“Hey, Janis.”
“Yes, Father Benedict.”
Liverpool Cathedral.
An elderly priest in cassock called out to a young man whose appearance did not suit the solemn square at all.
The youth strolled over to the bench where the priest sat.
With every swing of his burly arms, a sleeve-full of old-school tattoos with filthy slurs, obscene cartoons seemed to ripple alive.
Shaggy hair brushed his shoulders, ripped jeans and a limp T-shirt hung from his frame, piercings caught the light at the edge of a smirk.
When he reached the priest, he clasped his hands and bowed politely.
“I hear you are finishing the last tracks for the new album. How is it?”
“As always, Father, we did our best.”
He tipped his chin and pointed a finger at the sky. “We are the best.”
The gesture might have looked arrogant on someone else.
On him it fitted perfectly. He was, after all, leader of the world-famous super-band Box43.
Once a solo singer-songwriter, he had gathered Europe’s finest session players into a project group now entering its third album.
“Full of confidence, I see.”
“We are entitled to be.”
Arms folded, chin high, he nodded without apology.
“We shall find out soon enough. Do you remember Father Joseph?”
“The priest on sabbatical who visited last time? The one serving in Korea?”
“Ah, you do recall.”
“Hard not to—he is rather… tough.”
Janis twitched his brows, remembering how that priest had laid five thugs neatly on the pavement.
“He sent me a performance clip yesterday.”
“Does Father Joseph play music as well?”
Benedict chuckled. “When a priest reaches my age, he picks up all sorts of odds and ends.”
“I will grant you that,” Janis said. This old priest had taken up painting not long ago.
“Anyway, the clip is a mess and yet strangely compelling.”
“Compelling enough that I should listen?”
Janis’s brow creased. His pride in music was fierce. If a piece fell short of his standards, he would not even press play.
Too often he had cursed out loud and, in a fit of temper, hurled a phone across the room.
And if Father Joseph heard him bad-mouthing the clip, Janis might be the one hurled instead.
“Do not send the link, Father. Let me hear it on your phone.”
He would not pollute his own device, packed with priceless demos of the new album.
Benedict pulled reading glasses from a pocket, perched them on his nose and squinted at the screen, fingers crawling clumsily over the icons.
The process was painfully slow, but Janis watched with fond patience.
Once a hopeless delinquent living on the streets, he would have died in an alley had Father Benedict not dragged him into a wider world and revealed his gift for music.
The priest was his benefactor, his savior.
“Ah, found it.”
Benedict, satisfied like a child, handed over the phone.
Janis masked his concern, took the handset and sat beside him.
“Comedians, are they?”
On screen several people wore paper bags over their heads, clutching cheap instruments and a tinny Chinese amp.
Janis drew a deep breath. If the music proved garbage, he would force a smile and say, “Not bad.”
Mind-control was essential. Otherwise, foul language or the priest’s phone might fly.
He exhaled slowly and tapped Play.
Huh?
“Holy—!”
He swore before he could stop himself and thumbed the volume to maximum.
Shin Yu-jeong gasped.
So did Chairman Jin Bong-gu and Dean Lee Seong-cheol down in the hall. Cho Jin-hyeok had slammed the grand-piano lid.
He battered the prop stick so hard it seemed ready to bend.
Each thundering, measured blow shook the strings inside. His mouth curled in delight.
What a gorgeous sound.
He pounded the lid’s rim, then hammered the area above the fallboard with his fists. Depending on where he struck, the vibration changed, mixing rhythm and melody. His percussive dance grew faster, more intricate.
He circled the instrument, drumming on the outer rim; a wholly different timbre emerged. Like a child who had found a marvelous toy, he skipped around the piano, even his footsteps on the empty stage falling perfectly into the groove.
No one dared stop him.
Even once their initial shock eased, fascination pinned them in place.
Dean Lee’s heart raced with the beat, yet his scholarly mind shrieked: That piano costs a fortune. I should intervene.
He started forward—then felt his sleeve tugged. Chairman Jin shook his head without taking his eyes from the stage.
Could the chairman actually feel this music? Perhaps it angered him… or perhaps not. Lee could not read him. The man’s mind was opaque.
And the music itself was merciless scolding.
The improvisation grew ever fiercer. Suddenly Yu-jeong, face blank, walked to the piano and sat.
Cho Jin-hyeok was rebuking the two self-important “elders.”
He was furious that they had tried to drag him here by raw authority, claiming curiosity about his music. Any coerced performance was poison to him.
That splendid communion at Yeongdeungpo had been sacred, unreproducible. Now these pompous snakes had sullied it.
Well then, little bird, he beckoned with his rhythm, are you going to calm me again?
Yu-jeong exhaled, pouting as if to say This assignment is impossible, and laid her hands on the keys.
Gentle notes fluttered into the storm, taming it. Cho grinned wide. The little bird sang again.
When the last chord faded, she stared at her fingers, chest heaving, then raised her head.
He was standing atop the piano, having folded the music rack, looking down at her.
“You’re good,” he said. “Truly excellent.”
She had been praised all her life—first “talented,” later “prodigious”—yet the compliments rang hollow.
She had copied the emotions of world-class pianists, hiding her own because competitions had no room for them. Critics’ applause only deepened her shame.
But this single sentence, spoken with a bright childlike smile, eclipsed every accolade she had ever received.
Tears burst forth. Her jaw quivered, shoulders shook. She pressed her face to the keys and sobbed.
Cho hopped off the piano; she could not lift her head.
Chairman Jin and Dean Lee had raised their hands to clap but froze mid-air.
They, too, were still caught in the music’s after-glow. When Yu-jeong suddenly wept, they lowered their hands in confusion, then watched the pianist stride across the stage.
“That Etude, and the music just now,” Jin-hyeok said, still smiling, “were rather similar. Are you satisfied?”
Chairman Jin nodded slowly.
“Nothing more to add?”
Cho wondered if the reproof had struck home. He glanced at the piano: smudged hand and shoe marks marred the glossy surface, the tuning would doubtless need work.
The chairman parted his lips. “I… was heedless.”
“I understand,” Cho answered, smile intact.
“Pierre, get to the studio. Everyone, right now!”
Janis shouted over the roar of his Ferrari.
He had planned a grand concept album, progressive rock re-interpreting sacred music from Christianity, Buddhism, Hinduism, Islam—an audacious challenge to the divine that would end with the band’s glorious breakup.
But a rough clip from some small Asian country had shaken him. Strip away the muddle and focus on the guitar and voice, and his year-long masterpiece felt like trash.
He stamped the accelerator.
Everything had to change. He could not swagger as the best while that sound existed.
Janis laughed, half-dazed.
I know it is shameless, but please save my brother. I beg you.
Yu Jang-ha stared at the dark phone screen. Worse than he had feared.
The scar beside his eye throbbed.
“Right.”
He sank into the sofa, then leaned back, gazing at the ceiling.
Let me over that wall, and I will call you “Big Bro” for life, I swear.
He chuckled, stood, and shrugged into a coat.
“Whatever happens—time to try.”
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