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Chapter 3
I left the hotel and crossed the crosswalk on Charlotte Street right in front of it. After passing through Chinatown, I began climbing a gentle slope.
This place is exactly the same as before, too.
The street, lined with low British brick houses, looked just as it had when I first set foot here. Of course, since I had returned to that time, it was only natural that it would be the same. But having already spent six years in Korea, it felt strange to find myself standing inside this familiar scenery again. As though, unlike me, this place had been waiting for me in frozen time. It was welcoming, aching, and thrilling all at once. It felt like returning to my second home, the one I had been forced to leave behind with so many stories.
Almost there.
Before long, I had reached the spot across from the enormous Liverpool Cathedral. I turned into a familiar alley and walked a little further, and the main gate of the grounds appeared before me.
[LSPA]
At the large letters written on the pillar, I drew in a breath full of emotion. Liverpool School for Performing Arts. I had really come back. To the school of my dreams that I had missed so much. Standing among the people coming and going, I gazed at the LSPA sign for a long while, then took a deep breath and walked through the main gate.
“Hey! What country are you from?”
“Norway. You?”
“Oh, Norway! Cool. I’m from Florida!”
The place, bustling with students from many countries, was just as it used to be. The low steps where people could sit freely and talk. The cute little mini garden decorated with small trees.
It’s all the same as before.
I shifted my gaze and looked around. Buildings of various sizes surrounded the school’s front courtyard. They looked like several separate buildings, but in fact they were all connected as LSPA’s main building. It housed the school’s key facilities: two auditoriums, various offices, music practice rooms, recording studios, MIDI rooms, an instrument rental room, a library, and more.
And that’s the annex.
A long building stood a little apart from the main building. At a glance it looked like an ordinary office block or condo, but it was where the vocal, acting, dance, and stage design classes were held. Surrounded by the scenery I had missed, I took a deep breath.
Everything’s still so peaceful.
Just as when I first came, it was filled with the dreams of shining young people. Maybe because of that familiar atmosphere, for a moment it felt as though every memory from here swept over my entire body. From the opening ceremony and the first classes, all the way to the fire that took my dream.
…Let’s not think about that.
I had been given a chance again, like a miracle. I didn’t want the memories of the past that had dragged me into the pit of despair to ruin the present. Besides, there were still about nine months until then, weren’t there?
For now, I’ll focus only on building a successful career.
Taking a different path from the past, when I had only kept up with my studies at LSPA, I would make my name known at a terrifying speed, beyond the school, beyond the region, across Britain.
That way, I’ll achieve my dream again, more efficiently and more effectively than before.
I lifted my head and looked at the school scenery once more. Among the youths shining with nothing but their passion for art, I hoped I too would shine again, like a star. With excitement spreading in my heart, I headed for the Paul McCarney Grand Hall in the main building. As familiarly as I always had six years ago.
“Here at LSPA, we nurture talent in every field that leads the performing arts. This school, created through the long preparation of Sir Paul McCarney of the Beetles and our chairman…”
Inside the Paul McCarney Grand Hall on the first floor of the main building. The opening ceremony, proceeding as smoothly as it had in the past with its introductions to the departments and notes on school life, was drawing toward its end.
Even seeing it again, this place looks like a movie set.
Past the huge arched doors lay the Paul McCarney Grand Hall. Both the first and second floor seating were made of antique wood, giving it the look of a venerable theater that exuded British classicism and elegance.
“For the next week, new students will go through the Freshers’ Week welcome period prepared by the student union, and after that you will begin school life in earnest. Students who have not yet submitted all the required documents…”
When the school’s registrar finished all his announcements and returned to his seat, the chairman, who had been standing on stage, smiled broadly at the audience and called out his final greeting.
“Then, welcome, everyone, to LSPA!”
The seats, packed with new students of every race, erupted in cheers.
“Whoooo!”
“LSPA!”
“LSPA! LSPA! LSPA!”
As the thunderous applause filled the Paul McCarney Grand Hall and the new students’ excitement grew hotter, the blond man seated next to me looked around in bewilderment and spoke to his companion.
“Everyone’s crazy. Look at the chairman, too. He’s joining in with the students! And with that accent, so posh, like he’d never do something like this.”
“It’s a performing arts school. He’s matching the mood of the kids. We came in through the management department so this is baffling for us, but most of the people here are artists. We need to get used to this atmosphere quickly.”
“Haa. I wonder if we can ever keep up with artists’ craziness…”
His companion chuckled and looked around at the students still chanting “LSPA.”
“Definitely hard to keep up in a short time. By the way, I heard this school has a bar. Want to go?”
“I don’t know. I haven’t really unpacked at my accommodation yet, so I should probably do that first.”
“True. Things will be hectic once the term starts. Then let’s just head back.”
“Yeah, that’s probably best. We can go to the school bar another time.”
At that, I raised my eyebrows and muttered to myself.
“You really should go to the L.PA Bar today.”
Especially if you were a management student who needed to build a network. Maybe he heard my murmur. The man in the next seat glanced at me and greeted me with an awkward smile.
“Haha… Hi.”
“Hi.”
In the past, I too had gone straight back to the hotel after the opening ceremony, just like them. I hadn’t known the school bar existed, and the schedule hadn’t listed any events after the ceremony. But later, from my classmates, I learned that the real main event of that day started unofficially after the ceremony. The new students who had finished the opening ceremony came down to the school bar and began their first social activity there.
The so-called crews formed that day stayed close for at least until the end of the term, or even until graduation. Exchanging information and talent, and helping each other.
His companion stood up and started getting ready to leave.
“We’re heading back to our accommodation. Nice meeting you. Bye.”
With that greeting to me, they followed the crowd out of the Paul McCarney Grand Hall. Watching them go, I stood up too.
Right. Since I can’t even remember their faces, they must have been unremarkable in my previous life. Never mind them.
And I started walking. Unlike where those two were headed, toward the place where I would make my presence known and begin a successful school life.
A place decorated in what you might call mid-century modern style, where refined jazz might be playing. Yet it was a casual, charming space infused with the passion of bustling arts students. This was the school bar on the first basement floor of the main building, next to the canteen, the L.PA Bar.
The Guinness here was so good.
Some people said its smooth, bittersweet flavor was like chocolate. It was a famous beer I had drunk many times in Korea too, but it was here that I first learned the true taste of a well-poured Guinness. With a happy heart, I stepped into the L.PA Bar when…
“Hey! Ben! Come over here once you get your drinks! I’ll save you a seat!”
Right by the entrance, at a packed table, a man had barely managed to claim a spot and was waving to his friend. His friend, waiting for drinks at the bar, raised one eyebrow at him.
“Who are the people next to you?”
“No idea! We’ll get to know them from now on!”
“Heh heh, right! Hey, Ben! We’re getting to know each other from now on!”
When another student sitting at the table waved along with the man in a playful way, giggles broke out around them. The man at the bar chuckled helplessly, then turned his head and went back to waiting for his beer.
As expected, only the sociable ones have gathered today.
Come to think of it, that made sense. It wasn’t an official event. These were people who had gathered here with nothing but the desire to build new connections before everyone else. Of course most of them were outgoing. I looked around again.
“One Guinness, please!”
“That’s £2.45.”
“Over here!”
“Ah, no. This round’s on me, to celebrate meeting everyone for the first time!”
“Wow. Really?”
“Yeah! Compared to Norway, drinks here are nothing.”
Those guys were already buying rounds on the first day.
The Norwegian students’ behavior was no different from when I first came here. Whether it was because they came from a wealthy country, or from a country with high prices, especially for alcohol, Norwegian students were very generous about buying drinks. Well, one difference from back then was that, not yet knowing who had what talent, everyone was being overly friendly to everyone. Pretending to be more open, pretending to be more sociable. Smiling faces, engaged in fierce probing of one another.
Still, the bar being much more crowded than usual does live up to what my classmates said about it being the unofficial main event of the day.
Popular as the L.PA Bar was, it had never been so packed that there was no room to stand.
Now then, shall we start looking in earnest for the person who’ll be my crew member?
Crews mattered especially to international students with no ties to Britain. They could live like family and ease each other’s loneliness of living in a foreign land. They could deeply influence one another and grow together, or sink into the abyss together.
So I need to find someone with good character as well as skill.
And so I began making my way through the L.PA Bar, packed with new students, to find the person who would become my crew member.
