Convenience Store
I was on a call with Yu Nari when I played her the track I’d sent over for the OST.
It was her own fault for needling me, insisting that even if the song never got picked up for the web drama I could always just drop it as a personal single.
While the music poured through the line, Yu Nari said nothing at all.
For someone who normally couldn’t keep her mouth shut for three whole seconds, silence meant she was locked in and concentrating hard.
The track finished.
……This is really different.
“I made it a while back. Never showed it to you because it wasn’t a solo track.”
Weird. People always say composers have their preferred genres, but every one of your songs feels completely different. If I had to compare, the humid parts are kind of like Yeojeonna.
The word “humid” landed close enough that a laugh slipped out of me.
“It fits the web drama’s story perfectly.”
Anyway, I love it! I really love it. Play it one more time.
At her request we held several more private listening sessions.
When the fourth playthrough ended, a new question arrived.
Who’s singing the female part?
“Haven’t decided yet.”
……Can I do it?
She was the closest singer I knew and the first person who always came to mind, so of course I’d imagined it. The problem was the climax. The song had one ultra-high passage that let the emotion boil over. When I recorded the guide I’d dropped the key and buried it under the mix. It wasn’t outside Yu Nari’s range, but reaching a note and detonating it were two different things. It might end up feeling half-hearted. Still… if it was her.
“Give it a try.”
For real?! I’ll try right now!
Yu Nari, buzzing with excitement, started the track again.
Heehee, I’ve thought this before, but Do-yoon’s tone is so good. Your part is my favorite thing in the whole song.
The praise made my ears itch.
“That’s just the guide. We’ll still need an actual male feature.”
I know, I know—Do-yoon gets all shy~ Such a waste, though. I’ll just have to settle for being the only one who gets to hear Do-yoon’s singing~
A waste? Come on. Seriously. Ahem.
Hang on, let me practice a few times.
She muted her mic and spent about ten minutes warming up her voice. Then she kicked the MR straight in.
Past the intro, Yu Nari’s voice settled onto the track. Good. The color of it clung to the song without any friction—still that magnetic, overflowing vocal charm of hers. The song moved into its midsection. The melody climbed higher and higher. Her breath climbed with it. So far so good. Right before the climax—the stretch where the emotion piled up and up until it was ready to spill over—Yu Nari drew in a breath. And then.
The ultra-high note.
She reached it. She got there.
……She got up there, but something. Just reaching it wasn’t enough. It needed to explode. This wasn’t bad, yet it sat outside what I’d pictured. Hmm. If I had to put a finger on it, the color was different?
The MR ended.
How was it?
“……It was good, but.”
Good but what. Be honest!
“……That last high note was a little…?”
Ah, that. Yeah, it was a bit much for me.
Even as she admitted it, the drive never left her voice.
If I practice I think I can really nail the lift. Give me a few days.
“Mm.”
If it was Yu Nari, practice would probably do the trick. She worked harder than anyone.
“Just don’t overdo it.”
I’m fine! But I don’t want to get in Do-yoon’s way, so if it looks like it’s not gonna work I’ll step aside even if it sucks.
“Get in the way of what? This hasn’t even been confirmed yet.”
It was only one song. The word felt a little grand for it.
After the call with Yu Nari ended I picked up an acoustic guitar for the first time in a while. Nothing soothed body and mind quite like this.
Ziiing—!
Han So-yeong – Manager
“Ugh.”
Lately the amount of time I got to spend alone seemed to keep shrinking. Or maybe that was just my imagination.
“Hello?”
I listened to Yeong-il’s track.
“Yes.”
Were you ever aiming to be a singer-songwriter?
The sudden question made me pause for a beat.
“……No. Standing in front of people doesn’t suit me.”
Such a shame. Your voice is so good I was shocked the moment I heard it. You’d be perfect as our company’s second artist.
Even So-yeong saying it made me squirm. Was today national paint-my-face-gold day or something?
Well, setting the regret aside—let’s get to the point.
“Okay.”
I spoke with the production company.
“And?”
They said it’s not quite Blackout Cat, but they like it. They were pretty taken with the guide version itself. They understand the composer suggested a female vocal with a male feature, but honestly they think the current version already feels complete enough.
They didn’t know it was only a guide, so of course they could feel that way.
“The female part on the guide is me singing with the key dropped. In the real track there’s a high section that’ll sound even better than that.”
Back then I hadn’t known any female vocalists, so I’d had to force myself to record it.
Ah. So you handled it in the mix.
“Yes. That’s why a female vocal is essential.”
Understood. So what kind of vocal style are you thinking of?
What kind of style. I groped around inside my head for the sound.
“A voice that sits calm and low in the bottom end, then pours out emotion all at once when it climbs.”
Mm.
“Not something that builds with technique—more like it boils inside until the lid blows off. The kind that punches through rough and hard.”
That’s very specific. Do you already have someone in mind?
“No. That’s just the exact description.”
No one particular sprang to mind. Or… did they? Something flickered for a second and then slipped away.
“Yu Nari said she wanted to try it.”
Oh, is that so?
“It doesn’t match the song perfectly, but she’s a practice maniac, so she’ll lock it in fast. And more than anything, working with her is easy.”
So-yeong held her tongue for a moment.
It would be convenient, yes. But.
“Yes?”
Nari’s schedule is extremely packed right now.
“That many things?”
This week she has a collab ad meeting with a delivery app. Next week she’s been invited to V-Festival and has to prepare. In between there’s a joint-broadcast planning meeting, and she has to keep feeding the core internet-broadcast fanbase so she can’t really cut back on personal streams either.
I’d known she was busy, but not this level of busy.
If she needs separate practice time, it could realistically become too much.
The words Yu Nari had said earlier circled my ears again. If it gets in the way I can step aside. Forcing her to squeeze practice into a schedule that tight wasn’t the picture I wanted.
“I don’t want to push Nari-nuna too hard either. I’ll talk to her about it.”
I agree. Let’s put it on hold for now.
And one more thing.
She paused a beat, then shifted her tone.
The production side said that even if they don’t know about the female part yet, they’d like the male feature to be sung by the same guide vocal as-is.
No, that was a bit much.
“……That might be difficult.”
Mmm, I also liked Yeong-il’s version so much that I asked if you were thinking of singer-songwriter work in the first place. May I ask the reason?
“I’m not a singer, and…… I don’t want to be exposed to the outside world.”
Han So-yeong didn’t fire back right away. She let a careful silence stretch, then spoke carefully.
What I said earlier was sincere. Working in entertainment I hear all kinds of voices, and objectively yours is good—no, excellent.
“…….”
The praise kept piling on too thick.
Being exposed is the part that weighs on you, right?
“……Yes.”
Then what about creating a disposable stage name?
Disposable?
Unconnected to Yeong-il. Something you use once and throw away.
Use once and throw away.
No pressure. It’s only OST work—not like you’d be standing in front of the public—so we use it this one time and bury it afterward.
“…I’ll think about it. I’ll get back to you.”
I hung up and sat in the same spot for hours, staring out the window. Only after the sunset bled away and darkness settled did I finally look at myself.
The reason I couldn’t shake Han So-yeong’s words was simple: deep down, curiosity had already taken root. If writing a song was sketching on blank paper, then singing was laying down the color. Who wouldn’t wonder what a painting looked like when every single stroke from one to ten was their own?
But if I recorded it properly…… I’d have to go to a studio. That meant stepping outside. And once the song actually came out, there was that paranoid little worry that people who knew my past might still be around. I hadn’t sung that often back then, and six years had already passed, so the odds were basically zero. I knew that. Fear, though, was never logical to begin with.
Just imagining it made my heart shrink. The funny part was that the same heart was also racing. All the work with Lunari might have completely fried my hormone system. The two words So-yeong had used—“just once”—were dangerously seductive. Once. If it really was only once, maybe I could do it.
I couldn’t answer on the spot, so I’d asked the manager for a little time. I slipped on my headset and listened again to the song that held my own voice. Three minutes fifty-six seconds of meditation later, I opened my eyes.
I’d once told Yu Nari I would try going to a convenience store. It felt like that moment had finally arrived. Let’s buy one can of beer. As a test. If I couldn’t even manage the convenience store right outside my building, a studio was pure fantasy.
I dragged on my slippers and stood in front of the front door.
“Hoo……”
Deep breath. I borrowed courage from the memory of Yu Nari’s drunken rambling.
Creeeak—
I opened the door. The corridor fluorescent light stabbed my eyes for an instant, and the cool air became a sedative for my pounding heart. Night was a blessing. Fewer people.
My fingertip trembled faintly when I pressed the elevator button. First floor. Past the lobby the automatic doors parted and outside air rushed in. Cold. I could feel the season changing. I never noticed that while I was locked in my room.
About three hundred meters to the convenience store. I tugged my hood and mask tighter and stepped forward. Whenever someone approached from the opposite direction I ducked my head even lower and poured every scrap of focus into my feet. Four minutes of walking like that, maybe.
Light spilled through the glass doors of the convenience store. One hand clamped the hood down; the other took hold of the door. Go in or not? In that short hesitation a familiar sound drifted out from inside.
My narrow room is actually really wide
Because the whole world is right here
Lunari’s voice. And my song. As if under a spell I pulled the door open and stepped inside. My own music playing in a convenience store. The feeling was strange. The creator stayed locked in a room while the creations wandered freely through the world. That was the power of a Mellow Chart Top 100 track, I supposed. Anywhere you went it was on constant rotation; my songs were probably flowing down streets far beyond this one.
The courage that gave me carried me between the shelves. Where was the alcohol? I found the liquor corner and stopped in front of it. I reached for a beer, touched it, then jerked my fingers back at the cold. Wrapping my hand in the sleeve of my hoodie, I picked up one can. Last stop: the register. This was the hardest part. My feet refused to move as if they had cramps, so I stood there a moment and collected my breath.
It’s just buying one beer at a convenience store. You just buy it.
I swapped my mindset for something bold and forced strength into my legs. One step. Two. Then carefully, thunk, I set the beer on the counter. A part-timer was there, but she had her back turned while she restocked something else. Of course it had to be a girl—my tension spiked higher. Now just hand over the card and it would be finished.
At the sound of me she turned around.
“Hello—”
The greeting cut off halfway. The part-timer looked at me and stiffened a little. What? Did I look weird? Was something showing? I pulled the hood lower and fiddled with my card.
“Ah. Yes. One beer, right!?”
Her voice brightened all at once; she must have switched into work mode. I pulled out my card and tapped it against the reader. This was the right place, right?
“Ah, yes! Um, excuse me.”
She hesitated, then spoke.
I flinched again, wondering what I’d done wrong.
“Could I check your ID for a moment?”
ID.
“……”
Right. I’d only stuck a card in my wallet before leaving. After six years of not going out, of course I hadn’t had the mental bandwidth to remember an ID.
“……I don’t have it.”
“Then I’m sorry, but I can’t sell alcohol.”
The beer sat lonely on the counter. After everything it had taken to get this far, failing because I’d forgotten my ID.
“Okay……”
I had to turn around and leave the convenience store behind me.
“Ah, so you were a minor, what a shame……”
She muttered something soft on my way out, but I didn’t catch it clearly. I felt hollow, yet strangely the feeling wasn’t all bad. There was no beer in my hand, but I’d confirmed what I needed to confirm. A studio would be farther than a convenience store. Still, they’d make accommodations for recording. If I could record without other people around, it might be fine.
Having completed the mission, I headed back toward my sanctuary with a strangely light heart.
Beep-beep-beep—
I opened the front door and came inside. As I kicked off my slippers I noticed the living-room light was on. Why? There had definitely been no one home. I looked up, puzzled, and locked eyes with my little sister, who was mid-snack.
“……”
“……”
Three seconds of total silence. Her pupils flicked back and forth between my slippers and my bare feet. Still clutching the snack bag, she slowly backed away. Then she turned toward the master bedroom, took a deep breath, and—
“Mom!! Oppa escaped!!!”
Escaped? What is this, a prison?