WeTried Translations
Translator/Editor: Potter
Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried
◈ My Fired Uncle Is a Genius Guitarist? ◈
Chapter 25: RUN
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“Uncle, what’s that?”
At Yun Taerin’s voice, Bae Somi and Cha Sion turned to look at me as well. Instead of answering, I laid the structured black guitar case slung over my shoulder on the floor. The three of them clustered around it.
“Hey, make some room.”
When I unzipped the case, a Fender Stratocaster with tiny scratches around its pickguard emerged beneath the fluorescent lights in all its glory.
“Oh? It’s a Fender?”
Cha Sion recognized it first. Yun Taerin raised her voice, looking between the guitar and me.
“Wow, Uncle! Did you buy this? Aren’t Fenders super expensive? Where did you get the money?”
“I paid 170,000 won.”
“Come on, don’t lie. How could a Fender cost 170,000 won? Is it from Temu?”
“It’s not from Temu. It’s a real Fender.”
Yun Taerin stared down at the guitar suspiciously. Squatting beside her, Cha Sion silently examined the scratches on the body and the neck, then tilted her head.
“...It’s not a 170,000-won guitar.”
“It was broken. It made no sound at all when plugged into an amp, so it was being sold for parts.”
“Huh? Then why did you buy it? It didn’t even make sound.”
“Because I could fix it.”
“Y-you know how to fix it...?”
“I already did. One wire had come loose.”
As if they had planned it, the three of them looked back and forth between me and the guitar. Well, it was hardly the first time I had gotten looks like that.
“So it makes sound now? Did you try it?”
“Only through headphones. I haven’t plugged it into an amp yet.”
“What? Then hurry up and plug it in!”
Giving in to their urging, I took out the guitar and strapped it on. I plugged the cable into the amp, turned up the volume knob, then lightly brushed all six strings with my bare hand, without a pick.
Clang!
A sharp, full-bodied sound sliced through the rehearsal room in an instant. Its texture was fundamentally different from the old Cort that had been worked to death until yesterday. Cha Sion’s shoulders stiffened, and Yun Taerin and Bae Somi’s eyes widened.
‘Yes. This is it.’
When I lowered the volume knob halfway, the sound faded cleanly without turning muddy. It gave exactly as much as my hands asked of it. This was the first proper instrument I had held in this world.
“...It sounds different.”
Cha Sion spoke first. As if entranced, she stepped closer.
“Can I play it too?”
“During break. Don’t go snapping the strings.”
Beside her, Yun Taerin finally started making a fuss.
“It’s an amazing guitar! It wasn’t really 170,000 won, was it? Tell us the truth!”
“It was 170,000 won. 190,000 including the parts.”
“That makes no sense...”
“Enough. Finish getting set up. We have a lot to do today.”
As I took my place in front of the amp, Cha Sion quietly approached. She held out an old spiral notebook.
“The lyrics.”
“Let’s see.”
As I took the notebook, I remembered Sunday. I had clearly pointed out only two lines where the phrasing felt awkward and told her to fix them. Naturally, I assumed she would have simply smoothed out those parts when I opened it.
‘...Huh?’
It was not just two lines. Over the crossed-out, rewritten marks, entirely new lyrics filled the page. The words, the sentences, the direction. Not a single letter from the last draft remained.
“This is completely different from before.”
“I just rewrote it.”
“Why?”
“I didn’t like it.”
It was the same indifferent answer as always. Rather than press her further, I looked back down at the notebook.
I read it carefully twice, from beginning to end.
‘This is much better.’
The previous draft had not been bad. But the lyrics she had pressed into the notebook today fit the song’s pace so perfectly that they would have been ready to burst out onstage right away.
“It’s good. We’re using this.”
“...Okay.”
“What’s the title?”
“RUN.”
I snapped the notebook shut and nodded. A title without any excess. It suited the song perfectly.
“You heard her. The song’s called RUN. Today, we’ll add the lyrics and go from start to finish.”
“Oh! Nice!”
“Sounds good!”
“Sion, you can do it, right?”
“Yes.”
Cha Sion flipped through the notebook once, then adjusted her guitar strap. It seemed she already had all the lyrics in her head.
“Let’s go. Yun Taerin, count us in.”
“One, two, three, four!”
The first riff struck out sharply. The new guitar’s sound cut through the rehearsal room, followed by the drums and bass. Then came the first verse.
“It was easy to walk the path laid out for me
I didn’t even need to know where I was going”
The moment lyrics settled over the melody I had only heard hummed before, the song’s image took shape.
“I thought I only had to follow
The lines someone else had drawn”
Cha Sion’s voice landed precisely on top of the racing performance. Even as she poured the words out quickly, not a single syllable was blurred.
“But this time
There’s somewhere I want to go”
For a moment, every sound but the drums stopped as planned. It was the space left open for Yun Taerin to let loose during the finals.
Dudududu!
The fill tore through the empty space and opened the way, and the song came pouring into the chorus.
“Run my way
In the direction I chose
So what if I go a little wrong?
Run my way
Wherever it ends is fine
This time, I’ll decide”
Yun Taerin’s drums drove forward at full speed from behind, while Bae Somi’s bass held up the foundation beneath them. The song had finally found its course.
“Faster
Farther
Even if someone tells me to stop
Just let me run”
At the end of the chorus, my guitar filled the two-bar gap where Cha Sion’s guitar was meant to rest. The sound stretched out much more easily than when I had forced it from the Cort.
‘Right. This was what the song needed.’
When I had left it buried in a drawer, it had been no more than an exciting song. But with that girl’s voice and lyrics laid over it, the song had finally begun to run. Without looking back, only forward.
As the final resonance faded, rough breathing filled the cramped rehearsal room. Yun Taerin was the one to break the brief silence, as expected.
“That’s insane! With lyrics, it’s a completely different song!”
“The song is the same. The lyrics completed it.”
“If we do this in the finals, it’s going to cause a real stir.”
“I-I got chills...”
Bae Somi said, rubbing her arms. Cha Sion silently picked up her water bottle, but she could not hide her excitement.
“Wait. Let’s fix one thing.”
“What now?”
“The ‘Run my way’ part of the chorus. Sion won’t sing that.”
Cha Sion’s brow furrowed.
“Why?”
“The three of us will shout it. It’ll hit harder if we yell it together. You come in from the next line.”
“...All right.”
“I get to shout too? Really?”
“Shout.”
“M-me too?”
“You too.”
Excited, Yun Taerin yanked the microphone stand toward her stool. Bae Somi shyly brought the microphone standing in the corner by the amp to her mouth.
“Let’s try it again. From the chorus.”
At my signal, the accompaniment raced off again. Soon, the promised timing arrived.
“Run my way!”
Yun Taerin’s voice burst from the speaker, loud enough to tear it apart. She seemed to be shouting because she was excited, but her pitch had already flown off to Andromeda. Bae Somi’s voice was timid and fading away, and she was slightly off the beat too.
Then a voice burst from my microphone.
“Run my way!”
A deep, rough voice, surprising even to me, cut through the sound.
As soon as we stopped playing, Cha Sion stared at me in disbelief.
“Your voice is the loudest, Mister.”
“In rock, whoever has the loudest voice wins.”
“Taerin didn’t have any pitch.”
“Hey! What pitch do you need when you’re shouting?”
“I-I think you still need some...?”
I stopped their snickering with a single clap.
“Let’s sort this out. Forget pitch for now and match your volume first. Taerin, shout at exactly half the volume you just did. Somi, double yours. And timing. The three of us need to hit the beat together exactly for it to explode. If we all do our own thing, it’ll just be a total mess.”
“D-double...”
“Even doubled, you won’t be a quarter as loud as Taerin. Don’t be scared. Shout.”
“Let’s go again!”
The second try felt empty because Yun Taerin had lowered her volume, and only on the third did their voices finally come together as one.
“Run my way!”
Three voices burst as a single mass, and Cha Sion’s singing took over and raced across them. Bae Somi’s voice was still the quietest of the three, but this time she was properly on beat. Even Cha Sion, standing at the microphone, merely nodded instead of raising an objection.
Watching them from behind, I could not help smiling.
‘Right. This is what being in a band feels like.’
For a moment, I remembered the days when I had first joined Muri and practiced with them, but I shook my head and brushed the thought away.
While everyone took a sip of water, I walked to the center of the rehearsal room.
“One more thing.”
“Agaain? Why is there so much today?”
“We’re working out the blocking for the stage.”
“Moving around? While we’re playing?”
Yun Taerin tilted her head from her stool.
“You could tell from playing it just now, but RUN is a song that races from beginning to end. It’s not shoegazing. If we just stand stiffly as though our feet are glued to the floor and play, the audience will have a great time, right?”
“The audience...”
Bae Somi’s face instantly went pale. Pretending not to notice, I continued.
“Your basic positions stay the same. But during the chorus, Somi and I move to either side of Sion’s microphone. We shout ‘Run my way’ together there, then go back to our positions when it’s over. During the instrumental break, I’ll step forward once. Taerin, you can’t move because you’re on drums, so move your upper body. Like you always do.”
“Okay! But can we do that? Move around while playing?”
“Of course we can. Why wouldn’t we?”
With the guitar strapped on, I lightly picked out the riff as I darted toward Cha Sion’s microphone, then stepped back into place in two steps. Then I did it again. Forward, then back.
“...Whew.”
“Uncle, are you already out of breath?”
“That’s because I was demonstrating. In the real thing, I’ll be flying around.”
“You’re panting after running four steps?”
“Quiet.”
‘In my past life, I ran around 50,000-seat stadiums while playing solos. It’s just that this body is different. The body.’
I sent the snickering girls back to their places, then ran through the song from the beginning again with the blocking added.
The first attempt was a complete mess. Bae Somi lost the beat while moving toward the microphone, and I moved back too late and blocked Cha Sion’s view. The second was better, and by the third, a fairly convincing shape had formed. Each chorus, the three of us gathered in front of the microphone and scattered again, making something that looked properly stage-worthy.
By the time the studio rental ended, everyone was drenched in sweat from forehead to back.
“Today really felt like we were performing! I wish the finals would come already!”
“I-I don’t think I’m ready yet...”
“Just do what we practiced. Get used to your own parts, and we’ll put it together again on Saturday.”
“On Saturday, we’re going from start to finish like it’s the real thing, right?”
“Yeah. Come thinking of it as a rehearsal.”
“T-then should we wear the outfits we’ll wear then too...?”
“Well, it would be nice if you did.”
“...”
Pretending not to notice Bae Somi’s ashen face, I laid the Fender back in its case. Surely she would not really come to the rehearsal room dressed like that.
#
At around the same time, the guitar had just fallen silent in Kwon Jaemin’s room.
Sitting on the edge of the bed, Park Taegeon finished the final riff he had been scraping out unplugged and set down his pick. Kwon Jaemin, seated at the desk, quietly studied the project file on his laptop screen.
They had made the song in this room over the past week. Park Taegeon had written the riff, and the two of them had put together its structure while arguing every night. A pile of papers, covered in hastily scribbled chord progressions before being crumpled and thrown aside, had accumulated in one corner of the desk.
“This should be enough.”
Park Taegeon set the guitar on his lap with a satisfied expression. He seemed quite pleased with the riff he had just made.
But Kwon Jaemin did not answer immediately. His gaze remained fixed on the laptop monitor behind his glasses. Only after listening to the demo from beginning to end once more did he speak.
“No.”
Park Taegeon’s brow creased.
“...What isn’t?”
“I think they’ll bring a better song than this.”
The air in the room turned cold.
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