I Want to Say It Myself
“Hah… Having to head back to school the very day after New Year’s is kind of the worst.”
“They’re letting us combine winter and spring break after the January graduation ceremony, so I guess we just have to accept it.”
I looked up at the sky as I spoke.
Pure white snow had been falling since morning.
Personally, I’ve always believed snow has nothing but downsides.
Traffic jams, accidents everywhere, and to some people it probably just looks like trash raining down from the sky.
Even so, people love snow. The first snow especially feels magical.
From a composer’s perspective, it’s perfect material.
When the whole world is dyed that flawless white, there’s no moment that purifies the heart quite like it…
“But having to watch it with you makes it the absolute worst.”
“Huh? The feeling’s mutual, you know?”
Kim Tae-hwan and I traded looks of pure disgust.
Still, it only took a few seconds before we burst out laughing at each other.
“Yo, take care of me next year too.”
“That’s way too cringy. Can you not?”
“I don’t want to hear that from the guy who followed me all the way to Seolhwa Arts High just because he wanted to attend the same school as me.”
“Fuck off.”
It wasn’t like that at all.
No matter how much I protested, Kim Tae-hwan just shrugged and ignored me.
Anyway, both Kim Tae-hwan and I had passed the Seolhwa Arts High School entrance exam without much trouble, and of course Baek Yerin had too.
But the thought of attending the same department as both of them already made it hard to breathe. Was I the only one who felt that way?
And on top of that, my own sister would be there too.
While I was lost in that nightmare scenario, Kim Tae-hwan asked me,
“By the way, you must’ve done pretty well on the practical exam if you passed.”
“I got a fairly good evaluation.”
“Then I’m even more excited.”
“About what?”
“Come on, you’re really gonna play dumb at a time like this? I told you—if I passed, I’d specially sing one of your songs.”
“Ah.”
“So get ready. Whatever song you give me, I’ll tear the stage apart.”
Kim Tae-hwan declared it with complete confidence.
…….
It sounded like a special privilege, but to me it was basically a penalty.
He stretched, then continued.
“I’m thinking of taking a solo trip during break. Feels like this year’s gonna be way busier than before. Might as well call it the last vacation you’re giving me, right?”
“Well… not a bad idea.”
“What about you?”
“Me?”
“Yeah. Who else is here?”
I thought for a moment at his question.
I’m not much of a planner, so I didn’t have anything specific lined up.
Still, there was one thing.
“You said your sister offered to teach you piano?”
“Yeah. I told her I didn’t need it, but she got even more insistent.”
“Makes sense. Piano’s basically essential for composition. There are only upsides to learning it, so treat it like a golden opportunity and learn properly.”
I gave Kim Tae-hwan a bitter smile.
He didn’t know, but the idea of learning piano under my sister again felt deeply contradictory.
In my previous life, I’d already received brutal training from her—the so-called piano genius.
Thanks to that, piano had become the instrument I was most confident in…
And now he wanted me to go through it all again?
That’s why I’d told her I didn’t need lessons, but her response had been—
Let’s run a test first. I’m curious whether you have any potential or not.
Potential?
Yeah. Any thoughts about trying a competition?
?
The conclusion was that I was currently in the middle of a full-scale evaluation under my sister.
The bar for passing was disgustingly high, so suffering every night was just part of the package.
It was while I was thinking that when Kim Tae-hwan spoke again.
“Anyway, that time is finally coming…”
“That time?”
“Yeah. In a few weeks, Korea’s most prestigious popular music awards ceremony will be held.”
“You mean the Daehan Popular Music Awards?”
“Bingo. In other words, it’s time for Haon’s normalization to begin.”
Daehan Popular Music Awards.
Shortened to Daedaeum.
As Kim Tae-hwan said, it was considered the most authoritative awards show in Korea, and controversies surrounding the winners were extremely rare.
Most Korean music awards were heavily influenced by commercial factors—the size of an agency’s capital, chart performance, album sales, overseas records, and so on.
But the one ceremony that judged solely on musical completeness and artistic value was the Daehan Popular Music Awards.
In other words, every song released that year stood on an equal starting line. In a way, it played a very important role.
The one problem was…
The public’s recognition and interest in it is pretty low.
Because it evaluated purely on musicality and artistry, winners were chosen regardless of popular appeal.
In Korea, where fandom-driven idol music dominated, that naturally meant lower buzz.
On top of that, until now it had only been streamed online without major broadcaster coverage and had little corporate sponsorship, so opportunities to reach a wide audience had been limited.
Of course, that was the story up until last year.
The community was in an absolute frenzy over this year’s Daedaeum.
Some people were even arguing over whether I would win an award or not.
Of course, from my perspective it was a completely pointless fight.
“So they already told you the results?”
“They only gave us the Musician of the Year first. They confirmed it was you, as expected.”
Song of the Year, Album of the Year, Musician of the Year, Rookie of the Year.
Along with the best song in each genre, these four were the flagship awards of the Daehan Popular Music Awards.
And among them, Haon—meaning me—had been chosen for Musician of the Year.
So why had they only informed RT Entertainment of that particular result in advance?
“They’re probably asking whether you’ll attend the ceremony or not. It doesn’t make sense to announce a winner if no one’s there to accept it.”
“Hmm… Can’t someone accept it on my behalf?”
“They said that’s possible. Some artists can’t attend because of scheduling conflicts anyway. But since it’s Musician of the Year, they want a written acceptance speech.”
An acceptance speech, huh…
That was easy enough.
I could knock it out in twenty minutes.
The real issue was who would deliver it for me.
And as expected, no one was more perfect for the job than Kang Beom-jun.
“Then the CEO can accept the award and read the speech.”
“That works, but shouldn’t we get other opinions first?”
“Other opinions?”
Kang Beom-jun turned his gaze.
Straight toward Baek Yerin, who had been sitting quietly beside me, listening to the entire conversation.
“You want Yerin to do it?”
“Yeah. I’ll be attending the ceremony too, but wouldn’t it look better if Yerin was the one on stage?”
“Wouldn’t it be more of a hassle for her?”
RT Entertainment had been relatively quiet at the end of the year, but Baek Yerin and my sister had been incredibly busy attending award shows.
She had swept nearly every award, which meant she had to prepare different speeches for each one.
If it had been me, I would’ve gotten sick of it…
But my assumption turned out to be wrong.
“Not at all. Actually, I really want to say it myself.”
“?”
Baek Yerin answered with a bright, genuine smile, happily agreeing to accept the award and deliver the speech on my behalf.
Her smile was so pure and sunny that I couldn’t bring myself to argue.
Well… yeah.
It was just reading the speech I wrote. What could possibly go wrong?
After taking a short while to write the speech, Ryu Won kept it as brief as possible, mindful that Baek Yerin would be the one reading it.
The content itself was completely standard.
Just a simple thank-you for listening to Haon’s songs so warmly, and a promise to repay everyone with good music this year as well.
“Then I’ll leave it to you.”
Baek Yerin received the paper with the neatly written speech from Ryu Won.
As she read through the content, a faint, mysterious smile formed on her lips.
Because the real meaning behind those words…
Was something only Ryu Won and she in this entire world would understand.