WeTried Translations
Translator/Editor: Hydrogen B
Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried
Chapter 88: Discord
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Kim Seung-jun swallowed his anger.
After taking a deep breath, he finally spoke in the calmest voice he could manage.
“Manager Moon, isn’t this different from what we discussed?”
[What do you mean?]
“When we spoke before, you said Claire’s schedule would work. How can you say it won’t now?”
Manager Moon, speaking with him over the phone, answered leisurely despite Kim Seung-jun’s demanding tone.
[Why are you asking something so obvious?]
“... Obvious?”
[Think about it reasonably. Claire is incredibly popular right now. Just because her schedule was open then does not mean it would still be open now.]
“Didn’t you say you would leave Claire’s schedule open when we spoke before?”
[Goodness. It would be troubling if you misunderstood when we never signed an official contract.]
Grit.
Kim Seung-jun clenched his teeth.
It was not exactly wrong.
Except that he had spent an enormous amount entertaining Manager Moon to secure Claire, and that they had practically made a verbal agreement, contract or no contract.
“Fine. Let’s say I misunderstood. Can’t you change the schedule now?”
O wretched creature who had to bury personal feelings for the sake of work, known as the working adult.
Kim Seung-jun’s insides boiled as he tried to find a solution.
Yet Manager Moon’s reply was cold enough to cut.
[Come now. How can you ask me to change the schedule when we have already signed a contract?]
“If the penalty fee is the issue, I’ll somehow...”
[The penalty fee is not the issue. It is a matter of basic decency. Decency.]
‘That %!$%%@.’
Whether Kim Seung-jun cursed inwardly at that shameless statement or not, Manager Moon continued without a care.
[Do you even know what Claire’s schedule is that day before saying you will settle the penalty fee?]
“What kind of schedule is it?”
[It is the Midas Guild branch manager’s Level 80 celebration party! The branch manager personally begged for it, and you are asking me to cancel it?]
The moment he heard that, Kim Seung-jun finally understood.
Why that bastard Manager Moon had suddenly started throwing a tantrum.
“... Wasn’t it Manager Moon who begged for it?”
[Come now, what are you saying? You know perfectly well that Claire is not someone who has to go around begging for work.]
‘Claire might not be, but you certainly are, you bastard.’
Kim Seung-jun felt aggrieved.
But he could not say it aloud.
The other side was clearly at fault, but if he openly called them out on it, he would only be humiliated himself.
[Well, there is still time before the deadline, is there not? Find someone else.]
“...”
[If you truly cannot find anyone, contact me. We have history, after all, so I can at least send you a stand-in. Our trainees are quite capable these days. Hahaha!]
After ending the call with Manager Moon, Kim Seung-jun’s clenched fist trembled before he finally shouted.
“Those WIM Guild bastards!”
Manager Moon had asked to meet at the restaurant, where Kim Seung-jun had gone to the trouble of securing a table and waiting. After keeping him waiting for more than thirty minutes, he had called claiming something had come up, only to rattle off one piece of bad news after another.
After venting his anger, Kim Seung-jun pulled at his hair and sank into thought.
‘Damn it, what do I do? It’s too late to find a real replacement now...’
Manager Moon had babbled about there still being time, but both of them knew that was nonsense.
The entire project had been planned around Claire appearing.
There was no way he could find someone to replace Claire, the country’s top-level singer, within just a few days.
If things continued like this, the whole project would collapse, and Kim Seung-jun would bear all the responsibility.
There was no one brave enough to hold the WIM Guild accountable.
It was then, as he despaired at reality, that a diner sitting behind him suddenly stood and began singing.
Aren't you hungry?
I want to eat a sweet pie.
I want to eat warm soup.
It is the food of my soul.
‘... What is this? Is there some kind of event going on?’
Perhaps because of professional instinct, Kim Seung-jun looked around without thinking.
After confirming there was not a camera anywhere in sight, he frowned.
‘Just a drunk, I guess.’
Kim Seung-jun clicked his tongue.
The singing from behind him was so terrible that, singer or not, he could not believe anyone sober was doing it.
But after glancing back, Kim Seung-jun felt puzzled.
The song had lost all sense of pitch and rhythm, making the singer sound like someone who had downed five or six bottles of soju.
Yet there was not the slightest trace of drunkenness on the diner’s face.
‘Maybe they’re the type who doesn’t look drunk.’
After puzzling over it alone for a moment, he reached a conclusion and started to rise.
The meeting had fallen through anyway. There was no reason to stay and listen to this loud singing.
That would have been the case if Rimon, the man sitting across from the singing diner with a troubled expression, had not suddenly begun playing the guitar.
Ding... di-ding.
‘...!’
Kim Seung-jun froze where he stood.
It was not because he was dumbfounded that Rimon was accompanying the singer instead of stopping them.
Unlike Eugene’s song, the performance was flawlessly smooth.
Each note was so delicate and precise that the melody pierced him like a blade, stirring his heart.
‘Could a guitar make a sound like this...?’
Kim Seung-jun, who thought he knew music fairly well, marveled without thinking.
Then he murmured to himself.
‘What a waste.’
He was not the only one.
The diners whose eyes had widened.
The servers who had forgotten their work.
All of them marveled at the beautiful performance, unlike anything they had heard on television or at a concert, yet wore regretful expressions.
The clearer and more vivid the guitar rang, the more the chaotic singing stood out.
If only there were no singing.
If only they could listen to the guitar alone.
Listening to the discord between the performance and song, which raced toward opposite extremes, they all thought and wished that without realizing it.
Until a strange change came over the smoothly flowing melody.
Diri-ring.
‘Hm?’
At first, he thought it might be his imagination.
But the more he listened, the clearer the change became, making Kim Seung-jun unconsciously pull a strange face.
‘The guitar is following the song?’
The rhythm gradually drifted apart.
The beat became increasingly twisted.
As time passed, the guitar lost its original delicate beauty and became as much of a mess as the song.
Kim Seung-jun stared in bewilderment.
‘Isn’t it usually the other way around?’
He would have been impressed if the singing had followed the accompaniment.
Instead, the performance was being dragged along by the vocals, and the result was a complete train wreck.
The wild song and broken performance were each doing their own thing perfectly, producing a scream of chaos.
‘No, what is this...?!’
Was it noise pollution?
Mental terrorism?
Just as he was about to get angry at this performance, which seemed like a deliberate insult to music, as though they were intentionally ruining the sound...
Kim Seung-jun’s eyes widened.
Di-ding, di-ding.
‘...?’
The song and performance were both still a mess.
Yet there was one reason Kim Seung-jun could not help forgetting he had been about to get angry.
‘They’re creating harmony?’
The two sounds were, separately, little more than unruly noise. Yet for an instant, they overlapped properly and created a strangely clear resonance.
At first, it seemed like mere coincidence.
It appeared for only a moment before disappearing.
But as they overlapped a second and third time, the harmony came more quickly and more often.
Then, after a change longer than eternity and shorter than an instant had ended...
Neither the performance nor the song that had sounded like chaotic noise remained.
Only one fantastic, mysterious melody flowed proudly onward, swallowing every other sound.
“Harmony...”
Kim Seung-jun muttered blankly.
Rhythm, the basic flow of sound.
Melody, which connected notes harmoniously.
Harmony, the blending of multiple notes.
Of these three elements commonly considered the basics of music, he had always been doubtful about harmony.
Music could not exist without rhythm, and music without melody sounded monotonous, but there was plenty of good music without harmony.
He had never understood why harmony had to be counted among the three most fundamental elements.
But at that moment, he realized it.
Harmony had a reason to be called one of music’s three basic elements.
It might even be the most important of them.
What he was witnessing was that shocking.
‘My God, something like this is possible.’
A performance that broke up the melody.
A song that ignored even rhythm.
Taken separately, the two were nothing but a succession of chaotic sounds that could never be called music.
But when they came together?
The performance filled in the rhythm the song skipped, while the song joined the melodies broken by the performance, creating music beyond imagination.
What was astonishing was that the two sounds still remained perfectly separate from each other.
‘What is this feeling of hearing music from heaven with these screams from hell as the chorus?’
The timing of a blink.
Minute pitches measured in frequencies.
Differences in volume too slight to distinguish even in decibels.
The song and performance differed so greatly that the slightest mismatch would create dreadful discord.
Yet precisely because of that, the perfect harmony the two formed evoked an emotion beyond the mysterious, something utterly inexplicable.
‘What on earth should I call this piece?’
The harmony the two created changed without end.
At times, it was as weighty as classical music.
At times, as soft as a ballad.
At times, as tranquil as jazz.
At times, as intense as rock and roll.
Without warning or introduction, sometimes seeming to change genres with every beat, it was like a reed leaf fluttering in a typhoon.
Its leaf and stem changed direction without rest, yet its roots never wavered, forming a lofty melody.
‘It’s an insane piece.’
It was sheer madness.
A revolution and provocation against all existing music.
A suite of order that no sane performer could imitate, and that even one who could would never dare attempt.
‘But it’s good.’
Because the freedom unbound by any form was so beautiful, it instead entranced listeners and stole their hearts.
Don't think too much.
Life is fun, Alive is lucky.
Don't waste happiness.
Enjoy your life today.
(Do not worry too much.)
(Life is fun, life is fortunate.)
(Do not waste happiness.)
(Enjoy your life today.)
When had it ended?
The melody filling the restaurant faded away.
Its lingering traces brushed past his ears like the fragrance of late spring flowers before melting away like a mirage.
Only after a long while did Kim Seung-jun, who had stood frozen in a daze, unconsciously shout inwardly.
‘I found a stand-in!’
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