WeTried Translations
Translator/Editor: Potter
Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried
◈ My Fired Uncle Is a Genius Guitarist? ◈
Chapter 7: What's With That Kid?
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“Are you going to quit after the competition?”
Cha Sion had finished coiling the cables and was staring at me. She looked like she wouldn’t move until she got an answer.
Honestly, I hadn’t decided yet either. I’d only taken this substitute position as rehabilitation for my stiff fingers. Recording the preliminary video and stepping onto the finals stage once was one thing, but I had no reason to keep playing in step with these kids after that.
“I don’t know. Let’s make it through the preliminaries first, then think about it.”
I sincerely put off my answer. There was no reason to give them false hope, but no reason to throw cold water on things either.
At my lukewarm answer, Cha Sion briefly lowered her gaze.
“...I was just asking.”
She left that one line behind and walked out without even saying goodbye. I stood there for a moment, one hand on the doorknob.
‘Yeah. What will I do when the competition is over?’
The life of an ordinary office worker who had left Muri. An overdrawn account and a 105 kg body. Over that reality came the lingering echo of the complete performance these kids had made on their own today. One question had lodged itself in a corner of my heart like a difficult assignment.
#
Saturday afternoon, the day of the long-awaited preliminary video shoot.
I spent quite a while agonizing in front of the full-length mirror in my studio apartment.
‘Half of a video is the picture.’
If I wanted to keep boasting to the kids about that, I had to set an example myself.
After much consideration, I chose an Oxford shirt buttoned up to the collar, plain jeans, and a red windbreaker that would brighten up the screen. The potbellied middle-aged man in the mirror looked reasonably neat and dependable.
I entered the rehearsal room in the basement of the shopping building with a satisfied smile.
“Oh, Uncle! Could you move this amp...?”
Yun Taerin, who was moving equipment, suddenly stopped talking. Her eyes traveled up and down me twice.
“...Uncle, what are you wearing? Are you joining a hiking club?”
“What? I put some thought into this.”
“You put thought into looking like that? You should have just worn the suits you usually wear.”
“Why would I wear a suit for a video shoot?”
“It’s better than hiking clothes!”
“It’s a windbreaker, not hiking clothes.”
“Same thing!”
Was it really that bad? I had worked hard to dress up, in my own way...
I knew the truth, though. I didn’t have even a speck of fashion sense.
Back when Muri was grinding it out in Hongdae basements in my previous life, Kang Taeo had forcibly stripped off my grimy clothes and put me in new ones. He told me not to get onstage looking like a beggar.
After the band got bigger, I wore only whatever the stylists handed me. I knew how to shape a guitar tone, but I’d spent my whole life leaving my appearance offstage in someone else’s hands. Looking at this body’s wardrobe, its owner had clearly thrown fashion away with his father’s hospital bills sixteen years ago.
Then the rehearsal room door opened, and Bae Somi came in.
“Ooh, Somi wore a skirt!”
Yun Taerin’s attention turned toward Bae Somi this time. As Taerin said, Somi was wearing a fairly neat short skirt instead of the baggy training pants she usually wore.
“I-I just... since we’re filming.”
Her voice still crawled along the floor, but she couldn’t hide the shy smile spreading across her lips. The timid girl who always stared at the ground had become bolder, starting with her appearance. It had to be a positive sign that would affect her playing too.
A little later, the door opened again. This time, it was Cha Sion.
“...Hey, Cha Sion! What is this?!”
Yun Taerin dropped the sticks she was holding, and Bae Somi stared at the entrance with round eyes.
Cha Sion stood at the end of their gazes.
She had let down the hair she usually swept up carelessly with an elastic band, and she wore ripped jeans that showed her knees. She wasn’t wearing anything particularly elaborate, but she gave off a completely different feeling from the Cha Sion of yesterday.
“Why did you let your hair down? And your clothes? You had clothes like that?”
“We’re filming today.”
Cha Sion cut off the conversation with that one line and set down her guitar case. Her expression was indifferent, as if it were nothing. But the tips of her ears were a little red.
“Did you put on makeup?”
“I-I only put on lip tint, okay?”
Cha Sion snapped at me. She seemed embarrassed.
‘That kid came prepared for how she’d look on camera.’
Rather than dressing up just to look pretty, she had clearly calculated how she needed to appear onscreen to make the video work. A pretty smart choice for an amateur.
“What? Why did everyone dress up? I’m the only one dressed normally!”
“You said you were just going to wear your usual clothes.”
“Uncle told us to do that!”
Yun Taerin, who had been protesting, suddenly pointed a drumstick at me. When all three girls’ eyes turned to my red windbreaker, I quietly cleared my throat.
“Ahem. What does clothing matter? As long as we don’t mess up the performance.”
“You said the picture was half of it! You said people decide within three seconds!”
“Enough. Warm up your hands. When is your aunt getting here?”
“She says she’s on her way. She’ll be here soon.”
Just as Yun Taerin said, the door soon opened with a clunk, and a woman entered with equipment bags in both hands.
It was my second-oldest sister, Lee Suyeon.
“Auntie!”
“Hello!”
Yun Taerin waved happily, and Bae Somi and Cha Sion bowed. My sister set down her things and caught her breath, then spotted me in the corner wrapping tape around my fingertips. Her brow furrowed.
“...Why are you here?”
“I’m the substitute. Didn’t you hear?”
“And what are you wearing? Didn’t you hear you were filming a video?”
“I did. That’s why I put some effort into getting dressed.”
“...That’s why you can’t date.”
“You have no room to talk.”
“You little...”
The kind of conversation usually exchanged at the dinner table during holiday gatherings flew past.
It felt strange.
My sister in that other world wasn’t someone who made jokes like that with me. I had been onstage when our father was sick, and my sisters had borne all the aftermath. The last time we spoke, my sister had been little different from a stranger to me.
Maybe it was because I gave up the guitar and stayed home. At least the me of this world seemed not to owe my sister anything.
Like the professional who made a living planning performance videos that she was, my sister immediately set up the tripod and began finding the angle.
“I thought you’d quit guitar for good.”
“Taerin begged so much that I’m playing against my will.”
“Of course you are.”
That was it. There were no remarks about her younger brother picking up a guitar again after sixteen years, and no drawn-out reminiscences about the past. Lee Suyeon was originally the sort to handle only business and nothing else when she worked.
“But Auntie, do you shoot stuff like this at work every day?”
“The company people do the shooting. I’m the one standing nearby telling them what they’re doing wrong. Still, filming something at this level is no problem.”
After staring through the camera viewfinder for a while, my sister looked up.
“No, this won’t do. I’m changing the angle. Move closer to the drums.”
“Why?”
“It ruins the screen balance. I’m going to film you as little as possible. Just stay there like air and make sound.”
“Pfft.”
“Don’t laugh.”
“No, she said to stay like air and make sound... Pff.”
A very cold, accurate assessment that a potbellied man in hiking clothes would drag down the quality of the video if he intruded on the image of three high school girls.
“Tch. Fine.”
I retreated without complaint to a corner beside the drum cymbals. It wasn’t something to hurt my pride over. As long as my sound came through clearly, that was enough. Even if only my elbow appeared at the edge of the screen, it was a humiliation I would gladly endure if it helped the band.
That was what being a professional meant, and I was a professional.
“Everyone, get in position. Let’s do one take.”
#
The first song was a standard cover.
“We’ll start with the first song.”
“Okay. We’re doing it in one take, so start when I cue you.”
The mood wasn’t bad. The teamwork they had built over the past few days didn’t waver in front of the camera. Bae Somi was obviously nervous and kept her gaze fixed on the amp, but she didn’t hold back her sound.
When the performance ended safely, my sister behind the camera gave a small okay sign with her hand. Yun Taerin clenched her fist around a drumstick.
“See? One take. That’s Black Rabbit!”
I rubbed my fingertips lightly with my thumb. They burned beneath the tape, but I could still endure. By my calculations yesterday, I had enough left for two full takes, or three if I forced it.
“Let’s go straight to the next one. Get ready for the Muri song.”
At my sister’s instruction, Yun Taerin clicked her sticks together and counted them in. One, two, three, four.
The first take of “Fall Toward You” began.
The flow was good. Cha Sion’s voice didn’t waver, and Yun Taerin’s drums struck the beat cleanly, without anything unnecessary. Then, just as the song heated up toward the bridge.
Ring-ring. Ring-ring.
A cheerful electronic sound cut through the rehearsal room.
The performance stopped cold. Four pairs of eyes followed the sound and fixed on one spot. My phone was glowing brightly on top of my guitar case. The alarm on its screen flashed without a care.
[The 25th. Payment withdrawal day! Check your account balance.]
“...”
“...”
I hadn’t set it. The owner of this body had set this survival alarm to ring every month on the twenty-fifth, the sad reality of a ten-year veteran forever stuck as a middle manager. And today was the first time I had learned it existed.
“Oh? That was the sound of our sponsor’s balance getting drained? Did paying for the rehearsal room put you in the red?”
“Quiet.”
“U-Uncle... don’t you need to check your balance...?”
“Somi. There are numbers in this world that are better left unknown.”
As a professional, I had shown the amateurs an embarrassing side of myself. My face grew a little hot.
“No good. Again.”
Without taking her eyes off the monitor, my sister delivered her dry verdict.
“Sorry. My fault.”
I turned off my phone and shoved it deep into the case. I clenched and unclenched my left hand. One cover song and one half-finished take. I had one try left, maybe two.
“Uncle, is your hand okay?”
“I can definitely do one more. So let’s finish it this time.”
“Okay. One shot. Somi, Sion, you ready?”
“Y-Yeah, whenever...”
“Just hurry up.”
“Going again. Focus.”
At my sister’s brief command, the red light on top of the camera lens turned on again. Yun Taerin counted in, and the long-awaited final take began.
‘Huh?’
I faltered as I placed the first chord.
Cha Sion had changed.
It wasn’t that she suddenly hit a high note or became amazingly good at singing. She had sung like a monster even during practice.
What had changed was her scale, her presence.
Cha Sion held the microphone, her eyes piercing directly through the lens. The gaze she normally carelessly tossed at the floor or into empty air now fixed straight on someone beyond the screen. Even when she wasn’t looking at the camera, she seemed aware that the camera was watching her.
Like a professional.
‘That kid is devouring the camera.’
Singing well was entirely different from commanding a stage and a lens. The way she used her gaze, her subtle gestures, that brazen instinct for facing the camera. You couldn’t create this by practicing in front of a mirror for a hundred days. It was an aura only a born performer could radiate, someone with the gravity to draw people’s eyes from the moment they were born.
My eyes, having lived before stages and cameras for sixteen years, recognized that immediately.
‘You can’t teach this.’
Until yesterday, she had only been an audacious, irritating high school girl who could really sing. But Cha Sion before the lens now was a fully formed frontwoman who wouldn’t be intimidated even if she were thrown onto the main stage of a festival right away.
Meanwhile, I was crumpled up in a corner outside the frame under the excuse of screen balance, silently watching that talent.
Yun Taerin cleanly passed the dreaded fill-in section with a pared-down version. Bae Somi, perhaps swept up by the force Cha Sion radiated, held down the foundation with a heavier, firmer sound than usual. I suppressed my fingertips, which were on the verge of falling apart, and pressed the final chord.
Zing...
No one moved until the resonance faded. Only then did the tips of my left hand start screaming. That was my quota for today. Used up.
“Okay. Good work.”
My sister, who had checked only the angle without changing her expression throughout the shoot, announced the end in a mechanical tone.
“It’s over! We’re really entering it! We’re entering the competition!”
“Wow...”
Yun Taerin chattered excitedly, while Bae Somi clapped awkwardly with an expression that made it hard to tell whether she was happy.
“Auntie, thank you so much! I’ll definitely buy you something delicious later!”
“Forget it. I can get it out of your mom.”
Yun Taerin excitedly said to Cha Sion,
“Hey, Cha Sion. You seemed kind of different today. What was it? A halo? Anyway, there was something!”
“What are you talking about?”
“I don’t know, but there was something!”
“...Stop saying weird things and clean up.”
My sister didn’t take her eyes from the camera viewfinder as the kids made a racket behind her. She seemed to be replaying the footage she had just shot on the small monitor.
“Hmm...”
After doing that for quite a while, my sister snapped the monitor shut. Then she started folding up the tripod as if nothing had happened.
Amid the kids’ noisy chatter, my sister looked my way while packing up the equipment and casually tossed out one line.
“Hey. What’s with your vocalist?”
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