Let Them Talk
"So you decided to give that song to someone else?"
"Yeah."
"Wow. You're insane."
Kim Jihoo, having heard the story, looked at me like I was a genuine lunatic.
"Hey, that one should be ours."
"It wouldn't hit as hard if I sang it."
Of course, if I were being brutally objective, it wasn't as though Mun Gayoung would deliver it to perfection either.
It was the kind of song that really demanded a strong singer.
But if you asked who could get closer to a perfect score, a female vocal was the better fit than a male one.
"Fine, whatever. Yeah. It's your song. You wrote it, and if you were picturing a female vocalist, then I guess we can't stop you. But what's this about a variety show?"
"We're going to stir things up a little."
"How is showing your face on TV stirring things up? What fantasy world are you living in?"
Jihoo wasn't wrong.
It wasn't unusual for ordinary people to appear on television for a moment or two.
But to use that as a springboard into something bigger, to vault straight into the mainstream scene in one leap?
That was rare.
We were different, though.
There were a lot of factors at play, but three mattered most.
First, our members were good-looking.
Second, I existed.
Third, Kang Min existed.
"Kim Jihoo."
"What."
"Want to make a bet with me?"
"On what?"
"Whether the indie band community is flooded with our name within two months or not."
"Are you insane?"
"You in or out?"
"I'm in. Prize?"
"Hmm... a wish ticket?"
"Deal."
"All right, then let's start by getting ready for the school festival."
Kim Juhee ran a YouTube channel as a hobby.
The videos she usually uploaded were mostly everyday vlogs.
She had been posting steadily, but most of the videos never really caught on.
Then one day, on her way home from work, she happened to stumble across a high school band.
Usually, when people said "a high school band," they meant something rough around the edges, but charming in that earnest, romantic way.
Those kids played and sang like professionals.
Almost as if she had been possessed by something, she started filming them, and before long she found herself certain that those boys were bound to blow up one day.
So for the day her own video would be rediscovered, she edited and uploaded it with all the energy she had.
And at some point after that, her video began to receive the algorithm's blessing.
"Damn, this is blowing up..."
Kim Juhee could not calm her excitement; she kept stomping her feet as if she might burst from the thrill of it all.
She had only filmed someone else's performance and uploaded it, but somehow it felt as if she had become a celebrity herself.
No wonder celebrity fans have dedicated home accounts and stuff.
At this point, Kim Juhee had enough affection for OKTOP that she could honestly call herself a fan.
It was great that OKTOP was getting famous, but even better was the fact that it had started with her own hands.
And at the same time, she couldn't help feeling a rush of anticipation that her YouTube channel might grow along with them.
Those two feelings together made her enthusiasm bloom even bigger.
I should make the edit prettier.
We submitted the school festival application under the name OKTOP.
The school took into account the fact that our team included an outsider, as well as the fact that we'd become pretty popular on campus lately, and gave us special permission as an invited outside act.
It wasn't exactly a huge perk, but the symbolism was nice.
After the festival was confirmed, we squeezed out time every day to rehearse.
"All right, break for a minute!"
"Man, I feel like my fingers are about to fall off."
"I need to buy new drumsticks again."
"Hey, Jihoo, got any picks left?"
"Buy your own with your money, idiot."
Even while they sprawled out in exhaustion, they never stopped talking.
That's why high schoolers are nice.
No, that's why they're loud.
"Okay, okay. As your leader, I have something to go over. Everyone, listen up."
"What are you yammering about?"
They complained with their mouths, but all of them still pushed up their bodies from where they had collapsed.
Ah. So this was the power of being the leader.
What a chilling feeling.
In my past life, if the thirteen-thousand-one-hundred-and-seventy-third Cha Seoha had said something like this, there would have been a meeting about whether anyone should bother listening.
"What's the point?"
"Our band's direction."
"Direction? Didn't we already talk about that last time?"
Jihoo tilted his head, probably thinking we'd already reached a conclusion: bulk up our presence and start brushing shoulders with capital.
"What we're talking about today is how we're going to bulk up."
"If we just keep putting out good music, wouldn't people love us eventually?"
I nodded at Lee Doyeong's words.
"Exactly. In the end, I think good music will make us blow up eventually, too."
"Then isn't that enough?"
"So you want to leave that 'eventually' up to luck? Three years? Five? Ten?"
None of them were idiots, so they must have guessed my words were connected to Mun Gayoung's variety show appearance.
"What are you trying to say?"
"I want to separate music from marketing."
"What?"
"Our music will always be pure. We'll keep searching for the best thing we can make, and no matter what anyone says, we'll only sing songs that carry OKTOP's identity. If somebody offered us ten billion won to play dance pop, and it clashed with who we are, I wouldn't do it."
"Ten billion is a little..."
"Hey, shut up, Heo Junseong."
"I agree with you about the music. So what's the marketing part?"
Looking at Kang Min's rarely serious face, I continued.
"But when it comes to getting that music out there, I want to use every possible means."
"For example?"
"We could film promotional YouTube videos, or we could go on audition shows."
"Hmm..."
They were all at the age where style mattered, so the idea seemed to make them a little uneasy.
"Or we could make every single indie fan in the country hate us."
"Hate us? Why would they hate us?"
"They'd say we're some rootless idol band. But if that kind of noise comes for us, I'm not going to explain ourselves. I'd welcome it and use it."
"Why?"
"Because they'll listen to our music just to hate on us. No matter what kind of trick we pull, if the music is good, that's all that matters, right?"
At my words, everyone seemed to fall into thought.
But Heo Junseong, Kim Jihoo, and Kang Min all recovered pretty quickly.
"As long as the music doesn't change, I don't think it matters."
"Same."
"Honestly, we can't avoid marketing entirely anyway."
Lee Doyeong, however, wore a complicated expression.
He had every reason to.
Because Lee Doyeong's older brother had taken his own life.
Because of malicious comments.
But that was exactly why I wanted to show him even more clearly.
That his brother had done nothing wrong.
That there was no reason to let someone else's slander become reality.
That even his brother in heaven would have wanted the same thing.
But since the fact that I knew all this was still a secret, I didn't add a word.
A moment later, Doyeong spoke up.
"If I'm going to get hated together with all of you, I think I'll be okay."
Apparently not having caught the complicated look on Doyeong's face, Junseong said it offhandedly.
"No, but this is just a metaphor, right? It's not like we're actually going to get hate."
"No, Heo Junseong."
"Huh? What is it?"
"We are going to get hate. A lot of it."
Inside the car on the way back to the company after finishing drama filming.
I was dozing off when the manager's voice jolted me awake.
"Gayoung, that studio rental you booked was for tomorrow, right?"
"Yes, that's right."
"Okay. What time should I pick you up?"
"I booked it for two in the afternoon, so please come about thirty minutes early."
"All right, got it."
"Thank you."
"So, recording is fine, but are you really planning to release it?"
Maybe he was an adult I had spent even more time with than my parents.
But even so, he was still someone who had to represent the company's interests in the end.
"If it comes out well, yes. If it's bad, then no."
"Is that so?"
The manager's face brightened at once, but the words had really been a promise to myself.
The song Cha Seoha had made was far too good.
To be honest, at the café I had been forced to scramble just to preserve my dignity as a celebrity.
Especially that guide vocal, moving back and forth between chest voice and falsetto to capture the feel of a female vocal...
If I couldn't give myself a passing grade after receiving a song like that, then I had no business being a singer at all.
I was thinking that over when another thought surfaced.
But compared to his composing ability, isn't his sense of reality a little too unrealistic?
The reason was that Cha Seoha's request in place of a song fee had been so tiny.