The Steamy Year-End Growth Spurt
The steamy year-end growth spurt. It was a phase everyone had to experience, a necessary passage to cross in order to grow into a proper adult.
Various changes would happen to the body, but none of that was what mattered to me.
What mattered was the arrival of the voice-changing period.
Considering I was about to enter third grade of elementary school, it was actually quite early for a growth spurt.
“It’s precocious puberty.”
This was during the brief window I spent in Korea before flying to Tokyo, right after finishing the shoot for Do You Like Music?
Even then I was being dragged from one place to another, but I still made time for the most important visit of all: the hospital.
The doctor, fairly well-known in this field, gave me a clear diagnosis of precocious puberty.
Precocious puberty.
In simple terms, it was a condition where the growth spurt arrived ahead of schedule.
There were no major health concerns, but the side effect was a final adult height roughly five to eight centimeters shorter.
“Have you felt any slight discomfort in your throat?”
“...Not that I noticed. I came because my height is too small.”
“Then the voice change will likely begin soon. Even for girls with precocious puberty, this is on the early side.”
“During that time… I shouldn’t sing, right?”
President Lee Hajin, who had come along as my guardian, asked the doctor.
“Correct. For the sake of her future, she must not strain her voice. However, given Siyeon’s current situation… it would be wiser to delay the onset with medication.”
I closed my eyes and sank into thought for a moment.
Then I looked at Lee Hajin with serious eyes and said, “Let’s take the whole next year off.”
“...! B-but pausing activities at this timing—”
“Hmm… I have to rest for a year anyway. I think now is the right time.”
Because for the next year, proper activities would be impossible.
It wasn’t certain, but the chances were high.
Other people still didn’t know that, though.
So at the time I could only brush it off as a personal gut feeling.
The decision was postponed until the new year. After telling Lee Hajin we would think about it slowly, that memory slipped from my mind.
Until the day every media outlet raced to break the same news, and both Lee Hajin and I were forced to remember.
“Shall we take a year off?”
“Let’s do that.”
It had been exactly one week since the full album dropped.
Nine of my songs had made the weekly chart.
The public was calling the album a massive success, and I couldn’t disagree.
Six tracks from this album alone sat inside the weekly top 100. Even Farewell, My Four Seasons, which had been on the verge of charting out, had climbed back into the lower ranks.
That was the weekly tally. On the daily charts the numbers were even more ridiculous.
Of course, no single fandom could have pulled this off.
No matter how large the fanbase, placing this many songs on the weekly chart at once was impossible at this stage.
Which meant my music had earned the public’s full approval.
At the same time, I was reaping every possible benefit from the current hot issue.
People who barely knew me or had little interest would still click on a song if they saw it on the chart. If they liked it, they’d drop it straight into their playlists.
The proof was clear: Platonic Love Story already had noticeably higher play counts than my older tracks—roughly 1.2 times higher.
“This is more than enough.”
Even factoring in the lingering influence of Singer Star and the WMA buzz, the results were absurd. I wasn’t sure I could ever repeat numbers like these.
Normally I would have ridden this wave, releasing more music and touring concerts to cement my place as a solo artist.
That had been my plan too.
But my age was simply too young.
I had already concluded that my body couldn’t handle back-to-back work and concert schedules.
If I tried to do a concert right now, I’d probably collapse after thirty minutes.
I needed to build real stamina first before thinking about concerts or events.
Yet the biggest reason of all was the unusually early growth spurt—and the plague that had arrived across the world.
In truth, this plague had delivered a golden age to many corners of the culture industry.
Webtoons and web novels offered trapped people fresh entertainment.
The OTT giants, led by N, swallowed up the global film and drama markets.
Domestic internet broadcasts were enjoying an unprecedented boom, and young viewers were shifting their attention from traditional network variety shows to YouTube-based influencers.
Shorts and Reels had arrived, ending the long-form era and ushering in the age of short-form content. The music industry followed suit: shorter tracks with strong, ear-catching highlights began to dominate over longer, slower songs.
In my previous life I had lived through all of it. I had adapted to the changing trends and produced solid results as a composer.
My hard drive still held a truckload of unreleased songs written for exactly these trends. As a composer, the plague was almost a blessing.
But as the singer Seo Siyeon… it was anything but good timing.
Ninety percent of a singer’s income came from concerts and live performances.
No matter how many albums an idol sold, album sales, merchandise, and streaming revenue still made up a surprisingly small slice of total earnings.
In other words, during the pandemic, singers couldn’t make money.
Especially in the first year, there was a high chance they wouldn’t earn anything or even stay in the public eye.
“Even if money isn’t a real problem… there’s no need to force myself to get injections and keep working during a time when I can’t earn anything anyway.”
Of course I would keep composing.
It made sense for Blooming and the idol group I planned to debut later to ride the wave of the pandemic.
Besides, if I wasn’t making music, what else would I even do with my life?
“Ehh? Wait, but if you stop promoting now—”
“The tide is coming in, but I’m choosing not to row.”
I answered Yoo Seol-ha, who had sprinted to the company the moment she heard the news.
My popularity was currently piercing the sky and shooting into space. Depending on how I handled it, that popularity could last a long time.
Still, even setting practical reasons aside, I believed stopping activities at this point was the right move.
I flashed a mischievous, cunning smile at the puzzled Yoo Seol-ha.
“Don’t you want to see what happens when you disappear at the absolute peak of your popularity? Because I’m curious.”
The Korean Popular Music Awards—shortened to KMA.
Unlike the WMA, this was a nationally sponsored ceremony. Rather than simply rewarding popularity, it was known for its independent judging process that honored genuine artistic excellence.
However, the most important prize, Artist of the Year, was a slightly different story.
No matter how much the awards valued artistry, selecting the recipient of the highest honor inevitably required some consideration of public appeal.
In that sense, the grand prize was practically already decided: it was going to Seo Siyeon.
She had captured genre diversity, bold experimentation, and massive popularity all at once.
Normally the KMA would feature several performances and create a solemn yet festive atmosphere.
But the year-end mood that should have been buzzing with excitement was far from celebratory in every way.
The KMA organizers, who were scheduled to hold the ceremony in January, had been quietly informed by the government that the situation would likely drag on for a long time. With heavy hearts, they had no choice but to move the entire event online.
“...So you want me to film a video in advance? An acceptance speech?”
“We will be holding a non-attendance, non-face-to-face ceremony… Real-time video calls carry too many technical risks, so we have no choice but to prepare pre-recorded messages.”
“I understand. Hmm… It doesn’t really feel like winning an award.”
With every year-end performance canceled, I had nothing to do during the last days of the year but watch dramas and animations in the studio.
At the KMA’s request, I ended up filming my acceptance speech video after all.