“Can all the newbies please gather at the connected room? I'll need to distribute the materials and scheme of work.” A familiar voice spoke into the microphone. Eunseol and Yebin looked up from their conversation to see a bunch of papers waving in the air, turning a corner to the room next door. They followed the small crowd into the connected room and made themselves comfortable on the carpeted floor.

It's Jihoon oppa. Eunseol thought, as Yebin whispered into her ear. “He's Lee Jihoon, a genius composer. He's a junior but he is so much better than the adults. I've heard many of his works posted online and it's beyond amazing.” Her tone was filled with admiration.

“Wow, I didn't know he was such a good producer.” Eunseol replied, now observing his leader pose. His stance was confident, straightforward as he addressed us and passed down the sheets of paper. “I'll assign you a mentor now. You are to follow them as you familiarise yourself with the components of the recording studio. If you have any queries, ask them, don't ask me. Got it?” Jihoon did not wait for a reply and began reading off names from his compiled list.

“Kang Yebin to Choi Hansol, lastly Choi Eunseol to Lee Jihoon.” Eunseol perked up when she heard her name. I'm paired with Jihoon oppa? Oh my, this is going to be fun. “If there aren't any further questions, you're dismissed. If there is, ask your mentor.” With that, he strode away.

“See you later Yebin.” Eunseol bid goodbye to her new friend and stalked in the direction where Jihoon had gone too. After inquiring around for her mentor, she finally found him in the last room, spinning on his chair, humming an unrecognisable tune.

Eunseol lightly knocked on the wooden door before entering. Jihoon stopped his spinning and faced her. He visibly relaxed seeing that it was the younger twin in front of him and welcomed her. “Alright, we've worked together before right. I know of your arrangement skills but that doesn't prove your composition skills at all. Are you able to come up with a melody or some lyrics right now?” He pressed, eager to find out her potential.

Seungcheol had kindly informed him that his sister was excellent in composing and that he should feel threatened about it. But to Jihoon, all brothers are bias towards their baby sister so her hardly took his words for it until Eunseol started singing out a few bars of lyrics.

Eunseol was hit with inspiration and took out her phone to record the lyrics and tune in her head at that time lest her flow stops. She forgot that Jihoon was in the room and he was looking very amazed by her talent, by how she can just flip the tap on and let the lyrics flow.

Eunseol blushed when she saw Jihoon, open-mouthed, staring wide-eyed back at her. “Sorry I thought this would be an okay piece to develop on so...” She raised her phone shyly, apologising to him for her sudden action of recording the music.

“It's fine. You're really good though. When did you learn or develop these talents?” Jihoon was curious about her now that he did feel a little threatened by her.

“I... I was a songwriter actually, while in Japan. I wrote several songs for a few Japanese bands for their album under a pen name” Eunseol did not understand why she felt the need to tell him that when she is usually uncomfortable with sharing this piece of information.

“That explains why you are good at this.” Jihoon nodded his head towards her phone. “There's an assignment the newbies need to submit by next month, since I don't need to teach you the ropes, shall we start on composing it?”

“Using this?” Eunseol waved her phone and continued, “We can explore this. I think it will be a suitable song for my first submission.”

Jihoon agreed readily, feeling the same way. Both of them began to transfer the audio into the computer and started to work on the piece. It seemed as if it was only a short while from when they started but the dismissal bell chimed, bringing the two engrossed composers out of their bubble.

“We better save this and head for the board room. I don't want Seungcheol hyung to accuse me overworking you.” Eunseol hummed in agreement, downloading the unfinished work into her phone.

Within the short two hours she spent with Jihoon, she discovered a lot of his likes and dislikes. He and Byeol unnie are so alike. Maybe that's why they can't stand each other. But maybe that's why they have so much chemistry between them.

They strolled down the hallways, heading for the boardroom where Seungcheol and the rest would most likely be at. As they turned a corner, Eunseol bumped into a tall girl, causing her hand held mirror to drop due to the crash and a lipstick line drawn across her cheek.

“Watch where you're going! That was a limited edition MAC mirror that only VVIPs can get. Look, now it's broken...” The brunette snarled, squatting them while examining the cracked mirror. Her eyes shot upwards at Eunseol and Jihoon who was standing beside her. “But it's fine. I'm sure you didn't mean it. Afterall it's an accident. I shall be forgiving and overlook this matter.” Eunseol watched as her attitude shifted a total 180 degrees, plastering a fake smile on her face. The supermodel-like girl averted her gaze onto Jihoon and direct those words to him, not Eunseol.

“I'm sorry for the mirror and your face.” Eunseol gestured apologetically. The girl in front of her furrowed her brows as she checked her face in the cracked mirror. Despite the spider web crack on the mirror, the bright red streak of her MAC lipstick could be seen clearly. She gasped at the hideous red line on her cheek and glared hatefully at Eunseol. With that, she clasped her cheek with one hand and sprinted away, most probably to the nearest washroom.

Jihoon led out a small chuckle and continued his walk. Eunseol caught up in a few steps and questioned, “Who is she?”

“That's Chou Tzuyu. She's half Korean, half Taiwanese. The queenbee in our school now, I guess.” He explained, “She's the leader and main vocalist of PinKiss, the most popular band here. And she has a huge crush on Mingyu.”

Jihoon nonchalantly brushed off the conversation as her pushed open the double doors and entered a fairly busy boardroom. “Yah, Lee Jihoon, where did you kidnap my sister to?” Eunbyeol's voice shrilled, annoyed that he had came in 15 minutes late when it only takes 5 minutes to walk here from the recording studio.

He jerked his head to the direction of the door he just walked through and rolled his eyes, not wanting to argue further with that unreasonable woman. Eunseol's head peeked through the gap of the doors and let herself in. “Unnie, you are unbearably loud, you know? My eardrums were going to burst despite these thick doors.”

She went over to give her sister a hug and stalked over to her brother who was leaning against the photocopier, waiting for his materials to be printed. “Hello oppa.” She greeted.

Seungcheol snapped out of his thoughts and turned around to face Eunseol. “Hey! How was your first day in school? Did you have fun? Did you try the cafeteria food? It was horrible right?”

Eunseol laughed at her brother's enthusiasm for her first day of school, greatly exceeding hers. “It was fun and I made new friends. No, I did not try to cafeteria food. Mingyu bought me lunch from the convenience store, thankfully I hope?”

Seungcheol raised his brows at her last sentence, doubtful and curious as to why Mingyu will do that for her. He was the type of person to care about other people's food only when he gets to eat them. He would never buy food for others. Or so he thought.

“I'm glad you had fun.” He patted her shoulder, “Go settle yourself in one corner, we'll leave as soon as Mingyu and I settled some matters.”

Eunseol complied and trudged towards the large couch at the corner of the room, where Mingyu and Jun were engaging in a heated debate about colours to use for some ceremony. “Eunseol, choose one.” Mingyu shoved a laminated sheet right in her nose. Eunseol took the plastic from his hand and brought it further away from her sight, scanning the colours printed.

Eunseol stared as Mingyu in confusion. How am I supposed to know what these are for? “It's for induction ceremony, for the new student leaders from other boards and for the freshmen.” Jun replied, answering her mental question. Eunseol lips formed an 'O', grasping the situation.

“This would be good since it matches with our school colour. Fitting for the induction ceremony.” She pointed to a light blue tone. Eunseol caught a smug look on Jun's face and assumed that he had previously argued for it to be used too. Mingyu looked annoyed, upset that his darker coloured choice of blue wasn't picked.

“Um, if the budget allows, maybe you can use the darker ones too in balloons perhaps? I think it would be a good contrast with the pale ones.” Eunseol offered nicely, trying to provide ideas for the troubled two.

“Hmm, I supposed we can do so. Shall we, Mingyu-ah?” The downwards curve on his lips lifted upwards and he nodded eagerly. Jun and Eunseol exchanged looked and both of them shook their head. He's so easy to please, like a kid.

Now that they were back to peace and no longer fighting with one another, Eunseol tilted her head back and lay down on the cushion. She closed her eyes, letting sleep take over her.

It was already morning when Eunseol woke up to the sound of snoring around her. She turned her head to the natural alarm clock laying peacefully beside her. The silver hair reflected the sunlight that streamed in. It's Mingyu. In her half-awake state, she escaped the warmth of the blanket that had magically appeared overnight and pulled herself upright on the couch.

Her eyes landed on a her brother who was sprawled across the large conference table, papers scattered messily around him. She stretched lazily picking up her phone that was left forgotten on the coffee table. Eunseol checked the time and her eyes bulged out. It's 8.03 already?!

“Mingyu-ah, wake up!” Eunseol shook Mingyu's shoulder vigorously. Sensing that there will not be any reaction from him anytime soon, she rushed over to wake her brother up. It was only after a few kicks and rolling him off the table then he woke up. She proceed to wake up Seungkwan and Jihoon who were coiled up on the office chairs, snuggling into a blanket.

They must have stay overnight so often that they even keep blankets in a meeting room. Eunseol walked out of the recording studio after waking up Jihoon and in her direct vision, was Mingyu, still asleep despite Seungcheol oppa's relentless shouting for him to get up.

She speedwalked to the pantry and made coffee and toasts for the five of them. She figured her sister must have went home while she was fast asleep. Eunseol didn't mind as was glad that she can ask her sister to bring her a change of clothes. The entire first week was about orientation and making new friends so she wanted to set a good impression for her classmate and not report in crumpled uniform that she had worn to sleep.

Eunbyeol came only about ten minutes before assembly time with Ha Eun in toll. Her chill demeanor set Eunseol in her frantic mood for she hates being late and thrown off her schedule. “Luckily, they had extra disposable toothbrush in the toilet, otherwise I would have a panic attack. Why were you so late?” She complained, rushing to the toilet to change out of her clothes.

“Well, we had to wait for Ha Eun to wash up and you know how she is...” Eunbyeol rolled her eyes, explaining the situation. Straight after Eunseol had tidied up herself, she said goodbyes to the rest and dragged her sister and Ha Eun to her locker to deposit the dirty uniform.

They settled down in their classes right on time, beating the bell by a mere second. The twins huffed and puffed in their seats having ran from one end of the school to the other. The teacher strutted in with an air of confidence around her.

She slammed her thick files on the teachers' table and cleared . “I'm Ms Kwon and I'll be your homeroom teacher for this year. I'm going to lay some ground rules now for my lessons and you kids better abide by it.” She warned, eyes piercing into some of the troublemakers she taught last year.

It was a boring lecture for most of the class as they could be seen dozing off plainly in sight of the teacher. However, Ms Kwon did not seem to care for she continued on with her introduction, not bothering about those students who aren't paying attention. Irony, it was, Eunseol thought when the slides was talking about rule number three where it states, anyone caught dozing off shall be punished immediately.

It was only after she finished her presentation when she shouted at the sleepyheads, reprimanding them for their disrespect for her. Eventually, she calmed down and proceed on to her next topic which surprised Eunseol.

“I will be giving you guys an assignment to be handed up in three months time. However, this does not mean that you should procrastinate and wait till the last hour to start on your project. This is a pair work, please keep in mind of your partners and your grades.” Ms Kwon stated. “As far as I know, all of you here takes Psychology as one of your humanities. So I've decided to pair a boy and a girl up to study the differences between the two genders.”

Many boys snickered at the word differences, obviously thinking of the physical ones only. Ms Kwon shook her head and started reading up the names. Eunseol shifted upright in her seat, both eager and nervous to find out about her partner. Please, please, please, don't let it be someone lazy. She prayed.

Finally, Ms Kwon called her name and was about to announce her partner when someone stumbled in, nearly tripping over his own feet. “Kim Mingyu, I was about to call your name. You're late, you know that right?”

“I've got a pass.” Mingyu replied and waved the green slip of paper in front of her. Ms Kwon mentally rolled her eyes, already used to his tardy behavior and continued with her announcement. “As I was saying, Choi Eunseol and Kim Mingyu. You two will be paired up with each other. As for the details, I'm sure Eunseol will be a nice kid and inform him of it, wouldn't you?”

Eunseol unknowingly nodded her head, still processing the fact that Kim Mingyu is now her partner. I wonder if that's a good thing or not. She looked to the far left where Mingyu was now cheek pressing against the cool table, eyes closed. If he's going to be like this through the whole entire project, it's going to be a tough battle.

 

---

 

Characters: 

Kang Yebin: friend / music composition

Lee Jihoon: junior / Eunseol's mentor / music composition

Choi Hansol: friend

Chou Tzuyu: PinKiss band leader

*i know she's not part Korean but for the sake of my story!

Moon Junhwi: junior / orientation leader

Ms Kwon: homeroom teacher / psychology teacher

 

Word Count: 2592