No Way I Can Handle This
Baek Yerin debuted as a solo singer at the tender age of sixteen.
So how exactly had she been discovered?
There was a rather famous story behind it.
The truth was, until a year before her debut, she had never even considered stepping into the entertainment world.
But one decisive event suddenly drew the attention of every major agency at once.
It was her performance on the school festival stage.
November.
Most middle schools held their festivals around this time.
The same was true for Haneul Middle School, where Baek Yerin was currently enrolled.
The festival lasted only one day. In the morning, each class ran booths, and in the afternoon, performances took place in the main auditorium.
What made it interesting was that the afternoon performances were ranked by audience votes after the festival ended.
Naturally, there were prizes. First place received a gift certificate worth a staggering 500,000 won. Even second and third place offered prizes that would make any middle schooler’s eyes spin.
Thanks to that, everyone was desperate to get on stage, and Baek Yerin was one of them.
“Never thought I’d live to see the day I’d attend a middle school festival in disguise.”
“Tell me about it. I never imagined I’d be watching one alongside a disguised celebrity either.”
Kang Beom-jun let out a sigh at my cheerful reply as we walked side by side.
It had already been two days since he’d offered me a spot at his agency.
I’d pretended to hesitate at first before eventually accepting, but only on one condition.
I wanted the right to personally choose the singer who would perform my songs.
Kang Beom-jun had agreed to that condition without hesitation.
With all the connections he’d built during his years in the industry, he probably felt confident about that part.
But the moment he heard the name that came out of my mouth, his face went slack with disbelief.
He had likely assumed I would name a well-known singer. That was the usual fantasy for aspiring composers, after all.
And honestly… the old me had been no different.
Which was why I deliberately chose the complete opposite.
Someone whose name wasn’t known to the public yet. A completely ordinary female student attending Haneul Middle School.
Right now, Kang Beom-jun and I were at Haneul Middle School to see her performance with our own eyes.
“By the way, is this okay for you?”
“What do you mean?”
“You’re still a middle schooler yourself. Shouldn’t you be in class? I doubt skipping school to attend another school’s festival is allowed.”
“I pretended to be sick and got early dismissal, so don’t worry. My model-student image has its perks. This kind of thing isn’t hard for me.”
“Wow. You really are serious about this.”
A bitter smile tugged at my lips at Kang Beom-jun’s words.
He wasn’t wrong.
He wasn’t wrong, but…
How could I possibly miss this?
Today marked her historic, unofficial first performance. As her ultimate fan, there was no way I could let a stage that would later become legend slip by.
And besides.
“Honestly, CEO, you came because you were curious too, right?”
“Well… it’s simple curiosity. You were so insistent that I couldn’t help wondering just how talented this girl is. In that sense, I’m really hoping your eye for talent isn’t wrong.”
“……”
I deliberately stayed silent.
There was no way I was wrong.
Because her talent was the real deal among real deals.
Actually, there was one more reason I had come to see her performance today.
Can the current me truly handle her talent?
The question had suddenly hit me, so I wanted to find out for myself.
— Next up, we have a brave student who will be performing all by herself!
Step. Step.
Along with the host’s announcement, a female student slowly walked toward the center of the stage.
I stared at her without even blinking, drinking in every detail.
…But why?
Even from this distance, the moment I saw her, my heart began to pound violently.
Without realizing it, my fists clenched tight.
It felt like my entire body was trying to tell me something.
Exactly who the girl standing on that stage was.
Baek Yerin.
Finally reaching the center, she slowly lifted her head and looked out at the audience.
Thanks to the spotlight focused solely on her in the vast auditorium, I could finally see her face clearly.
Just as I remembered, but a little younger. The sight drove home once again that I had truly returned to the past.
Her already beautiful features were now mixed with an almost unfair level of cuteness.
Only… for some reason, her face looked slightly stiff.
It was probably her first time performing in such a public setting, so she seemed a bit nervous.
Ha… Baek Yerin, nervous?
That’s new.
Who was Baek Yerin?
A woman with a heart of steel who had never once shown nerves on stage. A nine-tailed fox who enchanted audiences by purely enjoying the performance more than anyone else.
Seeing someone like that tense on her first stage was strangely stimulating in more ways than one.
What kept me holding on,
All of it has disappeared.
How can I possibly endure now,
Without you by my side?
Why didn’t I realize before,
Just how much pain you were in?
Before the performance properly began, Baek Yerin gave a brief introduction.
She planned to sing only one song and leave the stage.
That was quite different from the other teams, who were all performing for at least ten minutes.
Since the prizes for this year’s Haneul Middle School festival were so generous, competition to get on stage had been fierce.
They had gone through preliminary interviews with teachers and the student council, and for some reason Baek Yerin had been accepted unanimously.
With only five minutes of stage time, far less than anyone else.
The person most surprised by this fact had actually been Baek Yerin herself.
Her reason for entering the festival wasn’t just the prize. Her friends had also strongly encouraged her.
They had heard her sing during music class and thought she was incredible. They told her that if she performed on stage, she could easily place in the rankings!
It was their enthusiastic urging that had pushed her up onto that stage.
But they had overlooked one crucial thing.
The Baek Yerin her friends heard during music class was completely raw.
In other words, she hadn’t practiced separately or put particularly deep thought into those performances.
From her perspective, even singing on the spot without practice would have earned top marks anyway.
This time, however, was different.
To rank highly, she needed a song that would earn the audience’s enthusiastic response and satisfy them.
So for the first time in her life, she had practiced properly and even analyzed her own performance.
Which meant—
“Ah. Ah.”
It was finally time to see what would happen when Baek Yerin got serious.
After testing the mic, she glanced toward the sound booth.
Then, slowly, a gentle melody began to fill the auditorium.
Out of all the genres available, she had deliberately chosen a ballad.
In my personal opinion, for someone who had to prepare everything alone, it was an absolutely brilliant choice.
Upbeat, lively songs were great too. They could really energize the festival atmosphere.
But a ballad only needed the voice.
There was no need for flashy stage effects or elaborate choreography.
Just stand at the center of the stage and sing with sincerity.
For the current Baek Yerin, that was more than enough.
The moment her voice flowed out, it was on a completely different level from other singers. Unique.
In a word, it was pure and crystal clear. And it was so perfectly balanced that it didn’t seem to trigger anyone’s personal tastes or dislikes.
I watched as the people around me fell completely silent.
When I turned my head, I saw Kang Beom-jun sitting with his mouth wide open.
Most people’s first reaction to hearing Baek Yerin sing was either awe or shock. Given that he had once been a singer himself, the latter response was only natural.
The rest of the audience was the same.
Everyone was overwhelmed by her voice. No other sound could be heard in the auditorium.
It was utterly quiet.
That silence continued until her song ended, and even after she stepped down from the stage.
In the middle of that strange phenomenon, I could only smile bitterly to myself.
…Handle it? Yeah, right.
I had thought that the current me would be able to handle her talent to some degree.
But the moment I heard her sing live again after so long, I realized how arrogant that assumption had been.
This clearly won’t be enough.
To walk alongside her, even with all the experience I had gained from regressing, I was still lacking.
Yet I didn’t feel like giving up at all.
If I were the type to give up so easily, I never would have started in the first place.
By the way…
“Looks like we’ll have to wait a bit near the main gate.”
“Why?”
“Hah… You cheeky brat. You already know exactly why. As the CEO of an agency, I have to do my job.”
Luckily, it seemed he was properly hooked as well.