That Might Not Happen
As the end of the year approaches, people's hearts tend to float strangely in the air. Along with the thought that another year has already passed, content reflecting on the past twelve months floods the internet. The prime example was the "Songs That Defined XXXX" videos uploaded by a million music YouTubers every single year.
Even the comment sections of YouTube videos turned into battlegrounds like this. It didn't take much imagination to picture the state of idol and singer communities.
They hand out grand prizes to domestic-only singers every damn year while groups that promote Korea overseas get treated like trash. Does it make any sense that Black Canary has never even gotten a main award, let alone the grand prize? Starting this year, they should give bonus points to groups like RPS and Starlight that actually succeed abroad.
I really don't know.
"So, who's coming?"
At my question, everyone sitting around me shot their hands into the air. Each of them clutched a fluttering WMA ticket. There were five tickets in total, but the number of people eyeing them was several times that.
"How should I choose..."
Most of them were third-year high schoolers from the orphanage who had finished their college entrance exams and no longer attended school.
Huh? Now that I think about it, the exam was just recently, wasn't it?
I grinned like I'd just had a brilliant idea.
"How about we distribute them in order of CSAT scores?"
"Sounds good. Let's do that."
The one who spoke was Seo Nahee, the jewel in the mud and the pride of our orphanage. She held the highest provisional CSAT score in the entire history of the orphanage. Everyone fell silent at her words. She wasn't just good at studying; she also had a wide network and was practically treated as the boss of the orphanage.
"Nahee... unnie. How many did you miss?"
"Three."
"Wow."
What a monster. That score would put her at the very top even nationwide. I had no idea how someone like her came out of this dumpster-fire orphanage. If she'd been born into a normal family, maybe she would've gotten a perfect score? Or maybe without that fierce drive, she would've scored even lower? I wasn't sure.
But one thing was certain: one of those tickets was definitely going into her hands.
"...Unnie, who do you like?"
"Who? Obviously our orphanage's hero and cutest little baby, Siyeon..."
"Stop lying."
Since we saw each other's faces every day at the orphanage anyway, there was no way she'd come all the way here just to see me on stage. There had to be another reason.
"...RPS. Specifically Felix."
"If I get the chance, I'll get you an autograph."
"R-really? That's our little cutie for you!"
I then asked the boy who was supposedly second in the orphanage about his score. He had a strangely delinquent look and even smoked, so I was curious how he'd managed second place.
"Me? I think it was 44345?"
"How on earth did you get second?"
"Haha! For someone like me, that's actually really good. I even got a grade 3 in math."
As expected from this dumpster orphanage, it wasn't that he did particularly well. Everyone else had just done horribly. Anyway, I distributed all five tickets the organizers had given me to them. After all, the only people who would give tickets like this to an orphan like me were my family at the orphanage.
I used to hate this orphanage so much, but now I felt a bit attached to it. Of course, that didn't mean I wanted to keep living here. I'd recently found a practice room nearby, so I planned to live there and only sleep at the orphanage.
After talking with Lee Hajun, he'd suggested that when I entered middle school, I should attend an arts-specialized middle school in Seoul and become fully independent then. Honestly, doing housework and cooking as an elementary schooler was exhausting, and living off delivery food would destroy my health, so that seemed like the better option.
"Oh. By the way, do those fake relatives still come to the orphanage often these days?"
"...Yeah. Almost every day. Must be exhausting for you too."
"Hmph. Well, since they don't even have parental rights, it doesn't matter how much they throw tantrums about wanting to adopt me."
If the people coming were actually Seo Siyeon's real relatives, I might have met with them, but every single one was either delusional or a scammer... Honestly, I'd thought that once the whole country knew about my success and money, at least one real relative would show up. Instead, it was just an endless parade of fraudsters.
Thanks to that, the director had been suffering lately... Well, I gave her the SUV I received for winning, so she could at least handle that much. Maybe I should bring her a gift and visit the director's office next time.
Anyway, the WMA was now only four days away. As I prepared for the awards ceremony...
"Mister. You're finally back in the country."
"Kiddo. You haven't grown an inch since I last saw you."
"Be quiet."
I stopped by the instrument store to meet Park Hansu, the benefactor who had given me my first guitar and a world-class bandman.
"It's been almost half a year, hasn't it?"
"I've been back in Korea for a while... You're the one who's been too busy to meet."
"I kind of won everything, so what can I say?"
I shrugged in reply. Did that sound a bit arrogant? Well, it was fine to look that way in front of him. My image was that of a cute, clever, but arrogant genius anyway.
"Well, I knew you'd win from the start. I just didn't expect you to become a star so quickly."
"Hehe. If you want, I could write you a song or two."
"I'll ask for that later when the time comes."
I tilted my head. Well, I figured we'd collaborate someday. After all, I was close with Park Hansu, and Black Canary was a band that received quite a few songs from outside sources. It made sense that I'd end up giving them a track at some point.
"How's the album preparation going?"
As expected, the first thing he asked about was music again. The fact that he talked about music before asking how I'd been showed he was a musician through and through.
"Want to hear it? It's already recorded and mixed, so I have it on my phone."
"No. I'll buy the album later and listen to it properly."
"Suit yourself. Honestly, that might be a little better. Every single sale counts."
Knowing he'd been interacting a lot with Blooming's Jo Naeun lately, I asked about Blooming's latest track.
"So, what did you think of To My Youth?"
I hadn't expected any particularly good feedback. The genre Park Hansu's band played was quite far from the style of To My Youth. From what I'd seen of his musical taste, both what he performed and what he listened to were quite distant from currently popular domestic genres. The title track for my upcoming album might suit his taste, but To My Youth probably wouldn't.
"It's a good song. Just not one I'd personally like."
"I figured as much."
It was exactly as I'd expected. After that, we continued exchanging casual, meaningless conversation. We chatted about this and that and caught up on each other's recent activities. When we were starting to run out of things to say, he finally brought up the main topic.
Park Hansu took a sip of water, then began explaining why he'd called me here today.
"If you have time, would you be interested in being a session musician and sub-vocalist for our band's next world tour?"
"Huh?"
"For a band of our caliber, I think you'd learn a lot from joining the tour. This world tour is the first large-scale one for us as a band too. You'll probably be doing tours of this scale yourself someday..."
I quietly closed my mouth.
Probably... that might not happen.