Sarah Stewart threw her phone before she even realized it.
Smack!
It crashed into the wall with a sharp crack and then fell to the floor.
Only after that did she remember she had been in the middle of a call, and she rushed over to the phone… but it had already met its end.
“Sigh…”
Sarah Stewart resented herself for throwing her phone again, after promising herself she would never throw it anymore.
But she had been so shocked that she had not had time to think about that.
No wonder…
─ Yeah, Mateo.
Because of that one name that had come out of HS’s mouth.
On top of that, they had been talking in a tone that sounded like he was asking whether she was willing to sing someone else’s song, and the name that came at the end of that was…
Her father, Mateo!
Sarah bit down hard on her twisted lips. Was it a coincidence? Or was he doing this knowing everything?
Ah.
Just before HS had contacted her, she had actually gotten a text from Mateo too.
[ What kind of father have I been to you? ]
She had had a lot she wanted to say, but in the end she sent back only a short reply: “I do not even want to think about it.”
Thankfully, there had been no contact from him after that.
What kind of father…
He was the father who hid the existence of his daughter, who was overbearing, who trampled on her dreams, and who focused only on his own work even as her mother was wasting away.
Of course, thanks to that, it was also true that she had lived a life others would envy.
Even if she had had to live holed up in a rural village away from people’s eyes, she had eaten what she wanted, bought what she wanted, and learned what she wanted.
But just making a lot of money and giving lots of allowance did not make someone a good father.
Because when it came to the things she truly wanted most, he had not allowed a single one.
Spending long stretches of time with her father.
Going on trips with her father.
Singing to songs written by her father.
Very small things she could wish for as a daughter, and at the same time, her most earnest dreams.
On top of that, when she said she was going to leave home, he had even added that she should not tell anyone she was his daughter— a father who only ever thought of himself.
As if she and her mother had been obstacles in his life that he needed to stash away.
And now….
Why was he like this now of all times!
Wait a second….
The man who had been so desperate to hide that he had a daughter, the man who had so openly shown how much he disliked HS without even really knowing him, had told HS that she was his daughter?
What if HS handed that over to the press?
For someone who had always been so obsessed with how people saw him, was he not being way too careless?
Right.
Maybe HS still did not know. HS was very good at coaxing people, so maybe he had egged her father on, lightly enticing him into doing a project together.
And by coincidence, she had ended up being chosen as the instrument. Yeah, that had to be it.
“Huu…”
Sarah Stewart forced herself to calm down and steady her breathing.
‘Ah, right!’
After pretending not to know until the very end, she had even gone as far as telling HS that her father was gay. If he found out the truth, he might think she was a liar.
That absolutely cannot happen!
She had to check the facts right away. She needed to contact HS…
“Fuck!”
Sarah shouted as she looked down at the phone screen, split with long cracks.
Since it’s come to this….
With a look like she had come to a decision, she quickly packed a few things and left the studio.
Ah. Of course, she made sure to pack the notebook with the lyrics she had written, too.
Hyunseung looked down at the screen that showed the call had ended for only a moment.
“That settles that.”
He decided not to bother calling again.
Even if this was a project that had started with the best of intentions, he could not force an instrument to perform against its will.
She would think it over and get back to him in her own time.
For now, Hyunseung decided to focus on what he could do.
He set aside the untitled song with no lyrics coming to mind for the moment.
Time to properly get to work.
Come to think of it….
Had Mateo finished his track? For all his big talk and bluster, he had not said a word about his own work.
Of course.
If Sarah Stewart ended up refusing to the very end, the project would fall through anyway.
Ah, whatever….
Before all that, he should probably go work out.
In the gym, where the air was still fresh thanks to the relatively early hour, there was a lone man blazing with heat….
“Huff, huff—.”
It was Executive Director Park, whose build had grown even larger in the time they had not seen each other because they had both been busy.
“Huu, I told you, no matter how busy you get, you cannot neglect your workouts.”
He greeted him with nagging.
“Yees, yees.”
Hyunseung answered half-heartedly, but what he said was right.
And in that regard, Executive Director Park really did seem impressive.
He…
No matter how busy, no matter if it rained or snowed, never skipped his workouts and repeated them every single day.
It was not simply to build a good-looking body.
Right. It was an effort to maintain, at least, the areas of his life he could control.
Perhaps Executive Director Park’s life itself was like exercise. Even when it was hard, annoying, and overwhelming, he endured it alone, day after day, and pushed through.
All for the sake of his kids.
At that moment, after setting down a 100-kilogram dumbbell, Executive Director Park looked over and asked:
“Hey, why are you just standing there staring into space if you came to work out?”
Instead of answering that, Hyunseung called to him quietly.
“Executive Director Park.”
“What?”
“‘Mom’… what is that, exactly?”
“Huh?”
“I mean ‘mother,’ a mother.”
Then he dropped a strange question.
“What kind of existence is a mother supposed to be?”
“What kind of random nonsense is that? Did you not wake up properly?”
“My mother passed away when I was young, so no matter how much I try to think about it, I just do not really know.”
“Well, I have never been a mom either… that aside, why are you asking something like that?”
For a brief moment, a flicker of worry passed across Executive Director Park’s face.
“I just… need it for something.”
“Do not tell me you are trying to make ‘Villain mama’ or something?”
“Well, something like that.”
“What on earth are you trying to pull this time?”
He wiped away the sweat running down and continued.
“But I have honestly been really curious about something for a long time.”
“What is that?”
“With the Peekaboo family song, with ‘Villain daddy,’ and so on— why do you keep writing songs for other people?”
He asked with a clear, earnest expression, like he truly wanted to know.
It was understandable. Even without making those kinds of songs, Hyunseung could easily keep churning out era-appropriate hits, and yet he kept turning other people’s lives into songs.
Ah.
Of course, it was not like any of his tracks had ever failed to break even.
“Hmm.”
Hyunseung let out a low hum and flopped down onto the bench.
“Ah…”
The moment his back touched the bench, he could feel the dampness soaked into it. Just how long had he been working out?
He grimaced and sat back up, thought for a moment.
Hmm….
Then lay back down again. He still had not come up with a proper answer to Executive Director Park’s question.
Why do I write songs for other people?
Because this is my second life. —He could not say that.
Because I decided to live a different life. —He could not say that either.
“It is just fun.”
After much thinking, Hyunseung finally gave a very flat answer.
Really….
It was just, just, just that he had fun while he worked.
Of course, if someone asked whether he was doing it purely for fun, he was not sure about that.
More than anything, getting involved in their lives was actually quite a hassle.
And he could not take responsibility for their lives or change them in an instant. That was something not even a god could do.
It was just that using something that was easy for him to do, he could make them happy, and even if he could not make them truly happy, he could probably make them just a little bit less unhappy.
So that the unhappiness would not fester and rot.
Like it did for his past self.
Maybe he had started doing it out of a desire to atone toward the self who had made himself unhappy in his previous life, and toward his family.
Smack!
Just then, a bolt of pain shot through his forehead.
“You really are a flat kid.”
“Ow!”
“Hurry up and pick up the dumbbells.”
With his face screwed up in agony, Hyunseung rubbed his forehead. Seriously, did the man build muscle in his fingers too?
Then Executive Director Park placed his hands on the dumbbells as well and continued.
“If you came here to work out, then just work out.”
“I am working out.”
“And stop thinking weird thoughts.”
“I said I got it.”
“I am holding on tight, so trust me and push for more weight.”
At that, Hyunseung gave him a crooked smile.
At first, he had not known what kind of person Executive Director Park was.
But the closer he got, the more he could see the man’s life and his convictions.
If their relationship had not been good, he would never have known.
Just like that…
Everyone lives with their own circumstances and values.
He had only come to understand that after swimming back upstream through life.
At some point, he had started to think that life was something with no right or wrong, so long as it did not break the law.
Everyone was just living their own lives as best they could.
Right, they were all doing it because they wanted to live.
Because you had to find a way to survive in this world….
And so, all Hyunseung did was help support, together with them, the “dumbbells” called life that those who wanted to live were struggling so hard to hold up.
“Sir, please support it properly.”
“I am supporting it.”
“Anyone could see you are just putting your hands there.”
“You little punk?”
Someday…
“Someone will grab hold of my dumbbells too.”
The next day.
As always, after finishing his morning workout, Hyunseung returned to the studio.
He drank the protein shake Dad Park had made for him, and the coffee Mom Kim had bought on her way in to work.
Now that his face was public, he went to the cafeteria at the busiest time to eat lunch too.
But then, why is it still….
Drumming a steady rhythm on the work table with his index finger, Hyunseung stared blankly down at his phone.
Tap, tap, tap—!
A full day had gone by since the agreed deadline, and he had sent his own project file as well….
What is this?
There was still no word from Mateo.
Had something happened to the old man?
When they met the other day, he had been so thin he had not exactly looked healthy.
“Hmm…”
Could it be that the future had changed and he had lost his hearing even earlier? No, even then, he would still be able to contact him.
Click-clack!
While Hyunseung was lost in thought, the sound of the lock disengaging without a knock rang out.
“Hyunseung!”
Kim Woohyun hurried in.
“I already saw you this morning, and what are you going to do if you keep coming in here without knocking? What if I was completely naked?”
“What reason would you have to be completely naked in a studio? Anyway, I think you should come down to the lobby with me for a second.”
“Why?”
“Apparently someone came to see you again and keeps insisting on being let in without identifying themselves.”
At that, Hyunseung shook his head like it was all a hassle.
“You can just tell my bodyguard standing at the door to go check.”
“Well, he did go, but….”
Kim Woohyeon hesitated for a moment.
“They say it looks like Sarah Stewart, but she keeps stubbornly insisting she is not. Shouldn’t you go check yourself and bring her up?”
Then, with a worried look, he added:
“Now that the dating rumor has finally quieted down, if she keeps making a scene like this, some weird gossip is going to start flying around again.”
And then.
“Ah.”
Hyunseung pressed his hand to his forehead, let out a long sigh, and got to his feet.
Seriously.
Was she a lunatic whose whole world revolved around misutgaru and nothing else…?
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