Chapter 103

Before the lights came on, a soft greeting first flowed through the speakers.

“Aaaaaahhh!!!!!”

“Hanje!!!”

After a brief sound check, a piano melody as fresh as a summer breeze drifted out.

Then the first line began in a slow, laid-back rhythm.

—I know, right now

Even without saying it

We speak the same language

The stage lights came on.

“......!”

Gowon understood, deep in his bones, exactly how the fans screaming themselves hoarse felt.

Unable to cheer along with them, he pressed both hands over the front of his mask and stared at the stage with his eyes opened as wide as they could possibly go.

Baek Hanje’s face appeared huge on the screen as he continued singing while accompanying himself on the piano.

His lightly lowered eyes, the easy smile on his face, the wrinkles shifting across his shirt with every movement of his hands over the keys.

His voice flowing from the speakers mingled with the faint rustle of leaves trembling in the breeze.

—You may

Feel that

Shall we connect the stars with our fingertips

And give them our favorite name?

His gaze, which had been fixed on the keys, shifted toward the camera mounted over the piano.

Naturally, the face displayed on the giant screen met the audience’s eyes.

At that moment, his smile brightened even more, and he lightly tapped the side of the camera with his fingertips.

Then he drew in a breath.

—Talk it up

Will you tell me everything? ℯℯ𝘭.𝘤ℴ𝘮

About this moment we shared

You can talk it up

The chorus was made up entirely of falsetto, soaring into a high register.

And yet every single word of the lyrics came through so clearly it seemed possible to experience them with all five senses.

Even the delicate control of dynamics within them.

...He seriously went easy on us during the competition.

Come to think of it, even among the six members of Young Ace, all of whom had distinct individual colors, Baek Hanje had always been someone capable of making himself stand out.

A stage put together with trainees must have felt like child’s play to him.

“.......”

The more Gowon gradually learned about the entertainment industry, the more he began to wonder how on earth he had ever managed to win a survival program.

But at some point, as though his memories of <Debut Chart! 100> had been erased, he simply stopped thinking about it altogether.

The space that had disappeared without him even realizing it was now filled with the time he had spent together with Baek Hanje.

Recommending a master-evaluation song to Gowon when he knew nothing.

Improving his dancing and singing by leaps and bounds during the training camp.

Stopping him when he had tried to give up.

Wanting to catch up to Baek Hanje, Gowon had struggled with everything he had despite starting later than everyone else.

After going through all of that, his first-place finish had gained a reason to exist.

Trainee Baek Hanje had shoved Gowon through the doorway into a new world, then disappeared.

Only to appear again afterward as a senior so far above him he seemed impossibly distant.

...A miracle, or magic, that happens once in a lifetime.

Baek Hanje had told him to think of it as nothing more than that.

—Talk it up

Even without difficult words

I understand everything

You can talk it up

Like the song he was singing now, would the day ever come when Gowon could share and understand the things that only Baek Hanje knew?

<Talk it up> wasn’t a cover arranged for a competition.

It was a song Baek Hanje had created while producing himself.

Gowon thought the sky slowly turning pink looked exactly like the color of the miracle Baek Hanje had described.

The feeling of being overwhelmed by warmth even without anything being put into words....

It was the most beloved of Baek Hanje’s solo songs, so Gowon had already listened to it countless times.

He wasn’t sure whether this was an acceptable way to think about it, but—

I think he sounds even better than the recording.

He preferred this live performance, coming straight from Baek Hanje’s throat without any mixing.

Before he realized it, Gowon was gripping the front of his shirt tightly over his chest.

Even though it was a gentle jazz song, his heart felt ready to burst.

—I can talk it up, with you

The song ended on a light syncopation.

—Thank you.

At that exact moment, Gowon clearly saw it.

The two people who had been complaining about an idol performing had stopped to watch the stage, and only now that the song had ended did they suddenly seem to come back to themselves.

Baek Hanje took a drink from the bottle of water on the floor, then rose from the piano and walked over to the standing microphone.

—Hello. I’m Hansel of Young Ace.

“Grit It Up! Grit It Up!”

The fans shouted in unison.

<Talk it up> was packed with difficult vocal techniques, but because Baek Hanje always performed it with a brilliant smile, fans had nicknamed it <Grit It Up>.

—We opened with my first solo song, <Talk it up>. Yes, yes, <Grit It Up> is right. Honestly, I have to summon a ridiculous amount of determination to sing it too, so I put it right at the beginning. I have no idea what twenty-two-year-old me was thinking when he composed this....

After a brief stretch of joking chatter, Baek Hanje exchanged looks with the session musicians behind him.

—The next song received a lot of love earlier this year alongside a drama starring our Young Ace member Kim Yeban. I’ll sing <If Winter Never Ends> for you.

The cheers once again thundered across Fountain Plaza. Now that the sun had gone down and darkness was settling over the surroundings, the glow of the Young Ace light sticks stood out even more vividly.

A ballad arrangement flowed out, stripped of some of the aching melancholy typical of an OST and reshaped with the bittersweet atmosphere of a summer night.

“That bastard was already some kind of martial-arts master, but it feels like he went into seclusion for secret training and just came back out....”

A passing fan’s voice reached Gowon.

The wording was a little extreme, but it too was praise for Baek Hanje’s singing.

Just as Gowon was silently agreeing, someone approached his side.

“It’s not exactly wrong. Looks like Hanje learned quite a lot from that program too.”

Gowon turned his head.

“Thanks for sending me a ticket, junior.”

Yunjin stood there, lifting the brim of his hat slightly in greeting.

He was wearing a UV-blocking mask that completely covered the lower half of his face. His clothes completed the disguise perfectly, making him look like some random hiker one might run into on a neighborhood trail.

“Hello, senior.”

Gowon greeted him quietly in a low voice, and Yunjin let out a brief sound of admiration.

“So you really do remember everything?”

“...Yes.”

Baek Hanje’s voice swelled alongside the climax of the ballad.

As if they had planned it beforehand, both Gowon and Yunjin turned their gazes forward.

Their abruptly interrupted conversation naturally resumed once the song ended.

“Do you think it’s better that you remember, junior? Or would it be better if you didn’t?”

“What?”

“You must be confused. You went through something completely impossible, and then you found out things you never needed to know. I’m sure it gave you plenty to worry about.”

“.......”

Just as Yunjin said, Gowon’s head had been tangled with all kinds of thoughts for quite some time.

But there was one thing he knew for certain.

“I like things the way they are now. I don’t want to forget what Hanje did for me.”

“Really?”

Yunjin’s smile softened.

“Then that’s enough. It’s nice to see.”

While they talked, Baek Hanje began the next song.

A powerful band sound shattered the subdued atmosphere, and his voice rang out clean and strong over it.

“Damn, this is the dignity of the second generation. Repent, you fake fifth-generation singers.”

“.......”

The same fan from earlier offered another passionately excessive compliment.

One fifth-generation idol who had just been declared a fake singer silently repented while also thinking that reaching that level was simply impossible.

...Ha ha.... Junior’s working hard too. That’s a little harsh.

Even Yunjin seemed unsure what to say about the situation. He cleared his throat awkwardly before speaking again.

“Hanje’s a good singer, isn’t he?”

“Yes.”

There was neither a reason nor any possible way to deny it.

“That kid really is loved by G—. ---.”

“Aaaaaahhh!!!!!”

“What?”

Yunjin {N•o•v•e•l•i•g•h•t} had spoken too quietly, and the song happened to end at that exact moment, setting off a wave of screams from the audience.

Gowon hadn’t heard him properly.

Yunjin merely shrugged as though it were nothing and shook his head.

“Never mind. Why don’t we focus on the performance now?”

“Yes.”

Gowon had no disagreement with that either.

The two stood side by side, watching the performer thoroughly drenched in the heat of the stage.

Baek Hanje’s expression shifted through a dazzling range along with the emotional flow of each song.

There wasn’t a single moment onstage when he looked as though he wasn’t enjoying himself.

Without even noticing that the reddish sky had long since darkened, Gowon became completely absorbed in Baek Hanje.

—Mm, first of all, the forty minutes I was given are already over.

“No way!”

Gowon rejected a reality completely incompatible with his own perception of time.

Every Spades fan present shared the exact same feeling.

“Encore! Encore!”

Gowon had been hiding his voice to conceal his identity, but this time even he joined the fans’ protests.

—All right. Since you gave me the final slot, let’s have a little more fun. But if I keep going through my solo songs, all I have left are ballads about breaking up and being miserable, so I’m going to steal something from Young Ace instead.

Another roar seemed ready to tear through the sky as Baek Hanje picked up the guitar that had been resting against the piano and slung it over his shoulder.

—I’ll play Young Ace’s <Night Flight>.

<Night Flight>.

Young Ace had spent a while targeting the overseas market before finally returning to domestic promotions after a long absence.

It was an easy-listening album track that stayed near the top of the charts even longer than the title track.

With its dreamlike melody that felt like drifting through space and its tender lyrics whispering about happiness, it was still chosen every year by Spades fans as their first song of the New Year.

—We fly through the same time, the same universe

Tracing an eternal orbit, Night Flight

Beginning with <Talk it up>, a song about sitting side by side with someone, looking up at the sky, and connecting with them.

Then ending with <Night Flight>, a promise to stay together for a long, long time, as though walking through an endless universe.

It was a perfect setlist for soaking a summer-night jazz festival in emotion.

—Everyone. I think I really do have to say goodbye now.

“Awww...!!!”

Baek Hanje responded to the disappointed cries with a sudden declaration.

—Next time, I’ll “drag” the whole Young Ace lineup here!

“......?!”

The fans froze for a moment at the completely unexpected announcement, then erupted into screams.

“Aaaaaahhh!!!!!”

“What the hell, is Young Ace making a comeback?”

“Hanje! I’m starting my comeback fund right now, okay?! You hear me?!”

While every fan in the area screamed in confusion, Gowon clenched his teeth.

Now it’s time to carry out the mission.

“Senior. I’m sorry.”

“Hm?”

Gowon swiftly moved behind Yunjin and locked both arms firmly around his shoulders.

“Junior? What exactly are you doing?”

Four shadows approached the restrained Yunjin from the front.

“...Uh...? ...Uh....”

As Yunjin began to guess who those suspicious figures were, his demeanor rapidly shifted to bewilderment.

“W-wait..., ah, no way.”

“Good job, Won.”

One of them placed a huge palm on top of Gowon’s head and gave it a pat.

“...Yes, division head.”

“Ha....”

Yunjin received confirmation that the four people standing before him were the very people he had never been able to forget, not even in his dreams.

Once Yunjin was completely surrounded, Gowon’s arms smoothly released him.

But there wasn’t the slightest opening through which he could escape.

Surrounded by pitch-black silhouettes, he was escorted away toward a dim corner of the jazz festival grounds.

“Um, guys....”

Thump!

The instant they reached a place without anyone else around, the man standing directly in front of Yunjin reached out.

His grip was powerful enough to pin both of Yunjin’s arms tightly against his body.

As though Yunjin were being kidnapped by a movie villain....

“Yunjin.”

Kim Yeban, Young Ace’s actor whose pronunciation tended to become indistinct whenever he wasn’t reading from a script, pronounced his name one syllable at a time with perfect clarity.

And then—

“Got you.”

He stared at his fellow member with the same blazing eyes as one of the characters he played when locking onto a target.

“Yeah... you got... me. Ha ha....”

Standing a short distance away from the veteran seniors, Gowon quietly typed out a message.

Caught him.

Hanje

OK good

The reply came quickly, as though Baek Hanje had been waiting for word the moment he stepped offstage.

After Baek Hanje caught Gowon exchanging DMs with Yunjin—though Gowon hadn’t actually realized it was supposed to be a secret—he had been forcibly recruited as their accomplice.

And so, somewhere unnoticed by the audience at the jazz festival, Baek Hanje’s promise was fulfilled on a smaller scale.