Devil’s Music - Chapter 9

Editor- Issey

Tubuk… Tubuk…

A lone figure was seen walking weakly.

Geon, who had now become a high school student, was over 187 centimeters. He was tall and thin. His dark hair and handsome appearance gave him absolute support from his classmates and juniors, but moving to Seoul brought a lot of negative effects on his family.

Tae-woo, who had always treated him and Si-hwa with love, changed.

Tae-woo came to Seoul with a dream but he didn’t learn anything. He couldn’t withstand the high prices of Seoul just by doing business.

To make matters worse, even the stocks he had invested in with hope were cut in half due to which they faced a big economic crisis. Their educational background wasn’t good enough to get them a job, so they spent more time at home.

No matter how much they loved each other, if they had to face each other every hour while being stressed, it was obvious that a fight would break out. Tae-woo and Yeong-ha regularly had their big and small fights. Whenever anger surfaced in Tae-woo because of Yeong-ha, he would catch hold of Geon and hit him.

Even when he didn’t do anything wrong, Tae-woo’s directed his anger on Geon.

Fortunately, Tae-woo did not touch Si-hwa and Yeong-ha.

The situation was changing.

Taewoo was always frowning and glaring whenever he came home. Yeong-ha always wept silently. Si-hwa didn’t come out of her room. The happy family gradually disappeared and Geon began to loathe the time he spent with his family. Si-hwa, who felt bad for her brother, used to cry secretly in her room whenever Geon was hit by Tae-woo.

“Hey Bro! Did you get hit by your old man again?”

A normal-looking child with a face that was covered with pimples but wasn’t ugly, asked, touching Geon’s shoulder. He was Joo Yong, Geon’s friend, who became a sophomore in high school this year.

Joo-yong, who had been Geon’s friend since sixth grade entered high school and joined a band to learn how to play the guitar. He wanted to ask Geon to join him, but when he heard that Geon had to maintain the top spot in the school, he couldn’t bear to ask him.

Geon smiled bitterly at Joo-yong who was teasing him.

“Well.. a day or two..”

Geon always felt grateful to Joo-yong. He couldn’t utter a word when he had first transferred to Seoul without feeling embarrassed to speak in dialect. Earlier he had been bombarded with numerous questions from his classmates, who spoke the standard language.

Joo-yong, who had come up to him, was the first one Geon had opened his heart to.

Joo-yong put his hand on Geon’s shoulder, “Ah, this boy is too tall. It’s too much work to put my arm around you.”

Geon looked down at him and laughed.

“Does the dwarf plan to climb on me? Why don’t you put your hand down if it hurts?”

Joo-yong opened his eyes wide and pretended to hit Geon’s chest with his fist.

“Wow, now you ignore the Hyung who helped this Busan native get used to Seoul? I’m over 175 cm. You’re the big one. Do you want to see the stars with one punch today? Then come here, fast, fast!”

Geon shook his head and glanced behind Joo Yong, who was boxing his fists in the air.

“Stop with that bulls h*t. Is that a guitar on your back? Is today a practice day?”

Joo-yong put down his guitar bag on the floor with a proud look on his face.

“Yes, I have practice today, bwahaha. This is the guitar that I bought with the money I earned from working part-time at Lotteria throughout summer vacation. Want  to take a look?”

Joo-yong unlocked the hard case without waiting for the answer. As if to show that the guitar was priced, the guitar emerged from a soft case that was placed inside a hard case.

Geon exclaimed at the guitar, which was both shiny and smooth.

“Wow, it looks so pretty. Yellow guitar?”

Joo-yong carefully took out the guitar.

“The official name of the 1952 Fender Telecaster is American Vintage ’52 Telecaster. Ash body, maple neck! I finally got my dream guitar. For this day, I delivered newspapers last winter vacation and made hamburgers during summer vacation. Kahahaha!“

Geon approached the simple-looking telecaster that had a fancy name. Joo-yong seemed to cherish it a lot, so he didn’t even think about touching it. He just turned his head around and looked at it carefully.

Joo-yong smiled and strummed the guitar.

“Hey, bro, grab it. I’ll give you special permission. It’s a 3.4 million won guitar, so be careful.”

Geon accepted the guitar, surprised by the huge price of the guitar.

“3.4 million won? It was that expensive? How much did you have to do to earn that money?”

Joo-yong put his hand on his waist, giggling.

“I made so many burgers until I felt like an old man,  worked eight hours a day but I still saved enough time so my manager offered me a full-time job.”

Geon had never learned how to play the guitar, so he wasn’t able to position himself properly. He laid his left hand on the neck and supported the guitar with his right hand.

Joo-yong shouted on seeing this, “Oh, bro! As expected. You’re so handsome that your aura just flows out when you hold the guitar!. Guns N’ Roses will go crazy. Hahaha!“

Guns N’ Roses.

Although the band had debuted in the late 1980s and gained huge popularity in the 1990s, Guns N’ Roses was the name of Geon’s fan club. At first, Guns & Rose was named Gun & Rose but later club members changed the name because Guns N’ Rose seemed to vibe more.

Starting with Kwangnam High School, which Geon and Joo-yong used to attend,  girls from other schools who happened to see Geon in the reading room also joined it and so  Guns N’ Roses became a  fan club of more than 300 people.

Geon returned the guitar to Joo-tong, “Ha… don’t talk about them. If I don’t answer the phone, I get so many phone calls that my phone hangs up.”

Joo-yong frowned while looking at the guitar.

“What? Did that happen? Oh, my God! Okay, leave it to me. I will negotiate with the chairman directly. I’ll tell Joo-hee later too.”

Hwang Joo-Hee.

Guns N’ Roses president was from the same middle school as Geon and Joo-yong.

Unlike her cute little appearance, there was no Guns N’ Roses member who would disobey her. For example, the case where Guns N’ Roses was forcibly withdrawn after dragging the members who were dead-set to not move from Geon’s house’s front, in the third year of junior high school.

She was also in charge of the keyboard for the band, so she was a close friend of Joo-yong.

Joo-yong said while putting the guitar into the hard case, “Bro, what are you doing after school today? You will get hit by your father if you go home, so why don’t you come and see our practice? If I told Ju-hee that you are coming, she would do anything.”

Geon thought quietly.

He’d been curious about the band for a long time. He frowned at the thought of Tae-woo, who only thought about hitting him for various excuses when he got home.

“Okay, I’ll try it today. Let’s go together later.”

Joo-yong shouted while carrying the case on his back, “Oh! Good. I’m going to ask Juhee to buy myself some tteokbokki today!”

The two boys headed for school with a smile.

After the 4th period, at lunchtime.

Geon liked to walk quietly near the flower bed after school at lunchtime. However, unlike Geon, who was quietly enjoying the walk, his class was noisy. Because rumors were spreading that Geon was coming to the band today.

“Joo-yong! Is it true that Geon is coming to the band practice today?”

The number of first-year girls surrounding Joo-yong was three at first, but it was more than twenty now.

Joo-yong casually shrugged his shoulders at the girls’ attention, who usually didn’t even care about the band.

“Bwahaha, yes, I’m the one who made Geon’s band visit happen. Worship me, believers! Kahaha!”

The girls screamed, giving a salute to Joo-yong.

“Ahhh! Is that really going to happen?”

“Oh, my god. I didn’t bring my perfume today. Ji-hye, lend me some perfume! Lip gloss too!”

“I’m selling the tissues that Geon threw away on our last school trip.”

“How am I today? Do I look alright?”

All the girls screamed in happiness.

Joo-yong enjoyed the spotlight for a while,  then he shook his head, forcing himself to be indifferent.

“But you know, you guys will have to get Joo-hee’s permission to come and see the band practice.”

At this moment, all the girls quieted down.

Those who were previously frightened, soon became depressed. This was because there was no way they could get permission from Joo-hee. They were juniors and would not be forgiven if they went to band practice that wasn’t held in an open space.