After returning to the hotel, Hyunseung sat on the living room sofa and waited for the sky to grow light.
Only once the sun rose and morning came could he receive a reply to the message he had sent.
‘Hurry up and wake up.’
He had been locked in a staring contest with his phone for quite some time when…
“Oppa…?”
Hyuna woke from sleep, spotted him, and asked in surprise.
“Why aren’t you sleeping, and why are you sitting there like that?”
“Ah, there’s somewhere I needed to contact.”
“It is work stuff again, right?”
“Ah, well, just something fun?”
At that, Hyuna shook her head and said, “Hopeless,” for a moment.
“Do not tell me you did not sleep a wink…”
Seeing the deep shadows under her brother’s eyes, she went pale and asked.
“No, it just sort of happened….”
“You cannot live like this!”
“It really is an important contact, that is all.”
“You still need to sleep while you do it.”
Hyunseung gave a halfhearted nod. He did not have the mental space to listen to his little sister’s nagging right now.
“Good grief….”
Hyuna looked at her brother’s face and then shook her head as if saying who could stop him.
His mind was already completely stolen by the phone. His eyes were half open. Would anything she said even go in one ear?
Really. Not just because he was her brother, but she felt that in this world you had to at least do this much to climb to the top.
‘He really is something.’
Just then, as Hyuna was inwardly admiring him…
“Oh!”
All of a sudden Hyunseung let out an exclamation and sprang to his feet.
“Good.”
Whatever good thing it was, he looked at the screen, then gave a faint grin.
Hyuna watched her brother, took out a bottle of water to drink, and casually asked,
“What kind of message was that?”
“I managed to reclaim an old instrument.”
Sensing something odd in his answer, Hyuna pressed him again. Yes, she’s not getting fooled this time.
“Oppa, this time too, the instrument is not that instrument, is it?”
“What would a fake instrument even be?”
“No, last time you said you were going to look at instruments, then you went to see Vincent.”
“Ah, he is definitely an instrument.”
“How can a person be an instrument!”
“You saw him do the triple cheer saying he is an instrument.”
At that, a single shocking scene flashed through her mind.
“I am an instrument! I am an instrument! I am an instrument!”
It was the sight of Vincent Mah doing a triple cheer toward her brother.
Hyuna was certain that scene would be more shocking than any she would ever see for the rest of her life.
Even if she told her friends, no one would believe it.
“Oppa, I think you really have a strange and bad taste.”
“Why is that a bad taste?”
“Anyway, who is the instrument this time?”
Hands on her waist, Hyuna urged him to hurry up and talk.
“Hurry and tell me.”
And the moment she heard the identity of the instrument from Hyunseung’s mouth:
“The New York Philharmonic.”
Hyuna dropped the water bottle in her hand.
Thunk, roll, roll, roll, roll.
It was so surprising she could not even feel the cold.
Vincent Mah stood in front of the mirror in his private practice room and suddenly had that thought.
The reason HS treats me so roughly must be because he still has not heard my voice, my singing, with his own ears.
If not, there is no way he could treat me like that.
More importantly, if he is a composer, he really should not be doing that, should he?
‘Of course, that must be it.’
Vincent kept repeating this reasonable explanation to justify HS’s behavior.
He even briefly wondered whether he was having a very long nightmare.
Because Vincent was the kind of person who received dozens of love calls in a single day. There were already hundreds of songs in the queue he had not even had time to listen to yet he had never imagined there would be a day when he would have to beg to get a song and beg for a remake permission.
How should he put it…
It felt so unreal that it did not feel real.
Ding!
But a newly arrived text just now once again made him realize this was reality.
[ my musical instrument. ]
My instrument, how affectionate.
[ Come to David Geffen Hall by 1 p.m ]
Suddenly telling him to come to David Geffen Hall… What was that supposed to mean? Was he asking to go see an orchestra concert?
No, he said he would schedule the recording and contact me, so why is he suddenly sending a date invitation…
‘No way.’
Vincent’s pupils shook violently.
‘Gay…?’
If so, that would also explain why he treated me that way…
There are people who, when interested in someone, keep pestering them more persistently.
Come to think of it, when we first met, he did seem to sweep his eyes over my body obsessively…
‘I do not have a hobby of going to orchestra performances with a man…’
Vincent accepted as fact that HS was gay and sent a reply.
Surely he would not pout like a man or say he would not give the song just because the date was turned down.
Right. This kind of thing needs to be declined clearly in the beginning and the line drawn.
[ Sorry, I can’t go. ]
Then he tossed his phone aside for a while.
Now that he knew the person supposedly liked him (*Vincent’s personal assumption), it all felt a bit awkward.
Well…
Honestly, as long as he could sing a good song, he could ignore that sort of thing and just not respond to it.
“Let us practice.”
He cleared his throat to resume practice.
“Ahem, hem.”
There was one thing Vincent decided after the “instrument triple cheer humiliation incident.”
Namely that he would pay HS back for this humiliation.
To do that, the very first thing was self-vocal training.
To give him the exact same humiliation, he needed to make HS feel regret toward him in the same way.
He would show his true skill, make HS beg him to please sing from now on.
Ah.
While he was at it, he should make HS send an MMS and do a triple cheer too.
The line would be:
“I will become your money chord.”
Good, that should be enough to gift him some shame.
“Heh heh….”
Just as Vincent let out a pervy laugh,
Ding!
The phone he had thrown far away chimed.
“Ha, damn….”
Checking the message, Vincent’s face went cold again.
[ Shall we call Sarah Stewart then? ]
Since the content was a threat asking whether they should contact Sarah Stewart instead.
What a petty gay guy.
Vincent, with a cap and mask pulled low, went to the appointed David Geffen Hall.
On the way he had checked and found there was no performance today either, so why had he been called here?
That aside, this person told me to come by 1, so why is he not here?
“Ha…”
Vincent was scowling as he loitered in the empty hall lobby when,
“Hey.”
He turned toward the voice, and there was HS strolling in at his ease.
“You are looking fit today too.”
HS came right up to him, patted his shoulder lightly, and asked,
“Do you lift?”
“Why are you asking that?”
Vincent took a step back and went on guard.
“I thought we could work out together sometime.”
“Why would I do that with you?”
“Men work out together, share some sweat, and shake the shaker bottle together and all that.”
Vincent scowled and answered on the spot, “No.” As expected, this guy was definitely gay.
“Don’t be so stiff.”
“Enough.”
Ignoring HS smacking his lips like it was a pity, Vincent continued.
“Why did you call me here?”
“Just follow me.”
“Where are we going?”
Maybe annoyed at having his steps stopped again, HS furrowed his brow and pressed him.
“Are you a man? Why are you so scared?”
“What? Are you the one who should be saying that?”
“It is not like I cannot say it.”
At that, Vincent started to say “Gay….”
“I thought I would never see you again since you disappeared without a word.”
A heavy door of the hall opened and a white-haired man spoke to HS like an acquaintance.
“You finally got in touch.”
“I did say I would meet you again no matter what.”
That person was clearly…
Yes. It was Paul, the conductor currently in charge of the New York Philharmonic.
He had seen the face in news photos countless times, so he was sure.
Then did that mean HS knew the conductor of the New York Philharmonic?
‘What on earth…’
As Vincent looked back and forth between the two with a shocked face, Paul spoke affably.
“If it were not a collaboration matter, I think you would have taken much longer to show up.”
“That must be your imagination.”
“I saw in the articles that you gave Sarah Stewart a song this time. Congratulations on entering the Billboard charts.”
“Of course I did.”
“That confident personality seems unchanged.”
After finishing that, Paul shifted his gaze to Vincent.
“Well, thanks to him, we get to collaborate with someone like this, so I should say it is an honor, right?”
He gave a little smile.
“Hold on, collaboration…?”
Vincent tilted his head, not understanding.
“For this song, the New York Philharmonic agreed to collaborate.”
Even with HS’s clear answer, he could not just say, “oh I see”.
Because the New York Philharmonic was an organization that had nothing to do with collaborating with him.
Unless… was there a dictionary meaning of “collaboration” different from what he knew?
Of course, it would be great if the New York Phil played directly, but no matter how he tried to force it, the song he had received this time was far from orchestral.
Right.
So Vincent could not understand the situation at all right now.
“Um, I do not get it, so…”
“What do you need to get? What is there for an instrument to understand?”
Ah, this gay bastard, seriously.
“I told you to tone down the instrument talk…”
Just as Vincent was restraining his irritation, since it was a quiet orchestra hall, and going on—
“HS! Ah, no, Jihyun1!”
The huge hall door opened and a woman shot out like an arrow.
“I missed you!”
She threw her arms around HS and showed how delighted she was.
“Get off.”
Of course, HS, who was gay (*Vincent’s personal assumption), did not look pleased.
That aside, was that woman not a world-class pianist?
What kind of connection did HS have with the New York Phil?
Just then,Vincent had to doubt his eyes once more.
“How much are you going to torment us this time?”
“Since it is something we have to do anyway, do it while our stomachs are empty.”
“I am telling you now, we will not get pushed around like before.”
“We will show you clearly this time why we are the New York Phil.”
Members of the New York Philharmonic poured out like a rising tide, surrounded HS in an instant, and started throwing out one jab of reproach after another.
No, not reproach.
On the members’ faces there was a strange mixture of excitement and tension.
‘What is this gay guy’s real identity?’
Since meeting HS, Vincent had known nothing but confusion.
- HS created a persona (another composer) “Choi Jihyun” to create a competition for himself. ↩︎
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