TMLOH 93

Chapter : 93

A few words were enough to crack the fragile peace I had been keeping up.

“What a beautiful performance, as always.”

The ripple thrown by my teacher, the virtuoso Emmanuel.

“Saebom, your sound has always existed for someone else.”

The violin and my life that had existed only for my mother.

“I have a question. Your playing is excellent even now, but for some reason I feel like I’ve never once heard your true performance.”

“Saebom, have you ever, even once, played for yourself?”

“Played purely for your own enjoyment?”

When did it start?

When did I become unable to play the violin?

When the life I had thought was satisfactory began to feel like a marionette on a warped stage.

For myself.

My teacher’s question lodged in my chest and lingered like a bruise for a long time.

What does it mean to enjoy something?

What does it mean to do something for myself?

My playing had always existed for my mother.

The violin was a means to an end.

Because my mother loved it, to please her, to be loved by her.

There was no “me” in it.

The beginning of the nightmare was always the same.

A dim corridor, and at its end, a stage.

Holding my trembling breath, I stepped onto the stage where a grand piano and an invisible accompanist waited. Beyond them, countless black silhouettes of people loomed.

“The frontrunner for first place…”

“Could break the record for youngest winner…”

“The one Emmanuel cherishes…”

A stage I could never complete.

The start of my despair.

That day was the day my mother abandoned me.

It was probably my last competition.

If I had only won this contest, I would have the title of international competition winner, and then it would have been recitals and concerts from then on.

At that final gate, I could not perform.

“Have you ever played for yourself?”

When it was just the violin and I left alone, my teacher’s words became a shackle.

My hands would not move.

I could not play.

The sheet music I used to read as naturally as breathing suddenly felt foreign, and my hands would not move as if I had forgotten how. Even lifting the instrument felt heavy and my arms sank.

Everything from that day still remains vividly inside me.

“How could you disappoint me like this?”

On the day her proud daughter who resembled her bungled the final round by failing to play anything, my mother’s words were only two lines.

“How could you…”

Her eyes full of contempt, shaking with betrayal, contained all the blame, anger, and disappointment, and without asking for an explanation or reason, she glared at me coldly and left me behind.

That was the last image I have of my mother.

She abandoned me.

After being abandoned like that, absurdly I could never play the violin again.

“I don’t think I can play anymore.”

“When you can play again, come find me.”

My teacher—who had treasured my talent—said that, but I never could bring myself to play again.

My mother did not look for the “failed daughter” who had disappointed her, did not forgive me, and no longer loved me.

Instead, she started to look for a substitute who would achieve her dream without complaint, not some defective thing like me.

I remember what my father said when my mother took on a new student.

“She’s suffering because you disappointed her. You have to understand. Mother is a very pitiable person, right?”

Then what about me?

I, who had had only my mother until then?

I was left alone.

With nothing.

Nothing at all.

The brilliant talent only mattered when I could play; apart from the violin, I was—

Without my mother, I was—

“I tried.”

I had tried so hard.

I had spent my life trying to be recognized and loved, and if all of that could be so easily forgotten and replaced, then what had it all meant?

Despair swallowed me where I thought I had moved on. Emotions I thought dulled bit into my heart again, and the frustration I thought gone knocked me sideways once more.

I could not be loved for who I was.

I thought if I abandoned the violin I could be loved only as my mother’s daughter…

But I could not be loved.

My mother had not loved me.

In front of that clear, lucid sentence, I crumbled, craving an impossible love.

Someday my mother would look back.

There’s no way she wouldn’t love me.

She’s just too angry now and is leaving me alone. When she calms down she’ll come back and hold me.

Isn’t that how parent-child relationships are?

Doesn’t everyone say so?

Alone in a dark house that no one came into, listening only to the ticking clock, I waited for my mother and stared at the door that did not open.

For days and days.

Until I finally admitted to myself that my mother had abandoned me.

“Mother…”

Still, I thought she would at least ask me once why I had done it.

At least once I thought she’d come find me and hug me.

At least once.

Why did I hold onto such hope?

I spent my parents’ money recklessly, shut myself in hotels and read web novels. Even as the money flowed away, my parents did not scold me. The cards were not cut off either.

Complete indifference.

The hope that my mother would come for me crumbled, and I withered into something like a dried corpse.

One day during that meaningless time, I went out with the thought of confronting my mother after a breaking news report said her student had won the competition I had ruined—and on my way I was in a traffic accident.

So I died like that, I suppose.

“Would my mother have regretted it after I died?”

Now that question was meaningless.

“Would my mother… have even felt sorrow?”

Despite all the pain and torment that had led to this, my heart could not let go.

Foolishly, stupidly,

I still wanted to be loved by my mother.

I still loved my mother.

Even in this state.

But who would love me if not even my mother would?

If I could not even love myself.

—No one will save you.

—No one will love you.

—Who would love someone even abandoned by their mother?

The festering emotions that ate at me and made me ill.

—No one will help you.

—There is no salvation.

—Life is solitary.

Slimy, clinging moist black hands from the darkness gripped my ankles, my legs, and my thin throat.

To drag me away.

—You know it too. Who would like a child who isn’t lovable, who has no cute trait? If you want to be loved, act lovable.

—Everyone will eventually know who you really are and get tired and leave. Like your mother.

—So then.

Let’s disappear like this.

That wouldn’t be so bad.

If the darkness swallowed me, I could end as a loved child.

Besides, I wouldn’t live that long anyway, right?

If I wake up I’ll only feel pain and misery. If I sleep here forever I could be happy.

So—

Just as the black hand that had reached for me was about to grab hold—

“Arelin!”

Startled.

A faint voice sounded in the darkness.

“Pesion…?”

Is even this a hallucination?

I must have misheard.

Pesion could not be here.

A small, bitter laugh escaped me. Had I really liked Pesion that much? To the point where in a moment like this I would want to hear his voice…

The sticky, writhing darkness that clung to swallow me covered my ears. Suddenly the compass in my bosom trembled.

Then—

“Arelin—!”

A clearer voice.

I lifted my head.

Shhhhh—

Light poured in.

It was blinding enough to make my eyes go white.

A white hand burst through the bright light that melted the darkness and grabbed me.

“Arelin!”

“—!”

A pale white face came into view. Silver hair of good quality covering a rounded forehead. Long eyelashes set close together and vivid red eyes like roses dipped in color.

If salvation took shape, would it look like this?

I opened my mouth to say something, then closed it again. No words would come out.

Only—

Only the bright smile that looked at me reached my eyes.

“Arel, I came to take you.”