Chapter 65: I Found a Genius
Section Chief Kim Seyoung cautiously threw out a question, keeping an eye on the members' reactions.
"Uh, you don't like it?"
"No, no, it's really good."
"Um, I think... it's good?"
"I’m not sure... it doesn’t seem like it."
Although Jin Sehyun’s candid opinion was voiced, it got buried in the awkward timing.
However, even without saying much, everyone’s thoughts were clear on their faces.
Section Chief Kim Seyoung awkwardly smiled at the cold response and added more words.
"Don’t worry. This is just a candidate for the title track. Director, we have other candidates, right?"
"That’s true, but the CEO prefers this song."
CEO, stop!
I had heard that Doubles frequently made experimental challenges, but this was too experimental.
When we were still in Tipple, it wasn’t anything like this.
"They say this kind of vibe is the trend these days."
"Haha... I see."
"It was the CEO’s pick..."
"But isn't it a little addictive? I, I’m fine with it."
If they asked whether it was addictive, yes, it was.
Torrororo Torrororo
Torrororo... dotdot....
Torrororo Torrororo
Torrororo... dotdot....
That strange beat from earlier kept lingering in my mind.
Admitting that felt oddly uncomfortable.
But I was sure that Stardust's title tracks had been mainstream!
This wasn’t the song I remembered.
Why was that?
A possibility popped into my head first.
"Is the composer, Yoo Young, the one who worked on this…?"
"It’s Billy Vinger."
"Eh?"
I was briefly caught off guard by Section Chief Kim Seyoung’s immediate reply.
That was because I recognized Yoo Young’s composer, who worked on the same songs I knew.
Billy Vinger, a famous K-pop composer who created the hit "Betters" for StarP, was the one behind this song.
So it was him.
What’s going on with that guy?
Do people’s talents come and go like detachable parts?
I frowned and fell into thought.
It wasn’t necessarily Billy Vinger working alone—there could’ve been other co-composers involved…
In truth, I didn’t remember much about that side of things.
I didn’t always keep track of secondary composers either.
I just remembered a few of his representative songs because I was a fan of the tracks he’d made.
I cautiously brought up another possibility.
"Did he mention anything about the arrangement direction? Like if the guide audio differs from the final track’s mood…"
"There was no such hint."
"Ah."
So there was no guarantee that Billy Vinger would change the direction of the song.
What should I do with this?
And why did Yoo Young suddenly turn out like this?
Why did Billy Vinger suddenly lose his touch?
My head was throbbing.
The conversation that followed didn’t really register in my mind.
"So, about the activity period…"
"We’re probably going to add one more track to the list of activity songs..."
"Let's go with this vibe for the title track..."
"And as for the MV concept..."
Several minutes must have passed.
Then, Director Song Jinha’s one sentence felt like a savior.
"Shall we end today’s meeting here?"
"Yes!"
"Thank you!"
While I grabbed the contract with one hand and the album plan with the other, I still couldn’t shake off the shock of that title track.
Ha Junseo turned around to look at my pale face and asked worriedly.
I must have looked sick to him.
"Seohan, is something wrong?"
"Something happened with our album."
"Oh, right..."
I didn’t know what kind of variable had led to this result, but I had to get Yoo Young back.
"Wow! It’s the dorm!"
The first group dorm after the debut team was decided.
Seohan's voice, which had shot up in excitement, suddenly sank in an instant.
Although the temporary dorm had been decided, the problem was that...
"It’s here again?"
"I think I’m going to get PTSD."
It was the same dorm from the Stardust Project.
Doubles had gone so far as to rent a place like this for our first dorm.
This was too much, wasn’t it?
I didn’t know that Stardust had started their first dorm in such poor conditions.
Seo Haim looked at Ha Junseo with a pale, shocked face.
"Are we really going to live here? No way! Really?"
"For the time being...?"
"Don’t trainees usually get a separate dorm?"
That couldn’t be it.
I shook my head in response to Seo Haim’s complaints.
It wasn’t hard to guess why we were being left in this strange dorm temporarily.
The real dorm would probably be...
"They’ll probably give us one when we start shooting reality."
"Reality?"
Dorm reality shows were a given for project groups.
It was fun to decide who would share rooms through games.
There’d be shots of everyone’s surprised faces when entering the dorm.
There was no way they’d give us a real dorm already when there wasn’t much fun material left for the reality show.
Kang Siwoo hung his outerwear on a coat hanger and said calmly.
"Don’t worry. We’ll only stay here for a few days."
Ha Junseo patted Seo Haim’s back, offering words of comfort.
"The practice room is really close too!"
"Hyung, is that really a good thing...?"
At Ha Junseo’s usual high-energy remark, Jin Sehyun replied with a somewhat grim expression.
"I think he’ll drag me to the practice room even at dawn."
"Jin Sehyun is obviously the first one to be picked. Seohan, do you want to go too?"
"Hahaha..."
I had to worry about the Yoo Young issue first.
I awkwardly smiled and avoided Ha Junseo’s intense gaze.
The only good thing was that Kang Siwoo had appropriately cut off Ha Junseo’s super-enthusiasm.
"Well, it’d be cramped for the seven of us in one room, so how about we divide the rooms?"
It was decided that the seven of us would sleep across two rooms.
"Let’s just settle for something simple."
"How about this?"
Since it wasn’t a reality show and there was no need for broadcast-worthy shots, room assignments were made by simply lining up the people standing together.
"Then we’ll unpack in that room."
Kang Siwoo took Seo Ian and Jin Sehyun and moved to the adjacent room.
That left the remaining four of us.
Me, Ha Junseo, Seo Haim, and Cha Seongbin.
The moment the room assignments were decided with a rather unfamiliar combination.
Seo Haim suddenly raised his arm as if playing a game of charades.
"I’m on the second floor!"
He swiftly claimed the top bunk with agile movements.
"I’ll take the bottom floor!"
Immediately, I grabbed the bottom bunk for the sake of my joints.
"I also found it hard to keep going up and down after practicing…."
Ha Junseo, for similar reasons, took the bottom bunk.
Cha Seongbin, still youthful with joints full of energy, cheerfully threw his things on my upper bunk.
"Then I’ll take the upper bunk, Seohan."
"Why?"
"To watch Do Seohan while he sleeps."
Scary!
"What if I lower my head like this?"
Whip-
The pose vaguely reminded me of a spooky special feature.
"Aah."
When I covered my face with a blanket in terror, Cha Seongbin laughed joyfully.
His laughter was incredibly mischievous.
I really don’t like this guy.
"Let’s go to Junseo hyung’s bed."
"I like Seohan!"
If only this guy wasn’t an older brother, I would’ve slapped him by now.
The upper bunk belonged to Cha Seongbin.
I already wanted to change my room placement.
But I didn’t know then.
Torrororo Torrororo
Torrororo... dotdot....
That night, I never imagined that Cha Seongbin’s humming of that song would make me lose sleep.
10 PM that evening.
Seohan had gone to sleep relatively early for once.
The moment my head hit the pillow, drowsiness hit me like a wave.
It felt nice.
There was no competition looming right in front of me, so I thought I should enjoy some relaxation while I could.
If possible, I planned to sleep peacefully until late afternoon.
But.
Someone woke Seohan up.
Torrororo Torrororo
Torrororo... dotdot....
Torrororo Torrororo
Torrororo... dotdot....
The highlight of Yoo Young’s song, which had been buzzing around in my ears all day, felt like it would drive me crazy.
I wondered where the strange melody was coming from, and it turned out to be from the upper bunk.
Cha Seongbin, with earphones plugged in, was humming the highlight of Yoo Young’s song.
Torrororo Torrororo
Torrororo... dotdot....
Seohan groggily muttered.
"Excuse me, Cha Seongbin hyung... please be mindful of the noise."
"Huh?"
"Please don’t sing..."
"Me?"
Cha Seongbin whipped his head around and looked down at me.
It was quite an inconsiderate move, especially since I was terrified of him.
Moreover, since I was still half-asleep,
"Ah, you startled me!"
Without thinking, I grabbed the pillow and slammed it against his head.
"Ouch!"
Cha Seongbin, who had been hit directly in the face, hung limply from the bed, blinking his eyes.
He had been hit so hard that the glasses he had been wearing briefly flew off.
"That’s too much..."
"Ugh..."
His expression looked utterly bewildered, so I hesitantly lowered the pillow.
Even though I wasn’t fully awake, I always tried to be polite.
"I’m sorry."
"Next time, could you surprise me more thoroughly?"
"...Ugh."
Of course.
I scowled and buried my head back under the pillow.
"I really don’t like him."
"Tsk, what are you doing?"
Ha Junseo, who had been fiddling with his phone from the opposite bed, clicked his tongue upon seeing the situation.
Even though we were both twenty-one, unlike Ha Junseo, who seemed mature, Cha Seongbin’s mental age seemed stuck at the level of someone my age.
"Cha Seongbin, stop bothering the youngest. He still needs to grow, so let him sleep."
"Do Seohan is taller than me, though?"
"Let’s blame genetics for that."
Cha Seongbin, who was 178 cm tall, grumbled under his breath.
"I drank milk but still didn’t grow. How unfair is that~."
"..."
"Maybe the secret to growing tall is sleep?"
Despite the sad reality of genetics, Cha Seongbin wanted to wake Seohan up and talk to him.
The youngest in the team, but with the depth of someone in their second life.
A younger brother who was smarter than him but didn’t flaunt it.
Cha Seongbin liked this younger member.
So, he hadn’t given up yet.
"Do Seohan, are you sleeping?"
"..."
"Little one, are you awake?"
Ha Junseo furrowed his brows and glared at Cha Seongbin.
But no matter what Ha Junseo did, Cha Seongbin had already pulled half of his body out of the bed, trying to bother the lower bunk resident.
"Oh, I’m waking Seohan up."
Torrororo Torrororo
Torrororo... dotdot....
"Do Seohan, just once! Listen to this again."
He firmly believed that the clever youngest would properly evaluate his idea that had just popped into his head.
Just as Cha Seongbin was convinced,
"Ugh, seriously..."
Seohan grumbled, pulling the blanket all the way over his head.
Mumble mumble.
"That guy is really weird... I’m going to move to Mars. I’ll move to Mars..."
"Are you going to avoid me and move to Mars?"
He was probably so drowsy that he didn’t even know what he was mumbling.
At this point, I felt bad about waking him up.
"Sorry, sorry. Really, sleep."
Cha Seongbin awkwardly smiled and returned to his bed.
He thought he’d tell him everything when he was fully awake tomorrow.
"I’ll think about it some more before going to sleep."
Cha Seongbin stretched and quietly muttered before throwing his blanket over himself again.
But.
Torrororo bit tor
That planet is so painfully blue
Torrororo Torrororo
Torrororo... dotdot....
The melody I heard in my sleep suddenly flashed through my mind.
"...!"
The hand I had been holding the blanket with froze in midair.
"Hyung."
Whip-
Seohan threw off the blanket and leapt out of bed.
"...!"
His eyes, which had been hazy from sleep just a moment ago, suddenly became wide awake.
"Sing it again."
"That song just now?"
Danging-
Cha Seongbin, who had kicked off the blanket, hummed again from his hanging position.
Seohan, following what I asked, hummed a pretty precise version.
Torrororo Torrororo
Torrororo... dotdot....
At the same time, Seohan’s eyes widened.
No, this humming...
I’ve heard this song somewhere before.
"Crazy."
Seohan muttered under his breath in awe, his mouth hanging open.
I found it, the Yoo Young I had lost.
It felt like I had discovered the answer to a song that had always eluded me.
‘Could it be that Cha Seongbin…?’
It was time for a reevaluation of Cha Seongbin.
Seohan mentally rewrote his image of him.
"This is crazy."
From an annoying and strange hyung,
To someone still annoying, but still incredible.
Seohan slowly lifted his head and asked.
"Hyung, are you a genius?"