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3 # What Is a Genius?
The word ‘genius’ was never meant to be used carelessly.
A genius wasn't simply some ordinary prodigy who scored a perfect hundred on an exam or wrote a few papers.
They were people whose innate brilliance expanded the horizons of humanity.
People whose names even those with absolutely no interest in their field would probably have heard at least once.
Those were the people we called geniuses.
In the scientific world, Einstein was one such example, illuminating the universe through insight alone despite having
no remarkable equipment at his disposal.
In the world of music, Mozart was another, completing the modern sonata form and producing an endless stream of
incomparable masterpieces during his mere thirty-five years of life.
If one broadened the criteria a little, perhaps it would be enough to say that they were people capable of etching their
names into history.
That was precisely why violinist Lee Yong-hak did not consider himself a genius.
In the Republic of Korea, he was praised as a genius violinist who had won the Tchaikovsky Competition and was expected
to eventually rise to become a master of Korean classical music.
But was he truly someone capable of leaving his name in history?
No.
People often said that the world only remembered first place, but in reality, there were enough forgotten first-place
winners to trip over.
For instance, how many people actually knew the name of the winner of the violin category at the Eighth Tchaikovsky
Competition?
Of course, Lee Yong-hak, being an industry insider, knew that the winner had been Raphael Salco from France.
Ordinary people probably didn't.
‘Probably no one outside the industry.’
That wasn't to say Raphael Salco wasn't a genius.
It meant that being called a ‘genius’ in the world of music was that difficult.
Sweeping domestic competitions at the age of eight?
Common.
Under the brutal educational fervor of Korean parents, there were countless machines capable of flawlessly performing
nothing but the pieces judges were likely to favor.
That was why Lee Yong-hak had chosen to work part-time at a kindergarten teaching five-year-olds instead of teaching
middle or high school students.
He wanted to teach children who had not yet been tainted by the world and broaden his own perspective as a musician.
Of course, he hadn't expected much.
No matter how much of a genius a child might be, five years old was still five years old.
Getting a glimpse of a spark of brilliance would have been more than enough.
That was what he had thought.
Until just moments ago.
Zwaang—
No matter how many times he looked, it was the same.
Rian's posture was a complete mess.
If the person standing before him had been a music major rather than a kindergartener, Lee Yong-hak might even have said
something.
He might have told him to quit because he had no talent.
The violin was a brutally delicate instrument.
A single touch against the fingerboard, the slightest adjustment in the pressure of the fingers holding the bow, could
completely alter the tone.
That was why beginners were made to practice their posture until they were sick of it.
Of course, there were exceptions.
Among the world's great masters, there were those who disregarded conventional technique.
But that was beside the point.
Those people were monsters who had first mastered the fundamentals perfectly and then, through experience, internalized
the posture best suited to producing the optimal sound.
But a child who had picked up a violin for the first time, with completely terrible posture, attempting to play?
They might get lucky and produce one or two notes.
But actually playing a piece was impossible.
That was common sense.
And yet Rian—
He was smashing Lee Yong-hak's common sense head-on.
‘How is he producing that kind of sound from that posture...?’
Gulp.
Lee Yong-hak swallowed unconsciously.
Everyone had probably experienced it at least once.
That fleeting moment on some old talent competition when an inexperienced young singer sang a single line, sending
chills throughout your body and making you instinctively realize who the winner would be.
The arts, and music in particular, were brutally intuitive.
Even ordinary people could clearly recognize the difference between someone exceptional and someone ordinary.
So what about a professional?
And what about Lee Yong-hak, who stood on the threshold of being called a master?
He could grasp someone's level from a single phrase.
No.
Sometimes all it took was hearing the very first note, the precise strength with which the bow touched the strings.
Why was Korea called a wasteland for classical music?
Because there were so few performers capable of interpreting a piece for themselves.
They spent their entire lives playing the pieces forcibly drilled into them under the strict control of their parents.
Because that was what they had to do to get into university.
They played exactly as they were told, and as a result, they couldn't interpret a piece for themselves.
Children like that stopped developing even after they grew up.
Their imagination had become trapped within the confines of a predetermined framework.
But a mere five-year-old child...
‘What in the world...?’
Rian was painting an unfamiliar scene before Lee Yong-hak's eyes.
He could naturally picture a little boy wearing a feathered leather cap, holding something like a lute and cheerfully
playing before a crowd of drinkers.
Being able to create such a scene through musical expression.
That was what Lee Yong-hak considered true talent.
There was only one reason countless audience members paid extra for plane tickets and traveled great distances to visit
concert halls.
A picture heard through the ears.
That was the essence of classical music.
His mentor had always told him that a concert wasn't merely a place to go and listen to sounds.
It was a place where you followed the performer's interpretation and painted pictures inside your mind.
Why did people close their eyes when listening to music?
So they wouldn't lose sight of the trajectory of the interpretation the performer was unfolding.
That was why classical music was the most sophisticated form of art, one that placed no limits on the boundaries of
possibility.
And the boy before him was making art.
‘A piece I've never heard before.’
The melody wasn't so much refined as freewheeling.
His posture was a mess.
But when combined with the confident smile visible on his face and his characteristically relaxed movements, he looked
unmistakably like a bard.
An informal attitude.
Careless fingering.
Improvised rhythms.
Fragments that should never have blended together somehow weaving themselves into harmony.
Could a mere five-year-old child have calculated all of that before playing it?
Of course not.
It meant he was born with it.
Was this what professors felt when they encountered a potential graduate student?
Only now did Lee Yong-hak think he understood the strange expression his mentor had worn on the day he took Lee Yong-hak
on as a student.
‘Is this fate?’
Who would have imagined that he would encounter such a connection in a mere kindergarten?
Just as his thoughts reached that point, Rian's bow stopped.
Lee Yong-hak picked up his pen.
Normally, he should have checked the box on the evaluation sheet labeled ‘Musical Aptitude: Excellent.’
But Lee Yong-hak furrowed his brow for a moment.
Then he simply pushed the entire checklist aside.
A genius couldn't be evaluated with a scrap of paper like this.
---
A dish made by pounding pork tenderloin or loin thin with a mallet, coating it in crispy flour, and frying it.
In other words, pork cutlet.
Rian was currently sitting across from his mother, cutting up and eating that very pork cutlet.
According to his mother, it was a reward for doing well on the test by himself.
The problem was that Rian himself wasn't sure whether he'd actually done well.
The performance he'd shown in front of Lee Yong-hak earlier hadn't been particularly satisfying even to his own ears.
For one thing, the violin had one fewer string than the instrument Rian had played in his previous life.
His young body wasn't accustomed to handling the bow, and more than anything, his chin lacked enough muscle to properly
hold the violin in place, making playing extremely uncomfortable.
‘...Humans.’
A race that caught up with the centuries-long lives of elves despite having lifespans nowhere near as long.
Rian's mistake had been failing to figure out beforehand what this race considered ‘basic.’
How was he supposed to compete with a race that understood rhythm and beat from the age of five?
‘Sigh.’
Meanwhile, his mother, Kim Jin-ah, looked sadly at her son, who was merely poking at the salad beside his pork cutlet.
‘The test must have gone really badly.’
She had even gone out of her way to bring him to his favorite pork cutlet restaurant to cheer him up, yet her son's
expression remained gloomy.
Had it been a mistake to try enrolling him in a private kindergarten without ever sending him to an academy?
Maybe, just as the news programs claimed, she really should have thrown him into the entrance-exam war from the age of
five.
But Kim Jin-ah didn't want to raise her son that way.
Although he had been born because of an unexpected pregnancy, at an age when most people her age were busy attending
university, she had raised him with even more love because of that.
She vividly remembered the day she'd carried him for ten months and given birth, only for her heart to drop when the
nurse slapped his back and he didn't cry.
When she saw her son remain blank-faced without even crying after being separated from his parents, she had frantically
searched for famous medical professors, wondering if something might be wrong with him.
She knew now that there was nothing wrong with him.
But back then, she couldn't begin to describe how terrified she'd been.
Like the saying that you only realize it is spring after winter has passed, Kim Jin-ah only then came to realize just
how much she cherished and loved her son.
So she personally wrapped him in a baby carrier and carried him around.
She made his baby food herself.
She drove awkwardly back and forth to the hospital.
She patted his back until he burped.
She raised him herself.
It might have been ordinary childcare to other people, but it wasn't to Kim Jin-ah.
Her own mother hadn't raised her that way.
She had never been wrapped up and carried around, and her mother had never even gotten behind the wheel to drive her to
the hospital.
Even bears, those hulking beasts, taught their cubs how to catch fish, yet Kim Jin-ah's mother hadn't done even that.
So Kim Jin-ah had learned how to raise a baby all by herself.
She listened carefully to the advice of nurses and experts speaking through YouTube videos.
How could she not be proud of herself?
Anyway, this was the son she'd raised that way.
Seeing him look so dejected that he was even neglecting his favorite pork cutlet naturally made her heart ache.
But Kim Jin-ah forced the corners of her lips upward.
She remembered the advice of a parenting expert who said that parents should always smile in front of their children
because it was good for their emotional development.
‘Our Rian must really love music. He has enough competitive spirit to get upset over losing.’
She added a new entry to the mental observation journal she kept about her son.
An expert had said it was good to learn the characteristics of one's children as well.
‘They say boys like hearing praise more than girls do.’
Just as she was about to comfort her son without making it too obvious, so that he wouldn't feel embarrassed—
Ring-a-ling!
Perfect timing.
Her phone rang.
‘Oh, right. Smile, smile.’
Kim Jin-ah almost frowned for an instant, but remembering that her son was watching, she quickly put on a gentle smile
and picked up her phone.
“Hello?”
—Am I speaking to Madam Kim Jin-ah? The guardian of Lee Rian?
It was the music kindergarten they'd just left.
Were they already calling to tell her that he had failed?
Kim Jin-ah almost answered curtly out of irritation, but stopped herself.
She remembered the words of experts who said children learned by observing their parents' behavior.
“Yes, that's right.”
So she answered in a softer voice than usual.
At the same time, she didn't miss the fact that her son's gaze had turned toward her.
Apparently, he'd figured out who was calling just from the context.
Maybe she should have gone outside to take the call.
Just as Kim Jin-ah was thinking that, the kindergarten employee continued.
—Mother, I'm terribly sorry! Our employee made a mistake and...
“...Excuse me?”
This was what had happened.
Two children named ‘Lee Rian’ had come to take the entrance exam that day.
And, by coincidence, their mothers were both named Kim Jin-ah as well.
The only difference was that one child had applied for the basic class, where almost anyone who could afford the tuition
would be accepted, while the other had applied for the study-abroad class, which aimed for awards at the highest-level
competitions both domestically and internationally.
However, because of a minor mistake made by a kindergarten teacher, the two children had ended up in each other's
examination rooms.
—Teacher Lee Yong-hak was so impressed by your child's performance that we wanted to call and tell you that he passed.
The employee didn't say anything like, ‘Your son has the ability to enter the study-abroad class, so why did you apply
for the basic class?’
There was nothing to be gained from saying that to an enthusiastic parent.
It wasn't exactly a sexy thing to say.
Instead, the employee spent ten whole minutes explaining how brilliant, talented, and exceptional her son was.
And it worked.
The corners of Kim Jin-ah's lips rose all the way to her ears.