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# Prologue
“I’m sorry. I can’t teach you anymore.”
The result of all the effort I had put into trying my best was utterly miserable.
I wanted to compose music. That was all.
“But you’re the most talentless person I’ve ever seen in my life. I really mean it.”
But the world was cold and unforgiving.
Six years of struggling had proven exactly one thing.
I had no talent. It was a phrase that had tormented me relentlessly for my entire life, and at the same time, it was the truth.
I wasn’t stupid enough to cling to something that produced no results despite all my effort.
No, even if I wanted to cling to it, the pressures of reality were simply too overwhelming.
And so, I gave up on my dream of becoming a composer.
‘What the hell is this so-called talent, anyway...’
Time didn’t leave me alone.
No, if anything, it pushed me straight toward the edge of a cliff.
After enduring the tiresome years of university, I ended up settling into a living hell of endless overtime. In other words, a company.
From then on, my life became an endless repetition of a truly miserable routine.
Work, home, work, home, work, home, work, home...
Going to work, working overtime, sleeping, and repeating the same routine every day.
Living as an ordinary modern man, I had reached the age of thirty-five this year.
A lonely life with neither friends nor a lover.
“Hoo.”
A sigh escaped me.
The night air was cold. For some reason, the empty streets seemed to embody my loneliness.
Suddenly, I felt a deep sense of futility.
“...How did things end up like this?”
This wasn’t the kind of horrific company life I had once envisioned for myself.
I shook my head hard and continued walking.
Thoughts only led to more thoughts.
There was no point in taking them any further.
If anything, they would only poison me.
Calmly, I put my wireless earbuds into my ears.
As I started the music, a gentle piano melody rang out.
Soon after, the somewhat husky voice of a woman came in.
The chorus began, and the rough-sounding drums joined in, creating a harmonious blend.
‘......It’s good.’
A bitter smile tugged at my lips.
I felt as though my complicated thoughts had eased considerably.
It was the new song by SEY, the female solo artist I had been completely obsessed with for years.
She had debuted as an indie musician and spent a long time as an unknown before suddenly becoming a huge sensation through word of mouth. Now, it was hard to find anyone in the entire country who didn’t know her.
There were even countless overseas fans who came to Korea just to see her, so that pretty much said it all.
As always, the moment this song was released, it swept the upper ranks of the charts.
I heard the album had already surpassed one million copies in sales.
It wouldn’t be an exaggeration to say that I had endured my difficult life at the company solely because of her voice.
Just listening to the sound flowing through my earbuds made all the useless thoughts disappear.
As I walked while focusing on the music, I naturally began to daydream.
‘If I had succeeded too... would SEY be singing one of my songs by now?’
The thought of her voice being layered over a song I had composed.
Just imagining it made the corners of my mouth rise on their own.
At the same time, I felt an inexplicable sense of deprivation.
‘If only I had talent...’
If I had even the tiniest bit of talent, could I have achieved my dream of becoming a composer?
If I hadn’t given up back then and had continued trying until the very end, could I have achieved my dream?
“Haah... Forget it.”
Why was I thinking about the dream I had given up on back then all over again?
Why did I catch glimpses of some distant fragment of regret lingering in a corner of my heart?
Perhaps I still hadn’t been able to let go of my attachment to it.
I had always been incredibly stubborn, after all.
“Hoo.”
I shook off my distracting thoughts and quickened my pace.
It was then that a bright light suddenly blocked my path.
“Hm?”
I tilted my head and looked up, only to be struck with horror.
A car had crossed over the sidewalk and was speeding straight toward me.
“Fuck...!”
My body froze in an instant.
I couldn’t even think of trying to dodge.
The moment I opened my eyes wide and sucked in a sharp breath—
CRASH!
My vision flashed white, and my body was sent flying into the air.
It felt as though time had slowed down.
An overwhelming pain engulfed me.
“Ah...”
I collapsed onto the ground, gasping for breath.
A damp, unpleasant sensation soaked my head.
I blinked and stared blankly up at the sky.
“Haa, haa...”
My breathing grew increasingly labored.
I desperately tried to make sense of my blurred vision.
The glow of headlights shone through my half-closed eyelids.
‘What a pathetic life...’
Even at this final moment, as I lay dying after being hit by a car, there wasn’t a single person by my side.
A hollow laugh escaped me.
Maybe this was for the best.
And so, surrounded by a strange sense of peace, I slowly met my end.
Even as my eyes closed, a song was still playing through my earbuds.
---
When I opened my eyes, all I could see was pitch-black darkness.
No, it was too vivid to simply be called darkness.
And at the same time, it was impossibly dark.
I couldn’t move my body.
I couldn’t speak, either.
It felt as though I were dreaming, but there was no way a dream could be this vivid.
A chill crawled up my spine. A strange sensation surged through me.
A space shaped like a shabby, cramped room.
Inside it, a composer sat in one place.
I couldn’t even tell what gender they were, yet for some reason, I was infinitely certain that this person was a composer.
Slowly, they turned on a computer and began composing music.
I stood there like a wooden statue, watching them work.
In an environment where I couldn’t even properly see their face, they neither ate nor drank. They devoted themselves solely to composing.
They wrote music continuously, moving through countless genres without missing a beat.
Dance, electronic, hip-hop, R&B, retro, pop... and so on.
Every time their hands moved, a work of art was completed.
Once one piece was finished, they immediately began writing another, repeating the same act of striking the keyboard.
Strangely enough, I wasn’t bored in the slightest.
Years passed, perhaps even decades, with that person remaining in the same place.
Yet to me, it was etched into my mind as though less than a minute had passed.
I didn’t know what had gone by.
I didn’t know what had happened, either, but one thing was certain.
I had seen all of their knowledge of composition with my eyes, heard it with my ears, and absorbed it with my mind.
At that moment, I felt as though I could do anything.
Music theory, which I had studied over and over without ever becoming familiar with it, was suddenly embedded in my mind as effortlessly as memorizing the multiplication tables.
Now that I had learned that knowledge firsthand, I wanted to play the keyboard immediately.
I wanted to write melodies.
Their talent, their skill, came to me as an overwhelming flood of inspiration.
And after what felt like an eternity—long if it was long, short if it was short—
At last, when I opened my eyes...
“Hey, Seo Jae-hoon.”
Stage name SEY, real name Seo Arim.
The artist I had loved so much and desperately wished to meet.
“Ah, how long are you going to keep sleeping like that?! Aren’t you getting up?”
She was standing right in front of me.
If you send the next chapter, I’ll keep the same character-name spellings and translation style throughout.