A Musical Genius Who Plays Memories - Chapter 2

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Team. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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Chapter 2. Étude (2)

No matter how much I thought about it, this wasn’t a dream.

At first, I was confused.

When I, a 39-year-old, opened my eyes, I had become a newborn baby.

In scenery completely different from where I had lived.

Not in the familiar European room I knew.

I’m fine with it now, but I think I lived in a daze for several days.

Eating, defecating, and sleeping all day long.

And now I’ve resigned myself to it.

When I woke up, I rather hoped it would be hell, but it was still the same scenery.

So I stopped trying to endure it.

Since I was a newborn baby anyway and wouldn’t know what I was doing, I just stayed still.

“Heeseong, what do you want to listen to today?”

At first I couldn’t understand, but now I could somewhat comprehend what the two people were saying.

The two people must have really loved music, as they played music for me every day.

They would tap on a small square thing and music would flow out from it.

I was surprised at first, but now I just accepted it.

When I was reborn as a baby, what more was there to be surprised about?

“Shall we listen to classical music today?”

Classical music and piano concertos that I had created many of, and even genres I had never heard before.

I waved my tiny hands whenever I heard good music.

It was an unavoidable reaction.

What could I do when my body followed the rhythm upon hearing music?

“Yes, yes. Our son loves music just like Mom and Dad, doesn’t he?”

The Asian woman said.

When I heard those words, my head rang with a thud.

Loves music.

That was a phrase that represented my very life.

I hate the person who led me down the path of music.

But I’m grateful that I was able to learn music.

That’s how much I love music.

Though I lost my fingers, cancer ate away at my body, and I was betrayed by someone I trusted.

I continued creating music until the very end.

My ending wasn’t good.

But now I’ve been given a chance to start over.

“Our son has such a pretty smile too.”

As she said, I was happy.

After the brief confusion passed, I finally realized what I needed to do.

The opportunity to leave my failed past behind and live properly once more was in my hands.

It wasn’t that I had no concerns.

Having people younger than me as parents.

Adapting to an unfamiliar culture.

And starting music again.

I hesitated.

Whether it was okay to accept this life.

Whether it was okay to do music once more.

These were concerning matters, but they were all trivial things.

It’s simple.

Though I was born as an ordinary child named Yoon Hee-seong.

It was a very simple matter to think of myself as someone who inherited the memories of a person who loved music in the past.

Because I love music.

Whatever difficulties there might be, I could overcome them as long as I had music.

Since I was born this way, I just needed to live accordingly.

To do that, I first had to change how I addressed them.

Not as the Asian woman or Asian man.

“Eom-a!”

“Oh? Heeseong, what did you say? Did you say Mom? Say it again!”

“Ma…!”

As Mom and Dad.

I had to accept them as my parents.

Since I had decided to live as Yoon Hee-seong.

From now on, not as a failed musician.

But as a boy who loves music.

“Honey! Heeseong said Mom!”

“What? Heeseong, try saying Dad. Dad! Yes, Dad!”

And as my parents’ child.

***

Time passed, and before I knew it, a whole year had gone by.

I had accepted my two parents and my identity as Yoon Hee-seong.

Having turned one year old, I wobbled around every corner of the house.

Our house was like heaven to me.

Mother was a singer.

Her name was Shin Ji-eun.

She wasn’t very famous, but she told me she had many devoted fans who supported her.

Father was a composer.

His name was Yoon Young-hoon.

He must have majored in classical music, as most of the music he created was classical.

However, he seemed to have many concerns lately, as he appeared to be creating music in completely different genres too.

Since both of them made music their profession, various instruments were scattered throughout the house.

An upright piano, guitars, violins, horns, and so on.

There was a variety from small instruments to larger ones.

It was a world that surpassed the knowledge from my previous life.

‘If only I hadn’t had my songs stolen, I too would have played this many instruments. Not borrowed ones, but my very own…’

With such thoughts, I looked at the instruments again today.

Spending time looking at instruments and thinking about how they might work was my daily routine.

What could a one-year-old baby do?

Eating when Mother fed me and pooping in diapers was my routine.

Still, there was just one thing.

There was one thing I could do.

‘Father is still sleeping… now’s my chance!’

I put strength into my short arms and legs and crawled around the living room.

Past the living room floor where my feet sank in like a swamp.

Beyond the table legs at a precarious height that seemed like they’d hit my head.

The place I arrived at was a sofa as tall as a mountain.

“Ujjaa!”

I grabbed onto the sofa and put strength into my legs.

The sofa that had looked so tall wasn’t much after all.

‘Let me see. Ah, there it is!’

What I wanted was placed at the edge of the sofa.

‘A music score book!’

Father would check his sheet music collection until late at night every day, then leave it on the sofa.

And the sheet music left on the sofa became my daily morning prey.

I flailed my short arms to get the sheet music in my hands.

“Hee.”

I was delighted as I looked at the sheet music collection I had struggled to obtain.

Rustle.

The opened sheet music sparkled like treasure beyond rough thickets.

Modern sheet music gave me tremendous shock.

Of course, there was no difference in the basic framework of the notation.

The difference was how simple it was, and that was what mattered.

In the past, composers wanted many things, so there were many detailed and somewhat complex scores.

If the composer himself had to create the sheet music considering each of those elements.

Modern times were more like machines printing out very simple and clear sheet music?

That’s why even someone like me could read modern sheet music very easily.

‘How convenient to look at without complex formulas. Other geniuses’ sheet music is too complicated.’

Of course, I had a separate reason for looking at sheet music.

“Hmm.”

It was because I could listen to modern music, even if only in my imagination.

As times change, the trends in music also change.

This was common sense.

Long before my past era, classical and romantic music was popular, and in my time, impressionism was in vogue.

I was curious what kind of music was flowing through the streets in this era, over a century later.

And I also wanted to know how it was made.

So from the time I could barely walk, I stole looks at Father’s sheet music every day.

‘This piece is… classical? But something’s different. It’s been varied…’

However, my thievery didn’t last very long.

“What is our little thief doing?”

“Uwah!”

My brief happiness ended when Father woke up.

Father took the sheet music collection away from me.

“You can’t look at Daddy’s things without permission. Understand?”

“Ah, waah!”

I reached out toward the sheet music collection in regret.

My mind was that of Piano Man, but my body was still that of a one-year-old baby.

My body wouldn’t act as I wanted it to.

So this whining right now wasn’t my will.

As if to comfort me, Father lifted me up high.

“Son, let’s go listen to music with Daddy.”

“Kyah!”

Ahem.

Father always said good music should be listened to together, and would occasionally take me to his music studio.

Creak.

The sound booth door opened, and large speakers welcomed me.

‘Wow, looking great today too. At first I didn’t know what was what. But I could understand because Father taught me everything one by one.’

Father taught me about everything in the studio one by one under the pretext of preliminary education.

Things like mixers, audio interfaces, computers, and speakers.

An ordinary baby wouldn’t understand, but who was I?

I was a baby with Piano Man, who had done music for nearly 30 years, in my head.

I absorbed all the knowledge Father taught me.

Well, I still had the body of a bean-sized baby, so I couldn’t do anything.

Nothing except tapping with my hands.

“It’s raining today, so shall we listen to classical music?”

“Yes!”

“You wanted to hear classical? Yes, our son likes classical music like Daddy?”

Father looked at me with eyes dripping with honey.

He smiled contentedly and fiddled with the computer, then launched some app.

The clear sound of piano began flowing from the speakers.

“This is perfect for rainy days.”

Father said this while gently patting my belly.

The title of the piece Father played was ‘Raindrop Prelude.’

It was a piece made by a genius composer from before I was born.

A title given because the repeating notes were like raindrops.

I really liked this song.

The left hand played repeating notes, but the right hand performed the melody.

The atmosphere created by these two rhythms and melodies cooled one corner of my heart.

‘I’m excited!’

I began flapping my hands.

Closing my eyes and imagining there was a piano in front of me.

I recalled the past when I played piano happily.

I recalled my bright future self, not my final years when I lost my fingers.

The left hand’s rhythm repeated.

I closed my eyes and savored the sound.

I tried to paint a landscape with sound alone.

Raindrops formed on slightly hazy glass.

The trees outside glistened wetly.

The right hand’s melody tapped the trees awake.

The leaves of the trees swayed little by little in the blowing wind.

The melody contained human emotions.

Like randomly falling raindrops, the melody was free and even felt somewhat wistful.

I opened my eyes slightly.

My small hands came into view.

The two hands wiggling and tapping an imaginary piano were quite cute.

‘I want to play piano soon.’

I smiled and closed my eyes again.

The emotions wouldn’t disappear just from opening my eyes briefly.

The tree painted with sound was still surrendering its body to the wind.

Cracks appeared in the landscape I thought would last forever.

The sudden roar gradually grew louder and split the sky.

The wind blew roughly, and the tree swayed as if it would be uprooted at any moment.

The free melody gradually became disheveled, and instability arose in the repeating rhythm.

The raindrops grew thick and became a downpour.

Emotions surged.

An emotion that should be called fear dominated the piano.

However, since the storm was a guest that stayed only briefly, gentle sounds were soon heard again.

After the storm passed, that melody played at the beginning filled Father’s music studio.

The music was coming to an end.

The wind that had shaken the damp trees was also gradually dying down.

A moment of silence.

“Wow!”

An exclamation flowed out without me realizing it.

It was only in my imagination, but I was drenched by rain and overcame storms.

This was the music I felt.

I loved the new feeling I experienced every time.

I received the sensation of being at that scene so vividly.

“Did you like it that much?”

“Yes! Uh, um….”

I felt frustrated.

I wanted to express in detail the impressions I felt!

But this small mouth couldn’t contain all of that.

I patted my chest in frustration.

Father found this amusing and chuckled as he said.

“Our son should make songs like this when he grows up, right? Come on, let’s pinky promise.”

Our father was making a promise that an ordinary baby wouldn’t even remember.

‘Ah….’

I hesitated for a moment.

Making ‘music like this’ that Father mentioned.

It reminded me of my previous life.

Could I make good music?

Could I protect my music?

It seemed like he was asking me these questions.

And I had already given my answer to that long ago.

‘I will definitely make good music!’

I thought to myself as I grasped Father’s pinky finger.

I wanted to create my own music once again someday.

I would convey the emotions contained within rain and wind with these two hands.

“Yes, our son. Daddy will help you a lot.”

“Yes!”

I answered with a smile.

“You two, come eat!”

Just then, Mother’s voice filled with great volume came from the kitchen.

Since we hadn’t had breakfast yet, I was just getting hungry.

“What did you listen to today? It sounded like classical music.”

“Raindrop Prelude. It was raining, so it seemed fitting.”

“It reminded me of you.”

“You flatterer.”

Father and Mother always bickered like this.

It was heartwarming, like watching a close friend and his wife.

My friend had cherished his wife dearly.

‘I’m grateful to that guy. He made my songs known to the world.’

The sheet music I had given to my friend as my last gift had become a masterpiece across time.

Right now, that was the only fact I could know.

I should hurry up and grow so I can investigate it myself.

“Here, son. Ah~.”

Our family’s morning began with a delicious meal.

“Isn’t it still too early for Heeseong’s preschool?”

Father said while eating kimchi stew.

“Yeah. We could send him when he’s 5, couldn’t we?”

“What do you think about a music preschool? Our son likes music.”

“That’s true. But let’s look into it slowly. If he’s going anyway, he should go to a good place.”

The two of them talked carefully about me.

I chewed on the baby food Mother fed me and thought.

‘What’s a preschool anyway.’

The actual person involved—me—didn’t even know what that was.

Someone who died 100 years ago was still learning about this world, so I was ignorant of worldly matters.

“Oh, I have to go give a lesson today. You’ll have to watch Heeseong by yourself.”

“Who is it?”

“A high school student. He wants to take lessons from me.”

“Alright. Be careful coming back.”

The more I listened to Father and Mother’s conversation, the better I felt.

“Then our son can help daddy while he works.”

Father said this while gently tapping my cheek with the back of his hand.

“Kyaaang!”

I squealed with joy.

‘Finally! I get to hear Father’s songs!’

I was so curious about what modern classical music would be like.

Time passed quickly.

Mother went out, and Father played me the music he had created in his music studio.

“Eh….”

…Huh.

After hearing Father’s music, I didn’t know how to react.

How should I put this?

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Team. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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