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Chapter 5
1. Hit the Road, Jack (4)
A stable tone.
A wide range of sounds.
Precise breathing, resonance, and pronunciation.
This was a practical exam hall where applicants were supposed to be judged based on all those technical elements.
But Professor Kim Seojin couldn’t think about any of them.
The unique rhythm.
The rich vocal power.
A voice overflowing with groove.
A voice so full of soul that it seemed to rise straight from the depths of one’s heart.
The sheer charm of the student’s voice made it impossible to judge anything else objectively.
It was a voice so overwhelming that it left no room to think clearly.
The composition professor crossed his arms and muttered,
“His emotional delivery is unbelievable.”
Even the instrumental professor, who had already given up on trying to recruit the student after hearing him sing, nodded in agreement.
“It’s a vocal style that combines gospel, jazz, and rock with intense emotion and desperation. He sounds like a Black singer. I didn’t know a Korean could produce a voice like that.”
Seojin honestly wanted to tell them both to shut up.
Their whispering was making it harder to hear the student sing.
So he focused completely on the song.
Beyond the window glass, I see my field
In my sorrowful field, seeds of sadness
I water them with despair and let them ripen through longing
One seed drifts away in the rain
And the sorrow lingering in my heart leaves too
On this exhausted gray afternoon
Leaning quietly against the shadows
I sang like the wind
But my heart remains empty
The lyrics were almost whispered.
Yet because of the student’s deeply emotional voice, a song with no climax had become one giant climax from beginning to end.
It made them want to hear just a little more.
Just a little longer.
How much time had passed already?
It felt like over a minute had gone by.
With a voice like that, Seojin felt he could listen forever.
‘And this arrangement…’
It was incredibly spontaneous.
Originally, this song was folk music.
But the version the student was performing now sounded like a blend of blues, country, and western music.
More specifically, it felt as though a Black blues singer with an unbelievably wide vocal range was singing over jazz-style piano.
A high school senior.
A boy who had only lived around nineteen years.
How could someone so young possess emotions like that?
He wasn’t singing sadly.
Nor desperately.
If ordinary applicants sang this song, every single one of them would make it emotional and dramatic.
But this student was different.
‘He’s too calm.’
‘And that makes it even sadder.’
A calm song sung with a deeply emotional voice.
It sounded like the monologue of an old man quietly gathering up the leftover fragments of sadness abandoned by life itself.
The song had no real climax at all.
Yet everyone listening felt as if someone were grabbing their emotions by the collar and violently shaking them.
The student’s piano playing flowed gracefully from high notes to low, pressing into minor chords.
It was music they wished would continue forever.
But sadly, the performance came to an end.
Seojin stared intently at the student, who remained perfectly still until the last vibration of the piano completely faded away.
Then his expression stiffened.
He felt something strange tickling his ears.
‘His voice is still lingering in the amp.’
The singing had ended, followed by a short piano outro.
About eight seconds had passed.
And yet even now, the student’s voice still faintly echoed through the amplifier.
‘Good lord… just how rich is that voice?’
This was beyond Seojin’s own ability.
Could he even teach a student like this?
Maybe this was someone who had already stepped into the realm of genius people only talked about.
What if the student actually regressed after learning under an inadequate teacher like him?
Did he even have the right to teach him?
But he wanted to.
He desperately wanted that student to choose him.
An ironic situation where, in a place where professors selected students, the professor himself wished to be chosen instead.
The composition professor, who had been staring blankly while listening, was the first to recover.
He laughed awkwardly.
“Haha… I never imagined I’d hear a performance of this level here. That was incredible. What about you two?”
Without saying a word, the instrumental professor gave a small round of applause.
The student on stage nodded politely toward him.
That sly old man was already trying to get on my future student’s good side.
Seojin hurriedly regained his senses and called out to the student, who was about to leave the stage.
“Wait a moment.”
Everyone’s eyes turned toward Professor Kim Seojin.
Because in the first round, professors normally did not speak directly to applicants.
If there were questions, they were saved for interviews after the second round.
But Seojin had broken that unspoken rule.
When the teaching assistant handed him a microphone, Seojin asked,
“Your name is Song Minjun, right? Which academy did you attend? There’s no academy listed on your application.”
The assistant passed the piano microphone to Minjun.
“I don’t attend an academy. I never have.”
Seojin’s eyes widened.
He looked again at the application form and asked,
“You filled out your high school background correctly? It says you attend a regular academic high school.”
“That’s correct.”
“……”
Professor Kim Seojin looked utterly possessed.
No academy.
Not even an arts high school.
Then who in the world had trained a student like this?
This was absolutely not a level someone could achieve entirely through self-study.
Even Seojin himself, who saw thousands of students every year, didn’t believe he could personally train someone to that level.
After staring blankly for a moment, he asked again,
“Then who taught you music?”
The student, who had been answering smoothly until now, hesitated briefly.
Then he smiled brightly.
“Darkness.”
“…Excuse me?”
The smiling student answered again.
“Perfect darkness.”
“In that place where nothing could be seen.”
“At the exact point where everything comes to an end.”
“That’s where I learned.”
At the same time, in the very back row of the hall—
The girl who had taken the exam right before Minjun covered her mouth, her eyes practically popping out of her head as she stared at the stage.
‘Holy crap! Isn’t he an insane genius?’
‘And I was actually worried about him?!’
How embarrassing.
She had spent all that time worrying about someone monstrous like that without realizing it.
Her face bright red, the girl fanned herself with her hand and muttered,
“But seriously… this is insane. How can someone who never attended an academy be that good?”
The truth was, she had stayed behind to cheer for Minjun.
Thanks to the advice he gave her before the exam, she felt like she had done well.
Since she’d received help from him, she wanted to support him in return.
But instead, she ended up witnessing something unbelievable.
Judging by the professors’ reactions, his acceptance was already guaranteed.
Honestly, it would’ve been stranger if someone with that level of skill failed.
‘And he’s seriously handsome too.’
Truthfully, she’d kept glancing at him ever since seeing him in the waiting room.
He was just too handsome.
Sure, his clothes were kind of cheap-looking, but his proportions and face were so good that even cheap clothes made him look like a prince.
She had secretly watched him the entire time.
Then suddenly, the perfectly fine guy lowered his head and looked like he’d fallen asleep.
She thought maybe he had low blood sugar or something, so she nudged him awake.
Then while they talked, he suddenly looked like his head was splitting apart in pain.
Anyway, Minjun had been strange from the very beginning.
“Heh… but he really is handsome.”
She wanted to attend the same university as him.
Not some dusty high school campus, but a university with green lawns where they could walk together, perform together, sing together, and become close friends.
After giving that mysterious answer to the professor, Minjun waited for the next question.
But the professor remained speechless.
Eventually, Minjun handed the microphone back to the assistant and walked off stage.
The girl quickly rushed outside the hall.
She pretended to open and close the bathroom door as though she had just happened to come out at that exact moment.
Then, right on cue, Minjun appeared in the hallway.
“How’d your exam go?”
“Huh? You’re still here?”
“Yeah. I was gonna wash my hands before leaving.”
“Ah. Okay.”
As Minjun started walking, the girl naturally followed him.
“Aren’t you taking your guitar?”
“Ah, right.”
Minjun smacked his forehead.
Why did even that dumb-looking action seem cool?
Everything he did looked like a scene from a movie.
The girl nearly drooled as she watched Minjun walk away to retrieve his guitar.
***
‘I almost left the guitar behind because of her.’
Honestly, the guitar was so old that nobody would find it strange if it got thrown away.
Still, maybe it was important to Song Minjun.
My friend B.B. King, who was five years older than me, once told me that he had been so poor in his youth that he picked up an old guitar from the trash and repaired it himself.
That guy loved naming his guitars.
Even after becoming successful, he still treasured them dearly.
Maybe this old guitar was just as precious to Song Minjun.
After slinging the guitar bag over my shoulder and returning to the hallway, I saw the girl still waiting.
“Aren’t you going home?”
“Huh? Oh… I’m taking the bus anyway, so I thought I’d go with you since I’d be bored alone.”
“Ah. Okay.”
“Where do you live?”
Home.
Right, this kid has a home too.
Let’s search through the memories.
“Guri City.”
“Huh? Then you’re taking the subway? Line 1?”
“Yeah.”
“I can take the subway too. Want to go together?”
“Wouldn’t the bus be faster?”
“Doesn’t matter. It’s about the same.”
“Suit yourself.”
“What’s your name?”
“Song Minjun.”
The girl pointed at herself.
“I’m Lee Hayoon.”
“Ah, okay. Let’s go.”
In the past, I probably would’ve desperately clung to a lucky encounter with a girl.
But right now, that wasn’t important.
The first mission was successfully finding Song Minjun’s house by relying on his memories.
‘Sutaek-dong? Where the hell is that?’
The only Korean city I knew was Seoul.
Where exactly was Guri located?
Even while riding the subway together, Hayoon kept chatting nonstop.
“It’d be nice if we got into the same school, right?”
“Yeah… I guess.”
“Once you enter university, everyone makes new friends anyway. If we both get accepted, let’s be friends, okay?”
“Sure.”
“Hehe. What’s your MBTI? I’m ISFP.”
“What’s that?”
“Whoa. Did you ride a time machine here?”
Well… not exactly wrong.
What’s MBTI? Some kind of international financial organization?
Wait.
I think there’s something like that in Minjun’s memories.
I vaguely understood what it was, but apparently he had never taken the test.
“Ah, sorry. I know what it is, I just never took it.”
“Wow. I can’t believe there’s someone who doesn’t know their MBTI.”
Hayoon held out her phone.
“Give me your number.”
“……”
I knew it was a phone.
Phones existed in 2004 too.
But why didn’t it have buttons?
It was just a black screen.
Seeing me stare blankly, Hayoon reached into my pocket and grabbed my phone herself.
“Wow, you didn’t even put a lock on it.”
She casually operated the phone and entered her number while I secretly watched and searched through Minjun’s memories.
‘Ah… a smartphone.’
Damn, the world really has changed.
You can even search the internet with these things now.
Hayoon handed the phone back.
“I’ll message you later.”
Thinking it was time for her to get off, I casually waved goodbye from my seat.
Hayoon looked at me strangely.
“You’re not getting off?”
“Huh?”
“Don’t you need to transfer to the Gyeongui–Jungang Line? You need to get off here. This is Hoegi Station.”
“Ah.”
This is your fault.
If I had calmly focused on my memories, I would’ve gotten off properly.
But you kept talking nonstop, so how was I supposed to think?
Hayoon said she lived close enough to walk from Hoegi Station and disappeared.
Left alone waiting for the next train, I scratched my head.
“How the hell am I supposed to find home now… sigh.”
The train ran above ground, letting me see the scenery outside.
Looking at the colorful autumn landscape beyond the windows, I couldn’t help but think—
So this is what it feels like to see.
