Idol of the Heavenly One - Chapter 9.2
But after fifty years of living, I know. I know that behind that smile lies bitterness and a deep darkness.
“No, uh… Myeong-hyeon, do you want to practice whatever song you’re good at? If there’s time, Hee-min can watch over you.”
Eight years is a long time. And for someone like him, who had been chasing his dream for eight years, it must have felt even longer. He said he switched to teaching vocals because it suited him better, but he probably went through countless times standing in debut lineups only to be rejected, wearing himself down. Eventually, when he reached the right age, the company probably offered him a position as a vocal teacher.
That meant that even in his early twenties, the chance of making a debut lineup was slim. The time left for him personally would be at most three years. But YEARZ’s debut would be just a few months away. If I missed this opportunity, my youth during the contract period could be wasted waiting endlessly for a debut that might never come.
“Teacher, can you show me how to go from chest voice to falsetto like Go Hee-min?”
“Huh? Now?”
“Yes. Hee-min can manage it on his own. Please watch me a bit.”
That meant I had to give my absolute best. For the debut.
***
Singing like Go Hee-min was not easy. Transitioning from chest voice to falsetto, or from falsetto back to chest voice, was much harder than I expected.
“You really sing well.”
“You know how to produce sound.”
“But it’s not just producing sound. You make the sound carry far. How do you do that?”
So I was picking information out of Hee-min. By coincidence, our paths home overlapped, and though Hee-min clearly wanted to go alone, I couldn’t leave him be. I had to debut with both Baek Jae-heon and Go Hee-min. To do that, I either had to be ridiculously handsome like Jae-heon or insanely good at singing like Hee-min, but I was neither. At least I had to reach their level enough to hold my own.
“Ask Se-jin hyung.”
“I think you’re better at it.”
It wasn’t flattery. It was genuine. I asked the teacher to teach me instead of Hee-min, but the teacher only made dismissive remarks like, “You don’t know this? You don’t know that?” without giving any real instruction. How could he even become a teacher?
“No, Se-jin hyung sings well too.”
“Sure, he’s a teacher. But your explanation actually makes more sense to me.”
“Annoying.”
“Teach me.”
“Grab that subway handle. Think of it as an axe and chop at it with your sound.”
Hee-min, while pretending it was a bother, explained how to project sound further.
“Ah! Like this?”
“You’d get taken to the police station.”
“Why?”
“They say there’s someone swinging an axe here.”
Hehe. I let out a small laugh at Hee-min’s wordplay. They say people from Chungcheong are good at speaking indirectly, and he really was. Funny guy.
“But about that teacher…”
“Se-jin hyung?”
“Yeah.”
“Why?”
“You two must have overlapped as trainees for a long time.”
Earlier, Joo I-rip said that Hee-min had been shy for six years. That meant Hee-min had been a trainee for six years. So, the time spent growing his dream with the vocal teacher called Se-jin hyung was at least five years.
“That makes sense.”
“How old is he?”
“Twenty-three.”
“When did he switch to being a teacher?”
“Last year.”
He had to give up his dream at barely twenty-two. He must have started as a trainee at fifteen, aspiring to be an idol.
“I see.”
“Why are you asking about Se-jin hyung?”
“Just… curious. Since he was a trainee for so long.”
“Don’t show that in front of him. He went through a lot.”
Finally, I realized the kind of subtle malice he unconsciously emitted. I wasn’t the only one who noticed it, apparently.
“What do you mean by that?”
“Just… like, it’s a shame he was a trainee for so long. Even if he tries not to show it, you can see how hard it was for him.”
Hee-min seemed to feel and worry about it in a completely different way.
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