In This Life, The Greatest Star In The Universe

The factory inside my head was being active with a hypnotizing song entering inside it.  Every time the musical notes on the conveyor belt would passed by several machines, it appeared as if it were being manufactured.

  In that manner, an instrumental started to emerge to support the main melody.  I raised my eyebrows since until now, nothing like that has appeared.

  Stimulated by the familiar yet unique melody, my brain was automatically giving colors to the achromatic notes.  The musical notes danced while fluttering around and that’s when I was mesmerized by the beautiful dance that shone.

  “. . . Oi ahjussi.  Ajhussi.” 

Ahjussi: a korean term use to refer an older middle age man or man who’s married

  “Huh?”

  Since when have I’ve been closing my eyes?  I opened my eyes when Rihyuk tapped me.

  What’s this?  Why is everyone looking at me?  What’s wrong with them?  

  Jang Sowon blinked and bursted into laughter.

  “Did you perhaps sleep?”

  “Eh?”

  I lifted my head up and added the words, ‘Do you mean me?’.

  Rihyuk, who’s standing by me, continued, “You’ve been like that for nearly 5 minutes.”

  “Me?”

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

  “But I wasn’t”, I muttered, “It was about 10 seconds.”

  “Well, you can sleep if you’re tired.”

  If it was a different person, this situation would have made them frown or feel bad, but Jang Sowon delightfully smiled.

  I felt bad so I said, “Seonbaenim, it isn’t like that.”

  I shook my hands and explained what had just happened.  As such, I tried to recollect as much as possible.  To make it sound normal, I said, ‘I was thinking about the arrangement in my head for a while because the melody was so good’.

  Why does it sound like an excuse when I’m being for real?

  “Hmm.  Really?”

  Jang Sowon squinted her eyes.

  “What came to mind when you listened to it?”

  “No, it’s. . .”

  She laughed and joked around.

  “It seems your leader must be a musical genius?  I didn’t recognize such a genius.  Did you all know about this?”  

  “Yes seonbaenim.”

  “We called him the master of music.”

  The members were busy making fun of me.  Ok.  I see you’re making lots of incidents, you all.

  “The melody you’ve heard is the reason I requested you all.”

  Jang Sowon, who had quite the laugh, went straight to the point.

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

  “Yes.”

  “It’s going to include about 3 song.  Among them, the title track and the other song are currently almost complete with the mixing.  However, the problem remains in this one.”

  Jang Sowon said while tapping on her laptop.

  “I was barely able to make the main melody, but I can’t make any more progress here.”

  She continued her explanation.

  “When did I. . . make this melody?  Was it mid-November of last year?  It was snowing around the time of the college entrance exam.”

  I knew it.  Because of that, that’s why we came all the way over here.  Jang Sowon smiled as if she was recalling that moment.

  “Out on the apartment’s veranda, I saw snow and it was really pretty.  It was daytime, but the sky was dark with the white snow piling up.  Without thinking, I hummed a tune as I looked at the scenery, but at some point when I thought about it, I fell in love with it.  Do know that feeling?  An electrifying shock and chills kind of feeling.”

  I nodded and sympathized.  That’s what I felt when I heard the melody.  I felt something make sense.

  “And so without looking back, I wrote down the main melody right away, saying, ‘This the song for the next album’. . . but turns out it wasn’t easy.”

  “Which section?”

  “Why did you ask that?”

  I answered the question in return, “Because this melody has a refreshing and yet incomplete vibe to it.”

  “Oh, you felt that too?”

  Jang Sowon’s eyes widen and something began to grow.  She took what I said earlier as a joke, but it turned out to be true.  On the other hand, the other guys looked like they didn’t understand.

  Junghyun asked, “What is this about, seonbaenim?”

  “Explain it, Leader.”

  I explained it to them, feeling the focused gazes.

  “The melody that she sung feels more fresh than feeling sophisticated.”

  “Are you saying it’s hard?”

  “It is hard. The reason is because professional producers and engineers take care of songs to not make it sound incomplete right? As soon as they’re in control of it, it becomes very sophisticated.”

In other words, the atmosphere is suited as an incomplete freshness, but on the other hand, be difficult for fixing when a professional joins in. It because you’re so good.

really and I mean really iffy on sentences

With the ending of my explanation, the others nodded with an, ‘Ah’.

Jang Sowon said, “It’s as the leader said.”

She smiled.

“At first, I left it in the hands of producers and engineers I knew, but it didn’t come out the way that I wanted it too. That why I called out to you.”

That’s what she said.

Jang Sowon, who couldn’t give up due to liking the melody she made so much, began to find a solution. She’ll ask other singers, go everywhere in Hongdae, listen to indie band performances, and search the internet, but couldn’t find anyone who was a match to the melody.

That was until she went to the end of the year evaluation due to the CEO’s order, ‘You go as a judge since you don’t seem to have anything to do.’

“When I heard your arrangement, that when I got a feeling. I liked the color of the voices as well as the interpretation of the song.”

“Excuse me seonbaenim.”

Rihyuk asked.

“How did you know it was him who arranged the song?”

“You’ll know when you hear it.”

“Yes?”

“What producers make is different from what you kids make.”

She added.

“There may be a misunderstanding, but they’re not words to forget. What I mean is that there’s a difference in the feelings between a professionals and amateurs. Would professional who do it for the money, do something that bold that they can’t try?”

We got a rough understanding of what she was trying to say.

Listening to this and that, to sum it up, they found us in the car when the song melody wasn’t making any progress. It was the moment that the mystery was solved on why they gave their business card that day.

“Well, that’s it for the introduction.”

Jang Sowon clapped her hands and asked.

“How was it, the melody?”

“It’s good.”

“No, not like that. I’m sure each of you have an idea or feeling that came up to mind. Anything is acceptable, so each of you say one thing.”

We looked at each other, and before long, Bijoo took the chance first.

“I thought of two lines.”

“Lines?”

“That’s right. There are two lines, but they’re parallel causing them not able to intercept with each other. And so, it feels like they’re going to meet, but at the same time, can’t.”

“I think I know what you mean.”

Jang Sowon nodded and began to write notes in her phone.

Junghyun opens his mouth while his fingernails tap on the screen.

“It was like a hard beat to rap.”

“Rap?”

“Because I’m a rapper.”

“Are you saying you want me to rap?”

“Oh. . . no?”

Junghyun thought hard and changed his words.

“Yes, I think it’ll be nice to have a rap.”

It was a cheeky answer, but Jang Sowon laugh at the country’s boy naive tone.

“Okay, let’s consider rapping. How was the song?”

“You said you wrote it after watching the snow fall, but I felt a different feeling. Should I say that to me it was the atmosphere of cherry blossoms falling on a spring day?”

“Cherry blossoms?”

“Yes, something like that happened. When I’m sitting at the bus stop and cherry blossom leaves are flying around.”

Surprisingly, it was Junghyun’s lyrical side. He looked proud when making eye contact with her who looked at him with curiosity.

No.

Why is he so proud of what he said?

“And next, Riyoung?”

“It’s Rihyuk.”

“Okay Rihyun.”

When Rihyuk’s ear turned red, we giggled.

“Gosh, what was your name again?”

“I’m. . . Rihyuk, seonbaenim. Seo Rihyuk.”

“Sorry sorry. I was confused. He sang the best during the end of year evaluation, right?”

He looked expressionless, but seeing that the corners of his mouth twitch quickly, I felt like he’s changing his mood very quickly.

Rihyuk took out his notebook. He must have written something down while listening to it. There were several bullet points, but the summary was simple.

“. . . Overall, I felt similar to Junghyun’s. I think it’s a song that goes well with March or early April.”

“You all felt the same way.”

Jang Sowon said as if she was amazed.

It’s a song that she wrote while looking at the winter snow, and yet it’s amazing that three members had already said, ‘This is like a spring song.’

Jang Sowon who was lost in thought while tapping on the phone screen called out to the youngest.

“How was it to our handsome baby?”

“But I’m not a baby. . .”

The middle school student who’s about to enter high school this year mutter out. We all looked at him adorably.

Jiho thought about it and said, “If it were me.”

“Yes.”

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

What do you mean someone you like?

When I looked at him like I didn’t know, Jiho quickly added.

“If it does happen.”

“I see. A spring song. . . If I have someone I like, I would want to play it to them.”

Jang Sowon, who was muttering and taking notes, finally looked at me. I didn’t have much to say either. The members and I felt the same way in terms of the song, but I wanted to find something in common.

We talked about different things, but everything we said was in line.

Let’s say there was a tree. Each one of us was talking about the same branch that I was touching, but couldn’t tell what kind of tree it was. I wanted to find out the name of the tree.

My mouth was ticklish.

If I think about it a little more, maybe I’ll catch onto something. If I knew the name of the tree I was looking at, it would be easier to work on.

Ah!

At one point, an image suddenly began to pop up in my head.

A sentence that combines everyone’s idea.

– It’s parallel. It feels like they’re going to meet, but can’t.

– It reminds me of the bus stop where cherry blossoms were falling.

– I think it’s a song that goes well with the end of March or early April.

– I want to play it for someone I like if I have one.

My thoughts, as if finally climbing down the branches that the others were saying, seemed to have brought me to finding out the name of the tree.

“I also agree with my friends.”

“Really?”

Jang Sowon seemed to be disappointed.

“But I think I know what my members are saying.”

“What?”

“Everyone told it a little differently, but I think the same topic comes out when we put it together like this.”

“What is it?”

I told the curious one.

“There are a lot of comments like this on the internet these days. This person and that person are flirting with each other. Having a fling.”

“Continue.”

“To sum up what they said earlier: in spring, the bus stop, wanting to play it for someone I like, and that person seems close to me, but at the same time not. . .”

It was the conclusion of what I thought.

“I think that’s the theme of the melody.”

“Oh! That’s it!”

I think her eyes are going to pop out.

Jang Sowon claps her hand together like a person who’s found the answer she’s been waiting for a long time. The other members were like, ‘Ah. . .’ looking surprise.

“I’ve been looking for the melody’s theme all this time. Now I know.”

“Do you like it?”

“‘Do you like it?’, is not enough, it’s absolutely perfect.”

An excited women said.

“We can use these titles too. What should we do? Flirting? Between us? Between? Hmm. . .”

Can’t you go a bit more slowly?

After waiting at the red light for a billion years, it felt like stepping on the accelerator at the speed of light when the light signal finally changes. After giving up the idea for a long time, Rihyuk raised his hand.

“Excuse seonbaenim.”

“Yes Rihyun?”

“It’s Rihyuk.”

“Oh, Rihyuk. I’m sorry.”

“Something in English. How about the word 썸씽 in English?”

In Korean, the pronunciation for 썸씽 (Seom-sing) sound like the English word, “Something“The first syllable “썸” in the word 썸씽 means in translation, to have a fling with someone elseRihyuk our tsundere boi is a genius!!

When Rihyuk said that, everyone seemed agree implicitly.

It’s perfect.

The title of the song that we’re going to sing together became, ‘Something“, which means flirting.

When the title was decided, the work meeting took off.

Jang Sowon, the original author, is also active, but we have also begun to actively express our opinions. We’re trainees, but our main job is singers.

There was Rihyuk and Junghyun who could arrange the song without me, so various opinions related to writing and composing came out.

There was some kind of consensus.

It was an exciting feeling with the emotions that only people who like music were shared. It was a time where we’ll discuss it like that for a long time.

Growlll~

When I turned my head to the sound of a loud stomach, Junghyun was scratching the back of his head as if embarrassed.

Everyone looked at the clock.

It was already 2 o’clock, almost the end of lunch time as we were absorbed in on working on the song.

“Looking at you, you must be very hungry.”

“No, I’m fine.”

“I’m hungry. Do you guys have a meal in mind?”

I answered.

“I got a card from the manager just in case. I think we can buy at a convenience store and eat.”

“Do you eat at convenience stores?”

Jang Sowon woke up with a smile.

Where are we going?

The wine-color coat, which had been taken off the slim body, goes back on. She stood up as gracefully as a model and looked at us.

“What are you doing?”

We cheered at the ensuing remark.

“Let’s go. I’ll buy you pork belly.”