13. Not a Legend, but a Legendary Performance
The performance began with “A Poem for Puppies.”
As the prelude started, cheers poured from the audience.
“Waaaaah!”
“Gangsi! Gangsi!”
“The song our Jjokko likes is playing. Oh my, do you like it that much?”
True to its reputation as a song that drove dogs crazy, utter chaos ensued.
The space was filled with the howling of dogs and the shouts of people to an extent that one would never think this was a venue with just over a hundred attendees.
But nothing reached Jinha’s ears.
In a positive light, he was in a state of hyper-focus.
In a negative light, it was a state where he couldn’t see a thing.
Singing on stage was the same as walking a tightrope.
At first, you can’t see anything, and you end up standing alone in your own space.
Then, as time slowly passes, the people watching you drift into view, and the cheers begin to reach your ears.
Jinha was not flustered.
He had experienced this hundreds, thousands of times.
Thinking only of the song and the choreography, his vision gradually opened up, allowing him to take stock of the stage beneath his feet.
“Woof!”
The sound of a dog barking reached Jinha’s ears.
Immediately after, frenzied barking cascaded down upon Jinha as he stood on stage.
“Woof woof! Yip yip!”
“Huh? Huh… Waaaah… Waaaaaaah!”
“Ooooooh!”
With the newly added choreography this time around, the dogs’ reactions grew even more explosive.
As the puppies in their owners’ arms went wild, the audience was swept up in the excitement too.
Even those who had wondered, *Is this even a good song?* at first got into the groove as their ears adjusted, and they even sang along.
“What is that…? Is that even possible?”
“Who knows. By normal standards, I don’t think it makes sense. And it’s not like you can bribe puppies.”
Yujin and Doeun watched the stage with bewildered expressions.
Was such a thing even possible?
They had seen videos on YouTube of dogs enjoying songs, but seeing it in person was far more astounding.
*What kind of trick did he pull?*
They thought it was one hundred percent a trick.
Of course, they didn’t view it negatively.
It wasn’t fraud, and a trick that held the audience’s gaze while singing was something money couldn’t buy.
Doeun watched the stage with a sharp gaze but couldn’t figure out what method was being used.
Doo-doo-doo-doom!
“Waaaaaaah!”
“Encore!”
“Woof woof woof!”
“Ruff ruff!”
When the song ended, shouts erupted as if the hundred-person hall would lift off and fly away.
“Thank you for your support. The puppies are so lovely I’d love to keep singing, but I think you’d get tired of hearing it again, so I’ll play something different for you next.”
Having safely finished the song, Jinha gave his thanks to the audience demanding an encore and stood at the center of the stage.
“Ooooooh.”
“The next song is my new song. The title will be decided later from one of your comments.”
As the not-yet-titled song began, the audience listened with open ears.
“When I opened my eyes. I saw you for the first time.”
The song began, and the audience’s focus sharpened.
“Wow…”
“It’s really good.”
The faces of the audience members who heard Jinha’s voice went blank with shock.
It was a voice completely different from when he had sung “A Poem for Puppies,” with its short lyrics set to exciting music.
It wasn’t a voice artificially crafted to be perky and bouncy. Jinha’s sweet tone captivated the audience from the first note.
“His voice is absolutely insane.”
Even Ayeong, filming from the front row, watched in a daze.
“That person, is he really the tightrope walker?”
“…Yeah.”
Doeun and Yujin also fell into Jinha’s performance, mouths agape.
It was the first time they had seen a stage like this at an amateur performance, and the first time they had seen an audience react this way.
*A jackpot.*
*This is going to blow up.*
*This is going to make money.*
It wasn’t something that required professional knowledge or deep musical refinement.
Bright, yet containing sorrow.
To anyone who heard a song where seemingly incompatible atmospheres harmonized breathtakingly, it was something felt instinctively.
A song from ten years ago, twenty years ago, or an even more distant past that you hadn’t listened to with much awareness.
Memories are stored in songs, and the moment you happen to hear one, that day unfolds before you.
Jinha’s song was that kind of song.
A first-time song, yet one containing pain and joy, love and memories.
A song where those things rise up unbidden, for reasons unknown.
“…”
Even after the song ended, there was no applause or cheering.
*What the hell.*
Jinha, who had been singing with his eyes closed, cracked them open slightly.
Was there no reaction? He almost would have preferred to be cursed at or pelted with objects.
Total silence.
He had definitely gotten a decent response early on, so he wondered if he had made some mistake in the middle.
“Huh…?”
“Is it over?”
And a moment later, applause loud enough to fill the hall burst forth.
“Waaaaah!”
“Amazing!”
The reaction was explosive.
Most of the people here had come because their pet dogs liked it, but in an instant, they had become fans themselves.
“Oppa, how on earth did you change like that? Waaaah! Amazing! Woo Jinha, fighting!”
Ayeong let go of the camera she was holding and shouted with a heart that seemed to boil over.
The camera shook, but it seemed like it would create a dynamic shot, so she left it as is.
“Miss.”
“Hmm?”
“Why don’t we just go with a long-term contract all at once? Not a performance contract, but an exclusive contract.”
“Are you serious?”
“I’m asking for your thoughts, Miss. The decision is yours to make.”
“I’d love to. Should I talk to Mr. Jinha right after this ends? Make it one year?”
“…No, I meant think it over first, not do it immediately.”
This young lady absolutely must not be left to her own devices.
Doeun steeled her resolve and shook her head.
Boom-boom-doo-doo-doom—
Jinha was pleased by the audience’s cheers but steadied his heart and focused on the next song.
A cover of NP Boys’ song that he had committed to memory at the hospital.
He demonstrated choreography that he had perfectly replicated using the Essence of Replication, then infused with his own feeling through practice.
The dance-heavy song immersed the audience.
Watching Jinha cover a song structured for six people all by himself, the audience gaped.
They didn’t know the details of how difficult it was to do something like that alone.
But seeing Jinha’s dance, their shoulders bobbed on their own.
“Kyaaaaaah!”
“Woo Jinha! Woo Jinha!”
The Jinha of his Cheongmaepae days wouldn’t have been exhausted by something like this.
But with his body changed, he felt the fatigue keenly.
If he hadn’t been supplemented by the Essence of Stamina, he would have collapsed the moment the song ended.
“Hah…”
Believing in quest rewards was all well and good, but he felt a desperate need for basic physical strength.
He exercised every day lately, but he had to completely tear down and rebuild this pathetic body.
“Thank you!”
It had been terribly hard, but Jinha responded to the audience with a smile.
Soon, the stage drew to a close and the lights on the heated stage went dark.
“Is it over?”
“Encore! Please do an encore!”
But the audience seats were still filled with excitement.
As if the thrill of the stage moments ago hadn’t subsided, people chattered with strangers beside them about what they had just seen, making the venue seem as though it might fly away.
Truthfully, Jinha hadn’t expected this level of reaction either.
The songs were good, and he had worked hard, so he had expected a decent response, but…
*I can be happy about this later.*
But he couldn’t be happy and excited here.
On the tightrope, if you got carried away by the crowd’s reaction, you’d end up turned to paste.
Until it was completely over, he had to maintain his composure.
The stage lights went dark, and a few minutes passed.
With no sound coming from the stage during that time, the audience’s excitement had calmed somewhat.
“Is it over?”
“If it’s over, they’ll tell us. I feel like there’s more.”
“Oh my, Jjujju! Stay still! I haven’t seen our puppy like something this much in forever.”
“Coming here was totally worth it, right?”
Ayeong kept filming the darkened stage with her camera.
She could just edit out the empty parts later.
She simply worried over the timing Jinha had told her about, her heart in her throat.
Doo-doom!
A single beam of light descended upon the darkened stage.
“Waaaaaaah!”
The audience screamed in shock at the sight of Jinha standing at the end of the light.
“Huh? What is that? He’s floating!”
“He must have a wire attached from behind. Huh? But it doesn’t look like it? Is he standing on a tightrope?”
“Is it a special effect? Is he really standing on a tightrope?”
Standing on a rope five meters above the ground, Jinha looked as if he were floating in midair from afar.
Doo-doom-doom— chwah!
Jinha, standing on the rope, unfurled the fan in one hand.
Clash-clang! Clang-crash—bang! Bang! Bang! Crash!
The sound of the kkwaenggwari rang out, and Jinha raised his head.
Jinha was wearing a comical mask, but no one laughed.
Kuuung—!
As the sound of the jing rang out and Jinha leaped into the air from the rope, the audience all stared at the stage with mouths agape, as if by mutual agreement.
Jinha on the rope was like a painting.
He hopped and bounced on the rope, landed lightly, and danced with skill.
It made no sense for an amateur to carry a stage with this level of quality.
The greatest tightrope walker of the era.
The head of the Namsadang troupe.
It hadn’t been for nothing that he had stood at the pinnacle of a troupe at a young age.
If this had been Jinha’s original body, he would have shown something far more elaborate and powerful, but even at this level, it was a performance unseen anywhere else in the country.
Boom-boom-boom-boom-boom!
Watching Jinha maintain his balance on the rope while holding a fan in one hand and performing refined dance, people lost all track of time.
The puppies in people’s arms were no different, so dogs and humans wore identical expressions.
The stage was so fantastical that not even cheers came out.
They simply stared blankly.
With the final stage, the performance hall fell into utter, awestruck silence.
A stage that would drive any human wild, regardless of personal taste.
Even after the performance ended, the heat refused to die down easily.