50 – Da Capo(2) 50.
"What is Suyeon trying to take from you?"
Yoon Hajun asked as he watched the ice melting in his iced americano. With a soft clink, a piece of ice collapsed against the side of the cup.
At the question, Han Goyo hesitated, unsure how—or what—she should say. She was terrible at communicating with people. She had suppressed her emotions for so long that she almost never spoke about herself at all.
How much time passed like that?
After gathering her thoughts, she finally spoke, carefully.
"…My singing."
"Singing?"
"Yeah. My singing."
She lifted her gaze to him, wondering if that alone was enough for him to understand.
Hajun reached out and lightly flicked the straw in his cup.
She wants to take it.Han Goyo's singing.
What did that even mean?
As he tried to make sense of it, Goyo let out a quiet sigh. Just saying it clearly hadn't been enough.
Feeling frustrated, she continued, her voice tightening. "I mean… your sister is stealing my singing."
"Ah."
Only then did Hajun understand.
Suyeon is stealing Goyo's singing.
The wording was extreme, but when he thought about it, it wasn't entirely wrong. Suyeon was using Goyo as a motif when she sang. But was that plagiarism? Copying?
Absolutely not.
She had taken the overwhelming performance Goyo showed at the concert as a reference point and was building her own originality from it. She was still growing, which meant that originality wasn't fully formed yet. That was why Hajun hadn't interfered with how Suyeon sang.
If Suyeon had tried to become nothing more than a copy of Goyo, he would have been the first to stop her. He had no intention of turning her into "the second Han Goyo."
"Sure, Suyeon does use your singing as a motif," he said calmly, "but isn't 'stealing' a bit much? You know there are plenty of differences, too."
Goyo nodded. He wasn't wrong.
Being inspired by someone and using them as a motif was common among singers. If you reinterpreted it through your own creativity, it became originality. If not, you were just a copycat. And Suyeon was clearly the former.
As Hajun said, she was interpreting Goyo's singing in her own way.
That was exactly the problem.
"That's what I don't like."
"What?"
"It's petty of her," Goyo said quietly, "to use the only thing I have just so she can grow."
She hadn't said Suyeon was copying her. She said she was stealing.
Suyeon was taking Goyo's strengths and making them her own. If she were merely imitating her, Goyo wouldn't hate it this much. No—she would probably welcome it.
Because a copycat could never beat the original.
"Why?" Hajun asked. He genuinely didn't understand. Since when was it petty to use someone as a motif?
…Or was this something he couldn't grasp because he had never had that kind of talent?
"Because she's a genius."
The answer was unexpectedly simple.
Because Suyeon was a genius.
Even in Goyo's eyes, Suyeon's talent was immense. That shining brilliance would undoubtedly bloom into something extraordinary in the future. And that was the problem.
The only reason Goyo could stay where she was was because she was the best. A girl capable of threatening that position—someone growing by taking pieces of what was hers—made her feel anxious, unsettled, jealous… or perhaps something else entirely.
In the end, she was guarding herself against Suyeon.
"Singing is the only thing I can have," she said honestly. "I don't want it taken from me…"
It was frightening to say it out loud. What if, after hearing this, Hajun ended up hating her?
No matter how much people called her a genius, Han Goyo was still only seventeen—a child who believed the world she lived in was the whole world. Her fingertips trembled slightly.
Hajun let out a slow sigh. He understood what she meant, roughly at least. But did he agree?
Absolutely not.
Suyeon was a genius. That genius was using what Goyo had, so Goyo felt threatened. If someone else had said this, he would have understood immediately.
But the one saying it was Han Goyo.
Who was Han Goyo?
The unanimously acknowledged greatest talent in the history of Seolwon Arts High. There was no world in which her talent was lacking. So what was she so afraid of?
…Do I just not get it because I've never been a genius?
He lifted his cup and took a sip. The bitterness he'd tasted earlier had faded, diluted by the melted ice.
"Let me hear your story."
"Huh?"
"If I'm going to understand, I think I need to hear more about you."
He could make guesses, assume she had her reasons—but that wasn't enough. If he wanted to truly understand, he needed to know what she had been through, why she clung to singing this desperately.
"…My story? Like… what part?"
"You said singing is the only thing you can have, right? I want to know why you think that."
Goyo fell silent.
Her story. She had never told it to anyone. More accurately, she had never wanted to. Yet for some reason, she felt like it would be okay to tell him.
Even so, she didn't know where to start.
She thought for a long time. The ice in her cup melted completely, turning the dark brown coffee into a pale, watery shade.
Finally, she spoke.
"I have an older sister."
"Okay."
"But not a real sister. A cousin. Because of family circumstances, I've lived at my aunt's house since I was little."
Hajun nodded. He wondered what kind of circumstances would make a child live with relatives, but he didn't ask. Maybe one day, she would tell him.
"Until elementary school, we got along. We played together. But in middle school… things started to go wrong."
"Why?"
"The reason was… the teacher you mentioned last time. Lee Jiyoon. I was the only one who passed her academy's audition."
"…Your cousin also wanted to be a singer?"
Goyo nodded, barely.
"I wasn't really interested in singing. I just sang because my sister liked it. She said she wanted to attend Teacher Lee's academy, so I tagged along with her. But only I passed."
Hajun could picture it easily. She wasn't their real daughter—just a relative's child. And that child got accepted into an academy their own daughter failed to enter.
Of course, the parents couldn't be purely happy. And of course, Goyo would have sensed that tension.
"But it was still okay back then. My sister supported me."
Her expression darkened.
"But then… Teacher Lee started introducing me to various entertainment companies. And that was the problem. One of them was the exact agency my sister had desperately wanted to join. They tried to cast me. And of course, they spoke to my aunt and uncle."
"That's when things really fell apart."
She nodded again, then took a sip of coffee as if the memory itself was suffocating her.
"After that, the house stopped feeling comfortable. My sister was in shock. She stopped talking to me. She ignored me. And she became irritable—not just with me, but with everyone."
"Ah…"
A sound slipped out of Hajun's mouth, somewhere between a sigh and a groan. Now he understood why Goyo hated going home. She had broken her family just by existing, and she had been forced to watch it happen.
Living there must have felt like sitting on a bed of nails.
"So you quit the academy?"
"Yeah."
So that was why she left Lee Jiyoon's academy.
"Of course… quitting didn't make my sister go back to how she was."
Because of singing, Goyo lost her family. She ruined a family. She had nowhere to belong and ended up alone.
And yet, ironically, the only reason she could stay where she was now was also because of singing.
"I tried to quit singing too. But if I take singing away… there's nothing left of me."
Seolwon Arts High was expensive, but not for Goyo. Because of her singing, her tuition was fully waived, and she received additional support.
"That's why singing is the only thing I have."
In her world, singing was everything.
Hajun closed his mouth. What was he supposed to say to that? Tell her that her home was just a tiny part of the world? Tell her that she could succeed and become something huge?
Words like that wouldn't reach her.
All he felt was sadness—for Goyo, and for her sister as well.
If he hadn't lived through his past life, if he only knew how frightening Suyeon's talent was, he was sure he would have acted just like her sister. He had once been consumed by inferiority whenever he saw geniuses.
And if he discovered his own sibling was one of them—no, a genius even among geniuses—he was certain he would have gone off the rails.
That was why he could sympathize with her sister, too.
"This is… complicated," he said quietly.
It wasn't that anyone was completely wrong—not the aunt and uncle, not the cousin, not even Goyo. He could understand all of them. That didn't make it okay, but he understood.
"That's why I don't like it."
Hajun didn't respond.
Now he understood what she meant. For Goyo, singing was the one thing she had, and Suyeon was using it as a tool to grow. From her perspective, that would feel unbearable—especially when Suyeon was talented enough to pose a real threat.
He lifted his cup and drank the rest of his coffee in one go. The ice had long since melted, and the coffee tasted like plain water.
An awkward silence settled over the table.
Goyo scratched at the rim of her cup with her fingernail, her head lowered. What would Hajun think of her now? Would he think she was making a fuss over nothing? Or would he hate her for speaking badly about his sister?
I shouldn't have said anything.
She knew how much he cared about Suyeon. So why had she said it? Why had she told him everything?
If she had stayed quiet, maybe she could still sing his songs. But now… maybe he would never let her sing them again.
The thought terrified her. She bit her lip.
The silence, which she had always been used to, suddenly felt unbearably painful. And Hajun still said nothing.
How long did it last?
Finally, he spoke.
"This winter break… are you doing anything?"
The sudden question made Goyo blink, then shake her head. Breaks, when she couldn't go to school, were torture for her.
"Then during break, let's work on something together."
"Work?"
"There's a place called Haul Studio. A senior I know runs it, and they're starting a project."
"Okay."
"I want you to be the vocalist."
She froze.
"Of course, I'll write the song."
Goyo needed to get out of that suffocating house—for her own sake more than anyone else's. And Hajun had no intention of letting her disappear again like she had in his previous life.
"And I'm going to debut professionally next year. Well… 'professionally' might sound like a stretch, but I'll be releasing songs as a composer."
In other words, he would lead both Suyeon and Goyo forward, starting with "Rough," then "Addressee Unknown," and many more, all with the goal of releasing them.
"I need your voice in the songs I make."
Genius or not, she was still young. Until she could break free from that cage, he would guide her.
"Really?" Goyo asked.
Hajun nodded. "Of course. It won't be easy juggling school and work, but it's fine."
As he had said before, Seolwon Arts High was very accommodating to professionals. Events, festivals, major exams—as long as you performed your own original songs, they counted. A professional composer could even use released songs for evaluations.
With that in mind, balancing school and work wasn't an issue. Quitting school might be the ideal for some, but Hajun had no intention of doing that. There was still too much he needed to learn, and more importantly, Suyeon had only just begun to enjoy school.
"Well, even if I say 'professional,' it's not that impressive," he added. Releasing music itself wasn't difficult; you just registered it with the association. The real question was whether it would succeed.
Worst case, he could hand the song over to Kwon Suyoung. The guy seemed to like his work anyway.
"I'll show you that you don't need to feel that way about Suyeon."
At the same time, he would show her exactly how valuable she was—with his music.
For Suyeon, for Goyo, and most of all, for himself.
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