WeTried Translations

Translator/Editor: Potter

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◈ My Fired Uncle Is a Genius Guitarist? ◈

Chapter 20: It Didn't Die This Time

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Kwon Jaemin of Noise Line stopped short as he came down the stage steps.

“Let’s watch for a minute.”

The next team was stepping into the spot they had occupied moments ago.

“Watch what? Let’s go.”

Park Taegeon said it without interest.

“Just a minute.”

Kwon Jaemin’s gaze was fixed on the vocalist walking toward the microphone. He had felt something off since the waiting hall. Maybe seeing them onstage would help him grasp it.

Park Taegeon yawned and gave the stage a cursory look. Then his gaze caught on one spot.

The man in the red padded jacket was taking a guitar out of its case.

Park Taegeon narrowed his eyes.

A black body with a white pickguard. A Cort G200. An old, cheap beginner guitar. The sort of thing gathering dust in the corner of an instrument shop or a music academy practice room these days. Even school bands used better gear now.

‘What does that man think a stage is?’

He had brought a guitar like that onto the Main Round stage.

“You can’t stand here. Please wait in the hall.”

A staff member came over and stopped the four of them. Kwon Jaemin looked back at the stage one more time before reluctantly moving on.

#

I checked the tuning one last time in front of the amp.

Behind me, the drum stool creaked. Then came the sound of the microphone stand being adjusted, followed by strings being plucked with fingertips that no longer trembled.

When I looked up, a microphone switched on at the judges’ table.

“Okay, Black Rabbit. If you’re done setting up, we’ll confirm a few things before you begin.”

The judge in the middle spoke as they flipped through the documents. Questions and answers exchanged through microphones in an audience-free venue. It felt more like an interview than a stage.

“Drums, Yun Taerin. Vocals, Cha Sion. Bass, Bae Somi... Guitar, Mr. One Dragon?”

“Yes.”

I answered briefly and raised a hand. It was best to save my voice.

“Your Main Round song is the original song you submitted, ‘Footsteps.’ Composed by One Dragon... Lyrics by Cha Sion? You’re the vocalist too?”

“...Yes.”

Cha Sion answered flatly into the microphone. Her expression was as indifferent as ever, but even from where I stood, I could clearly see the tips of her ears turning red.

“This is the first high school team today to bring an original song.”

The judge in the middle wrote something on the document. I could not tell whether it was an evaluation or just a note.

“Your team is called Black Rabbit, so did you all dress in black to match?”

“That’s right!”

The judges nodded at Yun Taerin’s spirited answer.

“And what’s your relationship to the team? The rest of them are all high school students.”

As I considered my answer, Yun Taerin quickly shouted from behind me.

“He’s our uncle!”

“Ah, their uncle. I see... Then why are you the only one in red? Were you trying to stand out?”

That hit a nerve. I had thought it would be fine to stand out a little onstage. But I could hardly nod and admit it.

When my silence stretched half a beat too long, someone beside the judge gave a quiet snort that went through the microphone.

“With that red mixed in, I guess you’re a dark-red rabbit?”

The judges’ table broke into soft snickering among themselves. Their laughter carried straight through the microphones to the stage.

‘Having fun? Of course you are. I’d laugh too if it were someone else.’

The judge held back a laugh and asked again.

“Then why are you wearing a mask?”

“My company can’t find out.”

“Ah... So you have a job.”

There was genuine sympathy in the middle judge’s voice. Since they did not press further, it probably was not an especially rare situation in this industry.

Only one judge, seated at the far end, was not smiling. With arms folded, he simply watched me with cold eyes. His gaze touched my eyes above the mask, then dropped to the floor by my feet.

“Guitarist.”

He spoke for the first time.

“I don’t see a pedalboard. Are you playing without effects?”

“Yes. Just the amp.”

A short silence followed. The far-end judge looked down. It was an unspoken signal that he would not ask any more.

“All right. Begin when you’re ready.”

As the signal came, I turned to look at the three girls. Yun Taerin adjusted her grip on her sticks. Cha Sion took half a step toward the microphone stand with her guitar in hand. Bae Somi took a deep breath.

“Just play it like we practiced.”

I said only that in a low voice and nodded. We did not need a long speech. We had done all the preparation we could in the practice room.

Yun Taerin raised her sticks.

“One, two, three, four!”

The first beat fell.

Tss, taka, tss-tss, tak.

An offbeat intro slid into place, smashing apart the steady beat.

The stage had been filled with a full-speed sprint moments ago. Drums and riffs that had driven forward without leaving room to breathe. With that lingering in the air, Yun Taerin’s offbeat rhythm landed half a beat off, yet perfectly precise.

But we were not running.

Instead, we began walking slowly with heavy steps. Steps with no reason to hurry. That was how “Footsteps” began.

Maybe because the seats were empty, the sound traveled far. It had a resonance we could never hear in the practice room.

Bae Somi’s bass laid itself beneath those steps, and my guitar settled on top. A tone with the volume dialed halfway down. There was no reason for the guitar to come forward here. The intro of this song was Yun Taerin’s footsteps and the low notes supporting them.

Cha Sion caught her breath before the microphone. Toward the dark, empty seats, a space with only three judges to receive her gaze, she sang the first line.

“I said I didn’t care.

It was going to end anyway.”

Her usual dry, detached texture suited the song. Because she did not dress it up, the lyrics struck the ear like ordinary words.

As I played, I kept listening. Whether Yun Taerin’s offbeat rhythm wavered. Whether Bae Somi’s low notes died away. Whether Cha Sion ran out of breath.

All three of them held on.

The first verse went as planned. Exactly as we had practiced dozens of times in the rehearsal room.

The problem came after that.

Right before the second verse. The drums dropped out, leaving only the bass.

That was where the sound always faded during practice. The part we had not overcome even the day before the Main Round. I knew it. Bae Somi knew it. The other two knew it too.

That moment came.

I glanced at Bae Somi.

Her posture was different from usual. She was not hunched over and taking half a step back toward Yun Taerin. Her back was straight, her head held high. Both feet were planted firmly on the stage floor.

Fishnet stockings showed beneath her black skirt, and a silver chain glittered at her waist under the stage lights. The timid high school girl was nowhere to be seen. Only an unfamiliar silhouette stood in her place, rough, dark, and carrying a fair amount of charisma.

Yun Taerin’s sticks stopped sharply.

The stage went quiet in an instant. In that vast space, only Bae Somi’s sound remained.

Thoom.

Her touch was slightly rough from the very first note. A blunt resonance.

But it did not die.

One note after another. It did not fade away or disappear. It traveled to the end of the room at full volume. On a line with nowhere to hide, Bae Somi did not run. She let the sound ring until the end.

Only a few measures. A few seconds the judges probably did not even notice.

But I knew what she had just overcome. The girl who had lived hidden behind her sound from the day we met was standing in the center of the stage now, holding her own sound steady.

Cha Sion turned her head slightly and looked at Bae Somi for just a moment. Bae Somi met her gaze.

They said nothing. They did not need to.

Cha Sion came in with the next lyric.

“I thought if I left first,

before I was left,

it wouldn’t hurt at all.”

The second verse began.

We walked again. With firmer steps than before. I matched those steps, gradually raising my own sound.

Then, right before the chorus.

I eased off my picking and slowly pulled the sound away. A planned exit could not look planned. The audience had to notice the guitar was gone only after it was gone.

I lifted my hand.

Just as we had prepared. The part where the guitar disappeared completely. Normally, the sound should have become thinner there. One instrument had left the band.

But it did not become thin.

Cha Sion’s voice swallowed the empty space and surged forward.

“The more I walk without looking back,

the louder my footsteps ring.”

Only drums and bass remained beneath her. With nothing to hide the vocals, her voice did not shrink. It grew inch by inch. There was no audience for her gaze, yet she stared straight into the dark seats and pushed her voice forward.

She had always been good in the practice room. But now, it was more than that. The whole stage was becoming hers.

‘So it wasn’t just cameras.’

It was not that a switch flipped only when camera lights came on. When a stage made room for her, she was simply the type to instinctively take that empty space and grow into it.

Then came the chorus.

I came back in.

#

The mood at the judges’ table changed around then.

Jeong Sehyuk had been leaning forward for a while. The vocalist had caught his eye first. Even when the guitar dropped out entirely, the stage did not feel empty. If anything, the vocalist alone filled every bit of that gap.

As the song moved into the chorus and the guitar came back in, Jeong Sehyuk’s attention shifted.

The sound was strange. More precisely, the way it changed was.

‘He said he was using only the amp...?’

When he had first heard that answer, he had not thought much of it. There were teams that simply used one drive channel and pushed through with it.

But now, the tone was changing freely. The half-closed sound of the verses opened up cleanly in the chorus. The change repeated countless times as the song progressed. Yet the guitarist’s feet had not moved even once.

Jeong Sehyuk’s gaze dropped again to the red padded jacket’s feet.

Just as he thought. There was nothing there.

Without a pedalboard, he was controlling all of that by hand. Jeong Sehyuk’s gaze moved back up. Fingers resting on the volume knob. The subtle changes in picking depth and strength from section to section.

For the first time, Jeong Sehyuk’s brow twitched.

Only then did the whole band come into view. The drums were leading the song with their own rhythm. The bass held its place without retreating. The vocalist did not collapse in the space left by the guitar, but grew larger. And the guitar rang only as much as it needed to, when it needed to.

The same guitar that had hidden outside the frame in the Preliminary Round video, leading the entire band forward.

Today, it was not leading.

Because it did not need to in this song.

It was not a flashy song. It was not a difficult one either. More than half the songs he had heard that day used techniques far flashier and more complicated than this.

But this song was different. The offbeat drums that ran forward, the bass that had to project with nowhere to hide, the vocals that grew stronger as the accompaniment fell away. Everything interlocked so carefully that the song could never be complete without those four people. The players were not being dragged along by the song. It fit the sounds of those three girls like perfectly tailored clothes.

And above all.

‘The song is so good.’

The producer in the middle could not take their eyes off the vocalist. Without realizing it, they were nodding along to the beat. They looked as though they had forgotten they were even judging.

The department head had completely pulled away from the backrest. The doubt from the Preliminary Round, whether someone who looked good on camera could work live, had vanished long ago. Now, they only wanted to know how the next line would burst out.

Jeong Sehyuk’s pen had stopped above the documents. Forgetting to score them, he had already become an audience member rather than a judge.

#

The chorus burst open.

Yun Taerin’s cymbal crashed like it was breaking apart, and Cha Sion’s voice rose with my guitar over it. The sound that had struck the cramped walls of the practice room filled a venue-sized space for the first time.

It was not good just because it was loud. It was good because all four of our sounds were headed in the same direction. No one was dragging the rest along. The four of us were taking the same steps.

In my previous life, I did not know how to make a sound like this. I had never even thought about making one.

The three girls were in my field of vision.

Yun Taerin was running on her own rhythm. Bae Somi did not take a single step back. Cha Sion stood at the front, sending her voice toward the dark seats.

I connected them.

That was enough.

The chorus ended, and the song entered its final lines. I pulled my sound away again and stepped back. Yun Taerin’s drums slowed their steps, Cha Sion’s voice lowered, and Bae Somi’s low notes supported everything to the end.

The song returned to its first footsteps. The final measure left only drums, low notes, and voice. Like footsteps walking, slowing, and finally stopping.

At last, the final note fell.

Silence.

There was no applause or cheering from the empty seats. We had known that when we stepped onstage, but the quiet after finishing still felt unfamiliar. The three judges had each lowered their eyes to their documents. From here, I could not see their expressions or what they were writing.

Yun Taerin panted through her shoulders, sticks still in hand. I could see her grin through the bangs stuck to her forehead. Cha Sion remained before the microphone with her guitar strapped on, her face still unable to leave the stage.

And then.

Vwoooom.

The lingering resonance of Bae Somi’s bass flowed from her amp, circling the stage and ringing stubbornly to the very end. A full, heavy sound she had not cut off or erased in fear.

I quietly listened to the last traces of that resonance as they slowly scattered into the air.

‘It didn’t die this time.’

Until the sound that had held on to the end completely disappeared.

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