Inside the recording booth, Mateo let out air through his lips as he watched his daughter loosening up her mouth, then closed his eyes.
“Brrrrr!”
A fairly cute sound echoed through the studio speakers.
For no reason, listening to that sound made him remember giving his daughter raspberries on her belly when she was little.
“Kya ha ha ha ha!”
Every time, his daughter would flash a bright smile, showing off her clumsily grown teeth.
But now, it had become a smile he could no longer see.
The daughter in front of him no longer smiled at him like that. He did not know since when.
Maybe it started from when she began to become a young lady.
Whenever he tried to strike up conversation to shake off the cold atmosphere that hung around the house, only chilly replies came back.
“I’ll take care of it myself.”
More than her smiling face, his daughter’s face, looking at him with no expression at all, had been etched deeper into him.
So he closed his eyes.
Even if only in the afterimage, to try to find that brightly smiling face from her childhood.
─ ♬ ♬ ♬
Soon, a gentle melody filled the air.
Gulp.
Even as he told himself he should listen while stripping away as much emotion as possible, he could not help being tense. Since he learned that his daughter debuted as a singer, he had listened countless times.
Of course, only through audio and videos.
This was the first time hearing her in person. She must have taken after her mother, her voice was good, and she seemed to sing well.
But today, he was able to sit here with the pretext of being the composer and producer who made this song, so he should listen while stripping away as much emotion as possible.
“Hoo….”
Mateo let out a deep breath, trying to calm his turbulent feelings.
HS glanced at him, and then withdrew his gaze.
What was that kid thinking right now?
And what emotions would his daughter put into her singing?
─ Honestly, I still don’t really know.
His daughter’s voice pierced softly into his ears.
As expected, she took after her mother exactly.
It was a clear voice that strangely felt like it was scratching at his heart.
─ I can’t fully understand your heart, all of it.
Even if they swapped the lyrics he had written with the lyrics HS had written, these were lyrics he had already received as a file and checked multiple times.
But hearing those lyrics delivered through his daughter’s mouth made them sound new.
Each syllable, each letter, each breath.
In every way, it was different from what he had expected.
─ Maybe I’m selfish too. Because I only kept wanting from you.
His daughter lowered her eyes. As if she were simply enjoying the slow tempo’s rhythm, her body swayed lightly.
─ But I hate you. I hate you so much it chills me to the bone.
Only for a moment, his daughter’s tightly shut eyelashes trembled, and at the same time, her voice trembled too.
─ So it hurts even more. It’s painful to see myself hating you.
As the chorus began, emotion surged in like an ebbing tide, along with strong force in a voice that had been as light as down.
─ You should’ve stayed by my side a little more, you should’ve looked deeper.
Mateo knew bone deep that she was not singing while thinking of him.
Bitter as it was, that would not happen.
And yet Sarah’s lyrics sounded like words she was saying to him.
─ You were all I had, you really were all I had in this world.
Even if it truly was something she was saying to him, even if it was grumbling laced with resentment, he was sorry.
After sending his wife away, he must have been everything to his daughter, and yet he could not properly stay by her side then….
He hated himself for believing his daughter’s words, that she would handle everything herself, exactly as they were, and believing that as time passed, everything would return to the starting point.
“Stop.”
It was just as Mateo was helplessly sinking into a swamp of despair.
“Now we’ll go line by line.”
When he turned his head to the side, he saw HS’s profile with cold eyes. It was a different face from when he recorded Mateo.
How should he put it…
When he looked at him, it was like a beast tasting what to eat first with a tempting meal in front of it….
But now, it was cold, like he was looking at a deserter who had betrayed the pack.
‘What’s with him?’
Mateo tilted his head. To him, Sarah’s singing did not sound especially bothersome.
He was not saying that because he was her father.
Even the tremble in her voice sounded like part of the music, and from pitch to rhythm to breathing, there was nothing to point out.
He expected that if they just polished it a little, it would be done in about two or three takes, to the point it almost felt like a shame.
But right now, HS was….
─ Honestly, I still don’t really know.
“You really sound like you don’t know.”
─ I can’t fully understand your heart, all of it.
“Try understanding my heart.”
─ Maybe I’m selfish too. Because I only kept wanting from you.
“You’re singing too selfishly.”
With abstract words, he was cutting up his daughter’s singing line by line.
─ But I hate you. I hate you so much it chills me to the bone.
“I hate you so much it chills me to the bone too. Again.”
─ So it hurts even more. It’s painful to see myself hating you.
“It’s painful for me too, listening to a song like this. Again.”
─ You should’ve stayed by my side a little more, you should’ve looked deeper.
“Hold your breath a little more, put deeper emotion into it, again.”
When he had sung, HS had pointed out specific improvements like a strict vocal trainer, so what was this?
Watching silently from the side, it felt less like directing and more like he was picking a fight.
─ You were all I had, you really were all I had in this world.
“Drink water, then we’re going back in from the start of the verse.”
In the end, even after repeating the first verse up to this point, without saving even a single take, he went back to square one.
“Hold on, let’s talk.”
Mateo spoke urgently, as if he could not take it anymore, turning off the talkback.
“What are you trying to do right now?”
“What do you mean?”
“This isn’t directing.”
Then, so his daughter would not see, he turned his head toward HS and showed how uncomfortable he was.
Because how, with what kind of feeling, how much breath to put in, raise the pitch by half a step, push the beat…
Normally, those are the kinds of things that would come out of a director’s mouth.
You do not say things like understand it, or painful, or hate.
Ah, of course, on the premise that no personal feelings are involved.
Yeah.
Usually, directing means drawing out a voice as close as possible to the singer’s voice you have envisioned in your head.
But….
What HS was doing right now was not drawing anything out. It was only making the song’s direction harder to understand.
And since Mateo was also here as a producer, he needed to point out what was wrong.
“Do you have some feelings for my daughter? You two looked like you got along, did you already fall out that fast?”
At Mateo’s sneering question, HS’s eyes darkened even more.
Looking into those deep black eyes, Mateo suddenly felt cold.
“If anyone’s holding personal feelings right now, isn’t it you, old man?”
His voice had no rise or fall, but it pierced like a sharp dagger.
“I’m just directing, without any personal feelings.”
At that, Mateo asked back in an even more overbearing posture.
“Then why are you talking so vaguely compared to earlier?”
HS quietly turned his head and looked at Sarah standing blankly beyond the booth.
He could not tell what he was thinking.
Before long, instead of answering, HS asked again in a heavily lowered voice.
“To your ears, did Sarah sing well just now?”
“Honestly, her breathing, projection, pitch, rhythm, nothing was wrong. I don’t think she sang badly enough for you to push her into a corner like that.”
“A kid? Here, she has to be a pro. Not a kid.”
Then, without giving Mateo even a speck of a glance, he added coldly.
“And if the person who should understand the emotion this song carries best is you, and it sounded like good singing to you, then it feels like you can just leave now.”
Then Mateo, without a word, corrected his posture.
If it had been another threat involving his daughter, he would have made a scene, but that was not a threat. It was plainly saying he was disqualified as a producer.
He had forgotten, just for a moment.
What emotion this song contained, and with what heart he wrote it.
Yeah.
The way Sarah Stewart was singing this song, it sounded more like she was singing to a separated lover than hating her family.
The lyrics had some double meanings, but the emotion clearly had to be different.
Sarah Stewart could not do that, and she had loaded the emotion in a vague, blurred way. So HS had responded just as vaguely, just as blurred.
And because he listened while carrying a personal emotion of apology toward his daughter, he had only heard all of it as painfully tender.
Right…
The one who treated Sarah Stewart with personal emotions was not HS.
It was him.
Then.
Thud!
As if making up his mind, Mateo pressed the talkback and said,
“Sarah Stewart, this time, let’s face the song head on.”
Sarah was miserable in every way. It felt like there were two HSs.
Because HS and Mateo kept shouting “Again” in turns through the talkback.
“J-Just a moment….”
She did not want to make a groaning sound even if it killed her, but she thought she might collapse at this rate, so she declared surrender.
If they would at least tell her what to do, that would be better, but endless “again”?
‘Isn’t this too much, no matter what?’
But the two of them had cold faces as if they had no intention of going easy on her. HS was one thing, but she also did not know until now that her dad made that face when he directed.
“Then we’ll rest exactly thirty minutes, then go again. Your throat will get stiff, so don’t shut your eyes too long.”
Sarah thought HS looked like a devil as he said that, but she did not even have the strength to respond, so she let it pass.
Then she lay down on the sofa and fell into sleep like she had passed out.
.
.
“Dad, Dad!”
She saw her younger self. She looked about five years old, hair roughly tied tight into pigtails, flapping as she threw open the hospital door and ran in.
“Play with me today, yeah?”
Then she grabbed at the sleeve of her father’s patient gown as he lay in bed and started whining in a sulky voice.
That was not a dream.
It was a fragment of memory that had been deeply embedded in her mind.
Back then, she was so young she did not even understand the concept of an “accident.”
Her mom said it was nothing, and soothed her even though she was startled.
So she had not properly grasped that her father had gotten into a traffic accident on the way back home after work in a hurry and had been badly hurt.
Wrapped tightly in bandages everywhere except one arm, injured so badly he could not even move, could not even go to the bathroom, and yet she thought it was nothing.
Because her dad was Superman to her.
She, without any sense, clung to him and cried and made a fuss for a long time, demanding he give her a piggyback ride on his shoulders, then fell asleep.
Her dad told her to wait just a few nights, and even his good hand had no rest as he patted her soft back to soothe her.
“Daaad, give me a shoulder ride.”
Like any other day, that day too, she threw a tantrum, asking for a shoulder ride.
Instead of soothing her, her father struggled painfully. In the end, he fumed with a reddened face, as if it were unfair.
“D-Dad, what’s wrong….”
Watching him, she felt scared in a child’s way, and for some reason, tears fell.
“Sniff, hng, sniff, damn it….”
Her dad stopped struggling, then suddenly let his body go limp like a corpse, his shoulders shaking.
“D-Dad, waah…”
Back then, she just cried along too. She did not know why her dad was crying.
“Dad’s sorry. So don’t cry.”
But now, she could understand.
“It’s our daughter’s birthday, and I’m sorry I can’t even give you a shoulder ride even once….”
Her dad cried like a little kid, sobbing loudly, just because he could not give her a shoulder ride even once.
“Sniff, I’m really sorry….”
Holding onto his little daughter, he cried, miserably.
Maybe because it was a dream, but his difficult movements and expressions from that day, which had faded into the back of her memory, felt so vivid.
You don’t have to be sorry.
She wanted to say that, but the little her in the dream, confused, only cried loudly in her dad’s arms.
‘You thoughtless brat.’
Only after cursing her younger self in her head did she wake up from the dream.
.
.
“…Sarah! Sarah!”
Rather than waking up on her own, she woke up to hands shaking her body.
When she lifted her eyelids, she saw her father’s face filled with worry.
Unlike the father she had just met in the dream, he had grown so old.
“Are you okay? Did you have a bad dream or something?”
The image of him directing sharply was nowhere to be found, and he looked like nothing but her dad.
“Uh, s-sorry….”
Seeing her frown because the light was bright, he seemed to think she found his touch unpleasant.
He quickly pulled back the hand that had been shaking her and stood up.
A hand that used to reach out painfully, trying to hold her, now could not even properly extend, and instead withdrew while reading her mood.
‘It’s not like that.’
But, unlike in the dream, the words did not come out of her mouth.
She did not know if it was pride, or a wall of feelings built up over a long time.
Step, step.
After watching Mateo’s back as he returned to the console.
“I-I’ll start again right away.”
Sarah brushed herself off and stood up, then headed into the booth with forced resolve.
“Please go one take.”
On Sarah’s face, a sense of grim determination had settled in.
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