
"Enough. That bastard crossed the line."
"Even so······."
But Jung Yi-hyun's thoughts kept snagging on the violin Yoo Tae-hyuk had taken with him. What on earth could have happened, to wound him that deeply?