Pen and Paper Translations

The first thing Hyunseung did after arriving in the United States was smile.

Yeah.

If the work with JoJo’s mother and daughter had been a heavy feeling of needing to solve homework he still had not finished…

For some reason, the work with MaSarahte’s father and daughter kept making him feel excited.

How should he put it…?

Like it would be pretty fun?

Hyunseung first arrived near the Unice Music Group and headed straight to a cafe.

To shake off fatigue, nothing beats coffee, after all. (T/N: I agree.)

Gulp.

The moment he took a big swallow, it felt like his throat, which had dried up completely, was finally getting moist again.

“Shall I go now?”

It was just as Hyunseung was about to move his steps toward the Unice Music Group building.

“H-HS?”

At the sound of someone calling him from somewhere, he turned his head, and a foreign woman with green eyes was standing there.

‘Did I know someone like that?’

No matter how much he thought about it, it was a face he had never seen before in his life.

“Who are you?”

Instead of answering his question, the woman hurriedly pulled out her phone, tapped at it, and started waiting.

“You are, right?”

Soon, the woman pointed at her phone screen and asked.

“Ah.”

A single photo filled the screen…

A preview shot taken at the fan meeting.

He had not expected that this photo would have spread even in America.

“I’m your fan!”

“I am not HS.”

Hyunseung hurriedly averted his gaze and played dumb. In times like this, the best move was to deny it.

Then with a face holding onto a thin thread of hope, the woman asked again.

“Really not?”

“Yes, I’m not.”

“But your face…”

“I’m busy, so I’ll be going.”

Hyunseung drew a firm line, left the disappointed woman behind, and moved his steps.

Step, step.

He had barely taken a few steps.

“Ha…”

Hyunseung stopped and let out a deep sigh.

‘Damn it.’

The fact that he could not even walk around comfortably anymore, even on foreign soil, did not sit well with him at all.

But what could he do?

His face was already known, and it was something he had caused. He had to deal with it, and all he could do was act carefully so that the same thing as in his past life would not repeat.

Of course, the problem was that Hyunseung was a person far from “careful.”

“Still, if I put on sunglasses, nobody will recognize me, right?”

---

Inside Sarahh Stewart’s private studio.

“Why do you have that look on your face?”

Hyunseung asked Sarah Stewart curtly.

And for good reason, because Sarah Stewart had been glaring at him sulkily for the past ten minutes.

“Are you doing a silent protest?”

On top of that, her lips were pressed together, with no intention of opening.

It seemed like she had a hard time accepting the fact that she had chosen Mateo’s song.

“Still, what can you do? You’re the one who chose Mateo’s song.”

Sarah Stewart’s lips twitched, just for a moment.

“You were the one who held misutgaru and the song hostage and tempted me into a trial! Why did you even make that suggestion in the first place!”

She let out a shriek. Her voice was so powerful that the resonance echoed along the walls of the studio.

“How did you hold it in when your mouth must have been itching to talk?”

“Shut up!”

“I spoke quietly.”

At his words, Sarah Stewart fumed. It was because he was right again. Hyunseung was calm, like a lake with not a single ripple.

He only responded in a flat tone, and he had never raised his voice. Of course, inside, he had laughed several times.

“Misut Sarah.”

Hyunseung spoke as if it were no big deal.

“We’re just working on a song, so don’t get so mad. It’s not like you have to stay stuck to him the whole time.”

At that, Sarah asked with wary eyes.

“Are you working with us too?”

She seemed worried that she would be left alone with Mateo.

Hyunseung nodded vigorously, as if that would never happen.

“Of course.”

But Sarah slumped her shoulders like someone who had given up and muttered as if she were sick.

“Then that means we have to stick together for a few days.”

“Why does it turn into that?”

“If you’re there too, there’s no way the work will end quickly.”

“That depends on how you play it.”

When Hyunseung shrugged, Sarah snorted and immediately shot back, “Liar.”

“It’s not a lie. There was someone who even finished in one take.”

But at what came next, she asked with a face like she had been hit hard in the back of the head. She was so shocked that she even stuttered.

“Huh…? Really? You’re not lying?”

Then, a person suddenly flashed through her mind, and she pressed him with questions.

“Wh-who? Wh-what singer? D-don’t tell me… it’s not Vincent?”

When the answer “No” came out of his mouth, Sarah let out a sigh of relief.

If he had said it was Vincent, that slightly raised forehead would have crumpled with a crunch, along with her lofty pride.

Of course…

Even if it was not Vincent, it would still hurt her pride all the same.

Hyunseung was not the kind of great person who would consider even that much before speaking.

“Yoon Jaeyi probably finished in one take. Jung Arin also had times she finished in two or three takes.”

“Are you talking about the Korean singers who came as guests to your fan meeting?”

“Yeah, that’s right.”

Sarah’s face gradually turned to shock. It made sense.

Sarah still vividly remembered rotting away in the recording studio, longing only for the one goal of misutgaru.

“No way…”

“What’s no way?”

“No, when I saw them last time, they all sang well, but I didn’t feel like they were outstandingly better than me.”

“Wow, looking at you now, you’re really full of yourself.”

“It’s not that, I seriously mean, why did they finish so fast? It’s not like you would have been lazy and just let it slide because you were annoyed…”

At that, Hyunseung fell into thought with a rather serious face.

Why was that, again?

It was not that he was being serious, it was because his memory had gotten blurry.

Jung Arin…

In her voice, there had been a thick desire to be acknowledged by him with a song called “A Handful of Cherry Blossoms.”

But that did not mean it was bad.

She had come having fully made “A Handful of Cherry Blossoms” her own.

And Yoon Jaeyi…

Even though he had made it, that song was entirely Yoon Jaeyi’s. Because it was a song made from Yoon Jaeyi’s story.

There were parts where unrefined emotion stuck out and sharply stabbed the melody line, but even that sounded like one part of the story.

Yeah.

That was why, without saying anything, he had given an okay in one take.

Because it was a performance that nobody else could ever imitate.

Ah. Now that he looked back on it, it seemed like it had slowly started from then.

The time when he began to put other people’s stories into songs.

“Hmm…”

Hyunseung, after thinking how to explain it, answered in a low voice.

“I think even though their private feelings showed, I just wanted to leave it as it was.”

And then he immediately looked at Sarah Stewart and added.

“Today, after hearing your playing, I could end up thinking that too, right?”

Sarah snorted again, saying, “Liar.”

But her face was full of pleased color. As if she had confidence, she lifted her chin stiffly.

“Geez, I don’t know if I’m going to end up going back to Korea again, not even half a day after coming to America….”

“Well, that would be something to be grateful for.”

“Huh? Are you really going to go straight back to Korea as soon as the work is done?”

Sarah asked, staring with widened eyes. Somehow, there was regret on that face.

“Yeah. I still have one more quest left.”

At his flat answer, Sarah asked back, “Quest?”

Thud!

Instead of answering, Hyunseung placed a heavy bag on the table and switched the topic with different words.

“Here, a gift.”

---

Meanwhile, Mateo chose the sharpest looking suit he owned, put it on, and stood in front of the mirror.

Since he did not really go outside, his hair had grown shaggy, and he looked like a beggar.

Today might be the last time, so if possible, it would be better to be remembered with a neat appearance.

In the end, Mateo left home earlier than the expected time and headed to a hair salon.

After he fixed his hair, the figure in the mirror was fairly to his liking.

Step, step.

Since there was still a lot of time left until the appointment, Mateo chose to walk. The autumn sunlight pouring down was nice, too.

In truth, that was just an excuse…

Because tension was washing over him, he could not get into a car. His stomach churned, and with every step he took, his heart seemed to drop with a thud.

Thud, thud, thud.

He had worried that maybe his heart was not functioning properly because he was old, but it seemed that had been a useless worry.

With the heart that kicked down and came back up again, sour liquid rose in his throat.

Had he ever been this nervous in his life?

Ah, right. When he was young, he had felt this way.

On the road to his first date with his wife, on the day he proposed to her, and in the time he waited for his daughter Sarah to be born, at least then.

Like now, he felt like he might throw up from the tension.

“Hoo…”

It was just as he was trying to calm himself down and steady his breathing.

『 transmettre l’amour 』

A sign with French words meaning “to convey love” caught his eye. Coincidentally, that shop was a flower shop.

“Hmm….”

Did his daughter like flowers? When she was little, it felt like she used to go out holding her mother’s hand and pick flowers….

More than that, would she like it if he gave them? She would probably hate it, right?

Jingle!

As he stood in front of the flower shop and thinking for a long time, the flower shop owner, who looked neat and graceful, opened the door, came out, and spoke to him.

“Are you here to give flowers as a gift?”

“Ah, well…”

“Who are you giving them to?”

Mateo could not bring himself to answer, “To my daughter.” It was not because he was trying to protect his image.

If that flower shop owner knew that he was Mateo, she would definitely become curious at the word “daughter.”

Of course. She might not have recognized him, and she might not care, but he could not help always being on guard and starting from suspicion.

“Well…”

After a long pause, the answer that came out was…

“T-To a woman I owe an apology to.”

That was all.

But it was true.

At the unexpected answer, the flower shop owner blinked for a moment.

“Could you wait just a bit?”

With a fresh smile, she turned and went back into the shop.

Looking at the closed door, Mateo thought that maybe he was doing something pointless.

She spoke to him, and he just answered without thinking….

‘Sarah will hate it.’

Just as Mateo was about to turn around again.

With a clear bell sound of jingle, the flower shop owner came out holding a bouquet of white tulips in her arms.

“Take this.”

Mateo looked awkward for a moment, then pulled out his wallet.

Yeah.

She had already wrapped it and brought it out, so he could not say he would not buy it, and he could just throw it away on the way.

“How much is it?”

At his question, the flower shop owner shook her head side to side and smiled freshly again.

“The meaning of white tulips is forgiveness and apology. I hope you apologize sincerely, and that you can be forgiven.”

With a lump rising in his throat for some reason, Mateo left only a brief thanks and hurried his steps.

.

.

.

Arriving in front of the studio that was the meeting place, Mateo took a big deep breath once again.

Would his daughter be in there? Had HS already arrived?

Countless questions bloomed, but he could not readily open the door. But he also could not turn back like this.

Slide.

However, the big problem was that he could not bring himself to throw away the bouquet of white tulips in his hand.

If he went in holding this, would they not ask what the flowers were for?

And he could not very well say he bought them for HS.

“This is really…”

Just as Mateo was looking down at the bouquet and falling into worry.

“Kyaaa!”

A scream from Sarah, like it would tear apart, came from inside the studio.

Burst!

Mateo grabbed the doorknob and twisted it without any time to think.

“Fuck…”

He could not continue his words at the scene that unfolded before his eyes.

Because…

The big bag placed on the table was puffed up as if it were stuffed full of something, and HS was holding a white plastic bag as if he had taken it out from inside.

Moreover, his daughter was holding the opening of the bag, sniffing, stamping her feet with an extremely excited face.

And then Mateo could not hold back his anger, and he shouted.

“What are you doing to my Sarah right now!”