Chapter 6: Faster 8
“Ah, is that everything? Did I forget anything?”
“…Why’re you taking so many things when you’re going there to sing?”
“Hey, this is normal. We don’t know what they have in the waiting room so we need to be fully prepared.”
“…”
There were many things I wanted to say but I silently watched Noh Jusup with a blank expression. That alone was quite interesting.
Look at that; he went in and out of the bathroom checking his appearance and took his socks off seemingly disliking them before wearing them back on. He even unpacked the bag that had already been packed as various things came out from within.
A large bag of throat lozenges; a music sheet full of memos that appeared quite shabby and a clean music sheet to cover for that and a heat pack…
It’s nearing the end of April so what was the heat pack for?
While I was tilting my head, Noh Jusup had finally finished packing his bag and stood up from the seat.
“Huu… Good. Finished.”
“…Are you done now?”
“Yeah.”
Telling him to hurry up, we left the building and discovered that the outside of the dorms were already filled with students moving towards one direction. At the end of the rows that continued on like snakes were buses. Those were the buses borrowed by the school to take students to the [Future Central Music Concour].
“Why’s there so many?”
“The upperclassmen have their own concours as well.”
It was amazing no matter how one saw it. I was watching on like that from outside when the female friends ran out from their dorms.
“Hello!”
“Did you sleep well…?”
“So cold.”
“Aht. Yunjae!”
Chloe ran up with a bright smile and in her hand was an object I hadn’t seen before – a dull black camera. Besides, it wasn’t the palm-sized common camera and was a large one which appeared somewhat expensive.
“What is this?”
“This? A camera huhuh.”
I know it’s a camera.
With a grin, I watched Chloe and she seemed to be having the time of her life. She turned the camera left and right before taking pictures while ordering others to take poses… In the end, she pointed the camera at me and started asking questions in a strange tone as if she was a reporter.
“Hello Mr Yunjae, nice to meet you! It’s reporter Chloe here! Where are you headed to right noww?”
“…To school?”
“Ah~ Is Mr Yunjae perhaps participating in the Future… Cen… uuun… what was it… the concour?”
“No.”
“How does that reason come to be… un?”
Seeing Chloe confusing herself after tangling her words up, I turned towards the other girls.
“Why’s she like that all of a sudden with a camera?”
Han Dasom smiled bashfully while twirling her hair.
“I’m… actually in the photography club… I thought it would be good to use it in the contest so I brought it out.”
“The contest? Ah, you mean the UCC Contest?”
“Un… If we took pictures of us going to the concour it might be useful in the future as well. It could be interesting after editing or maybe we could make it like a vlog of our everyday life…”
She began explaining while sparkling her eyes and unexpectedly seemed to be interested in things like these. After hearing that, Chloe shot her hand up.
“Me, me, me! I want to take the video!”
“Really?”
“Yes yes!”
Chloe said that she just liked filming and wanted us to let her be in charge of it. She had no intention to participate in the contest and seemed to have no real interest in the prize either. Just like that, we somehow found ourselves a cameraman.
“Wah!”
… On a second thought, maybe just a thumbnail with a two shot of Han Dasom and Chloe would be enough to bring in the views. While I was thinking blankly, Chloe turned the camera lens towards Han Dasom.
“Miss Dasom! How are you feeling about the concour?”
“Un…? Nervous.”
“A lot?”
“…It’s my first time going on a concour.”
My eyes turned towards Han Dasom.
The first concour huh… Right, that made sense. Although it wasn’t clear why, Han Dasom had urgently come over to the opera department so it wasn’t strange for it to be her first concour.
How was I like in my first concour… thinking back, the past from 20 years ago surfaced in nostalgia.
“Ha…”
A concour that I had applied for by just copying the other kids after coming to the school. It was a repetition of trembling like crazy and failing mercilessly. Let alone the prize, I had never gone past the preliminaries before and that was how I had cut off all relations with concours during my high school.
What about Han Dasom in the past?
Although it wasn’t certain, she had probably been more nervous than me. During her freshman days, she most likely would’ve repeatedly failed at the prelims. Concours weren’t easy enough to advance with an ambiguous attitude.
‘But what about now?’
If it was now when the talents, that no-one had known about that had been buried deep below the low self-pride, had bloomed,
Wouldn’t something be different?
Seeing the pale, trembling Han Dasom, I opened my mouth.
“Dasom.”
“Un…?”
Rustling through my pocket, I took out a container full of chocolate and pushed it forward.
“The thing I borrowed before.”
After staring at the chocolates for a bit, Han Dasom carefully held it in her hands.
“Before…?”
“That time… when I went to the principal’s room. You try eating it as well. When I eat it before singing, I become relaxed.”
“Ah…”
She touched the container several times before raising her head.
“Thank you.”
Han Dasom made a bright smile.
*
It was empty.
“…”
Walking down the school corridor, I glanced around.
“Today’s lessons are…”
“I have an appointment at night…”
It really was empty. It wasn’t just me overthinking as there really were lots of absent people due to the concour. A place that was supposed to be filled with the rowdy voices of the students was silent without anyone there to realise it.
I walked in the midst of that silence.
“…”
Walking around the quiet school, a thought popped up in my head. Now that I thought of it, it felt like it had been a while since I was left alone at school like this.
Kim Wuju, Noh Jusup, Lee Suh-ah, Jun Shihyuk, Han Dasom and Chloe – it was obvious since everyone I knew had all gone out to the concour. It was obvious but… felt strange.
Think about it. I was taking the same subject, but the people that had always been there were no longer there.
That gap.
“Huu…”
I was heaving out a sigh when a grin appeared unknowingly.
Thinking back, it had always been like this before the time travel. As if I was a proud seeker of truth in music, and as if I had no interest in human relationships, I threw everything away and only sang.
And eventually, I had tumbled.
Was the current me better than my previous self?
“…”
I couldn’t be sure.
However, there was one thing I could be sure of and it was that… I had more precious people than before.
Creak.
When I shoved the door of the practice room open, the sunbae that had been sitting in front of the piano turned her head over. Her black hair that resembled a curtain scattered away as a white face appeared from within.
Her lips were raised to a smile.
“Hi.”
In that instant, the warm atmosphere filling my head was broken into pieces.
“…What is that”
“What?”
Don’t ‘what’ me. How can I not say anything after seeing you in that?
Glancing once again over Yu Minji, I let out a sigh unconsciously.
The grey baseball jacket that was placed roughly over her shoulders and the white Future Arts High sports uniform worn underneath, as well as the green wide-leg track pants. That was almost an insult against the Steinway piano standing in front of her.
“What’s wrong with your clothes…”
When I heaved a deep sigh, Yu Minji lowered her gaze and finally nodded her head.
“Ah right. I had PE just then.”
“And?”
“? So I came straight after that.”
“…Ah okay.”
Clicking my tongue, I shook my head. Green? Isn’t it a federal policy to wear black track pants?
In any case, I was sitting down murmuring to myself that she was a strange person but Yu Minji made a nonchalant expression and opened her mouth.
“Well in any case. Should we go straight to the main thing? I called you over today but it’s not for anything major and… I just wanted to do a little test.”
“A test?”
“Yeah.”
She flicked her body and smiled.
“When composing a song, think of it this way. I’m a coach and I brought in a pitcher. I know this guy’s pitch is fast but I need to know how fast, and the trajectory he makes in his pitches exactly to create a team-scale strategy right?”
Why baseball all of a sudden? I wasn’t sure why, but in other words, she wanted to know more about me I guess? Suddenly a thought popped up and I asked.
“Uh… didn’t you hear me sing before?”
“Once during the Improvement Concert, but that isn’t enough. Should I go through everything I know first?”
Folding her arms, Yu Minji glanced over my body once. A strange light entered her eyes.
“Jo Yunjae. The vocal range is from around C3 to B4. If we had to define the timbre, it would be a lirico spinto. Although diction is in the classic Italian style, the vocalisation is violent, almost as if he’s torturing his throat…”
Seeing me flinch, she stood up from the seat and walked around me slowly.
“On the other hand, the breath is helpless. It seems to have been less than half a year since he started actually practising and… although his technique is good it’s strange sometimes, perhaps due to a lack of practice.”
Stopping there, Yu Minji turned her gaze over.
“That’s roughly all I know. It’s all over the place and with this much, I can’t say that I have completely understood the instrument called you. That’s why…”
Her eyes flickered.
“I want to test.”
*
After hearing everything, I slowly nodded my head. In other words, it was this.
An inspection of my abilities.
Thinking up to that point, I said.
“Let’s do it.”
“Good.”
As I saw Yu Minji sitting back on the seat in front of the piano with a grin, I thought this was fine as well. I had perfected my vocalisation recently so there were plenty of things I had to check.
Although I had Lee Suh-ah checking it during our practices, everyone had different opinions so it was better to have more people listening to it. I was preparing my throat with a few ‘ah’s when Yu Minji flicked her head back.
“Should we start off with a few scales?”
“Yes.”
The ‘test’ of Yu Minji that continued from that point on was quite interesting. I did one scale up and down, before doing it again at a faster rate. Like that, she increased the speed of the notes until finally she began hitting the keys at a speed I couldn’t even follow.
“Ah ah ah— ah, I lost it.”
“Good. That’s fine. The vocalisation is stable, and none of the notes were wrong.”
Nodding her head, she went over to the next tests. She played around with the rhythm to test my ability to follow them, as well as testing my breath and pronunciation of vowels and consonants. Then she even made me do a messa di voce where I had to sing loud and gradually make that softer.
After all sorts of tests, my diaphragms ached from overwork and made me have something similar to a stomach ache.
“Haa… Haa… is that good enough?”
“I got the gist of it.”
…Another ‘gist’ and it might kill someone. Clenching my teeth I glared at Yu Minji and she who had written some stuff on her phone gave a few nods.
“Good. First… you changed the vocalisation method?”
“Yes.”
Tilting her head, Yu Minji stared at me like she was amazed and smiled.
“It’s weird for me to pretend to be a master in front of an opera major but… is it possible to change vocalisation that quickly? It hasn’t even been a month since the Improvement Concert.”
“Kuhum…”
When I stood there speechless with my mouth closed, she shrugged her shoulders.
“Well, I don’t mind since both the previous vocalisation and the current one is just up to personal preference and neither is worse than the other. The timbre is a bit lighter though, almost a lirico leggero? The level of perfection seems to be similar to before…”
After typing away on the phone, she raised her head.
“The rest… has all gone up tremendously. Rather than a month, it’s more like the result of 6 months of training. Both the control and the breath have gotten better.”
“Thank you.”
Tapping on the seat in thought, Yu Minji stared directly at me.
“In conclusion… the basics have reached the passing standards.”
Ohh.
To think that a day would come where I would be evaluated like this. Thinking back on the old body made tears fall. I was happy on my own when Yu Minji folded her arms.
“But I think a problem was created because of your change in vocalisation.”
“Sorry?”
“How do I explain this…”
After some thought, she stared at the ceiling.
“Do you read martial art novels?”
“…What?”
“Just listen and understand even if you don’t. So… previously your style was a heavy one that put your all into every single punch of yours and naturally your expression and techniques had developed towards that direction – to make the most out of your heaviness. More spinto… yeah.”
She gazed down with an expressionless look.
“But now you have changed to a light style with several jabs so you would need the expression and techniques that make the most out of that right? How to attack faster and how to aim the vitals better. That’s what you need to research on.”
She declared.
“Right now you… seem to be training in it somewhat but it is, lacking.”
“…”
My head was lowered unconsciously.
Right, it was a point that I had somewhat guessed. It was the same back when I was singing in front of the principal as well, and there were expressions that fit heaviness and ones that suited lightness.
The 20 years of experience that I had built up was heavily inclined towards heaviness.
“…”
I felt my throat burning up.
What do I have to do? How can I fix this point?
After deep contemplation, I raised my head in a flash and walked steadfast towards Yu Minji. Staring directly at her as the distance between us gradually shortened, I held tightly onto her shoulders.
“Sunbae.”
“U…un?”
On her eyes, there was a reflection of a gaze that appeared like a blaze.
“Do you have time in the future?”
“Uuun?”
Seeing her trembling gaze I tilted my head.
Why’s she like that?
I thought for a bit but decided to just say what I had in mind.
“Can you practise with me?”
Yu Minji slapped my hands away.