Chapter 142 : Pull the Trigger
Chapter 142: Pull the Trigger
The next morning.
Kim Minsoo sat at the center of the meeting room.
As he waited for Applicant No. 17, a strange tension rose within him.
He was so excited that he’d even had trouble sleeping.
He was gripped by the hunch that Applicant No. 17 would be someone different.
It wasn’t just a gut feeling—closer to a kind of certainty.
He downed his coffee in one gulp.
He smoothed his perfectly fine tie. Fiddled with his watch this way and that.
The HR team leader, unable to watch any longer, cautiously spoke.
“CEO, are you all right?”
“Hm? What do you mean?”
“Your... face is...”
“What about my face? I’m smiling, aren’t I?”
This wasn’t like him.
He was smiling, but it didn’t look like a smile.
The corners of his lips were raised, but his eyes gleamed with madness.
Just when it was starting to feel a little frightening, the long-awaited knock came.
Knock knock.
“Come in.”
The door opened, and he stepped in.
Tall, indifferent expression. Light footsteps.
Someone who possessed an undeniable charm that drew the eye, despite nothing being outwardly special.
Applicant No. 17, Seo Dongyoon.
“Huh...?”
Kim Minsoo pointed at Seo Dongyoon as if startled.
The CEO was being rude right in front of the interviewee!
The HR team leader, flustered, offered an awkward smile and whispered like a ventriloquist.
“Sir, what are you—?”
Kim Minsoo didn’t seem to hear a thing.
Eventually, he stood up and asked,
“Have we met before?”
Thankfully, his hands were no longer raised.
Seo Dongyoon blinked briefly.
He had already guessed this might happen.
That day, backstage.
The viral video where his mother played the bass and he held the guitar.
The one where he appeared with the Cheongseong members.
If it was the CEO of KIM Entertainment, of course he would’ve seen it.
“...Excuse me?”
Seo Dongyoon asked back, sounding flustered.
It was an act. Thoroughly planned.
“Do I have a common-looking face? I get that a lot.”
In times like these, playing dumb was the best response.
This was a blind interview, after all.
Nothing good would come from revealing a familiar face.
“No, not at all. People who look like this aren’t common. I’ve definitely seen you somewhere. We know each other.”
Kim Minsoo nodded with conviction.
Seo Dongyoon replied with a laugh.
“You must mean I have a familiar-looking face. I’ll take that as a compliment.”
A strange silence followed.
Sensing the atmosphere was about to get even weirder, the HR team leader quickly stepped in to shift the mood.
“Ah, welcome. You’re Applicant No. 17, right?”
“Yes, hello. Thank you for having me. I’m No. 17.”
“We really enjoyed your proposal. It was impressive.”
“Thank you.”
Some perfunctory conversation followed.
Kim Minsoo, meanwhile, kept tilting his head, trying to remember.
Nothing came to mind.
Then? He’d have to make it come.
The easiest way was to talk. He might catch a small clue.
This was a place where musicians had gathered.
So the beginning had to be music.
And so, he asked:
“Do you like K-pop?”
“Yes, I listen to it often.”
“What are you listening to these days?”
“I most frequently listen to Double Line’s Crossing Tomorrow.”
It was an honest answer. It was an extremely popular song.
Kim Minsoo reflexively asked:
“Could I ask why?”
A relaxed yet sharp question.
There wasn’t a soul in Korea who didn’t know Double Line.
In times like this, avoiding with a deflection might’ve been a better move.
Mentioning some obscure B-side track by an unpopular boy group, for instance.
That was, in fact, the strategy of other applicants.
Though stammering and failing to give a proper answer was a problem in itself.
Seo Dongyoon lifted his head.
He didn’t avoid it. He’d planned to face things head-on from the start.
Slowly, but clearly, he answered the question.
“Crossing Tomorrow opens with a guitar line that’s very monotonous. As if it has no will of its own. It flows along like time itself. But starting from the second verse, it changes. The drums become bold, and the bass reveals its identity. Then in the bridge, even that flow is shattered. Like...”
Pause for a beat before an important line.
It helped draw the listener in deeper.
Like how Stay’s songs mute all instruments at key moments. That kind of silence.
“Rather than crossing time... it feels like it’s piercing through it.”
Seo Dongyoon gave a faint smile.
But it wasn’t a light one.
“I want to live like that too. Not flowing along, but pulling time forward myself.”
Kim Minsoo was silent for a moment.
He picked up his empty cup, then put it back down.
His expression kept shifting.
Something seemed just on the verge of surfacing, a fleeting clarity that came and went.
‘...Am I actually going crazy? Why does this remind me of Stay again?’
Under the table, Kim Minsoo’s hands moved incessantly.
Clasping and unclasping. Fiddling with his nails, massaging his fingers.
Kim Minsoo drifted into thought.
It was a bit rude to Applicant No. 17, but...
The more they talked, the more his mind filled only with Stay.
Not long ago, Taeyoon, after watching Double Line’s live concert, had said this:
— Doesn’t it feel like the song’s breaking through time?
He hadn’t shown it, but he’d been shocked.
He mulled over those words again and again.
Because there was no more affectionate way to describe Crossing Tomorrow.
He had thought only Taeyoon could come up with such an expression.
But now—
This Applicant No. 17 was saying the exact same thing.
It was eerily similar—too much so to be dismissed as coincidence.
Kim Minsoo muttered to himself.
‘He’s an interesting one.’
He wanted to know more.
He wanted to ask what kind of proposal he’d brought, talk, dig deeper—right now.
But on the other side, Seo Dongyoon sat with composed ease.
When their eyes met, he even gave a slight nod with a smile.
A demeanor that said he was ready for any question.
Unconsciously, Kim Minsoo asked:
“Would you mind sharing where you worked before?”
This wasn’t just some background check.
It was more of a hopeful curiosity—maybe there’d been some point of connection between them?
But Applicant No. 17, Seo Dongyoon, wasn’t someone easily figured out.
“I heard both the documents and interviews were blind.”
Then, casting a brief glance at the HR team leader, he gave a polite bow.
Only then did Kim Minsoo snap back to his senses.
‘I got ahead of myself.’
Unintentionally, he’d come across as probing.
Though it wasn’t deliberate, this one exchange revealed everything.
Someone who doesn’t get swept along unconsciously. Calm on the outside, but always alert.
A perfect fit for KIM Entertainment and Track Race.
There was no reason to hesitate.
He wanted to shout, “You’re hired! Start tomorrow!” right then and there.
No—maybe he’d already made up his mind even before meeting him.
But if he did that, the word procedure would lose all meaning.
He had to follow through.
Kim Minsoo took a breath and said,
“Then, let’s take a look at your proposal.”
It meant this was the final hurdle.
As if waiting for it, Seo Dongyoon took out his materials from his bag.
Kim Minsoo’s eyes narrowed sharply.
‘...This guy’s interesting to the very end.’
It was clearly a thin proposal.
Previous interviewees had brought at least five pages.
But this one, minus the cover page, seemed only about a page or two thick.
Rustle rustle.
Seo Dongyoon quickly handed out the materials and sat quietly, waiting for feedback.
And so, Kim Minsoo and the HR team leader flipped past the cover.
The moment they saw the single-page proposal—
“...?”
The HR team leader’s face filled with question marks.
“Hahahahahaha!”
Kim Minsoo burst into hearty laughter.
[ Lumière Project ]
[ Image Planning Begins with Observation. ]
It meant: If you choose me, I’ll prove it not with words, but with results.
Still laughing, Kim Minsoo said,
“You’re in! No need to look any further—you’re hired!”
The HR team leader, caught off guard by Kim Minsoo’s impulsive declaration, could only sweat nervously.
As a creator, sometimes a thought hits you.
‘I want to make something like this too...’
A novelist while reading a great book.
A composer while listening to great music.
Suddenly, desire is stirred.
For me, that moment was now.
Rihanna’s voice flowing from the speakers.
Wild Thoughts.
It wasn’t seduction.
It was a song like the body heat left behind after the seduction had ended.
The air of a darkened stage.
The lingering scent was deep and intense.
The song wasn’t fast. That made it even hotter.
The slower the tempo, the more the space expands.
And in that expanded space, the vocalist’s breath lingers longer.
“Ah...!”
Eight bars of melody and lyrics came to me at once.
— I never pulled the trigger, just placed the gun in your hand.
It all started with that single line.
Dark, yet soft desire.
A gloomy sound that dominated silently and slowly, without exposing emotion.
There are emotions too dangerous to express outright.
Desire, jealousy, possessiveness, impulse. Those kinds.
Music is a device that hides such emotions safely.
It lets you express things too obscure to say with words—through beats and chords.
My own way of quietly releasing the emotions I’ve hidden inside.
‘But don’t make it too complicated.’
There was only one thing I wanted to convey.
— Remember me.
I didn’t want to be erased.
I wanted to seep quietly into someone’s mind.
Like a guitar riff that clings to your ears for days after you’ve heard it.
Like lyrics that keep resurfacing even after they’ve passed.
“Don’t make it too flashy.”
The title came to me first.
<Velvet Trigger>.
Soft, yet dangerous.
While DJing, I’ve always wanted to create a track like this.
A song where a female vocalist leads, and a male DJ shapes the space and breath behind her.
When the vocalist pulls at emotion, the DJ creates space for that emotion to settle.
“Genre is R&B...”
Outwardly, it’s sweet.
The vocalist expresses deep feelings in a whispering tone.
But once you dig into the track, you’ll find a clear aggressiveness.
A kind of atmosphere that commands without speaking.
This might be the song that truly expresses the real me.
In the cheering crowd,
I always hold back words and hide my feelings.
Instead, my emotions flow out through music.
The listener may never fully grasp what I’m feeling.
But what remains at the end is one thing: an unforgettable sensation.
Something that resurfaces the moment you close your eyes.
That’s enough for me.
I don’t need something like love.
But I must never be forgotten.
“...Is it too abstract?”
Can’t be helped.
Isn’t it the composer’s job to capture abstract senses and express them clearly through music?
I was confident.
Even before opening the project file, I’d already matched the instruments in my head.
Of course, it had to start with the bass.
Deep and low.
808 bass was too shiny.
I wanted something murkier and heavier. That hazy emotion of a drunken dawn.
I chose a vintage bass that suited that vibe.
Slow and seductive.
Next was the guitar loop.
Two sensual bars repeating.
Unhurried, slow.
This wasn’t a groove that made you move your body.
Its point was the tension that made the listener wait.
And then the kick.
As I layered the drum loop, I muttered,
“This isn’t a dance track. It needs to make you restrain your emotions.”
Instead of hitting, it pressed down.
Same with the hi-hats. Loosely held to create space.
No dynamic drops.
This wasn’t a song that exploded just because you waited.
In the bridge, I’d remove the kick, leaving only the snare and vocals.
So the heightened emotions wouldn’t collapse and could hold until the end.
It had to be different from typical DJ tracks.
Not a flashy stage, but a suffocating stare.
A track that made you look up at the performer on stage from below, loosely.
‘I really like this.’
This song was created to hide myself.
But maybe, it was also the moment I was being the most honest.
And I...
“Pull the trigger.”
I wanted to sing this song myself.