Chapter 1.5 - As if Singing 5 (1/2)

The homeroom teacher of the 10th class of Freshmen, Kang Heewon looked forward with a hand supporting her chin.

“…”

A soothing melody echoed through the classroom, with thirty or so students taking music dictation tests on their seats.

The noise of pencils scribbling away, and papers being flipped, and unbothered by these sounds, the students were fully immersed in taking their tests. Watching them fill in the notes without stopping was commendable.

‘So far is easy enough, it seems.’

She immediately gave a nod. This was Future Arts High after all.

A hall of performing arts where the nation’s best performing arts’ prodigies would gather. Simple SRMDs had already been dealt with during the admission tests – there was no way they would be stuck at simple tones.

More like, the freshmen of this year were too highly skilled, enough to be of some trouble.

‘I’m getting sleepy’

Ding dong.

The music dictation test proceeded onto the next question along with a ring. After glancing at the ringing speakers, Kang Heewon made a large yawn. It was still on the second stage, so it would take ages until it would finish.

A waste of time, she thought as she fidgeted with the ends of her skirt.

Usually, the first semester’s SRMD classes were decided by the results they got during the admission test.

Indeed, the test results – instead of this sudden test on the day of the entrance ceremony. To put it into words, the current situation wasn’t ‘normal’, because it was having a similar test twice.

Naturally, there was a reason for even bothering to have the test repeated.

‘Lee Suh-ah, Kim Wuju and Jun Shihyuk’

Her eyes quickly scanned the three.

She remembered seeing them in the interview. They had easily passed the SRMD section provided during the admission test with flying colours. In this grade, there were twenty or so more students apart from them who had gotten full marks. It was usually not to this level, but…

She heard such things happened sometimes.

‘When geniuses appear.’

A genius would lead their grade’s level up with their talents. Just by being able to compete with geniuses, the same-grade students’ skills as well as their motivations would be sparked.

That effect was now evident.

‘A second test…’

Kang Heewon frowned as she tapped on the desk.

Whatever the case, the school had to separate them into classes. As the admission test had lost its differentiating ability, there was a need for another test.

With harder questions.

A second test.

It was a bothersome thing from both the student’s and the teacher’s perspective.

‘In any case…’

Her eyes that had been slowly scanning through the students stuck on one male student and stayed there. A short, thin boy.

Jo Yunjae was it? His hands flying across the staves appeared light. A student who had scored the 6th level on the sight-reading – no, if the tone wasn’t that high, he could’ve reached even higher.

The 6th level was close enough to full marks so there wasn’t much meaning for that, but if she had let him continue, how far could he have gone?

She soon left her trance and continued her observation.

‘Hmm…’

Jo Yunjae. He was decent at music dictation as well. When the melody ends, he would put his pen down before anyone else, and after that, he would dig his nose into the paper as he double-checked.

A standard appearance of a high-achieving student – there appeared to be no problems.

However, there indeed were problems.

‘It’s strange that he’s doing so well.’

She hazily remembered seeing him during the interview. Once again, she went through the students’ admission scores inside her head.

‘Jo Yunjae… Jo Yunjae… I don’t remember such a student from the high achievers.’

Maybe it was on the lower side… Ah, indeed. She suddenly remembered due to the terrible marks she had seen before.

The admission score was low, and from what she saw during the sight-reading, his basics weren’t there at all. Even from her perspective as a piano major, his vocal range, breathe and everything were below standard.

‘And yet, he still made it in, huh…’

The first stage, the second and the third.

The simple melody from the speaker eventually got more complex. An off-beat, quickening, and slowing of beats, a fancy array of melodies and an increase in the tempo of the music.

From here on, it was an area unreachable for the unpractised, and soon, more and more students began to give up.

The fourth, the fifth and the sixth.

A melody divides into two. They sometimes appeared together in harmony, and would sometimes appear in turns as if dancing one by one. After adding a quirk to the rhythm on top of this, and changing the tone in a vibration, drop outs appeared in a flash.

Now it would be quicker to count the ones left alive.

‘Let’s see.’

The ones left were Lee Suh-ah, Jun Shihyuk, Kim Wuju who was receiving the help of a helper and…

‘Jo Yunjae.’

The last question’s timer reached its end, and soon.

Ding dong

An alarm resounded and various sighs from the students echoed in harmony. Kang Heewon who had been smiling at that scene clapped with her hand.

“Now, with this, the music dictation test is over. Can you please hand over the staves to the front?”

“Okay…”

“With this the official schedules are over, and it is now lunch time. You know you have to gather at the hall after lunch right? Then, see you guys later!”

“Yes~”

The students flooded out at the news of a meal. Kang Heewon looked away from them onto the gathered papers, evened the edges out on the table and headed to the staff room.

As she greeted the staff members and placed the test papers down, a teacher appeared showing interest.

The teacher in charge of opera, Ku Mingi.

“Oh? They took a test?”

“Yes. Remember we were told to repeat the SRMD tests? They told us to do it today~. Sigh, I don’t know why we have to do the same thing twice.”

Ku Mingi formed a nice smile in response to Kang Heewon’s rumbling.

“It can’t be helped – it’s because they were too good. SRMD is a basic skill so it’s easy to tell anyway.”

“That’s true.”

“Was there anyone special in particular? The most excelling student for example.”

“The most excelling one? Hmm… perhaps him?”

After some thought, she went through the staves before taking a few papers out. The name on top of the papers entered Ku Mingi’s eyes.

– Freshmen 10th class, Jo Yunjae

A large array of notes filling the staves was placed on top of the table, and Ku Mingi who had scanned past the papers gave a smile.

“Hoh, he finished everything?”

As he had said, all the questions had been filled with symbols and notes. Not to mention the questions with one melody that had been written in clear handwriting, the complicated two melodies, as well as a question given just for the heck of it, one with four melodies – a full score sheet, had been solved.

Kang Heewon who hadn’t been expecting that much also made a gasp of admiration.

“You’re right.”

Two melodies were one thing, but a full score sheet wasn’t at the level of a high school student. At a glance, it didn’t seem to have any mistakes.

Whatever the rhythm or the note was, the staves were filled without a problem, and were clean. It even felt strange as there were no signs of an eraser being used.

Ku Mingi hummed through as he read the answer sheet until his hands suddenly stopped.

‘What are these?’

Jo Yunjae’s test paper.

Unlike the clean answers in the middle, the blanks at both sides near the ends were filled black with symbols. It appeared like a random scribble at a glance, but after some examination, the structure seemed regular and patterned.

“Ah!”

After some more time, its identity was revealed.

Counterpoint. One of the basics of harmonic studies. The regularly placed notes gave off a strange vibe… as if… it drew the process of remembering something that had once been forgotten…

After glaring daggers at the staves, Kang Heewon tilted her head.

“… He seems to have studied harmonics? And quite deeply in fact.”

“Yeah.”

It was strange for an opera major to do that. An opera major who would sing a monophony and not a piano, studying harmonics was extremely rare. A common thought for them was that they would rather practise their singing more during that time.

After a session of burning curiosity for this strange student, they placed the staves back down.

Kang Heewon gave her view.

“Full marks.”

“Iya, to think there would be a student getting all of this right.”

“It can’t be that there’s going to be a large number of full marks again, right?”

“That won’t be the case. I’ve already checked other classes.”

“That’s a relief.”

She who had been worrying about a third test eased her expression. If not for these bothersome things, the students’ abilities being high was naturally something to be happy about.

Ku Mingi who had finished everything smiled as he spoke to her.

“Should we go for some lunch, then?”

“Yes, one second.”

While putting away Jo Yunjae’s answers back into the pile, Kang Heewon suddenly had a thought.

‘Why did he fail so hard at the interview with such good music dictation skills?’

And how did he enter this school with those marks?

As she was thinking, she heard Ku Mingi’s urging and came to herself before standing up from her seat.

*

“Uwah…”

Collapsing onto the bed, I felt the soft mattress embrace me.