Chapter 39
‘Could she be his student? The last student Mr. Myeongjeon took in? Someone whose talent he recognized and taught…?’
Junhong, thinking that, took a moment to sort out his thoughts. It was most reasonable to assume she was Mr. Myeongjeon’s student, but if he assumed that and thought about what had happened earlier…
‘If she were his student, couldn’t she simply have said so when I asked where the guitar came from?’
But Junhong couldn’t come up with a more convincing hypothesis. Naturally. Aside from being good at guitar, Junhong was an ordinary citizen—a proud twenty-first-century Korean with a scientific mindset who didn’t believe in strange supernatural nonsense.
Rather than press her about why she hadn’t revealed the truth, he decided to think about why she might have kept it hidden.
‘Could she have been told not to reveal it?’
Junhong thought that was a reasonable explanation. Mr. Myeongjeon had been difficult, after all, but he had also been a somewhat unusual person.
Junhong wasn’t the only one who had learned guitar from Mr. Myeongjeon. Several other session guitarists had stayed at Myeongjeon’s house around that time to learn from him.
And Myeongjeon had never once allowed them to call him their “master” or “teacher,” or to say that he had taught them guitar, or anything of the sort.
“If you learned it, then you learned it. What’s with all this ‘master’ and ‘teacher’ nonsense? If you’ve got nothing better to do, go home!”
That was all he did before sending them away. As a result, quite a few guitarists in the scene respected Myeongjeon, but they couldn’t form a group or band together.
Because they didn’t know one another.
‘Did he say the same thing to that girl?’
If so, she had no choice but to avoid calling herself his student. If her teacher had spoken that way, how could she say, “I learned from that man”? It was only natural.
Watching Junhong’s expression as he convinced himself of this, Myeongjeon inwardly breathed a sigh of relief.
‘It’s a good thing I said that back then…’
Myeongjeon felt grateful to his former self. He had told them never to go around saying that he had taught them guitar because of his self-loathing and jealousy toward others.
What good was being good at guitar? When it came to the truly important thing—music—he was far behind them. Myeongjeon at the time had thought it was embarrassing enough simply to strut around saying, “I taught this person. He’s my student.”
But Myeongjeon was dead, and only Suyeon remained… No one would ever know the reason.
And the broadcast continued.
When Suyeon played Eric Clapton’s “Change the World,”
= ㅠㅠㅠㅠ
= Wow, that’s genuinely moving
= Holy crap
= This is freaking amazing
= The future of South Korea is bright.
= Clapton’s a cheating old man, so why do you like him so much? ㅡㅡ
= The feeling is incredible ^^ That was a great performance~
“That was wonderful. What did everyone think? She really is incredible, right? I was amazed too. I was moved as well. I can’t believe there’s a guitarist with this level of skill in Korea—someone this young, and this beautiful on top of that…”
Chat messages poured in from every direction. Junhong improvised commentary and kept the broadcast moving, saying that it was the best guitar piece he had heard recently, that her skill was so incredible he couldn’t believe she was a teenager, and so on.
“So, White Room… do you have any plans to attend an arts college or pursue something like that?”
“No. I don’t have any particular plans to go in that direction.”
“Oh~ Just from hearing you play guitar, it sounds like you could break down the doors and get into an arts college.”
Junhong sincerely thought so. If she could get in, wouldn’t it be to her advantage to go? Junhong himself had also attended an arts college.
“Why would I need to go somewhere like that? There’s nothing for me to learn there.”
“Oh~~ Confidence.”
But Myeongjeon answered listlessly. He was someone who had learned and acquired everything in the field, so he found it difficult to sympathize with the idea that one had to attend an academy or school in order to learn something.
“Have you never considered Berklee or somewhere like that? Even if you don’t stay in Korea, there are plenty of places abroad…”
“I don’t know…”
Of course, there would be things to learn at Berklee, where extraordinarily talented guitarists like Tomo Fujita taught. John Mayer had attended Berklee too, hadn’t he?
But Myeongjeon was a guitarist who had perfected his own style. Even John Mayer had dropped out of Berklee, so why would Myeongjeon—a guitarist who had played for decades and perfected his own style—need to go there?
“I might change my mind, but for now, I’m not considering it.”
“Oh~ I see.”
Junhong looked at the chat room. Messages like [Does she look down on arts colleges?] and [She is good, but she seems to be lacking in some ways;;] were appearing.
As he banned those messages, he thought,
‘Confidence is good, but she’s definitely arrogant in some ways.’
Of course, she had the skill to justify it. If Junhong had possessed that level of skill at her age, he would have acted as if the whole world lay beneath his feet. Her skill was more than enough to warrant that attitude.
But regardless of that, her way of speaking could easily cause controversy. On an online community, couldn’t it be summarized as [High school girl.jpg saying, “People who go to arts colleges are just fucking idiots with zero skill”]?
‘If she were just an ordinary YouTuber I had invited, I would have left her alone no matter what happened…’
But since she seemed to be Mr. Myeongjeon’s student, he couldn’t simply leave her alone. Junhong decided that he should provide her with some support in addition to this, then delivered his next line.
“The live stream is gradually coming to an end. If you don’t mind, could we hear one of your original songs before we finish?”
“Um… An original song?”
Myeongjeon fell into thought for a moment.
When they had first discussed the broadcast, they had agreed that he would play his second original composition. At the time, the band’s first song hadn’t been completed yet. But while they had been exchanging emails, the arrangement of the band song had been finished.
That was why Myeongjeon had intended to tell Junhong before the broadcast that he would be playing a different song today… But because of all that unimportant guitar-related business, he hadn’t been able to mention it beforehand or give him the file.
But well, wouldn’t it be all right?
Rather, having no other sounds might be better for showing off her skill.
Without another backing track, it might feel a little dull… But if she covered for that with her guitar skills, people would praise her all the more.
“Teacher. Just a moment…”
So Myeongjeon decided to do that. Junhong looked slightly troubled, then soon nodded.
While Junhong gave his introduction, Myeongjeon stepped back slightly and adjusted the equipment.
It was time to perform.
* * *
“All right. The song White Room will be playing this time is… the first original song created by the band she is currently in!”
As he said that, Junhong introduced various details about the song. The viewers listened, feeling a little dissatisfied.
‘I know she’s good at guitar, but is she really that good?’
Ordinary people couldn’t tell how well someone played guitar. That was true even of listeners who subscribed to this channel and watched its live streams.
Because you couldn’t know unless you had actually done it yourself.
That was true of everything. Someone who had never even kicked a ball would debate which Premier League striker was pathetic and which one was a god. Yet if they met that player on an actual soccer field, they might not even touch the ball once before being completely humiliated.
Of course, that wasn’t some enormous crime. People were simply like that.
And because of that, people pursued what they could see and rejected what they couldn’t. They fixated on flashy-looking techniques, even though solid fundamentals were several times more difficult in practice.
But when Suyeon began picking the guitar strings, the people watching the live stream realized something.
A true master was different from the fundamentals up.
This was not a performance that flowed along smoothly at all. Like a winding current, like waves surging forward… a rhythm that fell back and surged in, advanced and then retreated.
The beat was clearly slipping slightly out of alignment here and there, yet the song proceeded without sounding unnatural. A sorrowful melody based on the pentatonic and blues scales continued to unfold.
There was no franticness from playing a song beyond one’s ability, no impression of playing randomly because one couldn’t grasp the rhythm…
There was not a trace of either.
The girl on the screen controlled every single note, filling each one completely with her intentions.
The chat gradually began to quiet down. No one wanted to miss even a single note while typing on a keyboard.
And then came the flowing hum.
Blending exquisitely into the song… it led those listening to the live stream toward a single scene.
It seemed to have been a winter day when the wind was blowing. A day when fine sleet had begun falling outside the window, and the appointed time was drawing near, but no word had come from you.
In a café where a guitarist sitting in one corner was playing with a bluesy tone…
I look out the window again. Somehow, it feels as though the appointed time has already passed. The grandfather clock hanging in one corner of the café tells me that thirty minutes have already gone by since our appointment.
But you don’t come.
I get up and head to the counter. I ask to use the phone, turn the dial, and call your house. The family member who answers tells me that you already left.
I throw the price of the coffee onto the counter and run outside. I keep running all the way to your house.
But you aren’t there.
The sleet keeps falling, and even as it grows heavier, you aren’t there.
Even after going back and forth between the café and your house dozens of times, you were nowhere to be found.
I don’t know why. But…
“I’m still searching for you, the you from that day we never got to meet…”
As the vocals ended, the guitar that had been softly ringing until then roared. It seemed to express the feelings of the person who had crossed the streets again and again that night when the sleet had blown violently, his eyes eventually gone dry.
The solo that had been building without pause reached its climax. Along with rapid runs she hadn’t shown until now came pitch bent by deliberate manipulation.
Despite the notes twisting mercilessly out of tune, no one found it unpleasant. Rather, they thought that was emotion. They thought this was the feeling of guitar playing they had only heard about in words but had never actually experienced.
Then, after passing the climax, the performance gently settled back down.
“Thank you.”
The moment he heard her say goodbye, Junhong clapped as hard as he could. He kept going until he realized that his hands had turned red and hurt terribly.
“Aah! Good grief, I clapped too hard. Anyway… that was a performance I can only describe as incredible! My goodness, I never imagined I could feel this kind of emotion from a teenage guitarist…”
Junhong genuinely thought so. Was this talent why Mr. Myeongjeon had taken the girl on as his student? It felt as though the late Mr. Myeongjeon had returned to life.
“What is this song called?”
Watching the chat room, which was boiling over and moving five times faster than usual, Junhong asked the question.
“It’s called ‘You from That Day.’ And…”
“And?”
“The band that will be performing this song is… Group Sound. It’s called Group Sound.”
Myeongjeon declared it.