You Want Me to Roleplay with My Unrequited Love? 85

#85. Commonalities of First Love (9)

“Well, you two are really close, aren’t you?”

Fortunately, before I could say anything, Hapil Jae continued.

“Like Jihan hyung taking care of this and leaving at the crack of dawn, and Seowoo hyung eating it even though he said he wasn’t thinking about breakfast. Sometimes I wonder if friendship becomes something different when it lasts a long time.”

“…”

“I’ll admit it. Jihan hyung is affectionate toward Seowoo hyung. Since he wasn’t like that before, sometimes I wonder if he’s been possessed by a ghost.”

“Mmm.”

“Still, hyung is more precious though.”

I poked at my innocent rice with chopsticks while glancing at Hapil Jae.

‘Why is he suddenly talking like this?’

Did he figure out my one-sided love? It wasn’t entirely impossible. Bae Dojin and Na Jia had noticed too, and Hapil Jae was just as perceptive as those two.

Hoping it wouldn’t sound too much like an excuse, I quietly replied:

“…Jihan and I are close.”

“Who said anything?”

Hapil Jae gestured at the food and said in a casual tone:

“Hurry up and eat. So we can leave together. Traffic might be backed up, so let’s just go early for peace of mind!”

“Got it. Just a moment.”

…Did he figure it out or not? It was puzzling, but if I asked more or probed further, he might really figure it out, so it seemed better to be careful.

After finishing the meal, while Hapil Jae was contacting Na Hyeonjun, I sent a text.

[Ate well.]

Na Jihan’s reply came within a minute.

[Sing well and come back.]

Why did such a mundane, standard greeting make my heart flutter so much?

I could only tear my gaze away from that text after hearing Hapil Jae’s urging.

* * *

A studio with a simple background.

As two people sat side by side on long chairs without backrests, the session musicians for the live performance also took their places in front of instruments across from them.

Following the camera director’s signal, the piano performance began first, and soon a voice settled calmly over that accompaniment.

– Walking with you whom I’ve never met

In a blue, unfamiliar summer night dream

Yearning for you like a fever

Reaching out fingers that can’t grasp anything

When I opened my eyes that had been tightly shut, the MC sitting beside me with crossed legs clapped.

“Hello! I’m Tae Siyoung, MC of ‘Music Taxi.’ Today’s passenger is, drumroll please!”

She smiled brightly, showing her white, neat teeth, and gestured to me sitting beside her.

“Arcus’s main vocal, Yoon Seowoo!”

“Hello, nice to meet you. I’m Yoon Seowoo from the group Arcus.”

“You don’t know how much I’ve been looking forward to this day, Seowoo.”

“You were looking forward to me?”

This was the first I’d heard of it. Even when my appearance on ‘Music Taxi’ was decided and I came to make an impression for the preliminary meeting, she hadn’t said anything special.

“Of course. The word-of-mouth about you being a skilled main vocal has spread so much. That encore live stage you did crying during your ‘Hitchhiking’ promotions was incredibly famous. Do you remember?”

Of course I remember. It was a moment that sparkled particularly vividly among countless memories.

“It was the day we got our first place with ‘Hitchhiking.’ I kept crying every time we won first place before that, so I was determined not to cry just that day…”

“But you ended up crying anyway.”

Tae Siyoung smiled mischievously and pretended to pass the microphone.

“Was there perhaps another reason?”

I laughed a bit shyly, “Haha.”

The day we first won first place on a music show with ‘Hitchhiking.’ The moment I stepped forward to give my acceptance speech, my eyes met with a slogan in the very front of the audience.

Up to that point was fine. Even then, I could still smile brightly and say thank you. It was when I was about to wave my hand with the thought that they must have had a hard time since early morning in the increasingly hot weather.

It was a somewhat familiar face. I briefly wondered where I’d seen that face before, and surprisingly the memory came back quickly.

It was a fan I’d met when we went to Jeju Island for documentary filming before debut. Since I didn’t have an autograph then, I had pressed hard with my pen to write a letter in the back of a diary.

In that letter, I had written: I hope our second meeting would be inevitable. Not meeting by chance, but that you would come to see me. That I would work hard to become worthy of that.

When our eyes met, that person smiled even more brightly than me. They waved happily, asking me to look at them.

There was no greater response than that smile. With surprise and joy, I eventually burst into tears.

“I want to keep it a secret. I’m embarrassed thinking about it now.”

Though it was something that happened a while ago, it was still about an individual fan. It didn’t seem like a good idea to specifically point out and mention a particular person on broadcast.

‘That person might feel uncomfortable or burdened.’

Maybe if a lot more time had passed, but not now.

Fortunately, Tae Siyoung didn’t pry further.

“You were crying your heart out but still managed to do the live performance.”

“…Even if you cry, you still have to do what you need to do, right?”

Singing while running, singing while sleepy – that’s what singing is, so you can’t not sing just because you’re shedding some tears.

“That’s true, but what was amazing was that it was perfect, no different from the album version. I thought then: What if I invited this person to Music Taxi? How well would they do other lives?”

So that’s why the casting request came. I let out a small laugh.

“So that’s why you gave me the song request?”

“Of course. I was really curious about the breakup song you’d sing. I’m probably not the only one curious about it?”

“I hope I can live up to expectations.”

“It’ll be more than that. Now, before that.”

Tae Siyoung said while flipping through cue cards.

“Arcus is preparing for a comeback?”

“That’s right.”

I brought out the things I’d prepared in my head as calmly as possible.

“Next month, Arcus will return with our first full album ‘Start Button.’ We’ve worked really hard preparing it, so I hope it’ll be welcome news for our fans too.”

“I heard this album is very special for the Arcus members.”

“That’s right.”

I gripped the microphone tightly to ease my nervousness as I answered.

“All five of us members participated in the producing. Among them, I participated in the lyrics.”

“All the tracks?”

The first full album, ‘Start Button,’ consists of seven songs. Excluding the overture ‘Start Button’ and the instrumental track ‘Gravity’ in the middle, five songs needed lyrics.

“That’s right. But except for one song, I only helped a little bit.”

Tae Siyoung winked and replied:

“That means! One song has lyrics written solely by Seowoo?”

“Though I’m lacking, I worked hard on it.”

“We’ll be able to hear it today, right?”

“Yes. I prepared hard.”

After discussing with the agency, we decided to preview the track ‘First Love’ through this program. It was based on the opinion that we needed to show the entire lyrics to promote the point that the members directly produced it.

I also thought it was a good opportunity and practiced actively. However, it was inevitable that I felt nervous without the members who had always stood firmly by my side.

After closing my eyes, taking a deep breath, and nodding, the piano accompaniment began to flow again.

– My first love that sprouted painfully and then left

The place you vacated that will never be filled again

Searching through memories of us by feeling around with my tongue tip

The words I had selected, refined, and written down while thinking of Na Jihan gradually unwound.

– If I had known first love would hurt this much

I would have tried to hold someone other than you

But I couldn’t swallow anything else, it would have only been you

I would have only hurt for you

Liking you wasn’t always pleasant, but I still thought I was fortunate it was you and not someone else.

Come to think of it, it was actually a meaningless comparison. If it had been someone else, I wouldn’t have liked them this much anyway.

I believed that my heart moved only because it was you.