The Weight of First Place part 2

I couldn't hear anyone anymore.

Not my competitors.

Not the audience.

Not even the thoughts from last night.

There was only music.

Today, I wouldn't step onto that stage to avoid losing...

I would step onto it to remember who I truly was.

The announcer's voice echoed through the speakers.

"Our next contestant... Umut."

The hall filled with applause.

I stood up.

I slowly walked down the short corridor leading to the stage.

With every step, fragments of last night drifted through the corner of my mind.

Seventh place...

The hotel room...

The things I said to Ayame...

My mother...

Each memory lingered for only a moment.

Then...

They disappeared.

It was as if my mind had silenced every voice on its own.

There was nothing left to think about.

At the end of the corridor, the stage lights came into view.

I took a deep breath.

Then stepped onto the stage.

The hall was much quieter than it had been during the chamber music competition.

This time, there would be only one performer on stage.

Me.

I bowed to the audience.

Then I gave a respectful bow to the judges.

Silence fell over the hall once again.

The announcer spoke.

"Our contestant will perform Eugène Ysaÿe's Sonata for Solo Violin No. 3, 'Ballade'."

A faint murmur spread through the audience.

Several judges glanced down at their score sheets once more.

One of them adjusted his glasses.

Whispers rose from the back rows.

"Ballade..."

"That's a bold choice."

"If he can pull it off..."

"...he'll score very highly."

I didn't hear any of it.

I placed the violin on my shoulder.

Rested my chin on the chinrest.

Closed my eyes for a few seconds.

I inhaled.

Exhaled.

Then breathed in once more.

My bow remained suspended above the string.

The silence in the hall was so complete that even the distant hum of the air conditioner could be heard.

Finally, I opened my eyes.

The hundreds of faces before me blurred into the background.

There was only my violin.

I lowered the bow onto the string.

The first note slowly spread throughout the hall.

Ysaÿe's Ballade was not a piece that tolerated haste.

Its opening phrases felt like a dark monologue, drawing every listener into its depths.

Each note led naturally to the next, as if the melody were thinking rather than speaking.

My left hand shifted almost imperceptibly along the fingerboard while my right hand controlled every gram of weight in the bow.

I never allowed the resonance of one note to disappear completely before giving life to the next.

The entire hall seemed to hold its breath.

By the end of the first minute, no one was watching a competition anymore.

They were simply listening.

The music gradually began to expand.

The calm, restrained phrases gave way to sudden bursts of intensity.

Double stops...

Wide leaps...

Rapid shifts from the highest string to the lowest in an instant...

The bow moved almost without pause.

The slightest change in the angle of my wrist transformed the color of the sound.

The fingers of my left hand chased one another across the fingerboard, at times singing on a single string, at others flowing into chords that spread across all four strings in a single breath.

With every bow change, I reversed direction using the shortest possible motion, fighting to preserve complete control even through the most demanding passages.

Even the faintest trace of shifting noise was suppressed by movements so subtle they were nearly invisible.

This piece demanded far more than speed.

Every phrase possessed its own character.

One moment, it burned with anger.

The next, it questioned.

Then it dissolved into a loneliness so quiet it was almost a whisper.

It was as if the violin itself was speaking...

And no one was answering.

I was no longer the one playing.

I was simply following wherever the music chose to lead me.

Ysaÿe's Ballade was gradually becoming more ferocious.

The slow, questioning melody of the opening had given way to an unstoppable flow.

My bow moved across the strings so quickly that it was almost impossible to follow, every shift flowing seamlessly into the next.

The silence in the hall grew even deeper.

No one moved.

Even the audience in the very back rows couldn't take their eyes off the stage.

The judges were beginning to struggle to take notes.

One of them still held his pen, but he hadn't written anything for quite some time.

Another rested his elbows on the table, watching nothing but me.

Every phrase Ysaÿe had written created the illusion that the sound was coming not from a single violin, but from several instruments playing at once.

At one moment, a dark, resonant voice emerged from the lower strings.

The next, a brilliant melody rose from the upper strings, almost resembling the human voice.

Double stops and chords intertwined with one another, pushing the violin far beyond what seemed possible for a single instrument.

For a brief moment, my eyes drifted toward the audience.

Ayaka was holding her breath.

Nozomi's eyes never left me for even a second.

Then...

My gaze found Ayame.

Her head was slightly lowered.

The traces of last night's pain had not yet disappeared from her face.

And yet...

She was looking at me.

There was no anger.

No resentment.

She was simply listening.

The moment our eyes met...

The words I had spoken the night before surfaced from the depths of my mind.

"The reason for that is you."

For an instant, it felt as though my bow would stop.

But only for an instant.

My fingers continued along the path they had memorized.

The music never broke.

Instead...

It carried those words away with it.

As Ballade approached its final section, the tempo rose higher and higher.

My bow seemed to dance across the strings.

Every phrase was sharper, bolder, and more relentless than the one before.

It was as if the violin had become something more than an instrument.

Everything that had been building inside me since last night—

My anger.

My regret.

My disappointment.

All of it was transformed into sound.

I was no longer thinking about the notes.

I wasn't thinking about my fingers.

The judges...

The rankings...

None of it mattered anymore.

There was only the music before me.

And I was determined to carry its story all the way to the very last note.

As the piece entered its final section, the weight in my bow arm grew heavier.

Every phrase was more demanding than the last.

I couldn't afford to lose my concentration for even a single moment.

The smallest mistake...

Could destroy everything I had built over the past several minutes.

The fingers of my left hand moved across the fingerboard at a speed that was almost impossible to see.

The shifts no longer required conscious thought.

After thousands of hours of practice over the years, my body had learned to make the decisions on its own.

First position...

Fifth...

Seventh...

Back down...

Then back up again...

Every shift felt as natural as taking a breath.

My bow changed direction without ever stopping.

At one moment, it pressed firmly into the string.

The next, it became nothing more than a thin line gliding effortlessly across its surface.

Even the slightest movement of my wrist changed the color of the sound.

My fingertips were beginning to ache.

But I couldn't feel the pain.

I could only see.

Everything was exactly where it was supposed to be.

The silence in the hall grew heavier with every passing second.

The audience seemed to have forgotten how to breathe.

One of the judges had unconsciously leaned forward.

Another had closed his notebook, clasping his hands together as he watched the stage in complete silence.

No one was thinking about scores anymore.

Because this moment was far too intense to be measured with numbers.

As the final pages of Ysaÿe's Ballade approached, the full weight of the piece settled onto the violin.

Chords...

Double stops...

Sudden leaps...

One after another without a moment's rest.

The violin was no longer simply singing a melody.

It was crying out.

When I raised my bow for the final time, my entire body moved as one.

My shoulder...

My arm...

My wrist...

My fingers...

It all felt like a single living organism.

I entered the final phrase.

There was no turning back now.

The last few measures echoed throughout the hall.

Time itself seemed to slow.

I poured every ounce of strength I had into the final chord.

The bow slowly lifted away from the string.

The final note lingered beneath the high ceiling of the hall.

One second...

Two seconds...

Three seconds...

No one moved.

There was no applause.

No whispers.

Only the lingering resonance of the final note filling the silence.

And then...

One person stood up.

The person who stood up was the head judge.

No one understood what was happening.

For several seconds, he was the only person standing.

He didn't take his eyes off the stage.

Then...

He slowly began to clap.

One...

Two...

Three claps...

They echoed through the hall.

The other judges looked at one another.

Then they stood up as well.

This time, the applause grew louder.

The audience in the front row began to stand.

Then the second row.

Then the third.

Within a few seconds, the entire hall was on its feet.

The applause echoed beneath the high ceiling for what felt like minutes.

Some people whistled, while others looked at each other in amazement.

A voice came from the back rows.

"That was incredible..."

"Which school was he from?"

"To play Ysaÿe's Ballade at that level at his age..."

"Can you believe it?"

The judges began whispering among themselves.

"Technically, it was almost flawless."

"His position shifts were extraordinary."

"His bow control..."

"Especially during the final section..."

"He maintained his tone even at that tempo."

I couldn't hear any of it.

All I could hear was the applause.

I slowly bowed.

Once...

Then once more.

When I raised my head, my eyes instinctively moved toward the audience.

Ayaka was standing.

There was a huge smile on her face, mixed with disbelief.

Nozomi was applauding without stopping.

Then...

I saw Ayame.

She was standing too.

She was clapping slowly, but without breaking her rhythm.

Our eyes met.

The things I had said to her the night before...

They flashed through my mind for a moment.

But this time...

She didn't look away.

There was no resentment on her face.

No anger.

Only a quiet smile...

And in her eyes...

For the first time, I saw that trust again.

Something inside me loosened.

Maybe...

Maybe I had needed to lose for the first time.

As the applause gradually began to fade, I left the stage.

The moment I stepped into the corridor, the sound of the hall became somewhat distant.

But I could still hear the echoes of the applause.

I stood there for a moment.

I tried to think about what I had just done on stage.

But there was only one thing in my mind.

The final note.

The moment my bow left the string...

The silence that followed...

Then the applause.

I took a deep breath.

After carefully putting my violin away, I headed toward the waiting area backstage.

A few competitors were looking at me from the corridor.

Some of them seemed as if they wanted to come over and talk to me, but eventually decided against it.

I didn't speak to anyone either.

Right now, I just wanted to be alone for a while.

I sat down on one of the chairs in the waiting area.

I placed my hands on my knees.

For the first time, I began replaying the entire performance in my mind from beginning to end.

The opening...

The first transitions...

The faster sections...

The final section...

The final chord.

I tried to remember whether I had made any mistakes.

A few small things came to mind.

One of the position shifts had been slightly harsher than I intended.

In another passage, I hadn't produced the clean tone I wanted.

But overall...

I was satisfied with my performance.

Even that thought felt strange to me.

Last night, thinking about seventh place had made me feel completely broken.

But now...

Whatever the result was going to be...

I knew that I had given everything I could on that stage.

Across the corridor, the judges had begun their own evaluations.

The doors were closed.

I couldn't hear what they were saying.

And I didn't want to know.

Because until the results were announced, nothing was certain.

I could come first.

Second...

Third...

Or even receive a result I hadn't expected.

Even thinking about it brought back the fear from last night.

But this time, I didn't let that thought crush me.

I stood up from the chair.

I walked toward the window.

The sun had risen higher into the sky.

People were still talking outside the competition venue, and some competitors were taking pictures with their families.

I simply watched the scene in silence.

I didn't know what the result would be.

And for the first time...

Waiting for it felt harder than the result itself.

Hours later, all the competitors would be called back into the main hall.

The rankings would be announced.

But until then...

I didn't know whether I had come first.

None of us did.

Hours later, we were asked to return to the conference hall.

After the announcement came over the speakers, the competitors slowly began making their way inside.

I took my seat.

The hall looked completely different from how it had that morning.

The excitement from earlier had been replaced by exhaustion and anticipation.

Some competitors were whispering among themselves, while others were looking at their phones.

Everyone was waiting for the same thing.

The results.

Ayaka and Nozomi came over to me a little while later.

"Umut."

I looked up.

"What?"

"Do you know the results?"

"No."

They looked at each other.

"Neither do we."

"The judges must still be evaluating."

I nodded.

"We'll find out soon."

My voice was calm when I said it.

But I didn't feel nearly as calm inside.

My heart was beating a little faster than usual.

I looked around the hall.

The team that had performed Ravel's Tzigane was sitting a few rows ahead of us.

The violinist was quietly looking ahead, while the pianist occasionally spoke to him.

Seeing them reminded me of their performance that morning.

I remembered how strong they had been.

At the time, I had wondered just how difficult it would be to compete against someone like them.

Now, I tried not to compare my performance with theirs.

There was no point.

After a while, the lights in the hall dimmed slightly.

The announcer stepped onto the stage.

He opened the folder in his hands.

Within a few seconds, all the conversations in the hall disappeared.

"Dear competitors, teachers, and guests..."

His voice echoed throughout the hall.

"All performances in today's competition have been completed, and the judges have finished their evaluations."

My heart began beating a little faster.

The announcer paused briefly.

"First of all, I would like to congratulate all of our competitors for the effort and performances they have shown today."

The hall filled with applause.

I clapped a few times as well.

Then silence returned.

"We will now begin announcing the rankings."

The atmosphere in the hall changed instantly.

Everyone turned their attention toward the stage.

"First..."

The announcer looked down at the paper in his hands.

"Third place in the Solo Violin category..."

He paused briefly.

Then announced a name.

The hall erupted in applause.

The third-place competitor stood up and walked toward the stage.

I remained quietly in my seat.

Nothing was certain yet.

The announcer moved on to second place.

"Second place in the Solo Violin category..."

Another name.

More applause.

For a moment, I held my breath.

Only one person remained.

First place.

I clasped my hands together on my knees.

The hours I had spent in the hotel room the previous night briefly flashed through my mind.

Seventh.

That word was still there.

But this time, it didn't feel as heavy as it had before.

The announcer stood silently at the microphone for a few seconds.

Then he looked toward the head judge.

The head judge gave him a small nod.

The announcer turned back toward the audience.

"And now..."

The hall was completely silent.

"The first-place winner of the Solo Violin category is..."

I could feel my heartbeat.

One second.

Two seconds.

Then I heard my name.

"Umut."

For a moment, I couldn't move.

It was as if I hadn't actually heard my own name.

"Umut!"

Ayaka's voice came from beside me.

Nozomi was smiling too.

"You won!"

I slowly stood up.

The hall erupted into applause.

This time, my hands weren't shaking as I stood.

I began walking toward the stage.

With every step, the sound of the applause seemed to grow louder.

When I reached the stage, the head judge walked toward me.

He shook my hand.

"Congratulations."

"Thank you."

He handed me my award.

I looked at it for a moment.

Then I turned toward the audience.

Hundreds of people were standing.

Applauding.

I simply took a deep breath.

I had won.

All the questions I had asked myself the night before seemed to have an answer standing right in front of me.

I could still do it.

I stepped down from the stage with the award still in my hands.

The applause was still going on.

Ayaka and Nozomi immediately came over to me.

"I can't believe it!"

Ayaka had a huge smile on her face.

"You came in first!"

Nozomi laughed and lightly tapped me on the shoulder.

"I told you. After that performance, I couldn't imagine any other result."

I smiled involuntarily.

"Thank you."

A few more competitors came over.

Some congratulated me.

Others shook my hand.

After a while, the violinist from the team that had performed Ravel's Tzigane approached me.

We looked at each other for a few seconds.

Then he held out his hand.

"Congratulations."

I shook his hand.

"Thank you."

"You really deserved it."

After saying that, he gave me a slight nod and walked away.

I watched him for a few seconds.

Competing against a strong rival...

And beating him...

For some reason, I liked the feeling.

Just as I was about to leave the hall, I heard a voice behind me.

"Umut."

I turned around.

The head judge was walking toward me.

"Do you have a minute?"

"Of course."

I walked over to him.

The other judges were waiting a little farther away.

The head judge looked at me carefully.

"I've seen you perform before."

I was surprised.

"You have?"

"Yes."

A small smile appeared on his face.

"I first saw you years ago at one of the junior competitions."

I thought for a moment, trying to remember.

"How many years ago was that?"

"Quite a long time ago."

He nodded slightly.

"You caught my attention even back then. There is a huge difference between the person I saw today and the one I saw then."

I listened silently.

"Your technique has improved."

"Your bow control is much stronger."

"But those aren't the biggest changes."

I raised my eyebrows slightly.

"Then what is?"

"You know what you're doing on stage now."

That sentence stayed in my mind for several seconds.

The head judge continued.

"During today's performance, you weren't trying to impress the judges."

"You were simply controlling the music."

"Being able to do that at your age isn't easy."

I lowered my head slightly.

"Thank you."

"That first-place finish wasn't a coincidence."

He lightly placed a hand on my shoulder.

"Keep practicing."

"Because I want to see you perform again in the future."

"I'll do my best."

The head judge smiled.

"Good."

Then he returned to the other judges.

I looked across the hall.

My eyes found Ayame among the crowd.

She was standing quietly off to one side.

Our eyes met.

For several seconds, neither of us said anything.

The things I had said to her the night before came back to me.

Her expression didn't change.

She didn't smile...

Nor did she look away.

I didn't say anything either.

Not yet.

I headed toward the exit.

Ayaka and Nozomi followed behind me.

When we returned to the hotel, the exhaustion of the day finally caught up with me.

I opened the door to my room.

I walked inside.

I placed the award on the table.

For a while, I simply stared at it.

The golden plaque reflected faintly in the dim light of the room.

Last night, I had sat in this exact same room feeling like I had failed for the first time in my life.

Seventh.

I had repeated that word in my mind for hours.

I had felt inadequate...

I had thought that I had disappointed my mother...

And I had even taken my anger out on Ayame.

And now...

The first-place award was sitting in the same room.

I slowly sat down on the edge of the bed.

I looked at the award again.

"First place..."

The word escaped my lips quietly.

Last night, even imagining this had seemed impossible.

But now it was real.

I had come first.

And yet...

There wasn't nearly as much happiness inside me as I had expected.

The moment I realized it, I frowned.

Why?

I had come first.

I had achieved exactly what I wanted.

So why was there still this emptiness inside me?

I sat there for a long time without taking my eyes off the award.

Then the thought from last night returned to my mind.

What if I come seventh again?

This time, I couldn't silence the thought immediately.

First place...

It hadn't erased my fear of failure.

It had only silenced it for a while.

And for the first time, I realized that.

I woke up early the next morning.

The room was still quiet.

The daylight coming through the curtains fell across the award on the table.

I stared at it for a few seconds.

Yesterday's victory still felt unreal.

I slowly got out of bed.

I picked up the award.

I examined it for a while.

First place.

When I had heard those words the night before, I had thought something inside me would change.

But it hadn't.

I was still thinking about the same question.

What if I come seventh again?

I put the award back on the table.

I got dressed and went down to breakfast.

When I entered the dining hall, Ayaka and Nozomi were already sitting at the table.

Ayaka raised her hand when she saw me.

"Over here!"

I walked over and sat down.

"Did you sleep well?"

"Yeah."

It wasn't a lie.

But I couldn't exactly say that I felt rested.

Nozomi looked at the plate in front of me.

"I expected you to look a little happier today, considering you came in first."

I smiled.

"I am happy."

Ayaka raised an eyebrow.

"Really?"

"Yeah."

There was a brief silence.

Then Nozomi looked around.

"Where's Ayame?"

Ayaka looked around too.

"She hasn't come yet."

I didn't say anything.

I moved my fork around the edge of my plate.

Nozomi looked at me.

"Umut..."

"What?"

"Are you two going to talk about what happened last night?"

I looked up.

I didn't answer for a moment.

"We need to."

Ayaka quietly nodded.

We didn't talk about anything else during breakfast.

After a while, I got up from the table.

When I stepped into the corridor, I saw Ayame standing by the window.

She was alone.

When she noticed me, she turned toward me.

Neither of us spoke for a few seconds.

Eventually, I walked over to her.

"Can we talk?"

Ayame gave a slight nod.

We moved to a quieter part of the corridor.

I looked down at the floor for a moment.

I remembered the things I had said to her the night before.

"I'm sorry."

There was no change in Ayame's expression.

"I really mean it."

Silence.

"I was really angry after the competition."

"And I said most of those things without thinking."

Ayame didn't take her eyes off me.

"Most of them?"

I fell silent.

She was right.

I lowered my head.

"All of them."

Ayame took a deep breath.

"Umut..."

Her voice was calm.

"You have every right to be angry with me."

"You can blame me for the mistake I made."

"But if you really believe everything you said that night..."

She paused briefly.

"...then there's no point in apologizing."

I looked up.

"I don't believe it."

"Then why did you say it?"

This time, I couldn't answer.

Because I knew the real answer.

I had been afraid.

Afraid of coming seventh...

Afraid of not being good enough...

Afraid that the perfect image I had built of myself throughout my life would suddenly fall apart.

But I didn't say any of that.

I only said:

"Because I was angry at myself."

Ayame looked at me for a few seconds.

Then she looked away.

"I made a mistake too."

she said.

"But I wasn't responsible for your entire failure."

"I know that now."

Ayame looked back at me.

"I hope you really do."

Then she walked past me.

This time, I didn't stop her.

As I stood alone in the corridor, the head judge's words came back to me.

"You know what you're doing on stage now."

I closed my eyes.

Maybe it wasn't only about winning.

Maybe I had been asking myself the wrong question all these years.

"What place did I get?"

Maybe the question I should have been asking was something else.

"Who was I on that stage?"

The thought stayed in my mind for a few seconds.

Then my phone vibrated.

I looked at the screen.

I had a new message.

I opened it.

It was from the classmate who had stopped me before the competition and congratulated me on coming last before the competition had even begun.

I read the message.

"Congratulations on getting seventh."

I stared at the screen for a moment.

The same boy who had spoken to me so arrogantly in the corridor yesterday...

Now he had sent me this even though I had come first.

My eyebrows furrowed.

I read the message again.

"Congratulations on getting seventh."

My fingers remained motionless over the phone.

The words he had said yesterday came back to me.

"Congratulations on coming last in advance."

I hadn't said anything to him then.

But now...

I had come first.

And yet, seeing that message made a strange anger rise inside me.

I simply closed the message.

I didn't reply.

I put my phone back into my pocket.

First place...

It had silenced the fear I had felt the night before.

But it wasn't enough to silence the words other people had said to me.

A few days after the competition, we returned to school.

Everything seemed normal.

The hallways were crowded again.

Voices came from the classrooms, and students were getting ready for their next lessons.

But after the competition, nothing felt quite as ordinary to me anymore.

Especially when it came to Ayame.

During lunch break, I left my classroom and heard a few students talking in the hallway.

"What happened at the competition?"

"She made a mistake during the second part."

"The team came seventh because of her."

I slowed my steps.

I turned my head to see who was talking.

A few students from our school were standing around the corner, talking.

When they noticed me, they lowered their voices slightly.

But they continued talking.

"Umut came in first."

"If he had competed alone, he probably would've placed even higher."

I listened to them for a moment without saying anything.

Then I continued walking.

A few meters later, I turned into the hallway where the music club was located.

That's when I saw Ayame.

She was walking alone.

Her head was slightly lowered.

Just then, a few students passed behind her.

One of them called out.

"Hey, Ayame."

Ayame stopped.

She slowly turned around.

"What?"

The boy looked at her with a mocking smile.

"How did you guys manage to come in seventh?"

A few people beside him laughed.

Ayame didn't answer.

"Umut came in first, but your mistake made the team come seventh, right?"

Ayame's expression changed slightly.

But she said nothing.

"That's really a shame."

Another student joined in.

"It's not easy performing on the same stage as Umut."

"Try not to make any mistakes next time you're standing beside him."

A few more people laughed.

Ayame lowered her gaze.

Her fingers tightened around the strap of her bag.

I was standing several meters away.

I watched them.

I wanted to say something.

But not a single word came out of my mouth.

Eventually, the students walked away.

Ayame remained where she was for a few seconds.

Then she continued walking without raising her head.

I watched her disappear down the hallway.

Her expression stayed in my mind.

A few days ago...

I had done the same thing.

I had shouted at her.

I had thrown her mistakes in her face.

I had placed the blame for my entire failure on her.

I had thought that the things I said that night had only been spoken out of anger.

But now that I saw other people saying the same things to her...

I finally understood how heavy those words could be.

I didn't see Ayame again for the rest of lunch break.

Classes continued.

But my thoughts kept returning to those few seconds in the hallway.

That afternoon, when I went to the music club, Ayame was there.

She was sitting at the piano.

A music stand was positioned in front of her.

But she wasn't playing.

She was simply staring at the sheet music.

I stood in the doorway and watched her.

Normally, she would say something when she noticed me.

This time, she didn't even look up.

After a while, she opened the piano lid.

She placed her fingers over the keys.

Just as she was about to play the first note, she stopped.

She pulled her hand back.

She took a deep breath.

Then she tried again.

This time, she played a few notes.

But shortly afterward, she stopped again.

She lowered her head.

I was still standing by the door.

I wanted to go over to her.

But the distance between us still hadn't disappeared.

I wasn't sure if it was the right time to approach her.

Ayame sat silently at the piano for a while.

Then she spoke quietly to herself.

"What if I make another mistake..."

She didn't finish the sentence.

But she didn't need to.

I understood what she was thinking.

The competition was over.

The results were final.

But its effects were still lingering.

And this time, the thing she was afraid of wasn't simply making a mistake.

She was afraid that everyone would blame her if she made another one.

And as I stood silently in the doorway, I realized something for the first time.

Maybe the things I had said to Ayame that night...

Were still living inside her mind.

And fixing that would be much harder than simply apologizing.