𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐆𝐫𝐚𝐧𝐭𝐨𝐫 | M.YG

구

chapter nine / gu
Swallowing Stones
(009)

"I need your help," Sowon begrudgingly pleaded, bowing her head and squeezing her eyes shut; it was less humiliating to beg if she could pretend he wasn't there.

Now there's a decently good chance that I can guess what you're thinking; something along the lines of "didn't the last chapter just end with Sowon proudly refusing the help of Yoongi? What possibly could've happened between now and then for there to be such a drastic change in character?"

Am I wrong? Doubtfully not, so allow me to catch you up on the events since we last saw our angst-filled teen, Sowon.

The last bell for school had already sounded, and most students were walking to their bus stop to catch a ride home, but Sowon wasn't one of them. No, instead, she had made her way to the school gymnasium, her violin in hand, to try out for the open auditions.

As suspected, when she arrived, there was already a line filing out of the double doors of the humid auditorium. Sowon wondered how it was possible for so many students to have made it in line before her, considering the fact that she dashed out of her classroom the second her class was dismissed.

She wished she had made it there a bit sooner. She'd rather be at the front of the line so she could get the nerve wracking audition over with. Instead, she had to wait, God knows how long, in line, dwelling on all the terrible ways she could screw this up.

Finally tiring of focusing on all the nervous chatter of her fellow classmates, wiping her clammy palms on her school uniform countless times, and wishing she hadn't eaten anything for lunch because she could basically feel it crawling it's way up the back of her throat, Sowon takes her violin out of its case, deciding that she could be spending this time waiting in line a bit more usefully. At the very least, this might be able to distract her from her anxious thoughts.

Closing her eyes, she can basically picture the sheet music she's been studying tirelessly for what seemed like years. Muscle memory guided the placement of her dainty fingers along the neck of her instrument. She pressed down gently on the strings to form each note, and though she didn't cary her bow across the strings, she did mock the movement of doing so with her other hand. She quietly hummed the tune of the song she was to perform, and it wasn't long before her mind's eyes teleported her to a land of dreams.

She felt as if she was already standing on stage, the bright stage light casting a golden halo around the strands of her beautiful cascading hair. She was clothed in a brilliant, sparkling, white dress that seemed to flow down the stage endlessly. A violin dipped in the finest gold was wrapped carefully under her pale fingers. The tune that rang out from the instrument, though the same one she had been practicing, sounded different, it sounded otherworldly. Nothing could compare to that feeling of performing. Though it shook her to her very core just before walking onto the stage, it was almost like her violin gave her wings and she could fly to heaven's gates once she started to play.

"Hey, keep the line moving!" A classmate grumbled from behind her, interrupting her from her peaceful daydream. She stumbled back into her less than glamorous reality and mumbled a quiet 'sorry' before taking a few steps forward.

By the time Sowon found herself at the front of the line, it felt like if she stepped outside at this very moment, she would find that the sun was missing from the cerulean sky, taken hostage by the dark gloominess of the night. A quick glance at the analog clock hanging from a nearby wall proved her suspicions untrue and gave her body a weird feeling of displacement, a similar feeling to walking out of a theater after sitting inside a dark room for an hour or two to watch a movie, only to be greeted by the blazing light of the evening sun. The only word Sowon could find to describe the feeling was 'weird'.