His Delicate Weapon

By Laura Schiller

Based on: Naeil's Cantabile

Copyright: Tomoko Kinomiya/KBS2 Network

Do Kang Jae doesn't really remember what he was so angry about, that day.

It must have been one of the usual things: lazy or ill-mannered students, uncooperative colleagues (Professor Ahn being top of that list), money, publicity … anything, really.

What he does remember is the weather. It was one of those humid, sticky days that made him feel as if he were being slowly smothered by a hot towel. The full-length window in the Dean's office was beaded with condensation. Even the glass-and-stainless-steel desk looked duller, reflecting their owner's face less precisely than usual. Do's shirt clung to him, his respectable black shoes made his feet itch, and his face felt as if he could fry an egg on it. He stormed around the office, scattering papers just by walking past them, shouting himself hoarse about whatever his grievance was.

Come to think of it, it might have been the broken air conditioners. Yes, that seems likely.

Meanwhile Song Mi Na just sat there in her white dress and string of pearls, listening patiently, so cool and elegant she might as well have belonged to a different species. The only human things about her were the faintest sheen of perspiration on her cheeks, and the soft wisps of hair that moved as she fluttered her white paper fan.

He watched that fan move, back and forth. It was so delicate, nothing but clean white paper folded between thin strips of wood, and yet it had to be sturdier than it looked, because he remembered Dean Song having used it over several summers now, and it was still in perfect shape. (Just like her.)

He lost the thread of his argument and stuttered to a stop.

He could have picked it back up in a second, except that she saw him. With a tired smile and the faintest upward movement of her eyes (actually rolling them would have been impolite), she folded up the fan and held it out to him.

"Please take it," she said. "It seems you need it more than I do."

"What for?" he growled, unnerved as much by her face as by the gesture.

"To cool down, Professor, before you give yourself a heart attack."

He opened his mouth, about to emphatically protest the idea of being old enough for heart attacks (which he was), when Dean Song silenced him with a single look.

There was real warmth behind her cool dark eyes, and it had nothing to do with the weather. Those eyes said, as clearly as her beautiful voice could have done: Don't be foolish. I'm only saying this because I care.

"Thank you, Madame," he said, accepting her gift with a short bow. "I'm sorry if I overreacted earlier."

"My dear sir, no need to apologize. If you did that every time you lost your temper, we'd never get anything done."

He accepted the veiled rebuke with good grace, bowed himself out of her office, and took the fan with him.

He fully intended to give it back … at first. That was before he discovered how useful a fan could be. Not just for the obvious purpose of creating a breeze on a hot day, but for hiding your face when embarrassed, radiating old-fashioned dignity at a photoshoot, pointing at notes on a whiteboard, and tapping it absently to relieve tension.

Also, whenever one of his students did or said something unworthy of their musical talent (which was, sadly, all too often) he could always use that fan to strike the nearest solid surface: a wall, a piano, a music stand, or the back of the student's head. Either way, it made a very satisfying thwack, and the student in question would inevitably shut up and listen.

He had to admit, that was probably not what Dean Song had in mind.

It did, however, cool him down.