[ A giant in the music industry, Lee Moonseok, expresses hope to collaborate on this album with genius producer 'Min Hyunseung'… ]
[ Genius songwriter and producer Min Hyunseung confirmed as a judge for the major audition program K-Voice… ]
[ Boy group BYU tops Billboard charts for 8 consecutive weeks with 'tomorrow'; their acceptance speech sparks buzz: "It's all thanks to producer Min Hyunseung-nim." ]
Every song I released topped the charts.
And yet, I'd never properly studied composition.
A nice house, a nice car, steadily growing royalties…
Come to think of it...
I lived as though the whole world was beneath my feet.
"If it's about money, I'll do everything I can… please, just one song…. Composer-nim[1], I know a really great kid…. I'm even kneeling here to beg, please, just give us one chance…."
Everyone bowed their heads to get my songs.
Because my songs were a guaranteed ticket to success.
It must've been the same that day too.
"It's 2 billion won. I sold my house, my car, took out bank loans, even borrowed from private lenders… Our kids are putting everything on this album…."
The CEO of a small management agency came to me carrying a bag of money.
The gist was simple.
He wanted me to give a song to one of their artists.
"I don't want to."
Why did I refuse back then?
"Please…."
Because it wasn't enough money to sway me?
"I said no."
It wasn't because the amount was too small.
I'd given songs for far less.
I'd even given songs away for free before.
Maybe…
I just wasn't in the mood to give a song that time.
"…I'll die."
Should I have given them the song?
"…If you don't give me a song, I'll die."
Those were the eyes of someone pushed to the edge.
Even so...
I just turned away and replied coldly:
"Then go ahead and die."
With just those few words, cracks began to form in my life.
--------------------------------------
[ CEO Kim Moonseok of CS Entertainment found dead by suicide at home! The bereaved family claims "It's because of composer A." ]
The ground beneath my life started to split wide open.
[ The contents of the late CEO Kim Moonseok's suicide note and recording found—authorities begin urgent investigation into composer A… ]
The CEO of that small agency, the one who said he'd die if I didn't give him a song… really killed himself.
If I could have, I wanted to shout at him: If you had the courage to die, why not use that to save your company somehow?
"Shit…."
The problem was, blame for Kim's suicide was starting to circle back to me.
The 'composer A' mentioned in the articles was clearly me…
And people were convinced I was that 'composer A,' pointing fingers without hesitation.
➣ It's obviously Min Hyunseung. He's always been famous for having a shitty personality, hasn't he?
↳ Industry insiders say he's notorious for power-tripping. And his womanizing is legendary.
↳ I heard lots of singers quit the industry altogether after working with him.
➣ But aren't his songs still good?
↳ I'm boycotting.
↳ Whatever, he's still a murderer.
➣ A post just went up from a classmate claiming they were bullied by Min Hyunseung. Here's the link.
↳ Shouldn't we fact-check first?
↳ Fact-check what? Just look at him, he totally looks like a school bully.
↳ Yeah, I bet he was a piece of shit even as a kid.
After his suicide, speculative and slanderous articles exploded in number, growing ever more outlandish.
Mass hysteria.
Sure, it was partly true that I could be sharp during work or throw my weight around sometimes. But the rumors about school violence or frequenting adult establishments like they were my second home, those were all lies.
➣ Wow, Min Hyunseung, the great one, finally hit rock bottom. LOL
↳ No way he's coming back from this.
↳ Serves him right. Disgusting.
My agency just told me to "stay quiet" and then completely ghosted me.
'Fine….'
People mocked me as if I'd lost everything.
For a moment… I almost believed that too. But I still had the most important thing left.
Talent.
Yeah, screw it, I figured I could just release new music under a new name.
There'd still be people lining up to buy my songs, people eager to sing them.
After all, I'd made it this far with nothing but talent. No problem.
'It'll all be fine.'
Ring, ring.
Just then, my phone rang.
[ Hyuna ]
Hyunseung furrowed his brows when he saw the caller ID.
Not someone he usually exchanged calls with...
It was his younger sister, Hyuna.
"Oppa, come to the hospital right now."
Her urgent voice made it immediately clear.
Something must've happened… to Dad, who was in the hospital.
They say blessings and misfortunes come all at once, don't they?
"What the hell is…."
Dad, whom I hadn't seen in months, was so gaunt I could barely recognize him, with a jaundiced tinge over his face.
Deaf.
Dad, who'd been unable to hear since birth, had also been battling pancreatic cancer for quite some time.
"Why didn't you tell me it had gotten this bad!"
It was obvious the illness had progressed much further than before.
"Minhyun-ah, you…!"
But then, Dad raised his hand weakly, motioning between his two children to stop the argument.
"Why are you two fighting…"
He signed slowly, and I raised my voice, knowing he couldn't hear me.
"Why didn't you tell me it had gotten this bad!"
At that, Hyuna cut in.
"Oppa, have you even visited home once these past few months?"
"What?"
"You think just sending money is enough."
I thought everything was fine.
Work was always going well…
And I assumed Dad's health was gradually improving.
I just… lived on assumptions.
Using "I'm busy" as an excuse to ignore everything.
Living comfortably on my own, clearly.
"I..."
Just as I tried to offer some excuse.
Swoosh.
Hyuna stormed out of the hospital room.
"Hyunseung-ah[2], don't fight with your sister. After I'm gone, all you'll have is each other."
Hyunseung quickly signed back:
"Don't say that. You don't need to worry about hospital bills, just get whatever surgery or treatment you need and focus on getting better."
Dad responded with a weak gesture, "Of course."
But then...
"Huh?"
There was a sheet of music sitting on the table next to Dad's hospital bed.
"This is…."
It was sheet music for one of my songs.
"I asked Hyuna to get it for me."
"But… why do you need sheet music, Dad…?"
Why would my deaf father need sheet music?
"Just because."
He shrugged it off, nodding like it was nothing.
"Hold on a sec."
Thinking I should talk to Hyuna, I left the hospital room.
"Minhyun-ah."
Just outside, at the end of the corridor, Hyuna was sitting on a bench.
"Can we talk?"
"I don't have anything to say."
"Dad's condition…"
Hyuna answered, her voice heavy.
"They say there's no time left for him."
Her eyes immediately filled with tears.
"What…?"
It was like the sky fell on me.
"They said the cancer's already metastasized. There's nothing they can do…."
And then...
'What?'
Suddenly, the world faded away into a distant haze behind my ears.
It was dizziness.
Along with it, an unpleasant noise rang in my ears.
"Uh, uh, uh…."
Hyuna shook my shoulder.
"Oppa, what's wrong all of a sudden?"
Only then did everything return to normal.
"…It's nothing."
With those words, I immediately got up from my seat.
"Oppa, at least say goodbye to Dad before you go!"
Hyuna shouted desperately behind me as I hurried out of the hospital…
It was only when I had fled past the hospital doors that I realized something.
"Haa, haa…."
Just now, I forgot how to breathe.
I was certain.
Something was definitely wrong with my mind.
----------------------------------------------
How much time had passed since then?
「 Narsi. 」
That became my second name as a producer.
A name taken from "narcissism"...
I thought it suited me well, someone who lived savoring his own brilliance.
Songs were released under that new name.
"I knew it."
As expected, every song released under the new name ranked high on the charts.
Separate from the controversies...
My musical talent and skills hadn't gone anywhere, so I thought this was only natural.
"Yeah, I knew this would happen…"
The public wasn't that clever.
They get riled up easily, then forget just as quickly.
Min Hyunseung was already a forgotten name.
Even if someone kills a person while drunk driving, or if their promiscuous sex life is exposed, or if a crime is revealed, or even if they're caught using drugs, the public forgets quickly as long as the person lays low for a while.
'For someone like me…'
I thought my crime was nothing.
Wasn't it something I hadn't done of my own volition?
'Yeah, just for a while…'
I thought I could live like this just for a while.
If I kept laying low like this…
Someday, I'd be able to work again under my real name.
But.
It wasn't long after that.
[ The shocking identity of genius rookie composer Narsi. ]
[ Exclusive: Narsi's real identity is Min Hyunseung? ]
[ Min Hyunseung revealed to have been working under a new name… ]
Once again, my name plastered the entertainment news sections.
An insider's report, they said?
People pelted me with stones as if they'd been waiting for the moment.
➣ Hey, did this guy really crawl back out to make money after killing someone? Is he even human?
↳ So what if he's good-looking and talented? His personality is trash...
↳ Seriously, even shamelessness has its limits. What the hell was he thinking?
↳ What must he have thought when he changed his name and his songs climbed the charts again? LOL
After that, I kept forgetting how to breathe, dozens of times a day. My panic disorder had worsened.
Medication would make me feel okay for a short while, but I'd spend the rest of the day in a daze.
"As you know, it's not a situation where we can keep the contract going, right? Maybe you should just take this opportunity to rest for a while…"
While everyone was throwing stones at me, the agency notified me of the contract termination.
To make matters worse, when my panic disorder hit its peak, I got a call from my sister.
"Oppa…."
It was a call from Hyuna.
"What happened…?"
I rushed to the hospital, only to find Dad lying in the ICU.
Hyuna's eyes were so swollen from crying all night that it looked like she had no more tears left to shed.
"Surgery… shouldn't he get surgery right away?"
Hyuna shook her head.
"His liver levels are too low, so they can't… The cancer has already spread to his liver completely…."
Hyuna struggled to finish her words.
"They said… it'd be good for us to prepare ourselves."
Suddenly, a thought struck me.
From here… Is there even further to fall?
-------------------------------------------
Dad was a frugal man.
Just one box.
His belongings, once sorted, fit into a single box.
Half of it was my sheet music.
'Sheet music….'
Dad had definitely been looking at the sheet music even in his hospital room.
'I asked Hyuna to get it for me.'
But why would Dad, who was hearing-impaired, even have my sheet music?
A trivial question suddenly flashed through my mind. I approached Hyuna, who was busily cleaning the living room, and spoke.
"Hyuna-ya, there's something I'm curious about."
"Yeah?"
"There was sheet music in Dad's hospital room."
At that, Hyuna nodded.
"Dad asked for it."
"But… he couldn't even hear."
After a brief pause, Hyunseung asked again.
"Why the sheet music?"
Hyuna cautiously answered.
"He was curious."
A moment of silence passed.
"Dad was so curious about the songs you made that he said he at least wanted to imagine them by looking at the sheet music. When I reluctantly brought it to him… he just stared at the sheet music all day…"
As my father looked through my sheet music, he said:
"It upset me so much that I ended up crying."
Ah…
What must he have been feeling?
At that moment…
Hyuna lowered her head.
"Min Hyunseung."
Then, in a low, subdued voice, she got straight to the point.
"Let's live like strangers from now on."
"Hyuna-ya, you…"
"I'm sick and tired of all of it."
The relationship was far too rotten to be summed up by the word family.
Where did it all go wrong?
Once the connection through our father disappeared, we siblings became strangers.
"Hyuna-ya…"
Maybe this was just the natural course of things.
"I'm leaving."
As Hyuna was about to leave the house, she paused in front of the door and added:
"Oppa is just getting everything he deserves."
"Hyuna-ya…"
"Keep living selfishly, just like you always have."
Hyuna added once more:
"If you're going to do it, at least make sure you live better than everyone else."
"Min Hyuna!"
"You've already thrown away your family and everything else."
She made sure to put strength into her final words:
"So at the very least, live better than everyone else."
And with that, Hyuna left the house.
Bang!
The front door slammed shut violently.
Not long after, I went alone to the river where we had scattered my father's ashes.
"Father, I brought this too, for you to take with you."
I mumbled as I set down a thick bundle of sheet music tied together with string.
"Why did you look at this so much that it got this worn out…"
Perched precariously on the edge of the breakwater, I held the sheet music in my hands.
Flick
When I lit it with a lighter, the paper blazed up fiercely.
'If there's a next life, I'll definitely play it for you then.'
I thought I wasn't crying because I was too overwhelmed.
But as I tried to send my father off alone…
Tears fell endlessly from the edge of my chin.
Hundreds of sheets.
Only after burning through hundreds of sheets of music did I dust myself off and stand up.
"Huh?"
It was just as I was brushing away the charred bits of paper from my hands.
"Why… again…"
Once more, that buzzing sound, "Wiiiiing!", rang out in my head.
It was unbearable.
I couldn't breathe, cold sweat pouring down my body.
Damn it, another panic attack.
As always, I forgot how to breathe and gasped for air.
I collapsed to the ground, groaning.
The symptoms were worse than usual, and there was nothing I could do.
"Kh… ugh…"
I struggled to pull out my phone, but even that slipped from my trembling hand and with a splash.
Plop
It fell into the sea.
'Please…'
Soon, everything before my eyes went dark.
And then…
Pitch-black silence and darkness descended.
Was Hyuna right?
Is everything really my karma?
I don't know.
But if I were given another chance…
'I want to live differently…'
A life so different that all of this misfortune couldn't simply be called karma.
'Father…'
Only now, standing at death's door, did I want to write a song for him.
[1] The "nim" is a term of respect.
[2] The "ah" is like a term of endearment. In Korea, they prolong the sound of the last syllabi to express fondness.