The Nameless Composer's Seat
O2 Entertainment headquarters, vocal practice room.
Park Songhwa was listening to the final version of All In for what had to be the hundredth time.
And, as always, the hook ran a chill straight down her spine.
"I never asked about the odds"
"······."
Whether for better or for worse, the song was done. The lyrics were done. What remained was the tallest wall in this business.
The company.
It's time······ time to start talking.
The problem was timing. On what day, wearing what expression, and by what approach could she drop this news while keeping the number of people grabbing the backs of their necks to a minimum? That calculation had refused to spit out an answer for days.
Knock knock—
A knock, and the door swung open.
"Songhwa, there you are."
A woman walked in carrying two iced Americanos. Wi Jiyeon, head of A&R — the woman who'd been in the trenches with Park Songhwa since the days of arguing over track order on her first album.
"What brings you here?"
"What do you think? Came to see my singer."
Wi Jiyeon handed over a coffee and plopped down beside her, then tapped at her tablet and turned the screen toward her.
"Songhwa, the public's warming back up to you lately······ isn't it about time you started prepping a comeback?"
On the screen, a list of composers scrolled by.
"This is the list of people who've reached out. Six demos came in this week alone."
A few familiar names. The very names of the people who had yanked their songs back the moment the scandal broke.
"······Even them?"
"Yep. They contacted us first. Said you've got good momentum lately, wanted to give it another shot."
Wi Jiyeon shrugged.
"Indignant, right? I know. But that's just this industry. When the tide comes in, everybody grabs an oar and comes rowing."
"······."
"That said, this one team's demo was genuinely good. Suits your tone, too."
Park Songhwa stared down at the list, lost in thought.
"······."
A few months ago, this would have been a list she'd have thanked them for. There had certainly been a time when she couldn't sing for lack of songs to sing. But circumstances were different now.
"Feelings aside, business is business. Pick from these and we'll start meetings next week—"
"I have a song prepared."
Wi Jiyeon's finger froze above the screen.
"······What?"
"My comeback song. I'm already working on one."
Wi Jiyeon lowered the tablet, slowly.
"Which team? Who handles the publishing?"
"Can't say."
"······The composer?"
"Can't say."
"The title?"
"That too."
"Surely at least the genre?"
"That's a secret."
The sound of a straw crushing ice rang out, unusually loud.
"Park Songhwa."
"Yes."
"Are you playing twenty questions with me right now?"
"I want you to listen without any preconceptions. That's all."
Wi Jiyeon's eyes narrowed, little by little. Years of sitting beside Park Songhwa were sounding an alarm in her gut.
When this girl is hiding something, this is exactly how she does it — those pretty, wide-open eyes.
Then it came to her, unbidden: a certain afternoon a few months back. The day she'd grabbed the back of her own neck in disbelief.
"Team leader, what would you do if the comeback title turned out to be All In?"
"······You."
Wi Jiyeon's voice dropped.
"Don't tell me······ it's not that thing you mentioned before? That — that dance track called All In."
"Huh? Team leader, are those new earrings? They really suit you."
"Park Songhwa."
"Ah, I'm thirsty."
Park Songhwa slurped down her coffee in one long pull. Apparently not satisfied, she crunched through the ice as well.
She's deflecting. She's changing the subject······
Wi Jiyeon pressed at her throbbing temple. And then another possibility flashed through her mind.
The most famous person in this company right now. The long-haired chief who, with a single dot, had reportedly taken down a director-level executive.
"Hold on. Don't tell me······ is that a song the chief picked out for you? Through divination?"
"······Sort of?"
"What do you mean, sort of?! That is literally the scariest answer in the world!"
Park Songhwa just smiled sweetly.
"Ha······ fine. Fine. Fine, I'll give a hundred yards on this. At least send me the guide file."
"There's no file."
That one was true. Since this was proceeding as a secret project, the only guide vocal that existed was Lee Mishin humming it under his breath. And even that was in a different tone — Mishin was a man.
"······Ha."
Wi Jiyeon glared at Park Songhwa for a long moment. The hand that had been pressed to her forehead lowered, slowly.
"Then here are my conditions. This stopped being a matter of me listening and moving on. Your comeback is a company-wide concern, so it goes all the way up the chain regardless."
"Yes."
"So I'll lay the table properly. All of A&R, the PR team, and······ the CEO."
Park Songhwa's shoulders flinched.
"······The CEO too?"
"Final sign-off is hers anyway. Let's finish in one meeting what would otherwise take two."
Wi Jiyeon rose from her seat, tucking the tablet under her arm.
"How much prep time do you need?"
"······Two weeks?"
"I'll give you ten days."
"Team leader?!"
"Those composers I just showed you aren't sitting on their hands. If your song doesn't work out, I have to call them the moment we hang up. Every single day counts. So — ten days."
At the door, Wi Jiyeen turned back.
"Oh, and for the record — it won't be a file playback."
"······."
"It's live."
The phone rang on the stairwell up to the rooftop room on his walk home from work.
"Mishin! We got it!"
"Got what."
"The showcase! You're going to hear it live, in person — in ten days!"
The explanation that followed left him briefly speechless.
So it goes all the way to the CEO.
The board had grown — and grown too much. Unlike the group viewing last time, this was the full approval line turned out in force.
Well······ it was a mountain I'd have to cross eventually.
Either way, the dice had been thrown. Now he had ten days to raise a live performance to stage level.
The problem was the practice space. The company's practice rooms were out — anyone who spent even one walk down that hallway knew exactly who came and went and when, and he had learned firsthand just how fast rumors traveled in this company.
So he'd found a 24-hour unmanned practice studio in Hapjeong. Book it through the app, punch in the code to get in, close the door on your way out — done. A system designed so you'd never cross paths with another human being.
Thirty thousand won an hour. More expensive than he'd expected, but as security deposits went, it was pocket change.
Ten at night. The door rattled open and in came a figure in cap, mask, and training clothes. Apparently she'd clocked Yoo Seongjae out the second her schedule ended and driven her own car over.
"Whew, hah······ I ran here. I'm late, aren't I?"
"You're three minutes early."
"······Then I'm safe."
Park Songhwa tore off her mask and rolled up both sleeves.
"Ten days to the showcase. We're going hard starting tonight!"
"Yes."
"Oh, but one thing I should confirm first······ you're not planning to do choreography too, are you?"
"Choreography comes after the song is locked. That requires a dance team to get involved."
"Phew, thank God······ so this time it's standing mic and vocals only?"
"Yes. We win or lose on the voice alone."
"Okay. That, I'm confident about. I'm a singer who's never once been torn apart on a live vocal."
That confidence lasted exactly one verse.
They ran the MR through once from the top, and······
"······Hold on. Just a second."
Park Songhwa furrowed her brow.
"That was kind of bad, wasn't it?"
"······It was good."
"It was not. I just sang the hook like it was an acoustic session."
She flipped the lyric sheet with a flutter.
"It's a habit that's worn into my body. Acoustic arrangements are all about long breaths — you ride one phrase on one breath, then take a big one at the end of the line."
"······."
"But a dance track is the opposite. The phrases get chopped into pieces, and the only room to breathe is half a beat between hits."
Before long she was stabbing V-marks into the lyric sheet with her pen.
"So you steal your breaths like this. Breath checks. Here, here, and here — short ones. Like you're pickpocketing the beat."
······Honestly, from that point on it was professional time.
"And sounds like ts, t, ka — you hammer those onto the downbeat or the rhythm dies. Listen. You don't stretch it out like caught—, you split it: caught, it— like that."
Beside her, I······ poured water.
Wow. So there was this much to think about just to sing one song?
When I composed, all I ever touched were MIDI notes. Which is to say, I knew absolutely nothing about production.
Park Songhwa seemed to notice it too — her eyes narrowed to slits.
"Mishin, this is your first time directing vocals, isn't it? Well, I did hear you spent your days up in the mountains until recently······."
"······I assumed I'd only write the song and the producer would handle everything else."
"You are the producer. That's the role you're standing in right now!"
It was a perfectly fair point, so I had no rebuttal. This was a project known only to the two of us — meaning, for now, the producer's job fell to me as well.
Still, some shred of shame survived in me, so from the next day on I came with homework done. Every night I binged vocal directing videos, and copied the jargon that recording engineers used into a notebook.
"Second bar of that hook. Your breath came in half a beat late."
"Oh······ ohhh? Mishin, you just sounded like an actual producer."
"I studied until three in the morning yesterday. While burning incense."
"······That part didn't sound very producer-like."
From the third day on, a band rehearsal started bleeding through the wall from the next room over. Heavy metal. And on every night when the soundproofing foam failed to earn its keep, Park Songhwa practiced rhythm reading against those drums.
"Honestly, this is great! Training to hold the beat even inside the noise!"
"You're very positive."
"My nickname is the Nation's Little Sister, you know. Stay positive and the household stays harmonious."
"······."
"You were about to say that in the past tense, weren't you."
"······."
How did she know.
Every cup of water, I brought to her myself. Apparently even after becoming a chief, five months of manager habits died hard.
On the fifth night, we ordered chicken as a late-night snack.
"Huh? Am I allowed to eat this?"
"We're cleansing away the impurities in advance with the energy of a lucky beast."
"Wow······."
Actually, I was craving it. It was payday.
"Still — you need to take care of your throat before the showcase, so exactly two pieces. Greasy food is bad for it."
"······I'm moved. Taking care of me like this."
Actually, I wanted to eat it.
It was fucking delicious.
And so, day eight. The run-through she'd just delivered was a live so clean that calling it short of a perfect score would have been a disservice.
"So? I'm getting pretty good now, right?"
But.
······That's not the feeling.
That stage in the future. That voice that had cut through even half-buried in the roar of the crowd······ it had the nerve to kick the whole stage over.
"Mishin?"
How do I direct that out of her?
I stared at Park Songhwa, deep in thought.
"······Mishin?"
Meeting that gaze with the mic still in her hand, Park Songhwa······ froze.
That look in his eyes. Emotion drained out of it entirely — eyes that bored straight through a person and fixed on something beyond.
The memory replayed on its own. God's Touch, the studio. The applause from the audience seats. The long-haired shaman watching her from beyond the camera with exactly those eyes.
"Do you like card games?"
······!
A shiver ran up her spine.
Don't tell me.
Was he seeing something again?
What is it? What do you see? Does the showcase flop? Do I fall on that stage? Go off-key? Or — no — don't tell me the public opinion······!
She wanted to ask, but her mouth wouldn't open. Hearing the answer was scarier than not knowing.
I've genuinely been living a good life lately! I even quit mint chocolate······!
Then the long-haired producer spoke.
"One more time, from the top."
The remote clicked, and the intro began to flow out of the speakers.
I'm not mentally ready yet······
But Mishin did not wait for her. The count was already rolling, and those eyes were still pinned on her.
Her heart started pounding like mad. Her mind went white. Every precaution she'd memorized wiped itself clean. Where to breathe, where to plant the consonants — nothing would come.
And into that bleached-white empty space, exactly one thing remained.
······Fine. Whatever. So what.
If those eyes already saw me falling. If that stage was doomed anyway.
Then throw it all out there. Why not.
The hook detonated.
The sound leaving her throat was foreign even to her own ears. Ten years of habits — habits of sanding everything smooth and pretty — stripped away, leaving raw timber. Provocative, shameless, thick with nerve. The sound of a terrified person burning that terror as fuel.
What — what is this sound? Why is this coming out of my throat?
Even as she panicked, her body kept sprinting. The tips of her feet hit the beat all on their own, and the hand around the mic had tightened without her noticing.
Second verse. Bridge. Final hook.
Lungs full to the top of her throat, she drove the last note down like a nail.
"······Hah, hah······."
Park Songhwa stood panting, staring at nothing but the floor. She couldn't bring herself to lift her head.
Was that good? Was it a disaster? No — more than that, what was that? Don't tell me that was Mishin's mystical energy flowing into me too?
Then it happened.
Screech—!
The sound of a chair scraping backward. Mishin was on his feet.
Clap, clap, clap······
The applause filled the practice room.
Showcase day. O2 Entertainment headquarters, showcase hall.
The front-row chairs bore nameplates.
[CEO — Cha Eunseong]
[A&R Team Leader — Wi Jiyeon]
[PR Team Leader]
And beside them —
[Composer]
"What's that seat?"
whispered the youngest A&R staffer as she ferried chairs past.
"Says it's for the composer. Apparently Park Songhwa asked them to set it out."
"What's the name?"
"Wouldn't say. They say the team leader asked her over and over and she kept her mouth shut to the very end."
"······Has anything like this ever happened before?"
"Right? That's what makes it suspicious. If you're hiding a name, you're at least a foreign producer, no? One of those famous shot-callers out of the States these days."
"Or some massive name who's contractually barred from going public yet."
"But would someone that big actually show up to an in-house showcase in person?"
The speculation ran thick, but nobody had the answer.
Off to the side of the stage, Wi Jiyeon was checking the mic condition — and had been quietly burning up inside since earlier.
Park Songhwa······ please, anything but All In. Anything but that······
"Jiyeon, I still don't get this."
The PR team leader came over, arms crossed.
"If I'm going to write the press release, I need to at least know the genre."
"I don't know it either, so I can't tell you."
"An A&R team leader who doesn't know the song makes even less sense."
"Tell me about it······."
The door opened and Cha Eunseong walked in. The chatter in the hall cut off at once.
His eyes flicked to the nameplate at the empty seat.
"What's this composer seat?"
"That's······ a seat Songhwa requested. I don't know who it is either."
Cha Eunseong's brow rose, slightly.
"Interesting. Attending?"
"Hard to say. I'd guess they should be arriving any time now······."
Just then, Park Songhwa appeared. Close at her side walked her new road manager, Yoo Seongjae.
And then.
"······."
Chief Manager Lee Mishin followed them in.
It was his artist's showcase — of course he belonged here — and the gazes slid over him without a second thought.
"Going up."
Park Songhwa stepped onto the stage.
The intro poured out. A bouncing synth riff.
Wi Jiyeon's eyes widened, slowly.
······Huh? Synth?
Synth is mainstream. These days even acoustic arrangements layer it in. So for now — for now, it was still nothing.
But then, two bars later.
Boom, boom, boom, boom.
A four-on-the-floor, utterly without excuse, stomping in and filling every beat solid. And over it, the synth began stacking itself into a staircase.
Wi Jiyeon's mouth fell open.
Don't tell me······
Park Songhwa, mic in hand, drew in her breath. The first line flowed out.
And at the very front row of the hall —
[Composer]
That seat was still empty.