Siblings Work in Business (6)
“Hey, Lee Eun-ho! How was the song?!”
“I told you already. It’s good!”
“Really, that’s all?”
“If it’s good, that’s it!”
Lee Eun-ji’s hurried footsteps behind me suddenly stopped.
“Are you going to pretend you don’t know until the end, you freaking jerk.”
“Hey, don’t ‘freaking’ your older brother.”
“What, freaking! Freaking! Freaking bastard!”
Lee Eun-ji yelled.
From experience, I knew ignoring her was the best course of action in these situations, so I ran up the stairs to the second floor.
Of course…
Not without a parting shot.
“Don’t you know ghosts come out when you curse at night?”
I mumbled that and dashed up to the second floor. When I was about halfway up…
I looked back and saw a pale-faced Lee Eun-ji quietly following me, only a couple of steps behind.
She was still afraid of ghosts, just like when we were kids.
‘She’ll be up all night at this rate.’
If she stayed up all night, the song would be delayed further.
“Just kidding, dummy.”
“Ah…”
Lee Eun-ji gritted her teeth, pouting as if she was annoyed that she fell for it even though she knew it was a joke.
All the way up to the second floor, Eun-ji quietly followed me, keeping a distance of barely a step, as if sulking.
Then, suddenly, I felt a cold draft on my back.
I turned around.
“What are you doing?”
Eun-ji was standing still in the small rooftop yard, looking up at the dark night sky.
“Just thinking about what theme we should use for our debut song.”
“Suddenly?”
Perhaps sensing my sarcasm, Eun-ji glared at me before turning her head away.
Considering how she startled me earlier…
I felt bad that she was sulking like that.
“Lee Eun-ji.”
“What, just go inside.”
Judging by her grumbling, she was definitely sulking.
“Weren’t you already thinking about the theme when you made the song?”
“Hmph.”
She turned her head away as if she wasn’t going to answer, but from the way her mouth moved, it seemed like she had something to say.
“Hey, I’m sorry~. Do you want to hit me?”
I didn’t want to apologize seriously, so I jokingly offered it instead.
Lee Eun-ji pouted, then, as if liking the offer to hit me, she approached with a twitching smile.
“Here, hit me.”
As I offered my arm, Lee Eun-ji was already smiling, no longer trying to hide it.
Smack!
As a crisp sound echoed through the alley, the night sky suddenly looked yellow.
All sorts of curses boiled up inside me.
But since I told her to hit me, I endured it with the heart of Buddha.
With the heart of Heungbu, who volunteered to be beaten in exchange for some rice stuck to a rice paddle, I swallowed my anger and asked.
“So, why were you worried about the theme for the debut song?”
“Ah, that, just… Seeing you cry earlier made me want to change it.”
“I didn’t cry!”
“Anyway! I wanted to change it!”
“If you wanted to change it, that means you already have something in mind.”
“I don’t like what I have in mind.”
“What is it?”
“What you said, cat footsteps.”
Since the song felt different, I thought the concept had changed too, but it seemed to be the same.
“The concept you told me about was good.”
“So you want me to give it to you again?”
“Yeah! For your little sister.”
Lee Eun-ji put her hands together under her chin.
My arm still throbbed, and my fist clenched.
“Wow, Lee Eun-ho, isn’t it too much to look at your little sister like that, like a dog with shit on it?”
“If you’re my little sister, use proper honorifics. What would you do if I treated you the same way?”
“Ugh.”
“See? Don’t do things you find disgusting when I do them.”
“Okay…”
Before the regression, I would have thrown a punch first, but thanks to the time that had passed, I calmly reasoned with her instead.
‘Speaking of time…’
Time.
It didn’t seem like a bad theme, what Lee Eun-ji asked about.
I looked up at the sky along with Lee Eun-ji. Maybe it was because a streetlight was out…
‘It’s shining a lot.’
I didn’t know if they were stars or satellites.
“Hey, I have a theme.”
“What did you come up with?”
“How about separation?”
At the word separation, Lee Eun-ji tilted her head in question.
“I don’t like love songs.”
“Dummy, is romantic love the only kind of separation?”
“Then what?”
“You know…”
Although quite some time had passed since I returned to this time, I couldn’t bring myself to say, “like when you died,” as an example.
No matter how much I hated her, she was my only family in the world.
Honestly, I was scared of being alone again.
“How would you feel if I suddenly disappeared?”
“When Lee Eun-ho disappears…”
“Yeah.”
“Oh, I think I’d be freaking relieved.”
“Haha.”
Family is family. Lee Eun-ji’s answer was exactly the same as my reaction before she passed away.
But as my laughter faded, an empty sigh took its place.
‘Come to think of it…’
Death had been close to us since we were young.
We often nearly starved to death, and we were even kidnapped once.
Dangerous moments were a constant companion until we met CEO Park.
However, we saved each other every time we faced life-or-death situations.
When I was starving, Lee Eun-ji would cry and bring back leftover meat from a pork soup restaurant.
When Lee Eun-ji was about to die, I knew it was wrong, but I stole a loaf of bread from the market to feed her.
Perhaps that’s why…
When Lee Eun-ji passed away, it felt like losing a lifelong comrade.
I only realized her absence after she was gone.
But I didn’t want to explain these complicated feelings in words.
‘Why subject myself to more ridicule?’
So I just smacked the back of Lee Eun-ji’s head and turned away.
“Why did you hit me?!”
“I was checking if the pumpkin was ripe.”
“Don’t talk nonsense. You’re the unripe pumpkin!”
I dashed into my room, escaping Lee Eun-ji, who was rushing at me to get revenge.
I quickly locked the door. She banged on it furiously for a while.
“Lee Eun-ho, you’re so annoying!!!”
Lee Eun-ji’s scream-like voice echoed through the small house.
This was the daily life of 22 and 20-year-old adults.
A few days later.
A high ponytail, her long hair tied up tightly.
Despite wearing no makeup, her sharp eyes with thick eyeliner stood out.
Lee Eun-ji was sitting in a corner of the studio, deep in thought.
“Eun-ji?”
“Yes?”
“What are you thinking so hard about that you can’t even hear me calling?”
The man who spoke to Eun-ji was Bae Jin-soo.
He was a veteran composer and the teacher who was greatly helping Eun-ji with her first composition.
“I was thinking about the album concept.”
“For the album concept, wasn’t it decided to be cat footsteps?”
“It was decided, but the specifics… you know, that kind of thing.”
Bae Jin-soo seemed used to Eun-ji’s way of speaking, nodding in understanding.
He led Eun-ji to the piano and made her place her arms on the keyboard.
‘She’s a strange one.’
The music Eun-ji created was almost instinctual.
Feelings, thoughts, emotions… Eun-ji couldn’t express them well with words, but the moment she held something that could act as an instrument, she expressed them amazingly.
‘A genius.’
An instinctive realm that could never be reached through effort alone.
“Express it.”
Bae Jin-soo said. Eun-ji seemed momentarily flustered, then smiled brightly and placed her hands on the keyboard.
‘Children?’
It began with the footsteps of two young children hopping around.
Then, although the chord was the same, the melody changed, becoming heavier.
‘Have the children grown up?’
Bae Jin-soo let his imagination flow with the music Eun-ji created.
The sharp notes she played on the keyboard felt like a fight between grown-up children.
Eun-ji intentionally played only the black keys on the piano with one hand.
‘Dissonance…’
It should have been dissonant.
But strangely, the black keys created a harmonious melody.
That seemed to be what the children’s fight meant to Eun-ji.
Bae Jin-soo watched Eun-ji play with a smile on his face.
But then…
The pleasant melody, which seemed unbreakable, suddenly began to crumble.
The chord shifted from major to minor, then moved to diminished chords, creating a dark and melancholic rhythm.
The same emotional melody from the beginning continued, but perhaps because of the gloomy tone…
The initial lively atmosphere was gone.
It was also because the accompanying rhythm had disappeared.
The melody left alone was emotionless and had a cold, hardened atmosphere.
After finishing playing, Eun-ji’s hands lifelessly left the keyboard.
“Oppa…”
“Yes.”
Bae Jin-soo looked around, brought a chair, and sat down.
“When I first wrote this song, Oppa gave me a hint, saying it was like ‘cat footsteps.’ You know, right?”
Of course he knew.
Bae Jin-soo nodded vigorously.
When he first played the song he received from CEO Park…
‘Cat footsteps.’
How did she create such a song from those simple words? The feeling of facing the realm of ‘talent’ was a mixture of deprivation and exhilaration.
“Oppa talked about separation this time. At first, I didn’t think much of it…”
“Separation? Didn’t you say you didn’t like love songs?”
“Hehe. You’re saying the same thing as him.”
“Huh? Oh.”
Bae Jin-soo belatedly recalled the song Eun-ji played and realized.
“At first, I thought it was about breaking up with a lover or something, but Oppa suddenly asked how I would feel if he disappeared.”
“What did you say?”
“Of course, I said I’d be relieved if that rockfish bastard disappeared.”
“Rockfish…”
He chuckled at the analogy, but he could tell from Eun-ji’s teary voice that she didn’t mean it.
“Now?”
“Now…”
Eun-ji closed her mouth.
But Bae Jin-soo seemed to understand what she wanted to say through the song she played.
When the accompanying melody disappeared, the steps that kept walking in the indifferent and emotionless background.
As if feeling suffocated, Eun-ji slowly tapped the keyboard with her right hand.
The initially bouncy melody was now struggling to take a step in a sticky swamp.
“So you want the album theme to be ‘separation’?”
“Um… the feeling is good, I want to do it, but… I want to do it with a brighter feeling.”
“There were many songs in the past that expressed sad stories with a bright feeling.”
“Really?”
Bae Jin-soo went to the monitor and sat down to show her some examples.
Eun-ji, listening to the music, had sparkling eyes as if she had discovered a new world.
‘I wonder what kind of song will come out this time.’
Every time Bae Jin-soo gave Eun-ji new information, he looked forward to the song that would be born from her hands.
And he was equally looking forward to her collaboration with Lee Eun-ho, who was practically her muse.
‘Can a rookie, unskilled in expression, handle such an emotional song?’
Bae Jin-soo’s ‘expectations’ for Eun-ho were definitely not positive.
🥹 they’re so cute…but Ima need Bae Jinsoo to take back his thought