20-Second Composition Genius, Becomes a Monster for 200,000 Seconds, Episode 3
Return of a Genius (1)
“A person… it’s a person!”
When my sanity had fled from the unceasing agony, I hadn’t particularly missed people. I had only yearned for this hell to end as soon as possible.
But the moment I first planted my ass in hell and felt the certainty that I could make my own kind of “music” even there, my sanity returned, and I began to miss people.
The scent of a human, the warmth of a person, someone to share stories with, a being who could listen to my music.
I had missed all of it. And such a being was right before my eyes now!
“Kyaaaaaaah!”
Ignoring the screams, I charged at the teacher.
Of course, I didn’t touch her. I wasn’t yet mentally prepared to touch another person.
I just wanted to check if she was breathing just like me.
“Wh-why are you doing this?”
About 10 centimeters. The distance between me and another person.
Truly an incomparably glorious distance!
“Did you eat something strange for lunch?”
I was moved.
Just seeing someone other than me move their lips, breathe, and speak was deeply moving.
“You’re beautiful….”
“Huh…?”
Honestly, I couldn’t tell if this person was pretty or not. My long life in hell had overturned the standards of beauty I’d once had.
But right now, I couldn’t help but say these words.
Beautiful.
So beautiful.
“I feel like my heart is going to burst.”
“…!”
A silence crashed down in an instant.
And then,
“Gyaah!”
“Waaaaaaaah!”
The shouts of those who still had youthful energy mixed within them.
I felt ecstasy.
To think that even shouting could be this beautiful!
However, that ecstasy didn’t last very long.
My gaze was immediately stolen away by something else.
The soft-looking bench and the body that looked at a glance like a wooden desk.
Those who know a thing or two about music might disdain it without reason, but to ordinary people, it was a form more familiar than anything else.
An upright piano.
“A piano…!”
This time, words wouldn’t even come out.
I charged straight at the piano.
* * *
Lee Yerim, a composition teacher at Yeonhwa Arts High School, simply could not understand the current situation.
It had been an ordinary day. This morning too, she’d eaten cereal with milk, commuted in the mid-size SUV she’d bought on lease, and finished preparing for the practical assessment.
Even when she entered the practice room, nothing had been the slightest bit different from usual until now.
‘What the…? What is this?’
Her head was already filled with question marks.
It was a practical assessment where students presented their original compositions, progressing smoothly. But the moment a certain boy stood before the piano, everything changed into something far removed from ordinary daily life.
He stood there blankly for 30 seconds, then lowered his head and confessed his love to her.
‘Can something like this… actually happen?’
It was true that cases of young teachers receiving misplaced affections from students occurred from time to time at every school.
But doing it during class, so brazenly?
She could say with certainty that such a student did not exist. Not unless he was suffering from some terrible bullying.
So at first, she’d been worried. But soon, seeing him charge toward the piano, she became even more worried.
Look at that expression—no matter how she looked at it, there was no way to describe it other than “he’s gone mad.”
Lee Yerim pulled her phone from her pocket with a trembling hand. She had been thinking of calling 119 to request an ambulance, but…
-Thoom!
At the low note of the piano that followed, her hand stopped in an instant.
“Huh…?”
It was one phrase.
Just one phrase.
But she, who could already be considered to have risen to the ranks of “experts,” immediately realized.
‘What in the world…’
That the piece the boy was about to play was no ordinary thing.
Lee Yerim hesitated, then soon turned off her phone screen.
And then…
Tadadat-!
At the following chords and melody, she lost herself.
‘What…!’
Kim Doil.
Second year.
Admitted as a scholarship student.
Composition major.
Lee Yerim already knew about the boy, Kim Doil.
Since the composition major didn’t have many students to begin with, whether in MIDI or classical, keeping track of each student’s record was easy.
That was why this anomaly struck her as even more enormous.
‘His piano touch… why has it improved so much?’
Piano was the foundation of the composition department. Students who weren’t good at piano couldn’t even get into Yeonhwa Arts High School.
But did that mean piano was everything? If you asked that, the answer was no.
A certain level of skill. That was all that was demanded of composition department students.
Doil’s piano skills had been precariously hanging at the cut-line even within the composition department.
‘Because I’d heard his family circumstances weren’t very good.’
Not all of them, but arts high school students generally came from well-off families. Most of them had taken private piano lessons since they were young.
If one’s family situation wasn’t good, they couldn’t enjoy the advantages that money brought, and it was natural for their piano skill to fall behind.
But… his skill had suddenly improved!?
A deep touch as if he’d become a different person. Sustain control more than sufficient to reveal his emotions.
She was shocked.
She couldn’t help but be shocked.
‘Has he been hiding his skill all this time…?’
Why?
The questions didn’t end there.
The ability to create a “piece”—the most important thing for a composition major.
Until now, Doil’s practical assessment grades had been on the better side, but the piece currently flowing forth was on a different dimension.
First of all, the chords were incredibly simple.
An infinite repetition of Bb F Gm F. Yet the melody riding atop it was by no means ordinary—it was complex and assured.
It felt like a refreshing morning, lying in a spring field smelling flowers.
The imagery was so concretely presented that one couldn’t help but be bewildered, with no need to think long.
This was by no means… this was…
‘…Made by a second-year high schooler?’
This was not the skill of a student.
“Impossible….”
“What’s with him all of a sudden?”
“Did he copy that from somewhere?”
The moment the piece ended, commotion flooded in.
It seemed she wasn’t the only one who sensed the anomaly.
* * *
No matter how shitty one’s environment becomes, people find joy. No matter how trivial it may be.
I too found joy in hell. Through nothing other than music. I created various landscapes in my mind.
Sunny days, rainy days, windy days, cities, deserts, snowy mountains, streets in the nightscape, and so on.
I painted landscapes in my head with music and could temporarily escape from the pain.
And now, unconsciously, I was playing the piece I had touched most often in hell.
‘What a good sound.’
Good.
So good.
This is equipment.
The emotion of reunion I had longed for so desperately, the gratitude for a clean sound swept through my mind like a flood.
I felt tears coming.
‘With just this.’
I can make an even better piece.
Since I have paper and pen, the staff paper drawn with a monster’s blood will no longer be needed.
I can do anything I want.
‘Anything…’
Fatigue washed over my body.
Even so, I didn’t lift my hands from the keys until the end.
This is different from before… different from my previous life.
In this life, I will definitely. Let countless people hear my music.
I will create the “ultimate melody” I have dreamed of.
“….”
82 seconds.
That was the playtime of the piece I had played.
And then my vision blurred.
A distant darkness swept over me once more.
At first, I thought I had returned to hell. I thought it was some dogshit trope where everything I’d seen until now had just been a dream.
But it was the opposite.
…In other words, what I was seeing now was a dream. I could tell immediately because I felt no pain even when I pinched my flesh.
“This is….”
My home.
The scenery of my childhood.
In the living room of the small, ten-pyeong Ju-gong apartment stood an old piano of unknown origin. And the snot-nosed me of those days was hammering away at the keys in front of it.
‘That wasn’t a Yamaha, it was a YAMHO…’
Equipment is important. Pursuing good sound was only natural for a professional.
But in those pure days, it hadn’t mattered at all.
I simply enjoyed the enjoyment.
I purely enjoyed music, and simply wanted to keep listening to it.
“I can’t stand listening to this.”
The out-of-tune mess that hadn’t even been tuned, the improvisation stuffed so excessively it seemed ready to overflow. I snorted.
With that level of skill, forget about being a pro, he wouldn’t even get into an arts middle school.
“But I played until the end.”
However, my past self merely snorted back.
“I did it all until the end.”
“….”
“I didn’t run away in the middle.”
Damn, driving a stake through a person’s heart as if to prove he wasn’t just some kid.
No, I was originally that kind of bastard.
A fool who couldn’t tell what should and shouldn’t be said.
“Yeah… I know.”
“You know?”
“I know.”
“Do you like it?”
“What?”
“You could touch the keys again, couldn’t you.”
…it wasn’t just a matter of liking it. It was the very essence of being moved.
For that moment, it felt like being in heaven.
But I didn’t say that out loud.
Because no matter that it was a dream and my past self, my pride was hurt.
However,
“This time, go all the way to the end.”
As if reading my heart, my younger self spoke thus.
“I’ll give you another chance.”
He said he would give me a chance.
“Please, may everyone in the world hear the song you made and be moved. May the wings that will change the world spread wide this time for certain.”
“….”
“May your innocent dream that you had forgotten come true.”
And then, my eyes opened.
“The infirmary….”
The longed-for school scenery bathed in the setting sun.
I had returned.
From my previous life that was like hell and from real hell,
On April 25, 2023, as a second-year high school student.