Chapter 6.3 - Faster 3 (1/2)
“Are you Jo Yunjae?”
“Yes.”
After replying, I carefully glanced around the principal’s room that was filled with expensive-looking things. To the left, teacher Ku Mingi was standing with a smile and there was a massive table in front of me.
On top of the chair where the sun was shooting its rays at, the principal was sitting down while sparkling his clean forehead.
So bright…
When I barely held up my eyes that threatened to close themselves, the principal opened his mouth.
“Right… The reason why I’ve called you is… ah did you want something to eat, maybe this?”
“Thank you.”
With a bow, I received the red ginseng candy he was holding out and it seemed somewhat familiar. I glanced and found out that it was the same brand Song Mirae had given me.
“…”
Well, it wasn’t that surprising as I had already known about it. I was inspecting the principal who didn’t share many similarities with Song Mirae, when the principal finally opened his mouth.
“Hmm… Jo Yunjae… It feels like it’s my first time seeing you… but you look somewhat familiar as well. Are you from Future Middle School by any chance?”
“No, I am not.”
“Mhmm…”
The principal touched his chin for a bit.
“I’ve called you here because I wanted to check something. It was because… teacher Ku Mingi here had been complimenting you a lot, saying that you’re so great.”
That teacher Ku Mingi had said that? About me?
Blankly, I was blinking my eyes when the principal’s quiet gaze pierced down on me.
“But… I am not too sure about it. You’re talented? But how can I believe that? You haven’t participated in concours, nor is there a video from the past. The only thing we got to see was from the Improvement Concert, just that one song.”
As I continued listening to the continuous words of the principal, my brain slowly began working.
Check, was it? But why check?
There was no reason for a principal to know about the skills of one specific student because a principal is a person that operates the school not someone that teaches. Then what’s the reason that the principal had to check my skills? Is there something special…
Thinking up to here, something sparked.
Don’t tell me…
‘Are they planning on giving me a scholarship?’
The thoughts were all aligned together.
Right, back then during the lesson, teacher Ku Mingi somewhat liked what I did. Maybe he had talked to the principal about giving out a scholarship because of that, and since the principal couldn’t give a scholarship out to someone he didn’t even know, he called me like this… After organising my thoughts, I pointed my sparkling eyes at the principal.
This was an opportunity. Quickly, I read his facial expressions before opening my mouth rigidly.
“My skills. How do you want me to prove them?”
I could see his eyes twitching. His eyes that seemed to say, ‘this kid?’ was soon coloured by slight interest and the bored expression had been replaced by a smile.
Good, at least I had given him a good impression, so now, all I had to do was to just prove my skills. Feeling nervous, I stared intently at him and the principal with his lips raised opened his mouth.
“Prove huh… Right, I can believe once you’ve proven them. I’ve seen the video just then and… your singing skills were not bad.”
After tapping on the table, the principal erased his expression.
“But it’s lacking. There are several of those talents in our school as well. Normal and average… talents that do not stand out that much you see.”
“…”
I heavily nodded and listened in. Indeed, although the Improvement Concert wasn’t bad, it was not enough to receive a scholarship. There were several kids similar to me even after a rough count. Seeing me admit that fact, the principal shifted his body forward while interlocking his fingers.
“But according to teacher Ku Mingi… you have an extremely special talent – a talent that no-one else has. If you could show that unique aspect of yourself… wouldn’t that be enough of a proof?”
A talent no-one else has – a unique aspect of myself.
He was telling me to show him a specialty that could only be explained as ‘Jo Yunjae’s’ and not something that any one of the countless opera singers in the world had. Closing my eyes, I thought.
“…”
I wasn’t too sure.
I had never even considered such a thing. Before the time travel, I was busy just learning singing and even after coming back, I was a severely lacking high school student, so there was no leisure to find a specialty of mine.
But now, I had to prove that I was a special existence. Suddenly I could hear the surrounding voices.
“… Mr. Principal, haven’t I told you before, how great it is to change a vocalisation in merely 2 weeks? Just by listening to the recording during the lesson you could easily tell the difference in vocalisation…”
“Well. I’m not too sure. Even if you say 2 weeks… so what about it? Singing a Mozart song in this concert and a Schubert song in another concert… if it’s like that, isn’t it better to just have two different opera singers perform?”
“Just the mere fact that he is different from other opera singers is priceless. If he could grow further on from here…”
“No, that is way too lacking.”
Slowly, I opened my eyes and the principal’s cold gaze entered my vision. Looking down at me, the principal opened his mouth.
“At least he needs to reach a level where he could immediately change the vocalisation methods. Like a mask, freely whenever he wants. Right, faster than the eyes could see… like how the King of Masks changes faces.”
“…”
“Shouldn’t he be able to do at least that much to be called a special existence?”
Hearing his words, teacher Ku Mingi made a sullen expression.
“Sure, that may happen somewhere down the line but right now, he hasn’t even practiced…”
“I’ll do it.”
I could feel the gazes of the two gathering on me and could see the smiling expression on the principal and the crumpled face of teacher Ku Mingi. His face appeared to ask why I was creating more trouble unnecessarily.
“What was that?”
But… in life there were times when one must step up – times when we can’t just take steps back, while reading the mood. I judged that this was that very moment. Grabbing onto the empty packaging of chocolate in my pocket, I opened my mouth.
“I’ll do that, changing the mask thing.”
“…”
Seeing the two closing their mouths, I breathed in slowly. I could feel the familiar blob of air passing through the throat, and the breath being filled into the lungs from the pressure given by the diaphragms.
It was an all too familiar process now, and in the middle of that, I imagined.
‘Let’s sing.’
Immediately, the space necessary for vocalisation had been created following my command. The oral cavity became relaxed and the larynx was lowered relaxedly. From there the vocal cords stuck together closely and the tongue was comfortably placed below.
Not angular and free, teacher Ku Mingi’s vocalisation.
“Ah–…”
When I lightly made a sound, a soft voice started coming out. Up to here was easy, as it was a vocalisation method I had fixed on to my body through more than 2 weeks of my time. Whatever song I sang would naturally flow out with this vocalisation.
‘But if I returned it to the past?’
I forced out the memories of the past.
The larynx was lowered to the extreme as the oral cavity created a large cave-like space. To that, I cemented it and fixed it on the spot while feeling the muscles vibrate.
‘It’s a bit hard after doing it in a while.’
As expected, the body had forgotten the previous vocalisation and it was hard to consciously fix it at the spot. Singing in this situation would be no different from dancing with a cup of water on the head.
But I had to do it.
I fixed it there with clenched teeth before suddenly changing it to teacher Ku Mingi’s method. Immediately the muscles moved freely and a comfortable feeling spread past the throat.
A somewhat painful and a warm feeling. Analysing that closely, I etched into my brain the differences of the two vocalisation methods.
Good. Judging from how the muscle inside the throat is slightly aching, I used to rely more on this muscle huh. The velum has to be raised slightly higher and the throat has to be widened a bit more…