Chapter 2
A tripod was set up.
And Yoo Hyesung sat on the piano bench.
People began to gather little by little.
When roughly counted, there were about five or six of them.
Though the performance hadn’t started yet, the camera setup piqued their curiosity.
They murmured among themselves.
Yoo Hyesung’s uncle, Bae Hyunseo, heard the murmuring and grew anxious.
‘I just hope they don’t show their disappointment.’
In truth, Hyesung had shown real talent back when he majored in piano following his older sister.
His ears were so sensitive that he could pick out birdsong even amidst the urban noise.
With natural perfect pitch, he used to replicate those chirps on the piano keyboard, and back then, both he and his sister had been left speechless in awe.
Yes.
Hyesung was talented.
But that was when he was just an elementary schooler.
Three years of absence. Now nearly a high school student. Hyesung was no longer a child.
People would only see the final result, which is why Bae Hyunseo had cautioned against high expectations.
‘Three years of rest… it’s hard to start again after that.’
That’s why he hesitated when people asked if Hyesung was a music major.
In the world of arts, a three-year gap could be fatal.
“Looks like someone’s playing.”
“They’re filming too this time, huh?”
“Well, not like it’s a rare sight.”
Those familiar with piano performances at this spot passed by without much interest.
Two people walked by just now, and another passerby briefly glanced and continued on—but that was when it happened.
Yoo Hyesung gently pressed a single key.
At the same time, Bae Hyunseo tilted his head.
‘…Huh?’
It was just one note, but the texture of the sound was different.
As if spring had arrived in the midst of a bitter winter.
A phrase.
The note, still pressed under his finger, began to bloom like a spring flower breaking through a frozen keyboard.
‘The sound… it’s different.’
Thanks to having a sister who majored in piano, Bae Hyunseo had a decent ear for it.
So he heard it—that tiny but incredible difference.
‘My sister used to say this too. Even pressing a single key sounds different when it’s a real pianist playing…’
But Hyesung, though he had majored in piano in the past, was no pianist now.
How could he be producing such sound?
Bae Hyunseo watched him intently.
“……”
And then he realized.
The dynamics of pressing a single key, the position of the finger, the pressure sweeping from top to bottom—each was controlled with exquisite precision.
The damper moved as if alive.
The strings vibrated.
The note bloomed.
As Bae Hyunseo was still dazed by the sound, passersby began to return and take seats.
Eight people had now gathered.
The performance hadn’t even begun yet.
None could explain why they had retraced their steps to return here.
Even those unfamiliar with classical music found themselves drawn by the deep tone of that one note.
Unfamiliar with the feeling, they chalked it up to this:
“Oh, it’s got a vibe.”
“Something’s different, right?”
“Feels like he’ll play really well.”
The word “performance” brought Bae Hyunseo back to his senses.
Come to think of it, what piece was Hyesung going to play?
There had been no discussion.
He hadn’t even brought any sheet music.
‘He came on a whim, and I forgot to ask.’
Again, it had been three whole years.
He probably forgot the pieces he used to memorize.
Was Hyesung struggling to recall a piece?
He tilted his head back slightly and closed his eyes gently.
He stayed that way for a while.
Just when Hyunseo thought he might resort to playing “School Bell Ring Ring Ring” out of desperation—
“…?”
He opened his eyes.
His raised fingers dropped onto the keyboard.
A quick ascending scale followed.
As soon as the piece became clear, Bae Hyunseo’s jaw dropped.
A composer once told him he’d painted a picture using notes instead of colors.
A piece too difficult even for professional pianists.
A composition by Franz Liszt.
“…Mazeppa?”
Franz Liszt had read Byron’s epic poem and envisioned a musical theme.
The hero Mazeppa.
His yearning for home, his unyielding will.
Liszt poured it all into the score, and from it, “Mazeppa” was born.
And the moment Mazeppa’s foot touched the open plains—
The piano’s rising scale began to whirl.
“!!”
The peaceful weekend scenery of Nodeul Island was shattered in an instant.
The audience was hurled into the middle of a vast, uneasy prairie.
Mazeppa gazes at the horizon with solemn eyes.
A low growl begins from the far-left end of the piano—the lowest register.
Something massive is awakening down below.
Mazeppa closes his eyes gently.
I will live.
I will not die.
He places a hand on the horse pawing the ground beside him. Nods.
Let’s go.
Let us return home together, still breathing, Ferenta.
The rumbling melody from the lower keys surges upward, swiftly climbing the scale.
The muscles in the performer’s cheeks tighten, a shadow forming over his furrowed brow.
Hooves gallop across the open plains; Mazeppa lashes the horse.
The pianist’s hands rain down on the keys like whips.
“…What is this?”
“Th-this, I mean, the playing is…”
“Oh my god…”
The deep, anguished notes cross into the right hand, unleashing a torrent of passionate melody.
Soaring pitch, sharp arpeggios.
The audience gasps at Mazeppa’s perilous gallop.
As Mazeppa crests the ridge beyond the horizon, the music grows steeper.
Irregular rhythms. Relentless tempo changes.
Breathless phrases, like desperate pants, gave the audience no rest.
Mazeppa confirms the presence beyond the hill.
Terror grips him.
The pianist’s shoulders draw inward.
His fingers teeter across the keys, spewing out a cadenza on the verge of collapse.
It is Mazeppa’s fearful breath.
Anxious.
It feels like he won’t make it back alive.
But no.
He screams a defiant cry, tearing across the plains once again.
A death-ridden rhapsody that threatens his life every second.
On the bench, Yoo Hyesung flinched.
His back hunched slightly.
Yet his eyes stared straight ahead, his hands racing in a frenzy.
His breath caught in his throat, his heart ready to burst—but the performance could not stop.
Mazeppa had to keep running.
To return home.
“…What even is this?”
“He—he’s the one playing this?!”
“I seriously thought it was some pianist doing a guerrilla concert!”
The crowd swelled.
Some exchanged glances, sharing their shock and awe, but quickly fell silent again.
Not a word could be allowed to taint this stage.
Nodeul Island had become a one-man recital hall.
The mad gallop began to ease.
Wounded and exhausted, a faint pianissimo flowed out.
Matching it, the pianist’s eyes showed a strange glimmer.
The pain and sorrow, and Mazeppa’s will to overcome it, came through clearly.
But the storm soon returned.
The lower notes howled like thunder, the high notes cracked like lightning.
Thirty-second notes. Sixty-fourth notes. No rest.
Massive chords heaved ragged breaths.
Both hands crossed fiercely, wringing the keyboard.
Now Mazeppa wasn’t just crossing the plains but climbing the mountainous scores crowded with notes.
Snow began to fall on the winding trail.
White flakes blanketed the trees and turned the narrow, jagged path into a silky white road.
With the sound of distant wind, a silent, snowy landscape bloomed.
“…Snow.”
And snow fell here too, on Nodeul Island.
Or rather, it had been falling.
No one had noticed when it started.
Bae Hyunseo only realized after a flake landed on the bridge of his nose.
‘This… doesn’t make sense…’
He remembered Hyesung’s youth competitions.
He didn’t win every time, but he never left without a prize.
He’d always been good.
But this?
This was unreal.
Even pianists who had performed Mazeppa in recitals hadn’t left such a deep impression.
Was it just the emotion of watching his nephew perform after waking from a coma?
Maybe.
But the reactions around him suggested otherwise.
“You see him? Who is that pianist? He’s definitely not just some amateur.”
“…Never seen him before.”
“Did you say kid?”
Now a swarm surrounded the piano, and a man who had just arrived rose on his toes—then gasped in shock.
Bae Hyunseo wanted to assess the situation rationally.
But it was impossible.
The music, seeping in through his ears, stole his sanity.
You can hold your breath to stop a smell.
Close your eyes to stop seeing.
But hearing?
‘Oh, right. You can plug your ears…’
Of course, there was no way he could cover his ears while his nephew was playing.
‘Have you gone completely mad, kid…’
Yoo Hyesung’s eyes gleamed.
The final page—the climax—had arrived.
Scales erupted from the keys like madness, and chords shook the world, swallowing the audience whole.
His fingers moved across the keyboard like Mazeppa spitting blood.
Breath rose to his throat.
The storm gradually subsided.
The spacing between notes widened. The tortured melody faded.
Mazeppa, collapsed on the vast plain with home just in sight.
But his breath still lingered.
His eyes still fixed on his homeland.
The deep low notes clung to the edge of consciousness.
A frail melody sprouted like new grass.
A recollection of the life he lived.
Mazeppa groaned softly.
Ferenta.
Leave me behind and go alone.
If you reach home, tell them about it for me.
Mazeppa’s voice faded like dying embers.
The crescendo had passed.
Thunk—
His hand, reaching for home, fell.
The boy’s fingers dropped onto the final key.
Even after the sound completely ceased, his hand didn’t leave the keyboard.
His ragged breath misted the winter air again and again.
“……”
“……”
Silence. Stillness. Breathless listeners.
And then—
Thunderous applause that could swallow winter erupted.
Yoo Hyesung rose from his seat with a satisfied grin.
But then—
Stumble—
His body wobbled.
A brief dizziness.
A ringing in his ears—biiiiip—annoyed him.
He had pushed himself a little hard to blow off the frustration of being cooped up in the hospital.
‘Is my body really this weak now?’
But now wasn’t the time to worry about that.
Yoo Hyesung rubbed his temples to suppress the headache.
‘From the sound of the applause, I probably don’t even need to check.’
Still, he turned around.
To check how many had gathered.
As expected—
A thick semicircle of people had formed a human wall.
This was the ending to a performance that had begun with just five or six people.
‘Oh.’
Snow was falling.
He hadn’t noticed while playing, but now he could see it.
Yoo Hyesung casually brushed off both shoulders.
The snow hadn’t piled up yet, and the heat from his recently finished performance melted it immediately.
Then, facing the many gazes he had longed for, he smiled calmly.
“No encore?”
Was everyone satisfied?
No way.
Franz Liszt, the originator of solo piano recitals, had been more skilled than anyone at reading the hearts of his audience.
And sure enough—
The passersby, now turned audience, began shouting “Encore!” with enthusiasm.
It was what he had wanted, but since this wasn’t a formal stage, he hadn’t expected it.
“Hmm, it’s snowing.”
Yoo Hyesung looked up and held out his palm. Then, blinking reflectively, he murmured:
“Let’s clear the snow.”
He suddenly sat back down at the piano.
What did he mean by that?
Clear the snow?
Does he hate snow?
The crowd was puzzled.
But now, among the people gathered, were some classical music lovers.
When the second performance began, they understood.
—Franz Liszt, Chasse-Neige.
Snow Plow.
[Bright-toned Myung Piano]
[Yoo Hyesung’s Street Piano Performance at Nodeul Island (Mazeppa + Chasse-Neige) (14:33)]
