Gyeoul took Seoha’s silence as affirmation and made a sad expression.
“Confessions are difficult. Of course, it’s true that I’m pretty, but let’s not do this from the very first time we meet.”
She certainly had a striking appearance. Coming from someone beautiful, Seoha had no way of knowing where the joke ended.
Seoha swallowed down a surge of emotion and shook his head.
“Don’t misunderstand. That’s not what I meant.”
Gyeoul pouted her lips and replied cheekily.
“Everyone says that at first. But I’ll believe it just this once.”
Seoha let out a sigh of relief.
“Thank you. There is a reason I asked you to play for me.”
“What is it?”
“I can’t explain in detail, but I sometimes need peace of mind.
But somehow, your playing seems to hold special meaning for me. When I listen to it, my confused head feels neatly organized.”
Gyeoul stared blankly at Seoha for a moment, then nodded as if she understood.
“I knew it.”
Seoha covered his face with both hands.
“I told you, it’s not like that.”
‘A boy I just met has fallen for me.’
This was already a settled fact inside her. Thus, Gyeoul cleanly ignored Seoha’s outcry.
“Fine! I needed someone to help me with math anyway. You check my homework, and I calm you down with my piano playing. Right?”
“Exactly.”
Gyeoul smiled in satisfaction and adjusted the piano bench.
“Then today, to celebrate our contract, I’ll play one more song specially for you. Is there a piece you want to hear?”
Seoha’s musical knowledge consisted solely of what he had read in an encyclopedia.
“I don’t know much about classical. Do you have a calm piece?”
“I happen to be practicing one, so that’s perfect.”
Gyeoul carefully surveyed the keys. Then she slowly closed her eyes.
Seoha saw her expression turn serious in an instant.
Chopin’s Nocturne No. 7, Op. 27-1.
As her left hand slowly struck the low notes, the sound spread like quiet ripples.
With her eyes closed, Gyeoul felt out the notes with her fingertips.
Seoha placed both hands on his knees and quietly watched.
‘Amazing.’
There was an aura to Gyeoul’s performance.
Her body moved with the flow of the music. Naturally, without resisting the current, like reeds swaying in the wind.
Sometimes gently, sometimes passionately. She was playing the piano with her entire body.
A beautiful and lyrical Chopin nocturne.
Seoha closed his eyes.
The notes piled up one by one, filling the music room. A beautiful melody unfolded in orderly sequence.
Duckie’s presence, which always had to be suppressed in tense vigilance, was now quietly holding its breath.
‘Do you like this girl’s playing?’
Duckie nodded.
‘So do I.’
Gyeoul continued playing with her eyes closed.
The music followed the score, yet changed subtly every moment. Flowing softly before suddenly gaining force and rising. Then subsiding again, sinking into silence.
All the noise that had shaken his mind vanished.
The complete silence he was experiencing for the first time was unfamiliar yet comfortable.
“Better?”
When he opened his eyes, Gyeoul, having finished playing, was looking at him.
“I was moved.”
Tears flowed from Seoha’s eyes.
It was the rebound of a heart that had learned to suppress itself from a young age finally coming undone. That sense of liberation was somehow sad, yet on the other hand, overwhelming.
“H-Huh? Are you crying?”
Gyeoul’s eyes widened, and she hurriedly avoided his gaze.
“S-Surely you don’t feel that much for me?”
Gyeoul’s face turned red up to her ears.
Flustered, she fanned her face with her hand to cool the heat.
“W-We only met today, no matter what. But if you really feel that way…”
Before Gyeoul could finish, Seoha rose from his seat and pressed a note into her hand.
“You need help with math homework, right? Contact me anytime.”
Seoha wiped his tears.
Then he turned around coldly and left.
“…”
[Yoo Seoha, Dormitory Room 40△, 010-○○△△-▽▽□□]
Gyeoul looked down at the memo in her hand.
Neat handwriting. A tidy script where not a single number was out of place.
Gyeoul’s shoulders trembled.
* * *
Friday afternoon, when classes had all ended, Seoha changed into casual clothes and left the dormitory.
The school grounds were bustling with students preparing to go home for the weekend.
Seoha walked in the opposite direction.
Following the path, a massive library appeared. Seoha opened the door and entered with an expressionless face.
Inside, the library was quiet.
He went straight to the reference room, picked out several books, then found an empty seat.
Harmony, Basic Music Theory, Counterpoint, Structure of Tonality, Music and the Brain, Music Psychology.
Seoha had gathered every book on music and psychology.
Leibniz, who invented calculus, once said:
“There is no phenomenon without a cause.”
Seoha strongly agreed with that sentiment.
How could he explain the psychological stability he felt when listening to Gyeoul’s performance?
There had to be a clear reason for that phenomenon. Seoha simply could not accept a vague answer like “the performance was good.”
Seoha’s hand, turning a page, stopped at a passage.
“Pythagoras discovered that musical pitches could be explained by mathematical ratios.”
The modern seven-note scale was essentially a mathematical ratio system designed by Pythagoras and his disciples.
Seoha’s outstanding mathematical intuition was displayed without fail even in music, which was a variation of that system.
When the length of a string is halved, an octave; 3:2 is a perfect fifth; 4:3 is a perfect fourth.
Simple fractional ratios became musical intervals.
Seoha drew lines in his notebook and wrote down figures. As the numbers formed curves and connected with one another, they overlapped with the arrangement of piano keys. Starting from Do, notes stacked in a constant ratio completed a single system.
He could vaguely see the reason.
Had his unconscious recognized the mathematical ratios and harmony contained in Gyeoul’s performance?
But he had not felt this during other people’s performances.
This could be because the ratios of rhythm and harmony she created matched especially well with his brainwaves or physical cycles.
Slam.
Seoha closed the book.
This was a conclusion he could accept well enough.
* * *
Two people sit in an empty music room.
Seoha is clutching his head, while Gyeoul has her arms crossed, looking elsewhere as if something displeases her.
On the music stand were math books instead of sheet music. Gyeoul’s book, perhaps never once opened, did not have a single wrinkle on its cover.
“This is first-year middle school material. You just need to know the basic principles.”
“You know I skipped middle school, right?”
“Actually, you learn this in sixth grade too.”
What was written on the paper was a very basic form of polynomial. Having realized Gyeoul’s level, Seoha closed the advanced math book and decided to start from what she did not know.
“…”
Gyeoul glanced around, then turned her head.
“I’m just off today. I normally know all of this.”
Her eyes looked elsewhere, but the tips of her ears were burning red.
Truthfully, she had a talent for studying.
It is difficult to achieve great things in music without a sharp mind. Gyeoul, holding only memories of having done well as a child, was feeling embarrassed in front of Seoha, who was widely rumored to be a math genius.
“I think people talented in music are likely to be good at math too. What you don’t know now is simply due to not having enough time and opportunity. So let’s start from the beginning, step by step.”
“…”
She had only meant to ask for homework help, but the boy in front of her was trying to conquer math itself. Gyeoul was grateful yet displeased. To her pride, having all her ignorance exposed was an excessively cruel punishment.
Rather than fight a battle of wills, Seoha decided to be honest with her.
“Hangyeoul. I don’t know about you, but I truly, desperately need your playing. So I hope this exchange lasts as long as possible.
But if your math skills don’t improve, this meeting cannot continue, can it? That is absolutely not what I want. So why don’t you honestly acknowledge it and do your best?”
Opening up sincere feelings to someone was a first for Seoha. He found it strange that he became so oddly honest only in front of her.
At Seoha’s sudden confession, Gyeoul’s eyes went round.
“You need me that much?”
“Yes.”
“How much?”
Gyeoul leaned slightly forward and asked.
“As much as breathing.”
A confident smile returned to Gyeoul’s face.
“Did you think I’d fall for such an exaggerated line?”
“It’s not an exaggeration.”
“Hmph! Since you’re insisting that much, I guess I have no choice. But I’m warning you, I’m not the type to be moved easily.”
She seemed to be misunderstanding something, but Seoha decided not to mind. He couldn’t follow the unique sensibility of the preparatory division anyway.
Seoha’s explanations were easy and clear.
‘It feels like teaching Seoeun?’
Gyeoul was earnest in learning and quick to understand. Seoha’s explanations refreshingly untangled the knots in her mind.
And in that one day, Gyeoul gained more knowledge than she had learned over the past six years.
Seemingly satisfied with her real-time growth, Gyeoul smiled and sat before the piano. She even hummed, apparently in a good mood.
“Do you mind if I record it?”
Seoha asked, taking out his phone.
It was to verify whether the performance had to be live.
But an unexpected answer came.
“Absolutely not!
You don’t know because you’re not a musician, but recording a pianist’s performance is a huge discourtesy. I want to leave records only in the form I want, when I want.”
Seoha nodded.
Come to think of it, it was only natural. Even as a student, she was already a full-fledged pianist.
“W-Well, if you really want, I’ll record it at a studio later.”
She turned her head away as if avoiding his gaze, then steadied her breathing.
Gyeoul’s performance began.
Seoha did not close his eyes. Intentionally keeping his gaze fixed, he followed her movements and the flow of sound.
‘I can’t depend on Gyeoul forever.’
Seoha wanted to find a way out on his own. To do that, he had to understand it first.
The left hand created the rhythm first.
The right hand layered on top, building harmony. The dynamics she played were irregular, with subtle fluctuations. Yet Seoha felt stability in that very irregularity.
Seoha took out his notebook and began writing.
The points where chords changed, the moments the pedal pressed, the sections where tempo slowed then revived again. Everything was recorded as mathematical variables.
And he wondered if he could reproduce her music in his own way.
That night, Seoha was tormented by an urge to play the piano. To be exact, Duckie wanted it.
‘There is no place to play piano at this hour.’
After worrying, Seoha opened his notebook.
‘Duckie, write down the notes you want. I’ll learn them later and try to play.’
The pen tip moved busily across the paper.
The notes that arose like Duckie’s whispers were transferred into symbols one by one.
When he wrote a note on one side, corresponding harmony followed from the other. Seoha thought this resembled the relationship between a function and its graph.
After writing for a while, Duckie seemed satisfied and fell quiet.
The notebook was filled with an indecipherable mixture of musical and mathematical symbols.
“What should I title it?”
After pondering for a long time, Seoha scribbled something at the top of the page.
[Theme of Duckie]