From a young age, pianist Shin Yu-jeong was hailed as a prodigy, but for some reason, she never found success in competitions.
The Korean classical music scene refused to accept the depth of emotion that strayed from its norms.
Her choice was to study abroad at an early age.
After returning to Korea, she happened to play a piano in a hotel lobby. A video of that performance was uploaded online, and she became a YouTube star overnight.
From then on, she adopted the concept of doing street performances for her YouTube channel.
Her videos created quite a stir in a music world where precise technique and unwavering fidelity to the original were held as the highest virtues.
It delivered a wake-up call to Korea’s performance-music scene, which had become a league of its own.
Though she had no record of winning competitions, she was so well-known as a YouTuber that she was even invited to the Bologna Piano Recital in Italy. Her global popularity was immense.
“Hey?”
“What’s with that guy?”
They had set up a spot where a discarded piano stood in Hongdae, planning to film a scene. While they were off charging camera batteries at a nearby café, an uninvited guest showed up.
“Looks like he’s been drinking.”
“Ugh, should I go talk to him?”
“Leave him alone. Don’t get into an argument. Maybe he’ll just fool around a bit and leave.”
“That’d be great.”
Yu-jeong’s younger cousin, who was helping her film, scowled.
“He—he’s sitting down?”
“Hey, start recording. If he ends up wrecking the piano, we’ll at least need proof.”
Sometimes, a random passerby would jump in and start messing with the piano. Usually, if they explained it was for a YouTube shoot, the person would step aside. But dealing with someone older was trickier.
Some in that age group disliked YouTubers in general, or might not recognize who she was.
On top of that, there was a hint of blood on his forehead, and he looked dazed—almost drunk.
“Stay here with the camera, sis. I’ll go—”
Suddenly, the piano keys rang out, and Yu-jeong stopped her cousin by grabbing his arm.
“Is he checking the tuning?”
From the far left key to the far right, the man began pressing each note with precise timing and force.
The notes rang out one by one. His fingers moved like a machine.
He frowned and went back to check a particular key, and in that moment, Yu-jeong’s jaw dropped.
The key that gave him pause was one whose hammer was slightly worn, producing a marginally softer sound than the rest.
She herself, being this piano’s owner, was planning to repair it soon and had noticed it only through constant daily playing. Yet this man identified it instantly.
Yu-jeong’s eyes widened even more.
When he hit that key a second time, he produced a sound identical in volume to the surrounding notes—without any kind of tuning device, purely by adjusting his touch to produce the pitch that key was originally supposed to give.
He did this twice in a row. Doing it once might be a coincidence, but twice was unthinkable.
“This isn’t some random fluke.”
He had pinpointed an issue that only she, who played this instrument daily, was faintly aware of.
When he finished tuning it to his satisfaction, the man smiled—a bright, carefree smile that made it impossible to guess his age.
At first glance, he looked to be in his mid- to late 30s, yet that smile felt more like that of a mischievous teenager.
His hand settled gently on the keys, and he began to play.
“Chopin’s Etude?”
His fingers flowed gracefully over the keys, his eyes half-closed.
She herself sometimes played this piece, but his touch felt somehow different.
“A missed note?”
It was a piece known for frequent mis-hits, but what he was doing felt more intentional than a mere mistake.
Perhaps the difference in touch was making it seem that way.
He would play soft passages firmly, and places that should have been intense were played softly instead.
Because she knew the piece so well, she sensed a particular emotion in his performance:
Rebellion.
Rebellion against the uniform standards around him.
That feeling radiated from his fingertips, as though saying, ‘Isn’t this version even better?’
What shocked her more was that, the moment the idea of “rebellion” crossed her mind, the piece turned into something new and even more perfect.
To think he would alter a piece that has been refined for over 200 years…
“Sis?”
“Shh.”
Her cousin felt her hand trembling.
Even a non-piano major like him could tell this was an incredible performance. And that poised, self-assured expression on the man’s face…
“Seriously, for an older guy…?”
It was both infuriating and awe-inspiring at the same time.
Unlike her cousin, who was awed by the performance itself, Yu-jeong’s heart was pounding in time with the music. She felt regret as the piece neared its end.
The tempo slowed, and the piece should have ended quietly with a gentle touch.
But suddenly, his fingers tensed, creating a stronger, more dramatic atmosphere.
He pressed the final keys and froze.
His face twisted slightly in what looked like anger.
“What’s going on?”
Seeing him look so upset made Yu-jeong swallow nervously.
Those who had stopped to listen also held their breath.
Her heart began to race.
An Etude wasn’t supposed to end on a note of rage. Unconsciously, she bit her lip.
Her cousin noticed and glanced around. A decent crowd had gathered.
He saw that she couldn’t tear her eyes away from the piano. Evidently, he wasn’t the only one mesmerized by this man’s performance.
Even during her own street concerts, this many people hadn’t gathered so quickly. Her cousin panned the camera around the crowd.
Plenty of onlookers were filming with their phones, so this performance clearly wouldn’t be theirs alone.
Though the piece seemed to be over, nobody was lowering their phones.
“Oh.”
He realized he himself was still filming, too.
Everyone sensed that the performance wasn’t finished yet.
He looked at her.
She was biting down on her bottom lip.
“Anger?”
He saw her mouth move silently.
And then—
Boom, boom.
The piano thundered, though it was barely recognizable as a typical piano piece. It felt more like percussion, slamming into your chest.
Yu-jeong let go of her cousin’s arm.
Like someone under a spell, she moved toward the piano.
His hands pounded the high-volume chords on one side of the keyboard. Gently, she laid her slender fingers on a section he wasn’t using and pressed a single note.
Amid the booming thunder, a tiny bird’s chirp rang out.
She pressed another note, and the thunder quivered slightly.
Her softly played notes merged with his fury, as subtly as raindrops along a rooftop.
As she began to incorporate more notes, the intervals of that rumbling thunder gradually widened, conceding space to the little bird’s song.
Eventually, seated beside him, her delicate chirping echoed clearly.
Then, as though storm clouds were parting, all that remained was a refreshing breeze mingling with the sound of that small bird’s call.
Yet that breeze felt so sorrowful that tears welled up in Yu-jeong’s eyes before she even realized it.
When the bird’s song finally stopped, the wind’s sound dissipated, too.
The man lifted his fingers from the keys and turned to look at her, then bowed his head in thanks.
Only then did the crowd snap out of their reverie and erupt in applause.
Whatever their reason, many of them had tears in their eyes as well.
The applause and cheers went on, and the man rose abruptly from his seat to bow in return.
“Um…”
The man turned to leave, and Yu-jeong quickly called out.
“You’ve got quite an instinct. You managed to calm down a rush of emotion that flared up all of a sudden…”
He gave a bright smile that once again made him seem like a teenage boy.
If not for the patches of white roots in his hair and the faint wrinkles around his eyes, one might’ve believed they were the same age.
“Thanks for letting me use your piano.”
He gave another polite bow and walked off.
As Yu-jeong watched him go, blank-faced, she hastily glanced at her cousin.
“Got it all on camera,” he said.
Understanding her meaning, he made an “OK” gesture with his finger.
She looked down at her trembling hands.
Her heart still felt heavy with all the emotion of that moment.
As Jin-hyeok walked away, he thought back to the first time he had learned piano.
He remembered the little seaside church he’d lived in as a child, and the nun who had been there.
She was the person who first introduced him to music.
He remembered the day he first played Chopin’s Etude, and the pork cutlet he’d eaten afterward.
“You’ve been given the power to heal the world. It’s a miracle.”
He was grateful to her for guiding him to follow music.
Then, as her image crossed his mind, the forty-three-year-old Jin-hyeok unleashed his present memories.
She had eventually gone to live in a care home for elderly nuns. She was suffering from dementia, having forgotten most things, like a child awaiting the day she would return to the One she served.
During his rebellious, emotionally charged Etude, a sudden memory of her had triggered his anger.
When he’d gone to see her, he had not been able to perform that piece. He’d already lost his music by then.
Because he could no longer play piano, she didn’t recognize him.
“I miss my Jin-hyeok…”
He was right there in front of her, yet she cried, longing for the Jin-hyeok who could still play the Etude.
Desperate, he tried playing a recorded version, but it wasn’t what she wanted.
She wished for the Etude only rebellious Jin-hyeok could perform.
He couldn’t give her the piece she so badly wanted to hear.
“Damn.”
In the end, she passed away without ever reuniting with the Jin-hyeok she remembered.
He knew there had been no helping it, but the anger still boiled over.
He poured that anger into the end of the Etude, but it wasn’t enough.
His fingers wouldn’t leave the keys.
“I’m still not finished.”
The anger of his current self, combined with the frustration felt by twenty-seven-year-old Jin-hyeok, fueled that fierce emotion.
All those pent-up feelings found an outlet in the music he’d just rediscovered after so long.
Suddenly, in the midst of his chaotic outburst, something reached out to him.
A small “chirp” approached, very gently, note by note.
It merged with his anger.
Only then did he realize that neither twenty-seven-year-old Jin-hyeok nor the newly awakened him was at fault.
He came to his senses.
Though he was trembling, he didn’t want to scare off the little bird who had flown into the eye of his storm.
With the storm clouds dispersed, what remained was a wind carrying the sorrow of not being able to gift her that Etude in time.
And that little bird soothed his sorrow to the very end.
Music.
Jin-hyeok stopped walking and turned.
The piano was lost among the crowd, no longer in sight.
That performance had helped him understand the “forty-three-year-old Jin-hyeok” who had lost his music and struggled all this time.
He tucked away the little bird’s song in his heart.
The world was vast and filled with talented individuals, which made life all the more fun.
Remembering the small bird who had comforted him today, he resolved to refine this piece further:
“Rage, calm, sorrow, the chirp of healing.”
Jin-hyeok smiled.
It was time to make the world more entertaining, not alone but together.
He recalled the band members he’d once known at nineteen, in the time of his greatest dreams.
Memories flooded back of who they had become now, and Jin-hyeok let out a hollow laugh.
“They got old, huh?”
He took out his phone.
It hadn’t existed in his younger days, but the moment he held it, he instinctively knew how to use it.
Scanning through his contacts, he started with the person who had been the slowest to improve, yet the most diligent of them all: the keyboardist.
Angane Chicken Restaurant
“Three fried chickens are out for delivery, right?”
“Yep, just gave them to the driver!”
“Hey, did you remember to pack the beer?”
“Huh?”
“I told you to pack one beer, didn’t I?”
“Oh… I’ll run it over real quick. It’s just around the corner!”
“Phew. Don’t shake it up like last time. Walk it over, okay?”
“Got it.”
“And don’t stop to smoke; come right back!”
“Yes, ma’am!”
Ahn Sang-jeong hurriedly put a small keg of draft beer into a plastic bag. A side door by the kitchen opened a crack, revealing a little boy, probably in lower elementary school, peeking out.
“Geez, you messed up again?”
“Shh!”
“Dad! Grab me some gummy worms on your way back!”
“Sure. But have you done your workbook?”
“Shh!”
His son vanished again.
Sang-jeong pulled on his jacket and popped in his earbuds.
A recent idol track he’d been into played, bright and clear.
A cheerful female voice echoed in his mind, putting a bounce in his step.
Humming along, he headed outside when his phone suddenly rang.
“Huh?”
Seeing the name displayed, Sang-jeong’s heart dropped.
T/N: Intentional missed notes, you say? I know nothing about piano, but here’s one of Chopin’s pieces.
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