The Road to Glory Chapter 81 - We Are Band, Okay?

Tap.

“Thank you!”

Halo tucked a bill into the viola case.

The young busking brothers shouted their thanks.

And then, they resumed their classical performance.

“Now then.”

Halo looked around.

He had come up the slope, and was nearing the end of his memories.

The restaurant he always visited when coming to this neighborhood was close.

Of course, he didn’t expect the same place to still be there in the same spot. The same people certainly wouldn’t be there – even if they existed, they’d likely be in graves by now. Still, his steps stubbornly pressed forward.

‘Nick’s Kitchen’ was a restaurant that sold burgers, salads, and brunch, with the most popular menu item being the cheeseburger.

It wasn’t that the cheeseburger was particularly delicious, but rather that the other menu items weren’t very good, so regulars always ordered the cheeseburger.

He, too, would sit by the window and order like them.

‘The usual.’

‘Did you leave your coffee beans here or something?’

‘Two cups today, please, Nick.’

‘Just eat your damn burger.’

It definitely wasn’t a place one went for delicious food.

Rather, it was a place to go for the coffee Nick brewed as a hobby. The aroma and taste of the coffee were amazing, like it was made by a top European barista.

He always drank strong espresso there. Then he’d tell Nick to quit the burger joint and open a cafe instead.

‘He always said he’d run a burger joint for life.’

Halo turned the corner.

And he stopped in his tracks, looking up.

What appeared at the end wasn’t Nick’s shabby burger joint that shared space with an ice cream shop, but

“…I told you to change it to a coffee shop earlier. See. It’s doing so well now.”

Halo discovered a large cafe bustling with tourists, smiling at the corners of his mouth.

It wasn’t the same as the past at all.

The size, the shop, the people – everything was different, but still, he was glad to see it.

[Ever since]

He entered, swinging his guitar.

The rich aroma of coffee beans as he approached the cafe.

The unique interior design.

Above all, what caught his eye was the crowd.

LA is mostly focused on takeout, so it’s hard to find cafes where you can spend time inside. There are almost none except Starbucks. Unless it’s a pub.

Perhaps that’s why the two-story cafe, converted from an old theater, seemed packed with every California citizen.

People from various countries wanting a leisurely coffee time.

Halo looked around as he entered.

He didn’t know this cafe had been converted from an old theater, but he quickly discovered there was a stage like in a theater. Also, that band instruments including a piano existed on the stage.

“Oh? Is that person maybe…”

“What? Is someone there? Oh? Roh Haeil?”

Not noticing the stares boring into him from afar, Halo quietly looked at the stage.

“Is this your first time here?”

Seemingly concerned about him standing at the entrance, an employee wearing a vest approached.

“It’s… my first time here.”

He thought it was a subtle nuance, but since this cafe was built long before this boy was born, the employee took it as a misunderstanding.

“Welcome to Ever Since. It’s a famous spot in Beverly Hills. The popular menu items are einspänner and latte. Of course, the other coffees are excellent too. Take your time looking around since it’s a cafe converted from an old theater. Your eyes will be pleased. Oh, and you came at a great time today. There’s a performance prepared.”

“A performance?”

“Yes, there will be a jazz performance on the theater stage this evening.”

Jazz.

‘Nice.’

Halo nodded.

He thought it would be good to stay at the cafe all day since he had plenty of time.

“How may I help you?”

“A cheeseburger and espresso, please.”

Just as the employee was about to enter the order at the counter.

Bzzt- A long vibration sounded. It was Han Jinyeong’s number with the chip inserted.

Hmm, he woke up earlier than expected.

Halo calmly thought as he was about to put his phone away again. Another vibration.

Since he didn’t answer the call, a message came right away.

[Where are you]

#

“Wow, this place is really nice. It’s rare to see such a big cafe in America.”

“I know. It would’ve been even better if someone hadn’t snuck out early in the morning.”

At the pointed words, Halo avoided eye contact and looked at the stage. The jazz performance getting ready.

The red-haired woman who just went in seems to be the singer for today’s performance. She could be a session musician, but he had that feeling.

People who ordered salads and various other things waited until Moon Seoyeon finished taking photos for her Stargram.

“Boss, aren’t you eating?”

“I had a cheeseburger earlier.”

“Ah…”

Moon Seoyeon said regretfully.

“I heard the cheeseburger is the only thing here with bad reviews.”

“Really?”

“Yes, everyone says everything else is delicious, but the cheeseburger is disappointing.”

“Hmm.”

Halo chuckled.

And he thought again.

‘I told you to quit the burger joint earlier, Nick.’

At that moment, a commotion arose from somewhere.

Moon Seoyeon who was putting cake in her mouth, Nam Gyuhwan who was eating a croissant, and Han Jinyeong all turned their heads.

The dark brown-haired singer who came on stage.

The momentary appreciation that the singer in the fancy dress was quite pretty was interrupted as they noticed the singer talking with the owner. Judging by their expressions, it didn’t seem to be a positive situation.

“The performers suddenly bailed out?”

“We’re trying to find performers urgently, but…”

The owner looks around with a troubled face.

Customers who came expecting a performance.

He wondered how to find session musicians right now.

And not just one or two.

Piano, contrabass, full hollow body guitar, and even conga – all the session musicians had bailed.

Murmurs spread.

A middle-aged couple came to the owner and asked what would happen with today’s performance.

The owner couldn’t give a proper answer.

If he had even one day, he could have found someone somehow, but this was beyond absurd.

Only God could create performers right before a show.

The singer on stage fiddled with the mic with a gloomy face, arms crossed.

Finally, when the owner had to make a decision.

As he was about to go on stage and announce “Today’s performance has been canceled”,

The singer suddenly lifted her head and whispered something to the owner. The owner shook his head with an incredulous look, but the singer held up one finger. Eventually, the owner hesitated but opened his mouth.

“Is there anyone here who can play an instrument?”

At those words, the murmuring crowd went quiet.

Even if there were people who could play instruments, they were likely different instruments, or people hesitant to give an unprepared performance. Moreover, since this was a place converted from an old theater, the stage had much higher visibility.

Halo looked at the singer.

The singer who wanted to perform somehow.

Their eyes met.

The singer’s distinct green eyes crossed with black eyes.

As their gazes remained fixed, the singer suddenly realized the boy’s eyes were shining brightly.

She felt an intense feeling.

Perhaps that boy would raise his hand and say, ‘I’ll do it’.

“Weren’t you bored at the broadcasting station?”

“Huh?”

“Don’t you want to perform before going back to Korea? Whatever form it takes.”

The band members immediately caught on at those words and their faces brightened. Well, except for one person.

“I quit piano.”

“You don’t have to if you don’t want to. But-“

Halo looked at Moon Seoyeon with meaningful eyes.

Do you really not want to do it? That kind of gaze.

Moon Seoyeon nodded, taking another big bite of bread. She didn’t want to do an unprepared performance.

“It’s been a while since I played conga.”

“Oh? You’re doing it?”

Nam Gyuhwan nodded.

He didn’t say it, but he was bored to death at the broadcasting station.

It was supposed to be a HALO special, but there was nothing special about it. He thought it would be nice to go to a talk show together next time and perform.

Music can be annoying at times, but whether it was an unavoidable occupational disease or not, after just a day or two of resting, he wanted to pick up the sticks again.

“I really only know how to play the contrabass.”

“You know how to play?”

“Do you know how to play the hollow body guitar?”

Han Jinyeong laughed back at Halo’s laughter.

“Jinyeong-oppa is going too? Then what about me?”

“Didn’t you say you quit piano? You don’t have to if you don’t want to.”

Han Jinyeong gently stroked Moon Seoyeon’s hair as he stood up.

“How can I just sit here when everyone else is going.”

The singer’s green eyes follow the boy.

The other members stood up too, but her eyes were fixed only on the boy. The owner brightened upon seeing the boy approaching with a guitar.

“I’ll take good care of your guitar! Don’t tell me the people behind you are also-“

“We, are, band, Korea. Ah, I mean, Korea. OK?” (+) ^[1] TLN: The ones in Italic are in English, and the others are in Korean

Nam Gyuhwan cleared his throat and spoke in English, and the owner who finally understood nodded.

People who had been quietly watching the situation applauded their courage.

Some left with unsatisfied faces.

While courage was admirable, they also worried about the quality of the performance. After all, it was a hastily formed band.

“Can you do well?”

“Ha, I really quit piano but I have to do it?”

“I learned contrabass about ten years ago, I think?”

And when the band members who showed no nervousness at all looked at him, Halo added.

“It’s my first time playing jazz.”

If the owner understood Korean, he might have been shocked.

But the cheerful faces all turned towards the instruments at once, and soon the lights came down.

#

For Olivia, it was truly a movie-like day.

A performance scheduled after a long time.

Moreover, it was a performance at “Ever Since”, her favorite cafe, so she had been preparing for the performance with an excited heart for days.

Her college friends said they would come to congratulate her, and her professors also congratulated her on her challenge.

So, with money earned from part-time jobs, she rented the most glamorous dress she had ever worn in her life and stood on stage, but.

The performance was in danger of ending just like that.

It wasn’t her fault, but due to the musicians going MIA.

‘I had a bad feeling.’

She should have known when they talked about going to clubs and such during yesterday’s rehearsal.

She told the owner she could perform alone if there were no musicians, but the kind owner, risking rudeness, asked the audience for her lonely singer.

It couldn’t be.

Such a coincidence, such a miracle, couldn’t happen.

However.

Her eyes met with a certain boy’s.

Before realizing he had a guitar on his back, the boy’s presence caught her eye.

The slight upturn of his lips.

It was like the devil’s whisper asking, ‘Do you need my help?’

She, desperate even for the devil’s help, nodded, and soon the boy stood up from his seat.

Her heart races.

Her blood starts pounding to the tuning sounds.

As she grabbed the mic and looked at the audience, she briefly turned her gaze to meet the boy’s.

The boy, calmly embracing the guitar under the lights, nods.

Feeling somehow gradually stabilizing, she opened her mouth.

[Do you know the shape of love?]

With her voice, the melody arose.

At that moment, the old theater turned back time to reclaim its past glory,

The four performers became a magnificent orchestra,

And the cheap dress imitating luxury became a prima donna’s gown.

“…!”

The group of men and women who looked up at the performance without thinking gaped at the stage.

#

45 minutes before the performance started, casually dressed office workers took seats in a corner of the first floor.

“Wouldn’t it be better to drink at Monica’s?”

“Why, this is nice. The einspänner here is the best. And there’s a jazz performance soon, isn’t that great?”

“You mean an amateur jazz performance?”

“Hey now, are you looking down on it? Don’t forget that among those who have performed at Ever Since, there are singers you desperately request.”

“No, when did I look down on it.”

A group of casually dressed adults gathered on the first floor of Ever Since in the evening. Only the mustachioed man grumbled in that place.

“I just meant, if we’re going to watch a jazz performance, wouldn’t a drink be better than coffee?”

“My daughter said she’d kill me if I come home smelling of alcohol again today.”

“Oh, she takes after your wife a lot.”

“More importantly, how’s everyone’s recruiting going?”

“How long has it been since Coachella ended? Let’s celebrate a bit more.”

“The festival is over, so it’s time for us to start working again.”

“We had quite a hard time when that crazy guy suddenly said he couldn’t perform during the festival. How long do we have to suffer?”

“Well, unless you step down from being a director?”

Everyone chuckled at that.

Yes, everyone gathered here is.

The management team of the Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival.

They can be called directors responsible for planning North America’s largest festival by recruiting prominent musicians.

The Coachella festival is held for a total of 6 days on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday of the second and third weeks of April every year, when there are no special issues.

So now in May, there was still a year left until next year’s Coachella, and it might seem strange to someone that they’re already worried about recruiting.

However, Coachella is not a college festival that can be prepared in three months.

Every year, the hottest artists in each field participate in Coachella, and up to 200,000 people gather in the California desert to see them.

A festival of this scale cannot be prepared 3 months in advance. It’s not just about responsibility, but it takes quite a long time to prepare everything from sponsors to manpower and selection companies.

Above all, the most important thing is the stars’ schedules. They say one of the indicators of stars’ popularity is their schedule, and top stars really do have a full year’s worth of schedules, so they had to start working now.

“So has there been any response from Veil?”

“Veil is always the same. They say they’re not a management company but a distribution company, so contact him directly. If we could contact him, would we be asking like this? They should at least give us a direct contact.”

“At this point, I wonder if that old man is locking up The Sun and making him write songs? We said we wanted The Sun as a headliner, but he didn’t even pretend to listen.”

And what they focused on was, after all, the greatest trend icon of this era. HALO.

They wanted to see the sun rise in the California desert next year somehow.

“By the way, why are there so many foreigners here?”

“I know. There are a lot.”

It’s not that they disliked foreigners, but quite a lot of foreign languages could be heard around them.

Asian people look around and take their seats.

The mustache, who somehow recognized their language as Korean, snapped his fingers.

“Ah, how’s the K-pop recruitment going?”

“For that side, we’re thinking of inviting the band we invited last year.”

“Or an idol group would be good too.”

“Aren’t there any new faces?”

“Why look for new faces at Coachella? Well, I know what you mean. But I don’t see any new faces that could become global stars yet. If there’s a star with popularity and above all, good skills, I’d like to bring them.”

“Hmm, what time is it now?”

“Why, what’s that about?”

And then the incident happened.

As everyone knows, the performance musicians bailed out. The performance was about to be canceled, and just as the mustache was lamenting that they should have gone to Monica Beach after all.

By chance, a certain band that had visited the cafe went up on stage.

“It’s like a movie.”

“Yes, if the performance ends wonderfully, I wouldn’t doubt if someone called it a musical film.”

The short-haired woman agreed with the sideburns.

Soon their words were proven.

The orchestra of an amateur female singer and band resonates through the large cafe.

Even customers who heard the sound from outside forgot to order coffee and watched the stage.

How passionate and sweet this stage is, like the lyrics saying love is like chocolate.

“There they are, new faces.”

What they first focused on was the singer standing at the front of the stage. But with their keen ears, their attention gradually shifted to the back.

“The completeness is too high for a band formed suddenly, isn’t it?”

“Was it a song they already knew?”

“It is a famous song, though.”

A fluid pianist, skillful percussionist, and solid contra bassist. Above all, what caught their eye was the boy playing the guitar.

Is it because he’s Asian?

His age is completely impossible to guess.

He looks like a middle school student on the outside, but judging by his skills, he seems to be at least 40 years old. Yes, even being generous, he appears to have the God-given talent of someone in their early thirties to late twenties.

It definitely doesn’t look like the skill of a teenager or someone in their twenties.

The singer sings well too, but what’s stably leading her is the power of the boy playing the hollow body guitar.

The singer seems to know this well, looking at the boy after finishing each song. She even went to the boy’s side to sing.

And the singer’s sudden action of holding out the microphone.

The boy chuckled, and then sang along with the lyrics, albeit briefly.

“!”

At the affectionate prank, when a sweet singing voice returned, the singer was startled.

The audience watching was the same.

In the place where silence had briefly fallen, whistles and cheers arose.

“So the original performers bailed out, and performers who happened to be eating in the restaurant came on stage, not only playing amazingly but singing like that?”

Even a B-movie wouldn’t be made like this.

The short-haired woman muttered cynically.

Then the mustache butted in.

“That kid is apparently a singer from Korea.”

“A singer? No wonder. It wouldn’t make sense if he wasn’t a singer.”

“How do you know that?”

“I asked the women sitting next to us why they were cheering ‘no wheel!’, and they said he’s a famous Korean singer. The others behind him are his band.”

“Famous? I’m hearing about him for the first time.”

“They say he debuted just a few months ago.”

“Wow.”

The mustache stroked his mustache, lost in thought.

A new face with proven skills.

If he becomes a bit more well-known here, it would be good to invite him to Coachella.

“Excuse me, do you have any stage videos of that friend?”

The mustache even got video addresses from the Koreans in the next seats, wanting to at least see his skills.

After the fantastic performance by the singer and Korean band ended, they gathered in a corner of the cafe that was about to close and watched the videos.

The first was the ‘Halo cover video’ that they had already seen or at least heard of.

The second was the performance from a singing contest.

And the third was a direct shot of a guerrilla busking in Hongdae.

The five who watched the videos without saying a word all finished their coffee and stood up.

No more conversation was needed.

The spark in each other’s eyes was enough.

“It’s good we came here, right? I told you we should come.”

The sideburns said as he opened the door.

“I’ll admit it just for today.”

The mustache nodded with a displeased face. He thought it was a good harvest since they met singers with the new face and proven skills he wanted.

They might meet again someday, if not next year.

“We’ve found friends to put on the candidate list, after all.”

• 1. TLN: The ones in Italic are in English, and the others are in Korean