Yuna remembered how they first met. Could recall it in her sleep.

At the measly age of twelve, she was considered talented. Gifted with a broad understanding of music and considerable predilections when it came to the piano, some went as far as to even call her a prodigy. Armed with Liszt, the more than capable starlet went to tackle her seventh competition. She chose one of his most famous pieces: the ever-known Liebestraum No. 3 in Ab Major. Romance danced between its arpeggios and heartbreak within the cascades of cadenzas. She knew it, knew the story well, could recite the poetry of the music like a songbird. But her short fingers made each strike of the keys spell disaster.

The young girl stowed herself away in the hidden rooms of the performance center, fruitlessly exercising the octaves that gave her trouble. The manic sound of keys slamming, the throes of frustration beating, and the soundproof doors which were unyielding under the weight of it all. Rage welted in her like an ugly disease, stammering her fingers and hazing her mind.

If Yuna had half the mind at her young age, she’d be slightly amused. At how a piece that professed romance could turn into a violent storm when strangled in the wrong pair of hands. Once she’d calmed enough from her outburst, she sat silently defeated. Until a few raps against the door drew her attention.

The door braced open slowly, carefully. In a timid yet curious manner. Yuna watched silently as wood peeled back to unveil yet another girl. They were roughly the same height, but the other girl wore her age underneath her eyes, had her hair in braids and had pretty upturned eyes. A competitor. Frustration slithered underneath Yuna’s skin as a reminder of its presence.

“I heard you practicing.” She wore a flush on her cheeks as if she was the one who had been walked in on. “I’ve played this before.”

The girl invited herself closer, despite the animosity radiating off of Yuna in waves, drawn towards the polished and dark Passadori. A handsome beast. It was a proud-looking grand piano with a glossy finish that nearly stole the light away from the room altogether into the shallows of its keys. The girl came to a halting stop when her knees bumped into the cushioned bench. She waited expectantly for Yuna to move. The younger girl obliged, but only out of sheer curiosity.

The older girl’s fingers traced the lip of the piano, beneath its ivory keys. She was breathless and her chest rose up and down to some unknowing tempo. The sight was intimate. Between one moment and another, she transformed. She only looked even more sure of herself. Gone was the girl who had walked in. The room came alive.

It was as if the piano itself had sprung into motion, coiled to sprint and live the leaps of the piece. There was a certain wildness to her tone like the instrument itself could barely restrain her intensity. Each rise and swell lifted the room with it and a story unfolded, dimensional and profound. Of love and love lost, of a level of precision beyond the years of the pianist playing it. In this moment’s time, Yuna felt as if she had met Liszt. Transcending time and era, she could feel him and the rancor of his emotions. The melody of ecstasy and desperation. And the worst part was that the girl had made it look incredibly easy, where even the act of breathing was harder.

When her fingers slowed and exhaled, Yuna remained spellbound. Fragile phrasing concluded the piece, snapping the practice room back into reality. Whatever had possessed her left. She turned to Yuna, apologetic, as if she hadn’t just completely and earnestly taken the girl’s dreams and rubbed them together frightfully until all that was left was bits of grainy dust. 

“How did it sound?” Blood thumped in her ears from the silence. The only answer a speechless twelve year old could really offer. How could she vocalize her true thoughts, in what language would she be able to truly express how she felt? The thrill that coursed through her veins and the passion she had waded through, eddying around the crevices of her soul. The feeling was intangible, perhaps it was even impossible to assign any words to the terrific way her mind realigned with her heart.

When Yuna saw her again next, standing a notch below her on a platform dictating the winners, she seethed. Just months before she was talented, and now she was a loser. The weight of the silver medal rested heavy around her neck and sank her down with it. Next time, she promised, next time she would win.

She saw her time and time again, learned her name and became sorely familiar with her shadow. Opportunities flew downstream through the years. They dueled throughout the country. Met each other in regional competitions and tempered their swords through Prokofiev and Shostakovich, sharpened them on Beethoven and Mozart, and polished them on the blackened whetstone of the national stage. Destined to be second, Yuna simmered. She practiced long into the night, hours after midnight, and marked the fraying edges of her sheet music with a flurry of accents and different annotations. Sonatas and concertos dotted the edges of her vision. Instrumentation became all she could see.

On one particularly cold, wintry night she went to collect her mail. She’d long since moved closer to the city not by choice but through necessity. Her apartment was small, but fitted just enough feet of space that she could finally harbor her own grand piano rather than the ancient upright instrument she’d used throughout her childhood that had begun to flake. Rifling through different bills, she stopped when she finally saw the long awaited carrier. A clean, white envelope. It was protected behind a crisp red seal engraved with the smooth sloped character of a treble clef. She tore into it.

Addressed was an invitation to the twenty-sixth International Chopin Piano Competition. One of the most prestigious competitions worldwide, it was unique in that the repertoire was limited to commemorate a single composer: Frederic Chopin. Hosted in Poland, only the most capable and well-versed pianists would go on to compete. Those who won were quickly propelled into a higher league of pianism. It was an honor to even attend. There was no time to celebrate. Yuna knew in the recesses of her mind as she tucked the envelope under her coat sleeve and breezed her way back into her apartment complex that another girl halfway across bleary Seoul received the same one.

She spent the next two years carefully curating her choices. Nocturnes, mazurkas, ballades, and etudes coiled through her finger tips, and through the process she learned that she had an affinity towards consuming an ungodly amount of green tea. She received mentorships from across the world, even flew out to Spain for the summers to practice where she’d send postcards back for her family. When the flexors of her hands became sore, she’d rest by winding around and exploring the hills of the countryside. Some mornings there she’d sit out on the patio to watch the Spanish sunrise over rolling plains, and each time she’d see a line of geese flocking by so low that she could make out the ruffles of their bellies. 

In her final summer there, she returned to Korea to gather her belongings, then left promptly once more. Poland was vast. Yuna came weeks early and had just enough time to survey bits and pieces of the country. What she found excited her. The lands seemed aged and rife with culture and history. Marinated by sprawling trees and forests that have laid undisturbed for centuries. Nearly all homes had a piano. Distinctly European faces met her at every stop, warm and curious. She played for them when possible. It was fitting that the instrument had been born here. That somewhere through these colonies of vines and hulking mountains heralded genius. 

Leagues of pianists flew into Poland from all across the world whether to compete or simply bear witness to a new class of musicians. Finally, the first rounds of performances could commence. Yuna would meet luminaries from the Americas, discuss harmonic compositions with German upstarts, and shake hands with Russian masters who claim that playing upbeats was the only truth to approaching any piece. At some point, it struck her that the amount of musical acumen in one building could be enough to topple the world.  

Her first piece was Chopin’s Nocturnes, Op. 48: No. 1 in C Minor. A contemplative piece, one that required an expert precision to highlight the composer’s emotional depth. The underlying bass notes formed the logs of firewood, only eased by the pedal’s efforts. During his time, Chopin’s life had been one of sadness and only during his work on these sets of nocturnes did life give him any reprieve. The piece truly came to fruition at the doppio movimento, where despairing triplets combusted into open flames. Her next piece was a scherzo, then a concerto. When she stood and bowed, she heard only approval from the crowd before her. 

As she walked towards her seat in the auditorium, Yeji passed her. She missed her gaze by barely a nick. They hadn’t seen each other since even before the invitationals for the competition had been sent out. At the time, Yeji left the country for the gorgeous townhouses of France. The young pianist told the press with a wolfish smile that she’d received an offer to study there she couldn’t turn down. She concluded the interview in a charming broken French and that was that. Then and only then did South Korea belong to Yuna. By default. Regardless, Yeji’s name still haunted her and she’d catch wind of her activities from time to time even with thousands of kilometers between them.

Really, they had tried making amends before she left. Their rivalry was by no means anyone’s complete fault. Simply nature’s due course. She had approached Yeji after losing yet another countless nameless competition. 

“What do you have that I don’t?” Yuna pondered. She laid her hands on top of the bench, not quite sitting but not nearly standing. They were outside of the concert venue and stood side by side under the shadows of a tree. It faced the lapping, dirty waters of the Han River. Yeji was kicking pebbles. One, two, and then another one. A variety of different sizes and colors. The river swallowed them up greedily, so much that they looked like they dissolved upon impact.

“My parents,” Yeji frowned. Yuna registered the sound of another rock toppling in with a glug. “They’ve never come to any of my performances.” The kicking ceased. Instead, they watched together as the sun winked at them through the waves while teams of fish darted through its shallows. “I see yours every time. They seem nice.”

“But you always win–” Pity mounted in her chest and Yeji knew. She waved her off. Yuna left that day, and turned her head just before she swerved the corner to catch the lone figure standing, her legs churning against the gravel pathway. From there, she seemed less the champion of South Korea and more a girl.