In This Life, I Want an Oscar, Not a Husband - Chapter 76

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com

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This life, I choose The Oscars over a husband.
Chapter 76

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Jung Min-hyun, a panelist on the 【Celebrity Singing Competition】, was beginning to feel a bit bored.
He’d had high expectations when BeepTV promoted it as a carefully crafted music variety show, but no one had truly captured his attention.
‘As a new program, they must have faced difficulties in casting.’
Of course, all the singers who appeared performed well.
Their technique was nearly flawless.
Pitch, artistry, rhythm—
they lacked nothing that a professional should have.
Yet something was missing—an emotional resonance.
They were too eager to demonstrate their vocal prowess.
It was as if you could hear them asking, “I sing well, don’t I?”
Such performances felt technically competent, but they went in one ear and out the other.
In short, there was nothing memorable about them.
“Senior, shouldn’t you be a bit more lenient?”
A junior singer on the panel with him spoke up quietly while waiting for the next performance.
“You haven’t given a single PASS so far.”
That was true.
Jung Min-hyun hadn’t given a single PASS yet.
What he’d been looking for wasn’t technical perfection.
What had the Producer said when explaining the concept of the 【Celebrity Singing Competition】?

“We don’t want to showcase polished, elaborate performances. We want to present a person’s song—one that tells their own story. A song that truly moves people’s hearts.”

“Haha, is that so? Still, I’d prefer to hear something more genuine.”
“That might be difficult to find here, though.”
The junior vocalist’s words weren’t wrong.
This was, after all, just a music entertainment show.
So compromising a bit for broadcast appeal wouldn’t be a bad thing.
But—
“Well, there should be at least one position like mine.”
Why else would the Producer have placed a meticulous judge like me here?
It must be to conduct ‘real’ judging.
That’s what he was thinking when it happened.
Darkness fell across the stage, and lights came on beyond the screen.
‘A woman this time.’
Jung Min-hyun gazed impassively at the silhouette beyond the screen.
‘Let’s see how well she sings this time.’
Just as Jung Min-hyun was thinking this and letting out a small chuckle.
A soft accompaniment began to play.
“…?”
This song… could it be?
With the following accompaniment, Jung Min-hyun realized it.
‘That’s it.’
This song is “You Won’t Love Me.”
A song sung matter-of-factly from beginning to end, as if simply speaking.
That’s why singers find it so difficult.
With its static melody, it’s hard to display explosive vocal prowess, technique is impossible to employ, and the singer must rely solely on tone and emotion to succeed.
‘And she chose this song…?’
Unless she was extraordinarily confident….

Your words that our love would never change.

What struck him first was the tone of her voice.
A calm yet captivating timbre that resonated in the lower-middle register.

Those words planted hope within me.

But from the next verse onward, there was no room to notice such things.
As if listening to a film monologue rather than a song, he was instantly drawn into the world painted by that measured voice and its lyrics.

My entire world was filled with you.

A “me” existing in a world filled entirely with “you”.
Somehow, he was no longer on the stage but in the Studio.
In that small semi-basement studio of about three pyeong that he used to call a workshop in his childhood days.
Posters of famous foreign singers were plastered densely across the walls.
They weren’t singers he liked.
They were singers that “she” loved.
Songs she had listened to and recommended to him.
Every night, he fell asleep listening to those songs.
Imagining someday showing her wonderful music he had created.
Whenever he brought new music to her, his hands trembled every single time.

When you smile, I feel like I have everything
When you frown, all my breath disappears

When she listened to his song and smiled, his heart felt like it would burst from his chest.
It felt as if he were soaring, having heard the roaring applause of countless spectators in a large concert hall.
But if she even slightly frowned while listening to his song, his entire world filled with darkness.
If even a sigh escaped her lips, the ground beneath his feet felt like it was collapsing.

Because you’re all I have. Because my entire world is you.

Those were truly the days when the world was entirely “you”.
What would I do if that world disappeared?
What would I do if there was no one left to listen to my songs?
I was so afraid.
Those were days when I was terrified because I loved too much.

Please.
Tell me you’ll turn away if you grow tired of me.

When he heard that she, unable to resist her family’s pressure, was meeting with a successful doctor instead of a struggling singer-songwriter, he couldn’t hold on for that very reason.
Watching her wither away without love beside him was worse than seeing her disappear before his eyes.

I love you so much….
You, who will never love me….

That was when it happened.
The part where the song was supposed to explode.
The moment he recalled those childhood days, staring at a photograph of her—the girl who had said goodbye to him.

“I hate you.”

The stage filled not with song, but with monologue.
In that beautiful voice, genuine hatred compressed and forced down, bursting forth in those final words.
In that moment, he understood.
Perhaps the woman in that photograph had wanted to say the same thing to him.
‘I love you so much that I hate you for not loving me.’
I hate you.
“Ha…!”
From the junior singer’s lips, who had been delivering variety show reactions the entire time, genuine emotion burst forth.
Only then did Jung Min-hyun realize.
The first verse had ended.
If the assistant director in front hadn’t held up the sketchbook that read ‘Press the button, please!’ he would have been completely lost in the moment.
He let out a hollow laugh.
He had been completely absorbed.
It wasn’t that he had merely heard a song—it felt as though he had traveled to another world and returned.
He barely managed to press the PASS button.
Simultaneously, seven PASS letters scrolled across the screen.
It was the inevitable result.
The panelists beside him must have each entered their own stories and emerged from them as well.
The box began to open.
As the interlude flowed, a woman walked out from the box.
As the woman, whose silhouette had been barely visible beneath the intense lighting, drew closer, the surrounding panelists began to murmur.
“She’s not a singer, is she?”
Jung Min-hyun wiped the tears that had gathered in his eyes and asked.
“Who is that?”
At Jung Min-hyun’s question, the junior singer also looked at him with glistening eyes.
“You don’t know Ha Eun-rae? She’s from Purgatory!”
Purgatory—isn’t that a drama title?
If so—
“An actress?!”
The camera urgently captured Jung Min-hyun’s eyes widening, tears still wet on his face.
That moment of crying and then being startled was his genuine reaction that appeared for the first time during the three hours the program aired.

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That weekend.
I found myself rewinding the TV screen over and over, watching Jung Min-hyun’s stunned expression.
Not by my own choice, but forced upon me!
“Ahahahahaha! No matter how many times I watch it, it kills me! Every single time!”
“…Is it really that funny?”
Apparently it was.
Jung Min-hyun’s shocked GIF was circulating not just across all of SNS, but throughout my KakaoTalk group chat as well.

[Heo Kyung-hoe Representative: (GIF) Ha Eun-rae sings this well?!]
Go Heung-jae: (GIF) I enjoyed watching you sing lolol I thought you were a singer lololol
Maeng Hye-seung: (GIF) Hahaha, was Eun-rae originally aspiring to be a singer?
[Sung Chae-kyung Teacher: (GIF) No need to thank me. I was just doing my job. But let’s definitely grab a meal together sometime.]

Even Sung Chae-kyung joined in.
Jung Min-hyun’s expression—eyes practically bulging behind his glasses—was certainly memorable.
But I wasn’t sure why everyone was having this much fun with it—
“But seriously, you sang really well. How did you do it? It’s amazing how much you improved in just two weeks. You’re truly the icon of diligence.”
By the way, the practice diary footage that Hong Jong-ho had filmed was uploaded as shorts to the BeepTV Channel after the broadcast.
The transformation was so dramatic that people’s reactions were explosive.

– She must have natural pitch. This is a case of talent combined with effort.
Look at that sense of rhythm lol, he’s crazy.
– But the confidence even when she couldn’t do it was kind of cool.
– She came straight from 10 hours of filming and sang like that? Steel vocal cords.
– Our Eun-rae.. living that godly life. Feels so distant.
– It’s like watching a whole movie, not just a song. I was so moved. Actually, I broke up recently and my relationship was exactly like that..(Read more)

“I just worked hard.”
“True, you really did suffer. Jong-ho’s dark circles went down to here.”
I was genuinely grateful that he’d filmed everything for me.
I’d have to give him something nice next time.
Of course, I was also grateful to Heo Representative for approving the sudden variety show schedule.
So I’d need to repay that gratitude to Heo Representative as well.
And an opportunity to repay that debt came sooner than expected.

Seo Eun-sul Writer
(GIF)
Seo Eun-sul Writer
Director Kang wants to see Eun-rae soon. When do you have time?

Kang Ji-wook the Producer.
He had created 【Loving】, and before the “staff abuse controversy,” Kang Ji-wook was a star producer who had made quite a name for himself.
Her first terrestrial broadcasting drama appearance.
Wasn’t this quite a good gift for Heo Kyung-hoe?

Writer Seo Eun-sul
By the way, this time it’s about casting for the role of Ian 😉

And it was a leading role at that.

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com

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