Episode 86: Love Fortune
“Hff… hff…”
A small face rests on my shoulder, breathing slow, even breaths.
Just hearing it makes sleep creep over me like a tide. The soft tickle against my ear is sweeter than anything, more addictive than the perfect warmth of a winter blanket that’s just the right temperature.
Slither…
I carefully slip out from under her, moving my body so gently that Zia’s sleep isn’t disturbed even a little, and quietly leave the bedroom.
Then I step into the tiny side room I use as a studio (though calling it that feels generous; it’s basically the same as my old rooftop room).
A “studio” with nothing but a desktop PC, one guitar, and one bass. That’s the entire setup.
In this room that’s gone past simple and straight into bleak, I sit down in the chair and lean back against the backrest.
“Haa… I’m screwed…”
While waiting for the computer to boot, those words slip out naturally as a self-mocking laugh, and I suddenly remember what Zia said earlier with that same laugh.
“Our Yujin… you definitely got the Grand Prize because your noona watched over you, right?”
It was a remark that cut clean through without leaving even a millimeter of room for argument, but I didn’t feel offended at all.
No, to be precise, I didn’t even have time to feel offended.
‘Noir… or maybe thriller. That kind of laugh would suit those genres…’
That’s not quite accurate either.
What’s certain is that it was a smile the old Zia of the past would never have shown so easily.
‘Well, the fact that her ways of expressing emotion have become this varied is definitely a good thing.’
But that’s not what matters right now.
What really matters is that, for a moment, I completely forgot about the existence of “her,” the one who taught Zia that very method of expression.
Just then, the computer finishes booting. I open my DAW and start laying down a melody, one note at a time.
My hands move without hesitation again this time, but today it’s a slightly different case.
The melody my fingers are creating right now isn’t a song I finished myself; it’s a song that was completed by someone else’s hands.
‘Mm. So this was the feeling.’
Finishing a melody just over four minutes long takes almost no time at all, and soon the completed track flows through my headset.
‘Why didn’t this come to mind immediately…?’
When Zia made receiving the Grand Prize a precondition, this song should have been the very first thing I thought of.
‘As expected… she really is a genius…’
I relax the tension in my back that had straightened while working and lean against the chair again.
There’s no vocal, the harmonies aren’t properly built, and the instrumentation is extremely sparse; just the bare melody.
Yet even with only that foundation, the song reconstructed inside my head is more than enough to leave me in awe.
Actually, the question I asked to probe Zia’s intentions was flawed from the premise.
Hylliy can never win the Grand Prize in the first place.
Even if Hylliy suddenly awakens and shows the best form in their career this comeback, completely crushing Pleiades.
Even if they maintain that peak into the next comeback, shed their 1.5-tier label, and finally climb into the 1st tier.
The highest career milestone Hylliy can reach this year is something like “Best Song” or “Artist of the Year (Bonsang)” at most.
The same goes for Pleiades.
Even if my plans go a little off-track and Pleiades keeps their current insane momentum all the way,
There’s a serious obstacle standing in the way of Pleiades becoming defending Grand Prize champions.
‘And me too…’
It’s not unheard of for someone to win the Grand Prize in their debut year.
“Tylens,” the group that became the root of Overwhelm’s powerful and chic girl-group image, already has the precedent of sweeping Rookie of the Year and the Grand Prize in their debut year.
‘The references are there. More than enough…’
The problem is that this year, there’s a final boss who didn’t exist last year.
The ultimate boss who spent the first half of the year filming a movie and the second half judging an audition program: AZ!
‘Right… Love Fortune (愛情雲) was this year…’
Lee Ahjeong’s 6th mini album <Victoria>, and its title track, <Love Fortune>.
I had completely forgotten about the song that swept every single Grand Prize in the 2025 season.
Was it because the formula “AZ song = Grand Prize” felt too obvious? Or was the impact of Polaris taking three Rookie of the Year awards stronger for me?
Either way, it doesn’t matter anymore.
What matters is that, given how the music industry holds award ceremonies at the beginning of the following year, if things continue like this, marrying Zia will be postponed to 2027 at the earliest.
‘She’ll probably release it within this year…’
Unlike before the regression, she did spend time on <Blind Singer Season 3>,
And right now she’s also spending time watching over Zia’s acting,
But among her countless identities, the identity she cherishes the most is “singer.” There’s no way Lee Ahjeong would ever neglect that work.
This song, Love Fortune, will probably be released to the public before autumn even arrives.
‘No, it could easily come out even earlier than that.’
The team that exclusively handles Lee Ahjeong definitely includes people in charge of album production.
The work itself is already finished, but there’s a high chance it’s being quietly prepared behind the scenes so as not to interfere with the back-to-back junior schedules: Hylliy in March, me and Ju’s <Blue Poem> in April, and the new boy group’s <First Step> in May.
Every single track on Lee Ahjeong’s 6th mini album Victoria, including the title Love Fortune and the other four songs, are objectively and subjectively masterpieces.
As someone who sings just like her, and as someone who creates songs,
The fact that such happy-to-listen-to songs will be released into the world should absolutely be something to celebrate. But the problem Is that it’s happening this year of all years, so there’s no way I can’t sigh.
‘No… actually, there is a way.’
If I just release the songs she used to spend nearly a year crafting after her 5th year, one every quarter, no, one every single month, I could probably keep my name at the top of the charts all year round.
In that case, sweeping both Rookie of the Year and the Grand Prize at the same time wouldn’t be that difficult.
Of course, I did wonder if I really needed to go that far, and releasing one song every month would be an enormous burden even for MyWay, so it was closer to a joke, but…
‘Even if I did that now, there’s no guarantee I’d win.’
I can’t be certain I could surpass Lee Ahjeong’s name value with that method alone.
As I listen to the melody of Love Fortune again and recall the kind of song only AZ can make, the fog in my head only grows thicker.
The formula “AZ song = Grand Prize” has never once been broken, even after Polaris debuted.
When Lee Ahjeong releases an album, she takes it. When Polaris releases, Polaris takes it. When both release in the same year, they split it fifty-fifty.
That’s how it’s always been, without ever tilting heavily to one side.
Just then, the melody ends. I take off the headset and toss it onto the desk with a thud.
“Haaa…”
The clearer the melody of Love Fortune becomes, the heavier the complicated feelings grow, and without realizing it I let out a deep sigh.
Knock knock knock.
The sudden knocking from behind startles me so much I jump up from the chair.
Other than the sleeping Zia, there shouldn’t be anyone else in this house, so why knocking?
“Yujin-ah… are you in there?”
The voice makes me think “no way,” so I hurry over and open the door, and sure enough, Zia is standing there.
“Why are you knocking when you never do?”
It’s not like her coming in would break my concentration, and these days she doesn’t even knock for the bathroom, so why the studio of all places?
Feeling a little embarrassed for having been so startled, I asked that, and
“Uh… well… um…”
Zia stammers, unable to continue easily.
She can’t even meet my eyes; that’s extra.
“I… I woke up for a second and you weren’t there… and you weren’t watching TV either…”
Honestly, I still hadn’t caught on at that point.
“I thought maybe because I fell asleep first you went to… you know…”
Only when she glanced at my body while saying that did I finally realize what she was thinking.
“What the hell are you imagining…!”
What does she take me for!
I’m not some starving beast who can’t even last one day without a happy time!
Sure, I do pounce on Zia about once every two days.
And especially after that cursed magical period we have to endure ends, I do torment her pretty intensely.
But still!
“So that’s what it was…? There’s no tissue…? You were actually working…?”
“Hey, Woo Zia…!”
Only then did she look around the studio, realize the only tissue-like thing was the non-woven cloth for cleaning the monitor, and laugh awkwardly while her entire face turned bright red.
Seeing her like that, I felt wronged, just as embarrassed, and at the same time a little amused that my earlier worries had flown away for a moment, so all I said was,
“Go. Go back to bed right now.”
But
“Huh…? Are you… mad…? Yujin? I’m sorry, I was half-asleep and just…”
It seems she interpreted it completely differently.
“Um… do you want to touch my chest?”
She even pulled out the ultimate move that has absolute power over men.
“Just stay there. I’ll turn off the computer and come.”
In front of her, what meaning do any of my worries even have?
[Do you want to save the changes?]
[Yes] [No] [Cancel]
I frantically pressed the N key several times, erasing that melody which must never remain on my computer, then bolted straight to the bedroom.
Meanwhile, at that very same moment.
There was someone intently staring at the melody that Han Yujin had just sent flying into the graveyard of 0s and 1s.
“Mmm…”
Every album is important to a singer, of course, but for Lee Ahjeong, her 6th mini album Victoria was especially significant.
It was the very first album to be released under the new nest called BNW Entertainment, built together with the countless staff who had followed her.
No matter how much BNW Entertainment was technically a subsidiary of MyWay Entertainment, the weight of it could never be small. Accordingly, the staff who had moved agencies with her were pouring their hearts into the project, even cutting down on sleep (though Lee Ahjeong herself never wanted that).
For their sake as well, the mini album Victoria absolutely had to succeed.
Lee Ahjeong’s songs had never once failed, except for her debut album and very first mini, but this time the stakes felt even higher.
And so, it was almost inevitable that Love Fortune was chosen as the title track for Victoria.
To Lee Ahjeong, who always included at least one song celebrating the beauty of love in every album, Love Fortune, a song born from the image of a sea of clouds spreading wide beneath a mountain peak, was inevitably the track she felt the deepest affection for.
And also because,
“This is 100% title-track material. Holy crap, this is insane.”
When recording finished, every single person in the studio had burst into applause without holding back; the song was that perfectly made.
But there was one thing the others didn’t know.
Yes, Lee Ahjeong had written Love Fortune,
But,
‘It wasn’t me who completed it.’
The final piece of that song had been in someone else’s hands.
‘Man… I really got lucky…’
Meeting the people who held that final piece had been nothing more than a whim.
She had simply given in to the agency head’s persuasion: “There’s this friend who sings absolutely out-of-this-world, could you help him a little?”
Just as Seo Yoonje had said, that friend “Han Yujin” really did sing like a monster.
His voice was so captivating that she didn’t want to use any other adjective; she fell for it completely, and that naturally drew her interest,
To the reason he had chosen the hard path instead of the easy idol road,
And to the person who had made him choose that path.
And later, Lee Ahjeong witnessed it.
“You’ll end up falling in love with me.”
In front of thousands of people, without a single shred of embarrassment, singing of love,
And,
“Yeah. I’ll end up falling in love with you too.”
The sight of the one who not only accepted that love whole, but returned it twofold.
The reason Lee Ahjeong was able to finish recording Love Fortune in one perfect take that day, earning thunderous applause from everyone present, was rooted in that lovely couple’s burning confession of love.
Inviting Han Yujin to her concert, Teaching Woo Zia how to act,
Both certainly contained a tiny bit of her own selfish motives, but they were genuinely for their sake as well.
Only one thing remained.
The finale of the repayment Lee Ahjeong could offer them, alongside completing the song Love Fortune.
However, no matter how much decision-making power Lee Ahjeong held over the album Victoria, so many people’s blood and sweat had gone into it that “that one choice” was not something she could make alone.
And right now,
Ding-dong.
A small window quietly popped up in the bottom-right corner of the monitor she had been staring at.
[Meeting’s over.]
[It’s a go.]
[On the condition that Ahjeong-ssi appears and acts together with her.]
At the flood of consecutive messages, Lee Ahjeong finally broke into a wide grin.
[Woo Zia-ssi, you’ve been confirmed for the Love Fortune MV ♡]