Chapter 99 : I’ll Be Back!
Chapter 99: I’ll Be Back!
An apartment in Ulsan.
A man was leaning lazily against the sofa, scrolling through his smartphone.
His expression was indifferent.
Short-form videos appeared and disappeared on the screen.
“Ha-ha.”
It wasn’t particularly funny.
Just a modest pleasure—cheap entertainment to fill his free time.
Psshh-
He cracked open a can of beer with his left hand.
As he took a sip, savoring the quiet night—
The algorithm shifted.
From Go, to hiking, to dogs, to singers, to bands.
“Oh-ho.”
Live videos of unknown bands began to play one after another.
That, at least, caught his interest.
The man’s name was Seo Jeongmin.
Once upon a time, he’d made quite a name for himself in the industry.
So it wasn’t strange that he found himself muttering like this alone on his sofa.
“The bass tone’s not bad. But it’s buried too deep.”
“Ah, the rhythm’s dragging a bit. Drummer must be nervous.”
“The chorus is nice, but the mixing’s a little disappointing.”
“The arrangement’s got some flair, but the intro’s too long.”
Like a baseball fan commenting on a game.
It was a sincere critique born of love for music—
Almost like love and hate intertwined.
‘This brings back memories.’
While his thumb kept flicking the screen without rest,
Before he knew it, one can of beer was gone.
Psshh-
He grabbed another, sat back down.
He absentmindedly raised his thumb again—
“Oh-ho?”
A curious title appeared.
[Impromptu Jam - Cheongseong ‘Travelling Without Moving’]
All the keywords he liked in one place.
Impromptu jam? No way I’m skipping that.
Cheongseong? Of course I’m clicking that.
Even <Travelling Without Moving>?
How would they interpret this piece as an improvisation?
So the old boys were still rocking out, huh.
<More Than Time> and <Ancora> had been amazing too.
He loved those songs.
Enough that his fingers twitched with the urge to play.
It wasn’t his major, but he used to play a fair bit of bass back in the day.
Seo Jeongmin straightened his posture.
He held his hands as if an invisible bass was really there—quite convincingly, too.
I wonder if I still got it...
As he thought that, he focused on the video.
And the moment the camera pulled back to show the full band—he shot up from his seat.
“……What the hell!”
Thunk.
The beer can slipped from his hand and hit his foot.
Bubbling—
Cold beer spilled onto the floor.
But that didn’t matter anymore.
“……Jin Eunha?”
He couldn’t mistake her.
Sixteen years had already passed—
But even under the dim stage lights, that silhouette was unmistakable.
He stared at the screen, dazed.
In the video, she played the bass freely, even more so than before.
More than her skill—which hadn’t rusted one bit—
……it was that faint, effortless smile that struck his heart the hardest.
Yeah, that smile...
Memories from the past surged back all at once.
Perhaps memories didn’t hide quietly in some corner of the heart after all—
Maybe they simply peeked out one day, just like today.
Seo Jeongmin found himself thinking that.
“……She looks good.”
That smile that once soaked into his youth like a gentle drizzle—
Wasn’t that what he’d cherished most of all?
The shabby drummer Seo Jeongmin had loved the radiant bassist Jin Eunha.
The good old days, playing together in that Sinchon basement.
Back when I used to watch her—the star of the stage—and feel my heart race.
Looking at that palm-sized screen now, I couldn’t help but think of us, walking down the streets of Sinchon side by side.
“What the hell did I do back then.”
I wondered how she was doing.
All I knew came from casually asking my son in passing, pretending not to care.
“……Hmm.”
She must be doing fine. After all, that idiot of a husband who ruined everything with his ridiculous business dreams wasn’t around anymore.
After replaying the short clip more than ten times, I finally snapped back to my senses.
Only then did I notice the other band members playing together.
Jungbae-hyung had gained a bit of weight.
Byeongcheon-hyung was still a stylish man.
Musong-hyung had grown a beard—it suited him well.
And let’s see……
The bassist Gicheol-hyung had been replaced by Jin Eunha, so I could skip him.
As for the guitarist Doyoung-hyung…… when did he get that tall? His face even looked younger—almost like my eldest son, Dongyoon…… huh?
“What the—?”
I hurriedly zoomed in on the screen.
It wasn’t that he looked like him.
That was…… Seo Dongyun.
The kid playing guitar with his head bowed low.
That was definitely my eldest son—the second most handsome man in the world.
No way.
Electricity seemed to surge through my entire body.
I knew he was good at guitar, but still—
Even standing among Cheongseong, he didn’t look out of place at all.
Even if the song’s focus was on the bass……
I saw it.
My eldest son, Seo Dongyun, playing the guitar with a faint smile beneath the soft lights.
That smile looked just like his mother’s when she was young.
“Uh…… wait a second.”
Jin Eunha and Seo Dongyun.
If those two were there…… shouldn’t Taeyoon be too?
If either of my two sons were to pursue music, I’d have guessed it would be Taeyoon, not Dongyun.
So thinking ‘Shouldn’t Taeyoon be there too?’ wasn’t unreasonable.
“Hm……”
As I stared closely at the screen, I snapped my fingers.
Then I looked between my hand and the screen.
That kid DJing—those long, pale fingers.
They looked exactly like mine.
Even without seeing the face, I knew.
Taeyoon, you little rascal. You were here all along.
My heart started to race.
On one screen—Jin Eunha, Seo Dongyun, Seo Taeyoon……
Just seeing them made me happy.
So they were doing well.
And more than that—they were doing it with the music they loved.
It was nothing like my own life.
The records I’d collected, the drumsticks I’d used, the lyrics I’d scribbled alone, the tracks now reduced to mere digital files—
I’d thought of them as just hobbies. Things long forgotten.
Or so I believed.
But.
“……I want to play with them too.”
The words slipped out before I knew it.
Silently, I turned off the screen and closed my eyes.
Jin Eunha played the bass.
Dongyun’s guitar followed her lead. Taeyoon’s DJing tied the whole song together seamlessly.
That fleeting scene stirred the emotions I’d buried long ago.
Yeah.
Now that I finally admit it—
It was never just a hobby.
Never.
“Mom, what are you watching so intently?”
“There’s just…… something.”
“You’ll ruin your eyes if you keep staring at your phone.”
“Is that so? But Taeyoon, are you hungry? Should I get you something to eat?”
“……It hasn’t even been two hours since I ate.”
The next day.
Even when I left for work at Sierra, Mom was still glued to her smartphone.
I’d heard somewhere that short-form video addiction was becoming a problem among middle-aged folks these days.
So I peeked over, wondering if that was the case.
“Hmm……”
It was the same video from yesterday.
From the look of it, she was just refreshing the comment section over and over again.
Well, fair enough.
Those comments—they really could make you feel good.
You could watch them over and over, and still not get tired of them. Mom must’ve felt the same.
When my DJ Blackhole video went viral, I’d watched it endlessly too.
So much that it even appeared in my dreams.
……A dream where I got hate comments.
So I could understand how Mom felt completely.
The only problem was, Mom seemed even more hooked than I ever was.
“Taeyoon, have you seen this?”
“Huh?”
“They’re calling me a girl crush.”
Ah……
“Oh, and there’s this one too—someone asked if I’ve got an engine in my fingers.”
Right……
“Someone said they signed up for bass lessons after watching this. Oh, and one called me ‘the master of japchae’? What’s japchae supposed to mean? A typo?”
I see……
I just stayed quiet.
If I said anything weird, I’d probably get smacked.
“Should I leave a comment too?”
“Ah—anything but that!”
I quickly blocked Mom’s way.
I didn’t even need to guess.
She was definitely about to leave a comment like, “Thank you^^.”
“Why? I can’t?”
“It’s not that you can’t…… but isn’t it cooler to keep a mysterious image?”
“Oh! Mystery! I like that.”
“Yeah. If you show up in the comments yourself, people say it’s lame these days.”
“Lame? What’s that mean?”
“Uh…… kind of old-fashioned? Makes you look uncool?”
“Well, that won’t do then.”
Mom put down her smartphone for a moment and stared at me thoughtfully.
“But Taeyoon, are you going somewhere this late at night? Why’d you change clothes?”
Tonight was my shift at Sierra.
I could’ve lied and said I was meeting a friend, but I didn’t want to.
Not saying something and lying about it are two different things.
Making up something ridiculous here would’ve been lying.
I planned to be honest about working as a DJ.
But I still intended to keep secret that the club was called Sierra, and that my stage name was Blackhole.
Knowing Mom, she’d search it up on YouTube right away.
……That couldn’t happen.
Lately, there’d been a few nasty comments online.
Stuff like “he’s just an attention seeker,” or “he’s stuck in a small club because he’s not good enough.”
They weren’t overly harsh, but if Mom saw them, she’d be disappointed.
Even I got angry sometimes—if a mother saw people insulting her son, who knows what she’d do.
So I said,
“I’m going to my part-time job.”
And then Mom—
My mom!
“Oh, really? Okay, go on then.”
“Uh…… what?”
She didn’t ask a single thing.
That can’t be right.
I just stood there, staring at her.
I’d braced myself for a barrage of questions and even prepared answers in advance—but why wasn’t she asking?
“What? You said it’s work. Being on time is important~ go on, hurry.”
She was even telling me to go quickly.
Was this… right?
Somehow, it made me feel a little sad. Back then, even if I went to the playground, she’d worry and ask who I was going with.
As I stood there pouting, she asked,
“Taeyoon, do you have something to say to Mom? Why are you just standing there like that?”
Argh.
The words slipped out before I could stop them.
“Why aren’t you asking me anything?”
“Hm? About what?”
“About what I’m doing, or where I’m going.”
Then Mom answered with the gentlest smile.
“Do I really need to ask? You’ll figure things out and do well on your own. As long as you’re working hard, that’s what matters. Be careful with cars and people. Come back safe.”
Ah. What was I even worried about?
Right—Mom was always someone who believed in me no matter what I did.
My shoulders lifted with pride.
If I ever get to perform on a bigger stage one day—
Then I’ll make sure to invite her to the very best seat.
My brother too, and Dad.
Thinking that, I answered brightly,
“Yes! I’ll be back soon!”
Clack.
The moment the front door closed—
“Hmm……”
Seo Dongyun peeked his head out through the door crack to check the situation.
Good. Nothing happened.
He let out a faint sigh and was just about to retreat to his room when—
“Where do you think you’re going?”
Jin Eunha grabbed him by the back of the neck.
Her expression was playful this time.
“Ugh.”
“Right? I’m right, aren’t I?”
“I don’t know anything. Ask him yourself.”
Seo Dongyun turned his head away, pretending to be serious.
“There’s no way it’s not true. I’m sure of it.”
It was his own kind of brotherly loyalty.
“I don’t know, I don’t know……”
Here’s what had happened.
While Taeyoon was asleep, Jin Eunha had asked, “Could Taeyoon be DJ Blackhole?”
and Dongyun had feigned ignorance, dodging the question completely.
“I looked it up, and apparently Seo Rabbit is Blackhole. And since Taeyoon is Seo Rabbit, doesn’t that mean he’s Blackhole too? I saw it yesterday—it’s totally him.”
Seo Dongyun shook his head again, refusing to answer.
“You kids!”
“I really, really don’t know.”
Jin Eunha grinned.
He was trying his best, as an older brother, to protect his younger brother’s secret.
Cute little rascals.
But too bad.
Mom could see through everything.
“Was it Lunatic Beat? That track was really good. I should watch it again.”
“Don’t read the comments!”
“Why not? You’re afraid I’ll get hurt? Don’t worry. All those idiots are just jealous.”
Seo Dongyun shook his head in resignation.
‘Anyway, I still didn’t say a word!’