Chapter 451
How long had it really been?
Sitting on the living room sofa, Kang Ichae stared only at the ticking of the clock’s second hand.
A day? Three? Maybe weeks?
Or even longer?
Time definitely seemed to flow, but every clock scattered throughout the house moved at its own pace, making it impossible to tell the exact hour. Even the sunrise shifted a little each day.
So Kang Ichae began looking for a more objective way to measure time—something that wouldn’t lie.
That turned out to be the mechanical metronome sitting atop the piano in his favorite room.
He wound it once, then began playing the first movement of Rachmaninoff’s Symphony No. 2. If his memory was correct, the metronome would stop around the same time the piece ended.
“...Hmm.”
As expected, the metronome stopped just before the final notes faded.
Kang Ichae lifted his hands and slumped forward over the worn keys.
The tangled, disorderly echoes of sound drifted through the room.