Chapter 120
“Is tomorrow the day we go home?”
“Yeah.”
After finishing their swim while weathering the relentless attacks of the shipwrecked men, they returned to the hotel and ate dinner. The bed in their room, where they collapsed after their arduous journey, was so soft that it knocked Hyeona out within a minute of her climbing onto it.
“You’re already going to sleep?”
“Uh… um… no, no…”
At Seoha’s words, Hyeona stirred groggily and sat cross-legged. Myeongjeon looked out the room window. The moon shone over the pitch-black summer sea. Beneath it, a white trail of moonlight rolled and broke across the rippling water.
“Seriously, we barely did anything, and it’s already the day before we go home. What did we even do all this time?”
Iseo muttered as though she was genuinely curious. Myeongjeon quietly counted everything they had done on the trip. Bought instruments. Gone to Akihabara or something. Visited a maid café or something. Gone to Nakano or something. Visited a live club. Busked. Swam.
“What do you mean, we barely did anything? We did a ton.”
Iseo grew indignant at Myeongjeon’s words. Watching her flail around, shouting, “We were supposed to do something like travel!” Myeongjeon wondered whether she ever got tired. Even though she had been the most energetic one, walking around and taking pictures for days, what more did she mean to do that was ‘like traveling’?
“What are we going to do once we get home?”
Seoha’s words reached Myeongjeon as he continued gazing out the window. He stared at the ceiling for a moment. Well, what would they do?
“For the time being, we won’t be able to do band activities.”
“…Why?”
When Myeongjeon answered Seoha like that, Iseo stared at him with wide eyes. Her face asked what on earth he meant. Seeing her expression as though she had just heard a bolt from the blue, Myeongjeon let out a hollow little laugh and spoke.
“Don’t you remember? Hyeona’s going to start preparing for her arts-college entrance exams after this trip. When would she have time for the band?”
“…Ah~ Of course I remember.”
“Don’t talk nonsense.”
“I do remember.”
“If you remember, why are you making that face?”
“I was just pretending to be surprised.”
Iseo sneered. Thinking she was becoming more childish by the minute, Myeongjeon scratched his head lightly.
“Band activities will be on hold for the time being. Practice… We probably won’t be able to have group practice either. When do your entrance exams end?”
“Uh… I’m applying through early admissions, so probably until shortly before the CSAT…”
“Then we won’t be able to do anything until then. Great. Take a break. You’re always asking me to let you rest. Take advantage of this and rest for a while.”
At Hyeona’s answer, Myeongjeon thought this had worked out nicely and leaned back in his chair.
They had formed the band not long after he woke up, and he had never had anything that could be called a break since then. It had been nearly a year since he woke up in this body, so whether for Myeongjeon’s sake or the other band members’, it was time for them to rest somehow.
“Until when?”
“I don’t know… I guess we’ll have to rest until Hyeona’s entrance exams are over.”
At those words, Iseo let out a tremendous “Aaaah!” and sprang upright in bed. Like the girl who sang “Please let me rest!” every time they practiced, she expressed her joy with her entire body.
“You really mean it, right? I’m allowed to rest? You’re not suddenly going to call me on a weekday night or over the weekend and say, ‘Hey. Don’t run away—come out and practice,’ right?”
“…You said that too?”
“Because she keeps running away.”
Seoha looked slightly exasperated by Iseo’s words. But Myeongjeon felt aggrieved. The person who ran away from practice was the strange one; the person urging her to show up for practice wasn’t the strange one, was he?
“Nagging…! That’s way beyond nagging! I’m telling you, she’s ruthless. She even called my mom and said, ‘Hello. I’m Iseo’s friend, Ha Suyeon. Iseo skipped practice and ran away. Do you happen to know where she is?’”
“You shouldn’t have run away.”
“Still, calling her parents is a bit much…”
“Wouldn’t it be easier not to run away in the first place? It’s not like I made her do anything extraordinary. We only practice six hours a day. What’s so hard about that?”
The children reacted as though an elephant had just emerged from Myeongjeon’s mouth. Even Hyeona, who had been sitting in the back and nodding off, couldn’t keep her mouth shut at that statement.
But Myeongjeon sat there perfectly calmly. Naturally. Back when he had been practicing seriously, he had played guitar for twelve or fourteen hours a day. He would eat, play guitar, eat, play guitar, eat, play guitar, and then sleep. When there was a technique he needed to practice but couldn’t get right, Myeongjeon would pour coffee down his throat and practice that technique without sleeping.
From Myeongjeon’s perspective, the children in the band all looked like weak-willed slackers. What on earth did they expect to accomplish by practicing six hours a day? That was only enough time to learn the most basic fundamentals…
Hyeona, who had been nodding off, eventually slipped under the covers, unable to hold out any longer. The three remaining members spoke quietly among themselves to soothe their regret at the trip coming to an end.
“Then what are you going to do now?”
“What?”
“Entrance exams, your career, or whatever…”
At Myeongjeon’s question, Seoha stroked her chin for a moment. After a brief pause to think, she answered.
“I don’t know. I’m not interested in college. Maybe I’ll take it easy for a while too? Practice some… I think the church band is entering a competition this time, so I might compete with them.”
“Unnie, you went to church?”
Iseo was utterly aghast. But Myeongjeon thought it made sense in a way. Drums were an instrument you couldn’t even keep at home. Where else could she have gotten her hands on a drum and practiced?
“I don’t believe you. You’re just in the church band.”
“You don’t believe me, but that’s allowed?”
Iseo reacted as though a female friend had told her, “I’m actually a lesbian.”
“I’m the only one in the band who can play drums, so what else could I do? I used to attend a little back then, but now I only go when I’m playing drums or practicing on my own.”
Seoha showed a hint of discomfort. Myeongjeon scratched his head and, partly to change the mood, asked Iseo what he had been curious about.
“But what are you going to do?”
“Me?”
At the question, Iseo scratched her head. Myeongjeon thought she had an expression that suggested she hadn’t given it any thought at all.
“I haven’t really thought about it.”
…And that was exactly how it was. Myeongjeon let out an incredulous sigh at her answer.
What did she mean, she hadn’t given it any thought? No matter how many opportunities there were in life, that didn’t make one’s teenage years any less important. It wasn’t impossible to make up for time wasted at that age, but doing so required much more time.
“Shouldn’t you start making decisions about your future? Like going into music, attending an arts college, or something along those lines?”
“It’ll work out somehow.”
“Are you one of those YOLO people or whatever they call them, the ones who are supposedly trendy these days?”
He asked seriously, with that thought in mind. Yet when Iseo answered “I haven’t thought about it” to that question as well, Myeongjeon unconsciously threw the question at her.
“YOLO isn’t a recent trend. It’s been over for ages. Are you an old man?”
But what came back was a sharp attack like an awl, entirely without malicious intent. Myeongjeon suffered in silence as he swallowed his anger. Nothing was more unfair than an attack you had no way to retaliate against.
* * *
After bringing their epic, days-long Japan trip to an end, Myeongjeon came home and first slept like a log. No matter how nice overseas hotels and accommodations were, nothing beat home.
“Suyeon, let’s eat.”
“Yes.”
When he opened his eyes, it was already evening. Dinner had been set out. Myeongjeon bowed his head slightly and took a spoonful of rice. His mother’s cooking, his first in a week, was still delicious.
“So what are you going to do during vacation?”
“I don’t know… I haven’t really thought about anything in particular.”
Although he had said that to Iseo yesterday, Myeongjeon had no plans either. Of course, his attitude was slightly different: not “It’ll work out somehow,” but “I can just do the band,” which made a difference.
“I think I’ll rest for a while. Hyeona’s starting her arts-college entrance exams.”
“Already? Well, I suppose it is that time… What about you, Suyeon? No plans for an arts college?”
“Me? I haven’t really thought about it.”
He answered Hyein’s question casually. At that, Hyein fell into thought.
It wasn’t that Myeongjeon had never thought about attending an arts college. In Korea, academic pedigree was one of the most powerful weapons around, and the arts were no exception. Even among guitarists who plucked the exact same strings, a college graduate commanded a higher rate than a high-school graduate. Even so, the reason Myeongjeon had no particular interest in an arts college was simple.
‘What would I learn there when there’s nothing for me to learn?’
In the end, things like school names and academic pedigree only worked where they carried enough weight to matter. For a guitarist like Myeongjeon, who could already land jobs and had countless people eager to hire him… such credentials were hardly necessary.
Leaving Hyein to ponder the issue of ‘Ha Suyeon’s’ entrance exams, Myeongjeon went into his room and turned on the computer.
‘Let’s see what’s been going on in the world.’
While traveling, he hadn’t gone online at all. The reason was simple. He had just wanted to focus on the trip.
There were plenty of things to do right in front of him, so why bother going online to stare at all the useless and harmful things in the world? It wasn’t as though he was in an environment that required him to monitor the internet.
For that reason, Myeongjeon had consciously put his usual exploration of online communities on hold for a while. But now that he was home, it was time to browse those communities again. For the sake of adapting to young people’s culture.
“Even today, they’re burning with hatred and animosity over utterly pointless nonsense…”
As he browsed the major communities, Myeongjeon thought about AI, which had recently become a hot topic. Everyone in the world was doing nothing but insulting one another, so what form would an AI born in such a world take? Wouldn’t it end up as a program designed to curse at other people for no reason or context?
As Myeongjeon viewed the communities from the perspective of an old man, one popular post caught his eye.
[Japanese Instrument Sellers' Level.mp4]
The post had been uploaded several days ago, but it already had a considerable number of comments. Under normal circumstances, he wouldn’t even have clicked such an unremarkable title, but more than a thousand comments had the power to make even that ordinary title seem interesting.
When he clicked the post, it contained a video. A highly skilled female duo playing guitar and bass inside a music-instrument store. People outside—or inside—were listening to and enjoying their performance.
Beneath it, photos had been edited together in the format commonly called ‘memes.’ One showed a YouTuber who had visited the store in question. Another showed a clerk grinning as he said that they had sold quite a lot of instruments that day and that sales had increased substantially afterward.
The clerk’s face seemed familiar for some reason. Where had he seen him before…?
Myeongjeon scrolled back up and watched the video of the two women performing once more. A Rickenbacker 4001 bass and a Fender ’84 Reissue Candy Apple Strat.
‘No, this is…’
The place shown in the video was the exact place Myeongjeon and Iseo had visited only recently—the music store where they had bought the ’84 Reissue Strat now lying beside him. And the two people appearing in the video were, of course, Myeongjeon and Iseo.