Misunderstanding
“That’s enough. Let’s keep this clean.”
CEO Kang Seong-min stepped in to take control of the room.
“If we’re going to make proper use of the Lunari character, we need Yeong-il. We were planning to reach out to him anyway. First priority: lock down Yeong-il.”
A VTuber who could sing was replaceable. A composer who could write songs that good was not.
So Yeong-il was priority one, no question. And if that failed? Then, regrettably, they would drop Lunari and raise someone new. Finding a trainee whose looks were only so-so but whose voice was killer couldn’t be that hard.
“We still have no idea who he actually is?”
“No, sir. No traces on SoundCloud, no activity history of any kind. It’s possible an established composer is working under the radar.”
“That’d be it, wouldn’t it? What a nasty little hobby. Who the hell is this guy, churning out songs like that?”
They had thought he was just a gifted arranger. His original compositions were even better.
The real problem was that this lunatic hadn’t gone to professional singers. He had dropped three original tracks into the playground of virtual streamers. To Kang Seong-min, it felt like watching a high schooler run amok in a kids’ sandbox. But what could he do? There had never been a rule against entering with original songs.
Was there a reason he had to stay hidden? A contract somewhere else? Something he couldn’t own up to? …Could he be a criminal?
Kim Hye-min, IG’s chief producer, shattered Kang Seong-min’s spiraling fantasy by timidly raising her hand.
“Um… sir.”
“What.”
“I-I tore through every audio file in the studio the second the tournament ended. Th-there’s one more possibility — he might actually be a total rookie!”
“Hm?”
Chief Producer Kim Hye-min pushed up her glasses and pressed on. A few people beside her glanced over nervously, but she held her ground.
“First, when I pulled apart the frequency bands, the t-tail end of the overtones was cut off clean — like someone had sliced it with a saw.”
“……?”
Kang Seong-min stared at her with a face that said And that means what, you nerd? The A&R team lead jabbed her sharply in the side.
“Ow, o-ow. I-I mean, he used virtual instruments! And not only that — every instrument is balanced so perfectly that it has to be computer-rendered VSTs! That’s what I’m saying……”
“B-but also, this isn’t the kind of thing you just click together with a mouse. I’ve done it myself, and he made it sound like real session players. I’d almost want to watch him work?”
“The point, please…”
Kang Seong-min pinched the bridge of his nose as a headache bloomed.
“Time is money, and he b-burned his own hours instead of hiring sessions — meaning he didn’t spend money. Or he doesn’t have any! And on top of that, he didn’t follow commercial music trends or structures! Every track has a different genre and sonic texture, so you can’t even pin down a consistent compositional signature, and there’s none of the usual industry tricks, so no established composer comes to mind either—”
“The point.”
“He might be someone who makes music as a hobby! He might not even be from this industry! There’s a pretty high chance he’s a complete unknown — a total newcomer!”
“““Haaa……”””
A collective sigh rolled through the room at the chief producer’s gift for rambling.
Kang Seong-min began to genuinely worry that he had been building the company on talent and skill alone. How had she even made chief?
Right. She was eccentric, but she made good songs… Right.
“Got it. Good work.”
“Yes, sir!”
They had stayed to the end of Virtual Voice Fight; it was already far too late. Time to wrap the meeting and let people go home.
I’m an MZ-friendly boss, after all.
Everyone around him only ever spoke to him in formal speech, while his own default was casual — and he was somehow proud of that. Kang Seong-min stood first and addressed the staff.
“Lunari’s still streaming, right? Hit her hard from the company account, build some goodwill, and get an email address. Ahh, if only Se-young had at least gotten the email, we could’ve handled this quietly.”
“Ahahaha… things were pretty chaotic at the time.”
“Fine, whatever. Anything we authorized for Sion, Manager Kim has the authority to offer too. Go listen to whatever that composer wants.”
“Understood. I’ll contact Lunari right away.”
“Ah! And if he’s into VTubers, tell Yeong-il there’s a seat for him on the new virtual business team. Get him to come in once. Easier to talk once you’ve met face-to-face.”
“Yes, sir.”
“And watch what you say to Lunari!! Those two seem to know each other, but we don’t know how close. Remember that. Got it!”
He had a hunch that Lunari might hold the key to landing Yeong-il.
“……Yes, sir.”
The drained reply from Kim Hee-dong, the A&R manager in charge of contracts, was less than reassuring, but Kang Seong-min stood up anyway. Some people only got worse if you kept lecturing them.
He was about to walk out when Chief Producer Kim Hye-min shot her hand up again.
“Th-that rookie composer would probably be thrilled if we just offered to help release the tracks. Ah! He might not even know how the process works, so if we say we’ll lend him a mixing studio and put him with one of the top mastering teams in the industry, he might get interested?! Weirdos like that usually go crazy for gear. Usually.”
The sight of her deliberately stopping the departing CEO drew a low grumble from the surrounding staff. Kang Seong-min drew a long breath, let it out, and smiled brightly.
“Right. Manager Kim, please take that under advisement. I’ll be going, then!”
Kim Hye-min’s total lack of social awareness was nothing new, and no one ever made an issue of it. More accurately, it wasn’t that she lacked awareness — it was that she had no need for it. For all her bumbling appearance, she was one of the real powers in the company: the chief producer.
On the elevator ride out, Kang Seong-min pulled out his phone again and queued up a video.
The YouTube upload that had gone up the moment the tournament ended already sat at fifty thousand views. In a day it would clear a hundred thousand without breaking a sweat, and the longer it sat, the more of a phenomenon it was sure to become.
He hadn’t ignored the chief producer’s theory for nothing. Because it was simply too absurd. What — someone who made songs as a hobby had produced this?
IG Entertainment’s chief producer Kim Hye-min had always been suspiciously sharp with her instincts. This time, Kang Seong-min was certain she was wrong.
I ended up on a call with Yu Nari for the first time in a while.
To be precise, it was two days after the finals. I had seen the pile of missed calls and messages and finally dialed her back.
"Yeong-il, don’t you have anything to say to me?"
“Um, not really…?”
I didn’t. Wasn’t she the one who had something to say?
"What have you been up to?"
“Ah, working. I felt like writing a song.”
"Why’d you turn Discord off?"
“To focus.”
"Tsk. I never should’ve told you about the status messages on Discord."
“S-sorry.”
The mood seemed to call for an apology, so I offered one — but I still didn’t get it. Why? I had only been gone for two days. Maybe before, but the Nari of now had plenty of people who would seek her out even if I wasn’t sitting in the viewer list. The tournament was over; I finally had breathing room, and I had simply been writing songs in peace.
"When you didn’t answer, I thought something had happened. If you vanish the second the finals end, am I supposed to be surprised? Or not?"
“Ah.”
“I’m sorry. Watching the tournament, a bunch of ideas just hit me and I wanted to work right away.”
So she had been worried. This was getting really awkward.
"Riiight~ of course you did. Did the song turn out well?"
“Ah, yes.”
"Weeell, gooood for yooou."
“I, um, I’m sorry.”
"Nooo, it’s fiiine~ Even after the finals I wanted to talk about all kinds of things, raise a little toast just between us, tell the story of how I panicked when a flood of new people poured into the stream for the first time, share how I was planning to run the broadcasts from here on — a lot happened, but I am toootally fiiine."
That was a lot. She did not sound fine at all.
I had known Yu Nari for a little over a month, and after a full week of practice calls I seemed to have gotten considerably more comfortable with her.
Friends. Was this what friends were like? It had been so long that I barely remembered the feeling. Middle school had been all streaming; after that I had buried myself in my room. The sensation was unfamiliar.
“Congratulations on the runner-up finish. You rewrote my lyrics at the end — I saw. I thought you were going to win.”
"Ah, hehe. That was a total surprise. You liked it? I thought just changing the ending of the lyrics would make it really pretty, and I needed a visual too, so I was busy with this and that — I’m glad it worked out!"
“Yeah. Definitely.”
A few calls with Yu Nari had taught me something. She was simpler than she looked. Praise her and she melted.
"I’m so proud? The second I first heard the song my whole body tingled and I just knew — this is my song. There was a lot in the lyrics that felt like me, too."
“Haha… I wrote it so long ago. Changing it was definitely the right call.”
It was still a relief that she never asked about my past. The me for whom this place is everything was dark enough that the “I have a tragic backstory” energy was practically painted on my forehead, and she would have been justified in asking. She didn’t.
Yu Nari, as if she had a bottomless well of things to say, started unpacking everything that had happened over the last two days one story at a time. And then—
"But you don’t watch my streams anymore, huh?"
“Yeah. Wait — no? I leave them on in the background.”
"Liar. You said you spent two days writing a song."
Ah. Right.
“Just this once.”
"About a week ago — three days before the Virtual Voice Fight quarterfinals started — what was the name of the Steam game I played on stream?"
“What was that… it’s fuzzy. I’ve played too many games.”
"Wrong! I haven’t played a single game since Virtual Voice Fight started. You said it would split the new viewers."
A trap.
"……Dammit. Since when did you stop watching."
“I don’t not watch at all. I pop in and out.”
There were so many viewers now that it had started to feel quietly uncomfortable.
"No. Without you my stream dies."
“Huh?”
Why the sudden casual speech.
"Ah, that’s a meme, sorry. You wouldn’t know that kind of thing. I keep thinking this, but you seem a little older. Heh."
“……”
I didn’t bother correcting her as she giggled, but I was probably the younger one. From things she had said before, she was at least a third-year university student — so older than me, then…
"Ah, right — and the actual reason! This is why I called."
“We’ve been on the phone for over an hour and now you’re getting to it?”
"Killing two birds, heh."
So there had been a real reason for the call after all.
"I posted an email address on the channel. And what do you know — the inbox exploded?"
“I bet. A lot came in?”
I didn’t know how many, but she had definitely drawn a lot of attention. Some of it might have come for me, too — no, it definitely had. Why did she keep name-dropping me so much? Thanks to Lunari’s constant mentions, we were practically packaged as a set.
"Roughly three hundred?"
“Insane.”
"Sorting them was a whole job. Still, about two hundred seventy of those were viewers sending comfort and praise. I’m going to put my foot down and tell them not to send those anymore, though. This is strictly a business inbox."
Yu Nari muttered something about maybe needing a café for that, then pivoted hard.
"Okay! So out of the remaining thirty, how many do you think were for you, Yeong-il?"
“Uh… like five?”
"Wrong! The answer is seventeen~"
That ownership stake was way too high.
"Since you weren’t answering for two days~ I went ahead and checked myself! One from an agency, five personal inquiries, and eleven from YouTubers."
“There’s so much of it I’m getting dizzy…”
"Anyway, I was going to forward them by message — want me to strip out the personal stuff, like people asking who you are?"
“I’d appreciate that.”
I already felt bad that she was receiving mail on my behalf; now she was managing it too.
"It’s nothing. After everything you’ve done for me. If anything, I’m gla—"
“Huh?”
"Never mind. Are you planning to make a public email for yourself, Yeong-il?"
I couldn’t keep dumping on Yu Nari’s inbox forever, so I probably needed to open a public address. But where would I even post it? I wasn’t a streamer. I had nothing.
“I could, but… I don’t have anywhere to put it.”
"Ahh. Right, you don’t even upload the songs. Then just use my inbox for now."
“Is that really okay?”
"Of course."
Friends really were nice.
"And now the real point — IG Entertainment got in touch. You remember them, right? The tournament sponsors."
“Yeah, I know them.”
"I haven’t replied yet, but they say they really want to meet both of us. I’m fine with it, but I figured you probably wouldn’t be, so I wanted to ask. It’s probably something like what they offered Sion, right?"
Meeting strangers. That was definitely uncomfortable.
I turned over why IG Entertainment would want me and landed on the obvious: the songs Lunari had performed were mine, so they were calling in the composer too. They wanted to sign Lunari, and I had become an inconvenient attachment. I still had three unreleased tracks. From their side, it probably felt like dealing with a married woman who already had three kids.
You couldn’t just throw the songs away, so the tracks would need to be cleared, an album would need to be made, and then there was the revenue split. Money spent, profits a pittance. I was basically the deadbeat ex-husband who, having no means of his own, handed the kids (the songs) over to the ex-wife’s (Lunari’s) new man (IG) and still collected child support (royalties).
If the songs actually made some money, I might at least get to be a proud deadbeat.
I wasn’t the kind of fool who got arrogant just because a few songs did well in a streaming tournament. But you never knew — maybe there was an audience out there that would love my music. Once she went into IG Entertainment, would she get songs so good she’d forget the ones I gave her?
Hup. That almost made me tear up.
"What are you thinking about for so long."
“Nothing. Nari, how about you go hear them out first? As long as I don’t have to meet them in person, I’ll cooperate.”
I was sad, but I managed to say it steadily. I didn’t want to hold Yu Nari back.
Goodbye, my little married — no, my little Yu Nari.
"Tsk. Why…? Something about that suddenly feels really off……"
Indigestion, maybe? Yu Nari muttered to herself.
(Lunari’s scruffy avatar in wolf pajamas from the Virtual Voice Fight quarterfinals)
