Talent Unlocked
Talent Keywords
(1) Instrument.
(2) Stocks.
(3) Body.
(4) Animals.
“None of these are ordinary talents, are they?”
And among them, the one that stood out first, as expected, was that damned stocks.
Honestly, even my closest coworker, Assistant Manager Park, was still obsessed with crypto, and if I looked around, I could barely find anyone who didn’t dabble in stocks or coins. So yes, the curiosity was still there.
But what if I take one wrong step and end up getting hit where it hurts?
That was what investing was like, after all. Even if you made money ten times, twenty times in a row, one failure could wipe it all out, and then some. That was stocks and crypto for you.
I’m not doing it.
I crossed it off the list from the start.
Life was happy enough these days. I had no desire to get greedy and lose that happiness for nothing.
That leaves instruments, the body, and animals...
Personally, I liked animals. When I was little, we’d raised a tiny Yorkshire terrier at home. The woman I dated a few years ago also had a cat, and I’d loved that one too.
But if this is going to connect to a talent...
Maybe something like veterinary skills or pet grooming.
But I don’t have any animals at the moment.
Besides, pets were the kind of thing that, once you brought them home, demanded affection and attention. In my current life, living alone, that would be too much to handle. So I passed.
The body isn’t bad either.
I’d worked construction for years, so I knew better than anyone how much the possibilities would expand if my physical ability were pushed to the limit. Especially on the side-hustle front, it would open up more territory and probably let me pull off overwhelming results.
But now it’s starting to get cold.
I had no intention of spending the dead of winter bouncing from one construction site to another.
If it were spring, I might have picked it, but given the season, that was a pass too.
Then only one thing remained.
A talent for instruments.
Honestly, this is the one I like best.
Come to think of it, the reason I’d passed on the other abilities might not have been because I disliked them. It might simply have been that I liked the instrument talent so much I was looking for an excuse to choose it.
As long as I’ve been alive, there’s always been at least one friend around who could play an instrument.
Every time I saw those people, I’d always thought they looked cool.
Especially my first MT in college. That had been a shocking memory.
Was it Se-hyung? He was short and quiet, the kind of classmate who blended into the background...
During the campfire, he’d brought nothing but an acoustic guitar and matched the accompaniment effortlessly, and in that moment he looked like a completely different person.
He had been impossibly cool.
And it wasn’t just me who thought so; everyone else saw him the same way.
Thanks to that, he shot up to instant social success, and whenever anyone planned a trip, he became the first person they invited.
By contrast, I couldn’t play a single instrument.
My family situation was so bad I never even got to attend a piano academy, the most basic thing there was.
I’d gone to taekwondo and nothing but taekwondo, over and over again.
The cheapest option, they said, and they watched you for the longest hours.
Looking at it like this, maybe I’ve carried a bit of a grudge about instruments all this time.
What was wrong with trying now?
Let’s go with instruments.
I wasn’t asking for anything huge.
[The fifth talent has been unlocked.]
- Instrument.
Something not too big, like an organ or a piano, but reasonably portable would be nice.
Half anxious, half excited, I checked the notification window.
[Violin]
- Grade: A.
- You can learn how to perform specific pieces on the violin.
“Oh...!?”
A violin?
It was an instrument I hadn’t expected at all, but I liked it immediately.
I’d never actually touched one, but every time I saw it on TV, I thought it looked impressive.
And the rank is pretty high too.
An A, no less.
At this level, maybe not quite professional, but enough to have a real calling card wherever I went.
There was one unusual thing, though.
So it doesn’t let me play every piece.
[Violin]
- Beginner piece: 1,000,000 won.
- Intermediate piece: 3,000,000 won.
- Advanced piece: 5,000,000 won.
- Master level: 10,000,000 won.
※ The cost is the same every time you use it.
It was a system where I had to pay to acquire the ability to play one piece.
It’s similar to translation and interpretation.
The difference was that even if I learned a piece again and again, the price never went up.
Truthfully, it wasn’t exactly cheap.
But if I learn it once, I can play it for the rest of my life, right?
For tuition like that, it wasn’t bad at all.
And the fact that I could master it perfectly right away without practicing separately was more than enough.
Especially since there was no cooldown, meaning as long as I paid, I could play as much as I wanted.
From the looks of it, beginner pieces are things like nursery rhymes, with simple chord progressions.
Intermediate was centered on pop songs and mainstream music.
Advanced even covered classics like symphonies.
Master level meant I could master any song perfectly, with no genre restrictions.
High quality comes at a price, sure...
But I wasn’t trying to perform with an orchestra, so I probably didn’t need anything above advanced.
What should I learn first?
There wasn’t just one or two songs that came to mind when I thought of the violin.
It looked like I’d have to dig through my playlist for a while.
***
Jongno 3-ga Station, Exit 4.
After pushing through the crowd heading toward Ikseon-dong and slipping into a narrow alley, I found a building standing tall, carrying that unmistakable scent of people.
Nakwon Music Arcade
The moment I stepped inside, I let out an involuntary breath of admiration at the warm atmosphere and the countless instruments packed across the walls like a display.
From the most common guitars to drums, ukuleles, clarinets, saxophones, and all sorts of instruments you rarely saw in everyday life, they were everywhere.
Let’s take a look around first.
I’d already looked up some recommended shops online, but seeing them in person was a different matter.
So I walked around the entire arcade for about an hour.
This isn’t boring at all. It’s fun.
Maybe because instruments were so unfamiliar to me in daily life, just looking at them never stopped being interesting.
This is why talents and side hustles are so good.
They let you step into new territory, places you might never experience in ordinary life, maybe not even if you lived an entire lifetime.
Only after I’d made a full circuit of the arcade did I finally head toward the place I’d marked.
Let’s go to the shop I picked.
I headed for the store that had caught my eye the most.
“Hello, are you looking for a specific instrument?”
The owner, a man with a warm face, greeted me kindly.
“I’m looking for a violin.”
“Do you have a preferred brand?”
“I’m trying to get into it for the first time, so could you recommend one?”
“Hmm, in that case you probably don’t have any other equipment either? You’ll need a bow, case, resin, and shoulder rest too.”
“Yes, I don’t have anything.”
“Then there’s an introductory set. We’ve got everything from lower-priced options to branded models. If you’re just doing something like a one-day class, something in the hundred-thousand-won range would be best.”
The owner pulled out several models himself so I could inspect them closely while he explained.
“If you want to learn properly and systematically, I’d recommend Yamaha or Suzuki over here, but they’re over 700,000 won.”
“Oh...”
As expected, there was a huge variation in price.
Of course, I wasn’t aiming for top-of-the-line.
But I do plan on keeping this as a hobby, right?
I’d felt the same way with translation and interpretation: if I was going to use something for a long time, the better one was the obvious choice.
“Please recommend a brand model.”
“Got it. This one here is famous for being good value, so it’s the line I recommend most for beginners...”
***
Saturday afternoon.
The moment I got off the plane in Jeju, the gentle sunlight made me smile on its own.
“It’s still warm here.”
In one hand, I had my suitcase.
Over the other shoulder, I had the violin case.
I’m already excited.
I still hadn’t activated the violin talent yet. If I was going to do it, I wanted to try it somewhere with a little atmosphere, not cooped up in my room.
After taking the airport bus for about an hour, the shape of the NW Hotel came into view.
It’s bigger than I expected.
There was the same brand of hotel in Seoul, too.
But this one felt even more grand and glamorous.
The moment I entered the lobby, the high ceiling and spacious interior opened wide before me.
“I’d like to check in. The name is Kang Seo-jun.”
“Yes, confirmed. Your room is ready, so you can check in right away. Check-out tomorrow is at 11 a.m. The rooftop lounge is open until 4 a.m., and the fitness center and sauna are available 24 hours a day, so please make yourself comfortable.”
“Understood.”
“Enjoy your stay.”
I didn’t know whether it was because I was a blogger or because it was a luxury hotel, but the class of the place was on a completely different level from the cheap business hotels I used on work trips.
“2201, 2201...”
Once I slid the key card in and stepped inside,
“...wow.”
I couldn’t help but gasp.
Compared with the budget business hotels I’d visited before, which usually amounted to nothing more than a bed and a desk...
“It’s huge...”
Even though it was a hotel, the living room and bedroom were separate.
And the living room wasn’t small by any means.
You could throw a party in here.
There was a four-person sofa and two one-seater sofas.
The dining table had eight chairs around it.
Honestly, I’d planned to force myself to take photos for the blog even if I wasn’t all that enthusiastic about it.
I have to take pictures of this.
I figured I should keep some for personal storage too, so I opened the camera app.
Click, click.
My amazement continued all the way into the bedroom.
“It’s like the room of some chairman you’d see on TV...”
Not only was there a super king-size bed, but it also came with a desk for work.
“So that’s why it’s called a suite.”
At full price, what was it, 1.25 million won?
I’d wondered whether a suite was really worth that kind of money.
It is.
If you had the means, it felt like the kind of room worth booking at least once in your life.
Of course, ordinary people like me wouldn’t even dare think about paying that kind of money to stay here...
“Today, I get to enjoy all of it too, don’t I?”
And for free, no less.
My mouth lifted on its own.
Splash.
The moment I lay down on the bed, it wrapped around me so softly it felt like I might sink straight into it.
It felt like the kind of bed that would put even an insomniac to sleep in no time.
My eyelids started to grow heavy, and I jerked myself upright.
No. I can’t sleep already.
People kept singing the praises of hotel-cation this and hotel-cation that.
Fine. I’d enjoy it properly too.
“Let’s make tonight count...”
***
Early evening.
I headed up to the rooftop bar for a drink.
Since this was a special blogger visit, all cocktails were fifty percent off.
The ceiling was open to the sky.
Outside, Jeju’s scenery spread out in a single glance.
At the center of the rooftop bar sat a grand piano.
At that size, it has to be a grand piano.
As expected of NW Hotel.
While I was deciding where to sit, I ended up taking a seat in front of the bartender.
“What can I get you?”
“Hmm...”
I stared at the menu for a while, but I didn’t really know what I was looking at.
I’d have to actually drink cocktails on a regular basis before I knew what any of this meant.
“I’ll have a gin and tonic.”
I picked the safest option, something I’d had at least once before.
Before long, a glass of drink with little bubbles rising in it was served to me.
I lifted the glass, turned my body slowly, and the night sea of Jeju came into view all at once.
Watching that, I took a sip and savored it.
“Ahh, this is nice...”
Kang Seo-jun had made it.
I’d seen places like this too.
After a couple of drinks,
Since I’m enjoying myself alone, I’m thinking about my family.
Ever since I was young, I hadn’t been able to support them the way other people could, but that was separate from how much love they’d always given me.
That was why family always made me feel sentimental.
Should I send them some beef or something?
I opened the app once.
One kilogram of sirloin from the U.S. was 50,000 won.
Australian beef was 70,000 won.
Korean beef was 100,000 won.
And if it was two-plus grade, it jumped to a whopping 200,000 won.
Expensive...
Normally I wouldn’t even have considered it.
If I’m sending it anyway, I might as well not skimp.
My mother’s birthday was only a few days away anyway, so I decided to count it as a little act of filial piety.
[201,900 won has been charged.]
[Your delivery order has been completed.]
I left my mother a text saying the package would arrive sometime next week.
Now I feel even better.
I really could enjoy this with a clear conscience.
***
The night grew deep.
One by one, the guests who’d come out for drinks returned to their hotel rooms.
I’d also reached a pleasant level of buzz.
I didn’t want to get completely drunk, so I kept myself carefully controlled.
♪♩♪-♬
Then I turned toward the sound of music.
A young woman was playing the piano in the center of the bar.
I’d thought it was just decoration, but apparently guests were free to play it too.
I didn’t know what song it was, but the soft melody was pleasant.
There were a few obvious mistakes in the fingering here and there.
Still, no one criticized her. If anything, everyone seemed to be enjoying it together.
When the woman finished playing and stood up, the crowd applauded.
She covered her face, bowed awkwardly, and returned to her seat.
Maybe it was the alcohol.
Or maybe it was the atmosphere.
Should I try it too?
I felt a small surge of confidence.
Actually, I haven’t had a place to try playing yet.
I’d finally gained the violin talent, but I had nowhere to test it.
If I played in my cramped two-room apartment, the unemployed man next door would pound on the wall, the cat-mom woman upstairs would start sticking Post-its everywhere, and the game-obsessed bastard downstairs, Deok-su, would probably come straight to my door and kick up a fuss.
And if I tried to rent a music practice room, the cost would probably be more trouble than it was worth, so I hadn’t even tried.
From the mood here, they seem willing to forgive a few rough notes.
Besides, since it was late, there were hardly any people left in the bar.
Just three bartenders and maybe five or six customers.
Before I knew it, courage welled up inside me.
It was probably the alcohol, but by the time I made up my mind, I’d already gone back to the room and brought the violin with me.
In a place like this, a soft pop song would be better than something with a fast tempo.
I dug through the playlist.
This is it.
I found a song I liked.
[Dooli Bank]
- Withdrawal: 3,000,000 won.
Sure enough, I heard that sharp withdrawal notification.
Still, so what?
The fact that I could play it for the rest of my life was, in a way, an investment.
If it really didn’t work out, I could just do one more translation next weekend. That was all.
By then, there were even fewer people left.
Of the guests still on the rooftop bar, there were only four besides me.
This should be manageable.
I casually got up from my seat and walked toward the piano.
People started glancing over.
What I’d thought only a moment ago about being manageable, I immediately took back.
Maybe I shouldn’t have come out here.
Even so, I borrowed courage from the alcohol and held down my trembling nerves.
This was the kind of thing I had to try sometime. If not now, then when?
The moment I took out the violin, my posture settled automatically, perhaps because of the talent even though I’d never learned bowing technique before.
Will this go well?
Half worried, half hopeful, I set the bow on the strings.
“Hoo...”
I let out a slow breath and eased my tension.
Then I gently closed my eyes.
As I pictured the piece in my head, I moved the hand holding the bow.
Slowly.
Very slowly, I began to play the violin.