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Chapter 4
1. Hit the Road, Jack (3)
Most high school seniors preparing for college entrance exams looked pretty similar.
Faces still covered with acne scars from middle school, bodies that had become soft and out of shape from doing nothing but sitting around studying or practicing all day.
Among all those unhealthy-looking students, applicant number 57 stood out like a heron among chickens.
Even the composition professor, who normally never commented on students’ appearances, stroked his chin and muttered,
“He’s tall too. Must be over 185 centimeters. If this student enrolls here, I bet the acting department will start drooling over him. Haha.”
Tall frame, sharp features, a clean jawline.
It was a bit unfortunate that he looked slightly thin, but if he gained some muscle, he would definitely become extremely popular.
Seojin looked through the student’s application form and murmured,
“His name is Song Minjun. His background is… nothing special. He doesn’t even attend an arts high school.”
For a moment, his appearance had raised expectations, but after reading the profile, the excitement faded.
Sometimes handsome kids debuted simply because of their looks. They stood among talented singers, rapped a few lines, and became the visual member of the group.
If Seojin were an entertainment company CEO instead of a professor, he probably would have selected this student based on looks alone.
But this was a university.
Choosing someone just because he was handsome would be unfair to the other students who had worked hard preparing for entrance exams.
“Hm?”
Something felt strange.
The application clearly stated that the student would sing while playing guitar, yet he had come empty-handed.
Then, after saying something to the teaching assistant, the student walked over and sat in front of the piano.
And then, with the brightest smile imaginable, he gently caressed the black body of the piano as if touching the body of a beloved lover.
The instrumental professor smiled softly at Minjun’s innocent expression.
“It’s rare these days to see a student who genuinely loves instruments that much. He really must love the piano.”
It truly looked that way.
The student stared at every part of the piano with eyes overflowing with affection, like someone finally reuniting with a loved one after decades apart.
Just as the instrumental professor said, his love for the instrument could be felt.
Seojin crossed his arms and observed the student.
“His eyes look like he’s seeing a piano for the first time, but the way he sits at it feels incredibly familiar. Does he actually play piano?’
He checked the application again.
Most students listed every instrument they could barely touch just to make themselves look more appealing.
But this student had only written “guitar.”
And yet now he was suddenly sitting at a piano during the exam.
He really was unusual.
After the teaching assistant adjusted the microphone stand height, the student looked at the professors and asked,
【May I loosen up my hands for a moment? 】
The professors turned toward Seojin since the applicant was from the vocal department.
Seojin nodded and rotated his finger casually.
“There are many students waiting. I’ll give you twenty seconds.”
The instrumental professor looked shocked.
“Wait, that’s not even his own instrument. Twenty seconds is too short to adapt.”
Seojin also wanted to give him more time, but there were over two hundred students still waiting to be tested today.
If things got delayed, the students who had been waiting since morning would become exhausted. And exhausted students couldn’t properly show their skills. Losing talented students because of that would hurt the school too.
So there was no choice.
Thankfully, the student looked perfectly satisfied with twenty seconds.
Then he placed his hands on the keyboard.
And instantly, a dazzling performance exploded into the hall.
Seojin’s shock was nothing compared to the instructor’s.
Less than five seconds after the performance began, the professor shot up from his seat.
An ostinato created through repeated low notes.
A performance both melodic and harmonic, interacting through blue notes.
The tension between melody and tonal implication softened through blue triads.
The instrumental professor’s eyes widened.
“Th-that…!”
A brilliant performance floating somewhere between blues and jazz.
The student’s fingers danced wildly across the boundaries of low and high notes so quickly that it almost seemed as if he had eight fingers on each hand.
While the stunned professors sat there speechless, the student suddenly stopped playing and smiled brightly.
【I used the twenty seconds well. I’ll begin now.】
The teaching assistant had been so stunned that she forgot to move away from the stage.
Only after Minjun spoke did she finally snap out of it.
“Wow… you play incredibly well.”
Minjun grinned and bowed his head.
“Thank you.”
“Let me adjust the microphone stand a little more. Just a second.”
Maybe hearing that incredible performance had made her feel more favorable toward him.
The assistant carefully adjusted the stand again to better match Minjun’s height.
Watching this, the instrumental professor turned to Seojin.
“P-Professor Kim.”
Even Seojin still hadn’t fully recovered from the shock.
The professor continued,
“If that student fails the vocal department exam… could you let me speak with him separately?”
The composition professor nodded and joined in.
“At that level, he’s practically already a graduate. He’s not a classical pianist, but even fourth-year applied music piano majors probably couldn’t play like that. No wonder you want him.”
Their conversation finally brought Seojin back to his senses.
“Ah… let’s at least hear the test first.”
As the instrumental professor awkwardly sat back down, Seojin looked toward Minjun, who was chatting with the assistant while he adjusted the microphone stand.
‘It’s been a long time.’
‘Since I’ve seen someone sing while playing piano.’
There used to be many singers like that.
Now they were almost impossible to find.
The singers still active today are mostly veterans with over twenty years of experience.
New singers usually just sang or played guitar.
It had become rare to see someone singing while playing an upright piano instead of an electronic keyboard.
Maybe that was only natural.
Upright pianos weren’t portable.
Now Seojin was genuinely interested.
As Minjun prepared, Seojin looked again at the application form, and his eyebrows twitched.
‘Why choose this song?’
Kim Gwanghee’s Unhappy Afternoon.
Kim Gwanghee was known as a true “musical poet,” a singer who left behind countless masterpieces with his sincere and emotionally moving voice before passing away.
Many of his songs were popular for entrance exams.
But not this one.
This song had no dramatic climax. It was more like whispering than singing.
Perhaps the original singer could make it work because he sang universal stories that resonated deeply with Korean emotions and life itself.
But for an entrance exam applicant to sign it here?
Impossible.
‘He ruined it from the song choice alone.’
What a waste.
If the student who had just shown such incredible piano skills could sing well too, South Korea might gain another piano vocalist.
In a music industry drowning in endless hip-hop and rap, someone classical enough to feel fresh again could appear.
If Seojin were an instrumental professor, he would’ve already given the student the highest first-round score just from those twenty seconds.
But he was a vocal professor.
And the student was applying to vocals.
In the end, singing was what mattered.
Seojin glanced sideways at the instrumentalist professor.
The man kept shifting impatiently in his seat.
He already looked desperate to recruit the student.
It almost felt as though he had already chosen one of the four piano majors selected out of forty-eight applicants.
Minjun, meanwhile, showed not even the slightest hint of nervousness as he smiled at the assistant and thanked her.
It looked like he was finally about to begin singing.
Before the song started, Seojin quietly whispered to the instrumental professor,
“If he fails the vocal department, are you really going to recruit him?”
“I’ll formally make him retake the exam first. But before that, I’ll need to persuade him. Letting talent like that go to waste would practically be a crime against music itself. I’ll absolutely try to convince him.”
Seojin nodded and looked back toward the stage.
That short twenty-second performance from earlier…
It was so incredible that he now regretted limiting it to only twenty seconds.
The performance had been too short to fully reveal the emotions hidden inside it, but skill-wise, the game was already over.
Just looking at how excited the instrumental professor had become made that obvious.
‘A handsome jazz pianist.’
‘Fans would swarm around him.’
Maybe not at the level of a top K-pop star, but if someone with those looks became a jazz pianist, he would definitely gather many fans.
Beautiful female pianists were common.
Handsome male pianists were rare.
Then Minjun’s voice interrupted Seojin’s thoughts.
【Applicant number 57, Song Minjun. I’ll be performing Unhappy Afternoon.】
As the student’s hands began dancing over the piano, Seojin’s chest stirred.
His heart pounded. Heat spread through his body.
Suddenly, he understood why the school regulations limited piano intros to four measures.
He wanted to hear more.
Just four measures.
What could someone possibly show with only that much?
Previous applicants had simply played a few chords from the chorus as a formal introduction.
After all, the important part was the singing.
But this student was different.
His left hand played chords while his right hand slipped through the spaces between them.
The melody drifted apart from the song itself.
Simple, yet sensual.
Almost seductive.
It felt as though he were watching a Black pianist performing in some smoky underground jazz club hidden in the back alleys of New York.
By the third measure, the instrumental professor let out a gasp.
Of course, he probably understood even more deeply than the others.
People hear according to what they know.
Because of that gasp, even the others realized just how extraordinary the performance was.
But once again, this was a vocal department exam.
The student leaned toward the microphone.
And then he did something an applicant absolutely should never do.
Right after the intro ended and just before he began singing, he stopped playing completely.
Then—
He breathed into the microphone.
The sound of his breath echoed softly through the hall.
If it had been another student, the professors would have immediately frowned and mentally marked him as failed.
But all three professors watching him shared the exact same thought.
‘True music is not in the notes themselves, but in the silence between them.’
The student’s sigh.
It was as if the lyrics themselves had demanded a sigh there.
That single breath transformed the entire mood of the song into something unbearably sad.
Like the sigh of a lonely man unable to overcome his emptiness before beginning a quiet monologue.
Like watching a scene from a musical.
He had turned even a small breath into music.
And finally—
When the student opened his mouth to sing, Seojin forgot to breathe.
Beside him, the instrumental professor made a miserable face.
“Hah… this wasn’t a student I could possibly steal away after all.”
