Episode 75: Producer (4)
I used to live by the belief that in the recording studio, the producer is God—his words are law and truth.
Something like a manager talking about “maintaining discipline” or “power struggles” was completely unacceptable to me.
“What the hell is this nonsense? Get the fuck out right now! Hey, drag this bastard away.”
In the old days, I would’ve done exactly that.
Whether it was the manager, Ailee, or even CEO Seo Yoonje himself, it wouldn’t have mattered.
But the heat that had surged up to my head suddenly cooled off completely.
Seeing her eyes tightly shut, blurting out words without even realizing how tangled her speech had become—it reminded me of a small animal puffing itself up to protect its young.
‘Why am I doing this to a kid who’s already scared stiff and can barely speak properly?’
The fact that I had stormed out here ready to tear her apart now felt utterly hollow.
If she had induced this reaction on purpose, she’d be frighteningly calculated.
But from the way her eyes were trembling as she belatedly realized how messed up her words had come out, it was clear:
‘That’s probably not it.’
I quickly understood that wasn’t the case either.
She was definitely the type to go home, crawl under the covers, and kick them furiously while thinking, “I should’ve said it like this back then.”
Once my thoughts reached that point, things I hadn’t noticed before started coming into view.
‘Her makeup is…’
The sharp, picky impression she gave off was apparently created by her makeup.
‘Her age is around… twenty-seven? Twenty-eight?’
She held the same position as Bong Cheol-jin, so she wasn’t exactly young, but she was by no means old either.
No matter how much the company wanted it, MyWay was being quite radical by assigning a brand-new manager who was barely in her twenties to a rookie idol. Still, she must have achieved some results to reach this position at her age.
‘At the very least, there’s a high chance she’s genuinely devoted to Hylliy.’
After piecing together these observations and imagining how much courage it must have taken for the manager in front of me to stand here, a sudden thought crossed my mind.
“I really went through regression just to feel this self-loathing and guilt, huh.”
As someone whose mind was nearing forty, no matter how generously I looked at it, she didn’t even seem thirty. What the hell was I doing to someone like her? I averted my gaze and stared pointlessly at the clear winter sky, muttering to myself.
‘Is this also thanks to Zia?’
If it were me before the regression, I wouldn’t have cared about age and would’ve done whatever I wanted.
It seemed that the time I spent with Zia had softened me quite a bit.
‘Is this a good change… or a bad one?’
The thought that suddenly came to me wasn’t something I could easily judge.
But soon I realized I had phrased the cause of this change as “thanks to” rather than “because of,” and my heart felt much lighter.
“Follow me. Whether what I was trying to do was a power struggle, maintaining discipline, or actual producing—you can watch and decide for yourself.”
Well, the various calculations I just made might be wrong.
It didn’t matter.
If she acted the same way even after seeing the results, I could always smash her head in later.
I stepped back into the studio and said,
“Kitano-ssi. Please step outside for a moment.”
I brought Kitano Sora out of the soundproofed studio where she had been anxiously waiting without being able to grasp the situation.
Almost at the same time Sora exited, Hylliy’s manager entered. I looked at her and asked,
“Alright. Before we start, let’s make one thing clear. Manager Park Jiseon? Could you please tell me exactly why my order felt like a power struggle or an attempt to assert dominance to you?”
“Manager Park?!”
Ailee exclaimed in shock, turning to look at Park Jiseon.
Although only Ailee voiced it, Kitano Sora, Ailee, and even the three engineers all wore nearly identical expressions.
“How could someone at the level of a team manager say something like that…!”
I raised my hand to stop Ailee from continuing her outburst.
“I’m not trying to blame Manager Park Jiseon right now, Ailee.”
Then I turned my gaze to Park Jiseon, who was biting her lip slightly as she looked at me.
“Mistakes and misunderstandings can happen between people. At least, I can confidently say that there wasn’t even the slightest bit of the intention you mentioned in that order. But to someone who already felt that way, words alone probably won’t be convincing. That’s why I want to hear the reason—so we can clear up this misunderstanding. So please, tell me. Manager Park Jiseon? Why did you think that?”
If she could clearly explain her reasons in this situation I had set up for her, she would pass.
It might be hard to laugh and reconcile like nothing happened, but at least we could avoid the worst-case scenario of continuing work with a deep rift between us.
Of course, if she tried to weasel her way out of it here,
‘Then she’s out. No exceptions.’
Regardless of her title as manager, Park Jiseon wouldn’t be allowed to set one foot into the producing domain I was leading.
“Say everything you need to. If it’s a misunderstanding we can resolve, let’s clear it up. If it’s not something we can fully resolve, let’s at least find a middle ground.”
I wondered whether Park Jiseon would actually be able to explain her reasons.
***
After a long, heavy silence that pressed down on the studio atmosphere,
“Huuu…”
Park Jiseon took a deep breath and pulled out the paper envelope she had been carrying with her the whole time.
“Ailee. Please take this.”
“Manager Park…!”
There was nothing written on the paper envelope, but no one failed to recognize what it was.
However, it wasn’t Ailee who received the envelope from Park Jiseon’s hand.
“I’ll hold onto this. No matter what, Ailee is a third party here. I can’t burden her with something this heavy. If the time comes when this actually needs to be submitted, I will deliver it to Manager Bong or the CEO myself. I won’t allow the producer to overstep authority like that—but the same goes for Ailee as well.”
The person who said that was none other than Han Yujin, the producer standing at the complete opposite end from Park Jiseon.
It was a rather sly way to make this resignation letter public, but the fact that it wasn’t wrong left no room for argument.
In any case, the moment the resignation letter passed into someone else’s hands, Park Jiseon seemed to have made up her mind.
With a much lighter heart, she began to pour out her true feelings.
“First of all, I was unhappy from the moment you were brought in as the producer.”
At her extremely frank statement, the faces of everyone present turned deathly pale.
“Yes, that’s completely understandable. Still, could you tell me exactly which parts you were dissatisfied with?”
Surprisingly, the person in question, Han Yujin, continued the conversation calmly.
“There were rumors. That a new boy group is about to launch soon, and that you were already chosen as their producer. That this Hylliy project was just a stepping stone to build your career.”
“Wait, that’s…!”
“I thought only outsiders played these kinds of games, but MyWay is a place where people live too, huh. Yes, that’s correct. It hasn’t been finalized yet, but the talks are leaning that way. Career stepping stone. I can’t deny that part.”
Yujin stopped Ailee, who was about to speak, and openly acknowledged the rumor circulating within MyWay.
Faced with such a refreshingly straightforward admission, Park Jiseon’s mouth paused for a moment.
“But Manager Park? If that’s the case, doesn’t that actually make me more trustworthy?”
Han Yujin began to confront Park Jiseon’s complaint head-on.
“…Pardon?”
“Hylliy has a lot of momentum right now. If the timing is right, they can easily reach a career high. But what if I fail to produce results here? In a situation where even a confirmed producer can be replaced without much difficulty, kicking out a mere candidate shouldn’t be hard at all. Didn’t it occur to you that because of that internal selection, I would be desperate and pour everything I have into this project?”
“Uh…”
“I’ll be honest since the rumor is already out there. The main vocal for that boy group is Tae-oh. We’ve already paid a huge signing fee to bring him in. Because of Tae-oh alone, we can’t put just anyone in the producer seat. Isn’t that right, Ailee?”
“That’s correct, Manager Park. I’ve heard the rumors too. That the company might be thinking of dropping Hylliy. But that’s not the case. It’s precisely because Producer Yujin’s skills were convincing enough to persuade the CEO that things are proceeding this way.”
“It seems we were just looking at it from slightly different perspectives. Does this make sense to you now?”
Park Jiseon couldn’t bring herself to answer, but
‘He… has a point…!’
She was already being persuaded.
The proof was the expression she had seen on his face in the hallway just moments ago.
Even she would have made that same hollow expression if she had poured her heart into a project only to be accused of power struggles and asserting dominance.
“What about the way the kids were openly drinking beverages they shouldn’t be having? Wasn’t that lacking in consideration? And the way you deliberately kept calling Sora by her last name to draw a line, and then when I said something, you acted like you’d been waiting for it…!”
Because of that, Park Jiseon desperately poured out her inner thoughts in an attempt to push back. Even she thought her outburst sounded pathetic and ugly, but she felt that if she didn’t say it now, it would only get worse.
To her frantic words, Yujin responded calmly.
“Hmm… the beverages… consideration… Let me be clear about that. Since I’m also someone who sings, I can say this with certainty: without the engineers here, no matter how talented you are, you can’t make a proper song. The kids certainly deserve consideration, but in this studio right now, the Hylliy members are the ones who need to be considerate. The beverages? They should have bought them themselves first.”
“About the way I address her… I didn’t expect that to be an issue. I chose to call her Kitano-ssi out of consideration for her. Kitano-ssi has lived in Korea for roughly four years, but she spent at least sixteen or seventeen years in Japan. We’re not that close, and I thought calling her by her family name would actually be more comfortable for her. This seems like a difficult thing to ask her directly, so I don’t have much more to say about it.”
One by one,
“As for the last part, I apologize. I had some preconceptions. I thought your first impression was that of someone sensitive and picky. It felt like you were needlessly picking fights, and honestly, it seemed like I was the one having discipline imposed on me. There’s nothing I did well in that regard. I’m sorry.”
He confronted everything directly and broke through.
The beverages? She couldn’t deny it.
The way of addressing Sora? Just looking at Sora’s expression was enough to tell—Yujin was right.
As for the final apology, even she had nothing to say.
Perhaps because of her youthful appearance that made her look younger than her age, or because of past experiences where Hylliy had been looked down on because of her, she had deliberately learned and used heavy makeup to create a stricter image ever since her promotion to team manager.
“Then… then why did you nitpick Sora’s ‘ㄹ’ pronunciation so much?!”
Park Jiseon brought up the one issue she felt she had no choice but to raise.
“I worked really hard to correct Sora’s ‘ㄹ’ pronunciation. I even studied phonetics so that it wouldn’t be too noticeable at least while she’s singing. So why did you deliberately…!”
Unfortunately, Park Jiseon couldn’t finish her question.
Because Han Yujin, who had been answering calmly the entire time, frowned for the first time.
The three deep lines on his forehead gave the impression of someone saying, “Got you.”
“You should have studied phonetics all the way to the end. Didn’t you realize that feeding her half-baked knowledge was ruining her originally fine pronunciation?”
His voice was so cold that it sent a chill through the room.
Park Jiseon—and everyone else present—felt as though the polite speech that had been there until now had suddenly vanished from Yujin’s tone.
“Right now in the lyrics, because she’s overly conscious of that damn ‘ㄹ’ batchim that doesn’t even need to be emphasized, she’s turning ‘eoreobeorin’ (frozen) into ‘orobeorin.’ If I just let that slide, would that make me a proper producer? That’s why I wanted to check words that combine the ‘ㄹ’ batchim with the ‘ㅓ’ vowel sound. So far she’s been lucky and it hasn’t stood out much, but I can’t just overlook it.”
“Uh, eol-eo… eoro… beorin…? Huh?!”
Without anyone prompting her, Sora repeated the part and let out a dazed voice as she finally realized what was happening.
That murmur felt like a heavy blow to the back of Park Jiseon’s head.
The icy voice, like a gust of cold wind blowing straight in, continued without pause.
“Didn’t you notice that the emotional delivery was completely different when she sings in Korean versus Japanese? To me, it was obvious that she was overly conscious of her pronunciation, and I couldn’t shake that impression. Kitano-ssi, you’ve been feeling it too, haven’t you?”
Sora didn’t answer.
But her silence was answer enough.
“Ah… aaaah…!”
Park Jiseon sank as she realized that what she had done had actually put Sora in a difficult position.
But a voice pulled her back up from the depths.
“Even so, it was still something that needed to be done.”
It was Han Yujin—the very person who had sunk her.
“If the pronunciation was getting in the way of catching the emotion, then fixing the pronunciation is all that’s needed.”
Yujin, who had now turned his gaze toward Sora, spoke in a voice that had become warm again, as if the previous coldness had never existed.
“Alright. Kitano-ssi. Try making an ‘어어어’ sound. You don’t need to make it loud. Yes. Now slowly change it to ‘아’ from there. Slowly… Stop right there! Now let’s make the sound.”
“Eoooeeeo.”
“Yes. That’s the ‘ㅓ’ sound. Haven’t you learned this before?”
“No. I haven’t.”
“Probably because Kitano-ssi was already good from the start, so no one taught you. Most Korean teachers would know this. From now on, when you sing words with the ‘ㄹ’ sound, you need to pay attention not only to the tongue flap but also to the shape of your mouth. Can you do that?”
At Yujin’s question, Sora’s eyes turned toward Park Jiseon.
Her bright, clear gaze brought a wave of guilt to Park Jiseon, but—
“Yes! I got a lot of compliments thanks to what Manager unnie taught me! I’ll do well with what Producer-nim teaches me too!”
Even so, the way Sora looked at the manager who had been with her all this time remained warm.
“Let’s resume recording with Eunwoo’s part first. We’ll decide later whether to move on to Kitano-ssi’s recording or postpone it. Eunwoo, please go in.”
“Yes.”
And so the recording resumed.
A little time passed.
“Eoreobeorin sigani
Tik Tok umjigyeo.”
“What the— are you a genius? You nailed it in just one hour?”
“It’s all thanks to Producer-nim teaching me well!”
Sora, who had perfectly executed the part she had repeated many times before, turned to Yujin.
“Producer-nim, Producer-nim. Can I have that?”
“This? Sure. You did great, so it’s a gift.”
Yujin handed her the white paper envelope he had taken from Park Jiseon.
“Hehe. Manager unnie can’t go anywhere!”
Tearing the envelope into pieces and throwing it in the trash was just the bonus.
||