Into The Thrill

His father was a music layman, and like how he had taken a college professor's claim that nine-year-old Haewon had perfect pitch at face value, he accepted Haewon's switch to freelancing as something comparable to having perfect pitch. He even thought that freelancing was better than being at HanKyung Symphony.
Anyway, Haewon was a violinist. He was a performer of some renown, enough so that a talented composer specifically included a violin solo piece for him.

Besides that one job, there wasn’t much work, but he was a freelancer who could make a decent living without giving private lessons, primarily because his father was wealthy.
The summer sunshine was transparent and warm. Thanks to the air conditioning blasting in the hotel, the indoor temperature was cool enough to require a cardigan. The sunlight covered Haewon’s body like a warm blanket. The chill and goosebumps that had risen momentarily subsided.
The man reached out and picked up a piece of crisply cooked bacon. The skilled composer and producer, who was a U.S. citizen and embraced both a Western diet and sexual style, was nonetheless distinctly Korean by the name of Kim Jaemin.

Haewon had participated in a few of his classical music productions, some of which had been very successful. His work was primarily done at his home in the U.S., and the production and recording took place in a studio in Seoul. When he came to Korea, he stayed for a few days to several months, depending on his schedule.
"Being with you... it's like time flows differently."
Kim Jaemin said casually. Haewon, focusing his gaze outside the window, did not respond much. It was probably meant as a compliment, but Haewon neither felt flattered nor overwhelmed.

Fundamentally, Haewon was a lazy and indolent person. He never rushed nor felt anxious. It made sense that Kim, who lived a busy life, felt time differently when with him. Kim took it positively, treating his trips to Seoul for work like a vacation to the Mediterranean.
He invariably called Haewon upon landing at the airport, and Haewon never refused. After bacon, Kim picked up some bread, and crumbs fell onto his shirt.
"Practice. I won’t be lenient during recording."

"Like when we have sex?"
Kim laughed out loud at Haewon's comment, leaning back leisurely against the sofa.
"Maybe we should try that."

He murmured as if talking to himself, then looked back at Haewon and continued.
"In an empty studio."
"These days, every studio has CCTV."

"Ah, right."
He sighed heavily, genuinely disappointed, as he tousled the back of his head roughly.
Haewon found him comfortable. He liked that his jokes weren't too much, appreciated his clean fashion sense, and enjoyed his Western style in food and sex. But the best part was that Kim would return to the U.S. after a set period.

He was very aware of his own circumstances and possessed the reason to control his impulses. He did not force Haewon into any uncomfortable emotional engagements, nor did he try to constrain him.
When he left, they were completely separate entities. Even while together, they made no plans for the future. The ease of their relationship may have stemmed from its transient nature. Clinging to each other was not beneficial for either of them.
"You've at least sight-read the score, haven't you?"
"I haven’t even opened the sheet music yet."

Kim burst out laughing. Such a remark would not be tolerated by a composer. Kim laughed often. It meant he liked him. The frequency of his smiles somehow felt overly generous at that moment.
∞ ∞ ∞
Haewon practiced the violin for four to five hours a day. Although he complained to Kim Jaemin of being lazy and annoyed, he rarely skipped practice.

It wasn’t out of desire but habit. Playing the violin had become as routine for Haewon as washing his face or brushing his teeth.
His fingertips were calloused, and his nails were always neatly trimmed. Sometimes he resented these ingrained habits. When he straightened the slightly bent bridge, the sharp metallic sound of the four strings struck his ears with tension.
He focused on each note, using the entire bow. Rosin dust settled like powder with every movement of the bow. He closed his eyes and tuned the strings to the note of A, adjusting it even though he had tuned it the day before. After a day, the strings would loosen, slipping about a half-tone.

He tuned and, eyes still closed, slowly played Bach's Partita No. 2 from the first movement to the Sarabande.
Although Kim Jaemin advocated for modern music, Haewon preferred classical. He frequently played the Chaconne from Bach's Partita No. 2, especially during practice.
While Haewon did not memorize the entire partita, he could play No. 2 entirely from memory. He liked Vitali's Chaconne too, but he played Bach's more often.

The solemn Adagio in D minor was like a funeral march bidding farewell to someone's death or like a deep, measured smile of a strong man.
Haewon played fervently, pressing hard on the strings. His unusually long fingers pressed firmly over the fingerboard. When he finally opened his eyes, time had noticeably passed.
His professor always tensed up when listening to his Partita, worried the strings might snap from the pressure. Playing the Partita left not just his arms but also his wrists sore.

The soundproof apartment echoed only the sounds he ➤ NоvеⅠight ➤ (Read more on our source) made. Despite being located by a major road, not even car horns could be heard. After playing, Haewon had a habit of staring out the window of the empty apartment for a long time as if someone was there, reflecting only the grey city.
He opened the music sheet composed by Kim Jaemin, which had been used for a hit drama OST and was now being remade and released as an official album with several additional pieces, including a violin solo.
Despite recommendations from renowned soloists, Kim Jaemin thankfully chose Haewon, an unknown violinist who had trembled out of HanKyung Symphony. Haewon knew it wasn’t for his sexual favors. Convincing the producer took time, but Kim believed Haewon's rough but sharp and delicate phrasing near the bridge suited this piece well.

The score was not particularly difficult. He almost made no mistakes on his first sight-read. Although he liked everything about Kim, his musicality was not to his taste. It was episodic, stimulating, and unclassical—a matter of sincerity.
After a couple more practices and losing interest, Haewon neatly packed the violin into its case.
Haewon spent his day languidly. He woke up sluggishly past nine, showered, and nibbled on a slice of toasted bread before his hair had even dried, then started practicing the violin. He turned on the violin almost daily for two to four hours.

During practice, he mainly played pieces he had memorized or had been taught. New pieces were learned through lessons to avoid developing preconceptions. Occasionally, he would listen to famous soloists and try out the pieces they played, but his repertoire did not change much overall.
After practicing, he felt hungry. Haewon didn’t cook. Side dishes or soup could be bought from a store, and he knew how to make rice. Nowadays, the electric rice cooker was kind enough to inform him when the rice was ready to eat.
After filling his stomach, he would lazily put on a baseball cap and step out into the street. He would walk aimlessly among the busy passersby, browse books in a bookstore, or sit in a cafe to kill time.

Around the time normal office workers would be returning home, he'd return home and turn on the TV. He didn’t really watch it, just let it play for the noise. The soundproofing made the quiet of the apartment hard to bear, even though it was located by a major road.
His father knew of Haewon’s lifestyle but did not criticize it. He considered artists to be different from others. To him, being different was normal for someone engaged in the arts.
Haewon's biological mother was also different from others. She was a woman of rich sensitivity, who refused to compromise with the dirty world.

She lived a pattern of life chewing through solitude, but it was not particularly lonely. Once accustomed to such boredom, the irregularities that broke this routine sometimes felt cumbersome and annoying. Among them, Taeshin's calls were the most troublesome, especially now.
He let the continuously ringing phone be. However, the nuisance wasn't bothersome enough to make him want to change his number or cut ties completely. His laziness reached such an extreme that even changing his phone number felt like too tedious a task. Only diligent people could manage to completely sever ties.
If he didn't answer, text messages piled up. Haewon usually read the last message to grasp the gist of what he wanted to convey. Lately, he deleted all messages, including spam about loans and credit services, without even looking. He didn't want to see Taeshin's declarations of unrequited love, knowing they'd be just another story about the man Taeshin was smitten with.

Taeshin's objects of unrequited love changed every few years, but none had been as intense and prolonged as now. How had he ended up listening to the homosexual love confessions of a high school senior he wasn't even close to? This was a recurring thought every time he checked the mounting texts and missed calls.
Haewon and Taeshin had attended the same arts high school. Taeshin studied sculpture while Haewon majored in violin. Their fields were so different that they hadn't been likely to become friends. However, being caught by Taeshin in an empty classroom after everyone had left was a tragedy.
Only the piano instructor and Haewon were left in the piano practice room. The piano major's fingers were as long as his. His hands busily caressed Haewon's nape and earlobes. Their lips were fiercely crashing against each other. Haewon and the piano instructor were passionately exchanging saliva and sucking on each other, as if they were about to strip off their clothes any moment.

Like all timid people, Taeshin did not rashly disclose what he had witnessed through a small glass window. At that time, as now, Haewon had few friends and was sitting alone in an empty classroom after everyone had left. He was puzzled when Taeshin, whom he barely knew, came to find him.
Taeshin called Haewon out to the school's back yard. Without any further explanation, he suddenly said this in the deserted place:
"I thought I was the only one like this. I thought it was strange."

"……"
Haewon had no connection to him. He didn't even know his name or face until then; he had only just learned that a student named Lee Taeshin existed at this school. But upon hearing his first words, Haewon realized that Taeshin had discovered his affair with the instructor in the practice room.
Staring back in silence, Taeshin, with a nondescript smile typical of ordinary people, added:

"I'm a year above you, but let's just be friends. You can speak comfortably with me."
"……"
"Do you have someone you like, but you're not sure whether to talk about it or not? What do you do in such cases?"

Haewon just looked at him, and Taeshin mistook this not as disregard but as attentive listening. Such misunderstandings piled up like a mountain, and before they knew it, ten years had passed.
They had grown close enough to be considered friends. Graduating from the same high school and ten years later, communicating several times a week and knowing each other's livelihoods were enough to be considered a close relationship.
While he was lost in thought, the annoying ring of the phone stopped.

One or two times out of ten. That was how often Haewon responded to his calls. Out of those ten times, one or two responses were just to vent his irritation at the endlessly ringing tone, not to welcome him.
Knowing that he was disliked and a nuisance, yet Taeshin still persistently called. It was because he had no one else to talk to.
He had no friends with the same sexual orientation, and like Haewon, he barely had any friends at all. Every time Haewon faced his shallow interior, he couldn't understand why someone would expose themselves to others, and he even felt disgust towards him, whose personality was the exact opposite of his own.

The phone ringing stopped. When the annoying sound disappeared, Haewon felt slightly guilty. He idly stared at the phone and traced the name of the caller on the missed call list on the screen.
"……"
He wondered how lacking in support he must be to turn to someone like himself, with whom he wasn't truly close. Yet, a fleeting sympathy did not compel him to call back.

Ultimately, Haewon couldn't be of any help in his life. In life, especially lives like theirs, no one could help. One must cope alone.
Haewon wasn't particularly lonely. When he felt loneliness, he would head to a bar known to him. There, many men sought one-night stands. There was no one he met regularly, but after clearing up his lust there, he wouldn't feel lonely or the sense of solitude for a while.
Having lived almost alone since childhood, he had become too accustomed to being alone, which was a problem. If he had no one to talk to, Haewon could go over a week without opening his mouth. When Kim Jae-min returned to the U.S., those silent days would likely continue.

∞ ∞ ∞
Haewon had no interest in his father's business. He barely knew what exactly his father did. His father was an arms dealer. He was a fairly successful businessman who purchased weapons from the U.S. and supplied them to East Asia, including Korea.
Was there anything as illogical and irrational in this world as war? After learning that his father was an arms dealer, Haewon felt ashamed of his father's job. Embarrassed, he would answer that his father was a regular office worker whenever someone asked about his father's occupation. Haewon adjusted the violin case on his shoulder as he rang the bell of his family home.

"Oh, Haewon, it's been a long time."
"Yes, hello."
He visited his family home about once a month. His stepmother insisted on giving him his living expenses in person rather than transferring them to his bank account. Although it was ill-gotten money, receiving it from his father, who had a duty to support him, was his right as a child, but receiving the envelope from his stepmother made Haewon feel like he was begging at the doorstep.

The gate opened, and Haewon stepped inside. The garden was lush with the onset of summer. His stepmother, who had nothing much to do, took up gardening. She thoughtlessly purchased several expensive old pines and planted them in the yard. One such pine, which would have looked more impressive perched on a sheer cliff, awkwardly blocked the driveway. Haewon passed under the thick scent of pine and followed the stone wall. As he entered the modernly renovated house, the cool, chilly air made his bare arms shiver.
"It's been exactly a month. How have you been?"
"Yes, ma'am, have you been well?"

"Every day is the same, you know."
The housekeeper who opened the door greeted him. She had been looking after the house since his high school days and still called him a student, even though it had been quite some time since he graduated.
She had been in the house longer than his stepmother. A stalwart fixture, she adeptly catered to the whims of the new stepmother.

Haewon often grumbled to her, apparently because there was no one else in the household to listen to him. She carefully took the violin case hanging from his shoulder and placed it where it always rested, against the wall.
His stepmother was arranging fresh flowers on the reception table.
"If I didn’t give you money, you wouldn’t visit even once a month."

Without a warm greeting or mentioning it had been a long time, she glanced at Haewon and remarked. Her gaze quickly returned to the flowers she was cutting. His stepmother was quite skilled at flower arranging.
Haewon sat down on the sofa. The leather sofa sank under his weight. The housekeeper served him a drink. Thirsty, Haewon drank half of the iced tea in one gulp. He leaned back on the sofa, tilted his head back, and took a deep breath.