Chapter 5: Softly 9
Lying on her bed, Lee Suh-ah looked at the windows. Through the curtains, she could see moonlight creeping through. It was night-time after everything was done – one of the only times she could relax.
After staring outside for an unknown period of time, she suddenly remembered everything that had happened today. Today – the eventful day had begun with watching Han Dasom and Song Mirae’s war of nerves. After that was Song Mirae’s request to introduce her to Jo Yunjae; followed by the sudden approach from Jo Yunjae and entering the practice room together; and Jo Yunjae’s song.
Then, the song she sang…
“Uuut Jo Yunjae!”
Grabbing her hair, Lee Suh-ah let out a scream while her fingers and toes curled just from thinking back on it. After relieving her anger by slamming the bed, she closed her eyes tight and reflected on the song.
Let me weep, Lascia ch’io pianga.
It was a soprano aria by Hendel in the opera ‘Rinaldo’. A song that perhaps became more famous thanks to the movie, Farinelli.
There was no real reason as to why she had picked that song – she just suddenly wanted to sing it.
She didn’t practise it, nor did she analyse it carefully. Besides, she felt that singing a song she had practised would be giving away information to Jo Yunjae.
It was a song she had sung with such a casual heart, but the result that had returned was definitely nothing casual.
“Haa…”
Heaving out a deep sigh, she buried her face on the pillow, and from her dark vision appeared the expression Jo Yunjae had made.
That disappointed look.
Seeing that, which she had never seen before from his gaze, Lee Suh-ah was daunted.
‘You… are you doing it halfheartedly because you’re doing it with me? You can sing better right? Liven it up with feelings and don’t have it that flat.’
No, I wasn’t being halfhearted but I was singing it for the first time. It’s not unreasonable that I wasn’t able to analyse the feelings yet; aren’t you saying too much?
Mumbling things she couldn’t say in front of him due to her pride, Lee Suh-ah thought back on the advice that started to flood out.
The vocalisation habit is a bit weird; in that situation, this would be better; make your pronunciation clearer; although that’s what it says on the score, it’s often sung like this…
Words that she would hear from her teacher flowed out, but what was more frustrating was that they were all correct and that she could not deny any of them. While she was twisting her body thinking, I should’ve sung something I practised, a thought suddenly entered her head.
‘How does he know all that though?’
Thinking back, it was a bit weird.
Although the advice was good, they were too detailed. As if he had been inspecting her for a long time, he knew every detail about herself. He pointed out minor habits which would be impossible to tell after only hearing once so…
It did not make sense for him to have heard her sing a lot either and at most, it would be one time from the Improvement Concert. Jo Yunjae wasn’t from the Future Middle School so when would he have heard Lee Suh-ah’s solos?
‘Ah, those videos from middle school. Those were on the school website as well.’
She remembered that the school had uploaded several concert videos, but did he look up all that from every corner of the website? From that many people, he picked and analysed just herself? Why?
Don’t tell me… after thinking up to that point, Lee Suh-ah rubbed her overworked head on the pillow and got rid of her thoughts. Jo Yunjae was such a weird guy so she had to give up on trying to understand him.
Concluding as such, she turned and glanced towards the side.
Next to her,
She could see Song Mirae lying on the bed searching diligently through SNS.
It was because of her that I agreed to practising with Jo Yunjae. Thinking that and suddenly getting angry, she stabbed Song Mirae with her elbow.
“Ehew.”
“Ouch! Why?!”
Seeing Song Mirae complaining, Lee Suh-ah decided to report what had happened.
“I promised Jo Yunjae to practise together from today onwards.”
“Un? All of a sudden?”
“You told me to get closer to him.”
Sparkling her eyes, Song Mirae approached.
“Did you already start acting to introduce me? Ehew, our Suh-ah is really kind!”
“You only say that in situations like this.”
Awkwardly throwing away the hand that started patting her head, Lee Suh-ah opened and closed her mouth several times before deciding to just leave it closed.
…There was no need to explicitly say that it was Jo Yunjae that had approached first.
While Lee Suh-ah was being still like that, Song Mirae started pouring her with chatter. What’s his ideal type; what kind of girl does he like; food, drinks, music preference…
Lee Suh-ah listened on but soon found it bothersome and covered herself with a blanket.
“Ah I don’t know! I’m going to sleep.”
“Please ask him for me~ Jo Yunjae keeps on avoiding me, and ignores my messages sometimes!”
“How do I ask him things like ideal types!”
“What’s your mouth for huh?”
“It’s for singing.”
After bickering on for a bit, the two soon fell asleep in peace as if all that fight had been an illusion.
*
“Hi.”
I looked forward.
Long hair, relaxed eyes and attires that reflected a somewhat delinquent-ish vibe.
Glancing at the green nameplate, I saw the name, ‘Yu Minji’ written on it and being green meant that she was from the second-grade. Checking up to there, I bowed my head in greeting.
“Hello.”
“Yu Minji.”
“I’m Jo Yunjae.”
Seeing us give greetings, teacher Ku Mingi nodded his head and opened his mouth.
“I’ve explained it before but let me introduce you officially. This is Yu Minji from the second-grade composing department, and this is Jo Yunjae from the freshmen opera department.”
When I gave another nod, the teacher continued his words.
“The reason why I’ve gathered you two is because student Jo Yunjae had accepted the cooperation with student Yu Minji. Yes?”
Making eye contact with the teacher, I thought.
Cooperation. The composing department of Future Arts High, of course, majored in composing songs. Learning about composing their own songs and by actually making them, they would show results – that was their main focus.
In other words, like how we performed songs at the Improvement Concert, they had to present the songs they composed. But although they could compose just fine, how would they present songs if it required several performers?
Naturally, they had to look for the required number of performers themselves. They could either ask the same students, or find it themselves somehow and that was why this upperclassman was looking for me that desperately.
Thinking up to here, I nodded and replied.
“Yes, I will.”
Glancing over, teacher Ku Mingi made a smile and continued his words.
“Good, the tenor will be done by student Jo Yunjae… student Yu Minji, did you find the other performer?”
“Not yet.”
“Well, if its student Yu Minji, you would be able to find it. You’re a great student after all.”
I looked at Yu Minji-sunbae who was calm in front of the compliments and when our eyes met, she formed a faint smile.
Yu Minji.
In fact, after receiving teacher Ku Mingi’s suggestion, I looked into it by myself for a few days. Since I from the past had never received any request for cooperation from any composers… I knew nothing about the composing department.
And thanks to asking here and there for every bit of information, I found out that Yu Minji-sunbae was quite a famous person. She was a person that had rampaged through the composer concours which were limited in numbers and had entered the Future Arts High last year as the top student.
While I was lost in my thoughts, teacher Ku Mingi continued his talk.
“I’ve mentioned it before, but it would definitely be a good chance for student Jo Yunjae as well. Seeing the process of a composer writing a song and receiving direct feedback would give you plenty of opportunities to learn.”
Looking directly at my eyes, the teacher added.
“In the end, the one writing the song is the composer – if you could remember that, you will be able to become a good opera singer.”
The one writing the song is the composer…
I heavily gave a nod.
Indeed, because I had never cooperated with a composer before, it would definitely be a great experience and would at least be more helpful than the school lessons we got every day.
And after raising my skills like that, would I be able to compete with Kim Wuju during the prac test… I was thinking that when teacher Ku Mingi opened his mouth with a grin.
“By the way student Yu Minji, did you hear that student Kim Sukwon had chosen student Kim Wuju as his performer?”
“No.”
…Un? What?
Seeing me make a dumbfounded expression, the teacher added the final blow.
“On top of that student Yu Minji and student Kim Sukwon’s presentations were on the same day… this would be a fun competition.”
“Oh, okay.”
Blankly, I stood there and tried breaking down their conversation.
[Yu Minji-sunbae — Me]
[Kim Sukwon-sunbae — Kim Wuju]
These two upperclassmen of the composing department chose their performers and they would be presenting their songs on the same day…
“…”
Stiffly, I thought.
So does that mean I have to compete with Kim Wuju in singing?
*
Because time was still necessary until I could cooperate with the composing department, we went our own ways straight after that. Songs weren’t made in a flash and because the presentation still had more than a month left, there was still time.
“Sigh…”
But still, to think that I would be going against Kim Wuju this early. There were still two months until the prac test so I was bit relaxed and yet…
There was no other way than to practise hard. With that thought in mind, I continued the practices with Lee Suh-ah.
The practice with Lee Suh-ah – it was actually quite easy to get. After the first day, I just had to reach out to the sitting Lee Suh-ah and calmly say let’s practise, and she would follow after a sigh as if she had no other choice.
And after going to the practice rooms, she would sit with her blazing eyes to strictly locate my problems while I would point out her mistakes and the practice would end with us bickering for a bit.
With a few days of repetition of such training, I was able to develop quite a bit.
“L’amor!”
Glaring at me who had finished singing with the eyes of an eagle, Lee Suh-ah clicked her tongue before turning her head. It meant that there was nothing for her to say – that there were no more problems with the vocalisation, because if there were, she would try her all into teasing me with it.
Making a grin, I checked the state of my body.
The throat had no problems and the stomach was fine as well. On top of that, mental fatigue was a lot less so despite singing the same morning song, I was fine this time unlike before.
With only a few days, I felt like I had developed a lot.
“The vocalisation is decent but do you have to stop the breath at the end?”
“I can’t do anything about that yet.”
After receiving feedback on a few expressions, it was Lee Suh-ah’s turn to sing. Listening to her sing ‘Let me weep’, I thought of the aspects that I had to point out.
Pointing out her problems was very easy.
In the future, the genius soprano Lee Suh-ah who was proudly from Korea~ was so famous that you could see loads of videos from just opening youtube. Although she was a soprano, a voice part different from my own, after hearing that much there was no way that I wasn’t used to it.
Because I knew the future’s perfected Lee Suh-ah, all I had to do was compare the future Lee Suh-ah to the current Lee Suh-ah. There weren’t that many differences either and she only had a few minor issues that were there because of her still young age.
When I pointed those things out, she would fix them by the next day and gave me the enjoyment like I was growing beansprouts. The teacher in charge of Lee Suh-ah would really enjoy teaching her. Was it teacher Hong Yoojin?
“E che sospiri la liberta.”
Staring silently at Lee Suh-ah sing a song that could now somewhat ring the heart, I slowly opened my mouth.
“Well done.”
“This much is nothi…”
“Well done but, don’t you still think the first note is a bit lacking? Put more feeling into it. Imagine yourself as a princess locked away in a tower – you would love to escape even if you had to jump away right? Like that, like a dress fluttering in the wind, add a gentle vibrato that gradually gets stronger.”
“…What are you even saying.”
I could see Lee Suh-ah staring at me with an expression that said, what nonsense are you spouting. In fact, even I didn’t know what I was saying towards the end there.
Hmm… it really is too hard conveying that feeling with words. Because it was literally a feeling, it had to be felt rather than taught… Maybe it was just that she was unable to express it yet because of the lack of her life experience.
The feelings of a woman captured by the kingdom opposing her lover and asked for marriage by the king of that nation – how could the freshman Lee Suh-ah know that?
Probably only time would be able to solve it.
“Should we stop here for today?”
“Okay.”
Like that, we had ended the session and started packing up when Lee Suh-ah suddenly started acting weird. She would constantly steal glances at me, her hands couldn’t stay still and her feet would dance around.
Thinking, what, I stood still and finally, Lee Suh-ah started a conversation while acting nonchalant.
“Do you have anything after this?”
“Un? A lesson with teacher Ku Mingi.”
“Is that so? Right, teacher Kwak Jungsoo had gone overseas right.”
“Yeah.”
“…”
I took my bag out with a flick from the practice room and headed over to the lesson room when Lee Suh-ah rapidly followed from behind.
“R, right, are you really not going out with Han Dasom?”
“I told you, no.”
“Do you have any interest in girls in the first place?”
“I don’t think the answer would be a no.”
“Then what’s your ideal type…?”
With a halt, I glanced sideways and found Lee Suh-ah standing there with an extremely ashamed expression. What’s with that attitude when she was the one asking? Finding it bothersome, I quickly started walking again and gave a random reply.
“Anyone but you.”
Unable to control her expression, Lee Suh-ah opened her mouth in a growl.
“I also hate you okay? So annoying.”
“Did I say anything? Kukuk.”
“…Super short as well. Ah I like tall guys.”
“Me too. When they’re short like you, they look like kids so I don’t like them~”
“What do you mean short! There’s only a bit of difference between you and me!”
While we were bickering, we had reached the lesson rooms before we realised.
“I’m going to the lesson then.”
“…Ehew.”
Glaring at me for no reason, Lee Suh-ah flicked her body and walked outside. Why did she follow me if she was going the opposite way?
While tilting my head, I carried my hand over to the door.
The lesson room.
Now that I thought about it, it’s been a while since I showed teacher Ku Mingi my singing. Last week was when teacher Kwak Jungsoo had left and the lesson with teacher Ku Mingi was the week before that so… around 2 weeks?
The results of the practices were a lot better than I thought so he might be a bit surprised.
With a grin, I pulled the doorknob.