Chapter 7.10 - Lightly 10 (1/2)

Seeing Lee Suh-ah gasping for breath, I felt a bit weird.

“Son of a bitch…?”

Lee Suh-ah used words like that…?

Well, I wasn’t really offended and… I was just amazed because Lee Suh-ah had that kind of image, like an elegant lady of a rich family.

She was like that at school as well but I had a deeper impression of it because later, she would act mysteriously with pretty much no interviews and zero activities outside of singing.

Watching her just singing from youtube, without appearing in any variety shows or any other shows, like a Prima donna, it was inevitable for me to have my own assumption of her personality.

While thinking of those things, I was staring deeply at her when Lee Suh-ah suddenly started avoiding eye-contact with a fluster.

“No… that just then… was a…”

Seeing her in such a flustered appearance made her appear quite cute. I responded with a grin.

“So… you want to practise together?”

“Uh? Yeah.”

Well, it was a good thing for me as well.

Although I did joke around because I felt prankish, practising with Lee Suh-ah was something I would be grateful for myself. Practising with her for a bit last time stabilised my vocalisation a lot so wouldn’t Lee Suh-ah be able to do something again this time around?

Besides, she was the only one who felt this ‘emotion’, so her helping with this research should be able to grant me another weapon.

‘Emotions huh…’

After some thought, I quickly raised my head.

“Then do you want to go right now?”

“Now?”

She looked at her phone and tilted her head.

“It’s 9 o’clock right now though”

“And?”

“…”

*

The practice rooms of Future Arts High were open 24/7. They never stopped you because it was too early or too late, including night times.

You did need a student ID card to enter but… at least they didn’t stop people from entering because it was too late.

But of course, students living inside dorms had to return by 11 o’clock, because if you didn’t attend the night roll call at 11 pm, you would be given a massive demerit point.

If I was chased out from the dorms because of high demerit points… it would definitely be a nightmare. In other words, that ‘return by 11 o’clock’ rule was something I definitely had to abide by as someone who lived far away from the school.

However, two hours were more than enough to practise if we rushed a bit. Taking in the smell of the familiar practice rooms, I flicked my head back.

“Now, let’s go over the incident one more time.”

“Incident?”

Seeing Lee Suh-ah blinking her eyes, I nodded my head.

“Yeah. Before it happened unknowingly, I don’t even know how that happened. That’s why we should go over what happened again in exactly the same style. After repeating like that, we should be able to understand right?”

Although I did call it an ‘incident’ like I was a detective or something, it was true that we had to dissect what had happened.

Nodding her head, Lee Suh-ah raised her phone to play the accompaniment and I prepared for the song while posturing myself.

Putting emotions in.

I forgot the subtle things and focused on the lyrics to the best of my ability.

‘I am a poor poet…’

‘I am a passionate poet that can’t live without songs and poems.’

‘And yet, I had fallen in love with the woman in front of me.’

‘So much that I could even let go of my dreams.’

After self-brainwashing, I flashed my eyes open and saw Lee Suh-ah sitting in front of me with an unhappy expression.

A sigh left my lips unconsciously.

“Haa… move a bit.”

“What?”

“I can’t get immersed in the song if I see your face.”

“…?”

Lee Suh-ah contemplated my words for a bit before flaring up and glaring with her eyes.

“Ha. What a joke. I don’t like your face either okay?”

“…Why are you angry? I mean you don’t look like the female lead so I can’t focus on the song. You’re not weak like Mimi right?”

“Oh~ So you’re saying that’s what you meant huh?”

“Yeah. Look. You’re so energetic for no reason.”

“…Annoying.”

The practices that started off like that repeated one or two failures before having a few successes. Even when it seemed to be going okay, one small interruption would disturb my emotions and a slight side-thought would lead to Lee Suh-ah shaking her head.

After singing around 10 times, I felt exhausted. It was like walking down a dark pathway; like I was crawling with my eyes closed.

“Ha… this is harder than I thought. Because I can’t tell how I am doing myself, I can’t even tell what is right.”

Lee Suh-ah thought with crossed arms and opened her mouth.

“You can’t? What about the time when I said ‘that’s it’? Can’t you just remember that and keep that going?”

“That… the moment I try to listen to my voice and divert attention, my emotions just fall apart.”

“It’s that hard?”

“Yeah.”

Seriously, being immersed in something wasn’t an easy task in the first place.

I mean if we were washing dishes or doing things similar to that, so many small stray thoughts would pop up in the head, but when singing, there were too many things to look out for. We had to focus on the lyrics, think about the vocalisation and pronounce the vowels and consonants correctly…

Telling me to focus solely on emotions in the midst of all that seemed impossible, and at least seemed to be something impossible to learn within a short amount of time.

Would geniuses like Kim Wuju be able to learn it in a flash?

“Hmm…”

I had no idea. Putting emotions into the song appeared to be a basic thing and yet vague at the same time. Although I did somewhat embed emotions into the song during the 20 years of my life as an opera singer, I had never been so absorbed like what I had done before, forgetting everything else.

Maybe it was just my misunderstanding that I had been putting emotions into the song so far. Up until now, how many songs of mine had been ‘filled with my honest emotions’?

“…”

I had been singing embarrassing songs.

Heaving out a sigh, I analysed the incident yet again.

…Thinking back, it truly was a special circumstance.

The more I analysed, the more it appeared like a special scenario made by a god for me to get immersed in my emotions. I could even form a list of aspects that helped me become immersed:

– Since I hadn’t been practising it much, I had zero expectations.

– And yet, there was a prize for the winner so I had to try my hardest.

– Besides, the lyrics themselves fit my situation a lot and touched my emotions.

Recreating a fortune that had appeared from a perfect mix of these circumstances was a difficult task. Scratching the back of my head, I heaved out a sigh and raised a white flag.

“For now… let’s not try to figure it all out today. I don’t think it would work that way, and we should take it slow.”

Lee Suh-ah scoffed in response.

“…’I have to get absorbed in my singing so~ move~’. What was all that pestering for?”

“But, me being unable to focus after seeing your face is… not my fault right?”

“I also get annoyed seeing your face so can you please move?’”

After growling for a bit, Lee Suh-ah collapsed onto the seat.

“So? Is that it for today?”

“Hmm… No. It’s still only 10 o’clock, so let’s do a bit more. You practice while I rest my throat. I’ll give you feedback.”

“Sure.”

Since I had been singing non-stop for an hour, it was about time for me to have some rest. I closed my eyes and massaged my throat when Lee Suh-ah started the accompaniment with a click.

A gentle accompaniment echoed, and hearing that, I realised what the song was immediately.

Ave Maria by Schubert.

“A—ve Maria.”

I listened to her sing with leisure.

The elegant and fine sound reached my eardrums. Despite the softness, it still had enough resonance to fill the practice room with sound, as expected of Lee Suh-ah.