Chapter 109
Dark concert hall.
The only bright spot in the concert hall was the stage.
Elderly people looked around as if they were curious about the concert hall they were visiting for the first time.
The good middle seats were given to the elderly, and Young-hoo and Sambok, who were sitting next to each other in the outermost seats, were watching not only Chan-ho Lee, the professor in charge, but also Ji-ye, who had brought them here, leave the concert hall.
Sambok whispered, wearing a black suit and standing in a dark place, with only part of his eye and his teeth visible.
"What my brother said is true. Actually, there are only people from Baeksa Village, right?"
Yeong-hu's head nodded heavily.
'To be honest, I was a little worried. I was worried that an article would brag about the good work that Korea University was doing by publishing a picture of me sitting among reporters and other spectators, listening to music.'
Being poor was not shameful, but it was not something to be proud of either.
Soo-hyun invited the people of Baeksa village just as he had said. In a large concert hall with a capacity of 500, less than 50 people were huddled in the center and concentrating on the stage.
Three pianos shone brightly under the red lights.
Behind them, about twenty chairs and instruments were waiting, each of them eagerly waiting to hear my sound.
Step, step, step. Step.
As the sound of footsteps, which were not intentionally loud, echoed, the gazes of the villagers turned towards the black curtains on the sides of the stage.
And when they saw the silver-haired boy who had appeared, the powerful among the elders stood up and waved their hands.
"My goodness! It's Soohyun!"
"What a pretty thing. Look. It's grandpa. Do you remember him?"
A grandmother showed him kimchi wrapped in a plastic container and told him to take it today as well.
When the performer came out, Soo-hyun saw the elderly people giving him a warm welcome as if they were meeting a neighbor instead of applauding him, and he emerged completely from behind the curtain.
A half-red, slightly long coat.
A white dress shirt.
Silver hair and turquoise eyes.
When Soo-hyun, who looked like a foreign pianist one might meet at a concert abroad, smiled brightly, put his hands together, and bowed politely, applause erupted.
"Wow~~! Awesome!"
"Our Soo-hyun is really cool!!"
Soo-hyun watched the elders. In fact, except for Young-hoo and Sambok, they were people whose names he didn't even know. People he simply called grandpa, grandma, uncle, and aunt.
But most of them knew his face because they prepared side dishes for Soo-hyun whenever he came, saying he was pretty.
Soo-hyun stood on the podium, held the prepared microphone, and smiled as he spoke.
"Thank you for coming."
The elders waved their hands as if it were nothing, as if Soo-hyun, who was far away, were nearby.
"Oh, of course you should come."
"Thank you for performing for us. We are so grateful."
"How does that child only choose pretty things to do?"
Soo-hyun said with a big smile.
"I'll start the show first, and then my friends will come out one by one and we'll all play together. I hope and pray that it will bring a little joy to everyone."
The villagers sat up straight and concentrated as they watched Soo-hyun put down the microphone and walk to the piano at the front of the three pianos.
Sambok, next to Young-hoo, whispered.
"I've heard that Soo-hyun composed the song himself. Isn't that amazing? At that age, he's composing classical music instead of pop. I'm really looking forward to what kind of song it is."
"You said you hated classical music," Young-hoo said, looking at Sambok. "You used to scold me for listening to music that made me sleepy."
"Ah, that's because you always play music for sleeping. There's a lot of music that's not like that. I like Tchaikovsky too."
Young-hoo laughed.
At that moment, Soo-hyun's hands were seen rising above the keyboard.
A straight back.
He raised his head forward without looking at the keyboard and closed his eyes.
Both arms remained motionless on the keyboard, as if supported.
The side profile of a boy in red with silver hair sitting in front of a piano was already a painting in itself.
As soon as Soo-hyun started playing, the elderly people applauded.
A lyrical, beautiful, and at the same time, melancholic melody. The beautiful sounds that made you exclaim "Ah!" as soon as you heard them filled the concert hall.
But the expressions of Sambok and Young-hoo turned strange. In particular, Sambok looked back and forth between Soo-hyun and Young-hoo and whispered.
"Hyung, didn't you say he was going to perform a song composed by Soo-hyun? Where had I heard that before?"
Young-hoo also nodded slightly and muttered.
"Waltz No. 7 in C-sharp minor, Op. 64 No. 2 by Chopin."
"Chopin? Right? I heard this piece in a Chinese movie."
This waltz, composed in 1846, was closer to the rhythm of the mazurka. This music was often used in films, so Sambok recognized it.
'Could it be that you can't compose? Well, composing must not be that easy.'
Young-hoo closed his eyes and shook his head as he listened to the melody played by Soo-hyun.
"That's not it."
Sambok tilted his head.
"Isn't it?"
"Then what is it?"
"It's consideration," Young-hoo said, pointing at Soo-hyun with his chin.
Young-hoo smiled and remembered what he had said to Soo-hyun when he first met him.
"I've never seen a classical play. I can't even dream of it. But I promise myself that I'll go someday. If you live from hand to mouth, you can't dream, right?"
Yes, Soo-hyun was performing songs that were usually played in regular classical concerts for the people of Baeksa village who had never seen a classical concert before.
Young-hoo opened his closed eyes and smiled warmly at the sight of the beautiful boy playing.
"This is not a performance for you, it's just for us. You're a very good boy, Soo-hyun."
The Chopin piece, which chose a waltz melody that was lyrical and melancholic, but never lost hope.
A poem for the elderly resounded from Soo-hyun's fingertips as he played with all his heart.
Rainy afternoon,
Under the eaves of the shantytown roof,
A magpie came in to escape the rain.
Your appearance in the waving landscape,
Is just like me.
Become a beautiful bouquet of flowers.
Like fluttering flowers,
I wanted to flap my wings as much as I could.
My childhood dream,
Caught in the pain of poverty and illness,
Only a pitiful tremor remains.
But towards the sky,
Let's give it a good punch.
Flowers don't only bloom when you're young.
A flower is not just pretty.
Like a sweet potato root that grows bigger and bigger on its own.
I still have a bruise on my heart.
The sound of the running river water.
There's plenty of time to tell the world, right?
Even if you can't whistle,
Even if I can't fly high,
Even if I don't fly for a long time,
Let's put our toes on the ground to fly.
A spider web that wraps around your neck,
He kicked it with a stupid laugh.
A little slower,
A little sadly,
But it never stops.
The comfort that only Soo-hyun could provide. The words that you can still do it and that you still have a bright life ahead of you reached each of your hearts.
But at this moment, Soo-hyun felt that Professor Lee Chan-ho's words that when one gave comfort to others, one actually received the greatest comfort, were different depending on the situation.
'Dad, if Mom had also had a chance.'
Soo-hyun had slightly teary eyes, but he shook his head.
'You shouldn't think about your parents right now, because you'll make them sad. There's plenty of time to be sad, but few opportunities to convey joy and comfort.'
After Soo-hyun's performance, which made him forget his thoughts, the elderly people who knew nothing about classical music looked around to see if they should clap or not.
At that moment, Soo-hyun's piano resonated again. It was a very fast song, different from the slow and lyrical performance he had just played.
The elderly people, who were intoxicated by the beautiful melody, were agape at Soo-hyun's performance, which was so fast that it seemed he had several hands.
Sambok's already large eyes opened even wider and he shook Young-hoo next to him.
"Wow… brother, is that also Chopin?"
Young-hoo, whose arm was held by Sambok, also opened his mouth and couldn't take his eyes off Soo-hyun.
"Liszt..."
"Liszt? Who's that?"
"F-Franz Liszt."
"Is that guy famous? I don't know much about him, but can a human hand move that fast? I don't think even a machine can do that."
Young-hoo muttered as he watched, lost in thought.
"Mazeppa…"
Young-hoo, who loved the violin, once looked up Liszt, who felt a sense of rivalry with Paganini and declared that he would become the Paganini of the piano. Mazeppa was a piano performance of Victor Hugo's epic poem, one of Liszt's études.
The incessant playing of triplets sounded exactly like the sound of a horse's hooves. In the image of someone cruelly tied to a horse and thrown into the wilderness, we saw the images of people abandoned by the world and gathered in a village. The elders who were amazed by Soo-hyun's skills soon began to recall their own pasts.
And then there was the brief and intense interlude of sighs. In this interlude that seemed like a pause, the villagers remembered their lives after arriving at the moon village.
'The warmth of two briquettes left in front of the house by someone during a cold winter did not last even a day, but it was enough to convey the warmth to my heart. The things that sustained life were not government subsidies or a job. It was people. These are the people sitting here together.'
After the introduction that was like a sigh ended, Soo-hyun's performance changed. A person abandoned in the wilderness rose up with pain and despair. A performance that went from darkness to light and triumphed in hardship.
You can't erase the scars.
There's no way to stop the coming darkness.
Even if you fix the leaking roof,
There are things that are useless.
It left a scar on our hearts,
But,
The darkness recedes and dawn comes.
After the rain comes a clearer day.
We can't stop it,
So let's give ourselves to the darkness and the light will come.
Gather the pain and create strength,
We held back our tears and created laughter,
So that the buds of hope would not wither.
Soo-hyun's support was conveyed to everyone's hearts.
The piece was over. Unlike Chopin's, Liszt's had clearly ended, and everyone noticed it.
There was still no applause, but it seemed that Soo-hyun's joy had reached the hearts of the elders. As he saw them all sitting at the piano, smiling brightly, looking at him with affection.
- - - - -
Great news, everyone!
For those of you following Pianist's Village, it's now fully translated and complete on my Patreon!
If you want to read the entire story from start to finish, now is the perfect time to join.
You can find it here: @Patreon/iLikeeMikee
Thanks for your support!