The Siblings Do Business Together (6)
“Ah, Lee Eun-ho! How was the song!”
“I already told you earlier. It’s good!”
“Is that really all?”
“If it’s good, that’s it, what more!”
The sound of Lee Eun-ji hurriedly following me up the stairs suddenly came to an abrupt halt.
“Are you going to pretend not to know till the end, you XXXXing bad guy.”
“Hey, saying XXX to your oppa.”
“What, XXX! You XX! You XXX!”
Lee Eun-ji shouted angrily.
In times like this, from experience, ignoring her is the answer, so I ran ahead to the stairs leading to the second floor.
Of course.
It wasn’t just that.
“If you curse at night, will a ghost appear?”
After casually throwing out those words, I hurriedly headed to the second floor, and when I was about halfway up.
Looking back, I saw Lee Eun-ji, her face pale, quietly following me, maintaining a short distance of only about two steps.
It seems her fear of ghosts is still the same as when we were young.
‘She’ll be up all night at this rate.’
If she stays up all night, the song will be delayed even more.
“It’s a lie, you idiot.”
“Ah…”
Even though she knew, Lee Eun-ji gritted her teeth and pouted her lips, upset that she had been fooled.
As we climbed to the second floor, Eun-ji quietly followed me, keeping a distance of just over one step, as if showing that she was upset.
Then, when I suddenly felt a chilly wind behind my back.
I looked back.
“What are you doing?”
Eun-ji was standing alone in the narrow rooftop yard, looking up at the darkened night sky.
“Just thinking about what theme to use for our debut song.”
“Suddenly?”
As if sensing my nagging, Eun-ji glared fiercely and quickly turned her head.
With the way I surprised her earlier too…
Somehow, seeing her sulking like that bothered me.
“Lee Eun-ji.”
“What, go in without worrying about me.”
Seeing her grumble, it seemed she was properly upset.
“Didn’t you think of the theme before making the song?”
“Hmph.”
Although she turned her head as if she wouldn’t answer, judging by the mumbling shape of her mouth, it seemed she had something to say.
“Hey, I’m sorry~. Do you want to hit me instead?”
I didn’t want to apologize seriously, so I threw out an apology like a joke.
Lee Eun-ji pursed her lips and seemed to like the idea of hitting me, so she approached me with the corners of her mouth twitching.
“Here, hit me.”
When I offered one of my arms, Lee Eun-ji no longer tried to hide it and was already smiling.
Smack!
The moment a refreshing sound echoed through the alley, the night sky suddenly looked yellow.
All sorts of curses boiled inside me.
But since I was the one who told her to hit me first, with the heart of Buddha.
With the heart of Heungbu who volunteered to be hit in order to get a grain of rice stuck on a ladle, I swallowed my anger and asked.
“So, what were you agonizing over regarding the debut song theme?”
“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 want to change it, it means you’ve already decided on what to change it to.”
“I don’t like what I’ve decided on.”
“What is it?”
“What you said, a cat’s footsteps.”
I thought the concept had changed since the song’s feel was different, but unexpectedly, the concept seems to be the same.
“The concept I told you back then was good, wasn’t it?”
“So you’re asking me to give you a different one again?”
“Yes! For the sake of this little sister.”
Lee Eun-ji put her hands together and placed them under her chin.
My fist cried out because of my still aching arm.
“Wow, Lee Eun-ho, isn’t it too much to look at me like a dog with poop on it when I’m your sister?”
“If you’re my sister, at least use the proper title when you talk. How would you feel if I treated you the same way?”
“Ugh.”
“See? Don’t do what disgusts you when I see you.”
“Okay…”
Before the regression, I would have raised my fist first, but thanks to the time that had passed, I calmly persuaded her first.
‘Speaking of time…’
Time.
It doesn’t seem bad as the theme Lee Eun-ji asked about.
Looking up at the sky following Lee Eun-ji, maybe because the street lamps were broken.
‘It’s shining a lot.’
I don’t know if those are stars or satellites, though.
“Hey, there’s a theme.”
“Did you think of something?”
“Yeah. How about farewell?”
At the word farewell, Lee Eun-ji tilted her head and expressed doubt.
“I don’t like love songs.”
“You idiot, are there only farewells between a man and a woman’s love?”
“Then what?”
“There are things like that, you know.”
Although quite some time had passed since I returned to this time, I couldn’t say the words that Lee Eun-ji died even as an example.
No matter how hateful, she’s my only family in this world.
I’m honestly scared that something like being left alone again might happen.
“What do you think it would be like if I suddenly disappeared?”
“When Lee Eun-ho disappeared…”
“Yeah.”
“Oh, wouldn’t it be XXXing refreshing?”
“Haha.”
Perhaps because family is family, Lee Eun-ji’s answer just now was exactly the same as my reaction before Eun-ji passed away.
But as the laughter stopped, an empty sigh took its place.
‘Come to think of it…’
Death had been close to us since childhood.
We frequently almost starved to death, and we were even kidnapped once.
Dangerous moments were always together until we met Representative Park.
However, every time we went between life and death, we saved each other.
When I was about to starve to death, Lee Eun-ji cried and brought back pork giblets from a pork rice soup restaurant.
When Lee Eun-ji was about to die, I knew it was a bad thing, but in order to survive, I once stole a bread from the market to feed Lee Eun-ji.
Was that why?
When that happened to Lee Eun-ji, it felt like I had lost a lifelong companion.
I only realized the void left by Eun-ji’s disappearance after she was gone.
But I didn’t want to explain these complicated emotions in words.
‘Why would I want to be ridiculed more?’
So I smacked Lee Eun-ji’s back of the head for no reason and turned around.
“Why did you hit me!”
“I was checking if the pumpkin was ripe.”
“Don’t say XXXing things. You unripe pumpkin bastard!”
I ran into my room as if escaping from Lee Eun-ji who was rushing at me to somehow get revenge.
As soon as I locked the door, Lee Eun-ji banged on the door as if she was going to break it, but only for a moment.
“Ah, Lee Eun-ho, you’re so annoying!!!”
Lee Eun-ji’s scream-like voice echoed through the small house.
It was the daily life of 22-year-old and 20-year-old adults.
* * *
And a few days later.
A ponytail with long hair tied up tightly.
Even without any makeup, fierce eyes with striking eyeliner stood out.
Lee Eun-ji was lost in thought, absorbed in something in a corner of the studio.
“Eun-ji ya?”
“Yes?”
“What were you so engrossed in that you couldn’t even hear me calling you?”
The name of the man who spoke to Eun-ji was Bae Jin-soo.
He was a teacher and veteran composer who was greatly helping Eun-ji with her first composition.
“I was thinking about the album concept.”
“If it’s the album concept, wasn’t it decided to be a cat’s footsteps?”
“It was decided, but something specific… how should I say it. There’s something like that, you know.”
Bae Jin-soo seemed familiar with Eun-ji’s way of speaking and nodded as if he understood.
He pulled Eun-ji to the front of the piano and made her stretch her arms over the keys.
‘She’s an amazing kid.’
The music Eun-ji produced was close to instinct.
Mood, thoughts, emotions, etc. Eun-ji can’t express them well in words, but the moment you put something that can serve as an instrument in her hands, she expresses them brilliantly.
‘Genius.’
An instinctive realm that can never be reached through effort alone.
“Try expressing it.”
When Bae Jin-soo spoke, Eun-ji looked startled for a moment, then smiled brightly and placed her hands on the keys.
‘Children?’
It started with the footsteps of two young children bouncing around.
Then, although it was the same chord, the melody changed heavily.
‘Did the children grow up?’
Bae Jin-soo entrusted his imagination to the flow of the song Eun-ji was creating.
The cracking sound of pressing the keys felt like a fight between the grown-up children.
Eun-ji intentionally pressed only the black keys of the piano using one hand.
‘Dissonance…’
It was supposed to be a dissonance.
But strangely, the black keys formed a harmonious harmony.
It seemed that the children’s fight had that meaning to Eun-ji.
Bae Jin-soo listened to Eun-ji’s performance with a smile on his lips.
But that’s when it started.
The pleasant melody that seemed like it would never split began to crumble in an instant.
Before long, the chords also changed from major to minor, and then alternated between diminished chords, creating a gloomy and depressing rhythm.
Maybe it was because of the gloomy timbre, but the lively atmosphere from the beginning was no longer there, even though the melody full of emotion continued as it was.
It was also because the following rhythm had disappeared.
The melody left alone was emotionless and had a strong cold and frozen atmosphere.
Eun-ji’s hands left the keyboard powerlessly after finishing the performance.
“It’s about oppa…”
“Mm-hmm.”
Bae Jin-soo looked around, brought a chair, sat down, and answered.
“You know, when I first wrote this song, oppa gave me a hint saying it was like ‘a cat’s footsteps’. You know that, right?”
Of course, he knew that very well.
Bae Jin-soo nodded vigorously.
When he first played the song he received from Representative Park.
‘A cat’s footsteps.’
How she pulled out a song like this from those short words, the emotions he felt when faced with the realm of ‘talent’ boiled up with a sense of deprivation and at the same time a sense of excitement.
“This time, oppa talked about farewells. At first, I didn’t think much of it, but…”
“Farewell? Didn’t you say you didn’t like love songs?”
“Hehe. Teacher, you’re saying the same thing.”
“Huh? Ah.”
Bae Jin-soo belatedly realized, recalling the song Eun-ji had played.
“At first, I thought it was about lovers breaking up or something like that, but oppa suddenly asked me what it would be like if he disappeared.”
“What did you answer?”
“Of course, I said it would be refreshing if that rockfish bastard disappeared.”
“Rockfish…”
Although he chuckled at the metaphor, he could tell from Eun-ji’s choked up voice that it wasn’t her true feelings.
“What about now?”
“Now…”
Eun-ji closed her mouth.
But Bae Jin-soo felt like he knew well enough what kind of story Eun-ji wanted to tell through the song she played.
When the following melody disappeared, the footsteps that kept walking without stopping in the indifferent and emotionless background.
Eun-ji raised her right hand and slowly tapped the keys as if her chest felt stuffy.
The melody that seemed bouncy at first was now barely taking a step in a sticky swamp.
“So you’re saying you want to make the album theme ‘farewell’?”
“Hmm… I like the feeling, and I want to do it, but how should I say it? I want to do it with a brighter feeling.”
“There were a lot of songs in the past that told sad stories with a bright feeling.”
“Really?”
Bae Jin-soo went to the front of the monitor to show an example and took a seat.
Eun-ji, who was listening to the song, had her eyes shining as if she had discovered a new realm.
‘I wonder what kind of song will come out this time.’
Every time Bae Jin-soo taught Eun-ji new information, he looked forward to the song that would be born from Eun-ji’s hands.
And he was equally looking forward to meeting Lee Eun-ho, who was none other than this girl’s muse.
‘Can a rookie who lacks expression really handle such an emotional song?’
Bae Jin-soo’s ‘expectations’ for Eun-ho were definitely not on the good side.