Part No. 7

    Determined

    "It's too hard! I don't want to play anymore!!" 

    The little princess's shout rang out, her irritation reaching its peak. This was the first time in her life that she had faced repeated failures for an entire month! Even when she held the rank of the great General, no matter how hard it was to use the weapons, it did not trouble her at all. Yet why did she had no progress in playing this tiny musical instrument after months of effort!

    "Calm down. Hold it like this, and ease your grip. Then, slowly draw the bow in a long move like this..." 

    Having to deal with his younger sister's constantly shifting mood, which was like a storm, Gabriel didn’t know what to do. He could only attempt to explain patiently. What else could he do? The violin was like this. Normally, most people took months to learn how to hold the violin and the bow, let alone the practice of applying the pressure that would produce decent enough sound when they drew the bow, which many took years to master it. Even he, who was called a prodigy by others, had needed months to start playing songs. 

    "You only took a little while to get it. I've been trying for over a month. Why does it still sounds awful and screechy! It's not fair!" 

    Gloria shouted with resentment. If it weren’t for her memories as an adult, she might’ve thrown a tantrum on the floor. 

    "Nothing comes easy. Everyone has to practice to get good.”

    Gabriel wanted to cry. He tried his best to talk sweetly, but it seemed like a futile effort.

    "But you only practiced a bit." Gloria pouted in anger. 

    "..." Gabriel was stunned, his mouth opening and closing without a sound as if he’d taken a hard blow. He couldn't claim that he had put in the same effort, because it was him in the previous life who did it. With everything turned out like this, the boy was panic, unsure of how to explain himself to his younger sister. 

    Gloria felt sorry for her older brother when she saw that he was speechless, as if he had something he couldn’t say. After all, she was almost twelve years older than her older brother. Getting angry at a child this little wasn’t her nature at all. So, Gloria let out a sigh and firmly told her older brother.

    "I’ve decided that I’m just going to stick with the piano. It’s better to spend my time practicing your piano pieces instead. There are so many songs I want to play." 

    “You... you’re not going to play anymore?” Gabriel looked downcast once he saw that his younger sister did not like the instrument he loved. 

    “It’s not that I hate it. It’s just that it might really be too difficult for me. And besides, don’t you think it would be better if I played the piano alongside you while you play the violin?..." 

    Seeing the older brother’s dejected expression, the younger sister like herself quickly softened her tone, trying to persuade Gabriel for him to have some empathy for her.

    “…Please? Just teach me the piano.” 

    Upon seeing the younger sister’s pleading face, the older brother’s heart softened.

    “Alright... but are you sure about playing the piano, Gloria? Even though it’s easy to start, it’s really hard to master.” 

    “It’s still better than your violin,” Gloria muttered under her breath.

    The boy blinked at his little sister's manners. There were just a few times that he saw her shout out of frustration. This way, she acted as a child would, since sometimes he couldn't tell if he had a younger sister or a mother. Despite being younger, she cared for him even more than their mother did.

    “By the way, have you checked out the streaming system yet? It’s really interesting.” Gloria, who had tired herself out in the practice, walked over to sprawl out on the sofa as she asked her older brother.

    “Streaming?”

    Oh… the entertainment system. He’d been so focused on practicing the violin that he had completely forgotten about it.

    “Come take a look, Big Brother.”

    Upon seeing the other party’s confused expression, Gloria could already guess that her older brother probably hadn’t looked at anything other than his music practice.

    “Dad bought the expensive ID Watch for you. Aren’t you going to check it out? This model has an AI that’s really smart—you can even talk to it… Alice, open the streaming system.”

    She turned to complain at her older brother for a bit before turning to order her AI. Gabriel, having finished putting away his equipment, walked over and sat silently beside his younger sister as he watched the floating holographic screen with interest. Aside from how to activate the shopping system, the boy had no interest in any other systems, viewing them as the waste of his practice time. Besides, his musical instruments were still in usual condition, so the ID Watch his father bought for him had been left sitting unused in his drawer for months.

    “Look, Big Brother! Most of the top ten famous streamers right now are focused on singing and dancing!”

    Gloria pointed to the streamers’ rankings screen. The most popular categories at the moment were mainly singing, dancing, cooking, drawing, and playing musical instruments.

    “Playing instruments is in fifth place? That’s pretty high.”

    Gabriel stroked his chin as he analyzed the categories. Out of nearly a hundred categories, playing musical instruments was in the top five.

    “Most of them play the piano or plucked string instruments. Oh! There’s a wind instrument too.”

    “That’s called a flute. It has a beautiful sound—you should check it out,” Gabriel suggested quickly upon seeing it. In his previous life, he had a fondness for the flute’s sound as well. However, with the time he spent practicing both the violin and the piano, he hadn’t had enough free time to practice a new instrument.

    Seeing her older brother’s interest, Gloria felt like seeing a fish bite the hook. She quickly clicked on a channel of a musician who was streaming a flute session.

    The moment they entered the channel, they found out that the one who was streaming was a handsome young man. He was explaining the instrument in his hand while chatting with viewers. He seemed to be a moderately popular streamer, as the fans in the channel were flooding him with gifts, causing constant chat notification sounds, so much so that it made Gabriel begin to scrunch his face. He turned to nudge his younger sister and asked her.

    “When’s he going to play?” This person talked non-stop when the instrument was right in his hands.

    “I know, right…”

    Gloria agreed. So, she typed into the chat, "When are you going to play the instrument?"

    “Someone’s asking when I’m going to play the instrument in my hands. Right now, I’m explaining the history and how to play this instrument to everyone in the room. If you want to hear it, you’ll have to wait for the next stream…”

    The streamer seemed to see Gloria’s message in the chat, that was why he answered.

    “Knowing the history behind an instrument makes the music sound even more beautiful.”

    He even ended it with a smile out of the corner of his mouth, showing his superior confidence that declared, "I am the truth of this galaxy," causing his fans to scream and flood the chat with rapid messages. The two siblings, unable to keep up with the messages, were stunned.

    “...”

    Gabriel stared at what had happened before him in disbelief. How is this even in the music category? You should be in the music history channel instead!*

    “Uh… let’s check out another streamer.”

    Gloria quickly clicked to leave the room upon seeing the gloomy air of her older brother. She continued scrolling to find a channel that was streaming in the music category. Fortunately, she found out that there was another channel that was streaming.

    Once she clicked to enter, she found that the streamer was a pretty young woman who was holding a musical instrument that resembled her older brother’s violin, but larger.

    “That’s a guitar. It was another popular instrument on Earth back in the day,” Gabriel explained, seeing his younger sister’s questioning look.

    “…It’s a plucked instrument, not bowed like the violin, so it’s easier to play. But even so, at first, you’ll have to endure sore fingers from pressing down on the strings according to the chords. Like I said, there’s no easy beginning.”

    “Today, I just learned a new song, so I’ll try playing it for everyone. If you like it, don’t forget to send lots of gifts!”

    When the two siblings were chatting, they heard the beautiful streamer on the screen say that she was about to play a song? So, they both stopped talking and shifted their attention to the streamer instead.

    “She’s starting, she’s starting.” Gloria was excited, since she had never seen this instrument before.

    “Pay close attention,” Gabriel reminded his younger sister upon seeing it.

    The young woman in the streaming placed the guitar on her lap and began to strum. The sound that came out was strange, so much so that Gabriel couldn’t discern what song she was playing. From her finger positions, it seemed like she was just strumming simple chords in repetition, but since she wasn’t pressing the strings firmly enough, the sound lacked resonance, unlike the usual sounds of guitars.

    “Big Brother… is this really what a guitar sounds like?...”

    Gloria turned to ask her older brother with a trembling voice and a shocked expression on her face after she had endured listening to it for a short while. Even though she’d never heard its sound before, her instincts told her this wasn’t the instrument’s true sound for sure.

    “Mmm… actually, a violin can be plucked too, but it won’t sound as nice as a guitar.”

    Gabriel explained as he went to fetch his violin. The boy came back to sit by her side, he then pressed the strings in chord positions and plucked them for his younger sister to hear.

    “If you press firmly on the correct positions, the sound when you pluck will be like this… but if you don’t press hard enough, it won’t resonate. They call such a sound a muted note.”

    “Oh… like how a mute person can’t say, a muted note means you can’t hear the real sound, right?”

    “Something like that,” Gabriel nodded.

    “Then let’s switch to another channel. I saw someone playing the piano earlier.” Once she saw that the channel they were watching had no interesting thing, Gloria quickly clicked to exit and searched for a new channel. After only a few scrolls, the girl found a streamer playing the piano, her move was considered unbelievably accurate.

    “Found it!”

    She exclaimed joyfully and quickly clicked to enter. The channel featured a young man with features resembling a mixture of an Asian and a westerner. His shiny, golden hair glimmered like a gemstone.

    “He must be one of those Sagittarius folks.”

    Upon seeing that, Gloria muttered. However, it happened to be loud enough for Gabriel to hear.

    “Sagittarius? The people who live at the center of the galaxy?” The boy asked.

    “That’s right, Big Brother. They usually have light-colored hair, pale skin, and a very cautious demeanor.”

    "I see..." They probably were like the wealthy individuals of the old Earth.

    The young man streaming didn’t talk much like the previous streamer. He merely exchanged greetings and asked his fans how had they been, and yet, just a few words sent the fans’ donations flooding in, shaking the screen.

    “This must be a high-level streamer,” Gloria could immediately guess.

    “He’s starting.” Gabriel stared at the man without blinking.

    The streamer immediately began playing with a distinctive rhythm, transitioning into a quick sequence of notes. The intense melody struck the listeners for a while,  he then intensified the mood with high-pitched sounds that came in beautiful sequence. That made Gabriel can’t help but smile as he recognized the piece being performed before him—it was one of the most famous works from the past.

    “He’s playing Beethoven’s Symphony No. 5.”

    In truth, he had already guessed the piece from the beginning of the song, as it was one of the significant songs of Western music. It was a significant masterpiece of its era. Judging by the way the streamer played through, he seemed to focus solely on the opening movement, with some notes missing here and there.

    “You recognize it?”

    The girl quickly turned to ask, her face showed she couldn’t believe it. Was there anything the one before her didn’t know? Her older brother… truly wasn’t ordinary.

    “The piece isn’t perfect… but that’s understandable; some parts may have been lost to time.” Of course, Gabriel muttered the last part of his words softly to himself.

    He stood and walked towards the piano in the center of the house. Gloria, seeing this, quickly closed the stream. Regardless of how well the streamer had played, in her eyes, he was no match for her older brother. The girl thought this as she looked at the streamer with a disdainful look.

    Gabriel sat and pressed his fingers on the keyboard. Suddenly, the powerful, resonant, bass notes full of a mysterious aura echoed through the room. The same notes and the quick-quick-quick-slow pressing pattern made this one of the pieces that was easy to remember. The sounds of the notes played in the beginning made the listeners feel so excited, as if wandering into a world that no one knew of.

    As the first segment ended, the cute, delicate notes followed in order, resembling the discovery of cute, interesting, and marvelous things. Then, the opening rhythm returned, it evoked memories of the times full of horrible things—a portrayal of humanity’s struggle in the face of its own ignorance, unaware of the challenges ahead. The intense, pounding keys continued, and as Gabriel reached the final segment, a bright melody returned once again, concluding the performance gracefully.

    Gloria secretly sighed, as if she had escaped a nightmare and found a bright and beautiful thing as usual. It made her feel as if she had faced the time when she won a war and achieved a great victory after enduring long hardships. The performance full of intense emotions and the meanings this deep was a difference in skill between her older brother and that streamer! Gloria thought arrogantly in her head.

    Clap! Clap! Clap!

    The sound of applause from his little sister rang out as soon as Gabriel finished his piece.

    "Big Brother! That was amazing. How about we become streamers together? If we play together, I guarantee that no one will be able to beat us."

    Gloria walked over with eyes gleaming with great confidence. If no one knew about her older brother’s extraordinary talent, that would certainly be a great loss for all humankind of the Milky Way. The girl thought this with determination!

    Hearing this, Gabriel lightly tapped that little head with his fist.

    "Play together, huh? You always slack off during practice! I won’t let you perform for others with skills like this—you’ll ruin your teacher’s reputation! Besides, streamers have to be at least eighteen years old. You’re only eight—what’s the rush?!"

    This kid. Did she think he doesn’t know that the system has fixed the minimum age?

    "Hehe... I was just kidding..." Gloria grinned sheepishly when she saw her older brother’s angry face.

    "And you’re still making that cheeky face!" The boy grumbled, giving her a gentle pinch on the cheek.

    "Waaaah! Don’t scold me... If I study hard until I’m eighteen, will you do streaming with me?"

    Gloria tested the water as she blinked in a pleading manner. Agree! Agree! I’m already begging you this much!

    Seeing her pleading gaze, the boy hesitated and couldn’t bring himself to say no.

    "...If you get really good by then."

    "Yay! You said it, Big Brother. You can’t forget it!" Gloria jumped, clapping her hands out of joy.

    "Alright, alright," Gabriel could only agree, feeling somewhat resigned.

    Even though he was the older brother, he felt like he’d fallen into his little sister’s trap.