Translator: Dreamscribe
Han Gyeo-ul, taking Yu Seo-ha’s silence as agreement, put on a sad expression.
“Confession is a bit much. I mean, sure, I am pretty, but let’s not start like this from the very first meeting.”
She definitely had a striking appearance. Because someone so pretty was saying things like that, Seo-ha couldn’t tell how much of it was a joke.
Seo-ha suppressed a surge of emotion and shook his head.
“Don’t misunderstand. It’s not like that.”
Gyeo-ul pouted her lips and replied with a sulky tone.
“That’s what everyone says at first. But I’ll believe you… just this once.”
Seo-ha let out a sigh of relief.
“Thanks. There’s a reason I’m asking you to play for me.”
“What is it?”
“I can’t go into detail, but sometimes I need peace of mind.
And for some reason, your performance feels special to me. When I listen to it, my chaotic mind feels like it’s getting organized.”
Gyeo-ul stared at Seo-ha blankly for a moment, then nodded as if she understood.
"I knew it."
Seo-ha covered his face with both hands.
“I’m telling you, it’s not like that.”
‘A guy she just met has fallen for her.’
That was already a confirmed fact in her mind. So Gyeo-ul neatly ignored Seo-ha’s outcry.
“Great! I needed someone to help with math anyway. You help me with my homework, and I’ll calm you down with piano performances. Deal?”
“Exactly.”
Gyeo-ul smiled in satisfaction and adjusted the height of the piano bench.
“Then, to celebrate our agreement, I’ll play one extra piece today. Is there something you’d like to hear?”
Seo-ha’s music knowledge was limited to what he had read in the encyclopedia collection.
“I don’t know much about classical music. Do you have anything calm?”
“Perfect. There’s a piece I’ve been practicing.”
Gyeo-ul carefully examined the keys. Then she slowly closed her eyes.
Seo-ha saw her expression momentarily turn serious.
Chopin’s Nocturne No. 7, Op. 27-1.
As her left hand gently tapped out the low notes, the sound spread like a quiet ripple.
Gyeo-ul, with eyes closed, traced the notes with her fingertips.
Seo-ha quietly watched her with both hands resting on his knees.
‘Amazing.’
There was an aura in Gyeo-ul’s performance.
Her body moved with the flow of the music. Like reeds swaying in the wind, she didn’t resist the current but followed it naturally.
Sometimes gently, sometimes passionately. She was using her whole body to perform on the piano.
A beautiful and lyrical Chopin nocturne.
Seo-ha closed his eyes.
As the notes stacked one by one, they filled the music room. A beautiful melody, continuing in perfect order.
The presence of Ducky, which he always had to suppress with tension, was now quietly holding its breath.
‘Do you like her playing?’
Ducky nodded.
‘Me too.’
Gyeo-ul continued playing with her eyes closed.
Though following the sheet music, the notes subtly changed with every moment. Flowing smoothly, then suddenly gaining strength and swelling. Then settling down again, sinking into silence.
The noise that had been shaking his mind completely vanished.
For the first time, he experienced complete silence. It felt unfamiliar, yet comforting.
"Are you okay?"
When he opened his eyes, Gyeo-ul, having finished playing, was looking at him.
“I’m moved.”
Tears streamed from Seo-ha’s eyes.
It was the reaction of a heart that, from a young age, had to learn how to suppress itself. That sense of release felt both a little sad and overwhelming at the same time.
“Wha… What? Are you crying?”
Gyeo-ul opened her eyes wide, then quickly averted her gaze from Seo-ha.
“No way… you’re that into me?”
Gyeo-ul’s face turned red up to her ears.
Flustered, she flapped her hands and tried to cool her flushed face.
“I mean… even so, we just met today. But if you really feel that way…”
Before she could finish her sentence, Seo-ha stood up. He handed her a note.
“Your math homework, right? If you ever need help, call me.”
Seo-ha wiped away his tears.
Then he turned coldly and walked away.
“....”
[Yu Seo-ha, Dorm 40△, 010-○○△△-▽▽□□]
Gyeo-ul looked down at the note in her hand.
Neat handwriting, not a single number out of place.
Her shoulders trembled.
***
On Friday afternoon, after all classes had ended, Seo-ha left the dorm wearing casual clothes.
The campus was bustling with students preparing to head home for the weekend.
Seo-ha walked in the opposite direction from them.
Following the path, he arrived at a massive library. With an expressionless face, he opened the door and entered.
Inside the library, it was quiet.
He went straight to the reference section, picked out several books, and found an empty seat to sit down.
Harmony, Basic Music Theory, Counterpoint, The Structure of Tonality, Music and the Brain, Music Psychology.
Seo-ha had swept up all the books related to music and psychology.
Leibniz, who invented calculus, once said:
'There is no phenomenon without a reason.'
Seo-ha strongly agreed with that view.
How should he explain the sense of psychological stability he felt when listening to Gyeo-ul’s performance?
There must have been a valid reason behind that phenomenon. Seo-ha could never accept a vague answer like “the performance was good”.
As he flipped through the pages, his hand stopped at a passage.
'Pythagoras discovered that musical intervals could be explained through mathematical ratios.'
The modern seven-note scale was, in fact, a mathematical ratio system designed by Pythagoras and his disciples.
Seo-ha’s exceptional mathematical intuition was fully displayed even in music, which was a variation of that.
If the length of a string is halved, it’s an octave. A 3:2 ratio is a perfect fifth, 4:3 is a perfect fourth.
Simple fractional ratios become intervals.
Seo-ha drew lines in his notebook and wrote down figures. As the numbers formed curves and connected with one another, they overlapped with the arrangement of piano keys. Starting from C, notes stacked in specific ratios eventually formed a single complete system.
He began to see the reason faintly.
Was his subconscious recognizing the mathematical ratios and harmony embedded in Gyeo-ul’s performance?
But he had never felt that from anyone else’s playing.
It could be that the ratios of rhythm and harmony she created matched particularly well with his brainwaves or physical cycles.
Tap.
Seo-ha closed the book.
That conclusion was convincing enough for him.
***
In an empty music room, two people were sitting.
Seo-ha was clutching his head, and Gyeo-ul, with her arms crossed, was looking away with clear dissatisfaction.
On the music stand lay a math book instead of sheet music, and Gyeo-ul’s book didn’t have a single crease on the cover, as if it had never been opened.
"This is middle school first-year material. You just need to know the basic principles."
"Don't you know I skipped middle school?"
“Actually, they teach this in sixth grade elementary too.”
What was written on the paper was a very basic form of a polynomial. Realizing Gyeo-ul’s level, Seo-ha closed the high school math book and decided to start from the parts she didn’t know.
“....”
Gyeo-ul glanced at him out of the corner of her eye, then turned her head away.
“I’m just not in good condition today. Normally, I know all this.”
Her eyes were looking elsewhere, but the tips of her ears were turning red.
In truth, she had talent for studying.
It’s hard to achieve great things in music without being smart in the first place. Gyeo-ul, who only had memories of doing well when she was younger, now felt embarrassed in front of Seo-ha, who was famously a math genius.
“I think people who are talented in music are highly likely to be good at math too. What you don’t know right now is just because you haven’t had enough time and opportunity. So let’s start from the beginning and learn step by step.”
“....”
She had only planned to ask for help with homework, but the boy in front of her was trying to solve the math itself for her. Gyeo-ul was grateful for that, but also displeased. To have everything she didn’t know exposed felt like a cruel punishment to her pride.
Seo-ha chose to be honest with her instead of trying to assert himself.
“Han Gyeo-ul. I don’t know how you feel, but I seriously need your performance. So I’d like this exchange to last as long as possible.
But if your math skills don’t improve, this arrangement can’t continue, right? And that’s definitely not what I want. So how about being honest and giving it your best shot?”
It was the first time Seo-ha had ever expressed his sincere feelings to someone.
He found it strange that he became unusually honest only when he was in front of her.
Gyeo-ul’s eyes widened at Seo-ha’s sudden confession.
“You need me that much?”
“Yeah.”
“How much?”
Gyeo-ul leaned forward slightly as she asked.
“As much as breathing.”
A confident smile returned to Gyeo-ul’s face.
“You think I’ll fall for that just because you’re being dramatic?”
“It’s not dramatic.”
“Hmph! If you’re going to go that far, I guess I have no choice. But just so you know, I’m not the type to be easily moved, alright?”
She seemed to be misunderstanding something, but Seo-ha decided not to care. He could never quite follow the peculiar sensibility of those in the preparatory arts course anyway.
Seo-ha’s explanations were simple and clear.
‘Feels like I’m teaching Seo-eun.’
Gyeo-ul was diligent in her learning, and she understood quickly. Seo-ha’s explanations neatly unraveled the tangles in her head.
And that day, Gyeo-ul was able to gain more knowledge than she had over the past six years.
Looking pleased with her real-time growth, Gyeo-ul smiled and sat down at the piano. She even began to hum cheerfully, as if in a good mood.
“Would it be okay if I recorded it?”
Seo-ha asked as he took out his phone.
It was to verify whether the performance had to be live to be effective.
But an unexpected response came.
“Absolutely not!
You might not know since you're not a musician, but recording a pianist’s performance is a huge breach of etiquette. I want my recordings to be made only when I want them and in the form I choose.”
Seo-ha nodded.
Come to think of it, that was only natural. Even as a student, she was already a proper pianist.
“B-but… if you really want it, I’ll go to a studio and record it someday.”
She turned her head as if to avoid his gaze, then steadied her breathing.
Gyeo-ul’s performance began.
Seo-ha did not close his eyes. He intentionally fixed his gaze, following her movements and the flow of the notes.
‘I can’t rely on Gyeo-ul forever.’
Seo-ha wanted to find his own path. To do that, he had to first understand.
Her left hand set the rhythm first.
On top of that, her right hand added layers of harmony. The dynamics she played were not regular, and there was a subtle wavering. Yet Seo-ha felt a sense of stability in that irregularity.
He pulled out his notebook and began writing.
The points where the harmony changed, the moments when the pedal was pressed, the sections where the tempo slowed and then picked up again. Everything was recorded as mathematical variables.
And he wondered if he could reproduce her music in his own way.
That night, Seo-ha was consumed by the urge to play the piano. More precisely, Ducky wanted it.
‘There’s no place I can play piano at this hour.’
After some thought, Seo-ha opened his notebook.
‘Ducky, write down the notes you want. I’ll learn them later and try playing.’
The pen tip moved busily across the paper.
As if whispering, the sounds that came to Ducky’s mind were transferred into symbols one by one.
When he wrote a note on one side, the corresponding harmony followed on the other. Seo-ha thought this was quite similar to the relationship between a function and a graph.
After writing for a long time, Ducky seemed satisfied and quieted down.
The notebook was filled with symbols that couldn’t be clearly defined as either music or math.
“What should I call it?”
After thinking for a while, Seo-ha scribbled something at the top of the page.
[Theme of Duckie]