The First Stage Has Been Set
The Haeseong Middle School I attended was peaceful today, just like always.
The spring breeze felt strangely warm as I sat on the bench during lunch, and the boys kicking a ball around on the field looked full of vibrant energy.
From the music room on the first floor came the clumsy notes of a piano, and as usual, clusters of girls were chatting and bursting into giggles throughout the building.
Yeah. To anyone looking, it was the very picture of a tranquil middle school day.
Well…
“Damn it!! What the hell even is this song?!”
It was peaceful, sure, but obnoxiously loud.
I kept a deadpan expression as I turned to look at the culprit behind the scream.
Kim Tae-hwan.
The guy had a Bluetooth earbud stuck in one ear and was yelling in a voice thick with excitement.
“Are you seriously making me listen to this?”
“Obviously! So hurry up and share my pain. You must’ve heard the songs by now.”
“You mean Baek Yerin’s songs?”
“More precisely, Baek Yerin and Haon’s songs.”
Baek Yerin and Haon.
They were the names of a brand-new singer and composer who had just debuted under RT Entertainment a few days earlier.
And right now the entire world was buzzing with their story.
At first, plenty of people dismissed it as nothing more than noise marketing. But the moment they actually listened, their reactions crystallized instantly.
On top of that, the singer turned out to be a sixteen-year-old female middle school student…
Not only was she insanely beautiful with a gorgeous voice, she sang with such talent that people were already calling her a genius. The internet had dubbed her an “overpowered character.”
Only then did people begin to understand why Kang Beom-jun had made the bold decision to drop a third album on a complete newcomer.
To me, it was an incredibly satisfying sight.
Her historic debut had become something truly special.
I’d suffered for months to make it happen, but none of that effort felt wasted. I was sure everyone at RT Entertainment felt the same.
“Haa… Boss, we already have a mountain of work, and now the inquiry calls won’t stop. I almost want to cut the phone line.”
“I’m getting over a hundred interview requests a day. Let’s all just suffer through twenty-four hours a day together! Hahaha.”
“B-Boss! You’ve got a nosebleed!”
…Probably?
I smiled contentedly and told Kim Tae-hwan, “If it’s Baek Yerin’s songs, I’ve listened to all of them. I think I’ve become a fan in the blink of an eye.”
“Oh? Then what do you think about the composer, Haon?”
“Why are you suddenly asking about the composer?”
At my question, Kim Tae-hwan let out a deep sigh for some reason.
“Do you really not get what the core of this whole situation is? The appearance of a genius singer? Sure, I agree with that part. But what made Baek Yerin shine even brighter wasn’t anything else—it was the songs themselves.”
“Hmm…”
“And every single one of those insanely high-quality tracks was created by one person. What does that tell you?”
“That the composer is incredibly talented?”
“Talented is an understatement. The guy’s straight-up insane.”
Sorry, but that insane guy is sitting right in front of you.
By the way, Haon was my pen name as a composer.
“Why did you pick Haon?”
“No deep meaning. My old name was Ryu Haon, so it just came to mind and I slapped it on.”
“Your current name was a change?”
“Yeah. My parents went to some temple and a famous monk there recommended they rename me or something like that…”
I didn’t know the exact reason. My mother had only told me that, on the monk’s advice, my name had gone from Ryu Haon to Ryu Won.
Anyway, what my pen name was didn’t really matter.
What mattered was that by keeping my identity hidden, Baek Yerin could shine even brighter.
Just look at the community reactions—everyone was praising the birth of a genius singer.
As long as the spotlight stayed on her like this, the composer named Haon would never have to surface.
At least, that’s what I believed.
After Baek Yerin’s album was fully released, several outlets ran an interview with a well-known figure.
He shared his thoughts like this.
“The singer’s talent is undeniable, but honestly, the songs themselves are simply that good.”
If an ordinary person had said it, the comment would have been ignored. But this time the story was different.
Lee Ji-hak. Fifty years old.
A respected music critic, renowned composer, and CEO of Queen—one of the big three entertainment agencies.
He was a leading figure in the Korean pop music scene.
“I listened to the tracks from the controversial album to see what kind of stunt Kang Beom-jun was pulling. I was shocked. Especially the title track of the first album, Rewind—it felt like sinking into a swamp. A deep regret, the desperate wish to fix it, praying for a miracle. It’s such an obvious story. But that obviousness is exactly what draws empathy, and the delicate composition of the melody and lyrics elevates its depth to another dimension entirely.”
And this man spared no praise.
He even made a request.
“Thanks to that, I couldn’t help but listen to every song on the album as if I were possessed. The fact that one single person wrote and composed all of them left me stunned. At the same time, I was incredibly excited to discover what kind of person this composer Haon really is… So I hope Kang Beom-jun introduces Haon to the world as soon as possible. Like Baek Yerin, he fully deserves the public’s recognition and attention.”
For reference, when asked about the interview, Kang Beom-jun gave the same answer in his own interview: the composer wanted his songs judged purely on their own merit, so his identity would not be revealed anytime soon.
“See? I told you Haon’s name would surface within a few days,” Kim Tae-hwan said proudly as he delivered the latest news about Haon to Ryu Won.
People were still focused only on the arrival of genius singer Baek Yerin and how good the songs were. Those two positive facts alone were enough to satisfy them.
But the professionals working in the industry had a slightly different perspective.
To them, Haon’s identity was impossible to ignore.
Why?
Unlike the singer Baek Yerin, Haon was a composer. A composer’s activities faced far fewer restrictions.
People in the music industry all moved in the same circles, so networking was naturally active. In simple terms, once you built a connection, collaboration could happen anytime.
But if he kept hiding his identity, making contact would become difficult, and it would look like RT Entertainment was monopolizing Haon completely.
“That’s why they’re actually criticizing Haon and RT Entertainment now. They’re saying there must be some dirty reason he can’t reveal himself.”
“What a joke.”
“Right? Total nonsense. But I’m sure RT Entertainment will handle that part just fine on their own.”
Ryu Won gave Kim Tae-hwan a bitter smile.
They wouldn’t handle anything.
There was no need.
Because they still had one ultimate trump card they hadn’t shown the world yet.
Ryu Won remembered it clearly—the image of a certain singer who had created a moment so special he would never forget it in his entire life.
“Yerin, we’ve finally locked in your first stage schedule.”
And that moment was now close at hand.
One issue always gets buried under a bigger one.
The moment Baek Yerin stepped onto the stage and sang in front of people, the attention currently aimed at him would vanish completely.
Ryu Won was certain of it.
Assuming everything goes safely, of course.
Still, recalling a certain event from his previous life left him feeling a little uneasy.
No matter how strong her mentality was, no matter how bright the girl was…
“She’s a real genius, a genius. If people found out you only started learning to sing properly a few months ago, they’d faint.”
“Your acting in that last scene was perfect. This is the smoothest music video shoot I’ve ever seen. As expected, a genius singer is different from the sprout stage.”
“These are all gifts from fans who came to see you. Your fandom hasn’t even properly formed yet, but who knew it would already be like this…”
Too much expectation and attention could sometimes lead in a bad direction.