Love cannot be perfect. It never was, and it never will be. For every soul it takes its own shape, and every soul gives it its own tongue — some whisper it, some carve it, some bleed it out in silence, drop by drop. Heejae loves Garam, and Garam loves Heejae. The question is not whether they love, but how their love touches and merges and how it collapses.
It is a truly high spiritual intertwining of souls, when your dialogue becomes a musical staff and the hammers fall upon the strings. It is water, it is a thunderstorm, it is the riot and blossoming of nature that wraps around you every time you picture the image of your lover.
And it is also flesh and blood. It is the slap of paper against a face, a car crash, suitcases, a warm bed and a tight embrace. In the end — sex. Is that not carnal pleasure? It is literally your most direct contact as ordinary people. The same blood runs through your veins. You crave kisses and embraces. You want to hold your beloved in bed in the morning, to cook a meal, to give a gift.
You know what it means to be small in Garam's hands. You know what it means to merge with his music, to be part of his playing. You know what his love means to you. But you cannot step one step down, you cannot dig deeper into this pond to understand what love means to Garam. It is humanity. I do not believe you. You know what it means to be a simple human being.
And yet cannot say "forgive me," you cannot say "I love you." But you can put your protege on the world stage. You can give him the most luxurious halls. You can give him a bouquet of lilies. You can consider him the most charming and desire him. But you cannot step on your own throat. This is a defense mechanism with which you have literally locked yourself up from the inside. Your teeth grind at the mere thought. I guess, because you are afraid.
Saying it aloud means admitting to yourself that you are vulnerable. That in fact you have already proven it, if you recall what you did to Compton. You are absolutely vulnerable. When a person loves, he truly becomes fragile in certain aspects. And especially he becomes, to one degree or another, dependent on the state of the other. He worries if you are ill, if you have been insulted, he will take responsibility and want to protect you. Heejae, you are afraid to show your vulnerability, because then you will have to admit that your knife has become fragile. You will have to admit the mistakes of the past in the most painful way. This wall built out of pathos and egoism is nothing more than a desire to protect yourself from new pain.
Because you are afraid that you will wound him. You see the ghosts of the past, and they remind you of your old mistakes. Of the tragedy and the loss you keep trying to fill with photographs and personal plays. You see your own flaws in the image of your private grief. And you are so afraid of feeling it again that you are going mad. You draw close to people at the distance of a hilt — of a blade entering the belly.
And still, you have to ask for forgiveness. You have to admit that you are wrong. You poisoned the sacred waters with your arrogance over them.
Remain beside Heejae — that, for him, is love. Love through endurance. Love that does not soar, but learns the ground. And yet every feat deserves its reward: words of love, tenderness, redemption. You clipped Garam's wings. And then you taught him to walk, saying that this is the one path for him.
There is also the fury you left behind. It settles in the rooms you walked out of. It waits in the chairs. It hums in the silence between your name and his.
You desecrated the flowers that surrounded you. You drained the pond. There is room left for only you alone — in that pit.
He really needs to let the knife go, lay down weapon at the feet of your beloved and beg for mercy.
Underrates comment, this was so beautiful
There were no water lilies in their play. Last time the whole concert hall was covered in flowers. And now only agony. Heejae remembers these flowers in his feelings and images when he writes a new play for Garam, but Garam himself is absolutely empty. Heejae poisoned all the water in which these flowers floated.
I wonder if the author will repeat the scene when Garam wanted to leave, but Heejae stopped him seeing the back of the ex manager.
Will it be Garam's back now? And Heejae won't stop him?
I need to put this date in the calendar as a holiday named SAGE. You blessed us thank you
204
Heejae, I hope your pond will become deeper enough to finally launch at least one Garam fish there.
People around them keep saying that Garam became colder. But it seems to me that Garam matured and found support in himself and his music. Only Heejae tells him that he gets prettier and prettier. It's not the first time. Maybe it's just his dirty talk but I guess Heejae sees that he got stronger and confident like a musician. And he really proud of him so much
I know what you mean, he's just matured and found his own footing. What he did at the rehearsals was justified, was he supposed to just accept compton and the orchestra's treatment? Everyone always seem misjudge him just because he's with Heejae. He's still his own person :'(
Hatred is seductive. It wraps itself in the guise of strength, offering a false sense of security to those who feel powerless. In general, hatred is a defensive reaction of the psyche—a brittle armor donned to protect a wound too tender to touch. Compton’s hatred shields something far more fragile: pure affection, love, and the desperate desire to be significant. That colossal core, overgrown with a shell of rage and contempt, becomes both his engine and his poison. It fuels his every move forward, yet it slowly poisons him to the very end.
Compton has built an empire on this hatred. All the praise from others, no matter how lavish, cannot compare to the praise of that one person who belongs to that primal core. Every accolade from the outside feels wrong, not quite right, because it misses the mark of the only approval that ever mattered.
Compton wanted to leave his teacher, but deep down, he longed for his return. In chasing escape, he became a mirror image of the man he resents. Your sincere desire, once upon a time, was to become worthy of him.
Now, Compton sees Garam as an extension of the teacher—the closest person to him, the living echo of that unresolved relationship. He wants from Garam exactly what he wanted from his teacher: recognition, understanding, validation. He surrounds himself with the adoration of orchestra members and basks in superficial devotion, but none of it satisfies the hunger at his core. Garam is not merely a comrade; he has become a glimmer of light in the black hole in Compton’s chest. Compton craves Garam’s acknowledgment as the one person who can truly comprehend his predicament. You grab him because Garam’s sound reminded you that your hatred is nothing more than a facade, and the sacred image of the teacher and his first protege will forever remain in your memories full of flowers. You don’t want to face the truth. You’ve buried it so deeply that you can’t admit it to yourself.
Garam is the priest you can confess to. He is the shepherd who drives the hapless sheep toward enlightenment, toward the music of the divine. He is the judge who stands ready to forgive you and take you back—even for the crime of betraying music itself.
Compton, you are a sheep in wolf’s clothing. Beneath the snarl and the commanding presence is a timid child abandoned by his parent. You are a young dreamer who still wants a pat on the head from his mentor. You want to become worthy. Your hatred is all-consuming, yes, but it is also self-consuming. It burns bright and hot, yet leaves only ashes in its wake.
So, did love win? Love did not triumph in grand gestures or reconciliations. But it survived—hidden, buried, warped—inside the very hatred that sought to annihilate it. Love is the reason Compton still cares about recognition. Love is why Garam’s opinion cuts so important. Love is the ghost that haunts every angry note his orchestra plays. Hatred may have built the fortress, but love is the prisoner inside—and that prisoner has never stopped hoping. And at least, love is the music. I will never stop reminding you of the teacher's words to Heejae: only a heart full of love can create good music
I want to finish with one phrase, because I think she is very suitable: «If you didn’t have a bike as a child, and then you grew up and bought one yourself, you still didn’t have a bike as a child».
No achievement, no revenge, no orchestra, no applause can rewrite the past. Compton can conquer the world, but he cannot conquer the absence of what he never received. He can achive his acknowledge, but the child inside him will always remember the cold heart.
And that child—not the shepherd, not the conductor, not the warrior—is the one who still waits for a nod, a word, a hand on the shoulder. Until he learns to give that to himself, hatred will remain his professor, and love will remain his unspoken prayer. He needs peace. He needs his field of flowers.
my bloody magnum opus
"He surrounds himself with the adoration of orchestra members and basks in superficial devotion, but none of it satisfies the hunger at his core." definitely agree!! i also agree that inside compton is probably timid and just wants to be at peace. if he can sublimate all these feelings and reach a new ground he'll end up a much nicer person. however, as you said hatred is seductive and it can be very hard to release, especially when it's what one has built their identity and sense of self on.
i slightly disagree on what he needs ultimately, but it's a small thing :) you said that until he learns to give himself the acknowledgment he's been waiting for he'll remain stuck in hatred. but if it's true that buying yourself a bike doesn't mean you were given one as a child, giving himself the approval he's been craving also won't be enough to completely resolve the hole inside him. what will do so if he can accept the truth that he wasn't as special as he wanted to be to the professor, that he can forgive himself (and maybe the professor too) for not living up to his expectations. as buddhism teaches: expectations are the root of suffering. only by letting go of our preconceived notions of ourselves and others can we release ourselves from the pain of life. <3
Yes, of course, I could have expressed myself confusingly. I'm still trying to collect all the thoughts in my head even after a huge shitpost hahah
Damn. No words. Just taking it in.
Outstanding analysis! Especially “hatred is seductive!” Omg! I will now carry this forever! I think a lot like this in regard to violence but I digress, that is a completely different conversation!:)
Much like you stated, I hope that Compton allows himself to /feel/, to let his “field of flowers” bloom instead of setting them on fire. At the end of the day, this is what he is most afraid of and what most needs to happen before he is able to come to acceptance and thus be finally free.
Although, truthfully, my opinion is that none of them (the students before Garam) want to be fully free of Heejae. I think Crueger is the closest to fully being free, as in accepting what Heejae did and moving forward with it rather than wallowing in it. But I think they’re all afraid of standing fully on their own and no longer being able to fall back on the comfortable excuse that is being Heejae’s student. Because then there is no excuse for the pain they feel, the emotions they feel about music and about Heejae, and also the way they treat others.
Compton especially would have to come to terms with his wickedness and his manipulations. He would have to look at music head on with his small, tender tendril of a heart. He would still be a sword, but one that was once broken and forged once again. These swords tend to be stronger because they must go through the heat of being made again, but we can only hope that Compton understands this rather than turns away from it. Otherwise, he will never be able to even approach the realm of acceptance from Heejae. I think they all believe they love him too much in this sad, twisted way, yet the reality is they don’t. If they did, they would know that moving forward with what he gave them and turning it into their own vision would be the highest form of love for him. But they prefer to dwell in the shadows of the tempest of their pain.
The past cannot be rewritten, and I do not absolve Heejae of anything, but at some point there will be a crossroad in the path. It can either take you backward into a loop of the same journey, or you can finally turn the corner to something different, something new. We can only hope what Garam has shown Compton in this concerto, what Compton has finally opened his eyes to, will nudge him at least a step towards realization of what he can be, and how Heejae can be carried without the anvil of anguish. The pain will always be there, but maybe it will finally be free to tangle with the love as well. Much like Clarin said, “a Rachmaninoff where intensity and delicacy coexisted perfectly.”
"If you didn’t have a bike as a child, and then you grew up and bought one yourself, you still didn’t have a bike as a child" is such a fitting way to describe compton. the wounds and scars from when we were young don't just go away. and that's why i can never dislike him. he's just so human. thank you for your analysis!
I do not trust the author, and I do not even trust myself haha Everything about this feels so deceptive. He is trying to numb his emotional pain with physical intimacy once again, just as he has done in the past. And I understand why but. There is something strangely comforting about it, a sense of relief that comes with finally having someone to lean on. And yet, somehow, that relief is tinged with bitterness. I want to believe, but I am so afraid to.