In This Life, The Greatest Star In The Universe

Translator: MarcTempest

Editor: Rxel

Chapter 18

It felt like a factory was working in his head.

A monotonous sound entered the factory.

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

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

Seon Woojoo’s eyebrows trembled.

This had never happened to him before.

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

The notes that danced gracefully.

Seon Woojoo was mesmerized by the dance of the beautiful lights.

“…Hey, Hyung. Hey, hyung.”

“Hmm?”

When did he close his eyes?

When he opened them, Seo Rihyuk was tapping him.

What?

Why was everyone looking at him?

What was going on?

Jang Sowon blinked and then burst into laughter.

“Did you fall asleep?”

“Huh?”

Seon Woojoo tilted his head and added, ‘Me?’

“You were like that for almost five minutes.”

“Me?”

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

“No way.”

Seon Woojoo 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 Sowon laughed cheerfully.

Seon Woojoo felt a bit wronged and said, “Senior, that’s not it.”

Seon Woojoo waved his hand and explained what had happened.

Well, he edited it as much as possible.

He 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 Sowon 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 him go.

Yeah.

These guys got him good.

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

Jang Sowon 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 Sowon 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?”

They knew.

That was why they came here.

Jang Sowon 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.”

Seon Woojoo nodded and sympathized.

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

He 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?”

Seon Woojoo answered her question.

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

“Oh, you felt it too?”

Jang Sowon’s eyes sparkled and she seemed to get excited.

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

The others, on the other hand, looked confused.

Kim Junghyun asked, “What do you mean by that, Senior?”

“Leader, explain it to them.”

Seon Woojoo felt their eyes on him 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 his siblings nodded in understanding, Jang Sowon 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 Sowon, 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 President’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.”

Seo Rihyuk 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?”

They kind of understood what she was saying.

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

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

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

Jang Sowon 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.”

They looked at each other, and then Kim Bijoo 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 Sowon nodded and started to write a memo on her phone.

While her long nails tapped on the screen, Kim Junghyun 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?”

Kim Junghyun 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 Sowon 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.”

Kim Junghyun had a surprisingly poetic side to him.

As Seon Woojoo looked at him with curiosity, their eyes met and he gave him a smug expression.

No.

Why were you so proud of yourself after saying that?

“And next, what about our Rihyun?”

“Seo Rihyuk.”

“Right, Rihyun.”

Seo Rihyuk’s ears turned red and they chuckled.

Jang Sowon, who was blinking her eyes, asked, “By the way, what was your name again?”

“I’m Rihyuk, Senior. Seo Rihyuk.”

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

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

He seemed to cheer up quickly.

Seo Rihyuk 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 Junghyun Hyung. It sounds like a song that suits March or early April.”

“You all felt the same way,” Jang Sowon said in amazement.

She 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.

She tapped her phone screen and fell into thought. Then she 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 they all looked at him with affection.

Wang Jiho thought for a moment and said, “If it were me.”

“Yeah.”

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

Someone you like?

Seon Woojoo wondered if there was something he didn’t know and looked at him.

Wang 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 Sowon, who was murmuring and taking notes, finally looked at Seon Woojoo.

Seon Woojoo didn’t have anything different to say either.

The members and he felt the same about the song.

But he wanted to find the common ground.

They all told different stories, but everything they said was somehow connected.

Let’s say there’s a tree.

They were each talking about the branch they were touching, but they couldn’t say what the tree was.

Seon Woojoo wanted to find out the name of that tree.

His mouth was itching.

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

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

Ah!

At some point, an image suddenly popped up in his 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.

Seon Woojoo felt like he had found the name of the tree that his thoughts had followed down from the branches.

“I agree with the other friends.”

“Yeah?”

Jang Sowon 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?”

Seon Woojoo told her, who was 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 was 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 he came up with.

“I think that’s the theme of the 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 Sowon clapped her hands and cheered.

The younger ones had expressions of awe and curiosity.

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

“Are you satisfied?”

“Satisfied? It’s not just satisfying, it’s perfect.” Jang Sowon said with excitement, “Let’s decide on the title too. What should we call it? Something? Between Us? BeTween? Hmm…”

Senior, could 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 Seo Rihyuk raised his hand.

“Excuse me, Senior.”

“Yes, Rihyun.”

“It’s Rihyuk.”

“Oh, Rihyuk. Sorry.”

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

As soon as Seo Rihyuk said that, everyone seemed to agree silently.

That was it.

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

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

The original writer, Jang Sowon, was active, but they also started to actively contribute their opinions.

They were trainees, but their main job was singers.

They also had Seo Rihyuk and Kim Junghyun, who could do arrangements, so they had various opinions on lyrics, composition, and related matters.

There was some kind of rapport between them.

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

They were discussing like that for a while.

Gurgle-

They turned their heads at the loud sound of stomach rumbling, and saw Kim Junghyun scratching the back of his head sheepishly.

They all looked at the clock.

They 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?”

Seon Woojoo 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 Sowon chuckled and got up from her seat.

Where was she 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 them.

“What are you doing?”

They cheered at her next words.

“Let’s go. I’ll buy you pork belly.”