Geniuses were always objects of longing.

Those who swept international competitions at a young age and received praise every time they stepped on stage. People looked at them and called it talent, saying it was a realm that could never be reached through effort alone.

I didn't believe those words. Perhaps it's more accurate to say I didn't want to believe them. Twelve hours a day. I pressed the keys until my fingertips went numb and repeated the same passage hundreds of times. I entered the practice room earlier than anyone else and turned off the lights later than anyone else. I lived believing that the time I built up like that would not betray me.

But the stage was cruel. Where someone spent thousands of hours to barely reach, another crossed lightly as if it were only natural. I never believed the saying that talent can be beaten by effort. Even so, the world was like that. The piano was an instrument that showed more honestly than any other that there were walls that could not be climbed no matter how much one practiced.

Even when playing the same piece, some understood it in a single go, while others had to repeat it hundreds of times.

...I was the latter. Still, I didn't let go. I repeated a life of entering the practice room two hours earlier and leaving three hours later than others for years. I might not have talent, but I had no intention of giving up. That's how I've lived.

...

But how can you.

How can you play a score you've just seen for the first time as if you've known the piece forever?