CC 02

Chapter 02

## 2. The Melody Is Not Yet Over (1)

Night, yet the air is hot.

Korea’s midsummer is hot even at night when the sun has disappeared.

A man perilously perches his feet on the edge of an academy building’s rooftop, inhaling hot air like stepping into a sweltering sauna.

Having nearly fallen from the eight-story building, he wobbles and barely grabs the railing, then lets out a sigh.

“I almost died there.”

The man—wearing a shabby short-sleeved shirt, shorts, and cheap sneakers—looks like a teenager in the face, but his body is different.

Standing about 190 cm tall and weighing what looks like 130 kg, his massive frame appears quite threatening.

The man climbs down from the railing, sits on a bench below the rooftop, and crosses his arms.

‘This year, exactly 18 years old, third year of high school, name: Kang Suho.’

Entrusting his body to the flood of memories sweeping through his mind like a wave, the man closes his eyes for a long while, savoring the surging memories.

‘No siblings, father drives a bus, mother works at a factory so it’s hard to see her face—a poor household.’

Suho opens his eyes and stares at the night sky in bewilderment.

‘Apollo……’

Somehow, he had gently coaxed the self who was resting in peace in heaven. He said he would give him the strong body he had dreamed of all his life, so go back down to the human world and make music to his heart’s content.

Because his body was weak.

Because he had no strength.

He had only ever performed in small salons his whole life.

With a frail 170 cm frame weighing only 45 kg, he couldn’t play strongly enough for his performance to reach the far corners of a large concert hall.

When he heard that Beethoven had smashed a piano while playing, he was truly envious.

When he heard that pianos were being newly crafted to withstand his great strength, he even cursed his own body. There were countless walls he hit because his fingers weren’t as long as others’.

With every breath he exhaled

his body was pushed a little farther from the keys.

Even on nights when the coughing wouldn’t stop

I placed my hands upon the keys.

The shorter my breath grew

the longer my melody became.

While I was alive

music was always first.

Each time the coughing stopped

I wrote down one note at a time

and the song completed that way

was longer than my breath.

Having a strong, large, healthy body was his lifelong wish.

That’s why he had agreed.

He had agreed because he thought that if he were born with a strong, large body, he could do the music he never could—but he never expected to be born into such a poor family.

Chopin looked at the body of Suho he had entered, then smiled brightly.

“Well… it doesn’t matter. Though it’d be good to lose some weight.”

Suddenly, he recalls why this guy had just tried to die.

“You fool.”

It was over nothing but an unrequited love.

Today, Suho had confessed to a girl from the next class whom he’d had a crush on for two years, complete with an event he’d prepared for months—and heard a shocking reply.

‘You’re just a pig for rejection—where do you get off speaking like a human?’

She was a girl pretty in face but wicked in tongue. But to try to kill himself over something like that—it was pitiful, no doubt about it.

He, who had suffered from chronic respiratory illness and coughing his whole life and died before even turning forty from fibrosis and tuberculosis, could absolutely not understand Suho’s choice.

But the past doesn’t matter. Things just need to be different from now on.

‘Now as Kang Suho.’

I was called the saint of music.

One who never once furrowed his brow or said he disliked anything his whole life.

The saint who always wore a gentle smile.

I am Frédéric Chopin.

* * *

“I’m home.”

A small house with no one in it.

Two rooms, an old brown linoleum floor where the soles of feet stick, a living room barely the size of a coin with the floor torn here and there—there is no warmth in this house.

In front of the small kitchen attached to the living room, a dining table covered with a colorful cloth is visible.

The hot wind enters first

and Suho enters after it.

This house has more gaps than doors.

A single yellow light bulb in the center of the living room

barely illuminates the whole house.

The darkness is always greater.

No sooner does he set down his backpack than thunder roars from his stomach.

“Mm.”

Checking the time, it’s 11 PM.

He’d never eaten anything at this hour his whole life.

Peeking under the cloth, he sees the meal his mother had prepared before leaving. White rice with bean sprouts, seasoned spinach, kimchi, and seaweed as side dishes. Seeing a pot on the gas stove, there must be soybean paste stew too.

Food he had never once eaten. It’s in the absorbed memories, but mere memory can’t tell him the exact taste.

In the end, he did something he had never done before.

A binge at 11 PM.

A rice bowl with no steam rising.

Only the sound of the spoon fills the house.

When he came to his senses, he was drenched in sweat and had devoured all the rice in the rice cooker.

Suho comes to his senses, looks at his belly, and makes a bewildered face.

“You mean I ate my half-month’s rations by myself and I’m still not full?”

A question to himself. His stomach is still clamoring for more rice.

No matter that he’s in his growing years, this seems a bit much.

Suddenly, the thought occurs to him to try exercise, which he never did even in his past life.

‘My parents won’t be home until about 5 AM.’

His father is a late-night bus driver. His mother works at a laundry glove factory, and her shift changes every three months. She said she’d work the night shift only until this month and return to the day shift starting next month.

Even in their hard lives, they never forgot their love for their son—and to think this guy tried to die over nothing but an unrequited crush, leaving such parents behind.

He thought it was pathetic, then smacked his lips.

‘Well, I did too.’

Of course, it wasn’t over an unrequited love.

It was a very long relationship, and when it ended, the pain was enough to kill him. So he knows very well how great the pain of love is, the pain of parting.

The farewell ended in the daytime

but the tears began again every night.

Love became clearer

after it was gone than when it was there.

Even walking alone on the road

he walked for a long while

matching her pace.

Suho subtly glances at the cupboard.

His memory tells him there’s ramen in there.

Honestly, he is curious about the taste of ramen.

But Suho shakes his head vigorously.

“I won’t eat it.”

This is false hunger.

He has eaten more than enough.

“Starting today, I’m on a diet.”

Even gaining weight in the fingers affects playing. A pianist must be strictest with himself. Suho enters his room and frowns.

“Ha.”

Even a pigsty would be cleaner than this.

Still, how upset must his parents have been to see this, having given up the only private room of the two for their son because he’s a boy?

How can a person live with trash on the bed too? Except for the space to lie down, the whole place is littered with empty snack and food wrappers. Suho sighs and opens the cupboard to find a garbage bag.

“Ugh.”

He’d forgotten there was ramen in the cupboard.

The moment he sees the ramen packet, a fierce desire boils up.

Suho desperately closes the cupboard and comes to his room to start cleaning.

After clearing the trash off the bed, he finds a notebook spread open under the pillow. Seeing the short phrases written in crooked handwriting, Suho lets out a hollow laugh.

I ordered a salad.

I ordered chicken too.

A balanced diet.

The refrigerator calls to me.

I pretended not to hear

but my feet are already standing before it.

I gained 1 kg since yesterday.

The scale must be broken.

Or the Earth’s gravity got stronger.

The me in the mirror

tells me to diet.

I hear that and

eat a late-night snack from the stress.

As he pushes the notebook full of meaningless scribbles—enough to make someone think he was writing lyrics—onto the bookshelf, he sees the textbooks shoved in with no regard for up or down.

Suddenly, goosebumps rise through his body. A cleanliness obsession bordering on paranoia screams at him to clean this pigsty immediately.

Suho silently cleans the room for three hours.

Having cleaned a house with no air conditioning in his fat body, sweat streams down and drips onto the floor.

He takes off his clothes, squats in the small bathroom, and showers. The bathroom is so narrow he has to hold onto the toilet, but that’s fine. The cool water touches his skin and the heat subsides.

After a refreshing shower, he steps out and hears the sound of rain.

A welcome rain on a midsummer night.

Water droplets falling from the roof

beat against the basin.

In our house

there are two kinds of rain sounds.

Suho smiles brightly, opens the window, and watches the rainy night sky.

“A life with no ailing parts is truly wonderful.”

Rainwater seeping through the window gap

settled on my face.

Today, that is enough.

A wind neither hot nor cold

brushes past my cheek.

Happiness was always about this size.

* * *

“This is troublesome.”

He didn’t go to school in the morning. Because this guy Suho, ever prudent, had confessed the day right before summer vacation in case he was rejected. In other words, vacation starts today.

A third-year high school student’s summer vacation is normally a time when students are absorbed in studying for the college entrance exam, but Suho, who had no interest in studying, came out to look for a part-time job.

Because he wanted to buy at least a digital piano, even though he had neither the space nor the means to bring in an expensive piano.

Ironically, the first thing Chopin—who had died after a lifetime of nothing but music—wanted to do upon opening his eyes was sit before a piano again.

He had passed his 18th birthday but is still enrolled in high school, so he needs his parents’ consent form and a family relations certificate, but that’s fine. His parents already know their son has no talent for studying anyway.

The problem arose elsewhere.

It was precisely because of this enormous height and weight. If he were only tall, that would be fine, but with the tremendous weight too, he’d already been rejected at seven part-time job interviews on the grounds that he intimidated customers.

The owners were saying it in roundabout ways so as not to hurt his feelings, but Suho soon realized it was because of his appearance. Standing before the mirror in some shopping district restroom, Suho mutters.

“My face isn’t bad though.”

His parents must have taken good care of his acne—there are hardly any acne scars on his face. A guy with these eating habits who only likes things bad for the body couldn’t possibly not have acne. Aside from being plump with fat, his face is gentle-looking and fair.

Anyway, to work part-time and buy a piano, he’ll have to lose weight first.

A plan without a goal is merely a wish.

“Let’s just try to get down to 100 kg first.”

Hoo, still, that’s 30 kg to lose.

He really should have eaten less normally.

From the next day, Suho ran the moment he opened his eyes.

It was hard, but that’s fine.

‘Running until I’m out of breath like this feels so good!’

In his past life, he’d lived with serious respiratory illness and coughing, so running was a dream he couldn’t even dare to dream.

Of course, he can’t run longer than an ordinary person, but it still feels so good. Because this is the first time since he was very young that he’s run this fast.

‘It feels good!’

A refreshing morning running with his hood pulled down low.

This crisp air, the rising sun, the comparatively cool morning breeze.

All of this is happiness.

All of this is precious.

‘Just a little more, just a little more.’

No great thing is accomplished overnight. But a clear goal makes it possible.

Losing weight isn’t exactly a great thing, but a goal is a dream with a deadline, so it will surely be achieved.

One shining dot far away.

Just up to right there.

Even if it doesn’t reach your hand

if you don’t erase it from your eyes, someday it will reach.

Suho waddles on trembling legs.

But he never stops, running on even if slowly.

Suho raises his hand high toward the sky and points to Olympus where Apollo is.

‘I’m happy. That I can run.’

So even being born into a poor family is fine.

Connections with the rich, with nobility—he can just make them himself.