The Road To Glory [EN]: Chapter 2231

[Extra] 25. Playing Mozart

Chirp, chirp.

A quiet night occasionally punctuated by the sound of crickets.

Rummage. Someone unable to sleep tossed and turned before quietly getting up.

The person, rising to get a drink of water, glanced at the boy sleeping soundly without moving once and thought,

‘It’s good to be young.’

I used to sleep so well when I was young, but now that I’m older, I’m sensitive to the smallest noises and have to go to the bathroom so often.

Despite the camera, he scratched his stomach and then noticed someone else was missing.

‘Did she go to the bathroom?’

I don’t think I saw her around this time yesterday either.

Until then, he didn’t think much of it.

Without waking the soundly sleeping boy, he leisurely walked out to the veranda and was startled by the sight of a white foot caught on the threshold.

At first, he thought it was a severed foot.

But then, he heard a snoring sound—drrr—and soon realized what it was.

“…”

He stared at her with a dumbfounded expression.

Drrr-

She was supposed to be sleeping inside the room, but the pillow was near the closet, the blanket was crumpled in the corner, and Lee Sora was asleep with one foot on the veranda.

“She said she can’t sleep without a bed.”

Drrr.

She was even snoring.

Kwon Jae-ik clicked his tongue.

‘I thought I closed the door, but I don’t know why it’s open.’

Is this how an actress sleeps?

Lee Sora’s fans used to say she slept like Snow White, but if Snow White had a sleeping habit like this, the prince might never have found her.

“Her mouth will go crooked.”

Kwon Jae-ik picked up her foot and put it back inside the room, then picked up the blanket and pillow and covered her again.

She didn’t wake up and continued to snore, so Kwon Jae-ik chuckled and turned his head. He glanced at the camera next to the refrigerator and took out some water.

Kwon Jae-ik, about to go back to sleep without a second thought, paused.

‘Just now, outside…’

Kwon Jae-ik doubted his eyes and put on the slippers on the stepping stone.

“Jung-min, what are you doing?”

“Ah, sunbae [senior colleague]. Are you not asleep yet?”

“I woke up to get some water. What are you doing here? Why aren’t you sleeping?”

Kwon Jae-ik, with his hands in the pockets of his baggy pants, approached Lee Jung-min, who was sitting on the wooden bench. ‘How could someone who always lives such an upright life be sitting alone on the bench at this dark hour?’

“I woke up for a bit too.”

“Are you a light sleeper, then?”

Unlike someone.

At the blunt remark, Lee Jung-min quietly laughed, “Haha.”

“Sora noona [older sister], is she out here again?”

“Was she like that yesterday too?”

“…No, just today.”

He belatedly tried to keep it a secret, but it didn’t work.

Kwon Jae-ik soon yawned.

“Go inside and sleep.”

“Aren’t you going in?”

“I’m going to stay out here a little longer.”

Kwon Jae-ik looked at Lee Jung-min for a moment.

The fact that he saw Lee Sora’s sleeping habits yesterday meant that he was awake around the same time.

Kwon Jae-ik recalled cleaning and wandering around the village. Everyone else was exhausted and sound asleep, but he was the only one awake, so he figured it might not just be a sleeping problem.

He also realized that it wasn’t his problem to dig into.

It was none of his business, and whatever it was, it was someone else’s problem.

Kwon Jae-ik was about to just let it go and go inside, but he stopped and roughly ruffled his hair before plopping down on the wooden bench.

“?”

“I can’t sleep either.”

When his innocent eyes met his, Kwon Jae-ik made an excuse.

Silence fell.

Kwon Jae-ik glanced at Lee Jung-min and opened his mouth.

“Hee-tae.”

“…!”

“What are you worrying about so much?”

That one word felt like they were back on the set of ‘From Today, We Are.’

Lee Jung-min, who had been startled, smiled faintly, knowing that his sunbae was joking.

“Just.”

“Juuuust?”

He dragged out the word like a delinquent.

Lee Jung-min, as Hee-tae, said, “I was just thinking about what I did today.”

“What did you do today?”

“…Kwon-sam, you’ve become a real teacher now.”

“Really? Well, I’m doing a good job, right? I’ve also developed a lot of patience.”

Kwon Jae-ik flicked his hand.

It was a gesture as if he were playing with a Zippo lighter.

“So, what did you do today?”

“Hae-il ssi [term of respect], I was thinking about your class.”

“Ah.”

“That dice game.”

Kwon Jae-ik, instantly snapping out of his acting, sighed.

When the dice game was mentioned, Kwon Jae-ik naturally thought of games like Monopoly or Yahtzee. But the dice game that Halo showed was…

“I still don’t know if that’s really a dice game.”

At those words, Lee Jung-min laughed, “Hahaha.”

Halo’s first class as a music teacher at Baekun Elementary School.

He recalled Halo’s music class that had taken place twelve hours ago.

:

“Today, I’m going to do a Mozart dice game.”

The only teacher at Baekun Elementary School, who had come to observe the class, spoke up amidst the chaotic atmosphere. Six bright-eyed children and the rest of the adults took turns looking at the teacher and the boy.

“Noh Hae-il teacher will be helping with the class.”

Halo, who had been having an eye fight with the children, nodded.

“The great musician Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart was famous as a musical genius, and among the music you’ve heard, there might be music made by Mozart teacher. How did he make music?”

Today’s class topic was Mozart and the history of music,

and Mozart’s dice game was brought in to attract the children’s attention.

The children’s eyes lit up at the word ‘game.’

Because the children, who had been glancing at the adults and the camera in the back, began to pay attention.

“Dice game?”

“Are we playing?”

“You’ve all rolled dice before, right? Mozart did too. He composed music by rolling dice(?).”

When he first met Halo and discussed the class topic, Halo found the ‘Mozart’s dice game’ interesting.

-Composing with dice…

-Hae-il ssi, can’t you do it too?

The teacher joked to Halo, who was famous as a musical genius.

In fact, he knows very well that this is impossible.

When the teacher saw that no answer was coming and he seemed to be thinking seriously, he quickly added.

-I’m just kidding.

-Let’s do the class with this. I think the kids will like it. Then, I’ll prepare the dice and the class, so Hae-il ssi, can you prepare Mozart’s dice game?

-Yes. I will.

Halo soon smiled and readily agreed.

The Mozart dice game is available on the internet, and anyone can find it with a simple search, so it won’t be a difficult request.

“Then, shall we try it once?”

The Mozart dice game, as the name suggests, involves playing 16 bars of minuet and trio according to the numbers given by the dice.

The 16 bars of minuet have 11 different musical figures in each bar,

and the 16 bars of trio have 6 different musical figures in each bar.

Accordingly, a minuet table consisting of 16 rows and 11 columns, totaling 176 bars, is created. Two dice are rolled simultaneously, and a bar is selected for each sum of the numbers that come up to select 16 bars of minuet, and one die is rolled to select 16 bars of trio to be played in 3/4 time. This is Mozart’s dice game, or ‘aleatorik [chance music].’

In addition to Mozart, various musicians such as Joseph Haydn composed with aleatorik. But the most famous is Mozart’s dice game.

The teacher put the number table in the center by gathering the desks, and the children and adults gathered around.

“I’ll show you an example.”

The teacher rolled the dice.

The sum of the first dice was 10.

And he rolled it again, and the next was 4.

“So, according to this table, it’s numbers 98, 95, 37… Hae-il ssi, can you play it?”

“Ah, I didn’t write the numbers down.”

“?”

‘Is there anything to write the numbers down for? If you just enter the numbers, it’ll create it automatically.’

When the teacher had a question, Halo thought for a moment and soon picked up the guitar.

Music was created where his hands passed.

“Wow!”

The children shouted as if they were amazed.

“Then, what if we do it with this, with this?”

“Kids, you have to roll the dice.”

While saying that, the teacher also admired.

‘He listened to everything and prepared to play it himself.’

“You guys do it yourselves.”

Halo put down the sketchbook he had brought with the guitar case.

Before filming, stationery and sports equipment such as soccer balls, as well as essential instruments such as pianos, were all brought to Baekun Island, so everyone could do it.

“It was too much trouble, so I stopped writing it, but there are still 100 bars.”

“How do you read this?”

“You can’t read this? Why?”

Halo, who was trying to slip away by having the children play it themselves, asked in astonishment.

“Oh my, you wrote all of this?”

The teacher admired as he flipped through the sketchbook.

Neat staves and nine bars each were drawn on one page.

The camera approached and filmed.

“He was only in his room all day yesterday, and he did this.”

“He worked hard.”

Everyone admired the effort of transcribing the Mozart score.

At that time, writer Do Min-hee tilted her head.

‘Is something different? Was it originally like this?’

She had looked it up the day before when she heard they were doing the Mozart dice game.

She was sure she had marked the same numbers, but for some reason, a different sound came out.

The melody was good, but it was hard to see it as a ‘minuet [a slow, stately dance],’ a 17th-century dance, and it sounded more like pop music she had heard recently.

‘Mozart’s music is like pop.’

Was Mozart’s music originally like pop?

The master of classical music and pop didn’t seem to fit.

“Then, who wants to roll the dice?”

“Me! Me!”

“Okay, everyone can do it. Shall we all make a song together?”

The children, who had seen an example once, excitedly rolled the dice.

Since a total of 32 bars had to be determined, the dice could be rolled 32 times.

“Teachers, do it together too.”

Those who had been flipping through the sketchbook as if they were amazed also rolled the dice.

The numbers that came out like that.

The children, with expectant faces, moved the bars from the sketchbook to the blackboard.

Of course, the 100 bars and the bars that were not written because their arms hurt were left blank.

Halo looked at the numbers moved to the blackboard and picked up the guitar.

And he plays it.

The music he worked hard to create yesterday.

In fact, the dice game board is not complete.

He stopped writing after 100 bars because his arm hurt, and he left a few blank. This is because he thought today’s me would be better than yesterday’s me.

By leaving it blank for the improvisation he likes, a fairly satisfying music is completed.

A fast-paced, cheerful melody that was revived to give the feeling of a minuet – a dance song for the same name.

And when he put in ad-libs and humming in the middle, everyone was busy admiring.

The dice game was good to do several times.

Everyone said to make this the school bell, and they also called it someone’s theme song.

When they repeated it several times, writer Do Min-hee finally realized the strangeness.

She felt strange, so she wrote the same number in the app, and a different song came out.

Then what is this song?

Writer Do Min-hee, who took a look at the sketchbook score written by Halo himself, suddenly got goosebumps.

‘No way?’

‘It can’t be.’

‘Is this made in one day?’

If you think about it, there’s no way he would have inefficiently moved the sheet music on the internet.

If so-.

“Hey, Hae-il ssi, did you make this yourself?”

If so, did he write it himself, or did someone else write it?

When everyone wondered why the writer was asking this question, Halo answered.

“It’s a bit clumsy, right? I think I need to fix a few things.”

‘I guess it showed that I didn’t make a few properly.’

Halo thought that he could make enough during filming, but he didn’t realize the gazes were slowly turning into shock and smiled faintly.

“Still. It’s fun to do it for the first time.”

“Mozart game.”

“!”

#

It wasn’t a Mozart dice game, it was a Halo dice game.

After that, everyone moved away from the sketchbook.

They looked at it as if they were handling artifacts, afraid that they might damage it.

‘Won’t this childish cover sketchbook be kept in a glass case in the distant future?’

He said it was a dice game made by a great musician.

Halo was roughly fixing such a great sketchbook with a pen, saying he didn’t like it.

“Let’s play the dice game more. Teacher!”

“You guys play by yourselves.”

“Let’s play the dice game.”

The children didn’t know the value of this performance, but they enjoyed the music that kept coming out like a story bag.

“Get away.”

“I don’t want to!”

“Then, Sam [teacher], please tell me!”

And the peer hyung [older brother figure] who seems uninterested and annoyed but does everything is the best.

They played soccer together and played hard,

Kwon Jae-ik tasted the bitterness of society.

If others admired Halo’s performance, he was just jealous of the boy who was popular with the children.

“I can sing my song too.”

“Stop it. The kids will have a fit. And the parents will complain.”

“Why?”

“Do you know how many F’s are in your song?”

“I didn’t use English.”

“That’s more of a problem.”

Next time, he tells me to make hip-hop that I can listen to with my nephew.

Kwon Jae-ik, who had been making his own music until now, no matter what the fans said, seriously considered it.

And come back again.

Everyone is asleep at 3 a.m. on the wooden floor.

“Hae-il ssi is really cool.”

“I’m not the type to be able to do that.”

If Lee Jung-min admired Halo’s performance, Kwon Jae-ik thought that even if he had such talent, he wouldn’t be able to do it. His head was already spinning from the number table, and he was too lazy.

He had no intention of putting so much energy into filming.

“So, are you still not sleepy, Hee-tae? You have to sleep early to help with the village work tomorrow.”

“…Is the acting not over yet?”

“Uh.”

He noticed the sleep disorder, but he didn’t say it.

Lee Jung-min smiled slightly at the kindness.

“Go in and sleep first, sunbaenim.”

“I should. I’m sleepy.”

Kwon Jae-ik stretched and got up from his seat.

He was about to go into the house when he stopped.

And he turned around and said for a moment.

“Jung-min.”

“Yes, sunbaenim.”

“You can relax a little.”

“!”

Kwon Jae-ik raised his finger indifferently.

Then he pointed to himself.

“It’s okay to live roughly like me.”

“…”

“Well, I’m not forcing you, but it seems like you’re putting in too much effort. I’m really going in.”

“Yes, sleep well, sunbaenim.”

Kwon Jae-ik didn’t care much.

He understood why Lee Jung-min, who had been living as a minor role for a long time, was living in tension, and as he always said, it was just someone else’s problem.

But, for something like that, you need someone who really lives roughly next to you.

Or someone who will shake you up so you have no choice but to relax.

A friend who fools around appropriately, goes out to play appropriately,

Ah, someone who makes you feel like it’s okay to live so freely.

Fortunately, there are many grasshoppers here [people who live carefree lives].

He also lives like a grasshopper to some extent, but there are even more grasshoppers here.

So it will be okay.

Kwon Jae-ik thought it would be okay and went inside the house.

Again, a foot sticking out into the hallway and a snoring sound.

And a boy sleeping quietly in a corner of the room.

Kwon Jae-ik lay down and fell asleep.

And the next day afternoon.

The grasshopper Kwon Jae-ik shouted.

“Kids, shall we work? Let’s do some work.”