(Transted.Edited,Proofread: Snow)------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

  Certainly, chance was what made people grow.

  Taeil, who had been staring at the same screen on his monitor for nearly thirty minutes without moving, suddenly found that thought drifting into his mind.

  It was the morning after his meeting with BARD—Sunday.

  Taeil, who had woken up unusually early, sat in front of his computer, thinking carefully, his hand trembling slightly as it hovered over the mouse.

  Click.

  After a brief moment of buffering, an alert popped up: Upload Successful.

  He had done it.

  "Haaah..."

  Taeil let out a deep sigh he hadn’t even realized he was holding.

  Flustered, he wiped his face with both hands, feeling almost embarrassed.

  The die was cast.

  Taeil stared anxiously at the screen, at his SoundSky page where the song now sat, uploaded for the world to see.

  Refresh.

  The numbers stayed stubbornly at zero—zero views, zero visitors.

  "What on earth are you expecting, Shin Taeil...?" he muttered bitterly, knocking his own forehead with a light fist.

  SoundSky—

  A major music streaming ptform, revered in Korea for hip-hop and in the West for electronic music.

  But here in Japan, its influence was a shadow of what it was elsewhere.

  It was a good tool for promotion, allowing users to freely upload previews and arranged songs, but for someone like Taeil, with no fanbase and no recognition, it felt more like throwing a bottle into an endless ocean.

  Japan was, after all, one of the most Gapagos-ized markets in the world— isoted, insur, thriving in its own unique ecosystem.

  Foreigners often criticized it, calling it outdated or isoted, but the truth was undeniable:

  Japan’s music market was second in size only to the United States.

  It was well known that the success of world-famous pop stars and Korean idols often hinged entirely on how well they performed in Japan.

  That gave the Japanese market a status unlike any other.

  Sure, Japan’s economic boom, including the bubble economy, pyed a role in fueling that growth.

  But more importantly—it was the infrastructure.

  The culture itself was musician-friendly, supportive, nurturing.

  In Japan, anyone, anywhere, could form a band and find a pce to perform.

  It was that dream, that reality, that gave Taeil a small, flickering hope.

  Of course, it wasn't a market built purely on kindness.

  Japan’s music industry existed because it made money, a market shaped by the pure logic of capitalism.

  In other words, it also meant that the demand for music in Japan was extraordinarily high.

  And the same logic extended online.

  Japan had the unique advantage of its own massive ptforms:

  Inudong for video uploads and Utaroid, developed by major corporations, both of which made it possible for individuals to start bands or musical careers completely independently.

  In fact, Inudong had become one of the major gateways for amateur artists.

  Many of the producers who rose to fame had started there, posting music into the void and, through sheer persistence and talent, carving out names for themselves.

  The people who browsed SoundSky in Japan were a niche crowd—mostly die-hard fans of kawaii bass (a subgenre based on future bass) and true electronica junkies who hunted down rare and obscure remixes.

  "If you’re thinking strategically, I should probably consider debuting through Inudong too."

  Because what kind of country was Japan, really?

  It was the kingdom of otaku.

  The home of Sungjin culture.

  The true global capital of niche passion.

  Japanese itself was often called the "Latin of the otaku world"—a nguage so influential that when communication barriers arose between different countries' fans, switching to Japanese often solved the problem.

  Utaroid was yet another testament to the scale of Japan’s otaku-driven music culture.

  Even though most of the creators on these ptforms were amateurs, and the income they generated was small compared to the traditional music market, the potential was enormous.

  Many of today’s most famous young singers had started as unknown Utaroid producers.

  Originally, Taeil’s pn was simple.

  He would upload the song he recorded with Utaroid onto Inudong and iTube.

  But there was a problem.

  "I can't write lyrics for Utaroid... or anything, really..."

  Taeil groaned, raking his hand through his hair in frustration.

  He was stuck.

  Writing lyrics was a wall he hadn’t expected to hit so soon.

  Sure, humming along to a guide vocal was an option, but he couldn’t avoid writing lyrics forever.

  If he was serious about music, sooner or ter, he had to confront it.

  And knowing himself, Taeil wasn't the type to dey the inevitable.

  The real problem was simple:

  Taeil had never written lyrics before.

  "I'm going to go crazy," he muttered.

  The general emotion he wanted was there—he could feel it.

  But every time he tried to shape it into words, it was like something seized his chest, suffocating him, making it impossible to breathe.

  It wasn’t unusual for composers to struggle with lyrics.

  In today's highly specialized industry, where division of bor was the norm, not being able to write lyrics wasn’t seen as a critical fw.

  But for an indie band—

  For a band that had to cw its way up from the underground scene to catch the eye of an entertainment agency, it was a different story.

  Here, the inability to craft your own songs could mean the difference between being remembered and being forgotten.

  If we assume that vocal ability and instrumental skill are the basic prerequisites for any famous band, then what remains, the real deciding factor, is individuality and character.

  In Japan, where there are so many bands that you could spend your whole life just trying to listen to all of them, a band’s songwriting and composition abilities directly shape its uniqueness.

  If either is cking, the impression fades, and it becomes incredibly hard to survive in this industry for long.

  Unlike K-pop idols, massive projects backed by huge investments and expert teams, bands are something the members have to build themselves, from the ground up.

  If idols are like factory-made products, polished through a complex manufacturing process—

  Then bands are cottage industries.

  Handmade. Rough. Personal.

  Built through long nights and shared living spaces.

  Since they live and work so closely together, it’s inevitable that fights break out, over personalities, over artistic differences, over the smallest things.

  It’s not rare.

  It’s normal.

  Even The Beatles, who conquered the world, only sted eight years after debuting, brought down by internal discord.

  "I'm gonna lose my mind..." Taeil muttered under his breath, forcing himself to swallow the sigh building in his chest.

  Whether he liked it or not, writing lyrics was almost a necessary survival skill for a band member.

  If it leaked out that he couldn't write his own lyrics, he would be ughed at, mocked mercilessly by his peers.

  Because bands are rough.

  Bands are full of punks.

  Forget the polite stereotypes.

  Japanese bands weren't all quiet smiles and whispered gossip.

  The world of live houses and indie bands was brutally honest, straight to your face, no mercy.

  If anything, BARD had been a miracle.

  Their strangely gentle dynamic... it had been an exception, not the rule.

  A girl band that was all smiles?

  It was a fantasy.

  Most girl bands in reality were either:

  promising talents meticulously raised by entertainment agencies, or

  raw, battle-hardened musicians who cwed their way up from nothing.

  Taeil, who had spent years wandering Japan’s live houses, had seen it firsthand, how fiercely, how ruthlessly these musicians fought to survive.

  In that world, being able to write and compose wasn't just about making music.

  It was a source of pride.

  A decration of your right to stand on stage.

  "Alright. Let’s give it a try. I have to face it anyway."

  Without hesitation, he opened a search tab and looked up: how to write lyrics.

  But it was useless.

  All the articles, all the advice he found online were just empty clichés.

  The conclusion was always the same:

  You just have to practice.

  No magic formus.

  No shortcuts.

  Taeil, who had already learned through painful experience that theory meant little without action, sighed heavily.

  He pressed his thumbs against his chin, trying to ground himself.

  The notepad on the monitor stared back at him.

  He stared until his eyes ached, until they felt like they might pop out of his skull.

  And still,

  no words came.

  Taeil pced his hand on the keyboard, desperate to at least try writing something.

  "Ugh. Move... Move already...!"

  He gred resentfully at his own hand, which kept hesitating like it had a mind of its own.

  Knock knock.

  His index finger mindlessly tapped the space bar over and over.

  "Maybe... Should I try writing in Korean instead of Japanese?"

  The idea felt oddly more realistic.

  Even though Taeil had been living in Japan for over ten years since his reincarnation, his Japanese nguage skills remained embarrassingly poor, so poor that even the most passionate Japanese teacher at Yuuma High School had long since given up on him.

  "Yeah, that's it. My thinking was wrong from the start. How the hell is a Korean supposed to write Japanese lyrics?"

  Whenever he listened to Japanese songs, he often couldn’t grasp the meaning of the lyrics at all.

  The uniquely metaphorical and yered sensibility of Japanese lyrics was something that completely confused him.

  Sure, psychedelic songs in any country could have incomprehensible lyrics—but those were meant to be felt, not understood.

  They existed precisely to bypass the brain and punch straight into the heart.

  But Japanese lyrics were different.

  Each song seemed to craft an intricate world of its own, and whenever that world unfolded, Taeil's mind simply bnked out.

  To put it simply, Taeil’s situation could be summarized in one exasperated thought:

  ‘What the heck are you even talking about, you idiot!?’

  Still, he didn’t want to give up immediately.

  "Maybe... I should look into more popur music?"

  He suddenly remembered: unlike Utaroid songs, game music, or anime soundtracks, pop songs tended to use simpler, more direct nguage, words rooted in everyday life.

  Without hesitation, he searched for Ninomiya Kanna.

  Although currently on hiatus, Kanna Ninomiya remained one of the most iconic Japanese pop singers, someone whose songs still came to mind first.

  (Thanks mostly to Ayane, who couldn't help but hum Ninomiya Kanna’s songs at every opportunity.)

  Kanna Ninomiya had debuted in the early 21st century and had exploded into popurity almost overnight.

  Even after years away from the spotlight, the public still adored her.

  And being loved by the public didn’t just mean making good music.

  It meant the songs had resonated—that they had touched something universal inside people.

  Taeil sighed heavily as he listened to one of her bright, catchy tracks.

  "Ugh... As expected... most of the lyrics are from a girl’s perspective."

  Kanna’s songs were undeniably easy on the ears—clear, charming, retable.

  Especially her hit tracks like 'MY Friend' and 'Lover's Manual,' which captured a pyful, witty sensibility that even men could appreciate.

  But still, the gendered perspective was unmistakable.

  "If you just read it, it doesn’t seem that hard... but when you actually try writing like this yourself, you hit a wall."

  Driven by both desperation and curiosity, Taeil decided to dig deeper.

  He went further back, searching through songs by legendary artists, those whose music had left an indelible mark on the Japanese music scene.

  "This one's a little more direct," Taeil muttered.

  Lyrics that felt genuine, retable to both the younger generation and the present day.

  However, lyrics that were too direct weren’t really to his taste.

  He wanted something a little more metaphorical.

  More lyrical.

  Something that revealed inner feelings without spelling everything out.

  "I guess I secretly have a case of second-year syndrome..." he sighed.

  No—maybe that sensitivity was actually a good thing for a lyricist?

  Sp!

  Taeil smacked his own cheek, snapping himself out of it.

  "I think this kind of sensitivity will actually help me write better lyrics."

  He decided to stop overthinking.

  Just start writing.

  Anything.

  First, he needed a foundation, something to build from.

  He pulled out a notebook and began jotting down the key themes and words that ran through the songs he'd been studying.

  He carefully analyzed the rhythm of the lyrics, the natural rhyme patterns, the way phrases wrapped around melodies.

  Then he started copying.

  And copying.

  And copying.

  He reminded himself: "Imitation is the mother of creation."

  His level of concentration was so intense that it could've moved a Korean literature teacher to tears.

  ‘If only I'd put half this much effort into my Korean csses back then’, Taeil thought bitterly, I wouldn’t have been at the bottom of the css.’

  Morning slipped into afternoon without him noticing.

  He scribbled down striking phrases over and over, sometimes reading them out loud, letting the words roll around on his tongue.

  When hunger finally gnawed at him, he threw together a quick cup of ramen and wolfed it down without even tasting it.

  Thus, the sun set and the moon rose that night.

  The moon shone—signaling the time when emotions peak and sensitivity sharpens—settled over the world.

  Taeil decided it was time.

  Time to seriously practice writing lyrics.

  He pulled out his notebook, flipped to a fresh page, and put pen to paper.

  The first step: choose a topic.

  Without much hesitation, Taeil settled on the safest, most timeless topic in history—Love.

  Love, the theme that had been loved, sung, and wept over for a thousand years.

  But—

  It didn’t work.

  After nearly eight hours of desperate effort, Taeil sat there, staring at the empty page, mind utterly bnk.

  At first, he had tried to set it up carefully:

  Build the character of the male speaker.

  Create the background and personality of the female listener.

  Figure out the right way to express longing, to hint at a confession, to describe the trembling moments of vulnerability.

  He had outlined everything carefully.

  Pnned every emotional beat.

  But when it came time to write actual words—

  Blocked.

  Completely, hopelessly blocked.

  Taeil tried to re-establish the characters' retionships.

  He rewrote the setting from beginning to end.

  But,

  The result was the same.

  "Let’s try piecing words together into sentences!"

  Taeil figured maybe the real problem was his poor vocabury.

  So he forced himself to write, no matter how awkwardly.

  The lyrics that came out sounded like...a book report written by an elementary schooler.

  "Key, the kiss was like chocote..."

  The unbearable burden of secondhand embarrassment crushed him.

  Overwhelmed by a wave of self-loathing, Taeil stared at the lyrics of his very first self-composed song, and decred:

  "These aren't lyrics!"

  He ripped the page out of his staff notebook with a violent yank and tore it into shreds.

  Still not satisfied, he grabbed a cutter knife and shredded the pieces even smaller, until no recognizable letter remained.

  As if he were destroying evidence of a terrible crime.

  At this point, anyone walking by would’ve thought he’d fed it through an industrial shredder.

  "I thought I was gonna die..." Taeil groaned, slumping into his chair, sweat dripping down his temples.

  He kicked the floor with his heel in frustration, sending his chair spinning zily in a circle.

  In the middle of this ridiculous chaos, he forced himself to organize his thoughts.

  ‘The pn to write lyrics directly in Japanese is scrapped. My skills just couldn't keep up yet. Maybe someday in the future—but definitely not now. For now, let’s try to stick to writing in Korean. Later, we can transte it.’

  It was a far more realistic pn than getting stuck trying to write what sounded like a second-grader's diary entry.

  As for matching the Korean lyrics to a Japanese melody and rhythm—

  That’s tomorrow-Taeil’s problem.

  Sure, there would be some difficulty due to nguage differences.

  But Japanese and Korean shared a lot through the common Chinese character culture.

  It wasn’t an impossible gap.

  And if worse came to worst:

  ‘I'll just beg Ayane for help’, Taeil thought grimly, already shoving the problem onto his future self.

  Fortunately, there were plenty of examples to study.

  Tons of Korean songs had been transted for Japanese releases and vice versa.

  "First," Taeil muttered to himself, "let’s organize the K-pop idol songs that have advanced into Japan..."

  Then he would list famous Japanese songs that were popur in Korea, like "Snow Flower," "Spring Days of My Life," "I Love You," and "Come Spring."

  "It feels like the road becomes clear when you know what you’re doing.”

  "I should’ve done this ages ago."

  His hands stayed busy, flitting between the keyboard and mouse.

  ‘Tomorrow at school, print it all out in the computer b.’

  ‘Compare and analyze.’

  Then another thought struck him.

  "Oh, right. I need to recruit members too."

  Just as one path opened up, another obstacle immediately appeared.

  It seemed that Taeil’s dream still had a long, winding road ahead before he could even reach the starting line.

  But strangely, the process itself wasn’t painful, It was incredibly enjoyable.

  The hour hand had already crept past midnight and now pointed toward three.

  Even though he was exhausted, hunched over his work without even noticing the passage of time, Taeil looked happier than usual.