WeTried Translations
Translator/Editor: Potter
Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried
◈ My Fired Uncle Is a Genius Guitarist? ◈
Chapter 8: Not a Chance
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“Hey. What’s with your vocalist?”
My sister was folding up the tripod legs when she jerked her chin toward the back. The kids were chatting among themselves as they coiled cables.
“They can sing, right?”
“That’s not what I mean.”
“Then what?”
“The camera.”
It was practically a fact check from someone who worked in performance videos.
“I’ve seen plenty of good singers. But the moment the recording light came on, they became someone else.”
“...”
“They knew where the lens was the whole time, even while pretending not to look. You can’t teach that.”
“Is that so?”
“Do you know what I say most on set? ‘Look at the camera,’ then, ‘Not that obviously.’ That alone takes up my whole day. But they were doing it without anyone telling them to.”
It was an accurate assessment. I had recognized the kind of talent it was from watching the stage, and my sister had just confirmed how rare that talent was.
“I noticed too.”
“You did? Then why didn’t you say anything?”
“No need to put ideas in their head.”
If they became self-conscious and started thinking about the camera, they would only stiffen up. For now, it was better to leave that natural instinct alone.
My sister stared at me for a moment, then turned back to the monitor.
“That’s true.”
“I usually say the right things.”
“The kind that gets you hit?”
“...”
My sister turned up the monitor volume. The final take we had just recorded played on the small screen.
“Still, this video turned out kind of funny.”
“What did?”
“Your guitar isn’t on screen, but it comes through way too clearly.”
My sister tapped the display with a fingertip.
“There are only three of them on screen, but the guy you can’t see is carrying the whole song. The guitar you can’t even see stands out the most.”
Maybe it was inevitable. A veteran was forcibly filling every gap, laying the foundation, and hammering in riffs. Of course the balance would be off.
“Then turn down my sound in the mix.”
“With what? It was all recorded on one camera mic.”
“...”
“We’d need separate tracks to take out just yours. Not that I would’ve, even if we had them.”
“Why not?”
“Because if I turned down your guitar, the whole band sound would die.”
She had apparently already worked it all out in her head and reached that conclusion.
I considered it for a moment. My face was not in the shot. But my sound was firmly there, supporting the band.
‘...That’s not bad.’
No, it was something to welcome. Being pushed out of frame had spared me the disaster of showing the whole world this 105-kilogram potbelly and my fashion-terrorist wardrobe.
“I sent the file to Taerin’s phone. I’m leaving.”
My sister slung her equipment bag over her shoulder without hesitation.
“Auntie, you’re leaving already?”
“Yeah. Good work, everyone.”
She gave Yun Taerin a casual wave, opened the rehearsal room door, and disappeared. It was a clean exit, finishing exactly what she had come to do.
“Whoa, the file’s here already! Hey, everyone, come look!”
At Yun Taerin’s fussing, Bae Somi and Cha Sion hurried over. The three of them pressed their heads together over the tiny phone screen.
The song we had just played filled the rehearsal room again. Leaning back in a chair in the corner, I quietly watched their reactions.
“Ah, Uncle’s elbow showed up!”
Not long after, Yun Taerin pointed at the screen and snickered.
“Look, here! That red bit sticking out beside the cymbal! Seriously, that hiking jacket steals all the attention!”
“It’s not a hiking jacket. It’s a windbreaker, brat.”
“Ah, it popped out again after the first verse! What is this, Find the Hidden Uncle?”
While Yun Taerin laughed until they nearly ran out of breath, Bae Somi, who had been staring intently at the screen, cautiously spoke up.
“But...”
“What is it, Somi? Did something go wrong?”
“No, it’s just... Uncle isn’t on screen, but the guitar is the clearest sound. It feels kind of strange...”
Bae Somi might have spoken softly, but they had good ears. They had instinctively noticed the mismatch between sight and sound that my sister had pointed out.
“True. The sound really stands out. Ah, whatever! It’s fine as long as nothing’s wrong with it!”
Yun Taerin brushed it off, then nudged Cha Sion.
“Hey. You really look good on camera.”
“Do I?”
Cha Sion answered shortly, as if it did not matter. There was no embarrassment or smugness, only a calm expression. Watching them, I quietly came to a conclusion.
I had disappeared from the screen, while that kid had swallowed it whole.
#
By the time we packed up our gear and left the commercial building, it was late enough for us to be properly hungry. The three kids lingered around the entrance as if they had no intention of parting ways. They must have been reluctant to leave. I casually tossed out a suggestion.
“Let’s go get tteokbokki.”
“Really? You’re buying, Uncle?”
“Yeah.”
“Oh, isn’t it payday for our sponsor today? Can you really treat us?”
“That’s why we’re getting tteokbokki. Don’t even dream about meat.”
“It’s fine. We all know you’re broke, Uncle.”
Why did they have to say it like that...?
The four of us squeezed into a corner of a snack bar down an alley. Yun Taerin immediately grabbed the menu and started reciting an order.
“Two servings of tteokbokki, one assorted fritter platter, and a large serving of sundae. Should we get jjolmyeon too? What about gimbap?”
“Hey, isn’t that too much food?”
“Ah, I’m hungry. Uncleee~”
Yun Taerin put on an ill-fitting cute voice. But I was not such an easy adult that I would open my wallet for clumsy charm.
“Fine. Then make the sundae a small.”
“What about gimbap? Are we getting it?”
“Vegetable gimbap.”
“No tuna gimbap?”
“No. Vegetable gimbap is as far as my generosity goes. Didn’t anyone teach you that?”
“Ugh, you’re so stingy.”
“Then you pay if you have a problem with it.”
“Thank you for the meal!”
While we waited for the tteokbokki, Yun Taerin took out their phone and opened the competition page. Their fingers looked unusually solemn as they uploaded the file my sister had sent.
“All right, I’m submitting it. I’m really submitting it.”
“Hurry up.”
“Why am I so nervous over this?”
The three of them watched the loading bar fill in silence.
“...It’s up.”
“It worked.”
“We did it!”
Bae Somi started clapping, then dropped their chopsticks. Right on cue, the tteokbokki and assorted fritters were set on the table. Bae Somi counted the fritters and muttered.
“One, two, three... If we each eat exactly two, that works out.”
“That sounds kind of pathetic...”
“Ahem. When was the preliminary-entry deadline again?”
“Midnight tonight.”
“...”
“Why are you looking at me like that? We submitted it, didn’t we?”
So if we had put it off one more day, it would have been over. What would we have done if my fingertips had not held out through today? The thought made me shudder.
“When are the results announced?”
“Uh... Wednesday, two weeks from now.”
“It takes two weeks?”
“There are a lot of teams, so it probably takes time.”
“Who’s organizing it? Who judges? Do view counts factor in too?”
“No. The first round is private judging by the organizers. Only the teams that pass get posted on the channel. The organizer is Plugged, a famous YouTube music channel.”
Bae Somi spoke while chewing a fritter.
“If we get posted... everyone will watch our video.”
“Right. The views and reactions we get from then on become bonus points for the finals. We need lots of people to watch.”
“When are the finals?”
When I asked, Yun Taerin answered without taking their eyes off the phone.
“Saturday, three weeks after the results are announced. It has to be a live, in-person performance. The winners get five million won! Wow, do you know how much that is split four ways?”
“1.25 million won.”
“Somi, why are you so fast at math?”
“That much is basic...”
Bae Somi trailed off and quietly reached their chopsticks toward the fritter plate. Then they realized they had already eaten their own two and withdrew their hand. Pretending not to notice, I subtly pushed the plate closer.
“Uncle, it’s 1.25 million won.”
“Forget it. Use that money to help pay for rehearsal rooms.”
“Oh, our sponsor’s being generous.”
“What does it matter how generous I am with money we won’t even win?”
“We could win! Why are you so negative?”
“Is there only prize money? Don’t they give away a guitar or let you play at some festival?”
For contests like this, the real draw was usually the practical benefits, not the money. Even more so if the prize was only five million won.
“Oh, right. The winners also get to play the opening stage at Wolsan.”
“Wolsan?”
“The Wolsan Rock Festival! You don’t know it?”
The Wolsan Rock Festival.
At those words, Cha Sion, who had been chewing tteokbokki, looked up for the first time. Their expression, which had not changed at all when we talked about prize money, shifted slightly.
“...Opening?”
“Yeah. Fifteen minutes.”
Cha Sion stirred the tteokbokki sauce with their chopsticks and quietly said,
“Not bad.”
After that brief comment, they fell silent again.
As I picked up the remaining squid fritter, I quietly turned the calendar in my head. Five weeks remained until the finals. Counting from the preliminary results announcement, exactly three weeks.
‘Three weeks... That’s enough time to plant one song in them.’
The excuse of not having enough time was gone now. Three weeks was enough to take one of the hundreds of unreleased songs piled up in my head, place it in their hands, and work it into them.
But I withheld my conclusion. If I gave them my song right now, it would die onstage. Their sloppy cohesion did not yet have the endurance to carry one of my songs all the way through.
For sixteen years in my previous life, I had watched songs compromised into half-baked versions onstage. Even if I had only landed here as an uncle helping my niece’s band, I had no intention of watching my song get cut down again to fit the limits of the vocalist and session players.
Now was the time to wait. Until these kids proved they deserved to carry my song properly onstage.
Then Yun Taerin’s eyes widened as they checked the screen again.
“Huh? Wait. The prize isn’t five million, it’s fifty million won?”
“...”
“You said you didn’t need it, Uncle.”
“Huh? What are you talking about? When did I say I didn’t need it?”
“Ah, Uncle, why are you acting so desperate?”
“You know I don’t have any money.”
“Tch. Fine, we’ll split it four ways. Deal.”
#
Monday morning after the weekend, the moment I sat down at my desk, a familiar voice came flying at me.
“Manager, good morning. Did you finish your homework?”
“...What homework?”
“The second part I sent you last Wednesday. The live videos. You said you’d give me your thoughts.”
“Oh.”
“Don’t tell me you didn’t listen?”
“I was busy.”
“All weekend?”
I had been busy, but I had also completely forgotten.
“I’ll listen now.”
“Instead of working?”
“What difference does it make?”
Assistant Manager Kim snickered and returned to their desk.
I opened the link they had sent in a corner of my monitor and put in my earphones. As I processed the overdue purchase orders, I let the bands’ live recordings play in my ears.
What I had heard last week were polished studio recordings, trimmed and refined. This time, it was the raw live sound that had erupted from the stage. Without post-production, their real foundations were laid bare.
‘...This scene is more solid than I thought.’
It was not simply that there were a few exceptionally good bands. The overall standard of the entire band scene was far higher than in my previous life. From the tight rhythm sections built by drums and bass to the instinct for drawing out guitar tones without sounding dated.
It truly was a world where rock had settled in as a mainstream genre and grown fiercely amid rich infrastructure.
As I stretched before lunch, Assistant Manager Kim poked their head over the partition again.
“What did you think?”
“...They’re all good.”
“Right? Young musicians these days are scary. Oh, right. Plugged is doing another survival competition this time.”
“Plugged?”
“Yes, Manager. Don’t tell me you don’t know Plugged?”
Plugged.
It was the name I had heard from Yun Taerin at the snack bar two days ago. Staring calmly at my monitor, I asked,
“Is it that famous?”
“It’s the biggest YouTube channel covering bands. It might not be on the level of a network music show, but the survival competition they host has been running for four years already. The views and buzz are no joke.”
Assistant Manager Kim continued excitedly.
“The teams that enter every year are on another level. Usually semi-pros who have spent time in the indie scene, top-ranked teams from practical-music programs, or office-worker bands with serious experience.”
“Do high school teams enter too?”
“They do, but almost all of them get cut in the preliminaries. Their experience levels are different. You just watched those videos. Do you think rough playing from some kids would stand out among all those terrifyingly skilled musicians?”
They had no idea that the overweight manager sitting right in front of them had played guitar in the corner of a preliminary video for one of those high school bands that supposedly got cut.
“Anyway, winning there comes with insane benefits. This season’s winners get the opening stage at the Wolsan Rock Festival. Wolsan! Wolsan!”
The Wolsan Rock Festival.
A clear memory rose of standing on that stage in my previous life. Not as a fifteen-minute opening act, but as the final performance that closed out the festival, as the headliner.
The fifteen minutes the kids were so desperate for was merely a stop I had passed long ago. But Assistant Manager Kim’s next explanation cooled my premature arrogance.
“Do you know what happened to last year’s winners after they played that fifteen-minute opening? Until then, they had been performing in front of twenty people in Hongdae. But after playing the festival just once, their music immediately charted. They sold out their own concert within half a year.”
“Over just fifteen minutes?”
“Because there are tens of thousands of people in front of those fifteen minutes. And they won, too. Once people remember your name like that, they start seeking out your music on their own.”
I had to revise my judgment. It might have been a stop I had already passed, but for countless bands in this world, that stage was the surest ticket to changing everything at once. And the competition in this scene would be far fiercer than it had been in my world.
The next video began through my earphones. Another unfamiliar band was producing a solid sound.
‘If this is the level that comes up every year...’
I took out my earphones and set them on the desk.
The current Black Rabbit did not stand a chance.
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