Seulgi was having a lousy day. She left for work in a hurry and forgot her lunch. She was fast walking and not paying enough attention to where she was going, so, she stepped on a sewer grate and accidentally broke the heel of her left shoe. To make things worse, she was developing a headache in the form of a recent pop song she could NOT get out of her head, no matter how hard she tried.

She could not even remember the title or lyrics, but she kept hearing the same three notes from the melody of the chorus in her head and could not place it. Nor could she replace it, even though she had a vast catalog of music in her head. She was almost at the point of madness because she knew that she knew the cursed song, but just like an elusive dream on waking, the title kept slipping away.

She was walking home from work...well, hobbling because she had not had the chance to fix her heel yet. On her best yellow Prada, too. Walking around all day on a broken heel had only made her ankle hurt that much more. She tried both a heat pack and an ice pack, but neither helped. She was going to ditch these heels as soon as possible. Seulgi debated about just trashing the shoes even, if they were super expensive. So one of the few things that she splurged on wasn’t worth it after all.

While she was walking to 36th Street, she was pondering what to do for dinner. She had stuff to make at home, but that took work. Having had a less than wonderful day, she decided on pizza as it was so much easier. With how lousy her day had been, she deserved some pizza. Comfort food for the win! She would ignore her mother’s voice this one time because having one pizza would NOT make her fat. Especially with her current workout routine.

Anyway.

While crossing the street and thinking about what pizza toppings to choose from, she stopped dead in her tracks. In the middle of the crosswalk. She looked north wondering what it was that drew her attention to the exclusion of everything else. Including traffic, until someone honked at her. Embarrassed, she hurriedly got out of the way

A couple of blocks away, there was an open-air plaza that was having an event which was the source of her distraction. There were all of the usual food stalls, games, knickknacks, and trinkets you’d expect. There were jugglers, hucksters, buskers, and prestidigitators. There was even someone making balloon animals in a riot of colors and a person making huge bubbles for the kids. And a few that were still a kid at heart.

At that event, there was a singing contest going on. The current singer was belting her heart out. She had range, control, and vibrato, and she made it all sound breathless, airy, and most importantly, good. Hearing this made her a bit maudlin.

Even though Seulgi enjoyed singing and dancing, her family had successfully squashed any dream of her being an idol and performing on stage. As a child, Seulgi was told by her family that she was not pretty enough, not talented enough, and she couldn’t dance well enough. She was told that sending her to any sort of talent classes would be worthless.

Her parents always told her that she should just go into business where she could be useful. You just need to work hard, there was no need for brains, talent, or looks. Granted they never mentioned that all of those things helped you to excel in business as well.

With her ego crushed, Seulgi did as her parents demanded and went to college. As a business major, Seulgi’s parents were surprised because she excelled. Seulgi was even more amazed a finding something that she was actually good at enough to please her eternally pessimistic parents.

Seulgi was even more surprised that she also enjoyed it. Out from under her parents' thumb, she actually made friends and went on a few dates (without telling anyone in her family, of course) without her mother vetting the guys first. This was her first real taste of both rebellion and love. And her first taste of heartbreak when the guys didn’t work out. It was a heady time in her life.

She got her MBA, a job, then a profession, and finally a carrier. She was successful in every way her parents demand. While they were grudgingly satisfied with her performance, her soul was still not fulfilled. There was still a little girl locked away in her heart that wanted to draw, sing, take pictures of interesting things, and most importantly, be loved by her family.

Then, there was That Song from earlier in the plaza still floating in the air. Those effervescent three notes from her headache, repeated themselves, blending into the rest of the music to a complete tapestry of incredibly colorful sound. The closer she got to the plaza and the clearer the singing became, all thoughts of pizza, painful ankles, broken shoes, work, rain, and everything else faded into obscurity. Seulgi heard a crystal clear voice, a silver sweet soprano, and she felt warmth powerful enough to rekindle a crushed hope. There was a breathtaking Eb7 that was being held with an iron grip just floating across the plaza, stopping time. If only she could sing like that!

Seulgi was by far from the only one entranced. Everything froze. Motes of dust, people walking by, dogs and cats, and even time itself stopped what it was doing to listen to this singular, heavenly voice. It could not last. That moment was too fragile, too remote, and too perfect. But that moment was there. It could be done because it had been done. The problem was that at 162cm, Seulgi was too short to see the dynamo that was singing. At least the song in her memory had a name: “Azalea.” The song was based on a poem of the same name by author Kim Sowol.