Chapter 35 : Effector

“Oh, there’s only a few days left of winter break…”

Hyun-a muttered to herself.

At her words, Ha Su-yeon realized that high school students’ winter breaks were much shorter than she had thought.

The students she usually dealt with were university students, whose winter breaks were over two months long.

But for high school students, winter break was only about a month.

“Thinking about it that way, the schedule might be a bit too tight. For some reason, I just assumed February was part of the break too.”

“University students say stuff like that, right? ‘I can’t wait to go to college. I’ll finally have so much time to enjoy myself.’”

Hmm.

Ha Su-yeon thought back to the university students she used to tutor.

Even they seemed to have their own struggles.

But, saying that wouldn’t really resonate, would it? After all, Ha Su-yeon was a high school student to begin with.

Regardless, it was clear that some adjustments to the schedule were necessary.

Since the original songs would have a heavy emphasis on the guitar and the students would participate in the composing process, the ensemble wouldn’t be as challenging as performing cover songs.

Still, it wasn’t something they could just breeze through. Some amount of practice was absolutely necessary.

“Alright then. Let’s aim for two original songs and one cover song. We can add one more if there’s enough time after adjusting the schedule.”

Practice for the original songs can begin as soon as the arrangements are finalized.

I’ll handle the arrangements for the most part, and you can review and give input during the final stages.

Let’s take a few days off and then start practicing again.

The live club auditions aren’t too strict, so we can afford to take it a bit easy.

There are some tough ones, but there are plenty that aren’t.”

The kids sighed in relief at Ha Su-yeon words.

She did wonder if she was being too harsh on these young students.

But wasn’t this what they had chosen? She had given them the choice, after all.

They had made their decision.

Like the trendy MZ generation slang, no one had held a knife to their throats and forced them.

That said, the schedule was undeniably demanding.

There was a big difference between Ha Su-yeon , who acted based on her lived experiences, and the three young members, who hadn’t lived long enough to know better.

‘I guess it’s my responsibility to be considerate.’

Besides, this way, they could enjoy the process more.

What’s the big deal if they miss a deadline for a funding project or audition application? If they fail, so what? Their musical talent won’t disappear. If they fail one, they can apply to another.

As long as she led this band, their future success was guaranteed.

Lee Seo climbed the subway station stairs.

In front of the station entrance stood someone whose face had become very familiar lately—Su-yeon.

She was wearing an oversized black belted coat and carrying a guitar case, her trademark expressionless face staring blankly into the distance.

“I’m here.”

“Oh? Uh, yeah.”

Right after, Su-yeon started walking toward Nakwon.

Feeling an awkward atmosphere settling between them, Lee Seo hurriedly searched for something to say.

“How have you been?”

“…What do you mean?”

“Well, like… the apology thing?”

Oh no, what am I even saying? Lee Seo immediately regretted speaking without thinking.

“Hmm… You could say it’s going well in its own way, or not.”

But Su-yeon muttered her response without any sign of displeasure.

“Are people accepting it?”

“There are a lot of people who are willing to brush it off like it’s no big deal. But in the end, the most important thing is how the person on the receiving end feels. Anyway, let’s leave it at that.”

Su-yeon ran her fingers through her hair as she spoke.

As the mood grew heavier, Lee Seo racked her brain, desperately searching for something else to say.

“Oh, about that effect pedal you’re buying today! Are you really going to pay the full 2 million won? Not planning to bargain?”

“Hmm…”

Ha Su-yeon thought for a moment at the question.

She had considered bargaining. After all, 2 million won was undeniably expensive.

Still, she figured she could settle for around 1.8 million won.

But Lee Seo’s words made her reconsider. Maybe she should try bargaining properly.

The Civil War Big Muff could be bought on Reverb for around $1,000. Even if it was used gear, it wasn’t worth 2 million won.

The shop owner probably knew that too.

“I’ll definitely try bargaining.”

Lost in thought, Ha Su-yeon muttered to himself.

When he considered it, the shop owner’s attitude annoyed him slightly.

That was someone else’s gear, and whoever first picked it up had probably sold it for peanuts.

Now, after changing hands multiple times, it ended up here.

Selling someone’s memento for 2 million won? That felt a bit heartless.

“How much do you think you can bargain it down to?”

“Hmm…”

Ha Su-yeon recalled the history of the effect pedal.

She had bought that Big Muff, modified its capacitors and transistors herself, and…

“It seems like I can haggle quite a bit.”

“It hasn’t been sold yet, right?”

“Of course not. I’ve had a lot of inquiries, but I told them someone else was interested in buying it first.”

Lee Seo glanced at Su-yeon.

A few months ago, when they first met—or rather, met again—they had gone to this shop.

Now, Su-yeon was being handed the same pedal she had seen back then.

“This kind of effect pedal is hard to come by. Vintage isn’t called vintage for nothing. Only someone like me can get their hands on it,” the shop owner bragged.

While the owner rambled on, Su-yeon silently inspected the pedal.

“Can I open this?”

“What? Of course not! How do I know you won’t break it?”

“Well, then how do I know this isn’t just a regular Big Muff with a Civil War cover slapped on it?”

The shop owner fell silent.

As Su-yeon stared coldly at him, Lee Seo wondered to herself:

‘But can you even tell just by opening it?’

Still, if Su-yeon was insisting on opening it, she probably knew what to look for.

Lee Seo decided to stay quiet. Surely, there was a way.

“You can play it if you want,” the owner offered.

“Playing it is a given. What if I buy this for 2 million won, then later find out it’s not actually a Civil War Big Muff? Wouldn’t that mean I got scammed?”

“Wow, you’re really particular. Why are you so suspicious when the shop owner says it’s legit?”

“Well, if it were just a few thousand or even a hundred thousand won, I’d let it slide. But this is 2 million won we’re talking about.”

“Hah… Just trust me, will you? I’ve been selling instruments and pedals for 30 years in Nakwon. No one’s ever complained about getting a counterfeit from me. I inspect and verify everything myself before selling it.”

As the argument heated up, the neighboring shop owners peeked out to watch the commotion.

“You inspect and verify everything yourself?”

“That’s right. I check everything.”

“Then if something’s off, what will you do about it?”

Su-yeon’s provocative tone made the shop owner’s face stiffen. But she continued, unfazed.

“If you’ve inspected it, then you wouldn’t mind me opening it, would you?”

“What? Do you even know what you’re looking at? Those circuits—do you know what they mean?”

“Of course I do. That’s why I’m asking. Come on, let me open it. If everything checks out, I’ll pay you 2 million won in cash right here.”

The shop owner muttered to himself in disbelief, but Su-yeon calmly pulled an envelope from her pocket and placed it on the counter.

“But if something’s wrong, you’ll take responsibility, won’t you?”

“…What do you mean by responsibility? If you don’t want it, I just won’t sell it…”

“Didn’t you just say you inspect everything? If there’s something wrong despite your inspection, shouldn’t you take responsibility for that?”

“She’s right,” a voice suddenly chimed in from outside the shop. Two men, seemingly from the neighboring store, stepped in.

“Mr. Park, if you don’t want to deal with this, just head back inside.”

“No, but she has a point. You said you inspect everything, so you should take responsibility.”

The heated argument dragged on for about five minutes before the shop owner, seemingly conceding, handed over a screwdriver.

“If you damage it, it’s on you.”

“Don’t worry.”

After saying that, Suyeon began turning the screwdriver on the effects pedal.

“Can you really tell by looking?”

“Of course. If I couldn’t, why would I bother opening it?”

Unlike Suyeon’s confident response, Iseo felt uneasy.

Does she really know about these things? Then again, as someone who plays an instrument, she might know a thing or two about this.

Before long, the pedal was opened. Suyeon stared at it intently, then smirked and nodded before turning to the shopkeeper.

“Just as I thought, this has been modified. It’s not the original Big Muff.”

“What? Miss, what are you talking about? You’re just making baseless accusations because you couldn’t find anything wrong!”

The shopkeeper’s face turned red with anger, but Suyeon calmly pointed at part of the circuit.

“Look here. The capacitors in a Civil War Big Muff are supposed to be 1000pF. But this one’s different—it says 470pF.”

“What?”

The shopkeeper squinted at the circuit, holding it closer for inspection. Suyeon continued speaking in a composed tone.

“And there are signs that the transistors have been replaced, too. This isn’t an original Big Muff, so why are you charging 2 million won for it? Are you some kind of con artist?”

“Here, have a drink.”

“Thanks~”

Ha Su-yeon handed a warm canned coffee to Iseo.

She opened it, blew on it gently, and took a sip.

“Did you already know there was something wrong with that pedal?”

“Not exactly… but for vintage gear like that, it’s common to find traces of modifications. I noticed earlier that it had been tampered with.”

Of course, the traces she noticed were left by him.

Ha Su-yeon had been the sole owner of that pedal for the past 20 years, having purchased it and modified its components to suit his tone.

It’s a bit pitiful, but he kind of brought this on himself, Ha Su-yeon thought.

That’s just how shopkeepers tend to operate.

If he hadn’t claimed, “I personally inspected it,” none of this would have escalated.

“You’re not going to post about that shop online, are you?”

“Well, I did promise I wouldn’t.”

Ha Su-yeon opened her can of coffee and took a sip.

In front of other shopkeepers who had been watching the situation unfold, the embarrassed owner could only mutter, “You can just take it…” and plead not to be exposed online.

Even though Ha Su-yeon felt a bit resentful about her old pedal being sold as stolen goods, she also knew she had provoked the shopkeeper, so she decided to let it go. Hopefully, this would teach him a lesson.

“This kind of story would get a ton of views on YouTube…”

But that resolution wavered slightly when Iseo mumbled, almost to herself, about the potential for viral content.

“…How many views are we talking about?”

“Huh? Well… depending on how you frame it, it could rack up tens or hundreds of thousands of views.”

Tens or even hundreds of thousands? Ha Su-yeon was tempted but ultimately shook his head.

“If that’s true, let’s save it for when the channel grows a bit more.”

“…So you’re not not doing it?”

“Why wouldn’t I? He’s the one at fault. I didn’t do anything wrong, did I?”

As long as he didn’t mention the shop’s name, it should be fine.

Ha Su-yeon figured that would keep things from getting too messy.

“Speaking of YouTube, how’s your channel doing lately?”

“My channel?”

Ha Su-yeon pulled out her phone and opened her channel. The subscriber count had climbed to about 10,000, and his videos were getting good views. The channel was now monetized, too.

“One of my original tracks has been getting a lot of attention lately, so subscribers have been pouring in.”

She showed the stats to Iseo.

One video—a second original track—stood out with an unusually high view count compared to the others.

It was a song she’d made on a whim late one night, something thrown together quickly with minimal effort. She hadn’t expected much from it, yet the view count was skyrocketing.

“Wait… this song sounds familiar,” Iseo said, suddenly flipping through her phone. She brought up a different YouTube video and held it out to Ha Su-yeon.

On the screen was a video titled, [Playlist] Staring at the Starry Winter Sky – Perfect Guitar Tracks for Quiet Nights. It had racked up 600,000 views.

“Isn’t the song in this video yours?”