In This Life, The Greatest Star In The Universe

Chapter 18

It felt like a factory was working in my head.

A monotonous sound entered the factory.

The notes on the conveyor belt were processed as they passed through various machines.

That’s how the arrangement that would support the main theme started to come to mind.

I trembled my eyebrows.

This had never happened to me before.

My brain was automatically coloring the colorless notes, stimulated by the familiar yet unique melody.

The notes that danced gracefully.

I was mesmerized by the dance of the beautiful lights.

“…Hey, hyung. Hey, hyung.”

“Hmm?”

When did I close my eyes?

When I opened them, Ri-hyuk was tapping me.

What?

Why is everyone looking at me?

What’s going on?

Jang So-won blinked and then burst into laughter.

“Did you fall asleep?”

“Huh?”

I tilted my head and added, ‘Me?’

“You were like that for almost five minutes.”

“Me?”

“If you don’t believe me, ask the others.”

“No way.”

I muttered.

“It was only 10 seconds.”

“Well, it’s possible to sleep if you’re tired.”

It might have been a situation that would have made someone else frown or feel bad, but Jang So-won laughed cheerfully.

I felt a bit wronged and said.

“Senior, that’s not it.”

I waved my hand and explained what had happened.

Well, I edited it as much as possible.

I said, ‘The melody was so good that I was briefly arranging it in my head.’

It was true, but why did it sound like an excuse?

“Hmm. Really?”

Jang So-won narrowed her eyes.

“So you get an arrangement when you hear it?”

“No, it’s just that….”

She chuckled and joked.

“Our leader, a musical genius? I didn’t know I had such a genius all this time. Did you guys know?”

“Yes, senior.”

“We call him the master of music among ourselves.”

The members had no intention of letting me go.

Yeah.

You guys got me good.

“The melody you just heard is the reason why I called you guys.”

Jang So-won wrapped up the laughter and got to the point.

“You know I’m releasing a new single album, right?”

“Yes.”

“I decided to record three songs. Two of them, the title and another one, are almost done with mixing. But the problem is this guy.”

Jang So-won tapped the laptop.

“I managed to make the main theme, but I can’t make any more progress from here.”

She continued to explain.

“The melody itself was… when did I make it? Was it mid-November last year? Around the time of the college entrance exam, it snowed, right?”

I know.

That’s why I came here.

Jang So-won smiled as if reminiscing that time.

“I saw the snow from the apartment balcony, and it was really pretty. It was daytime, but the sky was dark and the white things were piled up softly. I was humming a song without thinking while watching that, and at some point I realized it was perfect. You know that feeling, right? The feeling of electric shock and goosebumps.”

I nodded and sympathized.

That was the feeling I got when I heard the melody.

I felt something in common.

“So I didn’t look back and wrote the main theme right away… but it’s not easy.”

“You’re stuck, aren’t you?”

“Yeah. Why do you think I’m stuck?”

I answered his question.

“Because this melody suits a fresh and clumsy vibe.”

“Oh, you felt it too?”

Jang So-won’s eyes sparkled and she seemed to get excited.

She had taken my words as a joke earlier, but now she looked like she realized they were true.

The others, on the other hand, looked confused.

Jung-hyun asked.

“What do you mean by that, senior?”

“Leader, explain it to them.”

I felt their eyes on me and explained.

“The melody that senior sang is more fitting for a youthful and refreshing atmosphere than a sophisticated one.”

“Is that hard to do?”

“It is. Because professional producers and engineers work on it, and it’s not easy to preserve the clumsy vibe. The moment they touch the song, it becomes very refined.”

In other words, it meant that it was hard to keep the slightly awkward and fresh vibe when a pro got involved.

They were too good.

When my siblings nodded in understanding, Jang So-won said.

“Leader is right.”

She smiled.

“At first, I entrusted it to some producers and engineers I knew, but it didn’t come out the way I wanted. That’s why I called you guys.”

She said this.

Jang So-won, who couldn’t give up on the melody she made because she liked it so much, started looking for a solution.

She asked around the singers she knew, wandered around Hongdae and watched indie band performances, and searched the internet, but she couldn’t find anyone who suited the melody.

Until she went to the year-end evaluation as a judge, following the CEO’s order of ‘you don’t seem to have anything to do, so you go’.

“When I heard your arrangement, I got a good feeling. I liked each of your voice colors and your ability to interpret the song.”

“Um, senior.”

Ri-Hyuk asked.

“How did you know who did the arrangement?”

“I can tell by listening.”

“Really?”

“Producers’ work and kids’ work are different.”

She added.

“Don’t misunderstand, I’m not saying it’s bad, I’m saying there’s a difference between pro and amateur vibes. Amateurs have that, you know. Pros who get paid can’t do things that amateurs can do boldly. You know what I mean?”

We kind of understood what she was saying.

We heard all kinds of things, but in the end, it was a story of how she found us when the new song melody wasn’t progressing.

It was the moment when the mystery of why she gave us her business card that day was solved.

“Well, let’s end the introduction here.”

Jang So-won clapped her hands and asked.

“How was the melody?”

“It was good.”

“Not that. I mean, did you have any thoughts or feelings that came to mind when you listened to it? Just say anything, one by one.”

We looked at each other, and then Bi-ju spoke first.

“I thought of two lines.”

“Lines?”

“Yes, there are two lines, but they are parallel lines that can’t meet. You know, like they seem to meet but they can’t.”

“I think I know what you mean.”

Jang So-won nodded and started to write a memo on her phone.

While her long nails tapped on the screen, Jung-hyun opened his lips.

“It sounded like a hard beat to rap on.”

“Rap?”

“I’m a rapper.”

“Do you want rap in it?”

“Uh… no?”

Jung-hyun thought for a moment and changed his answer.

“Yes, I think rap would be good.”

It was an answer that could sound arrogant, but Jang So-won laughed at his naive tone.

“Okay, let’s consider rap too. How about the song?”

“Senior said you wrote it while watching the snow, but I felt a different vibe. Maybe it suits the spring day when cherry blossoms fall.”

“Cherry blossoms?”

“Yes. You know how it is sometimes. When you’re sitting at the bus stop and the cherry blossom petals are fluttering.”

Jung-hyun had a surprisingly poetic side to him.

As I looked at him with curiosity, our eyes met and he gave me a smug expression.

No.

Why are you so proud of yourself after saying that?

“And next, what about our Ri-hyun?”

“Ri-hyuk.”

“Right, Rihyun.”

Ri-hyuk’s ears turned red and we chuckled.

Jang So-won, who was blinking her eyes, asked.

“By the way, what was your name again?”

“I’m Ri-hyuk, senior. Seo Ri-hyuk.”

“Sorry, sorry. I got confused. You were the one who sang the best at the end-of-year evaluation, right?”

He looked expressionless, but I could see his lips curling up slightly. 

He seemed to cheer up quickly.

Ri-hyuk took out his notebook.

He had written something densely when he listened earlier. 

He read it out loud.

There were a few points, but the conclusion was simple.

“…Overall, I felt the same as Jung-hyun hyung. It sounds like a song that suits March or early April.”

“You all felt the same way.”

Jang So-won said in amazement.

He wrote the song while looking at the snow in winter, but three members had already said ‘This sounds like a spring song.’ It was surprising.

He tapped his phone screen and fell into thought. Then he called the youngest.

“How was it, our handsome baby?”

“I’m not a baby…”

The middle schooler who was going to high school this year muttered, and we all looked at him with affection.

Ji-ho thought for a moment and said.

“If it were me.”

“Yeah.”

“I would want to play it for someone I like.”

Someone you like?

I wondered if there was something I didn’t know and looked at him. 

Jiho quickly added.

“If I had one.”

“I see. A spring song… that you want to play for someone you like if you had one.”

Jang So-won, who was murmuring and taking notes, finally looked at me.

I didn’t have anything different to say either.

The members and I felt the same about the song.

But I wanted to find the common ground.

We all told different stories, but everything we said was somehow connected.

Let’s say there’s a tree.

We’re each talking about the branch we’re touching, but we can’t say what the tree is.

I wanted to find out the name of that tree.

My mouth was itching.

If I thought a little more, I felt like I could catch something.

It would be really easy to work if I knew the name of the tree I was looking at.

Ah!

At some point, an image suddenly popped up in my head.

One word that encompassed everyone’s impressions.

-A feeling of being on a parallel line, where you seem to meet but can’t.

-I thought of the bus stop where the cherry blossoms fell.

-It sounds like a song that suits late March or early April.

-I want to play it for someone I like.

I felt like I had found the name of the tree that my thoughts had followed down from the branches.

“I agree with the other friends.”

“Yeah?”

Jang So-won looked disappointed.

“But I think I know what the members are talking about.”

“Huh?”

“They’re all telling slightly different stories, but if you put them together, it seems like the same topic comes out.”

“What is it?”

I told him, curious.

“You know how they say that on the internet. Someone and someone have a crush. They’re flirting.”

“Go on.”

“If you combine what I said earlier, it’s springtime, at the bus stop, I want to play it for someone I like, but that person is close to me but not close enough…”

This was the conclusion I came up with.

“I think that’s the theme of Melody.”

“Oh, right!”

Wow. Senior, your eyes are about to pop out.

She looked like someone who had found the answer she had been waiting for a long time. Jang So-won clapped her hands and cheered.

The younger ones had expressions of awe and curiosity.

“I’ve been looking for the theme of Melody, and now I know.”

“Are you satisfied?”

“Satisfied? It’s not just satisfying, it’s perfect.”

Jang So-won said with excitement.

“Let’s decide on the title too. What should we call it? Something? Between Us? BeTween? Hmm…”

Senior, can you slow down a bit?

It felt like she had been waiting for a billion years at a red light and finally stepped on the accelerator when the signal changed.

She kept spitting out ideas for a while, when Ri-hyuk raised his hand.

“Excuse me, senior.”

“Yes, Ri-hyun.”

“It’s Ri-hyuk.”

“Oh, Ri-hyuk. Sorry.”

“Since ‘something’ is originally English, how about ‘Something’ as the title?”

As soon as Ri-hyuk said that, everyone seemed to agree silently.

That’s it.

That’s how the title of the song we would sing together became Something, meaning ‘something’.

As soon as the title was decided, the work meeting went smoothly.

The original writer, Jang So-won, was active, but we also started to actively contribute our opinions.

We were trainees, but our main job was singers.

We also had Ri-hyuk and Jung-hyun, who could do arrangements, so we had various opinions on lyrics, composition, and related matters.

There was some kind of rapport between us.

Maybe it was the feeling of excitement when the emotions of people who love music resonated.

We were discussing like that for a while.

Gurgle-

We turned our heads at the loud sound of stomach rumbling, and saw Jung-hyun scratching the back of his head sheepishly.

We all looked at the clock.

We were so engrossed in the song work that it was already 2 o’clock, almost the end of lunch time.

“Look at me. You guys must be really hungry.”

“No, we’re fine.”

“I’m hungry. Do you guys have any plans for lunch?”

I answered.

“I got a card from the manager just in case. I think we can just buy something simple from the convenience store with that.”

“Is that enough for a meal?”

Jang So-won chuckled and got up from her seat.

Where is he going?

She put on her wine-colored coat that she had taken off her slender body. 

She looked like a model as she stood up gracefully and looked at us.

“What are you doing?”

We cheered at her next words.

“Let’s go. I’ll buy you pork belly.”