The Road to Glory Chapter 45 - A New Project

Anyone can talk.

Just by opening your mouth, anyone could become a millionaire and an honest person.

Halo didn’t like that.

He didn’t want to just talk big like an ordinary person.

That’s why he felt uneasy even though the track ‘I am HALO’ came out satisfactorily.

Although not just anyone could make music like his, anyone could still say ‘you guys will like me.’

He wanted to show them directly.

He wanted them to like Halo in a different form, so he could shout,

“Look, I’m someone you call Halo (glory) again in some way!”

He wanted to prove he wasn’t just a man of words.

As Jang Jinsoo said, he didn’t need to hide.

He just had to create new music with a new image, make new attempts, and wait for people to love him.

Something burst forth from his heart.

The day he was driving to the awards ceremony. The powerlessness that had tormented him seemed to wash away.

The inspiration for new music that had tormented him formed an orchestra. The things screaming to let them out now cheered in delight. Melodies poured out from the instruments he pointed to.

When Halo rubbed his thumb and forefinger together, the world fell deathly silent. But Halo heard a more vibrant sound than ever before.

#

At that moment, an ominous energy enveloped the continent across the Pacific Ocean. It was an immense land.

It took a long time for news from the east to reach the west, and even if it did, it was such a vast world that people didn’t pay much attention.

Billions of stories arose every day on the continent where billions of people lived, and everyone couldn’t pay much attention to one issue.

So the controversy over a new singer manipulating Spotify and digital music sources didn’t become as big of an issue as one might think.

Only the singer’s fans or a few officials troubled by the manipulation itself cared much, while most public opinion was indifferent.

Many had heard about the manipulation controversy but didn’t know how it turned out.

However, a faint melody happened to reach the ears of Miller, a busy New Yorker.

A truck driver cruising along Route 66 from Lake Michigan in Chicago to Santa Monica, California pricked up his ears at the music coming from the radio.

In fact, they usually preferred soothing songs or EDM that didn’t feel boring.

They also didn’t particularly like musicals or Disney music.

They were too grounded in reality to enjoy music about dreams, hopeful futures, and the growth of youth. Too much time had passed for them to swoon over teen movies or music.

But regardless of taste, there was a song so pleasant to listen to. There could be various reasons – a line in the lyrics happened to move their heart by chance, or the melody was just really good.

Miller, holding a cup with the Starbucks logo, listened to the lyrics, while the truck driver pulled over to smoke and listen to the melody.

Their hearts swelled.

The energy of the music breathed life into their powerless routines.

The confident message spread like an epidemic, that even if one was disabled or born a vagabond or punk, one could become themselves again.

At some point, the truck driver stepped on the gas, and Miller opened his eyes clearly.

And naturally, many people busy living their lives became curious about just who could sing such a song, letting countless other issues flow by.

#

Halo had too many things he wanted to do.

But when he actually tried to do them all, he was spoiled for choice. Still, it was a happy problem.

It felt like being a teenager who didn’t know anything, just wanting to do everything.

First of all, Halo wanted to try music he hadn’t attempted as Halo before.

In fact, what he realized anew listening to music here was that his music had no gaps.

Not talking about strengths or weaknesses.

‘Characteristics’ would be more accurate.

His music was filled with diverse sessions like classical music. There was not a single gap in the melodies, and some songs were composed like a true chamber orchestra.

How could one express human emotions with just one or two instruments? Halo had arranged the sessions to express the feelings he felt at the time, emphasizing the harmonies created by the combined sounds.

Of course, there were musicians in this world who also used sound densely like Halo.

But there were countless genres of music for the countless musicians, and many made music the complete opposite of Halo’s.

Music consisting of just one session.

Music focused more on the melody of the voice than session sounds.

Ah, and music that used the voice to create the session was incredibly novel.

“I think they called that a cappella.”

It was similar yet different from the a cappella he knew. He had tried choirs and choruses, but the idea of one person recording themselves to make an a cappella was almost shocking.

Of course, he couldn’t do all of these things right away.

Not just for budget reasons, but he was only one person, and he even had other things he had to do.

‘I should prioritize first.’

Halo opened Roh Haeil’s music notebook.

It contained the inspiration he had gained while living as Roh Haeil after his [Confession] album.

From the inspiration he first had in lessons to melodies occasionally jotted down as drafts.

Halo closed his eyes.

“…”

He thought about what story he most wanted to tell.

What he usually focused on was his emotions – composing album tracks centered around anger, joy, sadness, and so on.

‘But isn’t that enough for Halo’s music?’

For his new music, of course his emotions would be included, but he wanted to talk about this world, not make his emotions the main focus.

How strange yet warm, clumsy yet beautiful this world was that he encountered becoming Roh Haeil.

He couldn’t write songs still longing for a lover and pleading for them to return. But he didn’t need to dwell on it long.

Halo closed the notebook and turned on the MIDI software.

Instead of creating a new folder this time, he created a new project.

He hadn’t decided on a name for the project yet…he just left it as [NEW PROJECT] for now. That wasn’t important.

Halo closed his eyes.

And from the jumbled melodies, he pulled out the one he wanted most. An incomplete melody in fragments. He would extract a few here and complete them while tinkering with them anew.

Halo clicked in the main melody, happily pondering which notes to use, which session to make the main one. His previously calm heart fluttered with excitement at revealing his new music.

#

‘How nice would it be if people could just do what they want?’

People can’t just live doing only what they want. That applied even to Halo, who wanted to indulge in pleasure without responsibility.

Of course, it’s not that he didn’t want to do it.

It just felt like a task compared to the more fun stuff.

Right, he still had a task remaining.

Recording his third album. He couldn’t just spend February after releasing one single, so he had to record it no matter what.

He visited the HY Studio, which now felt like his dedicated studio. As always, he greeted Kang Yeongmin and gave him the travel gift he had forgotten last time.

“Hello.”

“Oh, you’re here.”

Halo thought Kang Yeongmin would rush over like the hyungs, but he wasn’t like them.

Rather than being interested in the gift, he had a face like he had a lot to say to Halo, who had brought the gift.

He was like a barber who wanted to shout “Your Majesty’s ears are like donkeys’!” (+) ^[1] TLN: This is a Korean expression used to imply that someone is being stubborn or not listening to advice, similar to saying “You’re not listening!” or “You’re being stubborn!”

These days, whenever Halo visited, Kang Yeongmin would look at him with a meaningful, or rather sinister, expression. And occasionally he would smack his lips as if holding back questions trying to burst out.

Still, as the studio operator and professional engineer, Kang Yeongmin didn’t interrupt the recording time.

Work is work, personal is personal.

Perhaps after the recording ended, he would rapid-fire all the questions that had risen to the tip of his tongue.

When recording ‘I am HALO’, Kang Yeongmin accepted the booking even though he had another schedule, so there was no time to discuss it then.

Halo was grateful that Kang Yeongmin accepted the sudden booking, but he also had things he wanted to say, so he resigned himself to being bombarded after the recording.

For now, he would focus on the third album.

Most of the tracks for the third album required attention for their difficulty.

He would soon record ‘Even So We Do (ESWD)’. ESWD was an arrangement of an anonymous folk song into an electric version, requiring sudden offbeats and alternating between 16-bit and 32-bit rhythms.

He had made it difficult enough to make the guitarist who went around saying ‘Halo’s guitar skills are terrible’ lose his mind, but even Halo felt a bit dizzy now.

His hands went numb from just one run-through, so he couldn’t make any mistakes.

After finally finishing the long recording session, as soon as Halo exited the recording booth, he met Kang Yeongmin with sparkling eyes.

Halo thought he would be immediately questioned, but Kang Yeongmin couldn’t get the words out right away. It didn’t seem like he was deliberately not asking, but rather that he had too many things he wanted to say and couldn’t choose.

Before Kang Yeongmin could decide on his question, Halo chose to wait and ask what he had wanted to first.

“Boss, by any chance do you also shoot music videos?”

“Music videos…?”

Kang Yeongmin repeated it as if surprised Halo would ask such a thing.

“You’re interested in music videos? But uh… weren’t you not going to do things like that?”

The nuance of his words contained whether Halo was deliberately hiding his appearance. Given Halo’s behavior so far, it wasn’t a strange question. So Kang Yeongmin had also tried to keep that matter a secret.

Halo calmly replied, “Not that.”

“Then what?”

Then Kang Yeongmin’s eyes suddenly widened.

“…! Come to think of it, there was one more account, wasn’t there?”

It wasn’t difficult for him to recall the starting point of their relationship.

“Are you trying to revive that?”

Account? Halo had forgotten about it until just now too.

What he had mentioned was his individual activities as Roh Haeil, but come to think of it, there was one more account he had buried in the depths of his memory. He had never once considered using it.

“Yes.”

However, Halo didn’t let on that he had just remembered, and Kang Yeongmin didn’t realize it either.

He simply marveled, genuinely curious what kind of picture the youth before him was painting. Aside from that, it was interesting for him as someone who knew that ‘secret’. That’s why having an information advantage is important.

Activities as Wave_r.

Having recently accessed that account, Kang Yeongmin suddenly recalled the person who had come looking for Roh Haeil until recently.

Not ‘him’, but Roh Haeil. So after watching Wave_r’s videos and trying to contact him unsuccessfully, they saw the studio mark in the videos and came looking here.

Among the countless files Halo had recorded, that file alone had video footage, with the studio mark visible.

‘Let’s just wait.’

Kang Yeongmin recalled the memory. If Halo didn’t mention wave_r to him, he would have forgotten about it entirely.

“Student Haeil, are you free these days?”

“Huh? Suddenly?”

Before Halo could think it was a random question, Kang Yeongmin added,

“It’s nothing, I was just wondering if you might want to record an OST for a drama.”

“An OST?”

“Yeah, someone recently came looking for me after seeing the video mark. They asked if I could recommend you for an OST.”

“How did that person find me…”

Halo thought the conversation was about ‘Halo’, but realized it wasn’t about Halo at all.

After all, the only thing among his recording files that could be called a video was just one.

Roh Haeil’s account!

That single upload on that account was still alive. Of course, Kang Yeongmin had made the video for him so he could access it again, but it was unexpected that the account was still active and coming back to him.

And the timing of its return was right when he had decided to do music in a different form.

“What kind of OST is it?”

“Just wait, I’ll find the phone number.”

His own music was urgent, but he was curious since he had never done an OST before. Furthermore, the fact that this OST had been brought by Roh Haeil’s original song also nagged at him.

If someone had looked for Roh Haeil, it must have been because they listened to the [Confession] track.

Watching the account and end product from the depths of his memory somehow return, Halo vaguely wondered:

Perhaps Roh Haeil was also destined to take the stage.

• 1. TLN: This is a Korean expression used to imply that someone is being stubborn or not listening to advice, similar to saying “You’re not listening!” or “You’re being stubborn!”