Genius of a Performing Arts High

Act 10: D.C. 3

Stage.

“...”

Lee Suh-ah stood there.

In front of the spotlights threatening to blind her while wearing a white dress that reflected off the light, she stared at the dark silhouettes filling the audience seats and listened to the claps echoing out in unison.

It was a familiar scene.

“...see that...!”

“...Wahh...!”

“...Amazing...”

After giving a deep elegant bow, Lee Suh-ah raised her head back up and glanced across the audience – the students, parents, teachers and outsiders.

Both male and female, young and old clapped their hearts away as thunderous roars of applause resonated. They shouted in awe and cheered.

She was familiar with all those.

“...”

In front of the baptism of light and praise, she closed her eyes.

Prac High-achievers Concert. It was a concert she attended nonstop over the Future Middle School days and since she entered it once every semester, it was probably around 6 times.

At the start, it was thrilling.

Since she could let outsiders she had never seen before listen to her performance, it was definitely an exciting, nerve-wracking experience.

But as the number increased to two and three... and after dominating across various concours, the feeling called thrill disappeared from within her.

It was but a familiar process – a natural result that followed her song.

“...”

Listening to the continuous downfall of applause, Lee Suh-ah slowly raised her hand up. The hand that skimmed past her skirt travelled past her legs and after moving over her stomach, it reached her chest.

Thump, thump.

She could feel the soft texture of silk, and the warm skin beneath as well as the fluttering of her heart.

“Htt...”

Feeling the pleasant sense of tension she hadn’t felt after a long time, Lee Suh-ah smiled.

It felt good. The cheers ringing in her ears felt good. The claps praising her and the glad expressions on the faces of the audience that assured her of her performance felt nice.

‘Why, I wonder?’

Why did she suddenly find joy again from the familiar stage? Why did it feel so good again?

Closing her eyes, Lee Suh-ah thought for a bit with a smile.

‘Jo Yunjae.’

Was it because she found an opponent to go against after a long time? After all, she had been losing to Kim Wuju for three years straight.

Wearing a grin, Lee Suh-ah finished her greeting and turned around. After walking down the stage, she entered the corridor and stood in the area which connected the waiting room to the stage. She crossed her arms and appreciated the performances of the other students.

“...”

Han Dasom, Kim Wuju, Jun Shihyuk.

They, who descended from the stage in that order after their performances, glanced at Lee Suh-ah standing in the corridor and stood next to her without saying a word.

Because they could hear better here than inside the waiting room.

“Freshmen Tenor, student Jo Yunjae.”

Finally, it was Jo Yunjae’s turn.

The four students standing in the corridor all closed their eyes and listened. The piano fell rapidly and hearing the accompaniment that resembled the noises of a strongly dashing horse, Lee Suh-ah thought.

Elf King.

Schubert’s Elf King.

It was a famous lied – a German art song that appeared in textbooks. If done properly, this great song could immediately earn the baffled gazes of the audience.

‘If done properly, that is.’

With a frown, Lee Suh-ah folded her arms and heaved out a small sigh. It was disappointing. Although she had been expecting a fierce competition, it felt like the competition didn’t even exist from the very start.

‘Ehew...’

Heaving another sigh, Lee Suh-ah thought, Elf King – the song choice was great because it would for sure receive great reactions in concerts like these. However, she thought that was him being greedy.

In Elf King, there were four characters.

The father, the son, the Elf King and the narrator.

Due to that, the performers had to convey the conversations of these four characters to the audience by just singing, so that they could distinguish characters by just their voices.

‘It’s easier said than done.’

As she shook her head, the first verse dug into her ears.

“Wer reitet so spät durch Nacht und Wind?”

[Who’s riding so late where winds blow wild?]

The first verse left Jo Yunjae’s lips. Hearing the narration part which sounded better than she imagined, Lee Suh-ah raised her eyebrows up before soon returning to her aloof expression.

Even if the beginning was good, that would be it.

Elf King was difficult because it was in the form of a conversation, and wasn’t difficult technique-wise or anything like that. Therefore, it was normal for it to be easy at the start.

The problem would come after this with the father and the son. Their conversation was the truly difficult part.

‘That’s how songs in a conversation format are all like.’

Songs connected with one wave of emotion were comparatively easier. Since it just had to be done normally, expressed using the performer’s own colours, there were only few things to be taken into account.

But conversations?

Since it was a conversation, there would naturally be more than two people and since they were different people, they had clear, contrasting emotions.

The father would be heavy and old, while the son would be light and young.

They required entirely different emotions so if it was sung like how they had always been singing, either too soft or too heavy, the song would be completely ruined.

‘So they need to all have different colours but...’

It was hard to expect that from a high schooler.

Polishing their own normal way of singing was hard enough and yet to add another colour on top of that? There would be a lack of time no matter what.

For both Jo Yunjae and herself, they were too young to even have one complete timbre of their own.

‘He would most likely sing the father and the son’s part in the exact same manner.’

And if he did, it would be impossible to tell them apart which would result in the failure of the song.

As such thoughts went across her head, the song continued on as the narration reached its last verse.

“Er faßt ihn sicher, er hält ihn warm.”

[He clasps him snugly, he keeps him warm.]

‘Now would be the father’s part.’

“Mein Sohn, was birgst du so bang dein Gesicht?”

[My son, why cover your face in such fear?]

Nn?

Hearing the smooth connection from the narrator to the father, Lee Suh-ah tilted her head.

‘...It’s easier to tell them apart than I thought.’

No wait, it might be because both the narrator and the father were of heavy voice types.

Maybe it was therefore easier to change, but the father and the son who had completely opposite characteristics would be difficult.

While she had such thoughts, Jo Yunjae’s song seemed to be chasing after her thoughts as it dashed and soon, a light feeble voice as if the previous heavy voice was an illusion reached her ears.

“Siehst, Vater, du den Erlkönig nicht?”

[Do you not see the elf-king, father?]

“Uh...?”

‘...It changed?’

It changed just like that? He could change his vocalisation however he wanted?

But how?

Lee Suh-ah’s eyes started to dilate.

*

‘As expected, there’s a great difference in the number of audience.’

Blankly, I stared at the front and thought.

Clap clap clap clap clap.

While receiving the bright spotlight to the face, I touched my ears for a bit because the rounds of applause were deafening.

There were simply too many people.

Unlike the Improvement Concerts which only had freshmen students and teachers, Prac High-achievers Concert already had thrice more number from just the number of students present.

Plus there were outsiders so the waves of silhouettes in the distance filling the broad audience seats resembled a large blob.

That huge crowd was sending cheers at me all at once.

“Uwah...”

Sitting on the piano seat and staring at that scene, Chloe let out a gasp of admiration and looked at me with a smile. Then, she quietly opened and closed her lips and gestured with her mouth.

[The reaction seems very positive!]

[...You’re right.]

She sure was right.

When I was listening to the performances of other kids from behind the stage, there wasn’t an applause at this level and there was a clear difference in decibels.

And the magnitude of the applause also meant an evaluation of the audience. Their evaluation signalled that my song was good, and most importantly, better than other kids’.

“Ha...”

My lips had its corners raised up unconsciously.

I knew that I might be winning thanks to the song choice and fortunately, it seemed to have been on the mark. Feeling great, Chloe and I bowed towards the audience and walked down the stage as hums left my nose.

‘Hmm hmm. Good, good.’

The fact that I was able to get myself known to the outsiders during this Prac High-achievers Concert was rather huge because I wasn’t sure if I could even attend a Prac High-achievers Concert in the future apart from this first semester of the first grade.

Besides as time passed, the other students would get used to songs and when they got used to Future Arts High system as well, they might pick showy songs for their prac songs.

In that case, it would be difficult for me to have an overwhelming victory like this time. Since this was the one and only opportunity and I had succeeded in a surprise attack like this, I was obviously very happy.

With light steps, I chatted and laughed with Chloe and opened the back door of the stage when familiar faces suddenly replaced my vision.

“...Nn?”

The kids, Han Dasom, Lee Suh-ah, Jun Shihyuk and Kim Wuju were standing with their backs on the wall.

...Why were they here?

I tilted my head when Han Dasom hopped towards me with a bright smile.

“Yunjae...! It was so good...!”

“Yeah, thanks. Yours as well.”

“Hehe.”

With a face that overflowed with joy for some reason, she stared at me as Jun Shihyuk standing next to her clicked his tongue.

“You’re good.”

Then, he turned around with a flick as he walked down the corridor.

Was that a compliment...?

In any case, he was an interesting guy.

Soon, Kim Wuju also walked away after telling me he enjoyed it with a smile, leaving behind Lee Suh-ah. She crossed her arms and wore an odd look on her face as she looked at me and opened her mouth.

“How did you do that just then”

“What do you mean?”

“Elf King. How did you do that”

Seeing her cold eyes, I felt a slight prick in my consciousness.

Right, there was Lee Suh-ah – she, who had both prodigal talent and hard work. Besides, since we went around singing together during the holidays, she would’ve seen through my skills so the fact that I was suddenly able to sing ‘Elf King’, a song with high difficulty, might feel out of place for her.

...If not for a time leap or something, it was impossible for high schoolers to sing this song after all.

Rolling my eyes around, I searched for an excuse and soon replied after a cough.

“Kuhum. I changed the vocalisation last time right?”

“Yes.”

“When I changed from the new vocalisation into the previous one, it worked out.”

Lee Suh-ah responded with a scoff.

“Say something that actually makes sense. Changing vocalisation immediately while singing? It hasn’t even been that long since you’ve changed into a new vocalisation method.”

“...”

Even though I was the one that said it, it did sound rather absurd.

Vocalisation was memorised by the body and it was a natural habit that came out unconsciously so changing it while singing was definitely not something a high schooler should be able to do.

Since it was Lee Suh-ah who knew exactly where my current singing skills were around, it would seem all the more impossible.

Well since I had been using one of them for over 20 years, I could change into it immediately after some practice but...

Unable to think of any other excuse, I finally decided to feign ignorance.

“That... it just worked out when I tried.”

With her eyes facing the ground, Lee Suh-ah contemplated before suddenly raising her head up in a flash. As she did, her eyes that seemed to be blazing filled my sight.

“I see. I get it.”

Then, she left behind one sentence as she walked past me.

“...You won this time.”

Staring at her distancing hair twitching to the sides, I scratched my hair with an awkward expression.

...It feels like I said something wrong.