Yielding?
"W-wait, just a moment!"
"Hmm? Yes. In that case, why don't we take a short break instead? Would about thirty minutes work?"
"Yes, yes, yes!"
Yu Nari's eyes went round as saucers. She had been secretly trading messages with Do-yoon all through the meeting.
He went outside? What happened?
She swallowed down the complicated tangle of pride and worry, and her thumbs flew across the keyboard.
Once he explained that he had failed to buy beer because he had forgotten his ID, Nari burst into a peal of laughter and declared that it was so completely Do-yoon of him.
Then maybe next time they could drink together over the internet?
No—wait. Didn't this mean they could meet outside now?
Alcohol on a first meeting might be a bit much, though. Food first. Baby steps.
She folded the wings of her imagination for the moment and focused on Do-yoon's messages.
He had worked up the courage to go outside, only to run into his little sister, and the whole atmosphere at home had gone weird. His parents were tiptoeing around him; his sister was throwing a fit.
"Heh."
A laugh slipped out before she could stop it.
Lately there had been nothing but good things happening, and her smile was getting looser by the day.
It had already been several months since she first met Do-yoon, and the fact that they could talk about personal things like this now filled her with a strange, warm flutter.
I'm growing, and Do-yoon is moving forward too.
It was, honestly, the ideal kind of relationship.
But why had he suddenly decided to go outside in the first place?
Do-yoon held back on anything that was not yet settled, and though Nari was curious, she did not press him.
Do-yoon was not the type to hide things. If he said he would tell her later, she could wait.
After the pleasant chatter wound down, she set her phone aside and returned to reality.
Today's schedule was packed solid.
Delivery Food had taken off through word of mouth, and—to her astonishment—a delivery app had reached out proposing a collab ad.
At first she had assumed Han So-yeong was joking. She was not.
"How am I supposed to do something like that…?" Nari had asked in a fluster, but So-yeong had waved it off coolly: it was a YouTube ad, so she just needed to make it fun.
Getting famous was good. Making money was good.
But practice time for the new track Do-yoon had brought her had started to run short.
She had squeezed in bits of singing here and there, but nothing felt right.
She wanted something that would hit hard—something that would explode.
She did not want to give up on Do-yoon's song, so she kept clinging to it; and because there was no progress, she found herself resenting the flood of ads with a kind of full-bellied peevishness.
No.
If she was being honest with herself, Nari already knew.
This was less a problem of time and more the strain of forcing herself into clothes that did not fit.
Maybe someone else is supposed to sing this.
Giving everything she had to singing alone was hard enough. Trying to hold on to everything at once was impossible.
Nari picked up her phone, set it down, and picked it up again several times.
She had to tell Do-yoon.
That she could not do it.
But she still could not send the message.
I don't want to ruin Do-yoon's song… but I don't want to let it go either.
Someone did come to mind, though.
Someone who could deliver the raw high notes Do-yoon wanted.
Someone she knew even better because they had shared a stage at a concert.
Kurogami Yui might match the brief perfectly.
She thought back to the conversations she and Yui had shared when they met in person.
Something Nari had that Yui did not.
Yui had said she wanted to find "something that gives you chills."
That airy, half-formed line had never quite left Nari's head.
What made my stage so special?
Black Cat was the story of herself born on a drunken night. Still Me held the feelings she wanted to pass to Do-yoon in that room. Broken Clock was loaded with a fierce refusal to lose to Yui.
Every one of them was a song that carried her own emotions.
Maybe Yui needed the same thing.
"A song that holds her own story."
And as it happened, the theme of this OST was uncannily perfect.
A stage without a curtain call.
When a performance ends, the actors come out onto the stage to take their bows—that is a curtain call. But the protagonist of this web drama was a singer who hid their face, someone who could never stand in that curtain call.
The story of someone who longed to take the stage, yet feared revealing their true self.
It fit the Nari of the past, and it fit the Yui of the present.
If Yui sang this song…
Maybe she would find that "something that gives you chills" she was looking for.
…Damn it. Then why does this feel so awful?
The bad little creature inside her stirred again.
Do-yoon is going to keep growing. He's going to write songs for all kinds of people.
She knew that, and still—the fact that it was Yui of all people left a sour taste.
Nari forced the nameless resistance back down.
She would not tell Do-yoon right away.
She would meet Yui first.
See for herself whether the song truly suited Yui, and whether Yui even wanted to sing it.
With a tangle of feelings knotted inside her, Nari chose to believe that was the whole reason she wanted to meet.
She really, truly hated it—but she could let it go.
She and Do-yoon were no longer bound only by songs.
There was no need to cling to him as singer and composer alone.
Having made that resolution, Nari pulled out her phone and sent Kurogami Yui a DM.
The appointment was set within a day.
What is this about?
Kurogami Yui arrived at a nearby café in a state of considerable tension.
They had already dropped the formalities. They had even done a collab stream together. So why the polite speech?
The chill coming through the text made her a little nervous as she waited for Nari.
"Unnie."
"Ah! You're here?"
"Cute as ever today."
"…I don't really like being called cute."
Yui grumbled, but the sight of Nari approaching with that playful energy was a relief.
She had never noticed it online, but the real-life Yu Nari carried a quiet aura that made this kind of instinctive caution feel natural.
"Mmm~ This chocolate cake is so good! Unnie, try some."
"Yeah. Nicely sweet. I like it."
The light chatter drifted this way and that—streaming talk, challenge talk, what they had been eating lately—until the conversation naturally found its way to music.
"Yeong-il's songs are great, right? Do you still listen a lot?"
"Mm, sometimes?"
"What kind of person do you think Yeong-il is, unnie?"
Yui's head tilted at the odd question.
"What kind of persun? Someone who makes good songs?"
"That's all?"
"Yeah? Why?"
Nari took a sip of her Americano, her grip on the cup a little awkward.
"No reason. You commissioned a song from Yeong-il before, so I was wondering if you were interested."
"I did, yeah. Still am, a lot?"
For a fraction of a second, Nari's eyes sharpened.
"Hmm. So you're very interested. Why?"
"B-because he makes good songs?"
Why keep asking something that obvious?
The strange instinct she had felt before resurfaced, and Yui added a little more.
"I'm interested in the songs, but not really curious about what kind of persun he is. Not interested, I guess?"
She was not sure if that was the right answer.
Two years her senior, she carefully studied Nari's face.
Lips twitching. Corners of the mouth fidgeting. She looked satisfied, and yet complicated at the same time.
Up until now Nari had been transparent to a fault; if she was hiding her expression, it was more likely that even she did not have a clear purpose for the question.
She did not seem to fully understand her own feelings.
Having gained a fair amount of confidence, Yui drew the line first.
"Nari, I don't have any personal romantic feelings toward Yeong-il or anything like that."
"Huh…? I wasn't asking about that?"
"No? Then it's finey."
Having recovered her ease, Yui smiled around her straw and stared straight at Nari.
Nari hesitated for a moment, then quietly worked her lips.
"…If Do—I mean, if Yeong-il were interested in you, unnie, what would you do?"
And she said it wasn't about that.
A snort of laughter escaped.
"Hmm. I like the person I like better than someone who likes me."
"Oh… that's very adult of you."
"My ideal type is an ikemen! Gotta be handsome! No matter how amazing they are at everything else—no exceptions! The face! I never, ever yield on that."
"Haha. Extreme. Adult status revoked."
Watching Nari visibly relax, Yui felt a weight lift.
According to Nari, she had never met Yeong-il in person.
Whether that was a lie or not, the way Nari looked relieved by the "has to be handsome" rule suggested that Yeong-il's appearance was nothing special—or at least that Nari could roughly guess even without having seen him.
A composer who had never shown his face and never stepped into the public eye.
A handsome hikikomori? A nerd?
That kind of combination only existed in manga.
Both Yu Nari and Kurogami Yui had quietly banked on that assumption, so their expectations for Do-yoon's looks hovered near zero.
Yui even had a private thought she had never voiced, because it felt too much like trash-talking behind someone's back.
The whole mysterious-artist thing is way overdone. Ugh—probably some second-year-syndrome type.
If she said that out loud and Nari really did like Yeong-il, she might get her hair yanked out.
She did not want to be misunderstood as liking her friend's guy, but she also did not want to trash him too hard.
Scraping at the empty cake plate that had somehow already vanished, Yui found herself wondering.
Had she been called here just for this?
"So what did you call me for today?"
Much steadier now, Nari brought out the main topic.
"Unnie, I have a favor to ask."
"What is it?"
"Among the songs Yeong-il made, there's one he's looking for a female vocal for."
Yui's eyes went wide.
"A Yeong-il song?!"
"Yeah. It's a web drama OST. I was going to sing it, but the situation just doesn't fit, so I'm looking to pass it on—and your tone felt exactly right."
"F-for real? I would love that so much!"
"I don't have the authority myself, but I think I can pass it along. Want to hear the song?"
Nari held out one earbud, and Yui snatched it up at once.
The track Do-yoon had written—and finished the guide vocals for—began to play.
"Whoa, this is so gooood. So the high part is the girl part? Meaning mine?"
Watching her beam with excitement, Nari could tell the song had landed perfectly with Yui.
She deliberately did not mention that the guide vocal she had just played was Yeong-il himself.
It was going to be replaced anyway…
It was not essential information, Nari decided.
"Let me listen one more time."
Nari quietly watched Yui listen to the song again.
Eyes closed, focused—the playfulness had drained from her face.
…So this song is going to Unnie Yui.
One corner of her chest was still cold, but not as much as before.
Yui clearly had no romantic feelings for Do-yoon, and that was enough.
Why did she even care about that? She asked herself, and found an answer of her own.
When friends of the opposite sex get close and then start dating, everyone around them just ends up awkward and hurt. Yeah. That would be bad.
Nari carefully ignored the electric rush of relief that had washed over her at Yui's razor-sharp looks-first declaration.
A call came late at night.
"Hello?"
"Do-yoon-ah, I don't think I can do this song."
"Ah. I was thinking that might be the case. You looked pretty busy."
"It's a shame, but I want your song to come out even better, so I'm going to let this one go."
Her voice trailed off, thick with genuine regret—as if she had really, truly wanted to do it.
It was fine. Really.
"Next time I write something, I'll try to make one that fits you, Nuna."
"Heehee, nice. Don't push yourself, though. I'll make so much money I'll pad your song fee nice and thick."
"Yeah. I should start charging more than four hundred thousand won a track."
"…Sorry. I really didn't know. I've never bought a song before."
It was late enough that bedtime was already creeping up even though only a few minutes had passed.
"Do-yoon-ah, Nuna is really, really sad that she gave up the song, you know?"
"Hm?"
"So, before you sleep, could you maybe sing me just one song?"
"Why would I…?"
"Because I'm a good kid who yielded the song today."
"Yiel…ded? Wasn't that just because you were busy and had no choice?"
"Whatever! Just sing! Aaaaah! It's not like you go around singing for other people. I want to hear it! I sing for you all the time!"
No—the reason Nari sang in front of me so often was because I was her composer.
I honestly wondered where she got the nerve for this kind of shameless tantrum. But I decided to sing anyway.
Besides, if I was going to do a feature, I needed the practice.
As for the song…
Yeah. This one.
I chose This Is All of Me.
Unlike Lunari's version, which started dark and finished bright, I sang my original—dim and heavy from start to finish.
I worried for a second that I had sung something too dark right before bed, but Nari seemed reasonably satisfied.
"Niiice."
"…That enough?"
"Mm. Do-yoon's singing has this resonance to it. The fact that I get to monopolize it—phew. I feel like I'm committing a crime against the world."
"That's overdoing it. Again."
"Pffft. I'm going to sleep! Night!"
Nari said her piece and vanished in a flash.
…It was not a monopoly anymore, though.
I had forgotten to mention that I was planning to do a feature.
Not that important. I could tell her tomorrow.
I still needed to let Manager Han So-yeong know I was accepting the feature, and I needed to come up with a stage name.
If I named it myself, would Nari just tease me again?
This time, I would ask for recommendations.