Chapter 6
“Suyeon. I have a favor to ask… Please, can you keep it a secret?”
“What?”
“Um…”
At that question, Iseo’s thoughts screeched to a halt. Did she not know? Didn’t she know that Iseo didn’t want anyone to find out? But if she thought about it that way, maybe saying something like, “Don’t tell anyone around you!” would only make her tell everyone around her. No, perhaps she had even calculated that and was deliberately pretending not to know, planning to spread the rumor at school later?
“What am I not supposed to tell?”
“… It’s, um, that I do music.”
After going through all those convoluted thoughts, Iseo finally confessed. Watching her, Myeongjeon thought, ‘What is she even talking about…?’
“You mean, don’t tell anyone you do music?”
“Yeah.”
At that, Suyeon looked away for a moment, then nodded. Perhaps relieved, Iseo let out a deep sigh.
“But why don’t you want me to tell anyone?”
“Well… It’s, um, kind of embarrassing, isn’t it? If people hear, ‘She does music!’ It’s embarrassing, and I’m not even very good.”
Myeongjeon thought he understood what she meant.
He didn’t sympathize in the least, but he had had students say things like that. Something along the lines of, ‘People made fun of me for playing guitar when I wasn’t even good, so I came to learn properly.’
‘But for someone who says that, her outfit really isn’t helping…’
Coming all the way here in a school uniform—one that showed off her figure, no less—didn’t that undermine her argument? Then again, his students had been like that too. To him, they were kids practically screaming, ‘I play guitar, so please notice me!’ only to be hurt when people noticed them and ignored them.
Thinking, Teenagers are all like that…, Myeongjeon opened his mouth.
“Kids will always find something to nitpick and tease you about. I don’t think you need to worry about that.”
At Myeongjeon’s words, Iseo briefly thought, What is he talking about? You and those kids are the same age. Why is he talking as if he isn’t one of them?
“I’m the one who’s bothered by it. I really am not very good.”
“No one is good at something from the start.”
“… Anyway!”
The more they talked, the stranger things seemed to get, so Iseo hurriedly cut off the conversation.
“Never mind me. Why are you here, Suyeon?”
“To buy an amp.”
“An amp? You play music too?”
“… Something like that.”
Only then did Iseo realize why Suyeon had so readily agreed to keep her secret.
As far as Iseo knew, the connection between Suyeon and music had been no greater than the connection between a high school girl and a coin karaoke booth. But now Suyeon suddenly played music? Enough to come to Nakwon Arcade to buy an amp?
“What! You and I are in the same boat. Ah! I was worried for nothing. I was freaking out thinking everyone around me was going to find out.”
Maybe because her tension had finally drained away, Iseo suddenly smacked Suyeon on the shoulder. Even though he had promised to keep quiet, Myeongjeon found being hit rather unfair.
* * *
“So, what do you play, Suyeon?”
“Guitar.”
“Guitar? What kind? PRS? John Suhr? Cort? Or Gopherwood? Squier? I hear HEX guitars are cheap and good these days. Did you buy one of those?”
With all the good, inexpensive guitars coming out these days—this one was good, and that one was good—Iseo chattered on excitedly, leaving Myeongjeon with a headache. Why was she so talkative? Were high school girls naturally this talkative?
“Fender.”
“… Fenderrrr?! You don’t mean you got a Strat mixed up, do you?”
“It’s a Fender.”
Iseo was dumbfounded. Judging by the fact that Suyeon didn’t even have an amp, she clearly hadn’t been playing for long. But a Fender! Iseo had heard that Suyeon’s family was well-off, but buying a Fender as a beginner guitar was…
“A Mex Fender? A Japanese Fender? Don’t tell me it’s a U.S. Fender?”
It wasn’t any of the three; it was a Custom Shop model. But why ask about details like that? Myeongjeon gave Iseo a brief look, then didn’t answer.
Iseo, however, saw things in the exact opposite way.
‘Well, I guess it can’t be helped~ Beginners don’t know much about these things.’
Iseo had wanted to become friends with Suyeon from the beginning. So she had met her once through a mutual friend, but Suyeon had seemed irritated that day and acted completely differently from now, so they had never become properly close.
After that, they had no reason to grow closer, and Iseo had been unable to bridge the distance.
‘It looks like she’s only started learning music recently, too. Maybe I can get close to her if I teach her? I should start by explaining things like this.’
“You must have bought it without knowing much. A Mex Fender means a Mexican Fender, a Japanese Fender is a Japanese Fender, and a U.S. Fender is an American Fender. There used to be only American Fenders, but now there are Japanese and Mexican ones too. The difference between U.S., Japanese, and Mexican Fenders is…”
Blah, blah, blah. Iseo kept firing off unsolicited explanations. Myeongjeon wanted to cover his ears, but he couldn’t.
“So, in the end, guitars are divided between Gibson and Fender. Fender has the Telecaster and Stratocaster, while Gibson has the Les Paul and SG. You could call those the four main pillars. From there, Gibson has the Flying V and Explorer, while Fender has the Jazzmaster and Jaguar…”
The unsolicited lecture continued. Worse, much of it was inaccurate, and Myeongjeon’s ears were starting to suffer. No matter how little someone knew about an instrument’s history, could they really say the Telecaster was the first electric guitar?
To plug her mouth, even if only a little, Myeongjeon asked a question.
“What do you play?”
“Me? Bass. I play a Jazz Bass!”
“Then what did you come here to buy?”
“An EQ. I thought I’d try one this time.”
Then silence returned.
After that, the gates of hell opened once again.
“Oh! You might not know. An EQ is…”
* * *
“Welcome.”
“Hello~”
The owner greeted them. Unlike Iseo, who cheerfully returned the greeting, Myeongjeon merely gave a careless nod and looked toward the amps first. What he needed to buy, for now, was an amp for home use.
“What are you looking for?”
“An amp for home use.”
“Then something like a Marshall or Vox would probably suit you.”
As he spoke, the shop owner pointed to practice amps priced around a hundred thousand won.
“Those would be fine too~ Beginners usually start with something inexpensive.”
“Exactly. You don’t need anything expensive at first.”
He shook his head.
The recommended amps were, quite literally, amps for beginners to practice with at home. They were meant for making sound and learning what effects did, without considering recording or live performances.
They were of no use to Myeongjeon. Practice was important, but so was playing live. He could never get a satisfying sound in a live setting with an amp like that.
“Do you have any good dual-channel amp heads? Something with a tube sound. I’ll be buying a cabinet too, and please have the cabinet delivered.”
“Hmm… Sounds like you’re looking for something pretty particular. Yamaha used to make one, I think. Let me see if we have one in stock.”
As the owner scratched his head and searched for something, Iseo approached Myeongjeon.
“Who told you that you needed an amp like that?”
“No one in particular. I just need one.”
At Myeongjeon’s answer, Iseo was momentarily at a loss for words.
‘You needed a real amp, not an amp for practicing at home? Then does that mean you actually know something about guitars?’
Thinking about it, she remembered how Suyeon had been showing off about Mex Fenders, Japanese Fenders, U.S. Fenders, EQs, and effects since earlier. If she was looking for equipment like that, she must already know all the basics of guitar…
While Iseo felt her face grow hot, Myeongjeon accepted the Yamaha amp. It had the dual channels he wanted and reproduced a tube sound through virtual modeling.
With only the price negotiation left, Myeongjeon glanced at Iseo. Judging by her flushed face, she seemed to have realized what she had done…
* * *
“You could’ve told me.”
After making the purchase and arranging for delivery, Iseo said that as they left. Myeongjeon merely smiled.
“Then I’ll be going…”
“What are you talking about? You waited for me, so now you have to wait for me too.”
With her face red, Iseo said that, then walked ahead and began looking around the shop. Myeongjeon couldn’t leave her there and walk away, so he could only follow.
Meanwhile, Iseo boldly entered the shops, saying things like, “Can I try this?” and began trying out nearly every EQ she could get her hands on.
‘They usually wouldn’t let someone do that…’
She obviously looked like someone who had no intention of buying—someone who would simply try things out here and then buy them online at home. And yet, somehow, the atmosphere made the shopkeepers say, “Go ahead, try it! Try it!”
Myeongjeon watched the demonstrations without thinking much of them, then realized how it was happening. A short, tight skirt that looked like it might reveal something, thighs left plainly exposed, and the shop owners’ eyes raking over her.
‘Shameless. Absolutely shameless…’
What were these old men doing to a girl young enough to be their granddaughter? No, perhaps it was intentional. People said kids these days were open about that sort of thing. Maybe she knew she could benefit from dressing like this, and had chosen the outfit for that reason… That was what Myeongjeon thought. It was a thought very much in keeping with his age.
Had they visited about eight places like that? Iseo continued playing the bass while the shopkeepers stole sidelong glances at her thighs. Myeongjeon was looking around the inside of the shop without a thought when…
Something caught Myeongjeon’s eye.
“Huh.”
It was the exact same model as the one Myeongjeon had used: a Sovtek Big Muff fuzz pedal. The Civil War model, no less. And its condition was remarkably clean and well-maintained, just like the one he had used…
‘No, that’s mine.’
On the day Myeongjeon died, the fuzz pedal on his pedalboard—the one he used most often—had been that very pedal. It looked exactly the same. There was a heavy metal scratch beneath the switches, and half-faded traces of the settings he had written in marker beneath the knobs.
“Oh! This young lady knows her effects. A Big Muff! A classic. This one in particular…”
Hearing the sound he had made, the shop owner came over and picked up the pedal.
“It only came in recently. This is a Sovtek Big Muff. The owner of Electro-Harmonix, the original maker of the Big Muff, also founded Sovtek, which is why Sovtek was able to produce it. This version in particular is called the Civil War. It has the same circuitry as the first Sovtek Big Muff, but the design is quite unique…”
The shop owner rambled on about the history of the effect pedal. But not a single word reached Myeongjeon’s ears.
There was only one thing Myeongjeon heard.
“It only came in recently.”
“Excuse me, sir.”
“Yes?”
“By any chance, did anything else come in with this?”
“Ah… no. Were you looking for something?”
Instead of answering, Myeongjeon shook his head and fell into thought.
‘Then does that mean my pedalboard is currently out there somewhere on the market? It wasn’t thrown away? Then can I get my old setup back?’