My Noisy Monster Heart
The monster in my heart was loud. I tried to silence it, but it was pointless.
“...I think I’ll remember it better now.”
The faint warmth still lingered on Suhyun’s hand. In his head, Hana’s voice that had recited the numbers kept replaying on loop.
He wasn’t the only one in bad shape. Hana kept swallowing hard, as if the hiccups that had come up wouldn’t stop.
“Ah. Hold on.”
Hana turned her back completely and held her breath. Surely this would make it go away. Surely this heat, like a scorching summer, would fade. She managed to push down the stubborn hiccups and continued with the final pedal explanation, pretending nothing was wrong.
“And this one is the wah pedal.”
“Wah?”
“You might not have heard the name, but you’ll know it the second you hear the sound.”
With a click, she stepped on it, and a sharp distortion sound warped through the air.
Waaaah— Weeeeee—
She had only played one note, but the sound came out like a monstrous wail, closer to “wah-wah-wah.”
“Oh...”
Suhyun had seen guitarists messing with it in videos plenty of times. So that’s what the wah pedal was. Hana, who had studied all of these things one by one and even bought the equipment herself, looked even more impressive to him.
“Now, if you combine these pedals...”
Effects weren’t devices you could only use one at a time. Mixing delay and chorus could create a dreamy sound, while distortion and wah together could make something aggressive, like a horse galloping wildly.
Hana’s demonstration continued on and on. Suhyun, sitting right beside her, could only stare blankly at the scene.
Was a girl playing guitar just inherently pretty? Or did it only look pretty because it was Hana? Maybe it was both.
Hana kept her eyes fixed on the fretboard, completely unaware of Suhyun’s gaze as she poured everything into showing him her playing. She didn’t want to be someone who owned expensive gear but couldn’t back it up with skill.
“Whew.”
Hana wiped away the beads of sweat that had formed on her forehead and only then could she catch her breath after finishing the performance.
“It’s something like that.”
Instead of answering, Suhyun clapped his hands as hard as he could. An irrepressible smile hung on his lips.
“Thanks to you, I learned a lot again today. Thank you.”
As if to emphasize that he meant it, there was none of his usual hesitation or tremor in his voice. And Hana thought his rare, serious gaze looked incredibly good on him.
After giving Suhyun time to try the effects pedals himself, today’s lesson seemed to come to an end.
Hana rolled up the cables and neatly placed them on top of the amp before straightening her back. She picked up the block box on the desk, even tucked the already-opened wrapping paper into her pocket, and looked once more at the miniature photo of her guitar.
The more she looked at it, the cuter it got. Where on earth had he found something like this?
Driven by curiosity, she quietly called his name.
“Lee Suhyun.”
“Yeah?”
“Where did you buy this?”
“Wait a sec. Where was it again? Juyeon suggested we go there, so that’s where we went.”
Busy scrolling through their chat to find the answer, Suhyun didn’t notice the look on Hana’s face.
“...You went with Juyeon yesterday and bought it together?”
“Ah. Yeah. Honestly, you already know… I’m not exactly the type who’s good at picking out stuff girls like.”
It wasn’t wrong, and it wasn’t a lie. Lee Suhyun was the kind of guy who needed to fix his own fashion sense before worrying about anyone else’s taste. But for some reason, Hana wanted to turn back time to before she heard those words. She wished she hadn’t heard them at all.
If her mood were the weather, it felt like a clear sky suddenly covered by hazy clouds without warning.
“...I see.”
There was nothing wrong with it. If anything, shouldn’t she be happy? Juyeon, who had taken so long to get close to her, had gone out with Suhyun to help pick out a gift for her.
“Ah. Found it. It’s on the second floor of Esser Town. Here.”
Oblivious to the shift in mood, Suhyun cheerfully read off the answer.
“Esser Town’s nice.”
Suddenly not wanting to show him her face, Hana opened the pedalboard bag wide. After neatly organizing everything, she grabbed the handle and stood up.
“Thanks for the gift, Lee Suhyun.”
She still had her back turned to him.
“I’ll send you a photo once I finish building it.”
“Yeah. Send it!”
Suhyun was still lost in the satisfaction of having successfully completed this difficult gift mission.
“See you tomorrow.”
“Yeah. Get home safe.”
Leaving him behind in the room, Hana strode down the hallway with big, hurried steps. Even the tip of her finger as she pressed the elevator button carried an inexplicable irritation.
Even someone as emotionally dense as Hana could tell now. The one who had flipped the switch in her heart with a click was the name “Juyeon.”
She didn’t have any ill feelings toward Juyeon. If anything, she liked her. Why would she hate cute little Juyeon?
But whenever Suhyun’s mouth mentioned Juyeon, it felt like someone was pressing down on her shoulders, making it hard to breathe. If she had to pick the most likely reason from the list of candidates…
“...No way.”
There was no way something that ridiculous could be true.
Muttering to herself like she was casting a spell, Hana pulled the box out of her pocket again. The gift she liked so much she couldn’t even throw away the wrapping paper. She had a feeling that the mini block set Suhyun gave her would become a monster that made her heart uneasy every time she looked at it.
* * *
[She loved it so much.]
Back home, Suhyun flopped onto his bed. The chat window with Juyeon. She must have been looking at her phone, because the yellow status bar vanished the instant he sent the message.
[Yeah. She even asked where I got it from.]
It was an achievement they had accomplished together, not alone. Suhyun wanted to share this victory report with his fellow loner comrade as soon as possible.
Juyeon’s reply sounded a little smug. A small chuckle escaped Suhyun’s lips. After searching for girls’ gifts in front of the shopping mall like a clueless guy, wasn’t it a bit shameless to say that?
The image of Juyeon hesitantly tapping on her phone came to mind, so Suhyun decided to tease her a little.
The “typing” indicator disappeared, but no reply came. After about a minute of silence, Juyeon’s answer finally arrived.
[You just checked her profile, didn’t you.]
Even that had a slight delay.
[Then why didn’t you answer right away?]
For a split second he almost sent “Which friend?” but Suhyun managed to hold back that impulse. Jokes were most beautiful when they stayed jokes. It would have been nice if she had answered right away, but if the buffering started again it would create a very sad situation.
Whether she knew about his consideration or not, Juyeon asked him a question.
[Mine’s December 26th.]
Suhyun thought that date was pretty depressing even to himself. Having a birthday right after everyone finished celebrating Jesus’s birthday on the 25th. It felt like the kind of birthday that was leftover chocolate after Valentine’s Day—unwanted inventory.
[Right?]
Suhyun’s eyes widened at this new piece of information he had never heard before.
[Yeah. That’s why even during winter break we all went out to eat snow crab for Kang’s birthday.]
He’d have to remember the other members’ birthdays too.
[What about yours, Juyeon?]
Honestly, Juyeon’s birthday didn’t seem all that great either. It was the kind of date where you’d go to sleep for just one night and wake up to the start of the new semester.
Juyeon said exactly what he was thinking. As always, talking with Juyeon made Suhyun feel at ease because their wavelengths matched so perfectly. Even their evaluations of unlucky birthdays were similar—it felt like having a twin sister would be exactly like this.
At the beginning of the team project, both Juyeon and Nayong had felt difficult, but now only Nayong felt awkward. Aah… come to think of it, Friday would be coming again soon. Just as he was thinking how painful it would be to face her after such an awkward conversation—
After a brief silence, another vibration sounded. The next message from Juyeon was quite far off the current topic.
This time it really seemed decent. Surely he would say it looked good, right? Juyeon clutched her phone tightly with both hands and stared at the screen.
No matter how you looked at it, it didn’t sound like a compliment.