The Five-Year-Old Wolfgang
To be honest, Kim Seong-cheol hadn't liked this gathering from the very beginning.
A gathering to analyze music through mathematics—it was his absolute least favorite concept.
Moreover, since the subject of it all was Chul-jun, he couldn't possibly feel good about it.
Even when Chul-jun played the original version of the first minuet, Seong-cheol's only thought had been how to knock those number-crunchers down a peg.
He had fully intended to show them just how pointless it was to dissect music with math.
His mind had been a bit of a mess, though, because he had to make his point without accidentally belittling Chul-jun.
Using mathematical analysis and reverse calculation to deduce the piece Mozart actually wanted people to hear? How utterly absurd.
If it hadn't been for Chul-jun, he would have demanded they skip the mathematical nonsense and just listen to the music first.
But because it was Chul-jun, he held his tongue.
Besides, seeing the math professors and even the Dean of the College of Natural Sciences showering Chul-jun with praise had somehow made his own chest swell with pride.
At any rate, that was how he had felt.
But the moment Chul-jun finished the original minuet and began the second piece—the one supposedly reconstructed through reverse calculation—one of Kim Seong-cheol's eyebrows twitched.
A section that had been a cheerful major key was now in a minor key.
Though the chords progressed similarly, the mood was no longer bright and lively; instead, it felt stifled, heavy, and suffocating.
Without realizing it, sheet music began to unfurl in Kim Seong-cheol's mind.
Section A of the original piece.
The spot that should have opened with a G major tonic chord had been replaced with an E minor chord.
It wasn't just a single semitone shift. The entire tonal center had migrated, casting a dark shadow over what should have been a bright, sunny passage.
As he listened to this piece and recalled the original, a five-year-old child materialized before Kim Seong-cheol's eyes.
A tiny boy bows with formal, practiced grace.
Around him, elegantly dressed aristocrats watch with intrigued eyes.
The child begins to dance.
Tick, tock. Tick, tock.
A simple, clear melody.
A precisely structured composition.
Light and cheerful, yet elegant and dignified.
A child eager to show off his dance to the crowd.
This was the scene usually associated with Mozart's minuets.
He dances beautifully.
But comparing it to the piece Chul-jun was playing now, the boy's movements seemed stiff.
There were too many rules to follow.
A yearning to dance more freely manifested as a suffocating weight.
The gazes of the adults watching the child were far too strict.
Was that why?
Was that why that once-perfect piece suddenly felt so stifling?
A child who, at the time, received rigorous musical training from his father day in and day out.
Aristocrats, formality, precise tempo, elegance, and zero tolerance for mistakes.
The heavy, stifling atmosphere of the opening of Chul-jun's piece perfectly captured the child's state of mind.
Suppression?
From that moment on, Kim Seong-cheol completely erased the standard minuet from his mind.
Once he did, the sense of suppression became even more vivid.
The piece transitioned into the middle section, and a passage that should have been in a minor key shifted to a major key.
In the original, this had been the most sophisticated part.
Now, it bounced with playful energy.
There was no structure, no music theory.
It was simply the fingers of a young child pressing the keys out of pure, unadulterated joy.
The tempo wavered considerably.
And yet...
It's so much fun.
The child, who had been taking precise steps, suddenly pauses in surprise and glances around at his surroundings.
Boom, clap-clap! Boom, clap!
The rigid 3/4 time signature began to run wild.
The neat, repetitive ticking faltered noticeably.
Startled, the child tripped over his own feet.
Blinking his round eyes, the boy cautiously tried moving his feet to the altered rhythm.
His movements were a bit awkward.
But he looked infinitely happier than before.
The child's movements grew bolder.
He tripped and tumbled, but he scrambled right back up, giggling and leaping with excitement.
It was okay to make mistakes.
It was okay to be wrong.
The chaotic, irregular tempo was messy and far from perfect, but it was so much more joyful.
Without realizing when it had happened, Seong-cheol found himself stepping into the shoes of that five-year-old child.
A child who had to be flawless in front of aristocrats from a tender age.
The suffocating, endless practice sessions that stretched from dawn to dusk.
The sudden burst of freedom felt by a five-year-old boy suppressed by such a rigid environment.
A sequence of notes weaving together that entire narrative and emotional journey.
Ah...
To think he could pack so much story into such a short, simple piece.
Others might not have felt it, but Kim Seong-cheol, who had spent his entire life immersed in music, was absolutely certain.
While he couldn't claim this was Wolfgang's actual original composition, the emotions the boy wanted to convey were expressed with breathtaking clarity.
His technique might still be unpolished, but this was undeniably the mark of a true musician.
Ha, he has musical genius too?
A wave of overwhelming emotion surged deep within Kim Seong-cheol.
"D-Dean..."
Quickly closing his agape mouth, he turned his head to find the department chair, who had clearly felt the same thing, looking utterly thrilled.
"That boy... is extraordinary."
Kim Seong-cheol nodded slowly.
Then, he looked warmly at the boy sitting at the piano, who was beaming with a bright smile.
"Haha. That was a wonderful performance, Chul-jun."
"Thank you!"
"Now, then. The R-value we used as an estimate during the reverse calculation..."
Gu Byung-ook, the Dean of the College of Natural Sciences, began to speak as he walked toward the whiteboard. Chul-jun tilted his head and stopped him.
"But you can't get the right answer through reverse calculation."
"What...?"
"There are too many assumptions, and my estimated values were inserted into critical parts of the formulas. In the end, that reverse calculation only yields an approximation."
"Ah, right, right. Yes, of course. We thought so too."
"So it's certain that math can't solve it, right?"
"Well, yes, I suppose so."
"That's what I came here to confirm."
"Is that so?"
"Because I felt that in music, emotion is what matters most."
Chul-jun turned his head to look at the piano.
And furrowed his brow slightly.
Did these teachers not meet him?
The five-year-old child who was leaping joyfully across the piano keys?
No wonder the applause after his performance had felt somewhat dry.
"Haha, still, your approach was incredibly novel. That's why we want to take the logic of this reverse calculation from the very beginning and—"
"No. No matter how hard you try, the formulas will always stop right there."
"What...?"
"Because it's a realm that mathematical formulas can never reach."
Dean Gu Byung-ook chuckled awkwardly.
Chul-jun gave him a bright smile in return.
"I believed the answer to this problem had to be found at the piano. And while playing just now, I found the answer I was looking for."
"Haha..."
"At first, I was just fumbling through it too. But playing under all of your uncomfortable stares just now made me understand a little. I realized how the five-year-old Wolfgang I imagined must have felt. Once I did, the music changed."
"Un... uncomfortable?"
"I came here to ask questions. But you all kept asking me questions instead. You kept trying to verify if what I was saying was correct."
Gu Byung-ook's smile stiffened slightly.
"You didn't see him, did you?"
"Huh?"
"The five-year-old boy."
"..."
Just then, Kim Seong-cheol, who had been listening quietly from the side, chimed in.
"Ah, it seems the Dean didn't see him."
"Pardon?"
"The five-year-old Wolfgang was running around so freely..."
"Haha. What on earth are you..."
Kim Seong-cheol shook his head with exaggerated theatricality.
Then, he looked at Chul-jun.
"Haha. My, it was truly a moving sight, but I have no way to explain it. It's something only musicians can perceive. Isn't that right, Chul-jun?"
Chul-jun beamed.
"You saw him, Teacher?"
"Of course! I saw the suppressed child running around freely with perfect clarity."
"Wow! Then is the piece I just played the correct answer?"
Kim Seong-cheol furrowed his brow slightly.
He couldn't call it the "correct answer."
However, the boy had conveyed those emotions flawlessly.
To a truly astonishing degree.
"Well, there are no correct answers in music. But the feeling you wanted to convey definitely reached me."
"Ahem!"
Dean Gu Byung-ook cleared his throat loudly, cutting off their conversation.
"Excuse me, but I was speaking first..."
His tone dropped into a blunt, displeased register.
Kim Seong-cheol simply smiled and nodded.
"Haha. My apologies, I spoke out of turn. Please, Dean, continue your conversation."
One of Gu Byung-ook's eyebrows twitched.
That man is not the type to back down so easily...
"I truly enjoyed your performance today, Chul-jun."
"Thank you, Teacher!"
After giving Chul-jun a warm, lingering look, Kim Seong-cheol stepped back without hesitation.
The department chair quickly approached Kim Seong-cheol and whispered anxiously.
"U-Um, Professor? If you back down like this, the Natural Sciences Gifted Academy might snatch him away..."
"Haha. It's fine, it's fine. No need to worry."
"Pardon?"
"Let's just listen to what they have to say first."
Kim Seong-cheol smirked, curling one corner of his mouth upward.
"So, your parents will be absolutely thrilled. Our Seohan University Natural Sciences Gifted Academy is considered the best in Korea. We even offer quarterly scholarships. And, well, honestly, regular school classes are quite boring, aren't they?"
Chul-jun furrowed his brow slightly before speaking.
"A little bit."
Standing behind Chul-jun and listening with a tense expression, Go Chang-ho squeezed his eyes shut.
"But it's fun! My teacher is fun, and my friends are fun too!"
"Haha..."
"I'll think about the Gifted Academy a bit more."
"Ah...?"
"Because today, I learned for sure that math alone can't find all the answers."
"..."
"And you couldn't see him anyway, Teacher."
Gu Byung-ook blinked.
What on earth does he keep saying he saw or didn't see...
"Anyway, thank you for coming today even though we didn't have an appointment! It was really uncomfortable, but I think that's exactly why I was able to meet the five-year-old Mozart! Just as I thought, in music, emotion comes before formulas."
"Huh? No appointment?"
"Yes! Today, I came to meet Teacher Ye-ji's teacher. I didn't come to see so many people. So at first, I didn't feel very good when I saw this whole gathering set up, but I'm okay now."
Hearing this, the head of the Mathematics Department standing behind the Dean flinched, whipping his head around to glare at Park Ye-ji's advising professor. The advising professor winced and avoided his gaze.
"Can I come back if I have more questions?"
"Uh... Ah. Yes. Of course."
"Thank you!"
With Chul-jun speaking so resolutely, Dean Gu Byung-ook had nothing left to say.
Well, I can just convince his parents.
This was the Seohan University Natural Sciences Gifted Academy. What parent in their right mind would turn that down?
Countless children lined up every single year just to get in.
While Dean Gu Byung-ook was busy calculating his next move, Kim Seong-cheol, the head of the Piano Department, smirked inwardly.
"Tired?"
At Go Chang-ho's question from behind the wheel, Chul-jun blinked his sleepy eyes and nodded slightly.
"You can sleep a bit. The traffic is pretty bad."
"Thank you."
Chul-jun, who had been forcing his eyes open, let them drift shut.
Chul-jun had had so much fun today.
The process of having the answer he arrived at validated in front of others had been incredibly exciting.
It was the first time in his life facing the gaze of so many people, and it made him feel quite proud.
And once he accepted that math couldn't provide the answer and surrendered to his emotions, the music had transformed.
He had tried so hard to force an answer out of mathematics, but as it turned out, the answer had been in the music all along.
Above all, he was thrilled to have met someone who could share the emotions he had poured into the piece.
It was an emotion far too precious to keep entirely to himself.
Mozart...
What kind of child was that cute little boy before he turned five?
With those thoughts drifting through his mind, he fell asleep.
"Honey, look at this. The child is arranging numbers all on his own. I've never even taught him."
"The look in his eyes is extraordinary. Whenever he sees something, he stares at it for the longest time."
"Chul-jun, do you know what this is? ...Look. He understands without me even explaining."
"This child shouldn't stay here. He is meant to become someone far greater."
"It's not that I'm not afraid. But I can't stop worrying about Chul-jun..."
"What about you? Can we really cross over?"
"We aren't going just to save ourselves. We are going so this special child can live a proper life."
A shabby building visible in the distance.
A place where Christians hid and prayed, out of sight of the public security officers.
Chul-jun's eyelids trembled violently.
I-It's dangerous there.
Chul-jun's lips began to quiver.
Crash!
Bang!
"Ba tamen dou zhua zhu! (Grab them all!)"
Chul-jun's breath caught in his throat.
His body curled up into a tight ball.
As if struggling to make himself as small as possible.
Ugh. Ugh.
Stifled groans burst from his throat, and as he tried to force them back down, he began to suffocate.
"...Ah!"
At the sudden voice, Chul-jun curled in on himself even tighter, as if trying to disappear.
"...jun-ah!"
Chul-jun's rigid body trembled violently.
"Chul-jun!"
Thrashing in his sleep, Chul-jun snapped his eyes open with a gasp.
Pant. Pant.
His entire body was drenched in sweat.