CHAPTER 1

Tokyo, 2015

Jiyong had seen himself in that same situation for so many occasions that he no longer felt impressed by it. Though the nervousness felt always as if it was the very first time. And, to be honest, those university corridors seemed longer than usual that day. He adjusted the strap of his portfolio over his shoulder and kept walking, mentally counting his steps and making an enormous effort not to bite his nails.

A group of students walked by his side, shouting in between words and flashing the smiles of those who are finally free of school for the whole weekend. Jiyong stared at their happy profiles, sighed and kept with his crestfallen gait through the corridor. As a soon-to-graduate student he didn’t have the pleasure of having long weekends or holidays anymore.

Which wasn’t that terrible, Jiyong thought, with a small smile pulling from the corner of his lips when he walked by one of the rehearsal rooms. The sound of a violoncello being masterfully played escaped through the opening of the windows and from under the closed door. It was always a nice sound for Jiyong, a soothing way to let go of his worries. Music. He could live without weekends and holidays only in the company of his compositions. One of his hands ran lovingly over the crease of his portfolio where he carried with him his composition notebooks.

However, the why of his sudden Friday evening visit to his University rushed back to his mind and erased the forming smile from his face; he dropped his shoulders, resigned. When he finally reached the end of the corridor and pushed the doors open, he saw the insides of an office he would instantly recognize everywhere, anywhere. Jiyong would bet that time couldn’t touch that place. It remained as same as when he had visited it for the first time four years ago, eighteen years old and without much idea of what to do with his life. Everything remained in the same place, and he was, too, entering without much idea of what to do with his life once again.

“Jiyong,” the voice of his favorite professor received him. An old, white-haired man smiled at him from the back of his desk. His features seemed softened by time, as if his soul wasn’t strong enough anymore to retain anger or grudges. Jiyong couldn’t hold back and reciprocated the smile; he liked Professor Nikasawa’s smile the most.  “What brings one of my most talented students back to this old cave?”

Jiyong swallowed and averted his gaze to the bookshelves at the walls. If only his professor knew the reasons of why he was there, trying to back off from one of the most important projects in his entire career. Jiyong, taking a deep breath, forced his eyes to meet the ones of his professor when the silence between them stretched for an uncomfortable long time. His left hand grasped the edge of his portfolio as if he was looking for a safe place to hold onto.

His voice broke the instant he tried to speak.

“I was… I wanted to talk about my dissertation project,” Jiyong let out with his strange Japanese; his accent marked more profoundly when he was nervous.

His professor looked at Jiyong with a tone of severity, his dark eyes almost puncturing inside Jiyong’s skull to read his own very intimate thoughts.

“I see,” Professor Nikasawa finally said, nodding with his head while he closed the notebook over his desk. Then he crossed his hands over his lap and focused his eyes completely on Jiyong. The later merely sank his shoulders down, intimidated at the sudden attention.

“I was wondering if, maybe, there is some way I…” he shook his head, “we can change the theme of my dissertation project. I know you gave me to this one in specific because of my nationality and the fact I was born and raised in Korea. But, truthfully, I don’t feel… think I am the appropriate choice for such an important project,” Jiyong said, and cringed at the way his words had sounded terribly babbled.

His professor nodded and closed his eyes, deep in thought.  “Hmm,”

And that was all Jiyong needed to hear, for he sighed resigned and knew that was the answer his professor always gave when he was bothered and in disagreement with something.

“But I can’t do anything for you, Jiyong. I can’t reassign a new theme to you, and I truly feel you are the best candidate for such a project. I believe you can create a really inspirational work if only you stop being so stubborn,”

“Ex-excuse me?”

“You heard me well, Jiyong. Is time for you to break out from that comfort zone you’ve been hiding your whole career and to show me that thing you masterfully showed us in your audition records.”

Jiyong simply lowered his head and swallowed.

“I feel I am not going anywhere,” he confessed, with a hint of desperation in his voice, “Every single time I try to write something, I read the title, I think about something and then nothing. Three weeks and is always the same. Nothing,” he cried and scratched the back of his neck.

And Jiyong wasn’t lying. Kiko was the best –and poor- witness of how frustrating the past weeks had been for him. Sitting in his favorite spot in their apartment, right in front of their biggest window, dim lights illuminating his workspace and a good cup of dark coffee and still, nothing. Only the feeling of being blinded by a big black screen and the desire to run away from it was what he ended up with every time.

“That has always been your problem,” his professor said, shaking his head in disapproval and searched for something in one of the drawers of his desk; the sounds of rumpled papers and pencils filled the silence for a couple of minutes until Professor Nikasawa looked at Jiyong from the corner of his eyes and added, “I don’t know what happened with you, or why you are avoiding things in your life. But I can’t do much apart from this,” he said, taking out a kind of pamphlet from his desk. He quickly scribbled something on it and gave it to Jiyong; who took it between his hands and looked at it confused.

“Is a permit, it allows you to see the exhibition before the inauguration. You should go and take a look at the paintings. People say art inspires more art. Let see if that’s true,”

“The exhibition? The one where the movie I am writing the soundtrack for will be shown?”

“The very same,” nodded his professor and opened his notebook again, “Go, sit, look at the paintings and let your mind clear away for once. It should help.”

Jiyong looked at the paper in between his hands and the delicate calligraphy of his professor handwriting. And even though that should make him feel relieved it only made the weight inside his guts heavier, more uncomfortable. Maybe that wasn’t the reason he was there in the first place. The realization of it made his hands tremble and he had to quickly hide his hand under his coat pocket and, with it, the piece of paper.

“Professor Nikasawa?” he murmured, biting the corner of his lower lip.

“No more words, Jiyong,” the old man said, his wrinkled fingers straightened the glasses over the bridge of his nose and flicked through he pages of his notebook, “I understand. I know what you feel and what you don’t want to say. And for that very same reason I want you to stand up and go to that place,”

Jiyong nodded silently and fisted his hidden hands, cr