WCP 24

chapter 24

After a hectic Sunday, Monday’s lunch break arrived.

As if it had become a routine by now, Lee Ji-hye naturally showed up in the music room, chewing convenience store bread as she asked:

“Anyway, you managed to get a piano, right?”

“Well, yeah. Though I’ll have to wait until next week.”

Hearing this, Ji-hye brushed the bread crumbs off the desk and said:

“For you to praise it that much, it must’ve been tuned pretty well, huh?”

“It wasn’t just ‘well-tuned.’ You’d know right away if you played it yourself.”

The feel of pressing the keys was completely different. Even someone who wasn’t a pianist, but had touched a piano before, would notice immediately.

“Then maybe I should go try it today. I’ve got a free afternoon anyway.”

“Isn’t your entrance exam coming up soon? You’re a little too relaxed.”

“So what? It’s not like I’ll fail just for taking one day off.”

Well, she probably knew what she was doing.

Since the exam repertoire for the Korean conservatories hadn’t been announced yet, the most anyone could do now was prepare based on last year’s list.

If anything, I’m the one who should be worried.

Min-woo had been practicing consistently even after the competition. Except for Chopin’s pieces, which he didn’t need to practice, he had been going through Beethoven, Liszt, Mozart, Schumann—everything without exception.

But there was one problem: works by composers who came after his death.

Tchaikovsky, Rachmaninoff, Debussy—the greats of the late Romantic and modern era.

They were all active after 1840, after Chopin had passed away.

Which meant Min-woo had only heard their music, never performed it.

He had just begun practicing them—since competition prep had left him no time before—but the results were disastrous.

Even taking into account that it was sight-reading, his playing had been a complete mess.

Will I be able to get through them all before the exams?

The real problem was time.

Thanks to getting access to the music room, his practice hours had increased compared to before, but it still wasn’t enough.

If he wanted more practice, he needed a piano he could use privately.

“Take it easy, will you? You’re gonna collapse at this rate.”

“I won’t collapse from just this.”

In his previous life, maybe. But now, with the body of a healthy teenager, there was little chance of collapsing.

“I mean, you just finished the competition. No one’s gonna blame you if you take a breather.”

As Ji-hye spoke, she suddenly reached into her pocket.

“So how about this—since we’re on the subject, wanna go to a concert together if you’ve got time?”

“A concert?”

What she pulled out was none other than three tickets.

“What, you haven’t heard? Hans Zimmermann is in Korea right now. He’s holding a concert—everyone’s going crazy about it.”

Hans Zimmermann.

The name was familiar.

If memory served, he was a Polish pianist who was always mentioned among the greatest of the 21st century.

A prodigy who had stood shoulder to shoulder with world-class pianists since his teenage years.

He had swept countless international competitions, and now, in middle age, was traveling the globe as a true romantic pianist.

That was about all Min-woo knew about Hans Zimmermann.

Polish, huh…

Maybe because he was a fellow countryman, it piqued his interest unconsciously.

“When’s the concert?”

“Two weeks from now. Oh, and Da-yoon already agreed to come. You’re the only one left.”

Jung Da-yoon was coming too?

When had Ji-hye gotten her number and arranged that?

Her initiative was something to be admired, really.

Thinking so, Min-woo quietly accepted her offer.

“Alright, I’ll go.”

To hear the performance of the man standing at the pinnacle of modern classical piano—
As a pianist from a bygone era, he couldn’t help but look forward to it.

Min-woo accepted the ticket Ji-hye handed over, excitement flickering inside him.

And then, a familiar face in the printed photo on the ticket caught his eye.

“This man…”

It was the foreigner he had seen in front of the old master’s shop the other day.

Which meant this was Hans Zimmermann.

“What’s wrong? Something wrong with the ticket?”

“No, nothing.”

Min-woo hurriedly brushed off Ji-hye’s question.

Wait, does that mean the master actually turned down Hans Zimmermann’s request yesterday?

A world-class pianist personally coming to ask for tuning—that meant the old master might be even more remarkable than he had thought.

‘If you wanted my piano, you should’ve come prepared with a proper piece.’

That was what the master had said yesterday.

He hadn’t heard the whole exchange, but it had felt like the master was setting conditions in exchange for tuning.

And Zimmermann hadn’t been able to meet those conditions.

‘But how can I compose a piece I’ve never heard before?’

So it was related to composition… Could it have something to do with that mysterious piece he had mistaken for Ravel last time?

Even thinking it over again, he couldn’t make sense of it.

He’d just have to ask the master directly later.

With that thought, Min-woo carefully slipped the ticket into his pocket—carrying with it the firm belief that there was some story behind it.

A week—why did it always seem to flow differently?

During the competition, a week had flown by in the blink of an eye. But now, after it was over, it felt slower than a Polish winter.

Still, time passed regardless. Fast or slow, it moved on.

And so, Sunday morning arrived.

Walking through the back alleys, Min-woo exhaled a silly thought along with the chilly wind.

He told me to come back next week, so here I am. But did he mean at this time?

The old man hadn’t told him a specific hour, only “come back in a week.”

Surely tuning a piano wouldn’t take this long. Most likely, it was already done.

Believing that, Min-woo carefully pushed open the shop door and stepped inside.

“Master, I’m here.”

The shop was unchanged from the week before.

The same heavy scent of wood, the nostalgic atmosphere.

Even the arrangement of the instruments looked identical.

The only difference was that the counter was empty.

“Did he just step out for a bit?”

Finding no trace of anyone, Min-woo scanned the room.

All he found was a half-written sheet of staff paper lying on the counter.

I’ve never seen this piece before.

[Rustle—]

He reached out to look more closely at the score.

Sure enough, it wasn’t something he recognized.

“…Wait.”

No—he had heard it once.

Clutching the score, Min-woo approached a nearby piano and pressed down a key.

[~~~~]

What rang out was a melody he didn’t know well, but had heard before.

The piece he’d mistaken for Ravel’s work outside the shop last week.

No title, no composer.

Only notes inscribed on the staff. No name anywhere.

It sparked his curiosity.

A mysterious piece resembling Ravel.

Eager to uncover its identity, Min-woo pulled out the bench and began playing it with both hands.

The opening resembled Ravel’s Pavane pour une infante défunte—in G major, rondo form.

Assez doux mais d’une sonorité large—very gentle and tender, but resonant.

Yet beyond a similarity in key and structure, the details were entirely different.

Feels like an arrangement, but whoever did it reimagined it with striking originality.

It was as if the arranger had dissected the original, then painstakingly rebuilt it note by note.

Whoever wrote it must have listened to Pavane hundreds, thousands of times.

“…”

The faint aftertaste of antiseptic lingered in the music’s depths.

Crooked notes, countless erasures and rewritings on the score.

Min-woo understood all too well what that meant.

So this is where it ends, huh.

He turned the page, but beyond it was only blank staff paper.

Strange. He could’ve sworn he’d heard more when standing outside last week.

“You won’t find it. That’s all there is.”

A voice spoke from behind.

Without looking back, Min-woo knew it was the old master.

He quickly rose from the bench and bowed.

“Sorry, I shouldn’t have played without permission.”

“It’s fine. Pianos and sheet music exist to be played.”

The master dismissed his apology with a wave.

“Who wrote this piece?”

“My wife left it behind. As you can see, it’s unfinished.”

He touched the sheets resting on the piano as he spoke.

His voice sounded calm, but beneath it lay grief, scarred yet unhealed.

“It’s been over forty years now.”

Considering he looked around seventy, that was indeed long ago.

“May I ask… how she passed away?”

“Cancer. By the time they diagnosed her, it was already terminal.”

His gaze rested on the score, yet seemed to look far beyond it.

“She was a Ravel maniac. Listened only to Ravel’s pieces throughout her time in the hospital.”

For those whose bodies are failing, choices grow few.

The longer they lie bedridden, the further they drift from what they love, and the more things they begin to hate.

In time, people start clinging desperately to what little they still love—even if it’s endless repetition of the same thing.

And eventually, both body and spirit waste away.

Min-woo knew that kind of life better than anyone.

Because once, it had been his own.

“Ha… guess I ramble too much in my old age. Anyway, the piano’s all ready. Try it out. Later, give me your address and I’ll have it delivered.”

As if brushing it off as an old memory, the master said this quietly.

Still burying deep inside him the scar time itself could not heal—

…together with an unfinished Pavane.