Five Hundred Million Years
A long silence. Then Sua broke it.
"Is that the right answer?"
Her tone was calm. There was no hesitation in it, no fear of being wrong—only the wish to confirm something she already held with certainty.
Lee Sua. She seemed to lower herself, and yet there was nothing servile about it. From her, Ham A-yoon felt a temperament both solid and strong.
…Strange. She doesn't have the look of someone who's lived with music.
How many musicians had she seen since becoming a pianist? Ham A-yoon was confident that a face alone could tell her whether someone had studied music, and if so, what kind. But look as she might, Sua was simply an ordinary person. She carried none of the habits or traces musicians left on themselves. Those pale, unmarked hands said as much at a glance.
Well. It was time to give her an answer.
And in the next moment, as Ham A-yoon studied the keys, the expression slowly drained from her face.
…What?
They lined up, more or less, with the notes she herself had indicated. Identifying a pitch by ear was not, in truth, so extraordinary. It was only a quality one had to possess in order to climb higher. Getting several of them right at the same time, however, was another matter entirely. No—it would be fair to say it belonged to a different order of things altogether.
That wasn't even a press. It was practically a slam. She heard something closer to noise and still hit the right answer?
She rejected it at once. It made no sense.
No. She might have seen where I was pointing.
For the moment, that was all she let herself think. None of it felt real.
"Again. Close your eyes."
Sua lowered her eyelids without a word. Her long lashes settled like the eaves of an old pavilion.
Tan—
"A."
Tan—
"C-sharp."
Tan—
"E."
Shifting octaves changed nothing. Every time Kim Hyo-jin's hand came down on a key, the girl produced the correct answer—without the slightest delay. Every time, at once.
What are you? Do you have perfect pitch?
In the end, Ham A-yoon had no choice but to admit it. Lee Sua's ear was exceptional, far beyond anything she had expected. Even so, she did not want to grant the admission so easily. If the girl in front of her was someone remarkable, that in itself was galling. It did not spring from inferiority, nor was it anger aimed at Sua. It was only—
A rookie like this exists, and no one told me?
Yes. That was the problem. She could not understand it at all. Why had no one said anything? That a monster like this was here?
"…"
But she soon had to let the thought go. Looking around, she found every face packed with shock. All of them seemed to be confirming Sua's ear only now. Impossible to tell. Nothing but things she could not understand. Finding it strange, Ham A-yoon went on.
"Incredible ear. 'First-rate' doesn't cover it."
"That's a relief."
"This is not the level of a relief. If anything…"
She did not finish. She had been about to call it a gift that appears once in a thousand years, and swallowed the words just in time.
"Anyway. To play the piano, the hands matter as much as the ear. A fine ear, and the hands cannot express it? There is no curse more wretched than that for a human being."
Sua nodded quietly. Well, that did seem true. The ears she had now were several times more sensitive than before. If, even under conditions like these, she could not draw a good melody from them, how stifling that would be. How unfortunate.
Of course, Ham A-yoon was not offering the advice out of affection. If anything, her eyes opened a little sharper.
"Now we see how far those fingers go. Essential, if you mean to play Kim Sohee. Let us find out whether your fingers move as keenly as your ear."
Sua glanced around. A moment ago the room had been split as rigidly as rival factions. That was no longer so. The whole shape of the place had changed.
"Who even is that rookie?"
"She knew how to play the piano?"
"…Did you see that? She got four of them at once."
Everyone was seized with tremendous interest now, and not a scrap of it pointed anywhere but at Sua.
Tan—
That was when Ham A-yoon brought her hand down on the keys, hard.
Ta-ra-ra-ran—
And the playing began at once. Sua's ear would be precise. What Ham A-yoon started to shape beneath her fingers was Chopin's Étude, Op. 10, No. 4. Its name: Pursuit.
A bold choice, Sua thought.
"…Isn't that Chopin?"
"She plays well. Too well…"
"But what is she trying to make her do?"
The gathered crowd murmured without restraint, loud enough to reach both their ears clearly. A short while later, the brief performance done, Ham A-yoon tipped her head and asked.
"I still don't know how well you play. So. The basics. Chopin. Well? Can you play this much? Possible?"
Sua gave no answer.
"Do as you like. You don't have to copy what I played. Any practice piece is fine. If I hear it and judge the level sufficient, I will yield Kim Sohee."
Even as she spoke, the crowd around the two of them pressed in tighter. They wanted to see from up close. And at the center of it all, Sua was thinking something else entirely.
She keeps making me do it over and over. Annoying.
Climbing one careful step at a time was the orthodox method itself, but to Sua, who had already been through every kind of thing, it felt a little stifling. If more of this waited afterward, it might grow rather tiresome. As it happened, the piece just played was called Pursuit. Pursuit. To catch someone running ahead, you could not run at the same speed. You ran faster, or you showed them something that would stop them where they stood. It wasn't difficult. The idea had only just come to her.
Let's try it this way.
Tan—
She sat where Ham A-yoon had been a moment ago and pressed the keys. This time, Sua's playing began.
Ta-ta-ta-tan—
Something was strange. It felt like a piece similar to Ham A-yoon's, and yet if anyone asked whether it was the same piece, the answer was absolutely no. People soon began to tilt their heads. Then, all at once—
"…!"
Someone spoke, as if the realization had arrived late.
"The black keys and the white keys are reversed!"
Sua was playing the very piece Ham A-yoon had just performed, the white keys and the black keys cleanly swapped—as if she meant to overtake the one who had already broken into a run and leave her behind. It was a sight that passed admiration and arrived at the uncanny.
"She's playing a Chopin étude with the keys flipped?"
"Impossible. Not unless she practiced it beforehand…!"
"No—even if practice taught her that, it's astonishing!"
There was nothing to dispute. It was, of course, a complete success.
"…"
Ham A-yoon's lips parted slightly. Those around her were no different.
"…Well."
In a room far quieter than before, she spoke.
"I see you've played the piano. I also see they didn't bring you here to cut you down. They brought you as a real candidate. But this is only the start. Want time to loosen your fingers?"
"No. I don't need that at all."
Not a shred of unease in her. And yet she was not arrogant. If anything, she seemed faintly amazed at herself, and the confusion around her only deepened.
After reclaiming her place at the piano, Ham A-yoon loosened her hands. That Sua had learned the piano was confirmed. From here, it was purely her own curiosity.
…So you wore that face because you understood my playing? The face my father used to make?
A moment later.
Ta-ta-ta-ta-tan—
Tan-ta-ta-tan—
Sua was still perfectly calm. What had just been played was not an étude but a waltz, and she had copied Ham A-yoon's exactly. Three-four time, and fast, and she had managed it all the same.
"…"
Without meaning to, Ham A-yoon's expression crumpled. Beads of sweat had already gathered on her brow, plain for anyone to see.
…Strange. Truly strange.
Skill beyond her expectations was one thing. What truly unsettled her was the sense of wrongness coming off Sua. She played well, and something was off. She played very well, and something was definitely off. She felt she had to know why. Just as she was about to play the next piece, only briefly—
"One moment."
Sua asked her to stop. Only then did Ham A-yoon realize she had pushed the test too far. Ah. Without noticing, she had demanded something far too difficult.
But.
"My hands feel stifled. Something more intense, please."
"…?"
Ham A-yoon's eyes went wide. The words arrived in a courteous tone, and what they carried was not light in the least. It was as bold a choice as one could make. Sua held her gaze as if she had no intention of taking them back. A few notes high on the keyboard followed, and she handled even those with perfect ease.
Sua focused only on the sound she herself was making. Now that she was actually playing, it was far too much fun. The way people who exercise take pleasure in using their bodies, she found it refreshing to move her fingers and spin out a melody. The addictiveness was no joke. Any thought that this was a bother had long since flown off.
One more. One more.
Whatever Ham A-yoon played, Sua copied it the moment it was played.
Ta-ta-ta-tan—
While Sua went off in search of her own enjoyment, Ham A-yoon blinked, dazed. She did not even think to wipe the bead of sweat that had begun to slide. Any notion of cutting the girl down, of never yielding Kim Sohee, was already gone. All that remained was the shock of having understood, at last, the true shape of the wrongness she had felt after hearing Sua play.
Yes. She had ended up learning the reason.
…This one. She is definitely moving her hands for the first time.
Sua's playing was graceful, and yet somehow stiff. Mistake or intention, it was something an ordinary listener would never catch. Ham A-yoon, however, could see the reason clearly. Lee Sua's fingers were immensely stiff. It was the trouble that appeared when the design in the mind was perfect and the hands could not follow—which meant that, whatever lived in Sua's head, she had not been moving her hands in earnest for long at all.
…But how was that possible?
It doesn't make sense.
Had the soul of a master pianist come to dwell in her one day? Or was she simply memorizing the movement of Ham A-yoon's hands and reproducing it? Like some symptom of Savant Syndrome? Either way, it made no sense. It bordered on the impossible, and if it was possible, then it was inborn genius.
Acting? Yes. This one plays as if she is acting the performance. She moves her hands the way you reproduce something already in your head. Imitate the real thing all you like while you play, and it is still never the real thing. But the problem is…
That those fingers would grow supple someday. That by then, a performance begun as mere imitation would already have turned real. That the world, looking at a person like that, usually called them a genius.
What is this. What are you. Just like Kim Sohee herself…
"Move. Step aside a moment."
Ham A-yoon played only a short fragment of a piece.
Ta-ta-ta-ta-ta—
Fast. And yet a piece everyone knew.
"Flight of the Bumblebee…!"
"She's assigning that? For real?"
"If she pulls even this off, then what?"
Ham A-yoon paid no mind to the clamor rising fast around her. She only stared, unblinking, at Lee Sua's fingers. Insanely fast. She knew perfectly well she had demanded too much. But it was good for confirming something. If this girl truly was the kind of genius who remembered everything after a single hearing—if she played by reproducing what was already in her head—then on this piece, at least, her fingers would have no choice but to tangle. It was too fast. The fingers would not keep up. So failing it would not be a failure. It would only prove a genius that remembered every motion of a hand seen once. If anything, failing only to reproduce this piece would give her a powerful claim on the role of Kim Sohee. The girl, who truly had savant syndrome, suffered precisely because her hands could not keep pace with her genius.
Soon Sua sat down again. Just as she was about to begin—
"Wait."
Ham A-yoon stopped her in a rush. Before a performance that would serve as the turning point, there was something she absolutely had to ask, just once.
"You."
She drew a few deep breaths, then asked.
"The piano. How long since you started."
"Hmm."
Sua considered for a moment.
"…About five hundred million years?"
It was a bizarre thing. Because the words did not sound like a joke.