“Ye-rin?”
“…Yes? Did you call me?”
At the sound of someone calling her name, Baek Ye-rin looked up absentmindedly at the person who had called her.
Seeing her daughter so obviously out of it, unlike her usual self, Lee Yeon-hee asked with a worried expression.
“Something’s troubling you, isn’t it? Can I ask which side it belongs to?”
At Lee Yeon-hee’s words, Baek Ye-rin suddenly recalled an old memory.
Whenever something was wrong, her mother would notice right away and ask her this same question.
The explanation that if it was something you could share with others, it was a worry, but if it was something you couldn’t confide, then it was a secret.
Strangely enough, Baek Ye-rin always answered that it was a worry to this question.
…It was hard to explain.
It felt like even secrets she didn’t want to share with anyone else became worries in front of her mother.
But this time…
“It could be a worry or a secret, I guess.”
It was somewhat ambiguous.
Currently, Baek Ye-rin’s mind was filled with a certain song.
She kept thinking about how to interpret that song and what kind of emotion to imbue it with as she sang.
And there was only one person in the world that Baek Ye-rin could open her heart to right now.
Therefore, she had called it a worry, and at the same time, since it was something she could only confide to that one person, it was also a secret.
One thing was certain.
“But it’s a secret from Mom.”
At least, that person wasn’t Lee Yeon-hee.
With Baek Ye-rin replying firmly, Lee Yeon-hee opened her eyes wide in slight surprise.
And with a wry smile, she said:
“I really would like to hear it eventually. Hmm… Am I the kind of mom who is too interested in her daughter?”
“No, I think it’s fine. Ah, in that aspect, I think I resemble you, Mom.”
Baek Ye-rin smiled faintly.
There was no falseness in that smile.
Baek Ye-rin’s first concert was set for the following Sunday.
“We were lucky. The subcontractor was initially shocked by the two-week deadline, but then they asked whose concert it was.”
At this, Kang Beom-jun, listening to the words of Cha Min-seok, the head of the management support department, smiled faintly.
“If they found out it was Ye-rin’s first concert, did they agree without hesitation?”
“Exactly.”
Of course, the location for the concert was set to be the Daehan Indoor Arena.
With nearly 10,000 seats, ideally they had wanted to rent a larger venue, but unfortunately time was too short, so it was a compromise.
At that moment, Cha Min-seok, noticing the guitar lying next to Kang Beom-jun, asked curiously:
“Why did you suddenly pull out the guitar?”
“Ah, Ryu Won asked me a favor. On the day of the performance, when Ye-rin sings the last song, he wants me to surprise the audience by appearing as a guest and playing guitar accompaniment.”
“Ho… That does sound like a pretty interesting arrangement. So, how was the new song of those two?”
At Cha Min-seok’s inquiry, Kang Beom-jun grinned and replied simply:
“You’ll definitely need a tissue when you hear the song.”
Meanwhile,
With about ten days left until the concert, Baek Ye-rin and Ryu Won were deep into practice.
However, their “practice” didn’t involve singing at all.
Indeed, it was a paradoxical situation.
But they were giving their best effort each in their own way.
“Are you okay?”
“Yeah… Still not easy.”
Ryu Won asked, to which Baek Ye-rin, catching her breath with difficulty, replied.
She was sitting there, trying to calm her emotions.
To be precise, she was attempting to “restrain” her emotions in preparation for singing.
Ryu Won’s songs possessed a mysterious power that stirred the emotions of the listener, but this time, as Baek Ye-rin felt, it was especially potent.
Every time she tried to control her emotions, she only got caught up in them and felt like tears would spill out. Her voice wouldn’t come out properly either.
It made her consider whether she should just go all out with extreme emotion while singing.
“You’d better cry then.”
“But there are artists who sing while crying on stage, right? As long as it’s not excessive wailing, shouldn’t it be okay?”
“Are you sure you won’t overdo it?”
…She wasn’t.
That’s why this particular piece Ryu Won had given her felt harder than any other.
The more difficult it was, the more she had to concentrate solely on controlling her emotions.
In the first place, all Baek Ye-rin had to do was handle this aspect well.
“You don’t really need separate singing practice anyway.”
“Why?”
“Because you’re Baek Ye-rin.”
It was an extremely straightforward answer.
Baek Ye-rin had the talent to interpret any song.
Because she was a true genius, recognized even by the illustrious Ryu Won.
Especially since this song was personally composed by none other than Ryu Won himself,
and the lyrics were written directly by Baek Ye-rin,
there was no way she wouldn’t be able to sing it.
“And this song requires that your emotions fill it completely for it to be complete. But emotions tend to fade the more you use them, wearing thin. So it’s best, I think, to preserve everything for the day of the concert.”
“What about recording?”
“Ah… Now that you mention it, that does pose a problem. But I think it wouldn’t feel the same if we performed it after the concert…”
Ryu Won started weighing something seriously in his mind.
The quality of the audio and the impact of a live performance.
The former was an important issue for the composer, while the latter was crucial for Baek Ye-rin.
Thus naturally,
“Let’s record after the concert ends. Focus only on emotion control for now.”
The scales were bound to tilt one way instantly.
Ryu Won thought:
The reason he’d created this song was essentially for Baek Ye-rin and her mother alone.
So recording could wait.
But…
The boy thought simply. However, to the girl currently in front of him, every word felt entirely different.
And so,
“…Thank you.”
The girl quietly thanked the boy.
One week before Baek Ye-rin’s first concert.
Except for about 10,000 people, the world was filled with dissatisfaction.
[Shit… How is it possible that all seats sold out in just 30 seconds after ticketing began?]
└ I didn’t even manage to enter due to the waiting line ㅋㅋ
└ Same here, I entered right on time, but there were 600,000 people ahead of me in the waiting line.
└ It’s true, the site had 5 million concurrent visitors.
└ She’s better than just an ordinary national singer now ㅋㅋ
└ But seriously, RT Entertainment is doing an amazing job. Didn’t expect them to pull off a concert this quickly ㅇㅇ
└ Everything’s great, though the venue is slightly disappointing. They should’ve done it at a bigger place.
└ They should just do it at Jamsil Stadium. With the current situation, 100,000 seats might sell out completely.
└ How can a rookie who debuted this year possibly perform there? Please think before speaking.
└ But Baek Ye-rin isn’t just any rookie singer, right?
└ Kya~
[Real-time screenshot of the black market for Baek Ye-rin’s concert.]
└ Yeah. These days, not even a single black-market ticket is showing up.
└ Clean, clean ㅋㅋ
└ It’s her first concert. They’re probably curious too. If I were them, I wouldn’t be able to hold back.
└ Luckily, there’s live streaming. If they hadn’t provided that, there probably would’ve been a group protest in front of RT Entertainment’s headquarters.
Only 10,000 people who successfully bought tickets within a day considered themselves victors.
And amidst that atmosphere, there was someone who could watch Baek Ye-rin’s concert without the need to purchase a ticket.
Perhaps, if she conveyed her desire to watch the concert to RT Entertainment or her daughter, she would have been able to watch the concert live in some way.
But her…
No, Lee Yeon-hee, could not do that.
Lee Yeon-hee knows.
How bad her current condition is.
If we had to put it in words, she was like a time bomb that could explode at any moment.
This meant that during the concert, she might cause significant inconvenience to her daughter and the audience.
Therefore.
“The medical support team’s manpower has been doubled. One team will be assigned solely to you.”
Lee Yeon-hee could only blink her eyes at Ryu Won’s sudden declaration as she visited her alone.
Ryu Won continued:
“So, please come see Ye-rin’s concert. It will surely create beautiful memories.”
“But I heard all the seats are sold out…”
“Of course, a seat is reserved just for you.”
“Still, sitting there alone might be a little…”
“I’ll be watching with you, so please don’t worry too much.”
In the blink of an eye, Ryu Won erased all of Lee Yeon-hee’s worries.
Lee Yeon-hee could only respond with a faint smile.
It seemed like he came prepared to make sure she attended her daughter’s concert.
Through this, Lee Yeon-hee noticed something.
“I feel like there’s something you want to show me at the concert. It might be related to the secret Ye-rin hasn’t told me.”
“…”
Ryu Won remained silent.
It was because she was too perceptive, leaving him with nothing to say,
And while Ryu won paused, Lee Yeon-hee made her own decision.
In fact, the person who wanted to see her daughter’s concert live more than anyone else was Lee Yeon-hee.
She remembered.
The image of her daughter singing on the Music Save stage.
Even watching on TV, she found her daughter incredibly cool. She felt proud enough of that girl to brag about her being her daughter.
In that sense, she was curious.
How magnificent would her daughter be this time?
Lee Yeon-hee wanted to watch that moment by her daughter’s side.
Therefore,
“Since a famous composer is taking full responsibility, I guess I’ll go once.”
This was what Lee Yeon-hee said to the boy who seemed to have come to persuade her.
At that reply, the boy grinned and replied:
“Yes. I’ll take full responsibility.”
“Then Ye-rin too?”
“Of course. Since I made Ye-rin a singer, I’ll also take responsibility for that part.”
The boy answered like that, as if it were the most natural thing.
Lee Yeon-hee liked the look in the boy’s eyes.
There wasn’t an ounce of hesitation or falsehood in those eyes.
Only a strong will to move forward for a better future.
“Great. Approved.”
As they exchanged these words, the day of Baek Ye-rin’s first concert was drawing ever closer.
