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2 # Reincarnated as a Genius Composer
“Hey, aren’t you getting up?”
The youthful voice coming from right in front of my face brought me back to my senses.
When I opened my eyes, I found myself meeting a pair of cold eyes glaring at me.
Sharp eyes, a dark black bob cut, and a jawline as sharp as if it had been carved from stone.
Though I had only a short moment, it was enough to take in her appearance.
There was something strangely familiar about her face. I stared at her intently, then suddenly froze in shock.
‘That’s SEY...?’
There was a faint awkwardness to her appearance, but there was no mistaking it. It was the face of the SEY I knew, Seo
Arim.
Confusion came first.
‘...What the hell is going on?’
I had absolutely no idea what was happening.
My mind was still in disarray from having just absorbed an enormous amount of knowledge.
Of all things, the first thing I saw after opening my eyes was her face. Was this some kind of dying vision?
As I continued staring blankly, Seo Arim approached and lightly tapped my cheek with the back of her hand.
“What’s wrong with you again? You can’t even get a grip on yourself. I told you to quit smoking, didn’t I?”
Her face was unbelievably beautiful up close.
Somehow, she looked much younger than the Seo Arim I knew...
Perhaps because of that, her beauty stood out even more.
Seo Arim looked around the room and frowned.
“Haah, clean this place up... Never mind. Do whatever you want. I’m going to work part-time.”
She shook her head from side to side and turned away.
“Oh, I left some food out, so eat it.”
Even while leaving the room coldly, she added one more thing.
As I listened to Seo Arim’s muttering fade into the distance—
“He’s always like this, so he’ll come to his senses on his own.”
—I blinked repeatedly.
‘What the hell is this...?’
I couldn’t make sense of the situation.
I pulled myself together and looked around.
First of all, this wasn’t my house.
For one thing, my house had never been this spacious.
I picked up the cellphone sitting on the desk and turned it on.
When I checked the date, my eyes narrowed.
‘...2012?’
Had I read it wrong?
With a faint sense of hope, I accessed a music streaming site.
Sure enough, the charts were filled with old songs.
“No way...”
Had I gone back in time?
Even I knew what an absurd thought that was.
But what other explanation could there possibly be for this situation?
Now I understood why Seo Arim’s face had looked so young.
I had regressed.
To 2012, before Seo Arim had achieved success as the artist SEY.
Unable to believe it, I sprang to my feet.
Naturally, my reflection in the mirror caught my eye.
“This is...”
This wasn’t the face of the man I used to hear people say looked like he’d been hit in the head with a hammer.
A handsome, well-built man with flawless skin was staring back at me.
Then I suddenly remembered the name Seo Arim had called me.
“...She definitely said Seo Jae-hoon.”
No, wait.
Where had I heard that name before?
I dug through my memories and finally remembered.
The next moment, I jumped up in shock.
“No way...!”
Her older brother.
The one Seo Arim had talked about on broadcasts—the brother she had fallen out with so badly that they had become
complete strangers.
His name was Seo Jae-hoon.
I had regressed as him.
---
If my memory was correct, Seo Arim’s parents had died in an accident when she was very young.
And now was around the time she had just turned twenty.
She had said that her relationship with her older brother, Seo Jae-hoon, had deteriorated after they became adults,
eventually causing them to go their separate ways.
So for now, things were still safe.
“This place is pretty spacious for two people living together.”
That was my impression as I looked around the living room.
It seemed their family’s financial situation hadn’t been too bad.
Seo Arim was also constantly earning money through her part-time jobs.
According to the identification card, this body was twenty-two years old.
Two years older than Seo Arim.
Since both of them had only graduated high school anyway, there had been no need for either of them to attend
university.
“Then what the hell has this guy been doing all this time?”
While his younger sister was struggling to make ends meet, what had the original owner of this body been doing?
I didn’t even need to see the answer to know what it was.
Instead of earning money, he had probably been doing nothing but getting into all sorts of trouble and making Seo Arim’s
life miserable.
Eventually, he had even left the house and stopped coming back altogether, according to what she had said later.
So I had a pretty good idea of what kind of person he originally was.
What a damn idiot, having such a beautiful and talented younger sister and treating her like that.
I remembered that after her brother left, even the last person she could rely on had disappeared, causing her a great
deal of emotional hardship.
But things would be different in this life.
Because unlike that bastard, I was her older brother.
“...Of course, I’m not exactly in a position to say I’m any different yet.”
Still, perhaps I could at least be there for her and give her even a little support.
But that aside.
“I’m starving.”
Maybe because I had experienced so many bizarre things in such a short amount of time, my stomach was rumbling.
A neat meal had already been laid out on the dining table.
Seo Arim must have prepared it.
There were quite a few side dishes, and judging by the number of complicated-looking dishes, it seemed she was far from
a beginner.
I sat down and began wolfing down the food.
Everything tasted excellent.
She had cooking skills that could rival most restaurants.
“Hoo.”
After finishing my meal, I finally felt a little more alive.
My stiff, confused mind also began functioning properly.
I cleared the dishes, washed them, and returned to my room.
“First... Ugh, this room is a complete disaster.”
It was difficult to tell whether a human being or an animal lived here.
Things were strewn everywhere, while ashtrays and cigarette butts were scattered around.
“Haa...”
A sigh escaped me naturally.
There was a mountain of things that needed cleaning.
I stopped thinking and grabbed the vacuum cleaner.
“First things first, I need to clean.”
One hour later.
The filthy room had finally become clean.
“Phew.”
I sat on the edge of the bed and caught my breath.
After clearing everything away except for the computer on the desk, I felt considerably better.
I turned on my phone and checked the date again.
“Let’s see. It’s April 2012, so...”
This was shortly after Seo Arim had made her debut.
There was still a long way to go before she became successful and rose to the status of a top star.
Right now, she was still at the stage of being tossed around and getting a taste of the harsh realities of society...
In an interview from the past, Seo Arim had said that this had been the most difficult period of her life.
I had been quite an enthusiastic fan myself, buying her albums and seeking out almost every piece of content she
appeared in.
I was glad I had.
For now, the only thing I could do was stay by Seo Arim’s side and lessen her emotional burden as much as possible...
“It’s a little disappointing.”
Even after regressing, was this really all I could do?
It was then.
The moment I looked at the computer sitting on the desk, something suddenly came to mind.
“Ah...!”
The countless efforts and results of the composer I had witnessed before regressing.
The moment I recalled those bizarre memories, something began to churn inside me.
The desire to create.
The yearning to write music.
It felt as though I had become that composer myself.
At this very moment, I desperately wanted to compose.
“I have to.”
As if possessed, I turned on the computer and sat down at the desk.
The desktop was cluttered, but I had no time to worry about that.
“This was the program that composer used.”
I connected to the internet and searched for a DAW first. It was a program I had used in the past as well.
DAW, or Digital Audio Workstation, is software for composing music.
In other words, it was the first step toward actually making music.
Fortunately, it wasn’t particularly expensive, and I did have some money in the bank, so I paid for it without
hesitation.
Once the installation was complete, I launched the program.
I loaded a virtual piano instrument.
“Phew...”
After taking a deep breath, I placed my hands over the computer keyboard.
Then, as though it were a piano keyboard, I slowly began pressing the keys.
A beautiful piano melody rang out from the cheap speakers attached to either side of the monitor.
I had never properly played the piano.
A very long time ago, when I had been deeply immersed in composing, I remembered playing for about a year before giving
up.
Even back then, it had been so difficult that I had practically abandoned it halfway through.
“This is...”
This wasn’t even a piano.
It was nothing more than a computer keyboard.
And yet, as though I were an expert who had played the piano for decades, all the music theory and chords in my head
came together in perfect harmony.
It felt as though my fingers were moving on their own.
Before I knew it, my hands had effortlessly created a single chord riff.
My eyes widened as I breathed heavily.
“Wh-What did I just do...?”
I sat there dumbfounded for a moment before playing back the recorded MIDI.
The sound of the piano once again filled the room.
I quietly listened to the melody, then an overwhelming burst of inspiration drove me to exclaim.
“This is it!”
The fun of composing that I had never experienced before.
The sheer pleasure of creation.
It was surging through me right now.
My hands began moving busily once again.
I knew the genre that could bring this riff to life better than anything else.
City pop.
A genre that had been popular in Japan during the 1980s.
The kind of genre that made you feel as though you were speeding through the heart of a city while taking in the
nightscape.
Now that I had decided on the theme, the first thing I needed to do was replace the piano chords with a synthesizer.
I changed the instrument and adjusted the chords accordingly.
Then I skillfully brought in the drums and programmed them, before placing the bass and various other instruments in all
the right places.
Before even an hour had passed, the instrumental track was complete.
After writing the song as though possessed, my mind went blank for a moment.
“Wow... Did I really make this...?”
As I listened to the instrumental, I couldn’t help but marvel.
Even after listening to it again, the beautiful chord progression was almost unbelievable.
And once the drums and other instruments were added, it was simply fantastic.
“If I put vocals over this...”
And if those vocals were Seo Arim’s captivating voice, I felt like I couldn’t possibly be happier.
That was when it happened.
Another flash of inspiration struck my mind.
A melody that fit the instrumental began flooding into my head.
“Wh-What do I do?”
I had to record it.
In a hurry, I grabbed my phone and opened the voice recorder app.
Then I played the instrumental and began humming whatever came to mind.
“Hmm, hm~.”
Ignoring the equipment completely, I recorded the melody in a trance.
I was simply afraid that the inspiration would disappear, so I hurriedly recorded everything.
And as the instrumental reached its end, just as I sang the final melody—
“...Oppa, what are you doing?”
A voice came from somewhere.
Right in front of me.
“Huh, huh?”
I hurriedly stopped the recording and looked up at Seo Arim.
She was wearing an extremely peculiar expression.
It was...
Perhaps the kind of look someone would give when staring at a lion in a zoo.
A mixture of disbelief and, perhaps, a little curiosity.
Flustered, I began rambling.
“N-No, it’s just...”
“Wait a second. This is Nuendo, isn’t it? The one I use?”
“Huh?”
“What? You knew how to compose music, Oppa?”
Seo Arim’s eyes lit up with interest as she recognized the DAW on my screen.
After hesitating, I barely managed to come up with an answer.
“I-It’s... just something I used to do as a hobby. I thought I’d try learning it again this time.”
“Hmm, really?”
But that interest soon turned into cold indifference and left me.
As though she didn’t care what I did, Seo Arim turned her back on me.
“I’m going to work, so if you’re going to do that, close the door.”
“Huh? Uh, o-okay.”
Leaving only those words behind,
she casually walked into her own room and slammed the door shut.
Left alone, I spun around in my chair several times before awkwardly scratching my head.
“...She’s cold.”
Well, I supposed it couldn’t be helped.
She had said that she was on bad terms with her brother.
I didn’t know when it had started, but he had probably caused plenty of trouble even before this.
If I wanted her to open her heart to me, it would take considerable time.
More than anything, I would have to consistently show her that I was changing for the better.
Of course, I was different from the original owner of this body.
Surely, I could do it.
Thump.
I carefully closed the door and returned to my seat.
To finish what I had been working on, I first transferred the recording file to the computer.
Then I imported the file into the DAW and did some mixing, applying a simple tune and compressor.
“Okay. This should be enough... Shall I give it a listen?”
I played the music, and my voice flowed out alongside the instrumental.
I had done nothing more than hum while muttering some incomprehensible alien language, but it sounded better than I
expected.
In my previous life, my voice had honestly been so bad that listening to it like this had been unbearable.
I guess blood really couldn’t lie.
Perhaps because this family had such an exceptional bloodline, my singing ability wasn’t bad either.
It seemed the older brother had inherited quite a bit of talent too, not just the younger sister.
The music came to an end.
“Wow... Did I really make this?”
I was utterly stunned.
A hollow laugh burst out of me.
I had simply wanted to create something like a madman.
Inspiration had poured out of me like crazy, and I had simply thrown it all onto the screen without thinking.
But when I actually listened to the finished product, it was almost a masterpiece, even if I was exaggerating a little.
“I have... talent now.”
At long last, I had gained the talent I had wished for so desperately.
The way it had happened was a little unrealistic and unusual, but so what?
There was no way I couldn’t be happy.
I clenched my fist tightly and made a resolution.
“Good.”
I didn’t want to let this opportunity, which had finally come to me, slip away.
I decided to pour all the effort I hadn’t been able to give before into this.
And beside me was none other than SEY, Seo Arim, a top star.
At this point, the owner of this song had practically been decided for me.
Now the question was how I would get Seo Arim to listen to it...
“First, it would be impossible right now.”
Before that, I needed to strengthen the relationship between these siblings who were practically worse than strangers.
For the time being, I should focus on showing her that I was changing.
That was what I needed to do.
‘Now, all that’s left is to write the lyrics and it’ll be finished...’
There was no need to rush.
I had just thought of a pretty good theme, too.
But before that—
“I can’t hold myself back.”
I should write a few more songs.
Soon, my fingers began cautiously tapping away at the computer keyboard.
The sensation of each thick key wrapping around my fingers felt strangely satisfying.
Yeah.
For me, this was a piano.