Chapter 6: Faster 3
“Are you Jo Yunjae?”
“Yes.”
After replying, I carefully glanced around the principal’s room that was filled with expensive-looking things. To the left, teacher Ku Mingi was standing with a smile and there was a massive table in front of me.
On top of the chair where the sun was shooting its rays at, the principal was sitting down while sparkling his clean forehead.
So bright…
When I barely held up my eyes that threatened to close themselves, the principal opened his mouth.
“Right… The reason why I’ve called you is… ah did you want something to eat, maybe this?”
“Thank you.”
With a bow, I received the red ginseng candy he was holding out and it seemed somewhat familiar. I glanced and found out that it was the same brand Song Mirae had given me.
“…”
Well, it wasn’t that surprising as I had already known about it. I was inspecting the principal who didn’t share many similarities with Song Mirae, when the principal finally opened his mouth.
“Hmm… Jo Yunjae… It feels like it’s my first time seeing you… but you look somewhat familiar as well. Are you from Future Middle School by any chance?”
“No, I am not.”
“Mhmm…”
The principal touched his chin for a bit.
“I’ve called you here because I wanted to check something. It was because… teacher Ku Mingi here had been complimenting you a lot, saying that you’re so great.”
That teacher Ku Mingi had said that? About me?
Blankly, I was blinking my eyes when the principal’s quiet gaze pierced down on me.
“But… I am not too sure about it. You’re talented? But how can I believe that? You haven’t participated in concours, nor is there a video from the past. The only thing we got to see was from the Improvement Concert, just that one song.”
As I continued listening to the continuous words of the principal, my brain slowly began working.
Check, was it? But why check?
There was no reason for a principal to know about the skills of one specific student because a principal is a person that operates the school not someone that teaches. Then what’s the reason that the principal had to check my skills? Is there something special…
Thinking up to here, something sparked.
Don’t tell me…
‘Are they planning on giving me a scholarship?’
The thoughts were all aligned together.
Right, back then during the lesson, teacher Ku Mingi somewhat liked what I did. Maybe he had talked to the principal about giving out a scholarship because of that, and since the principal couldn’t give a scholarship out to someone he didn’t even know, he called me like this… After organising my thoughts, I pointed my sparkling eyes at the principal.
This was an opportunity. Quickly, I read his facial expressions before opening my mouth rigidly.
“My skills. How do you want me to prove them?”
I could see his eyes twitching. His eyes that seemed to say, ‘this kid?’ was soon coloured by slight interest and the bored expression had been replaced by a smile.
Good, at least I had given him a good impression, so now, all I had to do was to just prove my skills. Feeling nervous, I stared intently at him and the principal with his lips raised opened his mouth.
“Prove huh… Right, I can believe once you’ve proven them. I’ve seen the video just then and… your singing skills were not bad.”
After tapping on the table, the principal erased his expression.
“But it’s lacking. There are several of those talents in our school as well. Normal and average… talents that do not stand out that much you see.”
“…”
I heavily nodded and listened in. Indeed, although the Improvement Concert wasn’t bad, it was not enough to receive a scholarship. There were several kids similar to me even after a rough count. Seeing me admit that fact, the principal shifted his body forward while interlocking his fingers.
“But according to teacher Ku Mingi… you have an extremely special talent – a talent that no-one else has. If you could show that unique aspect of yourself… wouldn’t that be enough of a proof?”
A talent no-one else has – a unique aspect of myself.
He was telling me to show him a specialty that could only be explained as ‘Jo Yunjae’s’ and not something that any one of the countless opera singers in the world had. Closing my eyes, I thought.
“…”
I wasn’t too sure.
I had never even considered such a thing. Before the time travel, I was busy just learning singing and even after coming back, I was a severely lacking high school student, so there was no leisure to find a specialty of mine.
But now, I had to prove that I was a special existence. Suddenly I could hear the surrounding voices.
“… Mr. Principal, haven’t I told you before, how great it is to change a vocalisation in merely 2 weeks? Just by listening to the recording during the lesson you could easily tell the difference in vocalisation…”
“Well. I’m not too sure. Even if you say 2 weeks… so what about it? Singing a Mozart song in this concert and a Schubert song in another concert… if it’s like that, isn’t it better to just have two different opera singers perform?”
“Just the mere fact that he is different from other opera singers is priceless. If he could grow further on from here…”
“No, that is way too lacking.”
Slowly, I opened my eyes and the principal’s cold gaze entered my vision. Looking down at me, the principal opened his mouth.
“At least he needs to reach a level where he could immediately change the vocalisation methods. Like a mask, freely whenever he wants. Right, faster than the eyes could see… like how the King of Masks changes faces.”
“…”
“Shouldn’t he be able to do at least that much to be called a special existence?”
Hearing his words, teacher Ku Mingi made a sullen expression.
“Sure, that may happen somewhere down the line but right now, he hasn’t even practiced…”
“I’ll do it.”
I could feel the gazes of the two gathering on me and could see the smiling expression on the principal and the crumpled face of teacher Ku Mingi. His face appeared to ask why I was creating more trouble unnecessarily.
“What was that?”
But… in life there were times when one must step up – times when we can’t just take steps back, while reading the mood. I judged that this was that very moment. Grabbing onto the empty packaging of chocolate in my pocket, I opened my mouth.
“I’ll do that, changing the mask thing.”
“…”
Seeing the two closing their mouths, I breathed in slowly. I could feel the familiar blob of air passing through the throat, and the breath being filled into the lungs from the pressure given by the diaphragms.
It was an all too familiar process now, and in the middle of that, I imagined.
‘Let’s sing.’
Immediately, the space necessary for vocalisation had been created following my command. The oral cavity became relaxed and the larynx was lowered relaxedly. From there the vocal cords stuck together closely and the tongue was comfortably placed below.
Not angular and free, teacher Ku Mingi’s vocalisation.
“Ah–…”
When I lightly made a sound, a soft voice started coming out. Up to here was easy, as it was a vocalisation method I had fixed on to my body through more than 2 weeks of my time. Whatever song I sang would naturally flow out with this vocalisation.
‘But if I returned it to the past?’
I forced out the memories of the past.
The larynx was lowered to the extreme as the oral cavity created a large cave-like space. To that, I cemented it and fixed it on the spot while feeling the muscles vibrate.
‘It’s a bit hard after doing it in a while.’
As expected, the body had forgotten the previous vocalisation and it was hard to consciously fix it at the spot. Singing in this situation would be no different from dancing with a cup of water on the head.
But I had to do it.
I fixed it there with clenched teeth before suddenly changing it to teacher Ku Mingi’s method. Immediately the muscles moved freely and a comfortable feeling spread past the throat.
A somewhat painful and a warm feeling. Analysing that closely, I etched into my brain the differences of the two vocalisation methods.
Good. Judging from how the muscle inside the throat is slightly aching, I used to rely more on this muscle huh. The velum has to be raised slightly higher and the throat has to be widened a bit more…
After repeating this process for around 2 times, I started to understand some things. The principal that had been staring at my face with boredom opened his mouth.
“Not yet?”
“I will do it now.”
The time given wasn’t infinite it seemed. Quickly, I changed to teacher Ku Mingi’s vocalisation and opened my mouth just like that.
“L’aurora di binaco vestita!”
The morning song.
It was a song I had practised enough to stamp it into my body and even without much control, it flowed out naturally from within. After playing the song like that, I thought about what to do later – how to sing after changing the vocalisation.
The brain worked crazily.
‘If I just sang it with teacher Kwak Jungsoo’s vocalisation… it becomes too dark. I need to consciously make it brighter.’
‘This part here. Although I sung over it softly, if I sang it with the previous vocalisation method, it would be better to put emphasis here.’
‘Off-beat. It’ll be better to put more power into singing.’
Even whilst all that thinking, I sang without missing a beat… and a smile started to bloom from my lips.
Ah, this is interesting.
Right, it was similar to a maths puzzle. Forming equations while comparing the two vocalisation methods. When this number increased this would be the answer and for this equation, the answer would be this when the number decreased – something like that.
All those analyses that had been accumulated in the head were added to one before being reformed as a perfect song. A wide world that I couldn’t discover because I was too busy singing my own song was laid bare over the horizon.
“Ove tu sei nasce–!”
Of course, it was slightly different from maths. Unlike maths that had only one given answer, there were dozens, hundreds and thousands of ways of singing one song. Even the method I found wouldn’t be perfect as it was a song made from my imagination. However, this was still my own song and feeling my own development I felt my chest being filled up with satisfaction.
“L’amor!”
The last verse, but this was in fact the most important moment.
‘Before I forget everything I thought of, I’ll sing it.’
Flashing my eyes open, I changed to teacher Kwak Jungsoo’s vocalisation method without a single hesitation. In the blink of an eye, like a mask, however I wanted and whenever.
Right.
Like the King of Masks.
“L’aurora di bianco vestita!”
The first verse. Feeling the nostalgic air pressure erupting out of my mouth, I felt joy.
Ah, I could hear my voice that had accompanied me for 20 years. I was so glad that I almost broke out into laughter.
Thinking to change a vocalisation that had left its marks on the body in merely 2 weeks… I was a fool myself. Forcing a stop on the lips that were raising themselves up, I put the heavy resonance in and sang just like that.
“Carezza de’ fiori lo stuol!”
My song that had pierced through the resonating chambers rang throughout the principal’s room, as it was spread to and reflected from every corner. Due to that fierce ringing, I could feel the objects inside the principal’s room rattling and quivering.
Overwhelming resonance. This was the essence of teacher Kwak Jungsoo’s vocalisation. With that resonance that could never be made with mere copying, I proved myself.
“Ove tu sei nasce–!”
Sound that could only be made if the vocalisation was totally different filled and roared throughout the room. In that state, I glanced around and found the principal staring at me with circular eyes while teacher Ku Mingi looked at me with a dumbfounded expression.
Meeting their gazes head-on, I hit the last note.
“L’amor!”
.
..
…
The song had finished. Massaging my throat and checking the situation, I gave a nod. As I thought, suddenly using teacher Kwak Jungsoo’s vocalisation had startled the muscles a fair bit. On top of that, I couldn’t say it was flawless… and once would be fine but doing it too much would be quite taxing.
After finishing checking and raising my head, I saw the principal in deep contemplation.
Uh… isn’t the reaction a bit weird?
With a nervous expression, I inspected the principal touching his chin until finally he opened his lips.
“…What were you doing?”
“Sorry?”
The principal formed a frown.
Ah, did I make a mistake in the vocalisation? Did it only go well in my head; strange in real life? With a flinch I pulled my head back like a turtle when the principal added more words.
“What have you been doing”
“Um…”
“Where were you hiding and why did you appear only now!”
Huh?
When I made a dumbfounded expression, the principal stood up from his seat and approached me. His face was getting relaxed realtime and appeared to be extremely happy. After coming near me in almost a rush, he tapped my shoulders and broke out into a loud laughter.
“Uhahahat! Iya, that was good. Great talent indeed. To think another one of such talent had appeared. Was there a period when there were this many talented students gathered at our school, Mr Ku?”
Teacher Ku Mingi replied with a grin.
“Who knows. At least I have never seen it.”
“Me neither. Another interesting friend apart from Kim Wuju and Lee Suh-ah!”
I who had grasped the rough change in atmosphere barely stopped the smile from spreading to my entire face.
What was with this atmosphere; wasn’t this way too good?
Right, it came out better than I thought when I was singing. Even I found out for the first time that I was able to change the vocalisation instantaneously like that. Was it easy to return to because it was a method I had been using for a long time?
In any case, the reactions were quite positive. If it’s like this, wouldn’t I be able to get scholarships…?
I was stealing glances at the principal and teacher Ku Mingi with expectation, when the principal finally opened his mouth.
“Right, a student like this has more than enough qualifications.”
Ohh.
“Didn’t I say it already, that he was a good student?”
Oohhh.
“Well… even you didn’t know he was this good though right? Uhahaht!”
Ooohhhh.
“You’re right. To think he was up to this level… then are we adding him to the list?”
List? The scholarship list?
While I was flickering my eyes, the principal talked about something odd.
“Sure, sure. Of course. Now, you. Are you ready to meet Mr Timothy Dickson? Well, even though I say that, there’s a long time left until we can though. Uhahahat!”
“…Sorry?”
My thoughts froze for a bit.
Just then… what did he say?
Timothy Dickson? The conductor of Met?
…Are they allowing me to meet such a person?