Chapter 8.9 - Act 8: Lively 9 (2/2)

“Un?”

“You see, I can go back and forth between two vocalisation methods now – from your vocalisation method sir, to the one teacher Ku Mingi taught me.”

He blinked his eyes before soon dropping his chin.

“What?”

*

After finishing the meal, the teacher looked over my practice a bit before returning to Italy. He said that the visit was in fact just to see me and that he hadn’t been planning to stay for long and that it would at least be the second semester before he returned completely.

“Practise well until then.”

“Yes.”

“Right, good luck on the prac test. Your songs were good and well, although I’m a bit worried about the Elf King… teacher Ku Mingi must have thought through everything.”

“I’ll practise hard.”

“Of course you should.”

“…”

It seemed that the teacher still thought that the Elf King would be too difficult. He said that the sword style changes were great and that the judges would be baffled if a student was to do it.

However, he expressed his worries while saying “Don’t you have to come first though?” and… since he was correct, I did ponder on his words a little.

It was because of the styles of the prac tests.

Whenever there was even a slight mistake, you would get an immediate deduction of marks in the prac test. In other words, to get a good mark, we had to sing our prac songs perfectly, without a single mistake.

And singing Elf King perfectly was easier said than done so… it was natural for him to be worried. Perhaps it wasn’t the best prac song I could have picked.

But shouldn’t I at the very least be able to overcome hurdles like these to stand alongside Kim Wuju and Lee Suh-ah? If I had no talent, then at least I had to make a special move right?

While having such flashbacks, I was sitting still inside the practice room when my phone suddenly vibrated. Taking my phone out, I realised that I had received a message from my mother.

[Mum: What’s this?

(Link)]

I pressed the link while tilting my head as the screen changed to a youtube screen.

Then, a video was played.

Checking that the video was of Han Dasom and I singing on the opposite sides of the table, I quickly stopped the video.

Ah, how did she even find out…

I was somewhat embarrassed. It felt like a book of scribbles was discovered and it was like a diary I had placed inside the drawer was taken out.

Even when I was in such a helpless mood, the phone continued its vibrations diligently.

[Mum: Who’s the girl in front of you? She’s pretty.]

[She’s good at singing and my son is good too. I enjoyed it.]

[The views are very high.]

[But should your mum find this out after hearing from someone else? If there was something like this, you should have told me immediately. Your mother’s sad.]

“…”

The impact of the UCC video which I participated with a light heart was massive. These days, the other students would often talk about these things and now even my mum was…

Heaving out a sigh, I did whatever I could to ease my dear mother’s mood when the door of the practice room was pushed wide open. Soon, it closed once again with an echo as a familiar face entered my sight.

Flicking her ponytail, Lee Suh-ah walked straight before sitting on the chair in front of the piano and throwing a glance at me. Then, she primly ran her hand across her hair once as her lips opened.

“Why did you call me? Today wasn’t a day we decided to practise.”

Slowly, I placed the phone down and turned towards her.

Right, originally, we weren’t going to practise today. Since it was now time to focus more on the prac tests, we had decided to reduce the time we spent practising together.

Even then, there was a reason why I called Lee Suh-ah today.

‘Let’s check how effective the method the teacher told me is.”

After nodding my head, I thought back with a smile.

Throughout this weekend, I had done a thorough investigation like what teacher Kwak Jungsoo had suggested. Due to the short time span I had which would be barely enough to fit in one song, I targeted one song, Che gelida which I had sung before and investigated it.

What the background of Che gelida was and what kind of a character had sung it – from the thoughts that went across the character’s head to his values and characteristics, plus how the other characters were like et cetera… I looked into everything and rammed it into my brain.

After all that, it certainly did seem like I could understand better what the character’s feelings were when he was singing. It also felt like there were a lot more emotions embedded into the song and appeared more natural.

However, since it could be a placebo effect or something similar, it would be the best if I could have it checked by someone else. And the most fitting person that could check it was Lee Suh-ah who was sensitive to those ‘emotions’.

I thought she might not come because there wasn’t much time left until the prac tests but I was grateful that she came as soon as I called her.

“I feel like I somewhat got the hang of it.”

“Hang? Hang of what?”

“You know, the thing about emotions. I practised a bit during the weekends so could you have a look?”

“…Weekend? Didn’t you go watch the opera with Han Dasom?”

“Un? We went there on Friday and I practised during the weekends.”

After staring at me with a strange look, she clicked her tongue.

“Really? But we met a few days ago and I heard you sing back then. You also talked about getting the hang of it back then and what was the result?”

…It’s cheap to talk about the past.

“No, like, seriously. This time it’s for real okay? Just listen to it once.”

“…Ehew. How much would it change in that short amount of time… Just do what you want.”

Seeing Lee Suh-ah relaxing on the seat with a sigh, a smile appeared on my lips.

Good. Let’s get evaluated for the practices thus far before she changed her mind.

Shooting up from the seat, I steadied myself. Raising my chin up, I breathed in and postured straight.

“I’ll start.”

“Yeah.”

Glancing down at the indifferent Lee Suh-ah, I opened my mouth.