Chapter 64 - Fragments of Starlight

Julia Franke. A prodigy who had swept countless competitions before adulthood and become a professor at the Frankfurt University of Music while still in her twenties. With that experience, she was quite good at teaching, too, and had never given up on a student easily.

'Should I just quit?'

Yet here she was, seriously considering giving up on the lessons altogether.

"You've really never had a lesson? And you've only been playing violin for a month?"

"That's what I told you."

Watching Lee calmly admit he was a complete beginner gave Julia a headache.

Of course, being a beginner didn't make someone impossible to teach. If anything, beginners could be easier than half-trained players with bad habits ingrained in them.

If they were young, that was.

"Lee, let me say this first: I don't believe age matters when it comes to learning."

"A fine attitude."

"... But violin is different."

Whatever pleased him so much, the young man nodded with a satisfied look. Julia explained as earnestly and seriously as she could.

"Do you know why so many violinists start learning when they're very young?"

"Overzealous parents?"

"No. It's so they can retain flexibility in their wrists and fingers."

A violin was so delicate that even a slight difference in humidity could ruin its sound. Before musical sensitivity or technique, a first-rate violinist needed the flexibility and finesse to handle it precisely.

"Even people who start in their mid-to-late teens have to work twice as hard as those who started earlier."

At least teenagers were still growing. With enough effort, they could still develop the necessary physical attributes. Even then, only a tiny fraction could become professionals, let alone first-rate violinists.

"But for someone who first takes up the violin as an adult to become a first-rate violinist is generally next to impossible."

Violinists didn't merely play their instruments. From childhood, they reshaped themselves to suit them until they became part of the instrument.

"Of course, you can still learn to enjoy it as a hobby. But taking my lessons for that would be an enormous waste."

Don't chase a futile dream. Some things couldn't be bought with money. Her lessons were more than he needed for a hobby. So he shouldn't waste his money and effort—or, above all, her passion and time.

Julia spoke with such gravity, her eyes so utterly serious, that anyone would have stopped to reconsider.

The young man didn't so much as twitch an eyebrow. If anything, he snorted.

"No need to worry. Whatever else happens, my 'ears' and 'hands' won't have trouble keeping up with your lessons."

"... You're really that certain?"

"Why would I need to be certain? It's a fact."

Julia gave him a strange look. The answer was arrogant beyond belief, yet his indifferent manner—as though she'd asked something obvious—made it impossible to dismiss as a bluff.

What was behind that confidence? She studied Lee, puzzled, then a possibility occurred to her.

"Are you familiar with another instrument? Is the violin the only one you're learning for the first time?"

"No. The violin's the first instrument I've ever played."

"... Then are you a player? Did you recently get a performance-related skill?"

"Sorry, but I don't care for those constellation things, whatever they are. I've never been a player, and I don't intend to become one."

In an instant, the hope on Julia's face melted away like snow in spring sunshine. If he had experience performing, she could understand: musicians proficient with one instrument tended to adapt readily to others. A skill would have made sense, too. Players could possess extraordinary abilities regardless of age or aptitude.

"Then what makes you so confident?"

"What else? This body I've trained all my life."

"Trained? Did you play a sport? The body you build through exercise is quite different from the one you need to perform."

"You'll see."

"... Yes. I suppose I will."

In the end, Julia gave up trying to persuade him. It wasn't merely that she realized no argument or evidence would make him quit. She wanted to know where his confidence came from—and just how far this outrageously arrogant young man could go.

"All right. If you feel that strongly, Lee, I'll teach you as you wish."

"Am I supposed to thank you?"

"You don't have to. But while you're studying with me, work hard and practice diligently. If you slack off or quit halfway through, I'll be very disappointed."

"Hmm... All right. You have my word. I'm not doing this just to pass the time, either."

"That's reassuring."

Julia smiled faintly. He was still as imperious as a king, but at least he didn't seem to be making an empty promise. If he'd been an immature young master throwing money around so he could boast of having studied under a top-tier violinist, that would be one thing. But any student who genuinely intended to learn violin, whatever the reason, was worth her wholehearted effort.

"You said this is your first time learning the violin... No, learning to play any instrument?"

"More or less. Just pretend you're teaching a little kid. It'll be easier."

"You can read sheet music, though, right?"

"Sheet music? You mean those pages covered in things that look like jumping tadpoles?"

"... Okay, I understand. We'll have to start with the absolute basics."

After a few more questions to gauge what she needed to teach him, Julia looked troubled. She had known he was a complete beginner, but it was worse than she'd thought. He didn't even know the basic scale. Beyond being a novice, he made her wonder if he'd never had a single elementary music lesson at school.

Lee, however, wasn't the least bit ashamed. As though it had been only natural in his childhood not to learn music or receive a general education, he simply asked her a question.

"Oh, by the way, Professor."

"Just call me Julia. I'm not here to teach you as a professor."

That would be too unfair to the students who had worked so hard to get into music school, she added jokingly. Limon chuckled.

"All right, Julia. Before we get into the lessons, there's something I'd personally like to know. Mind if I ask?"

"If it's my measurements, that's classified."

"What, do you take me for some lecherous old man? I'm about to get married, you know. It's a question about the lessons."

"Then ask away."

Julia nodded readily. Curious by nature herself, she believed in an open approach to teaching: students should feel free to ask about anything that puzzled them, even in the middle of a lesson.

"This violin playing—does it help with indigestion?"

"... What?"

"Can just playing it somehow make your body healthier? Or have you heard of anything like that?"

"Well, playing well can put you in a better frame of mind..."

"I mean something more concrete. Like suddenly being cured of cancer, or getting help with magic or psionics training."

"I don't understand what you're asking."

"No? Then have you ever felt as if someone was watching you from behind while you played?"

"..."

Julia stared at Lee, who was asking such bizarre questions with an utterly serious face, and made an equally bizarre expression. She hesitated, apparently unsure whether to ask, then finally blurted out with a deeply suspicious look:

"Lee, are you on drugs?"

* * *

Fortunately, Julia's misunderstanding was soon cleared up. Lee was so indignant at being suspected of drug use that he insisted he'd only been curious whether playing music could improve someone's health.

After that, though, she looked at him as if he'd joined a strange cult.

In any case, after that awkward exchange, Julia left to put together a curriculum. The black-haired young man frowned and looked behind him.

"Having fun? Is this funny to you?"

["Ahahaha! She called you a druggie! A druggie! Of all people, she called you a druggie, Team Leader!"]

"... Go on, laugh yourself to death."

The blue-feathered baby bird, a tiny ring around one slender ankle, was rolling about laughing atop the piano in one corner of the practice room. Yu Na-gyeong opened her beak with a giggle.

["Then why did you ask her that?"]

"She's a famous violinist. I thought she might know something."

["You expected too much. If she knew about things like that, would she be a violinist? She'd be a witch or a priest."]

Those weren't spoken words, but thoughts. The young man clicked his tongue at Yu Na-gyeong's telepathy, conveyed through a mental connection rather than vibrations in the air.

"Tsk. Maybe getting you that telepathy item was a mistake."

["Heh, heh, heh. Too late for regrets! With this item, I'm a bird with a whole new set of wings! Now I can tease you as much as I want, Team Leader!"]

"Want me to take that item right back?"

["What? You can't give someone something and then take it away!"]

"Didn't you know? The person who gives something has the right to take it back."

Apparently terrified of losing the item, Yu Na-gyeong quickly hid the ankle with the ring on it. Curled up like a ball of fluff, she protested vigorously.

["Don't be ridiculous. This item is part of my body now! We're one, inseparable being!"]

"Then I'll pull your leg off with it."

["Team Leader, are you a demon?!"]

"No. I'm the human who made even the Demon God run away."

["Ugh! It's not fair to hit me with facts! Fight fair with propaganda and lies!"]

"... How drugged up do you have to be to think telling the truth instead of spreading lies is unfair?"

After a little more bickering with Yu Na-gyeong, the young man glanced at the door Julia had gone through and muttered, "Well, this teacher looks like she'll last a while. At least she didn't run away on the first day."

["That was your fault, Team Leader."]

"How was it my fault? They asked me to play, so I played. They're the ones who quit."

["That wasn't exactly an ordinary performance..."]

Muttering to herself with an indescribable look on her face, Yu Na-gyeong shifted her gaze toward the back of the practice room. There, a long box was kept under such tight guard it might as well have been sealed away. She stared at it, then opened her beak.

["Anyway, Team Leader, does this really count as training for you?"]

"Would I be doing this at my age if I'd just picked up a hobby?"

["It's just such a strange idea."]

"Strange or not, it's true."

The black-haired young man swept back his hair. No—before she knew it, the imperious, refined young face was gone, replaced by the cold face and sharp eyes of a white-haired man.

Limon Aspelder reached out and laid a hand on the box containing the cursed Violin of Deepest Black. He continued quietly, "Whether it's because that violin is special or there's something unusual about my condition, it definitely helps me control the power of the constellations."