Chapter Text
The notice informed them that it was a temporary matter: for the next two weeks until the spring symphony concert, their pianist, Han Wangho, would be out for ‘family reasons.’ His absence was effective starting that rehearsal. A new pianist would be brought in from their university’s program, thrown into the orchestra like water from a fire bucket.
This change ruined Jeong Jihoon’s morning, who as concertmaster, had a duet with the pianist. He had practised with Wangho for the past month since their selected symphonic suite called for ‘an intimate, flirtatious dialogue between solo violin and piano’, which they had succeeded in emulating to varying degrees of success. With Wangho gone, he would need to start over again. Never in his three years studying at the conservatory had something like this occurred before.
“It’s nice of them to tell us in advance,” Wooje conceded after reading the notice aloud, more for his own benefit than Jihoon’s. He let his light-blue violin case plastered with ducks slip down one shoulder. Wooje was a year below him, and, to Jihoon’s chagrin, his bumbling deskmate. The boy pushed his square-frame glasses up his nose and squinted at the paper. It was taped to the door of their rehearsal room.
Jihoon snorted. “Advance? Is this some kind of prank?” His own violin case, sleek and black, hung precariously from the crook of his elbow. “There’s no way there’s springing this on us two weeks beforehand.”
“You’ve got a solo, haven’t you?” Wooje looked over at him.
“A duet,” Jihoon corrected. “With Wangho, of all things.”
“Well, not anymore.” Wooje pulled his case higher up his shoulder and pushed the left door open, breezing past the notice. “Good luck, hyung. Maybe this pianist will actually like you.”
Jihoon thought about calling out something snarky after him but decided against it. He turned to the notice and read it again. A new pianist. Who, he thought, had the audacity to skip a concert so suddenly, knowing they had a duet to play? He was still stewing when two more people approached him.
“‘Sup,” said Hyeonjun. He was their principal trumpet player and spoke as loud as his brassy instrument. Bits of stray sheet music stuck out from the case hanging at his side. “What’re you looking at?”
Jihoon stepped to the side, pursing his lips together. He watched as Hyeonjun stuck his face close to the sheaf of printer paper taped to the door.
“Did Director Bae make any stupid changes again?” Minhyung added, rolling his cello case behind him. Unlike Hyeonjun, the man took his position as second desk cellist seriously. He kept all his sheet music in a sleek binder tucked beneath his arm.
“Fu—uck,” Hyeonjun whistled. “A new pianist now?"
“You don’t have to rub it in, you know,” Jihoon replied sullenly.
“We’re playing Scheherazade, right?” Minhyung stepped back and raised his eyebrows. “Dude, you’re cooked."
“That bastard Wangho,” Jihoon lamented, “I knew he’d do something like this. Family problems my ass. I bet he just wants to skip for a trip or something.”
“I did hear that his favourite football team has a match in Madrid,” Minhyung snickered.
Jihoon turned to look at him. “I’ll kill him,” he deadpanned. “I'll kill him dead. The next time he shows up here, I’m gonna drop a double bass on his skull.”
“Good luck trying to convince Minseok to let you do that,” replied Minhyung, pushing open the doors. Hyeonjun followed. The two disappeared with the huff of hinges and the muffled rolling of Minhyung’s cello case wheels. Jihoon sighed. He was just about to let himself in when a voice cried out behind him.
“Wait! Hold the door!”
Jihoon turned. Jogging maybe four metres away from him was a double bass on legs. Upon closer inspection, it turned out the legs actually belonged to a man carrying his double bass, and a very short man at that. He was running the wrong direction towards a group of students entering a chamber music hall.
“Minseok!” Jihoon called out. The double bass wheeled around, revealing a bright-eyed bassist who looked like he’d run the whole way there. At his side hung a wooly tote bag carrying everything from a dozen pencils to a spare music stand.
“Stay there!” Minseok shouted, hurrying towards him. “Don’t drop it!”
Jihoon waited with his hand against the door until Minseok was within reasonable distance. Then he began to walk inside. Minseok followed behind him.
“Hold it.” Minseok stopped right before Jihoon could let go. “What’s that paper say?”
“That Wangho’s gone and bailed on us,” Jihoon replied dully.
“What?”
Jihoon winced as Minseok’s voice rose to screech. It was nine-thirty in the morning and too early for anything except a nap. Sliding his instrument gingerly off his back, Minseok placed its case beside him on the floor and scrutinised the notice.
“Out for two weeks—due to family reasons?” he read aloud.
“He’s gone to watch Manchester play in Madrid,” Jihoon said, watching as Minseok’s finger travelled over the rest of the information printed on the page.
“That’s total bullshit,” Minseok stated. “First chairs need to be held responsible, never mind the sole pianist of our orchestra. If I were Director Bae, I’d kick him immediately.”
“That’s sort of harsh for someone we know,” Jihoon remarked.
“Doesn’t matter.” Minseok straightened his shoulders. “As principals of our sections, we’ve got certain duties to fulfil.”
Jihoon groaned and pushed open the door. “Whatever,” he muttered under his breath, “so long as those duties mean nagging the hell out of people.”
“Hey!” Minseok protested. But Jihoon walked inside, arriving at rehearsal ten minutes late. Their orchestra was in the midst of unpacking. Open instrument cases laid facing the lofty, echoing ceiling. Sheet music, cleaning cloths, and the occasional rock stop were strewn near people’s feet. As Jihoon approached the violin section, he heard the familiar squeak of rosin rubbing against bow hair, sending a fine mist of powder into the air.
A few dozen people had already started tuning. Plucking, strumming, and tooting rose from every section, blending into an indiscernible mass of sound. Random scales, difficult excerpts, the usual chaos. Judging from this, Jihoon had approximately two minutes to sit down and collect himself before Director Bae walked through the door.
Several violinists turned to look at him as he walked to his seat at the front. Being tardy wasn’t common conduct for a concertmaster; then again, Jihoon was no common concertmaster, from the bottoms of his worn Adidas slides to the tops of his uncombed, mousy hair. He was supposed to be spending this time discussing bowings with the section, or chatting with the director. But Jihoon preferred to sleep in during the morning. People watched on with either scorn or reverence. He paid them no attention; ultimately, his talent was the only thing that mattered.
Jihoon sat down next to Wooje and set his case on his lap. The boy had already unpacked and was cleaning his glasses with the same cloth he used for his violin. Glancing up, Wooje gave him a sideways look before returning to his work.
“If Director Bae asks, I had to use the restroom,” Jihoon said.
“Give it up,” Wooje scoffed. “You haven’t come on time once this week. Or this month, for that matter.”
Jihoon un-locked his case, lifted its lid, and was greeted by a gorgeous rose-brown violin. Its wood, decades old, gleamed with the watery sheen of gloss, tinted by a hint of gold in its grain. Jihoon inhaled the scent of dried rosin and velvet. He pulled out his bow and began tightening it.
“Well, the Director loves me—” Jihoon grinned, gloating, “so it’s not like anything will happen to me if I’m late. I can get away with basically anything.”
“Whatever,” Wooje said. He put his glasses on and gave him a disapproving look through their lenses.
“That’s life when you can play all the 24 Caprices left-hand pizz.” Jihoon lifted his bow and observed the horsehair carefully. Ivory white. He considered using rosin but didn’t want to risk getting powder on the body of his violin. After all, he’d forgotten his cleaning cloth at home, and he didn’t trust the one Wooje used.
Wooje put his violin beneath his chin and started to tune. “The point isn’t to show off all the time,” he said, playing an open A. "Music needs emotion, too.”
“Not according to Paganini,” Jihoon replied. He bent down to close his case. “He wrote those caprices to be total showpieces. It’s not my fault people are suckers for them in an audition.” Clasping the final lock shut, Jihoon rose and lifted his violin. “That A is flat, by the way,” he added.
Wooje gave him the best glare he could while playing. “Not all of us have perfect pitch, dipshit.”
“Which is why I’m simply better.”
“Shut up and give me an E. My tuners got whacked on the way here.”
Jihoon scrunched his nose at Wooje, rejoicing over his victory in banter. Still, he brought his violin up to his shoulder and tucked his chin over its chin rest. His fingers laid tenderly over the frog and ferrule of the bow, pinky just kissing its wooden frame. He played a soft E and fidgeted with the single fine-tuner for a second.
Wooje watched as Jihoon removed his hand from the violin’s neck and held it purely between his neck and shoulder, bowing as he turned the tiny knobs at the base of the violin's strings. He moved to fifths, very briefly, then back to an E. As he bowed, his thin wrist shifted in perfect tandem with the movement of his elbow and arm, up and down, slowly, almost hypnotic.
His fingers moved lithely around the fine-tuner peg. Almost immediately, a perfect E emerged from the body of his instrument. Wooje, along with a couple of other violinists, tried their best to match it.
“Jihoon.” Wooje nudged him after a moment and gestured to his right. “Geonwoo wants an A. Can you give it to him?”
Glancing over, Jihoon spotted a well-built man with a pretty face looking meekly at him. His own violin, a light coffee, almost cream colour, rested beneath his chin. Geonwoo had been the principal second violinist for as long as Jihoon could remember. He saw Geonwoo’s name on every competition he’d competed in—always four or five places behind his own.
Jihoon nodded in his direction. “Sure,” he said. He shifted to an open A. Soon, the note rose clearly yet gently over the din of around a hundred musicians, of strings and brass and winds, and the occasional crash of percussion. Another A, much softer, to the point where it was negligible, soon joined in pitch with his own. It wavered as Geonwoo fidgeted with his fine tuner. After a moment he lowered his violin and bowed at him.
Thank you,
he mouthed, inaudible over the eight or so horns who had begun to play.
Jihoon nodded again. After he was sure the horns wouldn’t stop playing any time soon, he leaned in toward Wooje and spoke into his ear. “He needs to work on his projection,” Jihoon said, gesturing to Geonwoo. Both their eyes darted towards him. The man didn't notice, having set to work on re-tightening his bow.
“That’s really mean,” Wooje whispered back. The tips of his fluffy hair brushed Jihoon’s temple.
“I couldn’t even hear him,” Jihoon replied. “It’s just the truth. I’m sure he’s a good guy, though,” he added.
Wooje pulled back and brought his violin up, nearly poking Jihoon in the neck. “Geonwoo’s really nice,” he said sullenly. “And anyway, it’s hard to be heard over everyone, even for good players.”
Jihoon was about to respond when he heard a clap nearby from the conductor’s podium. He looked over. Director Bae—or Bae Seongwoong, as it said on his office’s placard—stood in jeans and a faded t-shirt gazing across each section. He was young for his position and a complete fossil to his students, aged forty or so. He wore round, silver framed glasses and had kind yet tired eyes. Quickly, the orchestra fell silent. The sounding tuning died down like pulling the plug from a basin.
Wordlessly, Director Bae raised both hands in the air, holding a baton in his left. He glanced down. “Oboe, an A please,” he said.
Minkyu, their principal oboist, brought his reed to his lips. A sustained A-note emerged somewhere from the winds section. Then Director Bae looked at Jihoon. Grunting, Jihoon knew this was his cue. He gave Director Bae a look that said, We’re doing this today? To which Director Bae returned with a stern stare. Jihoon sighed.
Swathed in immense silence except for Minkyu’s oboe, he stood up from his seat. He raised his violin and played an open A, which matched the pitch of the oboe, and touched his fine tuner for appearances. He listened for any “beats” —pulsing sounds that occurred when two identical pitches were slightly out of tune—and found nothing. Per usual. Standing up to tune the entire strings section was something Director Bae seldom asked him to do, as it was mostly for show. The man had a reputation for being one of the more ‘causal’ directors. This automatically made him Jihoon’s favourite.
The quality of his note, clear and true, resonated beneath his bowstrings. Jihoon checked with perfect fifths, briefly touching the adjacent E string to his A. The rest of the string section waited ten full seconds before joining in.
As soon as the hum of fifty or so string instruments died down, Jihoon flopped down in his seat and crossed his legs. Wooje sat rigid next to him. Director Bae surveyed the room for a minute longer before crossing his arms over his chest, letting his baton point down toward the floor.
“Good evening, folks,” he said. “Before we start today, I want to make an announcement. I’m sure you’re all aware of the notice I put on the door. Our orchestra pianist, Wangho, unfortunately can’t make it to the following two weeks of rehearsal."
A muted wave of whispering washed over the stands. Jihoon sighed audibly.
“Now, I’m sure he’s taken leave for good reason,” Director Bae added, as if reading the minds around him and having the same doubt, “so we shouldn’t make hasty remarks. Fortunately, I pulled some strings and found another pianist who just so happens to be good with Scheherazade.”
“So they know the piece?” a voice whispered nearby. “What a relief…”
Jihoon set his bow down on his music stand and crossed his arms. He stared up at Director Bae with visible dissatisfaction. The man refused to meet his eye.
“He’s an incredible student here and very well known in the classical world. We’re privileged to have his help.” Suddenly, Director Bae smiled. “Please give him a warm welcome. Sanghyeok, come on up here.”
Jihoon frowned. It was rare for Director Bae to give praise, much less a glowing review, and it was rumoured that he’d lost the ability to smile from a freak car accident. Yet there he stood, beaming, at an invisible figure standing in the back. Enthusiastic applause rose from the orchestra, accompanied by whispering. It seemed people knew him just from hearing his first name. Wooje clapped politely, bringing his well-kept, effeminate hands together. Jihoon did not. He furrowed his brow, wondering who on Earth deserved more praise and smiles than he had ever gotten.
Slowly, a man emerged from the back of the room and took his place near the director’s podium. He straightened his shoulders and regarded the room evenly.
Jihoon froze.
The man standing there was nothing short of marvellous—the kind of beautiful that danced between feminine and otherworldly. He wore round, wire frame glasses perched high atop his nose. His well-kept fringe fell just shy of touching his frames and allowed glimpses of his handsome brow. His posture was straight as an arrow, and his dress shirt collar had been buttoned conservatively up to his neck. Even the way he rolled his sleeves up his forearms was uniform.
Jihoon continued to stare, enraptured. There was something almost supernatural about him; a mask of calm, of severity, resting over his features like the great beauties carved into marble. Most wonderfully sculpted were his lips. They had a natural upward curve to them at the corners, feline and regal, in a way that made Jihoon’s stomach flip. Worst yet were his eyes—he found them feline, not those of a cat but of a dangerous creature, sharp as a siren’s and bewitching.
His eyes travelled downwards. The man wore black slacks accompanying his dress shirt. His left hand rested on his hip. Jihoon fixated on those hands, on those bare forearms. The reputation of pianists proved to be accurate: he had never seen such perfect hands before.
He swallowed, then swallowed again. All of a sudden, he was no longer slouched over but sitting straight up in his seat. The man was only three paces away.
Those lips, those eyes. Those hands.
Suddenly, Jihoon was set alight inside in ways he didn’t know were possible.
“This is Lee Sanghyeok.” Director Bae put a hand on Sanghyeok’s shoulder. “He’s studied at our conservatory for a while. Anyone in percussion here might have heard of him.” He smiled again at the man. “It’s my greatest pleasure to invite such a talented musician to perform with us. Starting now, Sanghyeok will be taking the temporary position of orchestral pianist.”
Sanghyeok glanced over the director and returned his smile politely. Still, his severe air remained intact. All around, whispers bloomed throughout the orchestra, particularly in the back where the percussion stood. Jihoon overheard two violinists speaking behind him.
“That’s him, right?” said the first girl. “He was laureate for the Queen Elisabeth competition at seventeen.”
“Seventeen?”
“Holy shit…”
More murmurs of his reputation ensued. Jihoon quickly deduced that he was a decorated pianist, a rising star in the musical world—even compared to his already esteemed peers. To be held in such high regard, at their country’s top conservatory no less, was a prize of its own.
“By the way—” Director Bae removed his hand, and out of nowhere, gestured to Jihoon. “This is Jeong Jihoon, our concertmaster. He's also a Queen Elisabeth Laureate.”
Sanghyeok turned to look at him. Jihoon froze, right down to the contraction of his blood vessels. He couldn’t breathe as Sanghyeok sized him up. The man’s expression was unreadable. At last—
“Jeong Jihoon.” Sanghyeok smiled at him. “I’ve heard of you before.”
That smile, as small and polite as it was, dealt fatal damage. Sanghyeok had an amazingly clear voice and spoke with perfect diction. Had he been a violin, his vocal box would be made by Stradivarius himself, with a golden tonal quality.
Jihoon stared at him, forgetting how to speak. He had been reduced to a pooch in heat.
“Though, he won much later than you,” Director Bae added lightly. “Around twenty one. Isn’t that right?”
“Uh…” Jihoon began. Lips, he thought, Move your lips, goddamnit. He’d won it at twenty, he wanted to say, or only three ago, but found his voice was gone.
“That’s nice,” Sanghyeok remarked. “It’s good to meet another laureate.”
That voice again. All of a sudden, Jihoon wanted to stand up and run. He was in pyjamas, for fuck’s sake, sprawled out in a black plastic chair with his too-long legs and cold ankles sticking out from flannel checkered pants. He hadn’t combed his hair and figured a grey jacket was enough to hide the stupid cat on his shirt. Which it wasn’t. And there Sanghyeok stood, above him, looking nothing short of a daydream.
“I’m pointing him out since as you know, there’s a duet for piano and solo violin in this piece,” Direction Bae explained. “Obviously, you two will have to rehearse together before the concert. I’ll introduce you guys after rehearsal.”
Sanghyeok nodded. Jihoon blinked. Behind them, the rest of the orchestra watched, fully invested and a little bit skeptical.
“For today, we’ll just run the piece without piano.” Director Bae crossed his arms. “Though I expect you two to be in tune with each other shortly. Sanghyeok, you can sit in the back and observe.”
With a short bow, Sanghyeok started back to his spot, causing everyone sitting nearby to break their neck in trying to catch a glimpse. Even Wooje sat up higher in his seat. Jihoon stared at the space on the floor near his feet. His mind buzzed with static. He was still re-learning how to blink when Director Bae raised his hands and tapped the baton against the stand twice.
“First movement, please. Three before 127. Horns, any chance we could play mezzo forte for today?”
“No promises,” Hyeonjun piped up lightly. Hearty laughter followed. Jihoon’s eyes locked on to the tip of Director Bae’s slim baton. And as soon as it moved—they were off.
Jihoon went on autopilot. His muscle memory leapt to action, and in no time, they were soaring through the musical fantasy worlds spun by Queen Scheherazade in an attempt to stave off her execution the following morning; the dark swell of the string section, the anxious yet frenzied trill of the winds. Foreign lands, hidden within their enormous walls, were encapsulated by the ominous ringing of horns and the grandiose legato of violins. Timpani grumbled beneath their feet, signalling a large beast was approaching.
Truthfully, Jihoon was not as fluent as he should have been in this piece. He had not practiced—at all, really, that week. He hadn’t even been able to eke out his unproductive thirty-minute sessions. All his practice consisted of sight-reading during rehearsal, which thankfully, he was a master of. He played without mistakes, something a concertmaster needed to do. And yet to his embarrassment, as Jihoon held a long, trembling note, the music was not his.
His fingers moved expertly across the fingerboard, laying on perfect, conservative vibrato. He did up-bows when marked; he did down-bows when marked. He made sure his counting was correct even over the bellowing of the brass, as the second violins and violas broke away into their own passages.
But he felt nothing beneath his fingertips except the violin’s metal strings. Partially due to the stress of not messing up, Jihoon couldn’t understand what he was playing. An eighth rest here, a key change there. None of it meant anything. He could only treat it as a test paper, each correct note a point earned. His wrist ached.
Reaching out to turn the page, he stole a glance at Wooje. Wooje’s eyes were closed and his brow was furrowed, absorbed in the longing swell of the cellos nearby. To him, the vast golden dunes of Queen Scheherazade's fairytale stretched luxuriously out in front of him.
Jihoon noticed how he occasionally lagged a hair behind, laying on the rubato too thick, but it didn’t matter. Wooje played with his full body: heart included. He’d practised enough that he could become part of the music.
“First violins, you’re leading here!” Director Bae called out, commenting on the occasional section. They were far enough in rehearsals that he didn’t need to stop the piece very often.
“Sing through the line!” Jihoon heard him shout.
“Flutes, you’re accompanying!”
“Trumpets, that’s a heroic forte—not a military one!”
Shut up, Jihoon thought to himself. He glanced up at the Director for the millionth time, following his baton like it was a remote control. Shut up. Shut up.
The rehearsal wouldn’t have been so bad had it not been for Jihoon’s solo. He would have gotten away with slacking, like dozens of times before, except when it came to solos he couldn’t just coast. In that pocket of breathing space, his musicality was up for scrutiny. Everything had to be put on display, from his phrasing, to the breaths he took. It was the equivalent of taking your clothes off so everyone could see how well you’d worked out that month. Worse, he knew Sanghyeok was sitting in the back, listening.
They hit the opening of the second movement and the orchestra went dead silent. Now, it was just Jihoon holding his violin, under-prepared and naked.
He swallowed and raised his bow to his strings.
The phrase started with a single long note, good for rubato. Jihoon laid his vibrato on thick, emphasising his rich tone he’d worked so hard to build. Then for the swells. The intricate melodic run all the way down to where his bow jumped to the G string. Correct bowing, correct rhythm.
His violin’s voice rang golden throughout the room. To the untrained ear, it sounded breathtaking. His intonation was the closest thing to perfection, his projection one fit for a world-class soloist. Every movement of Jihoon’s wrist and left hand suggested his virtuosic skill.
Wooden body pressed right beneath his chin, Jihoon felt the resonance of his playing through the surface of his violin. It made his teeth ache. His bow drew out wonderful sounds from within the instrument, sounds better than anyone else could make. But the emotion of it eluded him. Everything was just sound. The entire time he kept his eyes fixed to the page, not because he was reading the notes written there—he had long memorised this passage—but because he didn’t know where else to look.
He found himself thinking mid-phrase when his solo would end. When he could pack up and go home, and take a miserable cold shower. And then it ended. With what was probably the weakest up-bow he’d ever made, he lifted his bow from the strings. Dead silence.
Then, right as the woodwinds came in, Director Bae opened his mouth. Jihoon both dreaded and expected what he said next.
“Concertmaster, could we have a little more on that solo next time?”
When Wooje turned to look at him at the last passage of the suite, he found that Jihoon had split the skin on his lower lip from biting so hard.