“Na-me, how did you know I was here and come to find me?”
Niel, stirring the red broth in a figure-eight with her spoon, asked casually.
“You just ran out without a plan. There’s only one park along the road if you keep going straight.”
“If I went somewhere else, Na-me would have wandered for a while. I’m glad we met like this.”
“You wouldn’t have gotten lost anyway.”
“Huh? Why’s that?”
I grabbed her left hand and spread her palm wide.
Using my fingertip, I began to gently tickle the lines on her palm as if tracing a map.
“Eek! That tickles, Na-me!”
“Just a little longer. I’ll take this out for you.”
Like making cotton candy, I twirled my index finger, pulling a delicate golden line from her hand.
“What’s this?”
“It’s my aura.”
As soon as I clenched my fist, the yellow thread disappeared like cotton candy dissolving in water.
“Why’s it coming from my hand?”
“I attached it earlier. That way, I could know where you went.”
“Hey, that’s tracking…! Just say it outright… I guess you learn this kind of stuff at the academy?”
“Well, that’s roughly the case.”
If I said I learned it at the academy, it would really become an unbeatable argument, right?
I should put this knowledge to good use later.
We left the park to digest our dinner and wandered aimlessly in the heart of the city.
“Group leader must be really mad at me…”
“If you know that, why don’t you just send a text message?”
“No matter what I send, she’ll be mad anyway, right?”
“You can’t think like that. It’s not about expecting something to change; it’s about apologizing because you did something wrong.”
“Yeah, okay. I’ll send it right away.”
“You made a good choice.”
As we chatted, I noticed that Niel was somewhat seriously avoidant about relationships.
If she sensed something might go wrong, she’d cut ties without hesitation.
The person who should be paying the most attention in psychology class was napping, and skipping study group meetings because of extracurricular activities.
“I didn’t always sleep. The professor’s voice was just a bit drowsy.”
“That’s one thing, but why did you schedule your extracurricular at the same time as class?”
“It was originally right after class. The study group always finishes early, so it fit perfectly. But then the mother from there kept asking me to start 30 minutes to an hour earlier, so I had no choice.”
“You should have just refused right away.”
“Yeah, I know… If it was going to end empty like this…”
She rubbed her throbbing forehead.
It’s always tough to negotiate matters that affect one’s livelihood.
But more than anything else, the biggest issue was that Daniel hadn’t told his group members about his situation.
Naturally, it made sense that they would complain when he constantly missed the study group without any explanation.
“Didn’t you think about asking for understanding?”
“Yeah… who would look at it positively? Plus, if I explained, I’d have to spill all my family history.”
“I don’t know what your family situation is, but if it’s necessary, you should share it.”
“Yeah.”
“That might sound like child’s play to you, right?”
“Huh? No, no! I wasn’t thinking that, Na-me.”
She said she wasn’t, but her face said otherwise.
Stubborn people need to be taken down a peg from the start.
You can’t offer advice until they clear their minds.
As the western sky began to transition from crimson to navy blue,
“Then let’s make a bet. If you win, I’ll go to Da-yeon and explain why you had to miss the study group. If I explain, Da-yeon won’t be too mad. That way, when you participate in the next study group, it won’t be as awkward, right?”
I stopped walking and made the suggestion.
Niel’s eyes sparkled as they reflected the neon sign.
“If I win, you have to apologize to all the group members personally at the next study group.”
“Do I really have to make that bet…?”
I nodded.
She would have no choice but to accept the bet.
This wasn’t about luring her in with goodies; the bet itself was the bait.
“By the way, I heard you talked a lot during the first meeting. I also heard you’d struggle to use the capsule because you have claustrophobia.”
“Yeah. It’s because of a trauma from when I was little.”
“That’s a shame. You seemed to have a lot of fun with Professor Pi Su-jeong and Maestro. Are you not interested in challenging me?”
I pointed to the building next door.
[King Wang Jjang Arcade]
“Doing it offline should be fine, right?”
Maestro was a game that came out during the early capsule distribution.
That’s why it initially had lackluster promotional and intake effects just through the capsule platform itself. They had actual instruments displayed at the arcade for the game’s integration.
It was just another offline rhythm game, except that the instrument was a violin.
I was ready to crush her pride right here.
“The professor said that I play better than you.”
“…!”
“What do you think, sister?”
If she could hold back this, she wouldn’t be a music major at Korea University.
“This is my life.”
Niel’s eyes widened.
For the first time, she spoke with seriousness in her voice.
The phrase “my life” carried a strong accent.
*
[Beethoven, Sonata No. 8 Op. 13 ‘Pathétique’ 2nd movement]
[Difficulty: ★]
[Adagio cantabile: slow and singing]
Life is a blessing.
Daniel was born blessed to parents who ran a ginseng farm for five generations and a mother who ran a violin school.
On days when the house was filled with his mother’s beautiful violin melody and his father’s deep voice,
The baby, with distinct features like his parents, laughed joyfully,
And the golden retriever barked, completing the delightful choir.
[#1 Jūdex: SS Rank / 1,000,000 points / Accuracy 100%]
[#1 NoName: SS Rank / 1,000,000 points / Accuracy 100%]
“If only our lives were this easy…”
I raised the difficulty.
[Brahms, Violin Sonata No. 2 Op. 100 1st movement]
[Difficulty: ★★]
[Allegro amabile: fast and lovingly]
Within a piano academy, clumsy violin performances of immature children echoed.
A three-year-old held onto her grandmother’s hand and toddled in.
A girl yawned broadly as she watched her mother’s passionate teaching from the back of the classroom.
To entertain the child’s boredom, the grandmother handed over a children’s violin to play with until her mother’s class was over.
When the grandmother plucked a string of the violin, it accidentally produced a clear ‘do’ sound.
The child followed suit with her tiny fingers,
Plucking the strings again and again,
Extracting the notes of ‘do’, ‘sol’, and ‘la’,
She began to sing the lullaby her mother whispered to her every night before bed.
[Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star!]
Do do sol sol la la sol.
And just like that, the child fell in love with the violin as if in a fantastic dream.
The mother’s face was painted with astonishment, witnessing the genius.
[#1 Jūdex: SS Rank / 1,000,000 points / Accuracy 100%]
[#1 NoName: SS Rank / 1,000,000 points / Accuracy 100%]
“I can’t remember any of that, even if it happened. My mom told me every day like a cuckoo.”
I raised the difficulty again.
[Brahms, Violin Sonata No. 3 Op. 108 4th movement]
[Difficulty: ★★★★☆]
[Presto agitato: very fast and hurried]
After seven years of careful observation from Daniel’s mother, it was clear that her daughter had real talent.
What was regrettable was her practice time.
Niel had fragile arms and hands, unable to hold the violin for long.
At that time, ‘Maestro,’ a game released by Yamaha, was frequently discussed in the industry.
While teachers worried about losing their livelihoods, it was no big deal for Niel’s mother to let it slide for her daughter’s sake.
[Let’s increase the practice time to 10 hours from today.]
The initial goal was to enter the best art middle school in the country, Yale.
In virtual reality, injuries were non-existent, and stamina was less consumed.
The mother revealed that she could sneak into the capsule herself and enjoy practices that mirrored reality almost identically.
[You’ll use this avatar when practicing.]
An avatar assumed to be what Niel’s body would look like at age 15, fifteen years later.
Her chest had noticeably developed, and her height rose to 175 cm, making her much taller than her mother.
She had no equal in talent at that age.
So, her mother began to envision even further.
If Niel could grasp adult performances from a young age, it would only be a matter of time before she became a ‘maestro.’
Moreover, paying only 10,000 won could yield a violin sound worth millions, so not using Maestro would be foolish.
[Mom, what’s going on… I fell… I fell!]
That couldn’t be true.
The plans for Yale, Korean Art High School, and the Korea University music department had all gone awry from the start.
Numerous articles criticized the early education issues concerning virtual reality on the news, but they never reached her mother’s ears.
Research showed that learning using only brain waves and that using the entire nervous system exhibited a significant difference when users were young was deemed nonsense.
[It’s all because of my insufficient practice.]
I raised the practice time to 16 hours.
I quit aiming for Yale because it held no significance.
The sole objective was Korean Art High School!
In the end, the mother was right,
and the girl was destined to be wrong.
A ‘genius at sight-reading’ was enrolled at Korean Art High School.
[#1 Jūdex: SS Rank / 1,000,000 points / Accuracy 100%]
[#1 NoName: SS Rank / 1,000,000 points / Accuracy 100%]
“Having the ability to play well upon seeing a sheet of music doesn’t mean anything. Everyone practices hundreds or thousands of times before they come. What matters is how long you spent learning from a teacher. What good is being a sight-reading genius? What does it matter if you play correctly? They all say my playing is garbage.”
Since diving into duets, the difficulty increased automatically.
Even if I didn’t want to ramp it up, this was an unstoppable force dictated by the system and fate.
[Walton, Violin Concerto 2nd movement]
[Difficulty: ★★★★★★★★☆]
[Poco a poco piu agitato: a little bit faster and more hurried]
At one time, the mysterious heavy player ‘U-Dex’ who made waves in Maestro vanished without a trace.
Daniel felt even greater happiness in being liberated from the miserable capsule than merely getting accepted into the art school.
In terms of pitch and timing, she was ranked as a formidable player, yet she would never grasp the meaning of pouring emotions into music.
Still, it was evident that her talent and lessons combined were immensely powerful, allowing her to qualify for Korean Art High School.
Throughout the last six years, Niel confidently declared she had lived in hell, pressured by her mother’s near-abusive insistence to practice and her father’s indifference masquerading as neglect.
Yet, an even greater hell awaited her in front.
Their family was struggling.
Maintaining a violin was incredibly costly.
Renting a decent instrument alone cost about 5 million won a month, and purchasing one easily exceeded the price of a car.
The bow would cost a minimum of 5 million won, requiring separate purchases for the instrument and its case.
The ongoing lessons, competitions, and additional lesson fees outside of school could cost anywhere from 300,000 to 500,000 won a day.
In total, students could find themselves facing expenses ranging from 20 million won a year to exceeding 100 million won.
It was an entrance exam for a music school that even the average middle-class family couldn’t manage.
“What do you mean? Dad got scammed?”
Already knee-deep in debt, the current situation wasn’t pretty.
The mother resolutely cut off communication.
“You focus only on your responsibilities. Mom and Dad will handle the household chores.”
In her first year of high school, Daniel’s father was enticed by a friend’s proposal to create a smart automated farm and lost about 300 million won to a scam.
The father’s farm had mortgaged the bank debt, losing ownership in the end.
In her second year, Niel’s mother closed the violin academy and sold the building for a pittance.
Now, Niel had to bear her mother’s dreams too.
In her third year, they even sold the blessed country house with cherished memories, love, and beauty, moving in with her grandmother.
Niel happened to be overseas for a competition, so she learned about her grandmother’s passing only after the fact.
“Is this my fault? Is it because I wanted to play the violin?”
Busy as he was, the father felt a twinge of regret for missing his daughter’s competition and was tempted by an investment proposal he wouldn’t normally entertain.
Her mother, whose only obsession was her daughter’s success, sacrificed everything for it, and now was left a nervous wreck, crying all day at home. She even often woke from her sleep calling out for Korean University’s music department.
“No, our daughter is fine. Grandma’s house isn’t so bad. You doing well at school? Are you getting along with your friends?”
Niel hung up on the call with her father.
To her dead phone, she muttered in frustration.
“Why do you ask such obvious questions… After three years of this mess at home, there’s no way I could have a normal school life…”
Daniel had no friends throughout her three years in high school.
It was somehow fortunate that she had none at all.
‘Again on my desk…’
She angrily threw the tiny eraser at the blackboard while erasing the scribbles on her desk.
*
I can’t speak for how others, including Daniel, interpret music and play it, but I do it somewhat differently.
First, I convert the sheet music into a three-dimensional model in my mind, setting a new axis for the sound intensity.
Then, I remember the left-hand and right-hand movements of those who have played the same music.
In that way, I can reproduce what others have performed without putting in additional effort to interpret the piece myself.
The reason I was praised by Professor Pi Su-jeong for my performance of Caprice No. 24 made sense due to this.
However, my cover of Kariri, which I played for the first time, received rather harsh criticism.
“You really are good… but… doesn’t it feel a bit stiff like Daniel?”
“Oh, yes! I was thinking exactly that, Professor!”
“How interesting… I thought I’d never see someone like you.”
Of course, it was outright false to say I played the violin better than Niel.
How could I possibly catch up to someone who practiced hard for more than ten years for ten hours a day?
I didn’t expect Niel to believe it so firmly, but anyway.
I certainly had no intention of simply losing this bet.
[Scoreboard]
[#1 Jūdex: Accuracy 99.58%]
[#2 NoName: Accuracy 99.13%]
The accuracy gap was widening.
Although Maestro has an online performance correction mode, the evaluations were extremely harsh.
Based on the remaining notes, Niel would need to make mistakes in three or more sections for me to barely catch up.
Niel’s eyes were fixated on the sheet music without blinking as it neared the climax.
What a monstrous skill.
Was there no chance?
Just when the performance approached its finale.
Ding-!
A strange sound emanated from Niel’s violin.
The string had snapped without warning.
[#1 NoName: S Rank / 986,392 points / Accuracy 99.16%]
[#2 Jūdex: S Rank / 933,948 points / Accuracy 95.14%]
[Congratulations!]
[The final winner is ‘NoName’!]
“You won, NoName.”
Niel immediately acknowledged her defeat.
Was the snapped string intentional on her part, or a technical issue?
Daniel never revealed the truth until the very end.
