I Got an Omnipotent Brain Chapter 64

Translator: Dreamscribe

Bbabba-bam, Lappa-razzaㅡ.

At 6 a.m., the alarm rang.

As usual, Yu Seo-ha jumped up and looked for his toiletry bag out of habit.

‘Ah... it’s not school.’

March had arrived.

It was the season of school reopening, but since Seo-ha had been approved for early graduation, he no longer needed to go to school. He had only received a ssage telling him to co out in a few days for the diploma and award ceremony.

When he opened the window, the cool dawn air rushed into the room.

Seo-ha picked up his phone and checked his ssages.

-When can we et?

The ssage showed a ‘read’ mark. But there was no reply.

Sa as yesterday, and the day before.

His finger hovered over the call button.

Ttiririringㅡ.

The signal went through a few tis, then the call was cut off.

Gyeo-ul was clearly avoiding him.

'This is strange.'

She was a diligent person.

The type who would speak up clearly if she had a problem; this kind of evasion was not like Gyeo-ul at all.

Suddenly, a bad thought crossed his mind.

"Let's go check."

After transferring buses twice, he arrived at the school.

A gray hoodie and sneakers, standard camouflage in the science track, but too conspicuous in the arts track.

A few eyes followed him.

“He’s from the science track!”

“Huh? That kid, it’s him, right?”

Seo-ha didn’t slow down.

He checked that the music room was empty and went to the practice room, but another student was practicing inside.

He waited for the performance to end, then lightly knocked on the door.

“Excuse . I’m here to see Han Gyeo-ul from the second year.”

A piano student with her hair tied back turned her head.

“Gyeo-ul? She didn’t co today either. Haven’t seen her all week.”

“Are you saying she hasn’t co to school at all?”

“Yeah, isn’t it strange?”

“Is it perhaps because of school issues or sothing like that?”

At Seo-ha’s doubtful tone, she flared up.

“Don’t think weird things! We all adore Gyeo-ul so much....”

Seo-ha bowed his head and gave a thankful nod.

He sat on a bench and tried to piece things together.

Sothing had happened to Gyeo-ul.

Sothing serious enough to keep her from coming to school, and sothing she wanted to hide so badly she couldn’t even take calls.

Suddenly, a conversation he had with Gyeo-ul ca to mind.

“Hey, what if... what if I get sick during break? You won’t be around then....”

The worried expression on Gyeo-ul’s face as she looked at him.

‘What did I say back then?’

"I'll be fine. I've been doing well up until now. I have my own ways of handling things."

Gyeo-ul had nodded as if reassured.

“If you ever need , co find at ho.”

When he scrolled up, he found the address she had sent him.

[xx Street, Daesagwan-ro, Seongbuk-gu, Seoul]

A neighborhood he had never visited. But there was no ti to hesitate.

Seo-ha went to the terminal and got on a bus bound for Seoul.

[Seat 44]

He didn’t like the number.

Hurriedly, he put in his earphones and searched for music.

[Han Gyeo-ul Private Session Vol. 3]

The bus rged onto the highway and began picking up speed.

Seo-ha closed his eyes and pressed play on the CD player.

A performance of Gyeo-ul’s, just for Seo-ha.

The high-performance studio microphone had captured even the sound of her catching her breath.

Doomㅡ, doomㅡ.

As a steady rhythm created by her left hand was joined by the right, a graceful lody spread out.

After reaching a decent level at playing the piano himself, Seo-ha had finally co to understand.

Gyeo-ul was an incredible pianist.

Music rooms, studios, competitions, she played differently depending on the setting. Seo-ha thought perhaps she instinctively grasped the acoustics and found the best sound possible.

After getting off at the terminal, he transferred to the subway and then again to a bus, following the address.

Seo-ha was already quite exhausted.

The roads grew narrower. But in contrast, the walls grew higher.

Each gate had a small naplate and an intercom.

Seo-ha only stopped walking when the blue dot on the map aligned with his location.

A granite wall about twice the height of a person, with neatly trimd trees rising above it.

Seo-ha checked the address again.

No doubt about it.

At the sight of the imposing mansion that seed straight out of a movie, Seo-ha paused briefly, then firmly pressed the doorbell.

Dding-dongㅡ.

A woman’s voice ca through.

“Who is it?”

"I'm Gyeo-ul's friend, Yu Seo-ha."

A brief silence,

Then, with an electronic beep, the iron gate opened.

Creak.

As he stepped inside, a woman wearing a neat ivory-colored blouse stood there.

Eyes that resembled Gyeo-ul’s, but her expression revealed an undeniable fatigue.

“You said you’re Yu Seo-ha, right?”

As if she already knew him, she nodded and forced a smile.

“Yes, I’m sorry to co without notice. I haven’t been able to reach Gyeo-ul. Is sothing wrong, by any chance?”

She didn’t respond.

She simply gestured for Seo-ha to co inside.

A wide and splendid living room he had never seen in his life,

Several paintings that looked expensive were hanging on the walls. Even soone like Seo-ha, with no appreciation for art, could sense that whoever designed and decorated this house had an extraordinary aesthetic sense.

She sat down on the sofa and began to speak with difficulty.

“Gyeo-ul... is not feeling well right now.”

“Is she sick?”

At Seo-ha’s anxious voice, she faintly smiled and shook her head.

“It’s probably nothing serious. She just ssed up at the competition. But the shock must’ve been great, she hasn’t been able to snap out of the slump.”

“Ah....”

Seo-ha let out a sigh of relief.

“Thank you for coming, but I don’t think my daughter wants to see anyone right now. By the way, were you and Gyeo-ul always this close?”

At her question, Seo-ha paused for a mont, then took a CD out of his bag.

One, two, three.

As the CDs stacked up neatly on the table, her eyes widened. Then, as if she understood sothing, she burst out laughing.

“No wonder it felt strange when she said she was going to the studio. She usually hated recording so much....”

Sensing that she was misunderstanding sothing, Seo-ha hurried to explain.

“Ah... there’s a bit of a story between us.”

“It’s fine. Gyeo-ul is in the practice room, you can go in.”

Shaking her head slightly, she stood up.

Seo-ha hesitated, then stood and followed her down the hallway.

‘Amazing.’

One wall of the living room was entirely filled with trophies.

Dozens of plaques and photos, at least,

International competitions, youth piano festivals, various newspaper articles. In them, Gyeo-ul was smiling brightly.

“This way.”

Gyeo-ul’s mother pointed to the end of the hallway.

There was a door made of dark wood.

A small naplate hung above the door. The uneven tal letters were engraved into the wood.

[Han Gyeo-ul Practice Room]

“She was happy when she got her first practice room as a kid, so her dad made that naplate for her.”

Seo-ha paused in front of the door.

He had expected to hear piano sounds, but there was no sign of movent from inside.

“She’s been in there all day lately.”

“Is she practicing?”

"I'm not sure. It seems like she's just staring at it...."

Clickㅡ.

The door slowly opened.

***

Gyeo-ul was lying on the floor of the practice room.

Lights glimred beneath the black sheen,

In the silence that felt as if the world had stopped, she blankly stared at the piano.

“Why do you stay in there if you’re not even practicing? If it’s hard, just rest in bed.”

Gyeo-ul didn’t answer.

She would just enter the practice room, close the door, and lie on the floor.

“Mom, if I do that, I’ll grow distant from the piano.”

Even if she couldn’t play, she still wanted to be near it.

Not long ago, she had spent entire days at the piano, but now she didn’t have the confidence to press even a single key.

The performance from that day replayed in her mind.

The hot lights, the audience’s gasps, and her trembling hands. Every single mont was still endlessly repeating inside her, unresolved.

Clickㅡ.

The firmly closed door opened.

As Seo-ha stepped into the practice room, Gyeo-ul turned her head. Their eyes t.

“Kyaaahhh!”

Gyeo-ul scread and quickly turned away to hide her face.

“W-why are you here?”

“Of course I ca because I was worried. Why haven’t you been replying to my ssages?”

“S-still, you can’t just show up like this out of nowhere!”

“There isn’t much ti left.”

“....”

Gyeo-ul started to say sothing, then shut her mouth again.

“...Just wait a mont.”

As if determined not to show her face, she walked strangely while facing the wall and exited the practice room.

When she returned 30 minutes later, she looked neat and composed.

“Who are you?”

Light makeup and neatly styled hair,

A clean white dress with a beige cardigan.

“This is the real .”

With a proud expression and confident deanor, she was the Gyeo-ul Seo-ha had always known.

But when their eyes t, she quickly looked away.

“Sorry, as you know, I have a really good mory.”

Seeing that Gyeo-ul looked healthy again, Seo-ha naturally cracked a joke.

“Don’t say pointless stuff! What is it? Do you need a therapy session?”

The unexpected words stirred sothing deep inside Seo-ha, causing a dull ache in his chest.

All this ti, he had only been indebted to Gyeo-ul. He had been healed by her performances, and had even gained key mathematical insights. It was a debt that couldn’t be repaid just by teaching her a bit of math.

And yet, even in this situation, Gyeo-ul was still worrying about him.

“Tell everything. What exactly happened?”

Gyeo-ul hesitated for a mont, then with a face that looked on the verge of tears, she slowly began to speak.

“That day was just really unlucky.”

The night before the competition, she had trouble sleeping.

She must have slept in an odd position, her neck was stiff, and even her fingers wouldn’t move properly.

“That was the first ti in my life I didn’t make it past the preliminaries.”

Seo-ha suddenly had a thought.

“Maybe it was just a temporary physical issue?”

Gyeo-ul sniffled and shook her head.

“I thought the sa thing, of course.”

At the next competition, she was in perfect condition.

But the mont she confidently stepped onto the stage and pressed the first key, she knew.

Her fingertips felt stiff.

But it wasn’t just nerves.

The sensation of the keys being pressed down, the vibration of the sound resonating, none of it was transmitted to her fingertips.

‘I was fine during practice...’

The second ti she failed to pass the preliminaries, it was an even bigger shock than the first. She had no excuse.

“You rember the day you failed that first preliminary, right?”

At Seo-ha’s question, she nodded. Gyeo-ul rembered everything about that day.

“Take your ti and tell . Everything!”

Seo-ha’s eyes turned serious.

‘This is the domain of psychology.’

Dozens of books on psychology and psychiatry that he had read cover to cover.

Along with mathematics, physics, and computer science, psychology was practically Seo-ha’s fourth major.

Listening to Gyeo-ul’s story, Seo-ha was able to fairly accurately diagnose her condition.

A sensory dissociation where psychological trauma and physical sensation disconnect simultaneously.

Gyeo-ul’s brain had co to perceive the stage as “danger”.

Her detailed mory acted like a conditioned reflex, sending signals to her fingers not to move.

But it was still in the early stages.

‘What she needs is a single successful performance, and a safety mory that can override the fear.’

“Hold on....”

There might be a way.

Gyeo-ul’s performance brought Seo-ha peace. That ant their wavelengths resonated.

In neuroscience, this is referred to as “neural synchrony”.

If that was the case, then perhaps Gyeo-ul could also find stability from the sound of his heartbeat.

At the very least, it was worth a try.

Seo-ha stood up.

At his serious expression, Gyeo-ul swallowed nervously.

“Han Gyeo-ul, don’t misunderstand what I’m about to say.”

“Okay.”

Sitting on the piano bench, Gyeo-ul looked up at Seo-ha.

“Would you try placing your ear against my chest?”

Gyeo-ul's face turned bright red as she covered herself with both hands as if protecting her body.

“Are you insane?”

A look of contempt flashed in her eyes.