Avatar Playing
Yoon Jay finished mimicking the fourth examinee's performance and lowered the violin from his shoulder. The moment he did, the onlookers who had been watching in hushed disbelief let out hollow laughs.
"Wow, how is that even possible?"
"You really are full of talents, aren't you?"
He'd grown used to the looks of people staring at him like he was an alien ever since the filming of Intermission. Han Jin-woo wore an expression that said that's our Jay for you, while Jung Seung-woo and Choi Tae-yang, seeing this side of him for the first time, stood with their mouths hanging wide open.
"Let's do a bonus segment too."
At the production company's suggestion, the channel staff who had earlier looked less than thrilled were now brimming with enthusiasm.
They'd run enough of these surprise-camera formats that they'd expected the professors invited to judge would stop falling for them. This one, though, had promise.
"What kind of segment?"
"What if the performer switched mid-performance—do you think our professors would notice?"
Interest sparked across the staff's faces.
"How would we switch them out mid-way?"
"Easy—the nervous one just stops and asks to start over."
"Then we bring in Jay. Would that be all right with you?"
Yoon Jay gave a silent nod with a casual shrug of his shoulders, and the staff sprang into motion.
"We'll go bring in the professors!"
"Everyone, please head inside through there."
Yoon Jay stepped behind the curtain along with the examinees. The students seated beside him were still staring at him as if he were some kind of monster.
"Welcome, professors. Thank you so much for taking the time."
"This is that thing, isn't it? The surprise camera?"
The two professors had already been thoroughly burned by a previous video.
The setup had been similar: a blind test of examinees, with a professional performer secretly slipped into the lineup.
The memory of insisting, all excited, that they simply had to take that student under their wing—only to have the mask torn off and discover a rising star they could never accept as a pupil—still stung.
"Oh, no, Professor. This time it's really only examinees."
"Well, you say that, so I'll choose to believe you for now."
Behind the two professors, an elderly professor of imposing middle age appeared and took the center seat. Yoon Jay watched them through a monitor set up behind the curtain. Even at a glance, the woman's presence was extraordinary.
"Professor Jang says this Professor has seen plenty of these tricks before, right?"
"MyTube's practically a broadcasting station these days. Don't get fooled, Teacher."
"Is that so?"
There was one professor whom those two distinguished figures addressed with such careful deference, calling her Teacher.
Professor Park Heeseon. Virtually everyone in Korea who could claim to play the violin had passed through her instruction.
A world-renowned violinist in her own right, she had also been the teacher of both professors before him.
I can't believe she actually came.
He'd half expected a refusal when the invitation went out, but she had accepted without hesitation. The channel PD swallowed hard.
Can we really fool even her?
Professor Park Heeseon, silver threading through her hair, was a close relative of the Shin family—the clan that had all but monopolized classical music in Korea—and the first teacher of Shin Joowon, the violinist making waves on the world stage, not to mention the mentor behind countless other prodigies.
"All you need to do is evaluate the examinees' performances as you normally would."
"There's likely a professional musician among them. You'll know it the moment you hear it, Teacher."
"Professor Jang, if you start assuming that, what are the rest of us supposed to do?"
"As if I'd be fooled once, let alone twice."
Professor Jang clung stubbornly to an air of didn't I tell you so.
But you didn't see this one coming, did you? The channel PD smirked. The first video in the examinee-evaluation series had topped ten million views, and this recording might well do even better.
"We'll be editing everything anyway, so please evaluate honestly and hold nothing back. That's exactly what the examinees came here hoping for."
"Hmm, this should be fun."
"Then let's begin with Examinee Number 1."
Yoon Jay stepped forward, posing as the first examinee. His physique was far too distinctive to hide, so the segment proceeded without revealing the silhouettes behind the curtain.
The moment he launched into the first examinee's performance, a bell rang out ordering him to stop—before the piece had even properly begun.
"Too much pressure on the bow."
"It feels like you're forcing the sound. Loosen up."
They're not even letting me finish before cutting me down. Yoon Jay pulled a shocked face for the camera. Then he mimicked the second examinee's performance.
"Rushing, aren't you?"
"The tempo's far too hasty. You need to rebuild your sense of rhythm from the ground up."
And of them all, Professor Park Heeseon delivered the most merciless assessments of the lot.
The examinees waiting backstage licked their dry lips.
It wasn't their own playing being judged, but because Yoon Jay replicated them so perfectly, it felt exactly as if they were receiving the feedback themselves.
"Examinee Number 3 has decent technique, but can't hold a consistent tone."
"Agreed. No staying power. Did they even practice properly? They'd be better off building up their stamina first."
Then came Number 4—and more harsh words there as well.
At last it was Number 5's turn. This was no imitation of another examinee. It was Yoon Jay's own original performance.
"Oh?"
From the very first bar, the expressions of all three professors changed. They didn't stop him midway; instead, they listened on with rapt, entranced faces.
Jiwon? No... it's a little different, but...
Professor Park Heeseon was in an even greater state of shock.
Most of the violin performances Yoon Jay had studied as reference material for Intermission were recordings of Director Shin Ji-won from his playing days—footage he'd needed in order to portray Yoo Tae-hyuk's past as a violin prodigy.
He watched performers, absorbed their playing, made the techniques his own. But the scent of the musicians who had influenced him never quite faded from his sound.
"...You're telling me this is an examinee's performance?"
"Did Joshua Bell come to Korea or something?"
"Why do I keep thinking of Jiwon..."
The seasoned professor saw through, in a single breath, the lingering fragrance of her old student.
"Jiwon? Ah, do you mean Shin Ji-won?"
"Now that you mention it, I suppose it does sound like him..."
But the other two professors hadn't caught on yet. The camera quietly captured the professor as she made no effort to hide her astonishment.
The commotion eventually settled, and the three professors listened to the rest of Yoon Jay's performance in rapt silence.
"That was truly wonderful to hear."
"Please give it a proper evaluation."
"I—well, I'm simply too stunned..."
"If Number 5 is really a high school senior here in Korea, then I want to take him on as my student. That's how I feel."
The final words came from Professor Park herself. The two professors flanking her jumped in shock.
Every student Professor Park had ever marked as her own had turned out to be a genius—or a performer destined to make their name.
"But from what these two professors are saying, that performer is probably already well known... am I right?"
The channel PD smiled meaningfully, finally letting loose the words that had been itching at his lips.
"Astonishingly, all five of those performances came from a single person. Every one of them was played by Examinee Number 5."
"What?"
The three professors protested in disbelief.
"PD-nim, don't mess with us."
"This is broadcast content, so there's some doctoring involved, right?"
"It's the truth. Even we were shocked when we planned it out."
The other professor and Professor Jang urgently demanded to know who the person was—reveal him, and reveal him now.
Only the professor at the center calmly raised her hand.
"Before we learn the identity—I'd like to hear the real examinees perform. Are they not here? I came to evaluate examinees, you know..."
"Of course they're here."
From a born educator, it was exactly what he'd expected. The examinees hurriedly gathered up their instruments.
And so the audition evaluations began anew. Yoon Jay patted the backs of the trembling, nervous students and offered them encouragement.
"You can feel the hasty corrections. It was better this time."
They had already been judged once through Yoon Jay's avatar playing. Some had managed to shore up their weak points in the short interval; others, too preoccupied with the feedback, had played even worse than before.
As they listened, the three professors noticed something strange.
"Wait a moment... don't tell me Number 5 was imitating all the examinees' performances?"
"Yes."
"That's... is that even possible?"
"We rather assumed professors of your caliber would know..."
The three professors sat there in a daze. They'd guessed a surprise camera would be lurking somewhere, but nothing like this.
"Were they recordings?"
"For recordings, there was an awful lot of live atmosphere to them."
While the professors murmured among themselves, Yoon Jay stepped out once more. Examinee Number 3, who had already been evaluated, deliberately botched his performance with a show of nerves.
"Ah, poor thing. Seems nervous."
"It's all right—please try again."
And this time, Yoon Jay took over the performance. He played Number 3's piece exactly as the student had.
"...Hold on. The last performer sounded like the same person as Examinee Number 3, but it felt like they switched somewhere in the middle. Or was it just me?"
Once again, no master could be deceived.
"To be honest, I felt it too."
"Something did change, I thought so as well."
The remaining two professors had also sensed something off, but unlike Professor Park, they couldn't muster the certainty to say it aloud. The channel PD let out a small sigh of admiration.
"Professor Park really does catch everything, doesn't she."
"Is that true?"
"The performer who switched in mid-piece is that Examinee Number 5 whose identity you've all been dying to know."
"Then—please, tell us who it is. Now."
If they dragged it out any longer, it seemed the three professors might tip over backward from sheer frustration. And so the curtain finally rose.
"Hello. I'm the actor Yoon Jay."
"Oh my."
The identity of Number 5—the performer they'd assumed must be a world-famous professional—was, out of nowhere, an actor.
And not some complete stranger, either. Yoon Jay was quite famous in his own right. All three professors shot up from their seats in astonishment.
"Did you really do all of that yourself?"
"Yes. Here's the proof."
The channel PD, having anticipated this moment, handed the three professors the footage he'd recorded on his phone in advance. They watched it, then looked back and forth between the screen and the man standing before them.
Seeing even professors of such renown this stunned, he knew the surprise camera was a success.
"Good heavens..."
"Have you studied music before, by any chance?"
Yoon Jay shook his head.
"You've truly never played before? Not once?"
"I first picked up a violin last year, acting in Intermission."
"Unbelievable..."
And with that, the video pivoted to its actual purpose: promoting Intermission. The three professors stared at Yoon Jay as if he were something out of this world.
"It was a pleasure hearing you play."
"Thank you. I'm only good at imitating, that's all."
"If that's merely imitation, then what does that make those students over there?"
I meant every word of that as literal truth, but to everyone else it sounds like false modesty. I'll have to watch that. Yoon Jay tucked the violin into its case and handed it over to the MyTube production staff.
And he did all that on an instrument that wasn't even his own... Something shifted in Professor Park's gaze.
"By the way... that final performance. Who did you use as your reference?"
Even as she asked, Professor Park was only half convinced.
It was hard to believe, no matter how she turned it over in her mind. Could anyone really replicate a performance that precisely just by studying it? And yet he had already proven, with his own playing, that he could do exactly that.
"Yes. I watched footage of Director Shin's performances from years ago."
"The director?"
"Director Shin Ji-won. He used to play the violin."
"Ah, right—I'd heard he turned to filmmaking."
Yoon Jay caught the longing in Professor Park's eyes.
"Would you like to see him looking well?"
Some things are better seen than spoken about. Yoon Jay handed out the tickets Han Jin-woo had passed him, one to each of the three professors.
"Invitations to the premiere screening. If you're willing, please come."
"Well... if I showed up, would that boy Jiwon even be glad to see me..."
"He will. The Director is a film director now, not a violinist."
"...You're right about that."
And I'm not a soldier or a firefighter either—I'm an actor.
Director Shin had poured his own life story into the film and, in doing so, had set his past free. The look of release on Shin Ji-won's face after the final day of filming was the very image of the man Yoon Jay hoped to become someday.
When the shoot wrapped, Yoon Jay took photos with the students who had come as examinees and signed autographs for them. The professors did the same.
"Excuse me—one moment, please."
"Yes?"
"It seems to me you're carrying something heavy... Are you all right?"
Just as the scheduled time ended and he was about to move on to the next location, Professor Park stopped him.
She had recognized the switch in the examinee's performance because of the emotion carried within the music itself.
A performance is shaped by the performer's feelings, after all.
When Professor Park had heard Number 5's playing, she'd caught not only the scent of Shin Ji-won but something strange and aching beneath it—a sorrow that made her want to comfort the player without knowing why.
The smile drained from Yoon Jay's face in an instant.
"Was that rude of me?"
"No. I just didn't expect anyone to see it."
Truly, an authority who had reigned over her field for decades was on another level entirely.
"Everything will be all right."
"...Thank you for the encouragement. Please do come to the premiere."
Yoon Jay bowed his head deeply toward Professor Park.