Chapter 52
A black private taxi appeared out of nowhere at the school’s main gate. Did anyone actually take a taxi to school? It wasn’t even time to be late… As the students wondered, a girl got out and pulled something long and slender from the trunk.
The face the students covertly peeked at looked oddly familiar.
It was a cold-looking face, with slightly upturned eyes. It looked anything but gentle; if she stared at someone expressionlessly, it seemed as though something might freeze solid… Ha Suyeon’s face.
Seeing her, several students instinctively took a step backward. Her reputation had not faded easily, even if people said she had changed a great deal recently.
Suyeon, carrying a guitar hard case in one hand and a suitcase in the other, tried to wave at the students… then realized both hands were occupied and gave an awkward little laugh instead.
“Ha Suyeon~ What’s that?”
“A guitar.”
“Why are you bringing a guitar?”
“Park Dain kept screaming loud enough to break the windows that she’d jump off the roof if I didn’t show everyone what I could play for the performance assessment.”
Though Suyeon was complaining, there was no real hostility or genuine annoyance in her tone. She merely sounded as though she were lightly scolding a friend.
At that answer, the slight tension that had unconsciously spread among the students eased. Suyeon, however, failed to notice any of it and dragged her suitcase into the school.
“Oh, I did say you could bring any instrument you wanted…”
Seeing the music teacher’s troubled expression, Myeongjeon pointed instead to Dain beside the teacher, whose eyes were shining excitedly.
“I was just going to do it with a recorder, but she kept telling me to bring my guitar.”
“No, well! Being serious about the performance assessment is a good thing.”
“Right. If not for me, where else would she get to brag, ‘I’m good at guitar~’?”
“There are plenty of places.”
Myeongjeon gave Dain an incredulous look, then set a chair in the middle of the partially cleared music room and placed the amp on it. Fortunately, it was a wireless amp, so there was no need to go through the whole damn process of setting it up, Myeongjeon thought.
“What song are you going to play?”
“Memories of the Alhambra.”
“What?”
The music teacher looked flustered. The song had been put on the list half as a joke, and not a single student had even attempted it in the past few years. The teacher had included it simply to let the students hear a good song, so why was this girl suddenly volunteering to play it?
‘So she can actually play guitar?’
It was not even a piece meant to be played on electric guitar in the first place. Electric guitars had not existed when Francisco Tárrega was alive. It was a memorable piece featuring a continuous tremolo technique that never stopped even once.
“Are you really going to play that one?”
“Yes.”
At Suyeon’s firm answer, the teacher took Yamaha’s Silent Guitar out of the bag. It was a sort of assembly-style guitar designed to make an acoustic guitar portable, and the teacher had brought it to accompany the students during their assessments. The students gave a second round of impressed oohs at its unusual appearance.
“I’ll start the accompaniment.”
“Yes.”
She tried to recall the accompaniment. What note did it begin with again? It had been a long time since she had played the piece herself, so remembering it was not easy.
The accompaniment began hesitantly, but the main guitar soon joined in. The warm sound unique to a classical guitar was reproduced, if only somewhat, through the tone controls.
“Wow, Ha Suyeon is insane…”
“How is she so good?”
“Wait, if she does that, won’t all of us get zero? Isn’t this graded on a curve?”
“It’s absolute grading…”
Amid the students’ praise and ridiculous conversation, Suyeon’s tremolo continued. She did not have the same plucking ability as someone who had played classical guitar continuously, but she displayed a level of skill difficult to believe in a high school student.
‘Looks like a perfect score without needing to hear anything else.’
After listening for about thirty seconds, the music teacher reached that conclusion.
But the performance did not stop.
It was a carefully prepared live performance, something difficult to hear under ordinary circumstances. The teacher felt sorry for the student currently playing, but wanted the students to hear a piece like this, so… the teacher continued listening.
* * *
After school, the students who begged Myeongjeon to play one more song held Myeongjeon back, so Myeongjeon played Philip Sayce’s “Alchemy” for them. Then the students scattered like the receding tide.
Even Dain, who had stayed to listen, left Myeongjeon with the words, “You’re incredibly good… but I don’t think it’s my taste. Isn’t that the sort of music old people like?”
‘Is it really that bad…’
Still, Myeongjeon thought Philip Sayce was a fairly young musician. “Alchemy” had come out in 2012, after all… But when Myeongjeon thought about it, 2012 had already been ten years ago. Why did time pass so quickly?
Grumbling to himself, Myeongjeon picked up his belongings and walked toward the end of the corridor. He could have used the central staircase, but for some reason, the DNA etched into him during childhood prevented him from using it.
Just then, he heard bass and cheers. The unfiltered low end seemed to vibrate through the floor and travel right up into his feet. In another classroom he had wandered into without thinking, someone was surrounded by high school students peering in from every direction.
“Oh! Suyeon!”
It was Choi Iseo, who had poked her head out.
“What are you doing?”
“The kids asked me to play some bass. I was playing a few songs I’ve practiced on my own recently.”
With the backing track left to YouTube, Choi Iseo was only singing and playing bass. As the students cheered her on, the classroom fell silent in an instant when Ha Suyeon suddenly barged in.
Suyeon had certainly changed a great deal. Even so, the students could not help reacting automatically, because the image they had seen while living in the Jongno area over the past few years was still deeply etched in their minds.
“Suyeon… did you play guitar too?”
A first-year student who had been listening to the music in the second-year classroom because she was friends with Iseo asked the question somewhat timidly. Suyeon answered by silently nodding.
‘I guess she doesn’t know who I am.’
Suyeon, who had lost her memory, generally remained expressionless in most situations. But Iseo now thought she could read Suyeon’s expressions, at least a little, and spoke to her.
“Do you know this song?”
“Um… I know it, more or less.”
“How?”
Iseo was stunned by the answer to her own question. Suyeon furrowed her brow as if Iseo were being pathetic and replied,
“Isn’t it the song you’ve been advertising day in and day out, begging me to listen because it was so good and begging me to try playing it at least once? My ears were bleeding, so I learned it by ear and played it once or twice. I also heard the beginning earlier.”
“Oh… then will you play it with me?”
At Iseo’s words, the students cautiously began making little oohing sounds. Suyeon let out a deep sigh and took her guitar out of its hard case. An impromptu performance had suddenly formed, and cheers broke out once again.
Iseo smiled energetically. A craze for Japanese music had suddenly begun among teenagers these days. Since that was where Iseo’s own roots lay, she had been happily practicing in the hope of getting a chance to show it to other people.
Then came the music performance assessment.
Iseo brought her bass as if she had no choice, received a perfect score, and adopted an attitude of, “Since I brought my bass, I guess I have no choice but to play a few songs~,” before performing for the students. They got quite excited when she played a few songs that seemed as though they belonged on TikTok.
The song they had just requested was also one that appeared on TikTok quite often, but it was a song Iseo liked as well. There was just one slight drawback…
“I don’t know it that well, so I’ll just play rhythm for everything except the highlight. I can wing the rest with some ad-libs, right?”
Suyeon nodded at Iseo’s words and adjusted her tone.
Amid students trying to figure out what was going on and others getting ready to film with their phones in hand… Iseo nodded when she saw that Suyeon had finished preparing to play.
Then the guitar began.
As the students stared in amazement at hands that could not possibly be described as “just playing around,” Iseo came in with the bass at the right moment and began to sing.
Just as she was about to add the following rap section,
a slightly garbled mumble came from beside her.
It shocked Iseo so badly that she almost forgot to sing. Ha Suyeon was rapping. And to a song like this, no less.
‘No, that isn’t rap.’
Listening closely, she realized it was only mumbling that sounded like rap. Well, of course. There was no way Suyeon had memorized something like that.
Thinking that, Iseo continued slapping. Even though all that could be heard was guitar, bass, and the clapping and stomping of the students keeping time…
The sound felt full, as though a band were performing right there. This time, the source of that sound was Suyeon’s hands, which were delivering the rap with surprising accuracy. Her guitar moved back and forth without pause, as if she had four hands, never leaving the sound empty.
“Wow… is this for real?”
As the performance continued, the more musically sensitive students realized something. Even while moving that frantically, she never buried the bass at all. If anything, she kept highlighting the slightly inexperienced bassist’s strengths and smoothly covering her shortcomings.
As if to say she had long since parted ways with her former self—the one that monopolized every chance to look cool or beautiful…
And during the part that adorned the middle of the song,
Iseo unconsciously stopped singing and looked at Suyeon.
Suyeon looked back at Iseo, too, continuing to play guitar with a look that asked why she had stopped singing.
The mood turned strange for a fleeting instant. Looking awkward, Iseo started singing again and offered a faint smile.
* * *
“That was fun.”
“I don’t know…”
Myeongjeon pried Iseo off as she clung to him. If he had been wearing a gig bag, he could have simply pushed her away with his hand, but he couldn’t do that because he had needlessly brought the hard case.
“It’s heavy! Back off a little. I already feel like I’m dying because of these two.”
“Want me to carry one?”
At that, Iseo, who had been resting her chin on Myeongjeon’s shoulder, snatched up his suitcase.
“No, just give it back. I called a taxi anyway. It’ll be here in a few minutes.”
“Oh~ A rich girl, as expected. I guess I’ll have to walk home.”
“Want a ride?”
“No, I’ll walk and count it as exercise. It’s not that heavy, anyway…”
At that, Myeongjeon looked at Iseo. Ha Suyeon was tall for a girl herself, but this girl seemed to grow taller every time he saw her. She seemed to be growing in more ways than one…
Myeongjeon coughed for no reason, and Iseo looked at him as if wondering what was wrong. In the slight silence that followed, a ringtone sounded.
“You… should change something like that. Your ringtone, at least…”
“It isn’t bothering me. Do I really have to change it?”
As the iPhone’s default ringtone rang, Myeongjeon set down the hard case for a moment and answered. The voice on the other end belonged to a familiar man.
“Student Suyeon! This is Lim Junhong. Is now a good time to talk?”
“Yes. I’m on my way home right now. What’s the matter?”
“Um, you know how we held that memorial concert a little while ago? I don’t know if you remember, but someone came then. Did you happen to greet him? Anyway, that person said he really enjoyed your performance and wanted to give you a present, and then…”
“Yes?”
Wondering what this sudden talk of a present was about, Myeongjeon made an incredulous face. But in an instant, that expression changed into one of delight.
“He says he found a Binson Echorec—and not just any one, but the one used by Teacher Seo Myeongjeon… He’d like to talk to you about it. Would you be able to visit today?”
“I’ll come!! Thank you!! I’m coming right now!!”
Hearing Myeongjeon’s ecstatic voice—something she rarely ever heard—Iseo startled and stepped back. But he had no time to worry about that. He had to go find his equipment immediately.
“Uh, where are you going?”
“My equipment! I’m going to get my equipment.”
“Can I come too?”
At Iseo’s words, Myeongjeon looked at her face. She looked absolutely brimming with curiosity. Well, there was no reason she couldn’t come…