Chapter 8.6 - Lively 6 (2/2)

They were photos she took during the composition of the song, behind Jo Yunjae’s back.

After going through her hard-earned collection, she finally decided on a two-shot of herself and Jo Yunjae.

“Good, good~”

She gave a grin and soon attached the photo to send a message to Han Dasom.

[Song: Haha

(Photo of her right next to Jo Yunjae)

The song practices of the composition department were so fun~~ haha.]

Song Mirae then glanced at the messages with expectant eyes. Soon, when the sign that the messages had been read popped up, Song Mirae broke into a giggle.

“She’s ignoring me! Ignoring! Puhihihih.”

“…Is doing that fun?”

“Yeah, it’s so~ fun.”

Rolling around on the bed, Song Mirae was absorbed in the luxury of victory before suddenly raising her head up. Although she was drunk in happiness for a bit, she once again realised that the reality was a lot darker.

She stayed downhearted a bit before opening her lips.

“Ah but… Jo Yunjae’s acting so distant, what should I do…”

“Why? Didn’t you practise with him for a long time?”

“Un, but he doesn’t talk to me a lot, and he only talks about songs…”

“Really…?”

Was Jo Yunjae like that? From Lee Suh-ah’s memories, he wasn’t someone who didn’t talk about anything outside singing though…

Song Mirae stared silently at Lee Suh-ah who was in thought before whispering with a cute expression.

“Suh-ah~ Can you please connect us again~”

“…Ehew.”

*

There were now two weeks left until the prac tests.

Prac test, prac test… the more I thought of it, the more frustrated I became and it felt like I had something pushing my heart down.

I didn’t think I would get nervous after living so much but now that I thought about how the prac tests weren’t far off, sighs would escape unconsciously.

Ah, I want to do super well but I couldn’t think of a good way no matter how much I contemplated. How could I win against Lee Suh-ah and Kim Wuju?

Like that, I was thinking about other things when Lee Suh-ah who had been singing in front of me caught me from my daydreams like a ghost.

“Can you focus? You need to give me feedback for my practice.”

“…Ah, I was thinking about the prac tests for a bit.”

Lee Suh-ah with her white skin, tied up black hair and cold facial features, stood on the other side within the small practice room and stared at me.

Lee Suh-ah.

Meeting my eyes with Lee Suh-ah who was glancing up at me, a thought suddenly popped up in my head.

Now that I thought of it, it seemed like I was practising a lot with Lee Suh-ah recently.

These days, I was practising with her to get clues on the ‘emotions’ and there were some decent results. Because Lee Suh-ah was the first person to have felt the ‘emotions’ from me, my skills grew rapidly with her listening and giving feedback to my songs.

I had reached a point where I could embed ‘emotions’ whenever I wanted.

If I could add the original techniques on top of this, it would be perfect but… although unfortunate, I had not reached that level yet. As soon I put the ‘emotions’ in, my techniques would stumble a bit.

However, it felt like I was getting better slowly but surely.

I was thinking that perhaps I might be able to put these skills on display during the prac test, when Lee Suh-ah tilted her head.

“Prac test? Have you picked the prac songs?”

“Hmm… Yeah I did but…”

Touching my chin, I thought back.

Prac songs – songs that had to show off my fullest as the weapons made only for me. Naturally, I contemplated deeply and decided on the songs after long debates with teacher Ku Mingi.

The first song was Schubert’s Elf King.

It was a difficult lied that required me to play four roles by myself but this was a song I picked to demonstrate my ‘sword style changes’.

A song that could only be done by me. It would probably be difficult for even Kim Wuju and Lee Suh-ah to pull this song off – it was a song I selected with such expectations and was also a song that was greatly recommended by teacher Ku Mingi.

The second song was…

I was in some thought when Lee Suh-ah suddenly surfaced a small sneer.

What was that for?

“Whatever. You’re not even going to tell me anyway. Try your best.”

“…”

Well, Lee Suh-ah was always like that and this was how our practices looked every time. We bickered a lot.

Because when Lee Suh-ah sang, it would always be like:

“Seriously! Why do you always sing like that? If you push the note longer there, the tempo is just all gone!”

“What are you even saying? You need to do this to put more emotion in. Do you not see the music sheets and how it says espressivo?”

“You’ll kill the tempo to put more emotions in? When the key factor of this song is to make it livelier and cheerful?”

“Focusing more on emotion or tempo – that is up to the performer.”

“Yes but, haven’t you heard Netrebko’s song? She sang with the focus on the tempo.”

“Jo Sumi focused on the emotion though?”

After a short glaring contest, I heaved out a sigh and shook my head.

Ehew, what was I doing with a kid?

In fact, it was nothing to fight over and because there was no ‘one answer’ to songs, perhaps Lee Suh-ah was correct. The preferred way of singing differing for each performer was a natural thing as well.

But… what is frustrating, is frustrating.

“No but… you can sing better than that…”

“How do you know it’ll be better if I sing like that?”

How do I know it? I know it because your future self sang like that. Thinking that, I clicked my tongue when Lee Suh-ah threw a glance at me before opening her mouth.

“By the way, Netrebko? You like her songs?”

“Hmm…? Not really I guess? I just heard a few times because she was good at singing.”

“…Then who do you like the most out of sopranos?”

This was yet another sudden question.

Tilting my head, I placed my hand on my chin and thought. My favourite soprano huh… if I had to pick one, I guess I liked Lee Suh-ah the most. Of course, not this midget high schooler here but the future Lee Suh-ah.

After all, she was a soprano evaluated as having reached the pinnacle in terms of technique.

But because I didn’t want to say, I like you the most, I gave a roundabout reply.

“From the sopranos… I like a bit of a spinto-ish timbre with a bit of lyrical aspect added to that. I do like Netrebko in that sense but… I wish she had a bit more noble-like timbre added to hers.”

Nodding her head, Lee Suh-ah typed a few things on her phone and raised her head.

“Then any songs you like?”

“Songs? Well… I like opera arias, musical songs, pop songs… I like everything.”

“Just pick one then. The most recent one.”

“Hmm… Le temps des cathédrales?”

“Le… temps…”

Seeing Lee Suh-ah typing things, it oddly felt like I was getting interrogated. I mean, just look at her attitude. She was like a police officer who had to ask questions due to her duty on things she wasn’t even interested in.

…Although I was responding, it felt somewhat annoying.

“And yes bangs, or no bangs? What do you like more?”

“Bangs?”

“Just think of it as changing my hairstyle and tell me.”

What was this?

Normally, if a girl asked this, people would think, ‘Uh? What’s happening?’ but Lee Suh-ah’s tone made me indifferent as well.

Clicking my tongue, I shook my head.

“Go bald.”

“…Annoying.”