Chapter 1….
Practice Piece (1)
I am a fake.
I composed countless pieces, yet in the end, all that remained to me was the stigma of being a fraud.
“Cough!”
Blood mixed with phlegm splattered onto the handkerchief with a dull drop.
I wiped the saliva and blood clinging to my filthy beard with a worn cloth and slowly scanned the room.
Then my eyes landed on a cracked mirror.
Someone was reflected there.
Sunken cheeks, lifeless eyes, clumps of hair missing, split lips.
An unkempt, messy beard, and porridge spilled while eating, dried and stuck to my clothes.
A dying man was preserved inside that mirror.
That was me.
A fool who couldn’t even protect his own music stood there.
“So many things that once shone have rotted away like this… No, that’s not it. They never shone to begin with.”
At the same time, I thought about how I had ended up dying like this.
When I was young, I didn’t know what music was.
It was just one of many passing sounds.
Nothing more than noise—until one day, it suddenly burrowed into my ears.
That moment came from a piece played by the pianist who worked at the club where my mother used to work.
How should I describe it? To me, it sounded like music from the heavens.
Looking back now, the notes and melody were clumsy, but there was something that made people feel joy.
I was drawn to it.
‘Would you like to learn music from me?’
A genius.
The owner of talent bestowed by the heavens—that was what people called me.
That man said so, and I followed him.
For someone born into a slave family, at the very bottom of society, being given a chance to learn something meant an opportunity that would never come again.
So I studied hard.
Theory like rhythm, melody, and harmony was tedious, but—
The sensation of pressing piano keys one by one with my hands felt indescribably wonderful.
I thought that was happiness.
But brief happiness never lasts long.
That man—no, that bastard—began stealing my compositions and selling them under his own name.
When I was young, I didn’t realize it.
I was just grateful to be able to learn music.
There were days when I didn’t receive a single coin.
Those days grew more frequent, and I began to find it strange.
‘Your music isn’t popular.’
That’s what he told me.
But the music echoing through the streets denied his words.
My compositions were being played everywhere—how could I believe him?
As it turned out, he had partnered with distributors and deceived me for thirty years, lining his own pockets.
I was furious, and I exposed the truth to the world.
‘That man is a thief who stole my music!’
No one listened to my cry.
The world wasn’t kind enough to listen to someone born into a slave family.
“Cough! Hack—khhck!!”
Bang—!
“Are you all right?!”
Perhaps he heard my coughing—my close friend from the next room rushed in urgently.
He hurried over and checked me all over.
I waved him off as I spoke.
“Cough… I’m fine. Just some phlegm caught in my throat.”
“You idiot, I’m not fine. Someone who used to be so healthy ended up like this…”
He collapsed onto the chair beside the bed and stared at me.
We had different professions and lived completely different lives, yet he was the only person who believed in me until the very end.
That’s why I could speak my heart to him without hesitation.
“Sometimes I think… maybe it would’ve been better if I’d never learned music.”
“Then I wouldn’t have treated you either.”
“True. I might’ve died much earlier. Without music, I’d just be a laborer from a slave family.”
I raised my right hand.
From the hand that once played piano and countless instruments, two fingers were missing.
The index finger and the middle finger.
That was the price I paid for struggling to reveal the truth to the world.
“…Do you regret it?”
“Well.”
At one point, I composed anonymously.
I made music that was truly my own, without any interference—and there were people who listened.
—No matter how much you struggle, someone as powerless as you will never have anyone listen to your music.
The one who listened to my music, of all people, was that man.
He took my fingers and made sure I would never play music again.
He already had the power to do so, and I was helpless.
After having my fingers cut off and being beaten, I crawled through the mountains somehow, reached my friend’s house, and barely received treatment.
Looking at me like that, my friend said:
“There was someone I treated once who worked in trade. He told me stories about the Far East.”
“…Out of nowhere? Well, hearing a story before dying isn’t so bad.”
“Don’t say that. Anyway, he said that in the East, there’s a concept called reincarnation.”
“Reincarnation? Being born again? I may not have gone to church in a long time, cough, but everyone knows people go to heaven when they die.”
He continued.
“That’s common sense for us Europeans. But Easterners believe that your next life is determined by how you lived this one.”
“How fascinating.”
“They even say you forget everything about your past life so you can live anew.”
I nodded and pondered his words.
My life had been one long chain of being robbed.
My talent was taken. My happiness was taken.
I struggled to reclaim them—but now I had given up.
After living a life like this, could I really say I had lived righteously?
With a complicated heart, I asked my friend:
“If you were reborn… what would you want to do?”
If.
That word caught in my throat.
The idea of living again somehow felt embarrassing for someone like me.
He answered without hesitation.
“Of course, I’d be a doctor. I like saving people. And I’ve made decent money, too.”
“So you were a money-crazed bastard after all, my friend.”
“That’s why I became friends with you.”
We both laughed heartily.
After laughing for a while, I spoke again about what I wanted.
“If I were reborn… I want to do music again.”
“I knew it. You love music.”
“I want to make music that no one can ever steal from me.”
“……”
He fell silent.
He stared straight at my face.
We had shared a long bond, watching the wrinkles on each other’s faces deepen over time.
More than anyone, he understood how I felt.
And so, I made my final request of him.
My last music.
My final breath.
I took out the sheet music hidden on one side of the pillow and handed it to him.
Drawing the notes using only my ring and little fingers had taken considerable effort.
“This is…?”
“I started composing it after I came to your house. My hand’s a mess, but you should be able to make it out.”
“But… is it really okay for me to take this?”
He was worthy.
More than worthy.
He treated me—born a slave—without pretense, and stood by me as I tried to reveal the truth to the world.
He would surely do his utmost to fulfill my final wish.
“You’re more than worthy. Think of it as my gift to you. What you do with it is up to you.”
He slowly accepted the four sheets of music.
For a long time, he pressed his lips together, opening and closing them repeatedly.
After much deliberation, he finally spoke.
“…I’ll make sure the world learns of the injustice done to you.”
“Thank you. Having you as my friend was a great fortune.”
I slowly shifted my body.
I couldn’t fight the drowsiness anymore, so I thought I’d take a short nap.
“Could you close the curtains? I’d like to sleep for a bit.”
“Of course. Rest well.”
I gently closed my eyes.
As my vision faded, all sounds seemed to gather in my ears.
The rustling of trees in the wind, the fluttering of a butterfly’s wings, my friend’s soft footsteps, people talking outside.
Countless sounds reached me.
Then, cutting through them all, I heard my friend’s voice.
“Sleep well, my friend.”
I couldn’t reply.
Sleep overwhelmed me, and I forgot to answer.
The curtains must have been drawn—it was completely dark.
All the sounds that once made gentle music fell silent in an instant.
In the pitch-black darkness, I sank into a sleep from which I would never awaken.
As I drifted off, my friend’s words came back to me.
‘Reincarnation… Me, reincarnated? How ridiculous.’
And so, I quietly held my breath.
My death was as calm as a still lake amid roaring artillery.
‘……?’
Somewhere, I heard the sound of a piano.
—Ddan—♬
A low C resonated softly.
Another note followed, then the next.
Slowly, a melody formed.
This is the piece I gave to my friend.
I thought he had hired a pianist to practice it.
I could understand wanting to hear my music himself.
I just hadn’t expected it so soon.
But something felt off.
Rather than hearing someone play it directly, it felt more like—
Someone was recalling a melody from memory.
Yet the recalled melody was unbelievably vivid.
What is this?
I was confused.
Then some kind of noise shattered my confusion.
The noise was chaotic.
Voices shouting something jabbed at my ears.
There was also a strange beeping sound—beep! beep!—that tickled them.
In this incomprehensible situation, I tried to open my eyes.
But they wouldn’t open.
“@$^(&!!”
A woman’s voice reached me.
It sounded muffled, like someone shouting underwater, so I couldn’t understand what she was saying.
One thing was clear—it wasn’t any language I knew.
The rolling sounds didn’t resemble English or French at all.
“((@$&@$(&!!”
The woman shouted something again.
I couldn’t understand what was happening.
I assumed I was dreaming.
Dreams always made speech sound strange, after all.
Slap!
The moment I thought it was a dream, pain shot through my thigh.
I’d never even been hit by my mother as a child.
The burning pain snapped me fully awake, and a scream burst from my mouth.
“Waaahhh!!”
But my scream had turned into the cry of a newborn.
Tears streamed out, and the crying showed no sign of stopping.
Even so, I heard a voice.
“@$#$%@.”
This time, it didn’t sound urgent—rather, it carried a sense of relief.
But I had no time to care.
What is this? Don’t tell me—like in those novels—my body was used for human experimentation?
There had been novels like that long before I was born, and dark thoughts flooded my mind.
I desperately tried to open my eyes to assess the situation.
But opening them was incredibly difficult.
The more I strained, the weaker I felt.
Just as I poured all my strength into opening my eyes—
I felt a cool breeze.
Something supporting me disappeared for a moment, then something else supported my neck and hips.
Eyes, please! Ah—finally!
I struggled desperately, and at last, I succeeded.
Light filtered in through my corneas, still partially veiled, slowly coming into focus.
I opened my eyes little by little, and finally, I could see the world.
“@%*….”
A man’s voice reached me.
Low and rough, as if shaped by a hard life.
The voice sounded muffled, like it was soaked in water.
My eyes finally opened completely.
At first, the light was blinding, then something large blocked it from my view.
A voice spoke.
“I’m your dad….”
It was definitely a language I had never heard before—
Yet somehow, I understood it.
My vision cleared.
Inside a room with white walls, a man was holding me.
A rugged man with an untrimmed beard smiled down at me, tears streaming from his eyes.
I’m thirty-nine years old…?
That’s what I thought.
But—
“Waaah!!”
My voice was nothing like that.
It was sharp and high, like a baby’s.
Huh? Huh??
I tried making a sound again.
“Ungyaa.”
“@$%@, daddy.”
I couldn’t understand most of what he was saying, but the word “dad” came through clearly.
Still, I had no time to dwell on it.
Judging by what my eyes and ears told me, my situation was dire.
Don’t tell me… I’ve become a baby?
Reincarnation—what my friend had talked about.
It seemed I had experienced it myself.
