Chapter 59
Chapter 59
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Translator: uly
Chapter: 059
Chapter Title: You Made This? (2)
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“Wow, Kwon. You’ve completely lost it.”
His already large mouth fell open even wider.
“Damn, how much cash did you drop on all this? You kept asking about it last time, but I didn’t think you’d actually buy it.”
His eyes darted busily around the studio.
“A Steinway? For real?”
Lee Joo-ha gaped at the piano and kept muttering,
“You’re insane. Totally insane.”
“How much did you splurge on those speakers? Not just one pair, but two on each side... this is ridiculous...”
“Gasp. No way that’s a Stradivarius, right? I heard there aren’t any on the market right now, and the sellers are holding onto them all. There’s no chance that’s it here...”
“Audio interface, condenser mic, preamp, compressor, controller... Wow... My mouth hurts just listing it all. How much does this setup even cost? This is pro-studio level... You went all out on top-tier gear, huh.”
“The soundproof booth is insane too. It’s like a panic room or something.”
He poked around, letting out a stream of inexplicable gasps and exclamations of awe.
“Kwon, this is supposed to be a workspace? Not a full-on professional studio? This is way beyond workspace level.”
“It’s for Yeonwoo to use, so of course it’s like this.”
“You think Yeonwoo can handle all this gear?”
“That’s why I called you.”
“Damn. At this rate, I can’t even lure you to our agency? How’s your setup better than our recording studio?”
At that moment.
The somewhat warm atmosphere plummeted.
“If you’re gonna talk shit like that, maybe you should just leave.”
“Hey, watch your words. I’m not the desperate one here.”
“Seeing you say that... Should we go through everything from one to ten and see who’s really desperate?”
Yeonwoo realized anew just how terrifying a smiling face could be. Lee Joo-ha must have felt it too—his smiling lips stiffened and twitched.
“No... no. Let’s bury our past as is, okay?”
“Well, you’re the one who started provoking first.”
“Haha. Hahaha! We’re a humorous people, right? We joke around like this sometimes!”
Instead of replying, Kwon Sung-hyun flashed a pretty smile and said,
“Be grateful you know how to grovel.”
“Haha...”
Lee Joo-ha laughed awkwardly and wiped his forehead. Despite the cool room temperature, his brow was drenched in cold sweat.
“But you’ve got all this equipment—why do you need me? You didn’t call just to brag, did you?”
“No, not that. I’ve been trying to compose a song lately.”
Yeonwoo answered Lee Joo-ha’s question.
“A song? Not singing, but composing?”
“Yeah, well...”
“Yeonwoo, since when do you compose?”
The extra stats from Salieri: ‘Composition that Moves the Heart.’
Plus Paganini’s ‘Impromptu and Flashy Performance.’
He’d been switching between piano and violin to test the abilities, and a melody he quite liked had emerged.
Lee Joo-ha blinked in disbelief.
“It just kinda happened.”
The response only made him more puzzled, and he spaced out before blurting,
“Can I hear it? Now I’m dying to know since you made it.”
He urged impatiently.
“It’s nothing grand enough to build up expectations.”
“Just play it already. I’m super curious now.”
Yeonwoo smoothly pulled out his latest smartphone.
“You’re not saying you recorded it on that, are you?”
“Yep.”
“...Why record on your phone when you have all this gear?”
“I don’t know how to use it.”
Lee Joo-ha clutched his chest, speechless at Yeonwoo’s brazen reply. For some reason, he muttered like he’d been whacked on the back of the head.
“This is why I said you’d understand if you came, Kwon... Friend, let’s just listen first. We’ll think after.”
“Sure.”
Soon, the music recorded on the phone began to play.
From the moment the song started, Lee Joo-ha’s wide eyes slowly drifted shut.
***
Lee Joo-ha. At 25 this year, he was a fairly renowned composer and singer both domestically and abroad.
Born in Korea, he’d been known as a musical prodigy since childhood, studying abroad young. In a culture that valued skill over age, he skipped grades repeatedly and entered a top world music conservatory at 17.
Even in that otherworldly place full of geniuses, Lee Joo-ha stood out.
Everyone expected a brilliant musician to be born.
If only he hadn’t found everything else boring because he was too exceptional.
-Quitting music?
-If you don’t sing, who will?
-Think again!
-Quitting vocal music would be a huge loss to the music world!
-You’re the only one fit to succeed the masters as a great maestro!
His surroundings naturally erupted in chaos, but Lee Joo-ha ignored it.
The young genius was too young, too brilliant. Nothing stimulated him, and the conservatory felt dull.
He thought nothing would captivate him anymore.
Then.
-What’s this noisy crap?
Skipping a pointless lesson, he was lounging on campus grounds when he encountered a strange rhythm.
-This? It’s this super popular musician right now. You really don’t know?
-No. First time hearing it.
Of course. Everything Lee Joo-ha had heard and learned until then was classical.
-...It’s good? Interesting.
Unfamiliar rhythms, stimulating melodies. And lyrics adding MSG-like punch.
If pure music felt like laughing behind a haha-ho-ho artistic mask, then pop music he’d ignored was raw.
That was probably when Lee Joo-ha first got interested in pop.
Right after, he dropped out and dove into pop.
The ‘art’ professors and peers freaked out, but he didn’t care.
-Much more fun? Interesting.
-No need for stuffy interpretations—just take it as it hits your heart and thoughts?
Music beyond ‘art’ had its own aesthetics.
It seemed purely stimulating and commercial, yet it encompassed public tastes and tied closely to the era’s mood.
Like.
-This is living music.
Music alive and moving? The thrill of delving into non-art music was indescribably electric.
And.
“Friend... You really made this...?”
That same shock hit Lee Joo-ha again.
***
“Yeah, well... Is it weird? I just went with what felt right.”
Even with the two masters’ stats providing cheat-level buffs, it was basically a total beginner’s composition.
‘Though the buffs aren’t your average cheats, that’s the issue...’
The song Yeonwoo made as his first draft was simple, if anything.
It started with the piano’s deep bass, unfolding slowly.
Then a faint violin melody followed.
The two slowly blended into a subtle harmony.
The piano melody surged, and the violin pushed back, trading places.
Like two people conversing through notes.
The sounds seemed to merge, but ultimately parted separately.
Heavy bass. Delicate high notes.
Heavy bass again. Delicate high notes once more.
The clashing finale was none other than...
-Yeonwoo! You’re an actor now too!
-So watch some dramas and do market research, right?!
The Child Spirit’s influence.
‘Of all times, when I’m just messing around, that guy’s chattering beside me...’
An unintended carryover from the drama he’d watched?
-I really think the saddest love in the world is when it misses timing.
-Not because they hated each other, but they liked each other and it just didn’t align—super heartbreaking, right?
-Life is all about timing.
The end had a weird line, but that was the gist.
-So the heroine originally liked the hero, right?
-But her family suddenly fell on hard times. So she transferred schools!
-The hero actually liked her too, but she was gone, so he neatly folded away his first love?
There are many ways to enjoy dramas and movies. The Child Spirit was the type to yap every trivial detail to someone.
-Then they meet again grown up! And she’s his brother’s fiancée!
-But that brother turns out... not his real brother!
-His dad had an affair, and the brother was the other woman’s kid!
-Family turns into hell, wedding’s off, and they’re not siblings anymore!
-Plus the brother’s bio parents from the affair side wanna take him...!
-...What the hell are you watching?
-You don’t know morning drama joy—you’re missing out!
-What nonsense?
-Anyway, now both families’ guys go after the heroine for real!
-Some woman shows up to the hero saying she’s pregnant...!
-Turns out she was put up by the fake brother to screw over the hero and his family—and she was the heroine’s friend!
It was a total makjang drama!
‘Where in that mess is the tragic love story of lovers who missed their chance?’
He couldn’t understand the old ghost’s mindset.
Anyway, with that yapping nonstop beside him—‘Aww, those two are so pitiful! If they’d just gotten together as kids, no mess, how great!’—the result ended up like this.
“It bad?”
Lee Joo-ha’s lack of reaction bugged him.
‘Maybe making it while listening to makdrama reviews was the problem?’
Just as that thought crossed his mind.
“Joo-ha. Are you crying right now?”
Kwon Sung-hyun noticed first.
Rarely flustered, he stared wide-eyed at Lee Joo-ha shedding bead-like tears.
A bear-sized man hunching his shoulders and bawling was visually jarring.
“You... sniff... not sad hearing this? You heartless Kwon!”
He wiped tears with thick arms, biceps bulging.
“Not bad enough to make you cry, right?”
“Of course not! How could a heart-wrenching song like this be bad?!”
He snorted loudly.
“Friend. You’ve never composed before, right?”
“Yes.”
“How... how did you make something like this?”
“Weird?”
“No, the total opposite. It sucked me right in like crazy. I’ve got high-class ears, y’know? Most stuff doesn’t even register, but this...”
Lee Joo-ha called Yeonwoo seriously.
“Friend.”
“Yeah.”
“In my eyes, you... you’re a genius.”
***
“What? Huh?”
“Genius. Genius.”
Genius.
The word sent chills up Yeonwoo’s spine.
‘Well, with two geniuses’ buffs, it’s par for the course...’
Still, you can’t create something from nothing. It amplifies existing talent, not invents it.
So Yeonwoo’s aptitude wasn’t half bad...
‘But genius... my limbs...’
Whatever, Lee Joo-ha muttered to himself.
“First song’s this good, and it made the great Lee Joo-ha cry. What else is that but genius?”
He even nodded, convinced.
“Sound quality too—at first I was like, just check it out, but then bam, hooked.”
As Lee Joo-ha said, the sound quality couldn’t be bad.
‘Two melodies overlapping would be nice...’
Yeonwoo had thought that, then used a super crude method: ‘Record one first, play it back while playing the second and record over.’