With a neck pillow around his neck and dark circles under his eyes, the youngest member of the A&R team, Jo Yoonchan, looked very much like someone who had spent the night at the office.
"Ugh, I'm so sleepy."
Yawning widely out of habit, he moved his mouse to check the planning emails at the very top of the A&R team's inbox. But then...
"Huh? What's this?"
He checked the subject line of a newly arrived email.
「 For Sale. 」
What on earth was being sold?
"Is this spam?"
Narrowing his eyes, he noticed there was a file attached to the email and opened it right away.
Click.
After reading the email, he muttered under his breath.
"What the hell? Who's this crazy bastard now?"
The content of the email was simple.
「 These are 3 demo samples. I'm willing to sell them for KRW 3 million per track as a full buyout. If interested, please contact me. Composer HS, 010-XXXX-XXXX. 」
He had sent samples of songs he'd made himself, saying that if they were interested in buying, to contact him. He was asking for KRW 3 million per song.
But...
No matter how good the quality was, there weren't many companies willing to pay KRW 3 million per track for a new composer's work.
"Such a bold dream."
Yoonchan shook his head.
"And why does he sound so full of himself?"
He scoffed, convinced that the sender must be an overconfident rookie composer.
No matter how many places he sent an email like this to, there was no way anyone would buy it.
If he had the talent to make sellable songs, he would've already signed an exclusive contract with a major company.
Tsk tsk.
Soon enough, he'd have to face reality and learn some humility.
Also, he'd probably realize that he wasn't as talented as he thought.
"Hey, Jo Yoonchan!"
It was at that moment.
"You're slacking off again, reading comics, aren't you?"
Startled by the voice behind him, Yoonchan quickly replied.
"What? No! I worked all night!"
It was Han Ingyu, the head of the A&R team.
"Yeah, judging by your face, I believe it."
"What's that supposed to mean?"
"You look like you've been pulling all-nighters for about two weeks straight."
Joking, he then asked:
"But what's that email you were staring at so intensely?"
"Oh, some crazy bastard sent a weird email this morning."
When Han Ingyu asked, "Crazy bastard?" Yoonchan explained:
"He sent three demo tracks, asking us to listen to the samples and contact him if we're interested in buying. Said he'd sell them for KRW 3 million each."
Team Leader Han asked:
"Is it someone we know?"
"Nah, don't think so."
"So just a rookie?"
"Yeah, a newbie."
"Then just ignore it."
After saying that, Team Leader Han paused for a moment.
'Hm?'
Thinking a bit more, he came up with a plausible hypothesis.
'An established composer with some kind of situation.'
For one, he knew the reasonable full buyout price for a rookie.
'KRW 3 million is about the average for rookies.'
Sure, maybe he just set that price based on something he'd heard, but not many people knew that LS Entertainment sometimes bought tracks through full buyout contracts.
'He might be someone in the industry.'
For example, maybe he was under an exclusive contract with another entertainment company but needed cash urgently, or for some other unknown reason, a working composer sending in his songs.
That hypothesis formed instantly.
"Man, I'm dead tired, and now I gotta deal with some crazy bastard first thing in the morning…"
Just as Yoonchan was about to delete the email.
"Hey, hold up."
"What?"
"Let's at least listen."
Yoonchan scoffed and asked:
"What? Come on, what's the point? Total waste of time."
"Just in case. Let's at least listen."
Then Han added:
"Go ahead and send the file over to the engineer room."
"Huh? Is that really necessary?"
"If we're going to listen, we should do it properly."
Grumbling, Yoonchan sent the file over through the company messenger to the engineer room…
"Let's go listen."
Team Leader Han led Yoonchan to the engineer room.
"You sent over a file, whose song is it?"
As soon as they walked into the engineer room, one of the staff asked.
"It's a song we got by email this morning."
"By email?"
"Yeah. Someone said they wanted to sell their track."
At that, Yoonchan jumped in to add:
"It's a crazy bastard. Sent three demo samples, left a number saying he's selling them for KRW 3 million each, and to contact him if we're interested."
Hearing that, the engineer shook his head.
"People still do that these days? Must've watched too many dramas."
He chuckled and muttered under his breath.
"Alright, I'll play it."
And so they all listened to the song for a while.
"Wow."
The engineer was the first to speak.
"Sounds like he only used free tools, but there's barely anything that needs fixing."
At that, Team Leader Han immediately asked:
"Free tools?"
The engineer quickly explained:
"Since it's a sample, I can't say for sure, but based on what I've heard, it's perfect. Just the fact that he made this using only free sources… It seems like his fundamentals are really solid."
"And?"
"From what I can tell, he's not a total rookie. Sounds like someone who's been around this industry long enough to have put in some serious work."
Team Leader Han started thinking again.
'Is he really an established composer…?'
Just then, the engineer said:
"Let's listen to the other two tracks as well."
So they went on to listen to the next two songs in succession.
Since the tracks were so short, it only took a total of one minute to listen to both.
"What a cold-hearted person."
Once again, the engineer was the first to speak.
"No matter if it's a sample, why did he cut them all to just 30 seconds?"
"Exactly, right?"
"It's not like he's telling us to pay up if we want to hear more."
Then, Team Leader Han asked back.
"Right? Even for samples, this is too short, isn't it?"
"Of course! This is totally a take-it-or-leave-it deal."
Then he added:
"Well, he probably cut it up like this knowing we'd end up buying it anyway."
Team Leader Han nodded in agreement and instructed Yoonchan:
"Tell him we'll buy all three songs."
"All of them? At 3 million won each?"
"Yeah, call him right now."
All three songs were of decent quality, so they could be conveniently used as backups.
'With this level of quality, we could even slot them into one of our artists' albums when we need to fill space…'
More importantly, he was certain that the composer who sent these three songs was a professional.
'If we establish a connection with this deal, maybe when his exclusive contract with another management ends, we can pull him over to our side…'
No matter how you looked at it, this wasn't a losing deal.
"Never mind."
Team Leader Han spoke up again.
"I'll call him myself."
He immediately started dialing.
Beep, beep, beep.
The ringtone rang a few times.
"Hello?"
When the voice came through from the other side, Team Leader Han answered with a smile:
"Yes, this is Han Ingyu, Director of the A&R Team at LS Entertainment."
"You're calling to buy the songs?"
"Yes, composer-nim, your songs really left quite the impression on us."
Just as he was about to continue.
"Save it. First, send over the full buyout copyright contract."
"Pardon?"
"Since you're buying them anyway, it'd be even better if you trust me and transfer the payment upfront."
At those words, Han Ingyu froze with a blank expression.
"Let's save the small talk for after the deal."
With that, the call abruptly ended.
Ding!
Not long after, a text arrived on Han Ingyu's phone.
「 Account Number: Bank of Korea 110-353… 」
Once again.
Ding!
「 Account Holder: Min Hyunseung 」
From this, two things were clear.
'First off, this composer has no manners.'
Not that he cared much, talented composers were usually like this.
'And.'
The second thing he learned.
'Min Hyunseung…'
The name of this rude composer was Min Hyunseung.
A few days later.
-----------------------------------------------------
[ Web Notification ]
Bank of Korea.
Deposit: 8,703,000 KRW.
LS Entertainment.
-----------------------------------------------------
Seeing the deposit notification arrive on his phone, Hyunseung smiled.
"Oh, it came through."
He had sent back the signed electronic contract via email, and in just a few days, the payment, after deducting the standard 3.3% withholding tax, had been deposited promptly.
"Very punctual deposit."
In his previous life, he'd never once bothered about royalty settlements or payments, but this deposit notification was unexpectedly delightful.
"Maybe I should upgrade my equipment just a bit?"
As he stared blankly toward his computer, he saw his underwhelming gear dutifully sitting in place.
He clicked his tongue in frustration at the pitiful specs, but quickly turned his head, he already had a plan to avoid spending his own money.
'No need to spend my own cash…'
If his songs were golden eggs, then he was the goose that laid them.
LS Entertainment wasn't just going to stop at buying his three songs—they'd definitely try to recruit him.
An exclusive contract offer was bound to come. If that happened, he could demand equipment support, sparing him the expense.
'Or, I could use my track record of selling songs to LS to approach other management companies too.'
So for now, he planned to spend any leftover money entirely on his family.
'Starting with the overdue utility bills.'
He began tackling the stack of bills one by one.
Each bill that he paid off, he tore up.
Once he'd ripped up the very last one.
"Alright."
Hyunseung lightly got up from his seat, preparing to head out.
It was a good day...
He wanted to pick up a small gift for each of his family members.
He'd randomly come to Garosu-gil, but…
There were way more people than he expected, making him regret not wearing sunglasses.
But that worry turned out to be completely unnecessary.
No one recognized him. Once, even walking around like this would've been nearly impossible…
It almost made him wonder if his life in his past existence had really been nothing more than a fleeting dream.
"The best and most expensive one."
Thanks to his incredibly simple shopping philosophy, his bank balance quickly hit rock bottom.
On his way back home he also grabbed a freshly fried chicken to-go.
"Nice…"
Having set the first step properly, everything from here on out would go smoothly.
Buoyed by that sense of anticipation,
Hyunseung's steps on his way home felt light as air.