WeTried Translations
Translator/Editor: Potter
Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried
◈ My Fired Uncle Is a Genius Guitarist? ◈
Chapter 18: I Almost Didn't Recognize You
──────
The unread 1 disappeared, immediately replaced by a reply.
Yun Taerin> ????
Yun Taerin> What's One Dragon?
Yun Taerin> Il-yong?
Yun Taerin> Did you make that up, Mister?
< It's my stage name. Put that down.
Yun Taerin> Wait a second
The screen fell quiet. About thirty seconds later, a group chat notification went off.
Yun Taerin> (Screenshot)
Yun Taerin> Hey, it's Mister's stage name lol
Yun Taerin> One Dragon lol
Cha Sion> It's tacky.
Yun Taerin> Right?? What's Il-yong supposed to be lol
Bae Somi> I-I think it's okay......
Bae Somi> No, it isn't.
Yun Taerin> Uncle Il-yong lol
< It's not Il-yong, it's Han Yong!!!
Yun Taerin> Ah, that's hilarious. Il-yong lol
My hand tightened around the phone before I realized it.
‘Do they know how far I went with that name?’
It had been plastered across stadium screens, featured on international magazine covers, and appeared in the first line of every critic's review. Who would have thought that name would be reduced to something like “Il-yong” in a group chat of high school girls?
Of course, I could not tell them the truth. If I did, I would just go from Uncle Il-yong to Crazy Uncle.
< If you hate it, come up with one yourselves.
Yun Taerin> Huh? We can do that?
Cha Sion> ......
Bae Somi> I think this one is okay too.
< Then let's just use it.
Yun Taerin> OK Uncle Il-yong
Cha Sion> But why is it in English?
< I need to hide my identity. If the company finds out, there'll be trouble.
Cha Sion> Is that so?
Yun Taerin> One Dragon lol One dragon lol
Yun Taerin> Oh, but they said we have to submit your real name and age to the competition anyway. This name will be on the video and member list.
Yun Taerin> And they said we have to use the competition's amp. The drums too. We only need to bring a guitar.
I nodded lightly as I read the last line.
‘As long as there's an amp, that's enough.’
#
That Saturday, as soon as we had finished setting up our instruments, I spoke first.
“We're meeting on weekday evenings next week too.”
“Weekdays?”
“It's the week before the Main Round. Do you think these two days will be enough?”
“You're coming straight here after work, Mister?”
“I'll have to run here.”
“If you run here from work, will you even have the strength left to play guitar when you arrive?”
“I'll manage.”
Yun Taerin tapped her head with a drumstick. After doing the math in her head, she soon nodded.
“I don't mind. What about you, Somi?”
“I'm fine too.”
“Cha Sion?”
“......If you tell me to come, I'll come.”
Tell her to come, and she came. Tell her to sing, and she sang. Her answers were always like that, but she had never missed a session even once.
As I took out my guitar and plugged it into the amp, Yun Taerin suddenly asked,
“But Mister, you don't have an effects unit.”
“Nope.”
“Won't the sound be weak if you just plug into the competition amp? In Noise Line's video, the guitar sound was really thick.”
It was a reasonable concern. Still, that thick sound did not necessarily come from pedals alone.
“Come listen.”
I selected the amp's drive channel and turned the gain knob up high. Then I rolled the volume knob on my old guitar down below halfway.
Zing.
When I picked lightly, a clean tone without a hint of distortion flowed from the amp. Yun Taerin blinked.
This time, I tightened my grip on the pick and struck the strings hard.
Klang.
Even with the same amp settings, the sound broke up sharply into distortion. Then I pushed the guitar's volume knob all the way up and scraped the strings again. A heavy, rough sound that filled the room burst from the amp. Yun Taerin reflexively covered her ears.
Then I eased the strength in my right hand just a little. The distorted sound turned clear again.
“......Huh?”
Yun Taerin slowly lowered her hands.
“Did you step on something just now?”
“My feet didn't move. Look.”
“Then what did you change it with?”
“This.”
I tapped the guitar's volume knob with my finger.
“And this.”
I held up my right hand.
“If you set the amp to distort beforehand, turning down the guitar volume makes it clean. Turn it up, and it distorts. Hit hard, and it breaks up. Pick lightly, and it stays clean. I'm doing with my hands what pedals do.”
Cha Sion's eyes widened.
“You can do that without pedals?”
“As long as the amp works properly, you can do this much.”
“Then why don't you buy an effects unit?”
“I don't have the money.”
“Oh.”
Yun Taerin did not ask any more questions. Bae Somi held her bass and stared at my right hand.
“Mister...... Can I do that too?”
“Bass is different. First, fix the way you shrink up.”
“......Okay.”
“But we don't know what kind of amp they'll have at the competition. What if it's a different one?”
Yun Taerin asked. It was a good question.
“That's why this method works. With pedals, you'd have to redo your settings whenever the amp changed. With this, you only need to roughly set the amp gain, then adjust the rest with your hands. It'll take thirty seconds once we're onstage.”
“You can do it in thirty seconds?”
“If not, one minute.”
“Sometimes you say terrifying things like they're nothing.”
“The truly terrifying thing would be if the competition amp is broken.”
“Then what?”
“That's the organizers' responsibility.”
‘In my previous life, I had more than ten pedals at my feet.’
Now I had one knob. Still, what worked, worked. This was not a song that would win with flashy sounds anyway.
After the tone demonstration, we immediately refined the arrangement details.
“Cha Sion, right before the chorus. I won't play anything there. It'll be just your voice.”
“......The guitar drops out there?”
“Yeah. Break through with your voice.”
It was an arrangement that stripped away unnecessary playing and brought the texture of Cha Sion's voice to the front as a weapon. She looked briefly flustered, but once we played together, the commanding power in her vocals came alive even more.
Then Yun Taerin raised her hand.
“But Mister.”
“What?”
“That fill. You said I should play it the original way in the Main Round.”
I thought for a moment. I immediately knew what she meant.
“The one we cut from Fall?”
“Yeah. Now that it's the Main Round, shouldn't I play it?”
“That's Fall's fill. We aren't playing that song.”
“......Oh.”
“This song doesn't have a fill. I told you your offbeat is the heart of it.”
“I know. But still.”
Yun Taerin lightly rubbed the tip of her stick against the snare.
“It feels like a waste. I practiced that really hard.”
“Play it when we make the finals.”
“......The finals.”
Yun Taerin lifted her head. The corners of her mouth slowly rose.
“Of course we're making it.”
Our goal for this first round was settled.
Over rehearsals that day and Sunday, Cha Sion completely made the lyrics she had written her own. Yun Taerin's offbeat had also firmly settled into place as the heart of the song.
Bae Somi, on the other hand, once again made her sound small and muddy in the empty space before the second verse. I had not expected her to become perfect right away. I calmly accepted that we would not be able to fix that habit before the Main Round.
#
On Monday and Tuesday, I literally ran. Whenever I opened the rehearsal room door, Yun Taerin asked first,
“Did you really run here?”
She was clearly asking just to tease me, so I deliberately did not answer. It took five minutes for me to catch my breath, then we spent the next two hours running through just one song.
On Wednesday, as I went down the subway stairs after work, my phone rang.
Yun Taerin> Mister, we have somewhere to go today, so we can't practice.
Yun Taerin> See you tomorrow.
< Where are you going?
Yun Taerin> Secret lol
< Don't stay out too late.
Yun Taerin> Are you our mom?
Yun Taerin> See you tomorrow, Uncle Il-yong.
‘Is something happening at school?’
I did not press them for details. We were already past the point where a single day of rest could ruin our rehearsal momentum.
As soon as I got back to my studio apartment, I spread a towel on the floor and laid my guitar down. I removed all the old strings and put on a new set I had bought in bulk. After fitting the new strings, I stretched them by hand to break them in so the tuning would not slip easily. Otherwise, the tuning would come loose onstage. It did not cost anything. It was simply a basic habit my hands knew on their own.
I tightened the loose tuning peg screws and checked the truss rod with a wrench. Fortunately, the neck was still holding straight.
‘It's still hanging in there.’
I knew there had been comments saying the pitch in the Preliminary Round video was slightly flat. This was a guitar I would have to replace someday. Just not now. I had no money for a replacement, and the places I had patched up were still holding. I was going into the Main Round with this guitar.
I stood the guitar up and opened my wardrobe. I pulled a black cap from a drawer and tugged it low over my head, then covered half my face with a black mask.
I stared quietly at my reflection in the mirror. I looked suspicious.
Anyone could tell I was trying hard to hide my identity. If I added the dark outerwear I normally wore to work, I would look less like I was going onstage and more like I was there to rob a bank.
I opened the wardrobe door and rummaged around inside. In one corner, I spotted a bright red lightweight puffer jacket. I had never worn it to work, and I could not even remember when or why I had bought it.
‘Was I a red fanatic?’
I vaguely remembered buying it. I did not remember why. The color was so flashy that I had never once worn it to work.
‘It's a stage outfit. It doesn't matter if it stands out.’
I took out the jacket and put it on. With the cap low and the mask up, I looked in the mirror again.
I still looked suspicious, but less suspicious than when I wore black. In a way, I even seemed to give off a strangely striking presence.
Good. Approved.
I took off the puffer jacket, draped it over a chair, and picked up my guitar again. In the room without an amp, I relaxed my right hand and ran through the riff a few times unplugged.
It did not matter. I only had to make the sound onstage. My hands were already ready.
From the next day on, rehearsal continued. Thursday, Friday. Cha Sion's voice grew stronger by the day, and Yun Taerin's offbeat had settled into her body so completely that she could probably play it in her sleep.
But Bae Somi stayed the same until the end.
#
On Saturday morning, just before heading out with my guitar case over my shoulder, my phone rang.
Yun Taerin> Mister, we have somewhere to stop by first.
Yun Taerin> Go ahead without us.
‘Another secret?’
I sent a short reply.
< Just don't be late.
The venue was bigger than I had expected. The lobby was crowded with all kinds of bands. People dragging cases, people tuning while leaning against walls, teams wearing matching T-shirts. Among the mix of college-band and office-worker-band energy, there were more than a few teams that had clearly spent serious money. Every equipment case they carried was thick and sturdy.
A large man in a bright red puffer jacket, black cap, and mask walked through them with a shabby guitar case over his shoulder.
A few strange glances brushed over me. They did not linger. I looked odd, but not odd enough for anyone to care.
‘Yeah. That's good enough.’
When I approached the registration desk, a staff member flipped through the roster and asked,
“Team name?”
“Black Rabbit.”
“Black Rabbit...... There are four of you, right? Where are the others?”
“They'll be here soon.”
“Your name is...... One Dragon?”
For a moment, I could not speak. How long had it been since someone had called me by that name? At least in this world, it was the first time.
“Yes.”
“That's an unusual name. You can wait in the waiting hall on the second floor. Please move beside the stage two teams before your turn.”
The staff member did not ask anything else. It was just an unusual alias to them. That was right. Here, that name only carried that much weight.
The waiting hall on the second floor was a large rehearsal studio that had been completely cleared out. Each team had claimed an area along the walls and unpacked their things. The sounds of tuning, drumsticks tapping against the floor, and people quietly warming up their voices blended into a mess. I set down my case in an empty corner and unfolded a chair.
I pulled my mask down slightly below my nose and drank some water. The second hand on the wall clock moved unusually slowly.
I opened the case and took out my guitar. I had tuned it at home, but checked it once more. The strings I had stretched on Wednesday were still holding. Equipment cases passing around me caught my eye. Unlike my thin fabric gig bag, they were all neatly shaped hard cases. I did not need to open them to know what was inside.
‘Just because they brought better guitars doesn't mean my sound gets worse.’
Still, I kept my case closed. There was no reason to invite comparisons.
“Hey, Noise Line is here.”
“Oh! Let's go look. Aren't they supposed to be the strongest candidates to win?”
Someone's chatter from the other side of the hall passed by my ears. They were the band Assistant Manager Kim had praised to the skies during the Preliminary Round. But I did not bother turning my head.
Not long after, three people walked into the hall.
For a moment, I almost did not recognize them.
They were dressed in black. Top to bottom. Matching stage outfits that stood out at a glance. Their hair had been sleekly styled, and even their makeup, planned for the lighting, was flawless. They looked like a rookie band that had just finished getting styled at an agency and wandered into the wrong place.
Yun Taerin looked cool, just as Yun Taerin would, and Cha Sion drew attention even standing still, so neither surprised me.
The problem was that my eyes stopped dead on Bae Somi.
The girl who always hunched her shoulders and stared at the floor was standing there with her bass, wearing a bold all-black outfit and styled hair. She looked like a completely different person.
“Mister...... Have you been waiting long?”
Her voice was the same as always. So were her cautious, unsteady eyes. Only the clothes around her had changed.
‘Is that really Bae Somi?’
As I swallowed a hollow laugh, Yun Taerin strode over and looked me up and down.
“Mister, why are you the only one in red again?”
Footnotes:
“Il-yong” (일용) literally means “one dragon” and also sounds like a Korean given name, which is why Han Yong protests that it is not his name.
Join our discord at https://dsc.gg/wetried
