Chapter 88 - Dissonance

* * *

Kim Seung-jun forced down his anger. After a deep breath, he spoke as calmly as he could. “Chief Moon, this isn't what we agreed on.”

[What isn't?]

“When we spoke before, you said Claire was available. How can you tell me now that she isn't?”

Chief Moon, on the other end of his smartphone call, answered his challenge without a hint of hurry.

[Why ask something so obvious?]

“... Obvious?”

[Think about it. Claire's incredibly popular right now. Just because her schedule was open then doesn't mean it's still open now.]

“Didn't you agree to keep that date open for her when we spoke?”

[Now, now. We never signed a formal contract. You shouldn't make assumptions like that.]

Kim Seung-jun ground his teeth. Strictly speaking, Chief Moon wasn't wrong—if you ignored the enormous amount Seung-jun had spent entertaining him to secure Claire, and the fact that they'd practically made a verbal agreement, short of putting it on paper.

“Fine. Let's say I misunderstood. Can you change her schedule now?”

What a sorry creature a working man was, forced to swallow his personal feelings for the sake of his job. Seung-jun was seething, but he still tried to find a solution. His efforts were wasted. Chief Moon's answer was curt and cold.

[Come now. We've already signed a contract. You can't expect us to change her schedule.]

“If the cancellation fee is the problem, I'll find some way to...”

[It's not about the fee. It's a matter of basic decency. Decency.]

'You %$@! $%%@.'

Oblivious to the curses Seung-jun was hurling at him in his head over that breathtaking hypocrisy, Chief Moon went on serenely.

[Besides, do you even know what Claire has booked that day? And you're offering to cover the cancellation fee?]

“What has she booked?”

[The party celebrating the Midas Guild branch director reaching level 80! The director personally begged us to book her, and you want us to cancel?]

At those words, Seung-jun finally understood why that bastard Chief Moon had suddenly started throwing a tantrum.

“... Are you sure you weren't the one doing the begging, Chief Moon?”

[Come now! You know Claire has no shortage of work. Why would she go around begging anyone for a booking?]

'Claire wouldn't. You would, you son of a bitch.'

Seung-jun burned with indignation, but he couldn't say it aloud. Chief Moon was plainly in the wrong, yet confronting him outright would only get Seung-jun humiliated.

[Well, you've still got time before the deadline, haven't you? Find someone else.]

“...”

[If you really can't find anyone, give me a call. For old times' sake, I'll send you a stand-in. Our trainees are quite good these days. Ha ha ha!]

After the call ended, Seung-jun's fist shook. Then he roared, “Those bastards at WIM Guild!”

He'd gone to the trouble of securing a table at the restaurant and waiting there. Chief Moon had kept him waiting over thirty minutes, only to call and pile one piece of bad news on another, claiming something had come up. After cursing him for a while, Seung-jun clutched at his hair and sank into thought.

'Damn it. What do I do? I can't find a replacement now...'

Chief Moon had spouted nonsense about there still being time, but they both knew better. The entire project was built around Claire's appearance. There was no way he could book someone else to fill the shoes of one of the country's top singers in just a few days. At this rate, the whole project would collapse, and Seung-jun would shoulder all the blame. Who would dare hold WIM Guild responsible?

As he despaired over that reality, a customer seated behind him sprang up and suddenly began to sing.

“Aren't you hungry?

I want to eat a sweet pie.

I want to eat warm soup.

It's food for my soul.”

*'...What? Is there some kind of event going on?'

Perhaps it was professional instinct that made him look around. When he found no cameras anywhere, he frowned. 'Just a drunk, I guess.'

He clicked his tongue. The singing behind him was so awful that, professional or amateur, he couldn't believe anyone would sing like that sober. But when he glanced back, he grew puzzled. The song was so far off-key and out of time that the singer sounded like a drunk who'd downed five or six bottles of soju. Yet there wasn't a trace of drunkenness on the customer's face.

*'Maybe they're the type who doesn't look drunk?'

Having settled on that explanation, Seung-jun started to rise. The meeting had fallen through anyway; there was no reason to stay and listen to this racket. He would have left, too, if Limon—the man sitting across from the singer with a troubled look on his face—hadn't suddenly begun to play the guitar.

PLINK—PLINK-PLINK.

*'...!'

Seung-jun froze. It wasn't because the man was accompanying his companion instead of stopping the singing. Unlike Eugene's song, the guitar playing was flawless. Every note was so delicate and precise that the melody cut into him like a blade and stirred his heart.

*'I didn't know a guitar could sound like that...'

Seung-jun had thought he knew a fair amount about music, but he couldn't help marveling at it. Then a thought slipped out.

'What a waste.'

He wasn't alone. The wide-eyed customers and the staff who had forgotten their work all looked wistful even as they marveled at the beautiful playing, unlike anything they'd heard on TV or at a concert. The clearer and purer the guitar sounded, the more jarringly muddy the erratic singing seemed.

If only there were no singing. If only they could hear the guitar by itself. Faced with the clash between two such extremes, they couldn't help wishing it. Until a strange change came over the smooth-flowing melody.

TRILL.

*'Huh?'

At first Seung-jun thought he was imagining it. But the longer he listened, the clearer the change became, until he found himself making a baffled face.

*'The guitar is following the singing?'

The rhythm slipped further out of line. The beat grew more distorted. As time passed, the guitar lost its delicate beauty and became as much of a mess as the song.

*'Isn't it usually the other way around?'

If the singing had followed the accompaniment, he would have been impressed. Instead, the playing was being dragged along by the vocals, with disastrous results. The unruly singing and ruined playing seemed to go their separate ways entirely, producing a chaotic shriek.

*'What the hell is this...?'

Noise pollution? Psychological torture? It sounded as if they were deliberately wrecking the music—an insult to music itself. Just as anger rose in him, Seung-jun's eyes widened.

PLINK, PLINK.

*'...?'

The singing and playing were still a mess. Yet Seung-jun forgot he had been about to get angry, for one reason.

*'They're...harmonizing?'

The two sounds, each no better than random noise on its own, overlapped properly for an instant and produced a strangely pure resonance. The first time, it might have been chance: it appeared and vanished in a heartbeat. But as they came together a second and third time, those moments of harmony grew closer and more frequent.

Then, after a change longer than eternity and shorter than an instant, neither the playing nor the singing sounded like a chaotic racket anymore. Only a single, fantastic and mysterious melody flowed on, swallowing every other sound.

“Harmony...” Seung-jun murmured, dazed.

Rhythm, the fundamental flow of sound. Melody, notes linked into a pleasing line. Harmony, different notes sounding together. Of the three commonly called the basic elements of music, harmony had always made him skeptical. Music couldn't exist without rhythm, and without melody it sounded monotonous, but there was plenty of good music without harmony. He'd never understood why it belonged among the three most fundamental elements.

Now he understood. Harmony deserved its place among them—and might even be the most important of all. What he was witnessing was that astonishing.

'My God. I didn't know this was possible.'

Playing that broke off the melody. Singing that ignored even the rhythm. Taken separately, they were nothing but strings of confused sounds, impossible to call music. But together? The playing supplied the beats the singing skipped, and the singing carried on the phrases the playing cut short. The result was music beyond anything he could have imagined.

Even more astonishing, the two sounds still seemed completely at odds.

*'Why does it feel like I'm hearing heavenly music with the screams of hell as its chorus?'

The timing of a blink. Minute shifts of pitch measured in frequencies. Differences in volume too small to distinguish in decibels. The song and the playing were so different that the slightest misalignment would turn them into a dreadful discord. That was precisely why their perfect accord was more than mysterious. It was an almost inconceivable experience.

'I don't even know what kind of song to call this...'

The harmony the two created never stopped changing. At times it was weighty as classical music, at times gentle as a ballad, at times mellow as jazz, and at times fierce as rock and roll. With no warning or introduction, the tune seemed to change genres with every beat at its wildest, like a reed leaf whipped about in a typhoon. Leaf and stem changed direction without pause, but its roots never wavered.

'This song is insane.'

It was madness. A revolution and a challenge to every kind of music that had come before. A suite wrought from order that no sane musician could imitate—and none would attempt even if they could.

'But it's good.'

That freedom, bound by no form, was so beautiful it captivated the listener and stole their heart.

“Don't think too much.

Life is fun; being alive is lucky.

Don't waste happiness.

Enjoy your life today.”

(Don't worry so much.)

(Life is fun, and being alive is a blessing.)

(Don't waste happiness.)

(Enjoy your life today.)

When had it ended? The melody filling the restaurant had faded, and its lingering traces brushed his ears like the fragrance of late-spring flowers before melting away like a mirage. Only long afterward did Seung-jun, who had stood there transfixed, find himself shouting inwardly:

'I found them! My replacements!'