Episode 165: Passion (1)
“Sorry. Did you wait long?”
The voice that reached his ear pulled his gaze away from the phone screen.
The owner of the voice, filled with apology behind an awkward smile, was Ailee.
That was only natural.
‘It’s been about 30 minutes.’
He had called her saying he had something to talk about, yet he had left her waiting for nearly 30 minutes.
“No. It’s fine. I didn’t wait that long.”
But an immediate answer came out of his mouth.
He knew that urgent work had suddenly come up for Ailee, but it wasn’t just empty consideration for her — it was 100% sincere.
The irony was that the reason was exactly the same as why Ailee felt sorry toward him.
‘I’ve been incredibly busy lately.’
Well, it had been like that ever since the filming of Project Trinity started.
Even taking that into account, this past week had been especially hectic.
He had literally been cutting into his sleep time day after day.
“Um. About the next 5th round… Could you possibly prepare two songs?”
The sudden request from Ryu Je-hoon PD.
It was called a request, but in reality it was an order to prepare two song stages.
The given period was the same, but the amount of work had doubled, so naturally the time invested had to increase.
‘Of course, it wasn’t impossible.’
Still, a tight schedule was difficult for him as well.
As the years piled up, he had grown used to a more relaxed schedule, and after returning to the past, he had been enjoying everything he wanted. So he felt it even more now.
In that sense, the free time Ailee had unintentionally given him was inevitably welcome.
He did have the next schedule, but since he roughly guessed why she had called him, he had set aside time with some leeway.
“It feels a bit rude to keep a busy person waiting, so I’ll start right away.”
However, it seemed difficult for Ailee to understand his feelings.
As soon as he quietly put away his phone, the tablet Ailee had brought took its place.
“The most urgent thing right now is ‘this’.”
Following Ailee’s voice, he looked at the text written at the very top of the tablet screen.
[OST Participation Request Work List]
“I excluded anything where the schedule coordination would be difficult.”
“And there’s still this much?”
The list filled the vertically held tablet screen.
Regardless of whether he could digest it all, if he took all of these, he could cover the OST section of the charts with his name for quite a while.
“‘Holic’ did so well.”
Well, he couldn’t really deny that.
Holic.
The title he had given to the song he had written in an instant after being impressed by Choi Do-hoon and Choi Si-yeon practicing.
It was currently sitting at the very top of the charts.
Unfortunately(?), because they couldn’t allocate a budget to assign OSTs only to 1 Hit Lover, it had been released as his single rather than an OST.
‘That’s just them covering their eyes and pretending.’
The media was already making a fuss, calling Holic “a new dark horse in the OST market.”
“Strictly speaking, it’s not a dark horse.”
The impact of Blind Singer had been huge, and because he had used a stage name that wasn’t really a stage name, it had been somewhat buried, but this life’s debut song had clearly been an OST.
“Should I request a correction article or something?”
“Come on, there’s no need to go that far.”
At his words, accompanied by a shrug, Ailee chuckled and added,
“Anyway, that modifier won’t last long.”
“Huh? Ah, well. Even just two or three songs from that list would make you ‘the new sound source powerhouse in the OST world.’”
“…”
At Ailee’s excessive flattery, which said what he couldn’t bring himself to say, he simply smiled and continued reading down the list.
Or at least he tried to.
But he couldn’t.
“Huh? This…”
Because the very first work on the list strongly caught his attention.
“Ah, that one? It’s the biggest proposal among them. They said they want to entrust all the male lead narrative-related OSTs to you, Yujin-ssi. That’s why I put it at the very top.”
Ailee shifted her gaze to where his finger was pointing and added that explanation.
Of course, that additional explanation was also written on the list, but what caught his attention wasn’t the proposal itself.
Ailee, who was chuckling softly, seemed to know the reason as well.
“I have no choice but to do this one no matter what.”
“Then I’ll proceed with that work.”
As if she had expected him to say that, Ailee immediately replied. He looked once more at the three letters that had left him with no other choice.
[PD: Yoon Chanwoo]
It was still in the planning stage, so there wasn’t even any sound source, let alone anything else, but there was no room for hesitation.
After all, this was the person who had chosen him as the singer for the song that would become a major point in his own work.
Of course, ‘For you, For a Moment’ had been able to become his song thanks to Bang Ho-kyung’s guarantee as well, but regardless, Yoon Chanwoo was still someone who had trusted him.
Even if he returned to his pre-regression position, he would have no choice but to accept Yoon Chanwoo PD’s request unless it was excessively unreasonable.
‘Besides, taking on Yoon Chanwoo PD’s work OST won’t be bad for me either.’
However, for the other works, he listened to as many of the provided sound sources as possible before making his decision.
“For now, I’ll proceed in a positive direction with these 6 songs. As for the rest…”
“I’ll think about them after listening a bit more, Ailee.”
“Understood. I’ll send the sound sources to Su-hyeok’s side. Still, there isn’t much time, so please decide as quickly as possible.”
Out of the numerous sound sources, the songs he had chosen were 6.
Considering the number of tracks that filled the list, it wasn’t a small number, but when thinking about the given periods, it wasn’t exactly small either.
He had even left room for the remaining songs.
It was a decision that was essentially the same as him personally extending the already tight schedule he was experiencing while filming Project Trinity.
But there was a reason he had no choice but to do so right now.
“And next…”
Ailee’s hand suddenly entered his field of vision and operated the tablet.
What appeared was the reason he had no choice but to accept participation in so many OSTs.
“It’s requests for award ceremony participation. Music On Artist Music Awards, Golden Disc, Seoul Music Awards. Quite a few other schedule checks have come in as well.”
Of course, what Ailee was talking about was slightly different from what he was looking at.
What he was focused on wasn’t this year’s award ceremonies asking if he could participate right away, but next year’s.
‘Daesang… I’ll have to aim for it next year, right?’
It had been a year in which quite a lot had changed, but some things remained the same.
This year as well, Lee Ahjeong was standing firm like a great mountain with her masterpiece ‘Aejeongun’.
Shooting Star, Blue Poem, and the most recent Holic had achieved fairly decent results.
‘At best, maybe the Rookie Award. If I go a bit further, perhaps the Best Male Singer Award?’
If he broadened the scope, the Producer Award might also come within range, but the Daesang was still out of reach.
However, he had no intention of stepping back like this next year either.
‘Minimize the break period. If possible, make sure my name doesn’t disappear from the charts.’
No matter who he was, it was close to impossible to self-supply songs he would sing throughout the entire year.
In that case, he had to accept as many songs as possible that people wanted to give him.
Of course, not all of those songs could become Daesang candidates, but they would at least serve as solid stepping stones toward that goal.
“If you’re not really interested in any of them, please tell me now. We’ll coordinate it well.”
But an unexpected question came back.
For a brief moment, the doubt ‘Even MyWay can show this much boldness?’ rose in his mind.
“No. I have to participate. I definitely have to go.”
Since there was no room for hesitation from the start, he cut off the budding question entirely, intending not to think about it at all.
He was confident he could prevent them from giving and taking away awards based on participation like before his regression,
‘There’s no need to create unnecessary enemies and take a difficult detour.’
Unless it was after solving the homework Zia had set as a condition for marriage, there was no reason to do so now.
“Then I’ll let them know to proceed positively with that side as well. Wow, time has already passed like this.”
While he was thinking that, Ailee, who had retrieved the tablet, spoke and stood up from her seat.
Perhaps because the volume of sound sources had been so large, the generous amount of time he had set aside had flowed by rather tightly.
“Then good luck with today’s filming as well.”
“Yes. Ailee, you too, work hard today.”
In that way, they wished each other success for the day, and he also ended his long-awaited moment of leisure.
He never harbored the bad thought that ‘It would have been perfect if this encouragement had come from Zia.’
***
‘Well, Zia must be busy right now too.’
Unlike the news of Madam Cho Soon-deok’s comeback, which had been plastered all over the media, the news of her contract with BNW did not surface outwardly.
It had been at the person herself’s request.
‘That name value won’t only bring good influence to Zia.’
The question of which actor had been chosen by the great senior was still a sweet source of views for reporters.
With only Lee Ahjeong and Zia as the actors currently belonging to BNW, they probably judged that there was no need to throw Zia into the middle of that wild savanna for no reason.
In that sense, Zia was quite lucky.
No matter how much of a great senior Cho Soon-deok was, someone whose mere comeback announcement became a topic, it was never easy to hold the reins of the media to that degree.
There had been a long-legged uncle — no, aunt — who had appeared in that situation.
‘Vice President… no, Aunt.’
The business giant who had willingly extended her influence from the shadows, using the logic that since he had promised a future with Zia, he was also a nephew by that same logic.
Even Madam Cho Soon-deok herself, who had first brought up the plan, must have been quite surprised, but there was no way for him to know that far.
Anyway, Zia had begun walking the royal road toward her acting career, riding the currents flowing in from different directions.
Right now, she was receiving lessons on how to pick good works from the mountain of scripts pouring in from all directions toward Cho Soon-deok’s name.
‘Calling it thanks feels a bit much.’
Because of Ryu Je-hoon’s order that had made him busy, it had already been several days since he had properly faced Zia.
He could only call it self-inflicted.
He had never hoped to become this busy so soon, but it was he who had pushed Zia onto that path.
[Zia♥ : Today is the stage filming, right?]
[Zia♥ : You’ll be able to get 1st place this time too]
[Zia♥ : I’ll definitely vote]
[Zia♥ : Work hard today too!]
[Zia♥ : (emoticon of a bear waving a light stick)]
For now, he could only be satisfied with these texts flying in through the messenger.
Still, he thought things might get a little better once Project Trinity ended…
“Team Leader Han Yujin, we’ll start filming now.”
At the staff member’s voice that came at a bad timing, he put away his phone and stood up.
And on the stage he headed to, he discovered a peculiarity he hadn’t noticed during rehearsal.
No, he couldn’t help but discover it.
Because behind Ryu Je-hoon, who had been waiting for the five teams at the edge of the stage, a pitch-black wave was surging.
Of course, it wasn’t a real wave.
What had replaced the originally empty audience seats was a massive curtain made of velvet material that evoked a pitch-black wave.
‘So that was it.’
And only then did he realize what Ryu Je-hoon’s purpose had been.
When he subtly looked around, he could see a few others who had realized the same thing.
Naturally the team leaders including Heo Yul-bok, and about two of the participant kids as well.
He saw Nari, one of those two, trying to give some signal to the kids, but the attempt was foiled by Ryu Je-hoon’s voice flowing through the microphone.
“Alright, everyone. This is finally the 5th stage of Project Trinity. Hasn’t it been really hard singing while looking at the empty audience seats all this time? But you all have to show your charm in front of numerous members of the public. So today, right before the final stage, we have invited special guests who will become a special experience for you.”
For a moment, question marks appeared on the kids’ faces.
“Huh?”
As if that dazed exclamation from someone was the signal, the black wave split apart.
And breaking through the spotlight leaking through that gap,
““Waaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!!!!!!!!””
A heavy cheer that made one wonder how they had held it in until now poured back.
“Let me introduce the guests specially invited for today’s stage.”
Was there even any need to introduce them?
In this Republic of Korea, there probably weren’t many whose identity was revealed so clearly with their entire body.
“With gratitude for protecting the daily lives in which you can run toward your dreams. The long-awaited 5th stage of Project Trinity will be held together with the soldiers of the Republic of Korea Armed Forces!”
Beyond the splitting black wave, a deep green and brown wave was rushing in.
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