episode_0079

“Wow….”

Our newly built house is a two-story building.

The first floor is filled with the basic facilities of the mansion, such as a spacious living room, dining room, maid quarters, shower room, food storage, and various warehouses. The second floor consists of my and Kang Hwi’s bedroom and bathroom, a guest room, and a study.

Behind the mansion, there is a separate building connected to the first and second floors by a corridor and stairs. Most of the convenience facilities are concentrated here.

A personal movie theater where any video can be viewed in high definition on a high-resolution screen.

A swimming pool where ten people can easily swim and a small water slide.

A small concert hall with a grand piano are all located here.

The concert hall can accommodate about two hundred people, which is a quarter of the size of a regular concert hall. However, it is an unbelievable scale for a normal household.

“Isn’t this just a hall with seats?”

According to Chaewon’s faint memory, when she was six years old, she used a hall of this size when she possessed the genius of the piano and performed in front of Min Seokhyun’s acquaintances.

“Try to remember. We played the piano together here.”

“…Hmm.”

Jung Siwoo, lost in deep thought with his chin in his hand. The look of someone trying to find an answer soon softened.

“I think that’s right. It was similar to here.”

“It’s chilling how accurately they recreated our house.”

Although it’s a bit awkward to bring it up in the midst of a casual conversation.

Siwoo, isn’t he amazing?

I equate Min Chaewon and myself with our house, but I don’t have any intention of teasing. Due to my stubborn brain, I’ve already started to differentiate myself from Min Chaewon.

“Anyway, sit down.”

“…Okay. Let’s get started.”

Siwoo sat on the piano chair, and I leaned against the piano.

“I’ll fix your messy performance!”

Whether he was dissatisfied with the term ‘messy’, Siwoo went ‘Kaaang—’ and created a lot of dissonance by pressing his hands on the keys.

“Who said it was messy….”

What a pathetic guy.

You have to break that tower, so don’t hold onto regrets anymore.

Our private lessons consist of two main steps.

One, Siwoo completes a piece.

Two, I play the piece again in my own style.

During this process, Siwoo listens to my performance, thinks about the differences between his and mine, and tries to reflect it in his own performance.

Again, one, Siwoo plays the piece again.

Again, two, I play the piece as I did at first.

“…This isn’t it.”

Of course, I didn’t expect Siwoo to immediately create his own style.

After all, it was difficult to say that my current performance was a definite pink color.

However, as time passed, I was going down a completely different path from black, which I completely destroyed and recreated.

It might have been easy to break it once and then break it again. Before, I used the same paintbrush until the end because I found it difficult to break, but not anymore. If necessary, I pour out the water and start over. If it becomes murky, I pour it out again.

That’s why, the brush, the paint, gradually focusing on one color. It’s Min Chaewon’s color. The color of spring. Pink. The warm and gentle color of cherry blossoms.

Siwoo must have the courage to break everything down and rebuild from scratch before trying to make the color of these cherry blossoms his own. Otherwise, he will only end up adding more colors to black.

“It seems like you haven’t given up yet.”

30 minutes, 1 hour, 2 hours.

As our time playing the piano together lengthened, Siwoo stubbornly refused to give in.

Unlike me, who was intertwined with Chaewon, he remained as Jung Siwoo. If I had let go of half, then he must let go of everything. It won’t be easy. But it must be done.

“Sigh… Let’s call it a day here. It seems like it’s not working out.”

“Darn it…”

Siwoo, now melted like wax, lay on the small stage of the practice room.

No matter how hard he tried, it seemed like he failed to break everything he had.

He needs to let go of his obsession. How can I reduce this burden for him? It’s not something I can easily explain or help with.

Perhaps Professor Baek Joong-eon, who has been watching over me all my life, felt the same way in a situation like this.

I apologize for being a bad student. Truly.

“Still, I can feel the difference of 3 years here.”

While I quickly caught up in my relationship with Chaewon, in terms of playing the piano, I am still 3 years ahead.

The moment I compromised with reality, I let go halfway. And because I was able to let go of everything and become Min Chaewon, my current playing was able to take shape. Perhaps Siwoo, too, cannot easily change without experiencing a significant event.

What kind of event would be good? How can I naturally bring down the tower of his playing without giving him a big shock?

I guess this is an area I need to think about. Since I am the teacher watching over Siwoo’s playing.

Lost in deep thought, Siwoo asked.

“…You. Was there a change in your state of mind when Yoon Jiyu filmed the video and when Yoon Jichang filmed the next one?”

Was it the moment when I broke out of my shell?

Back then, I simply embraced Chaewon’s ego. The real start of establishing my own playing began after I pondered what kind of performance to do in front of Professor Baek and Yoon Jiyu and found the answer myself.

“Back then, I just embraced the ego.”

“….”

“You will never be able to follow.”

“Sigh.”

Siwoo awkwardly tapped the piano keys. The lifeless sound quietly flowed out, then, a low key resonated loudly in the room.

“Wait and see. Maybe I can do it.”

I doubt whether Siwoo can discard the over a thousand egos he has carefully built. I was able to discard everything except for Chaewon, but that’s because my body is Min Chaewon.

Jung Siwoo is Jung Siwoo. It’s not easy for Jung Siwoo to discard his own ego.

Each of the over a thousand egos represents a different color of a performer I have remembered. They are like precious treasures, so they cannot be easily discarded. I called it a mess of a tower, but the entire tower is like a treasure trove.

But because I bought them in bulk and stacked them up, they became a burden and the culprit of the black performance. All the performances were intertwined like a patchwork.

Although there were over a thousand flavors of ego, when I called one out, another one always came along for the ride. It would have been fortunate if it came out one by one, but they poured out like sausages, one after another.

The self that can change colors does not exist within Jeong Siwoo. Unless he purges the entire rotten self-world like me, there is no answer.

Leaning on the piano, I gazed at Siwoo quietly.

No matter how hard I tried, I wanted to comfort him by saying that there are things that cannot be easily changed—.

— ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪

… What, how did you do that?

“Wait, wait!”

“Why, why?”

“How did you just do that?”

“What, what?”

“Ah, I was supposed to record it.”

I was so surprised that my sentences weren’t properly structured, but the performance just now was definitely Siwoo’s, well, it was Siwoo’s, but it was a little, very slightly different.

“You just… slightly deviated from the deep black.”

“… Really?”

Siwoo tried to reproduce the performance he just did by placing his hands on the keys again, but unfortunately, what started was the familiar black performance that I always heard.

“Not now. It’s the same as usual.”

“Sigh.”

We looked at each other and shook our heads. It seemed like this wasn’t a problem that could be solved by pondering together with the dual core.

But I definitely felt it. Siwoo had cleanly plucked out a self from the chaotic black tower and placed it neatly on top of the tower. It was like playing a Zen game.

Siwoo had momentarily performed magic to surprise me.

‘Was it just a coincidence…?’

After that, Siwoo tried to replay the introduction several times, but he couldn’t escape from the deep black in the end.

It must have been a miracle. Maybe the clean Zen block that was placed back up fell to the ground and turned black again.

“Wow. How did you do that?”

“Yeah. How did you do it?”

Suddenly, I looked at the clock and realized it was lunchtime. The delicious smell of fried food wafted up from downstairs. Kanghwi had told me this morning that today’s lunch was pork cutlet.

“How about we think about it while eating?”

Siwoo sniffed the food with a sniffle. He seemed quite hungry after practicing the piano for hours without a break.

“Yeah… Let’s eat first and think about it.”

As I got up from the piano chair, the guy who had pulled my hand, which was leaning on the piano, pulled me back. I was taken aback, but I quickly realized that the gunpowder had ignited and hurriedly stopped in my tracks.

My hand slipped out of his hand with a pop. I jumped back in place like a person whose hand was on fire.

“Why are you like that?”

If you had turned on the blinker before coming in. I’m going to have a heart attack because of you.

“Tell me in advance. Don’t suddenly grab me so forcefully… You scared me.”

Siwoo chuckled and forcefully opened the heavy door to the performance hall.

“There was no rule in the contract dating clause that said we couldn’t hold hands, right? What’s with the sudden formality.”

… This guy is really evolving as time goes on.

When did he even equip the mindset of a corrupt corporate leader?