MOON Ch 32

“…”

Yeonjun, who had been lying obliquely on the sofa while hugging the clothes Chaeon had worn, slowly opened his eyes. Because the room was so well soundproofed, it was not very distinct, but it was because he heard the faint sound of a piano coming from the second floor. His half-opened eyes instantly took on a murky, cool light.

‘Young master, Chaeon asked me to deliver this.’

She had sent a message as if she would visit in person, but the person who actually came to Yeonjun’s room was Director Kim, not Chaeon. Had there been another change of heart? Accepting the clothes, his mood sank severely. He had sent her a message, but she wasn’t replying to what she was doing, and then suddenly the sound of a piano was echoing from upstairs.

Originally, the only person in this mansion who knew how to play the piano was Jang Taeha. However, Jang Taeha didn’t play the piano after ‘that incident.’ If so, the person playing the piano right now was none other than Yoon Chaeon alone.

From the clothes in which he had half-buried his face, a faint scent of Chaeon also seemed to waft. The cozy smell of her skin, and things like the smell of shampoo.

Blue veins stood out on the back of his hand as he tightly clutched the clothes.

Yeonjun’s gaze sank pitch black.

∞ ∞ ∞

Beethoven’s Piano Sonata No. 14. Starting with the piece commonly called Moonlight, Chaeon, who had played five pieces in a row, was lastly playing Song for Sienna. It was New Age rather than traditional classical, but it was a song Chaeon had come to like after hearing it in passing on TV once.

Sending emotion with every note and adjusting the dynamics with every fingertip, she herself seemed to gradually melt into the melody she created.

‘May I play the piano for you?’

As if a single phone call was a big deal, like a dog losing its mind at a touch stroking its head after being kicked around all along… Even though she could become a mere servant or a worthless child at any time according to his mood, it was an act committed because her heart had softened at that single shred of attention.

And after the day she played it for the first time, the piano lingered before her eyes continuously because she couldn’t forget that sensation and sound.

‘Because I’ll pay you handsomely for the performance.’

The man’s proposal to even pay a price if she played that piano to her heart’s content. It couldn’t fail to be sweet.

Even while listening to online lectures and solving workbooks, whenever that proposal popped up out of nowhere, Chaeon internally wondered how much he would give. If she gathered and saved that up, wouldn’t it become quite a decent pocket money generator? After scribbling such notes unconsciously, she repeated the process of feeling self-loathing and hastily painting over them with a ballpoint pen.

Doing that all along, the moment the heart she had barely held back, held back, and held back to keep pent up burst out with a thud, Chaeon regretted it for a very brief moment.

I’m crazy. Why did I suddenly say something like that? What on earth was I thinking?

However, no matter what Chaeon was thinking in her head, he surprisingly left the room and came back after leaving behind a single phrase telling her to wait obediently. While emitting a luxurious scent that couldn’t even be compared to Chaeon’s cheap shampoo scent and body wash scent.

When she flicked her eyes while moving her hands fluidly, he, who had returned in comfortable attire after taking a shower, was lying down in a direction showing his back to Chaeon. Since she couldn’t see his face, she lacked certainty about whether she should continue playing, and that was the reason she ended up playing several pieces in a row.

Chaeon, who stopped playing after a long while, slowly withdrew her hands from above the keys where the lingering sound echoed. A feeling of her mind awakening clearly. It was a bizarre sense of fullness, as if the place that had been empty all along was filled up. To the point where she wondered how she had endured and lived with this feeling all this time.

Gently lifting her foot off the pedal she was stepping on, she called him in a small voice.

“Young master.”

“…”

“Young master.”

“…”

Inside the room where the playing had stopped, the sound of late-evening insects could be heard through the slightly opened window gap, and the cold air of ripe autumn was leaking in. Feeling the chill on her shoulders, Chaeon closed the window and stepped toward Taeha step by step like a person without weight.

Carefully rounding the bed and approaching in the direction where his face could be seen, Chaeon tilted her head slightly and looked down at him sleeping.

Taeha was fast asleep, turned to his side before she knew it. The hair he always neatly combed back with pomade was naturally scattered over his forehead and pillow, and his brow, which had looked sensitive, was also relaxed comfortably.

When awake, he always had a cold and sharp impression, exuding an atmosphere that no one could easily approach, but right now he seemed deeply submerged in sleep, like a person who wouldn’t notice even if someone stroked that sharp bridge of his nose once. Observing him while holding her breath completely, Chaeon gulped dry spit without realizing it.

This person sleeps with a face like this. Following the strange pride that her playing had put him to sleep was the emotion that it was fascinating to see him sleeping with a look she had never imagined. He didn’t snore, and the sound of his comfortably relaxed breathing wasn’t very loud either. And…

A good smell… An alluring scent that would likely waft from a bundle of blood-red roses. Bending her waist slightly to smell the deep scent wafting from him, the moment he slightly shifted his shoulders, Chaeon almost let out a gasp and stepped backward.

Thump, thump, thump. Placing her hand on her left chest, the sound of her heart beating uncontrollably was conveyed as it was. Moistening her dry lips once with her tongue, she carefully pulled up the blanket that had slid down below his waist and covered him up to his shoulders. He was truly in a deep sleep without the slightest movement.

To think he has such a comfortable face, when he makes people so nervous and uncomfortable when awake. Why couldn’t he sleep well all this time?

While having complex and varied thoughts, as she turned her head absentmindedly, the banknotes placed on the tray on the nightstand caught her eye. And the small note placed on top of them as well.

Yoon Chaeon

Written on the note were only the three letters of her name. Like a name tag announcing that she was the owner of this money. Gazing down at it quietly, Chaeon traced the unevenness of the writing that was pressed slightly concave like the pressure of the pen. It was a handwriting stretched out straight and forcefully, just like his disposition.

Glancing briefly at the sleeping Taeha, Chaeon carefully lifted the paperweight holding down the banknotes and took the crisp bills.

“Gasps.”

Not one, but two yellow bills. Surprised so much for a moment, she almost dropped the money. It was an amount far too generous for her. After playing for less than an hour, to get ten times the hourly wage ordinary people receive.

Hard spit was swallowed down her throat. What she did was merely playing the piano, but it felt like getting the reward for immense labor. Even though it was something already agreed upon between them, her heart began to thump wild. Exactly as if she had committed something very bad.

Folding the straight banknotes twice, Chaeon left the room while holding them tightly in her hand as if it were an amulet she must not lose. Lest she might meet someone, her steps returning to her room looked like she was being chased.

∞ ∞ ∞

Chairman Jang, who returned to the mansion, thought he heard some sound.

Things like a hot spring trip to Sapporo, things like how about taking a little vacation. Jang Seongju tried all kinds of hard efforts to somehow make up for his past mistakes. Acting as if he couldn’t resist the flattering of such an enemy-like son, he had just returned after finishing a short four-day recuperation.

Handing his coat he took off to the servant who followed behind, he tilted his head and listened quietly. Although it was hearing that naturally deteriorated as he aged, distinguishing that level of sound was not a difficult thing for him, who was vigorous for his age. Understanding his question, the servant smiled tactfully and resolved it.

“It seems to be Chaeon. She plays the piano often these days.”

“Chaeon?”

For a full week or more, the sound of a piano was heard every late evening from the eldest young master’s room. As short as 30 minutes, as long as a little over an hour. The child who, after playing like that, would carefully slip out of Taeha’s room and quietly return to the staff quarters again.

Because the servants who worked at the mansion for a long time knew what it meant that the piano sound, which hadn’t been heard for a long time, began to echo again, they just ignored it with a somewhat choked up and affectionate feeling. Also the fact that the two sleeping pills that were always sent up to the eldest young master’s room were reduced to one pill.

“It’s the daughter of the aunt who came newly a while ago. Eunpyeong-daek. Why, you said the side dishes were delicious these days. It’s been quite a while since Eunpyeong-daek worked in the kitchen together with Ma’am Kwon.”

“Ah, that Ms. An’s daughter.”

“Yes. I heard she intended to major in piano, but she quit due to circumstances. Young Master Taeha isn’t someone who easily warms up to people, but he miraculously lets her play.”

“…”

That the grandson he treasured like gold was originally not of a disposition to be affectionate or warm up to anyone was something Chairman Jang knew best. However, if it made someone’s hands touch what had been neglected without any meaning like wallpaper or flooring after Hayeon passed away, that meaning would by no means be small.

Meanwhile, a sorrowful sentiment briefly surged, wondering if he wanted to hear again the sound of the piano that his mother kept closest during her lifetime. To think he let the child of a mere mansion servant touch such an object.

“Right. How could that heart be fine inside?”

At the muttered monologue of Chairman Jang, who received the blood pressure medicine and a water cup, the servant subtly bowed his head, pretending not to hear.

‘Father, don’t eat too much meat. If you dislike vegetables, why, when wrapped in rice paper and fried, it’s very delicious. I’ll tell them to serve it like that at least.’

The daughter-in-law who was like a daughter. People asked where in the world such a thing existed, but Chairman Jang had such a daughter-in-law. The daughter of a respected mentor whom he particularly cherished among his three sons in a row, because even her nagging was pretty as she cared with her heart. Generous to subordinates, and simply warm and sweet to Chairman Jang. She always called him father, not father-in-law.

The fact that he realized only after Hayeon left that the child, whose hands and feet were bound behind the scenes due to the inferiority complex of his good-for-nothing son, was gradually growing sick was the most regrettable fact of his life.

‘Yeon. Try playing that once, that. The one I said I liked at Representative Go’s daughter’s recital before.’

‘Fantasie-Impromptu?’

‘Right, that. I like listening to you play it much better.’

When Chairman Jang sat by the window of the study holding a book, that child, who smiled bashfully at a single word of small praise, immediately opened all the doors and windows of the room wide and played the piano so that that beautiful melody echoed inside the mansion.

The child who asked him to go eat chrysanthemum tea and soft persimmon cake at Bukchon Gyehwadang arm-in-arm when it was time for the soft persimmons to ripen well, hanged herself in the room where her most cherished piano was on a summer day when the rainy season was fierce. The one who discovered that sight first was Yeonjun, whom she had cherished like a son, and next was Taeha, who rushed out after hearing a servant’s scream. On that day, how could he forget the tragedy of that father, Gyuhwan?

Dressing the precious child in shroud clothes himself and looking into the place for her columbarium shrine with his own hands, Chairman Jang’s heart collapsed several times. Though he thought about beating his son to death for bringing a concubine into the house after going crazy over a temporary fling to the point of staging a suicide attempt, her broadness in heart, treating Yeonjun’s mother—who had entered this house—coolly and distantly instead, because they were a couple without a shred of love, was matchless with anyone.

Sending such a daughter-in-law off while suffering inwardly, and living for several years while treating his son, whom he hadn’t treated like a human for two years, at least like a bastard to be killed. Hearing that the piano he had wanted to throw away because his heart ached every time he looked at it had found a use, he was glad yet sorrowful.

“By any chance, if it’s uncomfortable, shall I talk to Chaeon separately? Or Eunpyeong-daek…”

“No, there’s no need for that.”

“Ah, then…”

“Just, occasionally…”

His wrinkled eye rims gleamed with sorrow, as if tracing a certain day.

“Just tell her that she can play with the windows wide open.”