Chapter Text
Winter 1987
“Is that a pansori performance on television?”
The bookseller behind the counter turns away from the screen and looks towards Jooheon. “I’m surprised a young man such as yourself even knows what pansori is.”
“It’s a hobby of mine,” Jooheon explains with a small smile. “My grandfather loved it. We used to listen to pansori together whenever I visited him in the countryside.”
“Do you have any favourites?”
Where does Jooheon even begin? That’s like asking him to pick his favourite child. Should he say Chunhyangga, the classic love story of Chunhyang and Myongrong? Or maybe Sugungga, the tale about the rabbit, the terrapin and the Dragon King. Maybe he should pick a folk song? There are as many versions of Arirang as there are mountains on the whole Korean peninsula. Jooheon looks towards the television screen once more, the singer is performing A Bird Song, and smiles softly to himself.
“Jeokbyeokga,” Jooheon says. “Specifically Master Yoo Kihyun’s version.”
“Oh, that’s a powerful one,” the bookseller nods. “Jeokbyeokga is the most difficult pansori there is and Master Yoo certainly makes singing it look effortless.”
Effortless is certainly one way to put it. Jooheon remembers the first time he heard Master Yoo sing. He had just finished reading about The Battle of the Red Cliffs when he was going through his grandfather’s extensive vinyl collection. Master Yoo’s voice was equal parts dramatic and delicate, as smooth as a marble rolling across a silver tray. That day, something awoke within little 12 year old Jooheon, and he has been hooked ever since.
“Maybe one day I might be able to attempt my own version as well,” Jooheon says sheepishly.
The bookseller laughs. “And here I thought the golden years of pansori were behind us! How can I help you today, son?”
“I was wondering if you had anything on traditional music?” Jooheon asks.
“Certainly,” the bookseller nods and gestures for Jooheon to follow him.
The bookseller leads Jooheon through a series of crammed bookshelves, all the way to the back of the store. It’s so easy to lose oneself here, Jooheon thinks. Eunsegye is probably the greatest hidden gem in Seoul, possibly even the whole of Korea. Jooheon himself had only found it by accident when he had turned into an alleyway expecting to find a tea shop, but instead came across the most remarkable used bookstore. Hundreds of volumes line the walls, some in languages that Jooheon doesn't even recognize. Then suddenly, the bookseller stops in front of a small wooden sign that just says Music, and Jooheon snaps out of his daydream.
“We have books on every instrument in the western tradition. Chinese, Japanese and of course traditional Korean music as well. Everything here is one of a kind, of course. There is also a limited selection of vinyl records just in the corner. Let me know if you need anything else,” the bookseller smiles.
Jooheon thanks the bookseller and turns to face the shelf closest to him, humming quietly to himself as he brushes his fingers along the spines. For almost half an hour, he roams through the shelves, breathing in the scent of old paper and dust as he searches for his next big adventure, until a glint of gold catches his attention.
A thin wine-coloured book lies shy and inconspicuous at the end of the shelf, the gold letters of the title gleaming under the light. A Garden of Words is being sold for a mere 2000 won. Jooheon pulls it off and flips through the pages. It’s in near mint condition, not even a crease on the spine, the pages still a clean white despite the fact that it was printed over 20 years ago. On the very top of the first page is a handwritten inscription in black ink, still as dark as the day it was put to paper: For my most precious, my most beloved. Yours, Changkyun.
“That’s a very interesting one,” the bookseller says. “It’s the script for an opera. That copy used to belong to Master Yoo himself!”
“Really?”
The bookseller nods. “He was here last week to donate some books from his private collection. I believe that this one is the last of them,” he says thoughtfully, before turning back to the television. “And speak of the devil, look who is on Korea Sings today!”
Jooheon doesn’t remember the last time he saw Master Yoo on television. He rarely accepts interviews, let alone a whole scheduled appearance on the nation’s most popular live music show. Today he’s wearing a black traditional overcoat, his silver streaked hair brushed away from his face, dark, penetrating eyes behind a pair of rimless glasses. His posture is perfectly straight, as if his spine has been speared directly into the ground, and his thin hands are neatly folded across his lap. To think that they might have even crossed paths if Jooheon had decided to pay a visit to the store just a week earlier. For a brief moment, Master Yoo looks directly into the camera, and Jooheon feels his blood freeze.
“What is he like in person?” Jooheon asks.
“Goodness, he’s an extremely polite man, very formal, very composed. But the first thing you notice when he enters the room, is how uncomfortable it is to be around him. Something about his presence, I suppose,” the bookseller says.
Indeed, compared to the other guests on the show, who all seem so much larger-than-life, Master Yoo is much more reserved. At times he is so still that no one notices him at all, but as soon as he opens his mouth, the whole room stops to listen, afraid to interrupt for fear that his words might cut them.
Jooheon looks at the book in his hands and then turns back to the television. On screen, Master Yoo is speaking, completely unaware that in a bookstore halfway across the city, the wine-red book that once sat on his shelf is now in Jooheon’s hands. As Jooheon flips through the book one more time, he wonders how much of Master Yoo still remains among these pages.
“I’ll take it,” Jooheon smiles, and pulls out his wallet.
***
“You need a hobby, something that has nothing to do with traditional music. Want to go birding with me this weekend?”
Jooheon looks up from his seat on the floor to see Minhyuk’s floating head peeking in between the bookshelves. “What?”
“Birding,” Minhyuk says, a little bit louder. “I think I found a colony of red-crested cranes near campus. They wear these little red hats like crowns on their heads. I think this bunch made the pond near the humanities building their new home now and that’s kind of exciting!”
“Keep it down. This is the quiet floor of the library,” Jooheon says as he watches Minhyuk wriggle out from in between the shelves. He’s still very energetic, given that it’s close to midnight and he’s been awake since the day before. Jooheon, on the other hand, slept about two and a half hours last night and looks like he spent them on a bed of nails.
“So? Does a tree make a sound when it falls in the forest if there’s no one there to hear it? The whole place is empty, everybody has already headed back for the new year.”
Jooheon takes a quick look around. Minhyuk is right. At this hour, there would be at least one or two poor undergraduates doing some last minute scrambling through the music library, but there isn’t a soul on the entire floor. Everyone seems to have taken advantage of the fact that this year’s winter break coincided with the new year holidays and went off before ticket prices got too high. The only creatures still on campus are miserable graduate students like Minhyuk and Jooheon, and apparently, the red-crested cranes.
“I am going to die here,” Jooheon says miserably.
“Hold it off till after next weekend because I really think you’ll enjoy the birds and you deserve to have fun one last time before you die.”
“I’ll be at my grandparents’ place next weekend.”
“Oh, boo! I thought you were going to slave over your thesis with me this break. Who is going to listen to me complain about Tchaikovsky’s 6th Symphony while you’re out of the city?” Minhyuk sighs as he picks up one of the books next to Jooheon and absent-mindedly flips through the pages.
Jooheon smiles, dimples on full display. “I’m sure you will find someone to look at birds with you.”
Minhyuk snorts and punches his arm playfully. “Found anything new yet?”
“Not at all.”
“You know it’s still not too late to look into something else. The review is after the break, and if you talk to Professor Son before Friday, I’m sure he will let you swap.”
“It’s not that– It’s just– It doesn’t make any sense,” Jooheon groans in frustration and flips through his copy of A Garden of Words. “The practice of combining western music and pansori is only really starting to take off today, but this book proves that people were already talking about this since the fifties. I mean look at this! Im Changkyun wrote a whole opera based on this idea!”
“Really? I’ve never heard of him before,” Minhyuk says.
Prior to that moment in the bookstore, Jooheon had never heard of Im Changkyun either, but it didn’t really matter. Im Changkyun was more than 20 years ahead of the composers of his time. A Garden of Words was his first and only opera, and despite the heavy traditional influence, was meant to be performed with western vocal techniques, something completely unheard of in the mid-20th century.
Since then, Jooheon has been scouring the library for more information about him. The only thing that Jooheon knows is that he was originally from Gwangju but lived in Seoul during the 1950s where he worked as a pansori singer and eventually spent the last few years of his short life writing poetry and stage music. He was Jooheon’s age when he died more than two decades ago, having just turned 25 over the new year.
And yet, somehow, despite the fact that he was one of the first composers who attempted to meld western music with pansori, nothing else is known about Im Changkyun.
“There must be someone who knows of him? A contemporary of his that you can contact?” Minhyuk says.
“That's the thing. I have this feeling that the one person who actually knows of him is also the last person who will tell me anything about him.”
“And who would that be?”
Jooheon pauses. “Master Yoo”
“Master Yoo? You mean this Master Yoo?” Minhyuk points to a black and white photograph in one of the books. “Are you sure about this? He doesn’t really look like someone who would have a lot of friends.”
Jooheon only needs to take one look at the photograph in the book to know that there’s no one else in the world quite like Master Yoo. There he is with the crew members for one of the most controversial theatre productions of that time, Flowers in the Moonlight. He's standing in the middle, dressed as a woman, his young, pretty face looking sourly into the camera. In his youth he was quite handsome, with the sort of fine features that would grace the covers of the most popular fashion magazines. His co-stars around him all have significantly more cheerful expressions on their faces. The man standing on his right looks particularly striking with his strong nose and piercing eyes. A foreigner? No, he’s Korean as well.
“Isn’t Master Yoo that one pansori singer who excommunicated himself from society by going to live in the hills? I bet he even has his own vegetable patch where he grows his own food because he is just that isolated,” Minhyuk says, squinting hard at the photo in his hands.
“He can’t live that far from Seoul if he performs at the National Theatre regularly,” Jooheon sighs
“So you think that they both knew of each other? ” Minhyuk asks.
A very reasonable question, one that Jooheon isn’t sure he can answer. For some reason he just cannot shake off the feeling that Master Yoo and Im Changkyun knew each other in some form or manner. Ever since the idea sprouted in his head, Jooheon has been desperately trying to retrace his steps to figure out how he could have even come to this conclusion. It’s been a long and confusing journey. If anything Jooheon has more questions than actual answers, and while it does feel silly to be spending this much time on a hunch, Minhyuk is literally basing his entire music history thesis on a conspiracy theory, so if anyone is going to understand Jooheon, it’s him.
For almost fifteen minutes, Minhyuk does not open his mouth, listening attentively and nodding every so often as Jooheon talks about his research. He tells Minhyuk everything: about the book he found in the used bookstore that originally belonged to Master Yoo, about the opera that Im Changkyun wrote before his sudden death, about his own theories regarding these two men. Somewhere deep inside, Jooheon fears he might have imagined all of this; after all, how else could he explain this bizarre connection between a long dead man and the most respected pansori virtuoso of the 20th century? As soon as he is done Jooheon falls into a deep silence. Minhyuk picks up Jooheon’s copy of A Garden of Words and flips through the pages.
“So you’re telling me, you’re working on your graduate thesis based on a guess?” Minhyuk says doubtfully, flipping through the book in his hands. “Jooheon, I thought–”
Minhyuk stops and stares at the front page of the book in his hands, and soon enough the corners of his mouth curl into a smile. Jooheon can almost see the wheels turning in his head.
“Say something,” Jooheon says carefully.
“You absolutely must talk to him.” Minhyuk says, his smile growing bigger and bigger.
“Who?”
“Yoo Kihyun.”
“The pansori singer?”
“No, the snake wrangler, obviously. Look closely at the inscription,” Minhyuk groans and hands the book in his hands over to Jooheon.
For my most precious, my most beloved. Yours, Changkyun.
“Oh,” Jooheon says dumbly. Suddenly the book in his hands feels so much heavier than it’s 50 or so pages.
“Ooh, this is excellent . The discovery of the decade! I'm telling you, Jooheon. If you can get Master Yoo to talk–”
“Now I am certain that he will not be saying anything about this.”
“No way, you are not backing out right now when you have this potential gold mine right in front of you. I can picture that Best Thesis of the Year certificate hanging in your office,” Minhyuk beams at him.
“You’re very optimistic,” Jooheon says.
“Come on, think about it,” Minhyuk whines. “Master Yoo is a living legend, the most renowned pansori singer in Korea, yet all we really know about him is that he has no living family, partners or children, and now you’re telling me that he knew of this young, male playwright who died suddenly in the prime of his life? I sense something very interesting behind all of this.”
“So you think he was involved in his death?”
“Who’s to say? It definitely seems like they knew each other very intimately. Maybe they were like Mozart and Salieri. Friends turned rivals, or so they say, and then one of them decides to finish off the other before he gets too far ahead of him,” Minhyuk shrugs and then his eyes get even bigger. “Ooh! Or –wouldn’t this be scandalous– maybe they were–”
“Minhyuk, this is an opera. Not a love letter.”
“But it could be. Operas can be love letters. No one writes dedications like that to just a friend. ”
“To be very honest, there is nothing loving about this opera. Here, read it yourself,” Jooheon says dismissively, shoving A Garden of Words back into Minhyuk’s hands.
“What’s the matter? Are you afraid to ask Master Yoo a question?” Minhyuk grins back at him.
It’s not that Jooheon doesn’t want to talk to him, far too many of his colleagues would kill for a chance to just stand in Master Yoo’s presence, but perhaps even more well known than his status as a legendary singer is his reputation for deftly disposing of his critics in a spectacularly public fashion. Asking him anything runs the risk of him being annoyed and immediately dismissing you on sight. Jooheon has never seen it happen in person, but the stories alone are enough to make anyone reconsider.
“If you aren’t going to find a way to speak with him, I am,” Minhyuk adds.
“Aren’t you supposed to be a historian?” Jooheon says quickly. “Shouldn’t you be studying historical events that actually happened and not be engaging in this mindless gossip?”
“My dearest Jooheon,” Minhyuk smiles and closes the book in his hands. “History is nothing but gossip.”
***
Minhyuk can sniff out information like a wolf scents blood. He knows everyone, or at least knows how to get a hold of everyone, and his network extends across Seoul like a clonal colony of trees. The very next morning, Minhyuk shows up right outside Jooheon’s doorstep with his hands behind his back and a sibylline grin on his face and Jooheon has known him long enough to know that he has found something.
“Guess who managed to pull a few strings and score tickets to a National Theatre Company of Korea concert?” Minhyuk smiles and holds up two thin slips of paper between his fingers.
“You’re joking. The tickets have been sold out for weeks. How on earth did you manage this?” Jooheon says, snatching the tickets from Minhyuk’s grasp and holding them up to the light.
“The music world is far too small for everyone to not be connected,” Minhyuk says with a small wink.
“So what is the plan? Corner him after the show to get him to talk?” Jooheon says, baffled.
“Of course not, silly. This isn’t just any ordinary concert. The National Theatre Company holds these forums whenever someone gets some kind of important prize and this year, guess who was bestowed the oh-so-prestigious title of Living National Treasure? There’s going to be a question and answer session towards the end of the program, and most of the time it’s just silly journalists who throw around half-baked questions, but you, my friend, have a very special question that I’m sure will catch his attention.”
“You must be out of your mind,” Jooheon shakes his head.
“Yes, and you are most welcome!”
After a quick meal of steamed buns from a nearby bakery, Jooheon finds himself carefully rehearsing his set of questions in his head on the hour-long bus ride from his apartment to the National Theatre of Korea. It’s almost surreal, less than 12 hours ago he was struggling to gain information on his thesis and now he’s standing before one of the grandest stages in the country. He might even get to speak to the one man who has all the literal answers to all of his questions. It’s almost too good to be true. Even as they take their seats, Jooheon still cannot believe his luck.
“Tonight’s performance is Chunhyangga ,” Minhyuk says, flipping over the program booklet in his hands. "Wait, like the folktale?”
Jooheon nods. “It’s the longest pansori there is out there, the full performance goes on for about eight hours.”
“Don’t tell me he’s going to sing for eight hours??”
“No, that’s impossible, we'd all be here till three in the morning if that’s the case. These days they only perform segments of the full epic, about two hours at the most.”
Minhyuk smiles with relief and then turns around to look at the theatre. It's a more mature crowd tonight, Minhyuk and Jooheon are easily the youngest people in the audience, save for a small cluster of students and several tourists who don’t look like they even speak Korean. Everyone else looks at least two or three decades older than them. Jooheon thinks he saw someone even older than his grandparents.
“I was not expecting it to be a full house. I think there must be eight or nine hundred people in here?” Minhyuk says.
"The main hall at the National Theatre seats fifteen hundred."
A tall, middle-aged man smiles politely as he takes a seat next to Jooheon and Minhyuk. He has the appearance of a matinée idol: salt and pepper hair neatly swept back, kind, round eyes and a gentle all-knowing smile of someone who is at peace with his place in the world.
“First time?” the man says.
Jooheon nods. “We’re graduate students here to watch Master Yoo’s performance.”
“I didn’t realize that pansori is still so popular!” Minhyuk says excitedly.
The man nods, his eyes giving off a mischievous glint. “It’s rare for a pansori singer to attract this much attention these days, most young people are simply more interested in western popular music. Only Master Yoo would be able to fill a theatre of this size.”
Jooheon looks at the black and white photo of Master Yoo in the program booklet. “You must know a great deal about him then.”
“Well, some critics say that he is considered a master only because he managed to outlive all the great singers of his time. Others argue that there are other singers who are more deserving of the title of ‘Living National Treasure’, but their voices are so unpolished you can hardly call what they are doing pansori!” the man says, shaking his head.
“But whatever you think about him, everyone agrees that nothing quite compares to hearing him sing live. A voice like that only comes once in a century. He was born to sing pansori and deserves a place among the greatest singers who have ever lived.”
The lights dim and the whole theatre falls silent as soon as the curtains rise. An older man dressed in a black hanbok sits on the stage floor with a large traditional drum in front of him. On the left of the stage is the man of the hour himself, holding a paper fan in his hands, his silk coat fluttering behind him like petals in the wind. Master Yoo somehow manages to always maintain his perfect posture despite the crushing attention of the audience. The sound of applause fills the room but stops immediately when Master Yoo turns to face the crowd.
“A heartbroken Chunhyang reflects on the old days, missing her beloved Myongrong, who was forced to move away to Seoul. Her grief is immeasurable, and she spends much of her time crying over his departure, longing for his return,” Master Yoo recites, his voice as clear as daylight.
“Time passes by: one day, two days, ten days, and one month. As a day, a month, and a year pass, the thought of him permeates into my bones”
“When he was still with me, I always felt sad about our short night together. Since the day he left, the long night has become my enemy.”
His voice. It's warm and silvery, so different from the raw, pressed vocals of a typical pansori singer. It’s hard to believe that the man on stage and the one Jooheon saw on television are the same person. Master Yoo somehow manages to sound as pure as crystal water and as rough as the crashing waves of the ocean at the same time, the complete opposite of the cold, almost robotic speaking voice that Jooheon remembers. For a moment, the whole hall goes still and Jooheon nearly does not breathe.
“This is remarkable!” Minhyuk whispers. “If I close my eyes I feel as if I have been transported straight to the Joseon dynasty!”
But how could anyone close their eyes during a performance like this? Master Yoo is reeling everyone in with his words and expressions, effortlessly transforming into each character in the blink of an eye. The whole theatre is completely under his spell, Jooheon can feel the crowd’s eyes following his every movement from the subtle turn of his head to the tiniest flick of his wrist.
“I miss my love so badly. I miss my love whenever the moon casts light. I miss my love whenever the plum and peach trees blossom in the spring wind.”
“When it rains at night, a sad thought crosses my mind, ripping my insides apart. When winter comes after fall, I pine for my love, seeing the clear sand and the blue sea, and hearing wild geese cry.”
It’s a good twenty minutes before Joohen even realizes that he’s singing in classical Korean, but frankly the language doesn’t even matter. Grief needs no words after all. He sounds so desperate and hopeless, like this is his final chance to reach out to his beloved before fate cruelly separates them for all eternity. Jooheon certainly feels his sorrow, and for a moment, almost believes it to be real. Never before has Jooheon felt so trapped, so seduced, so completely immersed and caught up in a story like this. The hours glide by as if in a dream, and when the curtain comes down, Jooheon almost doesn’t want to leave.
“Who would have thought that the old man still had it in him?” Minhyuk says, clapping loudly along with the rest of the audience. “I don’t think I’ve ever been to a concert like that ever in my life.”
“A pansori singer’s best years are their fifties,” the man next to him says delicately.
There is a short intermission and then the curtains rise again. This time, there are two chairs on the stage, Master Yoo is already sitting on one of them, looking just as sharp as a dagger. On the other chair, an older woman, probably one of the organizers.
“What a spectacular performance! Thank you so much for spending your evening with us. On behalf of the National Theatre Company of Korea, I would like to extend my heartiest congratulations to Master Yoo on his recent designation as a Holder of Important Intangible Cultural Properties for Jeokbyeokga,” the woman says.
There is a round of applause. Master Yoo looks towards the crowd and nods politely, the corners of his thin mouth barely lifting into a smile.
“As you know, Master Yoo has generously offered to answer some of your questions. There are runners stationed throughout the hall, so you may all remain in your seats. We kindly ask that you raise your hands to get their attention and they will bring the microphones to you. Please keep your questions as brief as possible. Thank you”
Several hands shoot up towards the sky, including Jooheon’s, and a flurry of about four or five people all dash towards the first few hands. One of the runners goes past Jooheon and hands her microphone to a man somewhere in the front row.
“Good evening. My name is Jeon Jungkook and I am a writer for Seoul Stages magazine. First of all, I would also like to extend my congratulations to you on your recent award. It is truly the highest honour for anyone to receive, and I’m sure you are aware that your recent designation has not come without some controversy. My question for you tonight is: how do you handle the comments that you are too blunt and unreceptive towards these criticisms?”
Master Yoo, without missing a beat, calmly leans into his own microphone and says, “Well, I know that every person who has ever made a comment about me is unable to sing as well as I can and never will, so it doesn’t really matter what they say or write about me. That’s how I handle it.”
Each time the floor is open, Jooheon raises his hand only for the runners to completely ignore him over and over again. It’s just as Minhyuk had said, the questions are poorly thought out, some of them just plain ridiculous. One man asks how he was feeling today and Master Yoo looks ready to just get up and leave. Frankly, who can blame him? It goes on like this for the next 45 minutes, each reply snippier than the previous one.
“We only have time for just one more question and that’s– ah, this young lady over here.”
A little girl several rows before Jooheon stands up, probably no older than ten or eleven, easily the youngest person in the entire hall. She’s practically beaming into the microphone.
“Good evening, Master Yoo,” she says. “I just wanted to say that I love pansori so much because of you and I want to be able to sing like you someday.”
“No,” Master Yoo says, his tone gentle, almost paternal. “You cannot. There is only one of you in this world. You must be yourself.”
Another round of applause, and this time all the lights turn on. That’s it. It’s over. Goodnight. Their one-sided encounter, cut short by sheer chance, or perhaps it’s more flamboyant cousin, destiny. Jooheon lets out a loud, defeated sigh. So close and yet, so far.
Then Minhyuk turns over to Jooheon. “So, shall we go look for him then?”
“Excuse me?”
“Well, we came here to speak with him, didn’t we? Surely you aren’t planning on leaving without at least trying to do so,” Minhyuk frowns.
“Are you actually suggesting that we corner him on his way out of the building? That is a ridiculous idea, even for you, Minhyuk,” Jooheon says.
“Why not? What do we have to lose? The worst that he can say is no .”
“Well, for one thing, there’s security, and even if we do manage to get past it, how would we know which exit he will be at?”
Minhyuk shrugs as he gets up from his seat. “How about this? I’ll take the north exit and you can take the south, and we will reconvene in half an hour at the bus stop to discuss our findings. See you later!”
Jooheon watches Minhyuk leave the theatre and walk out the doors with the rest of the attendees, shaking his head slowly as puts on his own coat and heads towards the south exit. Minhyuk does have a point, he has nothing to lose and everything to gain, but looking for Master Yoo in this sea of people is going to be like looking for a black cat in a dark room. Jooheon settles himself just outside the main doors, carefully rehearsing the questions in his head as he watches the crowd disperse, silhouettes slowly merging into the night.
Five minutes pass, and then ten, and then twenty, but still no sign of Master Yoo anywhere. It’s much colder now that the sun has completely set, and by now there are only a few stragglers left around the theatre. It’s not until a whole half hour passes by does Jooheon start to really doubt the feasibility of this idea. What are the chances that a performer would be walking out of a main exit of a building with the rest of the audience? Zero, if anything.
There’s still one more exit on the east of the building that leads to a narrow alleyway. It’s probably off-limits to everyone who isn’t a staff member, but Jooheon has come too far to give up now, and he zips up his coat and practically dashes towards it. How long has it been since the show ended? Minhyuk is probably waiting at the bus stop by now, complaining to himself about the freezing temperature, but he can wait a few more minutes. It has to be this one, no other exit makes sense. Then, just as Jooheon is about to turn into the corner, he sees him.
He’s much more slender up close, not nearly as tall as Jooheon thought but still every bit as dignified as he was onstage. Master Yoo is wearing the same black overcoat that he wore on television, steadying himself with the help of a wooden walking cane as he walks towards a black car parked by the side of the road. What luck! The stars are shining down on him tonight. Jooheon quickly dashes towards him before he disappears into the night.
“Good evening, Master Yoo. I’m Lee Jooheon, a graduate student from the Seoul National University Traditional Music–”
Master Yoo turns his vulpine gaze towards Jooheon, who feels uncomfortably like a rabbit in its final moments. “Oh,” he replies in that cold, emotionless tone Jooheon heard him use on television. “Question and answer time is over.”
“My apologies, sir,” Jooheon says with a small, apologetic bow. “I know you’re a busy man, but I just wanted to ask if you would be willing to give an interview.”
There is a brief pause. Master Yoo frowns, and Jooheon can tell from his expression that he just has just been downgraded from annoying graduate student to pesky water flea. “An interview?”
“Yes, I was wondering if you would be willing to talk about what you know of Im Changkyun and his work.”
Master Yoo’s jaw tenses like a steel cable. “How did you come to know of that name?”
“I’m currently working on my thesis on mid 20th century pansori traditions and came across one of his operas during my research,” Jooheon says breathlessly. “I understand that you two were colleagues and I just want to know a few things about him that would help complete my work.”
Master Yoo is silent for a long time, choosing his words carefully. “Im Changkyun died a long time ago. He wrote one opera that never made it to the stage. That’s all there is to it.”
“Yes, sir. I understand that. I–”
“Master Yoo, we must leave soon. Your next engagement is in less than an hour.”
The chauffeur is standing next to a black car, his hand firmly gripping the door handle. Master Yoo gives him a short nod and turns back to Jooheon.
“I’m sorry but I am not able to answer any more questions about him. Good luck on your thesis, Jooheon. Have a safe journey back home.”
Jooheon almost calls after him, but bites his tongue. He nods with resignation as he watches Master Yoo slide into the passenger seat, saying nothing as the car drives away until the lights fade off in the distance.
Maybe going to speak with him directly was a bad idea. Too personal, too direct. There’s no reason for Master Yoo to talk to Jooheon, a complete stranger, about his connection to long dead pansori singer, and Jooheon had gotten so carried away with Minhyuk’s enthusiasm after weeks of dead ends that he had failed to see the forest for the trees. It is most unfortunate that Im Changkyun's story died with him that day, but that is just the way of the world. Perhaps it is time for Jooheon to let him go, for it seems that he was meant to be forgotten, washed aside like debris on the shore.
***
The train only goes to Namwon, so Jooheon has to board another bus to the village. In the past, he used to look forward to these yearly visits –the idea of receiving crisp 5000 won banknotes from relatives and gorging on rice cake soup in an attempt to turn a year older is very appealing to a child after all– but now that he actually is older, Jooheon is not so sure. It’s so expensive to travel during this time of year, and when he does manage to make it back home, it’s just a non-stop slew of comments from well meaning but tactless relatives about his physical appearance. Last year, he was somehow too fat and too thin at the same time depending on who he spoke to, and this year, he’s quite certain that he will hear this again.
Jooheon will cross that bridge when he comes to it. This trip to the countryside is meant to be a refresher; the mountain air will clear his mind, help him see things from a different perspective, which is exactly what he needs at this point in his research. Where better to go than the place that started it all to help realign his vision? In a cloud of nostalgia, Jooheon finds himself looking forward to his yearly visit, he even buys a disposable camera just before he leaves the station just so he can document his trip. He doesn’t even mind the bumpy ride all that much and finds himself eagerly taking photos of the mountains.
The morning of the new year, Jooheon wakes up to the crowing of roosters reminding him how far away he is from the city. The rest of the day goes as expected, there’s the usual customary exchange of greetings, family lunches and watching over the younger cousins as they play games, but after two full days of being bombarded with questions about the lack of direction in his life , the trip back to Seoul couldn’t come soon enough.
If patience is a virtue, then Jooheon must be a saint, because he has no idea how he managed to make it through all those years of constant reprimand. No wonder Minhyuk stayed on campus this year, and his family lives in Seoul. Jooheon supposes that this is just the nature of working on a music history degree instead of studying to become a surgeon, and so he grits his teeth and smiles through it all. In an ideal world, Jooheon would be on the way to become a professional pansori singer, and he nearly did that, that is until his parents pointed out that the ‘big pansori companies’ weren’t exactly hiring. Until he can board that bus back to civilization, there is one more dinner to endure, one more unsolicited interrogation about his career plans and just one more night before he can return to his regular routine.
On his third and final day in the village, Jooheon goes for a walk, a break from his break, to recharge for the evening’s activities. It is a beautiful winter morning, sunlight seeps in between the neat rows of traditional houses, snow capped trees line the streets, the misty, blue-green mountains sitting in the distance. Not a tall building in sight. It’s very charming, almost like something out of a postcard in a souvenir shop. Jooheon takes his time to weave in between the undulating streets, photographing anything his heart fancies. After all, he has nowhere to be until later that afternoon.
As Jooheon turns around the corner, his nose picks up the scent of something sweet: sweet potatoes being roasted in a giant metal drum, just like how they used to do it when he was in school. What a treat, Jooheon hardly sees such contraptions in the city anymore, and so he excitedly buys far more than he can consume in one go, all neatly wrapped in newsprint from the day before. Jooheon is about to take his first bite into a steaming hot sweet potato when he notices something fluttering past him that nearly makes him drop his food.
A red-crowned crane in the middle of the mountains? That’s impossible! If Jooheon remembers anything about Minhyuk’s rambling the other day in the library, these birds are supposed to live near wetlands. Unless there is a pond or river nearby that Jooheon doesn’t know about, this bird is most likely a straggler, separated from the rest of its group. He moves in to take a closer look, carefully stuffing the potatoes back into the paper bag and pulls out his camera instead. Minhyuk would never believe him unless he has a photo, but just as Jooheon places his finger on the shutter, the crane jumps in the air and flies behind a magnificent red pine tree at the very end of the street.
Has that tree always been there? Jooheon hadn’t really noticed it before despite his yearly visits to the village. A tree of this size must be a few hundred years old. It’s just standing tall in the yard of an ancient looking house, probably the oldest in the entire village. Without willing it, Jooheon finds himself moving towards the house to take a closer look, making his way through a blanket of fresh snow from the previous evening. Slowly, he walks towards the front gate, raps on the wooden front gate three times and moves back a few steps.
“Good morning!”
No answer. The total silence drowns out the sound of Jooheon’s voice. He walks around the house, trying to catch a glimpse of the interior but all the windows are shut, making it impossible to see inside, no other signs of life apart from Jooheon’s own footprints in the fine, powdery snow.
A little peek wouldn’t hurt, he’ll just dash right out after he gets a photo. It’s not like he’s going to enter the house itself and he will be gone before anyone even realizes he was ever there. The bolt that holds the gate together is undone and the gate gives way with a small push. Jooheon takes a quick glance behind him just to make sure no one is there, and goes inside.
“I’m coming in!” he says. A final warning, though more for himself than for anyone else. Frankly, entering private property without prior permission is more along Minhyuk’s line of interests, perhaps this sudden surge of recklessness is a result of his influence and for a brief second Jooheon wonders if he is going to have to rethink their friendship when he returns to Seoul.
As Jooheon treads carefully across the front yard, he feels his hands perspiring despite the cold. The crane is only a few feet away from him, now pecking at the snow on the ground, its massive wings folded neatly behind its back. Jooheon carefully pulls out his camera, and just as the bird comes into full view–
“Do you often stroll into people’s yards uninvited?”
No. Impossible. The stars are playing tricks on him once more. Of all the people in the world, Master Yoo Kihyun is definitely the last person Jooheon would have expected to see behind him. It’s so strange to see him out of traditional dress, and for some reason he looks even more intimidating when he’s wearing a western style pea coat. He’s just standing there with both hands gripped firmly on his walking cane, his dark eyes boring directly into Jooheon’s soul and Jooheon can feel himself shrink with every passing second.
“M-Master Yoo!” Jooheon says, his voice suddenly ridiculously reedy. “I don’t think you remember me, but I’m–”
“Lee Jooheon,” Master Yoo says curtly. “The graduate student who was pestering me for more information about Im Changkyun. How could I ever forget a question like that?”
Jooheon feels his ears heat up and his grip on the paper bag in his hand tightens. “I have a gift?” he mumbles awkwardly.
“What are you doing here? We both know you’re not here just to give me roasted sweet potatoes that you bought from the vendor down the street ten minutes ago.”
Jooheon gulps. He cannot lie to this man, who looks like he has heard enough lies to last him a lifetime. “I swear I never looked up where you lived or anything like that. I just happened to be here visiting family when I saw a rare bird fly behind the pine tree in your yard.”
They both gaze at each other in silence for a long time. Finally, Master Yoo’s shoulders relax. “I apologize for the welcome.”
“No, it’s quite understandable,” Jooheon bows in apology. “I’m very sorry, I shouldn’t have just walked through your gate just like that.”
“It’s fine. We all make mistakes,” Master Yoo replies. “You said that you were looking at the pine tree, weren’t you? There’s a better view from the inside. Come in.”
Jooheon blinks, unsure of how to respond, but Master Yoo just waves for Jooheon to follow him. It starts to snow just as Master Yoo pulls out an old brass key from his coat pocket. Jooheon takes his shoes off and places them neatly by the side of the door.
“You first,” Master Yoo offers.
The house is immaculate, absolutely spotless. The elegant timber interior looks right out of another era, like he has just walked back 50 years in time. Jooheon feels a comforting warmth emanating from the floors with every step he takes, and then he realizes that the floors are heated. Everything is bathed in a soft golden light and the furniture is all made from solid wood. There is a small collection of ceramics for decoration: a large moon jar in the corner, a celadon censer on top of a dresser and a faceted blue and white porcelain vase next to a large window.
“Those are some gifts that I have received over the years,” Kihyun says as soon as he sees Jooheon admiring the pottery, and then he walks over to slide open the large door that leads to the inner courtyard.
Minhyuk wasn’t entirely wrong about the plants, Master Yoo does have a rather impressive garden. There are no vegetable patches to be seen, only some ornamental trees and evergreen shrubs. In the warmer months the courtyard would probably be quite magnificent, Jooheon imagines that the flowerbeds would be full of peonies and azaleas, but in the winter still exudes a certain understated charm. The lone red pine tree is clearly the focus of the whole space, towering over everything else. In the corner, several bushes of red and pink camellias are in bloom, all dusted in a layer of fine snow.
“One of the few plants that bloom in winter,” Master Yoo says, pointing to the camellias. “This house used to be surrounded by a pine forest, now just this one remains. There used to be a river down south as well, but it has since been covered over with concrete when the new road was built. This was many years after Changkyun’s suicide.”
Jooheon holds his breath. This is the first time that Master Yoo has mentioned Im Changkyun’s death without being prompted.
Master Yoo looks towards Jooheon with a small smile. “What’s the matter? You thought I killed him, didn’t you?”
“No. Of course not, sir,” Jooheon replies a little bit too quickly.
“Well, you wouldn’t be the first to think so, and maybe I might as well have,” Master Yoo says and kneels down on the floor.
He gestures for Jooheon to take a seat on one of the cushions by the open door and Jooheon obeys, careful not to even crease the covers. There is a moment of uncomfortable quiet as they both look out towards the garden, watching the snowflakes flutter around them, silvery white against the morning sky. Jooheon tries to relax, fails miserably, and fidgets in his seat.
“The both of you must have been very close,” Jooheon says gently.
“We had the same starting point, the same training, the same end goal, and yet our outcomes could not be more different,” Master Yoo sighs, his eyes still fixed on the garden. “One of us is sitting right here before you, while the other is buried six feet underground. That’s just luck for you, I suppose. Or fate. Depends on how you look at it,” he says, his voice heavy with a bitterness born from many years of secret brooding.
Jooheon nods politely and looks towards him, noticing for the first time since they met, the lines etched onto Master Yoo’s face. Jooheon always knew that Master Yoo was nearing his third score of years, but he had never seen him look it before. In his mind, Master Yoo had always been this god-like figure, so distant and untouchable, but now, he looks more human than Jooheon has ever seen him, almost fragile, like fine porcelain.
Suddenly, Master Yoo scrunches his face in pain and presses his fingertips against his temple.
“Are you alright, sir?” Jooheon asks nervously.
“I’m fine,” Master Yoo says quietly, looking down at his left hand. Jooheon notices a thin gold chain around his wrist. A woman’s bracelet? “Just some headaches that I get from time to time. Nothing out of the ordinary.”
They say nothing for the next few minutes as Master Yoo recovers from his sudden headache. Jooheon takes his eyes off of him for a moment and looks out towards the garden once more.
“You said you study traditional music. Do you happen to sing?” Master Yoo asks, breaking the silence.
“I was taught how to sing by my grandfather before he passed away,” Jooheon says meekly.
Master Yoo sighs, pushes himself to his feet and walks across the room to pick up a shallow barrel-shaped drum before returning to his seat.
“Sit up straight,” Master Yoo says, and Jooheon feels as though he was pulled up by the strings like a puppet by the timbre of his voice alone. “What are some of the songs you know?”
Oh God. Jooheon is going to sing to a master, someone who has spent his whole life devoted to this craft. He feels his whole body shaking as he watches Master Yoo position the drum on the floor between his knees, every movement careful and deliberate, not a single wasted step.
“Sarangga, a love song,” Jooheon says.
“Of course,” Master Yoo says, raising the drumstick in his hand.
“Come here. Let me give you a piggyback ride!”
Jooheon's voice, rather stiff at first, slowly relaxes after a while. Somehow the pressure that would normally come with singing in front of the most famous pansori singer in Korea seems to be completely lifted off his shoulders, and soon enough he finds himself completely immersed in the song, the lyrics flowing through him like the water in a stream. There is no sense of judgement or irony in Master Yoo’s expression, only a calm focus as he listens to Jooheon sing.
Master Yoo puts the drum away. “Why did you pick that one?”
Jooheon gulps. “It’s a very famous one, where Chunhyang and Myongrong confess their love to each other.”
“Most people don’t think of it as a particularly sad song, but the scene that follows it, Myongrong is forced to leave Chunhyang alone in her village, and the whole tone of the pansori goes from cheerful to solemn in the blink of an eye,” Master Yoo says. “In that sense, Sarangga is probably one of the saddest songs of them all.”
“I hadn’t considered that before,” Jooheon admits. “I’ve listened to so many pansori singers and they always sang Sarangga in such a lively manner, and I’ve just tried to learn by copying what they're doing. I’ve tried out many different styles, but none of them seem to fit me.”
“Do you know whose style of pansori you should be doing?” Master Yoo says.
“Who?” Jooheon asks eagerly.
“Your own,” Master Yoo says, pointing the drumstick in his hand towards Jooheon. “You have a naturally bold sound. You just need to learn how to control it properly.”
Jooheon goes pink and presses his palms onto the floor before him in a deep bow. “Thank you. It’s such an honour to hear that from a master singer such as yourself.”
Master Yoo looks at him for a long time. “It takes a lifetime to master pansori. I am only just beginning to know how to sing properly, and by the time I actually understand it all, I will be too old and too weak to put what I have learned into practice.”
“It must have taken a great deal of passion to be able to get this far,” Jooheon says.
Master Yoo shrugs his right shoulder. “Do you think that passion is what brought you here?”
Jooheon hesitates for a moment, his lips struggling to shape words. He has never told anyone this before, not even Minhyuk. “I think it was more like a calling. Pansori was the one thing that my grandfather and I both loved. I feel like it's my last connection left to him, and I'm afraid that if I lose it, I'll lose everything I have left.”
“Do you miss your grandfather?”
“Of course.”
“What do you remember about him?”
“To be honest, not very much,” Jooheon confesses. “I remember he always smelled clean, like soap, and that he used to listen to a lot of traditional music on his old record player. Singing with him was one of the few things that brought me great joy as a child and I’ve been chasing that memory ever since.”
“There are few things more deceptive than memories,” Master Yoo says.
“Perhaps, but that's all that I have left of him,” Jooheon answers without thinking.
Jooheon looks at Master Yoo, and for a brief moment, thinks he saw a look of deep regret in Master Yoo’s eyes, like a wound too deep to heal, but the shift was so subtle that it might not have been there at all, it might have just been in his imagination.
Master Yoo turns his gaze to look at the pine tree and sighs. “Why am I always getting myself involved with people like him,” he mumbles to himself, just loud enough for Jooheon to hear.
“I have three conditions,” he continues in that calm, still voice. “If you agree to them, I will answer every question you have about Im Changkyun, about traditional music, and pansori. I can help you with the first two, but the third one is something that only you have control over. If you disagree, we will part ways here and there will be no further contact between us. Do you understand?”
“I understand,” Jooheon suddenly perks up.
“Firstly, since you have taken up this project, it means that you are also a part of this tradition, and so it is your duty to honour and protect it. If you think that Im Changkyun’s work is worth preserving then you must work towards the dream that he never got to realize: to usher in a new golden era for pansori.”
“Alright.” Jooheon says.
“Secondly, is to work towards finding your own voice. Just as no two trees in the forest are alike, no two people are alike. I never want to hear you attempt to sing like another singer, dead or alive.”
Jooheon nods. “And the third one?”
“To fulfill his final promise to me, one that he never got to fulfill,” Master Yoo says. “Do not die before I do.”
As Master Yoo twirls the drumstick in his hand, Jooheon watches the tired lines on his face ease off, making him seem younger, much younger, certainly far too young to be a master pansori singer.
“Thank you so much, Master Yoo,” Jooheon bows his head in gratitude.
“Today is such a beautiful winter day, of all the days too,” Master Yoo says and looks towards the mountains.
Jooheon blinks, unsure of what to make of Master Yoo’s last statement, but smiles nonetheless. A gentle breeze sweeps through the trees, carrying with it the cold scent of the mountains. Somewhere in the distance, Jooheon hears the call of a magpie.
Spring will be here soon enough, bringing with it a new beginning in the cycle for all matter, life and existence once more, but until the first flower blooms, it truly is the most beautiful winter day.