Reason for Marriage

Chapter 12

Swapped concert seats

“Please meet her once, she’s the prosecutor general’s wife.”

President Seo said, organizing gifts piled up in the waiting room.

Whether it was because he was focused on trimming a baton with a pointy carving knife in his hand, or because he thought that answering would only be repeating, or that the question was not worth answering, in any case, Sang-yeon remained silent.

“Are you listening to me?”

“That’s not fair.”

“Who knows if we’ll ever use the prosecutor general’s influence again?”

“I know that all the people sending gifts are useful.”

It was not only the wealthy women who sent expensive gifts to Park Sang-yeon, wanting to greet him in person at every performance.

Conductors were different from idols who lived on the popularity of the public. He was an idol of the leading elite, namely the ruling class.

It was well known that Hitler, who loved Wagner passionately, used his music for Nazi propaganda to rally Germany.

Since ancient times, classical music had grown under the auspices of nobility, royal family and religion.

However, Park Sang-yeon did not believe in God when he was playing classical music, and often threw away the love of noble people.

Seo thought that it may be because Park Sang-yeon knew the value of his product well.

It was a kind of collection concept like chaebols[1] building art museums and collecting artworks one by one.

In a word, he thought that it seemed like a possible marketing strategy because he accurately understood that he would be himself part of a splendid collection flattering the intellectual vanity and possessiveness of the upper class at the same time.

In fact, people could buy as many art works as they wanted as long as they had money, but because they could not bought Park Sang-yeon with money, they were paradoxically greedier.

However, Seo began to judge that it had reached a too dangerous level.

President Seo knew better than anyone that human psychology would rather destroy people if they could not have them even though they desperately wanted them.

“But why did you want the reservation list?”

Seo handed over the file containing the list to Sang-yeon.

Sang-yeon replied by lightly kissing the back of her hand.

Seo did not ask any more questions. It was an old iron rule between the two to stop when Sang-yeon made such a physical attack.

“Since you don’t drink, I’ll take the wine of the prosecutor general’s wife.”

When Sang-yeon made an okay sign with his hand, the president took the wine and left the waiting room.

Sang-yeon went through the cell phone numbers of each person on the reservation list with his baton. Going down, the baton eventually stopped.

010-xxxx-XXXX Pre-orderer Choi Minju.

This was the name that Sang-yeon was looking for.

The choir seats surrounding both sides and the back of the stage were attractive because people could see the performers closely at a relatively low price compared to other seats.

In particular, because of the fact that she could face the conductor, Minju would always click on the seat in the middle of the choir seat at the speed of light as soon as the reservation was opened.

Now, the seat number 15 in row 2 of the G area felt like her designated seat.

On the stage, orchestra members coordinated their instruments, and the audience began to fill the seats one by one.

At that time, a mother walked toward Minju’s seat with her daughter, who looked like a first grader in elementary school. The woman checked her seat and hesitated to talk to Minju.

“Hey, I’m sorry, but… If you don’t mind, could you change seats with me? I couldn’t help but buy tickets like this because they were sold out.”

Looking at the seat number of the tickets that the woman had, the mother and daughter had to sit on both sides of Minju. Minju willingly moved to the side.

“Thank you.”

The woman sat in Minju’s seat and took off her daughter’s jacket.

As soon as the child was free of her jacket, she ran to the front of the seat to watch the performers on stage. Minju’s face hardened slightly when she saw the distracted child.

As the mother arranged her clothes and bag and placed them neatly on her lap, she noticed Minju’s expression.

“Don’t worry. She will be calm when the performance starts. My child’s dream is to become a pianist. She really like classical music.”

She assured Minju by saying that.

When the announcement for the start of the performance was made, people began to move hurriedly.

In Minju’s row of seats, a huge man was squeezing in between the seats.

Perhaps because the passage between seats was narrower than usual because people were wearing winter clothes, the man’s thick thighs eventually pushed the child’s mother’s clothes and bag.

“Oh, I’m sorry.”

The man picked up the fallen clothes with his hand that was not holding the performance pamphlet and handed it to the child’s mother. The woman was not in a good mood, but she received the man’s apology as if she understood.

Minju crouched her legs and body in consideration of the man’s physique and gave way. With the lighting of the darkening concert hall, the clutter gradually faded away, and the child who went out to watch the stage returned and sat down.

“Mom, did you turn off your phone?”

The child carefully checking this showed that she had been to the concert hall more than once or twice. All right, all right! The mother started looking for her cell phone in her bag.

“Oh, that’s weird. Where’s my phone?”

The woman was embarrassed and checked the floor where the bag had fallen, but there was no phone.

However, Minju, who was also looking around, saw the big man who just passed this way leaving the concert hall.

What? He’s been such a nuisance to find his place, but why isn’t he watching the performance?

While Minju continued to dwell on her thoughts, all the lights in the audience went out. The time had begun to light up only the stage.

As the orchestra members all stood up, conductor Sang-yeon walked onto the stage.

Minju took out binoculars for opera that she had prepared from her bag to see the performance a little closer.

Minju’s binoculars followed Sang-yeon’s steps.

Sang-yeon, who greeted the audience, finally turned toward the orchestra and lifted his baton.

At the moment, Sang-yeon and Minju’s eyes met precisely in the binoculars.

Badump badump! Minju’s heart pounded as if it would explode at any moment.

Being unable to handle the palpitations, Minju slipped down the binoculars she was holding and clutched them tightly in her hands.

Bang! With the sound of timpani, the spotlight fell on Minju’s head. Schubert’s Symphony No. 4 magically began in the quiet concert hall, as if everything had stopped.

Minju loved this moment the most. The moment when music was born in an empty space where nothing could be heard by the conductor’s gesture was truly an ecstatic sight that could only be described as magic.

Sang-yeon, who drew music with flexible and soft gestures, was even more unrealistically beautiful in Minju’s eyes.

“Minju, why do you like classical music so much?”

“Hmm… Because I feel like I’m dreaming.”

“Dreaming? What kind of dream?”

Minju’s mother often asked little Minju this question.

What could a little kid know, listening to a long symphony for an hour with her eyes closed tightly? In other words, she must have asked this question because it was both cute and funny.

Mom, I dream about me. It’s good to listen to classical music and escape from the noise of this horrible night. To forget where I’m right now, to teleport from the lowest to the highest, that’s why I listen to it. To classical music…

Only Sang-yeon and Minju shone in the dark.

Yes, for this moment, I will monopolize him completely.

Minju looked at Sang-yeon as if she were dreaming of the most beautiful dream allowed to her.

A few days later, when it snowed a lot, a call came to the used instrument store where Minju worked. It had been a long time since she had been asked to tune a piano.

The destination was the neighbourhood of Pyeongchang, in Jongno district. The boss pushed Minju’s back despite the bad weather, saying, ‘Since the tuning is for a rich family, we must get regular tuning demands from them’.

When she entered Pyeongchang with her car, which was dirtier than snow that had already been stepped on, Minju’s eyes became dark.

Since all the notorious hills in Pyeongchang were frozen, even powerful foreign cars were not confident to climb the difficult course.

Minju got out of the car and packed a bag with tuning tools, thinking that it would be better for her strong legs to suffer than sending her car to the junkyard.

How many times did she fall while climbing the high slope?

After barely arriving in front of the client’s house, Minju tapped the doorbell with her knees and hips wet from the snow.

The heavy iron door of the mansion opened with a creaky sound.

“I’m the piano tuner. Is anybody there?”

Minju carefully went inside after putting on slippers that were neatly placed in front of the entrance.

A grand piano in the middle of the cold and still living room, where no warmth of a person could be felt, was waiting for Minju.

Without the owner’s permission, Minju opened the lid of the unfamiliar piano.

As always, when she pressed the 49th keyboard, ‘la’, three times, the clear piano tone resonated in the house.

Minju sat on the chair as if her cold desire had been unsealed for a moment and began to play Mozart’s Piano Sonata No. 8 first movement.

As if she had never stopped playing, Minju’s fingers skillfully danced like flowing water on the keyboard. It was a powerful, soft, sad, and beautiful performance.

Minju was so excited that it almost felt like she was the owner of this piano in the first place.

The real owner of the piano looked down from the second floor at Minju, who was detached from reality as she continued her performance.

Perhaps because he did not want to stop her playing, he carefully walked down the stairs.

However, Minju, who had more sensitive ears than anyone else, was surprised by the steps, stopped playing and jumped from the piano chair.

“Oh, I’m sorry. I put my hands on the piano as I please…”

“It was great. Keep going.”

A familiar voice entered Minju’s ears, who could not even raise her head because of the embarrassment.

For a moment, Minju thought she had a lovesick and was hearing things. But soon after, all doubts turned to conviction as she heard his voice again.

“We’re seeing each other again.”

It was undeniably his voice.

TL notes

[1] A chaebol is a large company run by a rich person or family.