AMGWPM 01

Chapter 1. Etude (1)

I am a fake.

I created countless pieces, but in the end, all that remained for me was the stigma of being a fraud.

“Cough! hoo!”

A violent cough sent a mixture of blood and phlegm splattering onto a handkerchief. Wiping the spit and blood from my unkempt beard with a ragged cloth, I slowly looked around the room. My eyes landed on a cracked mirror.

A figure was reflected in it.

Sunken cheeks, lifeless eyes, clumps of missing hair, and cracked lips. Unruly, dirty beard and dried porridge spilled and stuck to my clothes.

A dying man was preserved in that mirror. That fool who couldn’t even protect his own music was right there.

“For things that shone so brightly to rot away like this… No, I suppose they never shone at all.”

At the same time, I thought about how I’d ended up in this dying state.

As a child, I didn’t know what music was. It was just a passing sound, mere noise. Until one day, it hooked and pierced my ears.

The trigger was a piece played by the piano man at the club where my mother worked. To me, it was like a heavenly sound. Looking back now, the notes and melody were clumsy, but there was something about it that brought people joy. I was drawn to it.

‘Would you like to learn music from me?’

A genius. A possessor of heaven-sent talent, as people say. That was me.

The man said that, and I followed. For someone from a slave family, from the bottom of society, being given a chance to learn something meant a chance that would never come again.

I studied hard. Theory like rhythm, melody, and harmony was tedious, but… the feeling of playing the piano with my own hands, note by note, was so wonderful. I thought that was happiness.

But that brief happiness didn’t last long.

The man—no, that guy—started taking my compositions and selling them under his own name. When I was young, I didn’t know. I was just grateful to be able to learn music. Some days, I didn’t receive a single penny. Those days became more frequent, and I found it strange.

‘Your music isn’t popular.’

That’s what he said. But the music playing in the streets denied that. How could I believe him when the songs I wrote were echoing through the streets?

As it turned out, the man had partnered with a distributor and had been lining his pockets for 30 years by deceiving me. I was furious and tried to tell the world.

‘That man is a thief who plagiarized my work!’

No one listened to my cry. The world wasn’t kind enough to heed the words of someone from a slave family.

“Cough! Whoosh! Whoosh!!”

Bang—!

“Are you alright, man?!”

Hearing my coughing fit, my friend from the next room rushed in anxiously. He quickly approached and checked me over. Stopping him as he wore a worried expression, I spoke.

“Cough, I’m fine, friend. Just some phlegm stuck in my throat.”
“Come now, you’re clearly not fine. To see a healthy fellow like you end up like this…”

My friend plopped down beside the bed and looked at me. Our professions and backgrounds were different, but he was the only one who believed in me until the end. That’s why I could speak my mind without reservation.

“I sometimes think… it would have been better if I never learned music.”
“Then I wouldn’t be treating you either.”
“True. I might have died much earlier. Without music, I’d just be a laborer from a slave family.”

I lifted my right hand. On the hand that had played piano and various instruments, two fingers were missing. The index and middle fingers. That was the price I paid for struggling to reveal the truth to the world.

“…Do you regret it?”
“Hard to say.”

For a time, I composed anonymously. Creating music that was purely my own, free from any interference, and there were those who listened.

‘No matter how hard you try, there’s no one who will listen to the music of a powerless runt like you.’

The one who listened to my music was, of all people, that man. He took my fingers to ensure I could never make music again. He already had the power to do so, and I was helpless against it. With my fingers severed and beaten, I somehow made it through the mountains to my friend’s house and barely received treatment.

Looking at me, my friend spoke.

“Among the people I treated, there was a man in the trade business. He told me stories about the Far East.”
“…Out of the blue? Well, a story to hear before dying isn’t bad.”
“Don’t say that. Anyway, he said that in the East, there’s a concept called reincarnation.”
“Reincarnation? You mean being reborn? I may not have been to church in ages, cough, but it’s common sense that people go to heaven when they die.”

My friend continued.

“That’s our European common sense. He said Eastern people believe your next life is determined by how you lived your current one.”
“How fascinating.”
“And you forget all about your past life when you start anew.”

Nodding, I pondered my friend’s words. My life had been a series of losses. My talent and happiness were stolen. I struggled to get them back, but now I had given up. Having lived such a life, could I really say I lived it well?

With mixed feelings, I asked my friend.

“If, by chance, you were reborn… what would you want to do?”

If. The word stuck in my throat. The very idea of me living another life felt somehow shameful.

My friend said.

“A doctor, of course. I like saving people. And I made good money too.”
“You were a money-crazed man, my friend.”
“That’s why we became friends.”

My friend and I chuckled. After laughing for a moment, I once again stated what I wanted to do.

“I… if I were reborn, I’d want to make music.”
“I figured. You love music.”
“Music that belongs only to me, that can’t be taken by anyone.”
“…….”

My friend fell silent. He stared intently at my face. The two of us had shared a long bond, watching each other’s wrinkles grow with each passing day. My friend understood my state of mind better than anyone.

And so, I would make my final request to him. My final music. My final breath.

I pulled out a score I had hidden under one side of the pillow and handed it to my friend. It had taken considerable effort to draw the notes with just my ring and little fingers.

“This is…?”
“Something I started after coming to your house. It’s a mess because of my hands, but you should be able to make it out.”
“But… is it alright for me to take this?”

He was worthy. Completely so. Because he treated me, a former slave, without pretense, and because he witnessed and supported my efforts to tell the truth to the world. He would surely do his utmost to fulfill my last wish.

“You are more than worthy. Think of it as my gift to you. What you do with it is up to you.”

He slowly took the four sheets of music I offered. For a long time, my friend repeatedly pursed and opened his lips. After much contemplation, he finally spoke.

“…I will definitely make your injustice known to the world.”
“Thank you. Having you as a friend was a great fortune.”

I moved slowly. Unable to resist the drowsiness washing over me, I thought I’d take a short nap.

“Could you close the curtains? I’d like to take a nap.”
“Of course. Rest well.”

I gently closed my eyes. Blocking my vision, all sounds began to gather in my ears. The rustling of trees in the wind, the fluttering of butterfly wings, my friend’s soft footsteps, the sound of people talking outside.

Countless sounds were heard. Piercing through all of them, my friend’s voice reached me.

“Sleep well, my friend.”

I couldn’t answer. Sleep poured over me so heavily that I forgot to respond.

Whether the curtains were drawn or not, everything was dark. All the sounds that had created serene music fell silent in an instant.

In the pitch black, I fell into a sleep from which I would never wake. As I drifted off, my friend’s story came to mind.

‘Reincarnation… Me, reincarnating? How laughable.’

And so, I quietly breathed my last. My death was as still as a tranquil lake amid roaring gunfire.

---

‘……?’

The sound of a piano came from somewhere.

other—♬

A low C resonated calmly. The next note was heard, and the one after that. Slowly, a melody emerged.

‘This is the piece I gave my friend…?’

I thought my friend must have hired a pianist to practice it. I understood wanting to hear my music firsthand. I just didn’t expect him to call for it so soon.

But something felt off. It was as if I wasn’t hearing it being played directly, but rather recalling a song I’d heard from memory. Except, the recalled melody was incredibly vivid.

‘What is this?’

I was confused. And then, a certain noise broke through my confusion. The noise was chaotic. The sound of people shouting something jabbed at my ears. Strange Beep! Beep! sounds also tickled my hearing.

Trying to make sense of the incomprehensible situation, I struggled to open my eyes. But they wouldn’t open.

“@$^(&!!”

A woman’s voice was heard. It sounded muffled, as if shouting underwater, so I couldn’t understand what she was saying. What was certain was that it wasn’t a language I knew. The round, rolling sounds didn’t seem like English or French, but a completely different language.

“((@$&@$(&!!”

The woman shouted something again. I couldn’t understand what was happening at all. I simply thought I was dreaming. After all, words spoken in dreams always sound strange.

Slap!

But the moment I thought it was a dream, I felt pain on my thigh. I’d never been hit by my mother even as a child. The searing pain snapped me to alertness, and a scream erupted from my mouth.

“Eww!!”

However, my scream had changed into the cry of a newborn baby. Tears streamed out, and the crying showed no sign of stopping. Still, the voices were audible.

“@$#$%@.”

This time, the voice didn’t sound urgent, but rather relieved.

Yet, I had no room to pay it any mind.

‘What is this? Don’t tell me my body has been used for human experimentation like in those novels?’

Having read novels with such plots long before I was born, bad thoughts flooded my mind. So, I tried with all my might to open my eyes to assess the situation. But opening them wasn’t easy. When I tried to exert force, it only drained me.

As I was using every ounce of strength to open my eyes, I felt a cool breeze. The something that was supporting me vanished for a moment, then something else supported my neck and bottom.

‘Eyes, please! Ah, finally!’

I struggled desperately to open my eyes, and finally, I saw the result. Light, filtered through my corneas, began to come into proper view bit by bit. I slowly opened my eyes, and was finally able to look at the world.

“@%….”*

A man’s voice was heard. Low and rough, as if he’d lived a hard life, slightly cracked. That voice, too, sounded muffled as if waterlogged. And finally, my eyes opened completely.

At first, the bright light was dazzling, and then something large shielded my eyes. A voice spoke.

“Daddy….”

It was clearly a language I was hearing for the first time, but… somehow, I could understand it.

Everything began to come into view. In a room with white walls, a man was holding me. A man with a rough appearance and an unkempt beard was looking at me, smiling while tears streamed down his face.

‘I’m 39…?’

That’s what I said. However.

“Eww!!”

My voice said otherwise. It was sharp and high, like a baby’s.

‘Huh? Hmm??’

I made a sound again.

“Yeah yeah.”
“@$%@, Daddy.”

I couldn’t understand what he was saying before that, but I could clearly hear the word ‘Daddy’. However, I had no time to think about it. Deciding to assess my situation with my eyes and ears, my current state was serious.

‘Have I… become a baby?’

Reincarnation, as my friend had spoken of. It seemed I had experienced it.