"Daepyonim, everything is running smoothly and we are actually five minutes ahead of schedule. The K-Pop dance performance will end in one minute, and we will have the choir take the stage after that."
"That's wonderful," Se-ri turned to regard her insurance agent-turned-events manager, Park Su Chan, with an appreciative smile. "How are the preparations for the finale?"
"All set." The older man dutifully replied.
"Great work there. Let's do our best to make Seri's Wish's first ever charity concert a success." She nodded in acknowledgment. Concealed by the shadows of the performance hall, she observed the audience, appreciating how smiles were worn on most faces.
Seri's Wish, a non-profit charitable organization founded two years ago by the heiress herself, works closely with music, dance, speech and drama schools in the country with the aim of providing greater opportunities for young North Korean defectors to discover their talents and forge careers in performing arts.
Inspired by Jeong Hyeok, and the world he had found and crafted for himself in music, Se-ri hoped she could give North Korean youths and children, who were struggling to find their place in the competitive and unforgiving South, a chance at a better life.
Some of these North Korean children live at shelters. The luckier ones have their parents with them, but nonetheless encounter difficulties in trying to find their place in the South Korean society.
Se-ri's wish was to make each child feel wanted, safe and loved, through the power of performing arts.
Tonight, gathered at the Music Auditorium at Seoul Arts Center, were esteemed guests from various charitable organizations, performing arts groups, schools and sponsors, including Queen's Group representatives— her parents, her eldest brother Se-joon and his family.
Thunderous applause erupted in the auditorium as the hip hop dance performance came to an end.
"It's time, Mr Park." Se-ri regarded Su Chan with a level gaze.
A respectful bow was the response she got, before the events manager briskly walked in the direction of the audience.
———————————————————
"Daddy, they are singing the Frozen song!" Jin-ah exclaimed in a hushed whisper. Her wide eyes sparkled with excitement as the choir, made up of North Korean children and volunteers, including a certain Ri Jeong Hwan and his close friend Hyun Ae-rin, started singing.
"Let's cheer loudly for Oppa at the end of the performance, okay?" Jeong Hyeok whispered back, to which Jin-ah enthusiastically nodded.
Jin-ah settled into contented silence, and the pianist allowed his eyes to rest on the stage, and his thoughts to drift from reality.
The stage.
What used to appear as a battlefield, a frontier that he wished to conquer in the pursuit of his craft, was now a platform of sadness where the dreams he wanted to touch yet couldn't reach came out to play.
He had always been an introvert. The performing stage was the place that pumped adrenaline into his soul, where his determination and will for adventure inevitably take over from his shy sense of vulnerability.
There was something so deeply appealing about the grand piano. He had always found similarities there with himself— massive, dignified and yet subdued in sleek black, until the pianist lifted the fall and rows of pristine irony, gleaming in the shimmering stage lights came into sight.
And the sounds they created— the magnificent, breathtaking sounds drawn from bits and pieces of his heart and soul flying over these keys, conjures magic in the vast space of the performance hall.
It was just like himself; once you get past the seemingly impenetrable military captain facade, what lies beneath is merely an introverted soul that found its voice on the stage through music.
But that had all ended eight years ago, when he made the firm decision to leave the limelight as a concert pianist and enter music education at the university after his defection.
Since then, the stage had existed as nothing more than a fragment of his deepest memories.
Just then, the ex-military captain noticed someone approaching them from the corner of his eye, before putting a polite smile on in the next instant as he realized who it was.
"Mr Ri. May I speak with you for a moment?"
The urgency on Park Su Chan's features got Jeong Hyeok's full attention. "Of course, what is it? Is my wife asking for me?"
"You see, we ran into a small hiccup and would need your help. Can you come to the back with me?"
Nodding, Jeong Hyeok turned to Se-joon, who was sitting by his side. "Could you please watch Jin-ah for me? They need my help at the back."
"Of course, go for it." His brother-in-law readily agreed, shifting to make room such that Jin-ah sat beside her cousin Ji-young, between himself and his wife Hye-ji.
Striding briskly in the backstage direction, Jeong Hyeok listened intently as the events manager vaguely spoke about the issue at hand.
"You see, this charity event's finale will be the piano medley for Christmas songs, but the pianist has a stomachache. We are desperate, there's no one else who can help and—"
Hesitantly, the pianist started, "So you're hoping for me to..."
"Astute as always." Came a smooth, feminine voice, as the heiress came into sight. Her eyes softened when they met Jeong Hyeok's, adding, "Will you help us out on this?"
Meeting Se-ri's eyes, Su Chan smiled conspiratorially and took his leave.
As the event manager's footsteps gradually faded into the voices of the choir coming from the stage, Jeong Hyeok softly replied, "You know I don't do this anymore..."
"There's no one else who can help me. We have five more minutes left for the choir performance." Se-ri glanced at her watch, before pointing at bag containing what appeared to be a red and white outfit. "Besides, I am not asking you to perform as the pianist Ri Jeong Hyeok. I am only asking for Santa Claus to perform."
He checked the tag on the Santa suit.
XL.
The outfit was in his size. It couldn't have been meant for one of the North Korean youths then.
"You planned for this from the start." His tone was a blend of gratitude and disbelief, and his face wore a faint knit between his brows, with softened eyes and a slight upturn at the edges of his lips. "Why...?"
"Yes, I did." The heiress nodded playfully, unable to keep the smile off her face.
"You didn't buy Seoul Arts Center for real, did you?"
So he remembered. That drew chuckles from the heiress— many, many years ago, over soju in the comfort of her living room, she had once said she would buy Seoul Arts Center and organize a piano concert for him.
Shaking her head, Se-ri added with a shrug, "No. Not yet, at least."
Returning her smile with one that was laced with uneasiness, the former North Korean military captain asked, "...is it really okay?"
Eight years have gone by since Jeong Hyeok made the painful decision to bid farewell to his beloved stage, following his parents' request for him to keep a low profile.
Truth be told, knowing that the two elders were safe and sound in Namibia had put a lot of Jeong Hyeok's worries to rest.
Performing at a private event probably wouldn't be very much of a big issue, but to the pianist, staying off the stage wasn't merely an obligation to his parents.
It was more of atonement; punishment which he had meted out to himself for defecting.
It didn't seem fair that his loved ones were the only ones who suffered loss with his selfishness.
"What is a Christmas celebration for children without Santa Claus? I need you to do this neither for me, nor for you, but for the children." Se-ri always knew the right way to push him in the right direction.
"I...I haven't done this in so long."
"This is my Christmas gift to you." She gently urged at the sight of his eroding hesitance, pressing the paper bag containing the Santa outfit and the music sheets into his hands. "No matter what, I have absolute faith in you."
With that, Se-ri tiptoed and cupped Jeong Hyeok's cheeks with her hands, holding him steady as she kissed him on the lips.
"Now put that beard on, go out there and work your magic, my love."
A while later, Se-joon was surprised to see his sister return to the seat that her husband had vacated.
"Why are you here? Jeong Hyeok went to the back—"
"I know."
"Where is he?" Her brother curiously asked, only to be shushed by his typically bossy sister.
The stage curtains slowly parted to reveal a familiar figure in a Santa Claus outfit seated at the grand piano in the middle of the stage.
"Ohh—OH! That's, that's—" Hye-ji, ever the drama queen, half stood up from her seat, pointing at the stage when her mother-in-law hastily pulled her back into a sitting position.
As he adjusted his position on the piano bench, Jeong Hyeok cast a glance at the audience. Everything was shrouded in shadows, straddling the borders where light met dark, but one beautiful face stood out so clearly.
Honestly, there could be an audience of a million strong, but he would always find her in the sea of faces.
Regardless of the glare of the lights or the expanse of the stage, he always felt like he was there in her arms, right there, feeling her passion and encouragement. That's what love can do, it brought out the best in him and shielded him from the uncertainty that reality cast his way.
The audience was a blurry sea of smiles, and a chorus of quiet gentle hearts awaiting his beginning.
The magical connection between Jeong Hyeok's fingers and the piano keys was established in the next instant, with 'I'll be home for Christmas' being the first of the medley.
Sitting in the audience with Jin-ah now in her lap, Se-ri stared at Jeong Hyeok in awe, wondering yet again how one could achieve this level of talent.
His fingers were moving across the piano keys with feeling and grace, pouring forth an outburst of emotions through his music, as it soothed and excited the crowd that watched him in amazement.
'I'll be home for Christmas, if only in my dreams.'
It was Christmas, but there was an inherent sadness to the holiday that came from the expectations that people had attached to it. It was a time to celebrate love and kinship, but what about those who could never find their way home?
No one would know the heartache that this Santa Claus housed in his chest.
This man truly belonged to the stage, but sadly, it was love that took him away from it.
It was truly breathtaking, in a humbling and heartbreaking way.
No matter how many times she'd watch him perform, the heiress was convinced, she would always be mesmerized by Ri Jeong Hyeok.
Like many years ago, when she had first watched him perform Rachmaninoff's Piano Concerto No.2 live at Lucerne's Culture and Congress Center, all she saw was a bared soul on the stage.
One that she will protect and watch over for eternity, as far as it would go.
Like Santa Claus, Jeong Hyeok was always giving, and was the one who hardly received.
She might not have done a lot, but tonight, Se-ri was certain she had given Santa Jeong Hyeok an unforgettable gift.
"Mommy, the back of my neck is wet!" Jin-ah's little voice cut through the heiress' raging emotions, as the latter hurriedly sniffled and wiped at her little girl's nape with the back of her hand, mumbling apologies.
The next second, a neatly folded handkerchief was extended in her direction, and she took it gratefully from Se-joon, dabbing at the warm tears that mirrored the moisture in Santa Claus' eyes.
"When it seems the magic slipped away, we find it all again on Christmas Day."