The Reincarnated Idol Hard Carries an Indie Band - Chapter 3

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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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My Previous Life as an Idol, Now Carrying an Indie Band
Chapter 3
The next day.
Lee Do-yeong stared at his textbook with hollow eyes.
From lack of sleep, his eyes traced the words but their meaning refused to enter his mind.
Just then, Heo Jun-sung and Cha Seo-ha — the two who’d kept him awake all night — walked into the classroom side by side, each clutching a bread roll.
It had been lunch period just moments ago; he wondered if they still weren’t full. Lee Do-yeong caught himself glancing at them.
No matter how hard he tried not to look, his eyes drifted their way.
The two sat down and immediately tore into their bread.
“Next period is math. Want to skip?”
Heo Jun-sung’s voice rang out with shameless ease as he casually abandoned any pretense of being a proper student.
“Students are supposed to attend class. Are you a delinquent?”
Cha Seo-ha, suddenly playing the model student, was somehow even more shameless.
“What are you talking about? You’re the one who falls asleep first thing every class.”
“I’m not sleeping.”
“Then what are you doing?”
“Trying to understand the book.”
“Huh?”
“You know, pressing my head against the book affectionately and closing my eyes?”
“Are you insane?”
“I love you, book.”
“Yeah, definitely insane.”
What kind of conversation was this?
So bewildered he couldn’t help himself, Lee Do-yeong let out a laugh.
A moment too late, he realized it had been far too loud. He hurriedly bent over and pretended to sleep.
Thump-thump.
His heartbeat quickened. What if they thought he was mocking them? That wasn’t it at all.
And wouldn’t they be upset that he’d eavesdropped after he’d refused them so flatly?
He was praying they hadn’t heard when, cruelly, someone tapped his shoulder.
A voice pierced through his feigned sleep — one he couldn’t ignore.
He had no choice but to wake.
“You understanding the book too?”
…Damn.
“…Why?”
He lifted his head in resignation, only to find Cha Seo-ha standing before him with his arms crossed.
“Have you thought about it?”
“Didn’t we talk about this yesterday?”
“Yesterday was a no, but maybe today you’ve changed your mind?”
“In one day?”
“I quit Taekwondo in one day.”
The seriousness in his tone caught Lee Do-yeong off guard.
So that’s why he hadn’t gone to training and was sitting through class instead — he’d actually quit Taekwondo.
And they said he was the school’s ace…
“So, want to do the band?”
“…I’m sorry.”
“No need. If that’s what you’re thinking, I can’t force you. I’ll ask again tomorrow.”
What? He’d ask again tomorrow? Why on earth?
Lee Do-yeong’s confusion only deepened.
Sure, a band needed a bass player, but he wasn’t the only person in the world who could play bass.
There were probably others in this school, and if you looked beyond it, the options were endless.
He wasn’t incapable of playing, but he wasn’t irreplaceable either.
The world was full of talented people.
And compared to them, he was nothing.
Lee Do-yeong had felt this way before.
Very acutely.
Yet for some reason, Cha Seo-ha seemed interested in him.
……
He didn’t have any special talent, so why did Cha Seo-ha keep asking him to join?
The moment he was about to ask—
Ding-dong, ding-dong.
The class bell rang right on cue.
“Pay attention in class.”
Cha Seo-ha coolly patted his shoulder and returned to his seat.
Lee Do-yeong was burning with curiosity, but once the moment had passed, it was hard to strike up a conversation again.
Would he really ask again tomorrow?
The strange anticipation made it easy to overlook the fact that he’d failed to preview the math lesson.
* * *
Throughout the class period, Cha Seo-ha thought about how to convince Lee Do-yeong.
Unlike the straightforward Heo Jun-sung, Lee Do-yeong wasn’t easy to persuade.
He was confident the boy would eventually join, but the method of persuasion eluded him.
All the memories they’d shared had come after Lee Do-yeong picked up the bass in the band.
To sway someone as rule-bound as Lee Do-yeong, he’d need to show that this offer wasn’t a momentary impulse…
And maybe something more was needed.
After class ended, Cha Seo-ha was still lost in thought when Heo Jun-sung linked arms with him.
“Seo-ha.”
“Yeah?”
“You busy today?”
“No.”
As if used to his curt replies, Heo Jun-sung shrugged.
“I need to get my guitar strings replaced. Want to come along?”
“Where to?”
“Nakwon Arcade.”
The name Nakwon Arcade felt like it had been forever.
If Yongsan was famous for electronics, Nakwon Arcade had that same reputation for musical instruments.
You could end up overpaying if you weren’t careful, but if you knew what you were doing, the advantages were substantial — plenty of musicians made the trip there.
Plus, since it was a gathering place for musicians, you could exchange information, book practice rooms or recording studios with ease.
He needed to start working on songs anyway…
“Yeah, let’s go.”
At his agreement, Heo Jun-sung nodded in satisfaction and asked, “By the way, can you actually play guitar?”
“Just so-so.”
With self-composed songs, he’d hit two and a half million first-week sales as a solo male artist — but that wasn’t this lifetime.
In this life, his hands hadn’t touched a guitar yet, so they’d probably be stiff.
“Want me to teach you a bit?”
Heo Jun-sung’s arrogant smirk was insufferable.
“You?”
“What’s with that reaction? Who was the one who called me out at the busking?”
Right, that was the setup.
“I saw potential. Potential.”
“You only saw me busking. Let me show you what I can really do.”
“Show me for what? Go ahead.”
“…Sometimes you really seem like an old man, you know that?”
Old man?
He wasn’t even thirty yet.
His mood soured.
He’d have to show Heo Jun-sung what he was made of at Nakwon Arcade.
* * *
String’s Echo, the guitar specialty shop at Nakwon Arcade, was a space Jang Deok-chul had built over twenty years.
Once a guitarist himself, he’d opened the instrument shop after his band disbanded.
There was no particular grand reason.
Guitar was the field he knew best, and after retirement, he’d wanted to stay in touch with various musicians and enjoy casual conversation.
So when he saw beginners like the high school boys in front of him, he couldn’t help but smile warmly.
Jang Deok-chul handed the guitar back to him with a friendly expression, inspection complete.
“Changed the strings and did a full check. Give it a look.”
“Thank you.”
The student who took the guitar examined its condition carefully. You could tell from his inspection that he handled the instrument with care.
Must be high school age.
‘I was like that once too.’
The tall boy wasn’t even wearing his school uniform properly — his necktie was nowhere to be found, and his shirt hung open haphazardly.
Most people might’ve written him off as delinquent, but Jang Deok-chul saw only his younger self reflected in the boy, viewing him kindly.
Outward appearance didn’t always reveal what lay within.
Jang Deok-chul himself had once dressed in ways that would horrify respectable society.
Then the student who’d picked up the guitar started playing lightly.
‘Oh.’
Better than expected.
Helsinki Child by Pinch Address, the band that dominated the eighties.
That song’s intro was so famous that anyone decent at guitar had probably played it at least once.
It used an E7 root chord progression, and the technique itself wasn’t particularly difficult, so some musicians disdained it — but that was ignorance speaking.
Capturing its distinctive groove was anything but simple, and most renditions didn’t match the original’s feel.
What looked effortless to listen to revealed itself as surprisingly complex once you tried playing it.
Countless players discovered this gap between watching and doing.
In other words, this was a song that demanded intuition, not memorization.
When the student brought the pick to the strings, the familiar riff leapt out.
A fairly relaxed and clean performance that showed real sensibility.
He had the ability to add polish to what seemed unremarkable.
And there was a confidence that couldn’t come from just one or two attempts.
A very solid performance that spoke of skill and practice hours.
Jang Deok-chul nodded approvingly. For a high school student, this was quite respectable.
The groove execution was slightly lacking as expected, but his fundamentals were strong, and Jang Deok-chul found himself genuinely excited about the boy’s future as a guitarist.
When the performance ended, Jang Deok-chul nodded and gave him a thumbs up.
“Nice playing.”
“Thank you for listening.”
Despite his appearance, the boy had good manners.
That was when—
The other boy, who’d been listening quietly to the guitar, spoke in a flat tone.
“Not as good as I thought, Heo Jun-sung. Still too early?”
Jang Deok-chul’s eyes widened in surprise at the unexpected comment.
Wasn’t that level excellent?
“What?”
Heo Jun-sung was equally taken aback.
He didn’t think his performance was flawless, but he didn’t consider it seriously lacking either.
He had confidence that his skills were strong among his peers.
At first he thought Cha Seo-ha just didn’t know what he was talking about, but something about his expression made him uneasy.
“You’re saying I played badly?”
“Not badly, just not as good as I thought.”
“What’s the difference?”
“I thought you’d play better.”
“And you can’t even play.”
“I never said I couldn’t. I said so-so.”
“Is that so? Then let’s see.”
Unable to contain his competitiveness, Heo Jun-sung thrust the guitar toward Cha Seo-ha roughly.
“Prove it.”
“…Prove what?”
Cha Seo-ha stared at the guitar for a moment, then grinned and took it.
With the opening notes, Heo Jun-sung’s body tensed involuntarily.
Wait, was he playing the same song?
How did he know this piece?
More than that — while the song seemed easy to listen to, it was far from simple to perform.
Then Cha Seo-ha’s fingers began moving slowly.
A song that shouldn’t be played slowly, yet played slowly it was.
Not that the actual tempo was slow — there was no sense of drag to it.
He drew out the melody naturally, formed the rhythm effortlessly.
Cha Seo-ha was teaching.
‘This song comes from an era that cried for freedom. You need to know how to express yourself freely.’
In certain passages, he seemed to be instructing by pulling and pushing the rhythm sensually.
‘Why do you just play what you learned?’
It was the same song, but the expression was worlds apart.
‘You’re supposed to express yourself, not your practice hours.’
Beyond the prescribed notes, Cha Seo-ha wove in his own riffs, revealing who he was.
Those extra passages weren’t in the original, interjected with ease between the standard phrases.
The difficulty was minimal, but emotion saturated every note.
And Heo Jun-sung understood what Cha Seo-ha was communicating.
‘It’s not about performing.’
‘It’s about sharing.’
Resonance, not boasting.
A messenger, not a technician.
When the performance ended, Heo Jun-sung couldn’t help but cry out.
“Insane!”

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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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