Pen and Paper Translations

Mateo shut himself away in a pitch-dark room, scraping by day after day on the bare minimum of water.

“Hoo….”

Even when his wife left, he hadn’t had the luxury of drowning in grief. For the daughter he’d been left with, he endured with clenched teeth.

And yet….

The moment his daughter became an adult, she left his arms behind, and that wasn’t even the end of it.

When he finally worked up the courage to contact her for the first time, she ignored him.

“Stop it already! It’s my life! Whoever I date, whatever I do, you don’t get to care anymore!”

When they met again after five years, she ruthlessly drove him into a corner just to protect some guy she didn’t even know.

[ I don’t even want to think about it. ]

And when he gathered his courage one more time to try to get closer, she answered as if she’d abandoned the very idea of having a father.

Mateo….

He collapsed fast. Work, sleep, meals, none of it meant anything to him anymore.

Even the vague hope that maybe things with his daughter could get better disappeared. It was a foolish fantasy.

Yeah.

A fantasy that even though the first button had been fastened wrong, someday he could undo it all and button it up neatly again.

But miracles like that don’t happen.

“If you work with me, you can set Sarah Stewart up as the instrument.”

At HS’s words, he’d swallowed empty hope.

“You might even be able to say, through music, what you can’t convey in words.”

It was so sweet he drank it down greedily.

Now, he had no intention of blaming HS. He was the one who’d fallen for the temptation of someone trying to profit off another person’s story.

“Fuck…”

Mateo muttered a curse.

Tap, tap.

He decided to send the message he’d been putting off. Not to Paul, who worried about him, and not to his daughter, who had rejected him, but to HS.

No matter what…

It was something they’d agreed to do together, so he should at least tell him he wasn’t going to do it.

“Uh….”

When he opened the KakaoTalk chat with HS, there were only three messages sitting there from the time he hadn’t responded.

• 4 days ago –

I sent it like we agreed, so you’re continuing the work.

[ trackmisutgaru.mp4 ]

• 1 day ago –

When will you send your song, sir?

The kid hadn’t hounded him too hard. In the first place, someone like him probably had plenty of other work, so he might even forget about this soon.

Yeah.

To him, it was just a commercial proposal, even if it was a painful story for Mateo.

“Tsk…”

Mateo stared at the messages HS had sent, wetting his dry lips.

Even now, he wanted to hear the song HS had sent.

In the end, Mateo was an incurable composer. Put Pandora’s box called “a song” in front of him, and he couldn’t just walk past it. He had to open it.

Yeah. Listening once didn’t mean he had to work together no matter what.

“Should I at least hear it?”

If he told Sarah he was going to work with him, she would definitely refuse anyway.

Gulp.

Even though he expected it to be one of those trendy, heavily commercial songs these days, he felt strangely anticipatory.

Was it because he knew he was Choi Jihyun?

Click.

Mateo moved his slightly trembling hand and played the track HS had sent.

Soon the song flowed through the speakers connected to the living room.

─ ♬ ♬ ♬

Mateo had already spent more than thirty years in this industry.

And before even that, he’d studied music as his major, so it wouldn’t be an exaggeration to say his entire life was music.

That was why he could tell after just the first few bars.

‘It’s good.’

He didn’t want to admit it, but he also didn’t feel like turning it off. That alone meant the song was already half a success.

It started with a calm yet somehow rough guitar line, drifting along like a gentle breeze.

He’d expected it, but…

It didn’t have the grandeur of “more than just music” or “out to sea,” the kind of works released under the name Choi Jihyun.

It was simply floating there, like a paper boat bobbing on a quiet lake.

He didn’t know whether that paper boat would reach somewhere, or sink into the lake’s deep abyss, but….

He wanted to see how it ended.

─ ♬ ♬ ♬

The melody gradually softened, then stopped abruptly.

What was this?

Somehow, it felt like the feeling after finishing a drama.

The feeling that the next story would continue.

Was it a song with a series?

Curiosity rising, Mateo was about to contact HS right away, but then he stopped his hand.

It was work he wasn’t going to do—work he couldn’t do—so if he asked, he’d only be left with lingering regret.

But still.

‘At least I can make the ending for that paper boat, can’t I?’

With that thought, Mateo headed straight for his work table.

---

Hyunseung was editing the lyrics he’d obtained from Sarah Stewart (meaning: pried out of her), adjusting them to fit the melody.

But even if it was only the simple job of smoothing the seams to match the rhythm, maybe because it wasn’t his, he didn’t even want to do that.

“Hm….”

So these days, Hyunseung was thinking about it constantly—before falling asleep, while eating, even while washing.

Ah.

Mateo was something he’d long since forgotten completely.

Of course, it wasn’t that he wasn’t going to work, but he also knew this wasn’t something that would get solved just because you pressured someone, so he’d put it off.

Tap tap.

Just as Hyunseung bit into a piece of toast instead of a proper meal,

─ Son.

He turned at the touch on his shoulder, and his father was there.

─ Is something bothering you?

─ No.

─ You look serious, for some reason.

Hyunseung brushed his dry cheek. Did he really look that serious? He’d made his father worry for no reason.

─ It’s not that, but….

His father’s hand paused in midair, and then—

─ Dad.

As if he’d made up his mind, Hyunseung carefully asked in sign language.

─ Can I ask you just one thing?

His father sat down right in front of him, meeting his eyes as if to say, ask whatever you want.

Before long, Hyunseung’s careful hand movements continued.

─ How much do you think Mom loved me?

His father looked startled at the sudden question, but then he smiled warmly and answered.

─ She must have loved you far more than I did.

─ More than you, Dad?

─ Of course.

With full confidence, his father asked back.

─ Did you know? Maternal love is usually something you’re born with, and paternal love is something you develop later.

Hyunseung started to shake his head slightly, then seemed to realize something and let out a small sigh—“Ah”—as he nodded.

Thinking about it….

It did sound right.

His younger sister Hyuna had looked after the family like instinct from a young age, while he had only fulfilled the bare minimum role inside a relationship lumped together under the name “family.”

Until he regretted it to the bone and was given another chance.

Swoosh, swoosh.

Then his father brushed back his hair and brought up an old memory.

─ When you were a baby, you once had the flu and had to be hospitalized. It was right before Hyuna was born, so you won’t remember it.

─ That makes sense.

─ After work, I spent days and nights by your side while you were sick… and even then, I fell asleep sometimes.

His father smiled awkwardly, then continued signing.

─ But your mom couldn’t sleep at all. Even the slightest sound you made, and she’d jump up and run barefoot to find a nurse.

Since Hyunseung didn’t remember any of it, there was nothing he could do but listen quietly.

─ Every day, she prayed that nothing would happen to her son. She was so desperate that if someone else saw her, they would’ve thought you had some incurable disease.

─ I see. Still, thanks to how much Mom worried over me, I guess I’ve been able to live healthy all this time.

─ Your dad is lacking in many ways, but I’ll love you and Hyuna enough for both of us, so please, just stay healthy.

After finishing, his father quietly hugged Hyunseung.

Pat, pat.

Hyunseung closed his eyes at the hand patting his back.

His father must have been pretty surprised.

A son who never asked about his mother suddenly asking with such a serious face….

Even if he was asking because of work, it was still good that he asked.

He still couldn’t fully grasp his mother’s love, but since he was receiving even that share from his father, it was fine.

Then his father released him from the embrace and added one last line in sign language.

─ And your mom said that the day she held you for the first time, she finally understood the word “love.” She said loving me didn’t even qualify as love, so I was almost a little hurt.

Even as he said he’d been hurt, his father wore a smile warm as early-summer wild grass.

---

With a small hint from his father, Hyunseung returned to the studio and sat at his work table.

“Yes, then I’ll definitely come back.”

She had been sincere, and now it was his turn to keep that sincerity.

In truth, before he could even form an attachment to his mother, she passed away, so he had delayed things, with no clear memory or emotion to anchor it.

But lately, he kept seeing his mother’s face over Hyuna’s smiling face.

Whenever that happened, he’d be swept up in a strange feeling, and at the same time, he remembered that mother and daughter who had brushed past him.

So for the first time, he took out the musical idea that had been messing with his mind and organized it on staff paper.

Because if you make a promise, you have to keep it.

Come to think of it, there still hadn’t been any contact from Mateo. If the work didn’t come, he couldn’t even bring it up to Sarah Stewart again.

“Tsk.”

Thinking he should finish this work first, Hyunseung went straight into arranging.

Tap, t-tadadadak, tap!

Calling it arranging was generous—any existing sections had already been scrapped long ago.

And with the ideas that came to him through that conversation with his father, it transformed again.

─ ♬ ♬ ♬

He recorded the performance of every instrument included in the track one by one himself.

─ ♬ ♬ ♬

He wrote it out on the staff paper as he went.

─ ♬ ♬ ♬

Thinking of it as a song his mother would hear, he completed it slowly, step by step.

“Tsk…”

Just as his finger joints began to throb,

“Bravo!”

He turned his head at the sudden shout that pierced straight through his headset.

Clap, clap, clap!

Kim Woohyun stood there, applauding with a moved expression.

“You can’t even hear it, so what ‘bravo,’” Hyunseung said.

With the headset on while working, there was no way she could’ve heard the song he was making. And yet Kim Woohyun’s eyes sparkled as she clapped.

“I don’t have to hear it to know.”

“Know what?”

“That a masterpiece is being born.”

Even a hedgehog thinks its own babies are cute, huh.

“Now I can tell just by your face when you work.”

“My face?”

“Yeah. When you look excited, you always cause trouble, and when you look serious, you end up making a masterpiece.”

Ah.

Kim Mom… is still Mom, after all.

“Mom.”

“Yes, my son.”

“I have one favor….”

At his words, Kim Woohyun took a step back with a frightened look, as if already bracing himself.

“Huh. If you look excited, it sounds like you’re about to cause trouble.”

“It’s not trouble. I just need you to help me book one instrument.”

Hyunseung suddenly scratched his chin with a serious face.

“Who is it?”

Kim Woohyun grew more anxious the longer his hesitation dragged on.

A guy who even treated the New York Philharmonic like some enormous instrument, what kind of instrument (singer) had him thinking this hard?

“Um.”

Then Hyunseung scratched the back of his head and said,

“It’s an idol, but I don’t remember the name. Their last name is Jo.”

“Huh?”

“Can you find them for me?”

At that, Kim Woohyun let out a deep sigh.

Please.

He could only hope he’d be able to find “Mr. Jo Instrument” quickly and accurately.