Translator: Dreamscribe
Boston Logan International Airport, Terminal B,
Seo-ha kept checking the time and the departure board over and over. New York was only a forty-minute flight away, but the dense sea fog that had rolled in without any forecast had reduced visibility to almost nothing.
-Attention, please. Passengers of Delta Airlines Flight 2078 bound for New York LaGuardia Airport!
The moment the announcement came on, everyone in the waiting area lifted their heads at once.
-Due to deteriorating weather conditions in the Boston area and a ground stop order from the Federal Aviation Administration, the takeoff of this flight has been delayed. The estimated wait time is two hours.
Groans broke out from every direction.
The Boston-New York route was the most notoriously delay-prone corridor in the United States. He had left with plenty of time to spare so he wouldn't be late, but luck just wasn't on his side today.
'What do I do?'
[15 : 00]
The performance was at 7:30 PM.
If they took off in two hours as announced, there shouldn't be any major problem. Seo-ha sat in his seat with an anxious expression, biting at his nails.
[16 : 00]
An hour had passed, but the view beyond the window was still a fog so thick he couldn't see an inch ahead. At some point, the status on the Delta app had changed from 'Delayed' to 'TBD.'
[17 : 00]
Seo-ha's lips were drying up.
The passengers around him had already given up and were sitting on the floor. Some were rushing to the counter, complaining loudly.
'Is this the curse of sunk cost?'
The moment he'd heard about the delay, he should have run to the Amtrak train station. But the baseless hope that the fog would soon lift, and the announcement that he only needed to wait two hours, had held him in place. That option was no longer available to him.
[17 : 30]
Only two hours until the performance began.
Considering the time it took to get from the airport to Lincoln Center, even if the plane took off now, arriving on time might be difficult.
Tick.
Tick.
The sound of the clock was grating.
Seo-ha's subconscious had been counting it for a long time now. With every movement of the second hand, his heartbeat quickened along with it.
The terror of possibly missing the moment Gyeo-ul had so eagerly awaited, the moment she would perform his composition on the world's greatest stage, swept over him.
[18 : 00]
The display board in front of the gate flickered, and a 'Boarding' sign lit up.
-Delta Flight 2078 will now begin boarding. We thank our passengers for their patience during the long wait.
Seo-ha bolted from his seat before the announcement even finished. As he passed through the narrow jet bridge and stepped into the cabin, his sweat-soaked shirt cooled in the air conditioning.
The plane rolled slowly down the runway. Then, with a heavy roar, it lifted off.
[19 : 05]
Stepping out of the airport, he saw a line of taxis waiting in queue.
"Lincoln Center! As fast as you can, please."
Seo-ha shouted as he hurriedly closed the car door.
"Aha! There's a New York Phil performance there tonight, isn't there?"
"Yes, 7:30. Please, I'm counting on you."
Despite Seo-ha's desperate voice, the driver wore a relaxed expression. He glanced into the rearview mirror and gave him a grin.
"Don't you worry, friend. New York these days isn't what it used to be."
"Pardon?"
"Guess you're behind on the news. Haven't you heard? New York's got something called Oracle now.
I hear there's some MIT student with a brain off the charts, and that this kid built the system.
We can't live without it now. Time like this, getting you to Lincoln Center used to take over an hour, no joke. You'll get there in time, so just sit back and relax."
The driver beamed with pride and let out a hearty chuckle as he boasted.
Seo-ha looked out the window with a strange feeling. The expressions of the drivers around him were bright.
When one driver was let into a lane, he rolled down his window and gave a thumbs-up. A city where irritable honking and reckless driving had been the norm now had room to breathe.
The fact that the system he had designed had made people happy filled Seo-ha's chest to the brim.
"...Mayor John's a tough one too, I'll tell you. Any car illegally parked that interferes with the optimal route gets towed, no exceptions. The fines are massive, so there are no idiots leaving cars on the street downtown anymore. Thanks to him, this place is livable."
The taxi passed 59th Street and turned onto 7th Avenue. Then the traffic lights all turned green at once.
"Haha! Even the lights are on our side. At this rate, we'll get there well before the show starts."
Vrooom!
The driver pressed the accelerator excitedly.
It was as if New York was rolling out a red carpet to welcome him in.
[19 : 21]
Through the window, he could see the giant fountain that was Lincoln Center's symbol and the brilliant lights of Geffen Hall. He had covered ten miles, a distance that would have taken a solid hour in the past, in just fifteen minutes.
"Thank you."
Seo-ha paid the fare and got out of the taxi.
When he glanced back, a single daisy flower had bloomed in the corner of the display board showing traffic information.
* * *
Seo-ha sat in his seat and looked around.
The brilliant light pouring from the enormous chandelier on the ceiling, the upper-class citizens of New York filling the seats. Famous celebrities and world-class classical musicians he'd seen on the front pages of newspapers held their seats with reverent expressions.
'Huh?'
A familiar face caught his eye.
They were dressed in tuxedos and gowns, but they were definitely people he had seen at the Gifted High School preparatory program. They were leafing through their program pamphlets with excited looks. Their faces showed both pride and jealousy at the fact that one of their classmates was the star of this fantastic stage.
The buzzing of the crowd died down, and the orchestra members began to enter the stage.
As the orchestra finished tuning, Lawrence appeared with crisp, measured steps. Thunderous applause erupted.
The performance opened brilliantly with a Mozart overture.
The combination of the world's finest orchestra and a conductor obsessed with perfectionist precision overwhelmed the audience in an instant.
'Incredible.'
His days as a classical novice were ancient history, and Seo-ha now had the discerning eye of a seasoned expert.
Lawrence was obsessing over every single note to a brutal degree. The effort of the New York Phil members, who magnificently realized his ideal into reality, naturally compelled one's head to bow.
Each time a piece ended, Seo-ha sent fervent applause toward the stage.
A buzz of voices.
During intermission, the staff brought in a Steinway piano.
Seo-ha gulped. The atmosphere in the audience had visibly changed. Anticipating the strange finale of "a piano concerto written by a mathematician," the audience wore intrigued expressions.
Clap-clap-clap-clap!
Gyeo-ul walked out onto the stage where the lights poured down.
Her navy dress rippled in time with her steps. Gasps of admiration broke out around him.
"She's beautiful."
"She has an aura that pulls everyone's attention in at once."
Gyeo-ul sat down at the piano and looked out at the audience. Then, with a slight smile, she placed her hands on the keys.
Lawrence raised his baton.
The music began at the same instant, and the moment the first note rang out, Seo-ha felt as though his breath had stopped.
The strings settled in low, building tension. Above them, Gyeo-ul's piano traced a vivid melody.
'This is...'
Seo-ha stared at the stage in a daze.
The desperate monologue he had written down alone, shut up in his room, had taken on life through the hands of one conductor and over sixty performers.
'The proportions are perfect.'
Lawrence must have completely dismantled the score of this piece from the very beginning.
It was an arrangement that had perfectly accounted for everything: mathematical structure, balance, and even the flow of emotion contained within.
The cellos played the main theme as if moaning low. The violas caught it a tone higher, and the violins varied it again, adding harmony.
The structure of permutation he had designed was being realized three-dimensionally through the orchestra. A sense of space that could never have been expressed by a single instrument; Lawrence was making minute adjustments at every point where the voices overlapped, aligning the mathematical symmetry.
Only a very small fraction of the audience would be able to notice this, though.
'This too?'
Lawrence had hunted down the mathematical devices Seo-ha had hidden in every corner of the score, like a treasure hunt, and brought them up onto the stage.
Humans are by nature beings designed to be enchanted by symmetry. The symmetry of sound that Seo-ha had conceived and Lawrence had forged was burrowing into the audience's subconscious.
"It's not even in a minor key, but somehow it's so sad."
"I feel like I can't breathe."
A married couple sitting in the front row murmured to each other in low voices.
An endlessly sinking melody.
The tension wasn't being released; it lingered, gnawing at the nerves. The audience couldn't tell where this music was trying to take them.
In a typical concerto, this would be the point where catharsis was given, but this piece was stubbornly refusing it.
Gyeo-ul lifted her head with her eyes closed.
Craaash...
Seo-ha's throat tightened.
He was ashamed that the most fragile moment of his life was being laid so nakedly bare. But at the same time, there was a part of him that thought her performance was beautiful.
Gyeo-ul's piano took up the theme.
She was lost in an ecstasy she had never experienced in her life. As if her very existence itself was resonating with the music.
And the loneliness of a boy who could never quite put it all into words burst out of every single note.
"Ah..."
"My God."
The audience shed tears they couldn't explain.
Gyeo-ul's lips trembled. The reason Lawrence had chosen her.
There were countless performers with great technique. But the only one who understood the brutal despair hidden within this piece, and the single ray of salvation that came at its end, was Gyeo-ul.
'Let's be each other's salvation.'
She felt the warm light pouring down over her closed eyes.
The plaintive melody of the oboe brought the first movement to a close.
Silence flowed.
While the audience hesitated, unsure whether or not to applaud, Lawrence raised his baton again.
The second movement.
The contrabass cried low, announcing a new beginning.
'Huh?'
The eyes of the connoisseurs widened.
The same theme as the first movement, but with the direction of the pitches inverted.
Retrograde Inversion.
A body that had been drifting in the heavy deep met the light and began to slowly rise. The light melody of the flute was caught by the clarinet. Then the strings joined in one by one, breathing life into the melody.
Gyeo-ul's playing grew faster and faster.
The emotions that had been suppressed in the first movement began to be set free.
The journey of one soul climbing out of the abyss of despair. Gyeo-ul was grateful that she had been able to be his light.
At last, the climax.
Lawrence conducted with passionate fervor, using his entire body.
The strings and winds slowly converged, creating a massive wave of harmony. And Gyeo-ul's piano rode that wave, soaring high into the sky.
"Soaring..."
The elderly gentleman sitting next to him muttered with his eyes wide open.
As if the entire first movement had been preparation for this very moment, a thunderous shock swept through the hall.
Because one has experienced deep darkness, the light is all the more beautiful.
It was the moment when Seo-ha's mathematical inevitability was sublimated into musical emotion.
'Thank you.'
Seo-ha was sincerely grateful to them.
He could feel the Ducky in his head rejoicing. He was no longer a boy locked away in a cramped little room.
The music reached its peak, then slowly subsided.
And a quiet final chord to gather everything together.
The instant Gyeo-ul's fingers left the keys, Lawrence lowered his baton.
People wrestled with themselves, not knowing how to express the deep resonance.
And...
After three seconds of silence, thunderous applause erupted.
"Bravo!"
"Bravissimo!"
People rose from their seats all at once.
At the standing ovation he hadn't seen in a long time, Lawrence wore a satisfied smile. Seo-ha also leapt to his feet and applauded until his hands turned red.
Gyeo-ul's face was drenched in sweat.
But her expression looked more refreshed than ever. She stood and bowed toward the audience.
The sounds of admiration came from the audience all around.
"A debut worthy of going down in New York Phil history."
"You said it. Both the composer and the performer."
The two of them met each other's eyes.
Amid the cheers of thousands pouring down, the two shared a smile without a word.
*****
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