Cha Haeun

Seoul exhaled under the weight of the night. The sky hung low, brushed with the inky velvet of post‐10 p.m., and the skyline's usual glow began to dim, building by building, like stage lights slowly descending. On the streets, taxis swerved around delivery scooters, weaving through lanes, their taillights blinking like mechanical fireflies. The rumble of buses pulling into terminal bays echoed off glass buildings in Jongno, and vending machines flickered to life under footbridges, vending hot corn soup and canned coffee. Near residential pockets, elderly residents hosed down concrete courtyards, and the smell of wet cement mingled with fried garlic from last-minute meals drifting from open apartment windows. A dog barked from a rooftop somewhere in Seongsu, and wind chimes ticked softly in back alleys. Above it all, cicadas fell silent, replaced by the whispering trees swaying with the late summer breeze.

But on the third floor of Korea National University of Arts, a sterile white light still poured from practice room 3.

Inside, Haeun’s fingers raced over the black and white keys of the campus’s well-worn Steinway Model D, its keys slightly yellowed from decades of use but still responsive to even the gentlest dynamic shading. She had chosen this piano for its clean action and transparent voicing—unlike the more resonant Bösendorfer next door, whose bass sometimes swallowed nuance. In this space, she could articulate each note as though it were a brushstroke.

The room smelled faintly of pine cleaner, resin from the string bass room down the hall, and sweat from a day’s worth of practice sessions. Her metronome lay still on the windowsill, its ticking abandoned. The only sound was her music: the brittle clicks of hammers, the quiet creak of the damper pedal returning, and the resonant shimmer of sustained harmonies. Haeun pressed into a cascading passage, then lifted her hands—and silence snapped into place like the lid of a box.

“That’s not right...” she whispered, breath brushing her upper lip as she exhaled. Her gaze flicked to the iPad’s glowing screen, displaying a facsimile edition of Chopin’s Ballade No. 2 in F Major, Op. 38. Her eyes moved bar by bar, recalibrating fingering and phrasing in real time.

Compared to the visceral drama of the First Ballade or the architectural brilliance of the Fourth, Op. 38 was a paradox. On paper, it looked inviting: a gentle Andantino in F major, soon to be torn open by a violent Presto con fuoco in A minor. But therein lay the challenge: it wasn’t the fingers, it was the transition. The abrupt gear shift between serenity and fury. The fluid negotiation of two harmonic universes without a clear narrative guide.

Other works, like the infernal sweep of the First Scherzo or the storm-tossed arcs of the "Winter Wind" Etude, came with imagery practically built into their DNA. Even Beethoven’s Tempest Sonata offered clues in its title and harmonic foreshadowing. But the Ballade No. 2 remained infuriatingly opaque. A pastoral opening, followed by cataclysm. But why? What was the emotional logic? She had tried modeling the arc after the second movement of the Waldstein, tried echoing the restraint-before-release found in Brahms’s Intermezzi. Still, the shape eluded her.

“Should it be a storm... or was it something else...” Haeun murmured.

Many professors at K‐Arts leaned into the interpretation derived from Adam Mickiewicz’s narrative poem “Świtezianka”—a pastoral love interrupted by betrayal and violence. Yet even that felt too literal to Haeun, too storybook. When she listened to Horowitz’s version, she heard lament, not narrative. Rubinstein’s told her something else entirely: inevitability.

She returned to the keys. The Andantino emerged like watercolor, a gentle rubato drawing breath between each phrase, left hand weaving like a stream under the right’s slow bloom. She feathered the phrasing as if cupping something fragile. But as she reached bar 46, the entrance to the Presto, she halted again. Her hand trembled slightly above the octave.

“That’s still not it...” she said, voice threadbare. She dug her nails softly into the hem of her blouse. “I’m still playing it... like someone else.”

The Chopin Competition. Warsaw. A stage that devoured the unprepared.

Haeun didn’t fear wrong notes; they could be survived. But a hollow performance? One with no conviction? That was disqualifying.

She glanced at the old wall clock. 11:02 PM. 16 hours had passed since her first warmup. 90 bars had consumed her day. Her joints ached. Her breath hitched in her chest. Her insomnia lurked behind her shoulder, whispering that dawn was closer than she thought.

Haeun lowered her hands onto her lap and let the silence stretch long and taut, wrapping around her like tension wire.

Still, somewhere inside that silence, she swore the Ballade was still singing—just out of reach.

---

The Kakao Talk notification buzzed on Haeun’s iPad, cutting through the quiet like a staccato note.

“Yah! Haeun-ya, still torturing Chopin? ૮( ́• ˕ •)ა”

Min-jee.

“Spotted the light on in room 3 when I left. Figured it had to be you—no one else is brave (or stupid) enough to fight Chopin this late. ૮(⇀‸↼)ა”

“Caught red-handed.”

“Girl... it’s past 11. Are you trying to enter Warsaw or a hospital?”

Haeun glanced at the old clock again. The second hand stuttered forward, almost mockingly.

“I blinked and the night’s gone.”

“You and your time warps... ( ̊ ˃̣̣̥⌓˂̣̣̥ )”

“Also, what’s with the grandma emojis? You okay there, Min-jee-ssi?”

“Yah! They’re vintage chic! Would you rather I send you those Gen Z meme things? ‘Skibidi... rizz... gyatt’? Did I use that right?”

“Stop, I’m getting secondhand embarrassment through the screen.”

“٩(。•́‿•̀。)۶ Anyway. Eat something real. I swear if I find another Nongshim cup in your trash, I’m staging an intervention.”

“Yes, mom.”

Typing bubbles danced, then:

“Op.38 again?”

“Yeah. Trying to make it mine this time, but it’s just... stuck.”

“Did Hyun-ki-nim offer his gospel?”

“He tried. Heavy on structure, light on soul. You know the drill.”

“Mm... interpretation is a beast. ૮( ́˶• . •)ა But I’m not your Chopin whisperer, remember? I married Liszt.”

“And cheated on him with Rachmaninoff, apparently.”

“Hey! Rach understands me emotionally. You wouldn’t get it. (( (̨̡⸝⸝ ́꒳`⸝⸝)̧̢ ))”

“You’re the reason that B-flat minor Prelude got murdered earlier.”

“EXCUSE ME?? That was interpretive freedom!”

Haeun smiled despite herself. Their messages had shifted over time, from snide score critiques to half-emoji banter, somewhere between sibling bickering and post-concerto cool-downs. She hadn’t realized when it stopped being a rivalry and started being a friendship.

“Okay, but seriously, go rest. You can’t emote if your fingers are falling off. Sleep might actually hand you the phrasing you need.”

She paused. There was truth in that: fatigue blurred everything. But so did fear.

“Yeah... maybe. My hands feel like cooked ramen anyway.”

“And speaking of ramen—NO MORE NONGSHIM. ૮( ˶•⤙•˶ )ა Or tomorrow I’ll play my entire Transcendental Étude cycle outside your dorm window.”

“God no. Mercy. My ears can’t take another Mazeppa.”

“Heh. And if you bomb Chopin’s, I’m making you buy me fried chicken and listen to my Cleveland recital on loop.”

“Do you rehearse your evil plans or do they come naturally?”

“It’s a gift. ( 。 •̀ ᴖ •́ 。)”

Haeun laughed under her breath. Her screen dimmed to 3%, like a pianist reaching the coda. She sighed, tapped the screen off, and ran her hand gently across the Steinway’s lid. Time to rest the keys. And herself.

The room fell into silence, save for the soft whirr of the air vent and the click of the light switch.

---

Outside, the night air had deepened into something hushed and heavy, wrapping Seodaemun in a cloak of shadow and stillness. The residential roads lay near-deserted, dappled only by the amber wash of aging streetlamps. Their dim glow puddled across uneven pavement, stretching long shadows beneath parked Hyundais and mopeds dozing against curbs. Crickets sang somewhere in the tall grass near the walls of Yonsei’s back gate, while the rustle of tree leaves whispered overhead like a gentle metronome. The summer humidity clung to her skin, not unbearable, but thick enough to carry the faint scent of gasoline, overripe bananas from a street cart long shuttered, and fried chicken oil wafting from a rooftop vent nearby.

The CU convenience store near the corner buzzed softly under its flickering fluorescent sign, its sliding doors wheezing open every few minutes to reveal exhausted students and night-shift workers. Beside it, an ice freezer hummed in protest while a cluster of moths circled the flickering security light above like orbiting ghosts. The distant honk of a taxi echoed and faded into the alleys. A man smoked on a balcony three stories up, the orange tip of his cigarette briefly illuminating his face before vanishing into the dark.

Haeun let out a slow sigh, the air escaping her lungs as if it were some exhausted echo of the day. Her fingers twitched, subtly curled at her sides, her wrists flushed with heat from overexertion. The ache throbbed now that she wasn’t playing, dull but insistent. She rolled each one gently, wincing slightly. The burn crept up through the tendons like the aftershock of a fall, even without one.

She thought of Eun Sun then—of the warm towel compresses, the ritual of rest she’d taught her between Hyun-ki’s relentless masterclasses. "Even pianos get tuned," she used to say. "Why shouldn’t you?"

Haeun considered stepping into the CU for those menthol heat patches, her usual late-night purchase after long practice days, but she couldn’t bring herself to walk in just yet. Her mind had already drifted back. To the Ballade. To the way bar 94 dissolved when it should have ignited. To the ghost of a voice in her head whispering: not enough.

Her breath caught, and with her thoughts spiraling inward, Haeun turned the corner—and collided headfirst into someone.

Her shoulder hit something solid, and her bag slipped from her grasp, thudding against the pavement with a muffled slap. Gravity followed; her balance tilted, and her knees gave before she realized it.

“Ah—!”

The ground bit through her skirt with a jolt of warmth from the still-hot asphalt. The sting of friction flared across her skin.

“I-I’m so sorry!” she stammered, scrambling upright as quickly as the shock allowed. Her voice was rushed, breathy. “I wasn’t watching where I was going.”

She reached out instinctively to the figure in front of her, eyes already scanning for signs of injury. "Are you okay? Did I hurt you?"