The Road To Glory [EN]: Chapter 101

Glorious Tides – Episode 10

# Episode 10 Sucks

Friday morning began quietly.

In the empty house, Halo rubbed his eyes and emerged, confirming that he was alone.

Noh Hae-il’s father seemed to be away on a business trip, as Halo had never seen him, and Noh Hae-il’s mother appeared to be out.

It was a relief that they weren’t there.

As soon as the clock struck seven, Halo instinctively headed to school. A moderately noisy school was better for organizing his thoughts than a chilly, silent house.

Early morning.

Halo, arriving at the empty classroom first, dropped his bag with a thud.

Then, he plopped down in his seat and roughly swept back his hair.

“Ha!”

The shaggy bangs went back as if slicked with pomade.

“I didn’t expect this to happen.”

His brow furrowed.

Halo drummed on the desk, feeling frustrated.

No, did you really not know?

His inner self asked.

Halo closed his mouth.

He wasn’t sure if he really hadn’t known.

He’d stayed up all night.

Locking the door, he worked with the somewhat familiar computer. He opened several windows and searched frantically. He searched all the lyrics he knew and looked for melodies.

Time was short, and his ability to navigate the internet was lacking. He didn’t know how to search beyond basic queries. In such an advanced world, wouldn’t the technology related to composition also be advanced?

“For now, there wasn’t any more.”

For now, there was nothing completely identical or even strikingly similar among the things he had searched. Except for a few bars of the music he heard in the store, there was nothing concrete yet.

The song coming through the headphones irritated him.

“Why did I write it like this?”

Listening to it again, it wasn’t a song he enjoyed. The whining, the loser-like lyrics. He didn’t like any of it. The completion felt lacking, and he wondered if he really had to compose it like this, if he had to sing it like this.

‘I sing better. My music is better.’

It was only similar to two bars of a song from his first album, [Struggle].

It wasn’t plagiarism.

Except for the two bars being the same, the beat, genre, atmosphere, and function within the song were all different. If this was considered plagiarism, most of the music in the world would be caught for plagiarism.

But that didn’t eliminate the unpleasantness. When he first heard the other song, he was terrified.

That something he thought was entirely his might be taken away.

Perhaps he had buried the most important suspicion in a corner, overlapping it with the pleasures of this world.

He didn’t want to suspect it.

In this era where music overflows like a flood,

The assumption that there wouldn’t be music similar to his.

The assumption that if he wasn’t careful, his music might become someone else’s.

He had overlooked that a melody someone accidentally came up with could overlap with someone else’s.

“I can’t just sit still.”

The most important thing wasn’t learning about this world or getting inspiration from listening to the music of this world.

He had to stake his claim before his things were taken away.

The method was clear.

After all, he remembers all of his albums.

He composed it, and he sang it, so there’s no way he wouldn’t know. The problem is finding a musician to record with and releasing the album quickly.

Then he realized the problem a beat late.

‘How do I do it now?’

#

“Kids, let’s turn on the lights. Are you children of the darkness?”

The day of Sunyeon Middle School’s 3rd grade, 1st class started as usual. The children came in around 8 o’clock. They started chattering as usual, and then around 20 minutes later, the teacher came in and turned on the lights.

“Okay, everyone knows that there are less than two weeks left until the final exam, right?”

The teacher grabbed the podium and looked around the classroom.

“So, next week will be mostly self-study. You have to bring what you’re going to study. Got it? I hope you all study hard and finish without regrets. The teacher believes that everyone will receive good grades for their efforts.”

The children answered, and the homeroom teacher left again, saying see you in class later. The classroom quickly turned into a marketplace.

“Hey, Noh Hae-il. Did you quit the academy [private after-school tutoring]?”

“Real. Why didn’t you come yesterday either?”

A asks. No, was he B?

He couldn’t remember.

“I don’t know.”

The kids tilted their heads at the insincere answer.

“You’re a bit strange these days? Is something wrong?”

“Yeah. And you’re hanging out with Jang Jin-soo.”

“You skipped the academy twice and fought with your mom?”

The kids are cute but also annoying.

Come to think of it, Halo didn’t seem to like kids that much.

“There are always adult circumstances.”

The kids frowned at his words. They didn’t seem to take it seriously. Then they all made eye contact and looked at him slyly.

What is it this time?

He couldn’t keep up with the kids’ tension.

“Don’t tell me… are you dating these days? Bae So-yeon? Maybe her from Sehwa Middle School? Kim Min-seo?”

“Kim Min-seo is the one you like.”

“Shut up.”

The voice that had gone through puberty was crackly.

The noise went in one ear and out the other.

Halo rested his chin on his hand and looked out the window. However, what he was actually looking at wasn’t the densely packed apartment complex.

‘How do I release an album here?’

He thought that even though there were many different aspects, it would still be similar, but only for a moment.

He soon faced a realistic problem.

Halo doesn’t know, but Noh Hae-il doesn’t have a label [record company].

All problems start from here.

It costs money to print an album. Or someone to print it for you. Unless a million dollars falls from the sky by chance, you inevitably have to sign with a record company.

‘I can’t believe I’m worrying about money problems.’

The same goes for recording. He can write sheet music if he wants. However. Aside from the fact that Noh Hae-il’s voice isn’t fully developed yet, he can’t play all the instruments, so he needs session musicians [professional instrumentalists hired for recording sessions].

He can never be satisfied with an imperfect recording.

Here, too, what’s needed is money, or people.

‘···People, huh.’

#

“Hey, Noh Hae-il.”

Halo looked up.

Jang Jin-soo, who had been sleeping with his head on his desk, became a lunchtime warrior and came to find him.

He looked very expectant, so Halo was puzzled.

“Did you hear?”

“Hear what?”

Jang Jin-soo’s tension slowly subsided.

He tried to turn back as if his pride was hurt, but soon stopped again.

“You said you’d listen to my song.”

“Ah.”

Only then did Halo remember his promise with Jang Jin-soo.

Come to think of it, he promised to look at his song.

He had forgotten because of the shock that his song might be taken away by someone.

There’s no problem. Songs aren’t infinite, and it’s not too late to listen now.

“Do you have it now?”

“I already sent it. Check your email.”

“Email?”

His thoughts stopped.

Jang Jin-soo might have said it without much meaning, but Halo had never used any other function except YouTube and the search bar.

But Halo didn’t ask what email was.

With a nonchalant face, he held out his phone.

“What email.”

Jang Jin-soo didn’t suspect anything and took Noh Hae-il’s phone. He tapped a letter-envelope-like icon and downloaded the file. Only then did Halo realize that ‘cell phones’ even had a function to share each other’s music.

Oh.

He should set a date and analyze the functions of this cell phone.

Jang Jin-soo finished setting up and returned the phone.

Shall we listen to it?

He put on his headphones and listened.

A beat flowed out. There was no melody.

Instead, lyrics were heard.

[Show times show times show is show]

“?”

···What is this?

Halo turned it off without realizing it.

#

Halo has always received a lot of attention.

The clothes he wore were a hit, and paparazzi were always trying to take pictures of his private life. His remarks sometimes decorated the social pages, and there were countless people reaching out to him wherever he went.

Naturally, the popularity was not limited to public interest.

In other words, he received attention from everyone, including the public. Regardless of gender, age, popularity, wealth, or power. Everyone wanted to meet him, and he was invited to many events.

Halo hung out with various people. He enjoyed places with alcohol, music, and people, and he also enjoyed listening to the opinions of people with strong personalities.

Of course, his favorite group was people who made music. From domestic musicians to emerging powerhouses from other countries.

Recently, that is, around the time of his death, he became interested in emerging musicians from Harlem, New York. They had forms of music and beliefs that had never been seen before.

At the time, opinions were strongly divided about them. There were also questions about whether they could be called musicians. Some said that since music wasn’t included, they couldn’t be called musicians, and others said that rhythm alone was enough to be music.

Halo was closer to the latter.

Whether it was music or not, their ‘rap’ was interesting in many ways.

They used repetitive beats without melody. And they spat out lyrics like a machine gun. They mainly talked about their views on daily life or society.

Anyway, the reason for describing this new form of music is that the genre of the song Jang Jin-soo showed seemed to be rap. Repeating beats and quickly recited lyrics.

So, the reason Halo turned off the music wasn’t because this form was unfamiliar.

Just.

“Why, what’s wrong?”

“What is this?”

“It’s hip-hop, why?”

Just.

Facing his nervous face, Halo said honestly.

“It really sucks.”

“!”

He got goosebumps after listening to 12 bars and turned it off. It wasn’t a problem with the genre, but the lyrics made even the listener get goosebumps. And the rapping that struggled to keep up with the beat.

The beat was also strange. He couldn’t tell if it was an intentional dissonance or a poorly made beat.

He thought everything was wrong.

The beat, which could be said to be the backbone of the song, was made of sand instead of iron, and the lyrics and rapping covered the sand like waves.

What remained was the wreckage of a sandcastle that had collapsed without a trace.

“W-where does it suck?”

He wondered if he really had to say that it sucked from beginning to end, but Halo was a little kinder.

“First of all, I can’t listen to the first verse.”

“Ah.”

As if he understood what he was saying, Jang Jin-soo’s eyes widened.

“Ah, I guess it’s better to take that out because of copyright. Okay. I’ll take it out. Then what about the back? How’s the back?”

“Um.”

“Is it okay?”

“No.”

“!”

His bright face hardened.

As if he hadn’t even thought of criticism.

Halo couldn’t understand at all.

How can you listen to this and say it’s okay?

Moreover, he wasn’t the only one who had stopped listening to this song.

“Who made the beat?”

“I made it, and my brothers fixed it.”

“…This?”

“Yeah.”

Jang Jin-soo turned on his phone and pressed the play button.

Um. Halo took a breath. He didn’t know what to say.

“Where does it suck?”

In Halo’s view, there were more than one or two problems.

There weren’t one or two things to throw away, and if he fixed it, what should he save? Halo tapped the desk.

If you don’t have to use this song,

“Why don’t you just make it again.”

It seemed better to make it new.

“Th-”

Jang Jin-soo opened and closed his mouth as if he was speechless.

“No.”

“Why?”

“There’s not much time left.”

Halo closed his mouth at Jang Jin-soo’s words.

It was a quality that he would never release, but this song wasn’t his.

“How much time is left?”

“Until midnight on Sunday.”

“Then there’s a lot of time left.”

“…It’ll take two days to make a new beat.”

Jang Jin-soo didn’t seem to want to make a new song.

“If you’re going to fix it even a little, how would it be better to do it?”

“I don’t know.”

Where should I start fixing it?

He had a few ideas, but it wasn’t something that Jang Jin-soo seemed to be able to do easily. It seemed like someone who knew this genre well or a talented producer should control it next to him. Does Jang Jin-soo have such a person next to him?

Halo judged coldly.

“It’ll be hard for you.”

“!”

Jang Jin-soo’s face turned pale.

Before he could say anything, click.

Jang Jin-soo opened the door and ran out.