The Hit Song of This Life Is Revenge - Chapter 59

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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’s hit song is revenge.
Episode 59
The sleek sedan glided across the asphalt.
Each time the streetlight grazed the windshield, her face flickered across his own.
Then the red light flared on, sudden and absolute.
The car lurched to a stop, tires grinding against the pavement with a sharp screech.
When the vehicle finally stilled, Ki-baek’s head knocked hard against the headrest.
“I should have just gone.”
The words leaked out low, but his mind had already rehearsed that sentence a dozen times over.
He’d kept his distance during the live broadcast, not wanting to add to her nerves.
A stage watched over by the agency head carried a different weight of pressure.
He knew how hard she’d worked, how desperately she wanted this—so he’d stayed away.
But what in hell had happened out there?
When he’d heard that Son Hyun-joo had withdrawn from the program, something had crumpled inside his chest.
This wasn’t a normal situation.
He’d wanted to ask, to understand—but decided against it, at least for now.
Son Hyun-joo was the PD who’d cast her in the first place.
Even the smallest clarification could be misread, birth unnecessary speculation.
Better to confirm everything once it was all over.
But now.
That caution had coiled back on him, tightening, suffocating.
“Ah…”
The light seemed endless.
Ki-baek pressed his hands against the wheel.
Only when the veins on his knuckles bulged like mountain ranges did the signal finally shift.
Vroom—
The car shot forward.
The navigation system chimed repeatedly about speed limits, but he heard nothing.
He stared ahead.
No thought for velocity, no attempt to steady his breathing.
The outline of the Studio Set emerged into view.
He wrenched the steering wheel with something like violence.
He stopped the car without even glancing at the parking lines.
Before the engine had time to settle, his hand was reaching for the cell phone.
The moment the automated voice answered, Ki-baek spoke first.
“I’m in the Parking Lot. Where are you?”
– I see you. I’m heading over.
Her voice lifted his gaze like a string.
The wide Parking Lot lay dark and still, filled only with the shadows of parked cars.
He turned his head quickly left and right, catching movement on the left side.
He pushed the door open and stepped out.
The cool night air hit his skin first.
Then a sudden drizzle began to fall, dampening his pant legs with a chill.
As the streetlight caught her, her silhouette became clear—nothing but a thin Stage costume.
‘She’ll catch cold like that.’
Ki-baek shrugged off his Suit and walked toward her.
The distance between them narrowed steadily.
The woman approaching from the opposite direction took small, careful steps.
But Ki-baek lengthened his stride, moving faster than usual.
Lee Jae-i watched him coming toward her.
‘He came so fast.’
Him, coming toward her.
As a small relief bloomed, Jae-i exhaled.
Her warm breath met the cold air, rising as faint mist.
And through that haze, the final Stage came back to her.
Baek Song-ha taking the Stage.
It was absurd.
The realistic choice would have been to forfeit the performance.
But Baek Song-ha bit her lower lip until it nearly bled and took that Stage anyway.
She had an escape route and chose boldness instead.
‘That’s exactly like her.’
Which meant she’d be coming for Jae-i next.
There was no intention of graceful surrender here.
Still—it was satisfying.
The look on Baek Song-ha’s face as she’d stepped down from the Stage had been worth seeing.
Eyes trembling faintly.
Veins standing sharp and furious at her temples.
‘I lost everything.’
And Baek Song-ha was trembling over a single Stage. It was almost funny.
Strictly speaking, it wasn’t even a loss.
It had been her song from the start.
She’d simply taken back what was hers.
Jae-i could guess what Baek Song-ha was feeling, but she wasn’t afraid.
Everyone had witnessed it. Everyone had heard it, live on air.
No amount of pride or stubborn denial would change the limits of reality.
‘The proof is overwhelming.’
If anything, she welcomed a direct confrontation.
‘Let her struggle all the harder.’
That would make her fall hurt even more.
Jae-i silently cheered on Baek Song-ha’s desperation.
Even after the performance ended, there was no interview shoot.
A true Broadcast Incident—no time even to wind down.
The main PD barked orders to clean up, then vanished.
‘The fire had landed right on him.’
The Staff, panicked and disoriented, cleared the audience first, while the Trainees scattered like shrapnel without a word between them.
Her eyes kept following Baek Song-ha.
The girl’s body seemed aflame, her feet stomping, her mouth opening in silent shouts.
That was how Baek Song-ha looked, threading through the chaos.
Jae-i only retrieved her things after Baek Song-ha had left the Studio Set.
She had no sense of how much time had passed.
When she saw dozens of missed calls on her cell phone, a fragment of distant memory stirred.
She’d been very small then.
‘You! Lee! When my mom comes home, you’re dead!’
‘Go ahead.’
A little girl, having done every wrong herself, still puffing out her chest with false bravado.
Since she’d done nothing wrong, there was no reason for her to lack confidence.
But watching that child run to her mother and cry in her arms had stirred something strange in her.
The girl’s mother had stroked her daughter’s cheek with a gentle hand.
‘Hmph!’
She’d won—actually won the exchange.
But the memory of standing alone after victory, with nowhere to run to—that lingered.
At that age, having nowhere to run felt like sorrow.
Her grandmother wasn’t dead or absent; she’d have come home that evening. It would have been enough to be held then.
But that’s how it was back then.
That evening, not knowing anything, she’d poured resentment at her grandmother for coming home with groceries.
‘Was I punished for being so cruel?’
What must her grandmother have felt, returning after a hard day’s work only to face her granddaughter’s complaints?
All the bitterness spread from her chest.
She wondered why that memory had surfaced now.
But the feeling blooming in her was so much like it then.
That hollow emptiness—grinding through, winning somehow, but having nowhere to lean.
……
The moment she picked up the cell phone, it vibrated again.
The voice from the other end, heavy with concern.
When she’d brushed past Baek Song-ha, it had been genuinely cathartic, satisfying.
Really. But the instant she heard his voice, her eyes began to burn.
Was it from holding on alone for so long?
Or from suddenly feeling the presence of someone worried about her, when she was so utterly exhausted?
She couldn’t pin down a single reason, but her chest tightened.
If he’d been right there, she would have thrown herself at him without a second thought.
And now, that representative was walking toward her through the darkness.
‘It’s good he took a moment to get here.’
If they’d faced each other right away, she might have lost all dignity and collapsed into his arms.
At that thought, Jae-i let out a slow breath.
His eyes and jawline, now closer, were drawn in lines of worry.
The final verse of the song she’d sung on Stage.
‘The person I wanted to see.’
When she’d sung those words, his face had come to mind.
Then her grandmother’s face, growing faint with a quiet smile.
Someone you could touch beside you, someone you could seek out when you missed them.
“You’ll catch a cold running around like this.”
Thump—
His Suit draped over her head and shoulders.
His scent wrapped around her, familiar and warm.
Like being held in an embrace.
The warmth seeping into her skin, the voice reaching her ears, everything gathered at the center of her chest.
Jae-i tilted her head and looked up at him through the fabric.
Their eyes met.
……
Like a streetlight passing through drizzle, the world before her blurred into light.

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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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