Two days later, Han Yoo-jin, Ahn Da-eun, and Go Min-young stood awkwardly inside the chaotic lair of the ghost. Kang Ji-won's basement studio was even more intimidating from the inside. It smelled of soldering fumes, old coffee, and the faint, electric hum of powerful machinery. Every available surface was covered with keyboards, synthesizers, and complex-looking audio interfaces connected by a dizzying web of cables. It felt less like a music studio and more like the cockpit of a ramshackle spaceship.
Ji-won sat with his back to them, hunched over a massive keyboard, a scowl etched onto his face as if it were a permanent feature. He hadn't greeted them when they arrived. His call to Yoo-jin the previous night had been a testament to his social grace: a single, grunted sentence, "Bring your singer. Don't waste my time," followed by a click.
He tapped a few keys, a low, ominous hum filling the room. "Okay," he said without turning around, his voice a gravelly monotone. "The lyrics you gave me… they're not terrible."
Yoo-jin exchanged a small, triumphant glance with Min-young. Coming from a man like Ji-won, that was the highest form of praise.
"They're angry," Ji-won continued, his fingers drifting over the keys. "So the music needs to be cold. But with a fire burning underneath. A controlled burn." He began to play. A chord progression emerged, filling the small studio. It was unlike anything Yoo-jin had ever heard in a K-Pop production. It was melancholic, in a minor key, but each chord held a strange, unsettling dissonance. It sounded like a thousand shards of glass glittering in the dark—beautiful, sharp, and dangerous.
"This is the core," he said, letting the progression loop. He finally swiveled in his chair, his intense, sleep-deprived eyes landing on Ahn Da-eun. "Now, singer. Let me hear what you've got. Sing the first verse. Right now. Over this. No microphone. Just your voice."
The atmosphere instantly shifted. All eyes were on Da-eun. This wasn't the supportive, experimental environment of their small office. This was an evaluation. The cold, sterile room from her nightmares at Stellar had been replaced by a cluttered, intimidating basement, but the feeling was the same. She was an insect under a microscope again.
Her old anxieties, the ones Yoo-jin had been so carefully trying to dismantle, flared up with a vengeance. She took a shallow, nervous breath and began to sing Go Min-young's powerful lyrics, but the voice that came out was thin, shaky, and hesitant. It was the voice of a student trying desperately not to make a mistake, carefully navigating the notes, sacrificing all emotion for the sake of technical precision.
Ji-won stopped playing abruptly. The sudden silence was deafening. He glared at her, his expression a mixture of disappointment and disgust.
"What was that?" he asked, his voice dripping with scorn. "That was pathetic. You sound like every other trainee who's so terrified of their own shadow they forget to actually sing. Your CEO here sold me a story about a 'one-of-a-kind tone' and a 'hidden fire.' I'm not hearing it. I'm hearing fear."
Da-eun flinched as if he had physically slapped her. A deep, burning flush of humiliation and anger crept up her neck. Her carefully constructed composure shattered. The system panel next to her head, which only Yoo-jin could see, began to flash with warnings. [Anxiety Level: 80%] [Defense Mechanism: Activating Hostility]
"Well, maybe your music is uninspired!" she retorted, her voice sharp and defensive.
Before the session could completely derail into a shouting match, Yoo-jin stepped in. "Ji-won," he said, his voice calm but firm. "Give us a minute."
He gently guided Da-eun to a corner of the studio, away from Ji-won's piercing gaze. Min-young followed, her face a mask of worry.
"He's an ass," Da-eun whispered fiercely, her body trembling with a mixture of rage and shame.
"He is," Yoo-jin agreed quietly. "But he's a brilliant ass, and he's right. You weren't singing to us, Da-eun. You were singing to them. To the ghosts of those directors from Stellar. You were trying to get a passing grade."
He lowered his voice, making sure only she and Min-young could hear. "Forget him. Forget me. Forget this whole room. Look at Min-young." He gestured to the nervous lyricist. "She didn't write those words for a judging panel. She didn't write them to be technically perfect. She wrote them for you. She listened to your pain and turned it into poetry. She wrote your story. Now, I need you to sing it back to her. Tell her that you understand what she did. Show her."
Da-eun's angry, tear-filled eyes shifted to Min-young. Min-young, seeing her friend's distress, reached out and gave her hand a small, encouraging squeeze. It was a simple, silent gesture of solidarity. Something shifted in Da-eun's expression. The anger and fear receded slightly, replaced by a flicker of connection. She wasn't a product being evaluated anymore. She was a partner. She was a messenger.
She took a deep, centering breath and pulled away from the corner. She stood in the middle of the room and looked directly at the cynical producer. "Okay, Ji-won," she said, her voice clear and defiant. "Play the damn chords."
Ji-won, surprised by her sudden fire, raised a skeptical eyebrow but turned back to his keyboard. He started the cold, glittering progression again.
This time, when Da-eun opened her mouth, the voice that emerged was completely different. It was still cool, still tinged with melancholy, but now it was infused with a quiet, steely defiance. The fear was gone, burned away and replaced by a raw, vulnerable strength that was far more compelling.
When she sang the lines about being pinned like an insect, everyone in the room felt the chill of the sterile spotlight. When she sang the lines about the melody being hers, they felt the warmth of her secret, fierce rebellion. She wasn't just singing the lyrics anymore; she was embodying them. She was living them.
As she sang, a slow, rare, and almost imperceptible smile spread across Kang Ji-won's face. His hands, which had been playing the simple loop, began to dance across the keyboards and drum pads. He started adding layers to the music in real time, weaving a sonic tapestry around her voice. A deep, pulsing sub-bass that vibrated in their chests. A sharp, syncopated drum beat that was both modern and aggressive. Ethereal, swirling synthesizer pads that wrapped around her voice like a protective shroud. He was building the song around her performance, inspired and energized by her sudden transformation.
Min-young watched, tears welling in her eyes, as her words were given flesh and bone and a powerful, beating heart. Yoo-jin stood back by the door, watching the three distinct, broken parts he had assembled—the girl who was afraid to be seen, the writer who was afraid to be heard, and the composer who was afraid to trust—click together in perfect, unexpected harmony, creating something powerful and new.
They worked for hours, losing all track of time. The sun set, and the basement studio became their entire world. By the end of the night, they had a rough, unpolished, but electrifying demo of the song.
Ji-won swiveled in his chair, his face slick with sweat but alive with a creative energy Yoo-jin suspected he hadn't felt in years. He cranked the volume on his massive studio monitors. "Listen," he commanded.
The song exploded into the room. It was massive. Da-eun's raw, deeply emotional voice soared over Ji-won's cold, intricate, and hauntingly beautiful soundscape. Min-young's lyrics provided the song with a narrative soul that beat with defiance, pain, and ultimate triumph. It was a sound that didn't exist in K-Pop. It was too dark, too real, too powerful.
The song ended, and the four of them sat in the ringing silence, listening to the final notes fade into nothingness.
"Well," Ji-won said, attempting to sound nonchalant but failing completely to hide the raw excitement in his voice. "It doesn't completely suck."
Da-eun stared at the silent speakers, then at Yoo-jin, her eyes wide with a profound sense of awe. "I… I did that?" she whispered, as if she couldn't believe the powerful voice she had just heard was her own.
Yoo-jin smiled, a deep feeling of satisfaction settling over him. "Welcome to Aura Management, Da-eun," he said. "This is only the beginning."