Things were hardly the same with Donghae not around, and I doubt it will ever be. Classes were uninteresting, free period was dull, and even the atmosphere around me feels dreary. It’s as if an invisible force is following me and keeping me in a permanent gloomy mood. Even music class didn’t help. To be honest, it even seemed to mock me.

“Yoona, focus! It’s not like you to be acting like this! Hold your violin properly!” Mrs. Park scolded, her eyes staring at me icily. As if I don’t feel cold enough already, I thought, not meeting her stare. Several heads turned towards my direction, and I had to hold my head down to hide my embarrassment.

“Sorry, Mrs. Park,” I mumbled, holding the wooden grip of the violin tightly. “I’m not just myself lately.”

“You were never yourself for the past few days,” she snapped. “Put yourself together. There are thirty-five of you in this class and I don’t have the time or the patience for one problematic student!”

I heard a few people laugh, but I held myself together. I didn’t want to lose it now, not especially in music class. Music was supposed to be relaxing and way to get out of our problems; but not today. Instead, it kept reminding me of the one thing I wanted to forget.  The music we were playing was a classic: Looking Through the Eyes of Love – now you can understand how this song plans on tormenting me. Love, eyes, wherever I go, something always reminds me of him. And as much as I wanted to forget, the more reminders come and smack me on the face. This was not an exception.

  I struggled to compose myself and bow gracefully to the melody of the song. We were grouped into three – one for the violin, one for the guitar, and one for the vocals while Mrs. Park attended to the piano. Even if I wasn’t the one singing the lyrics of the song, the sweet melody, accompanied with the equally mellow lyrics, stung the very insides of my soul.

Please, don't let this feeling end

It's everything I am,

Everything I wanna be;

I can see what's mine now

Finding out what's true,

Since I've found you

Looking through the eyes of love.

Now I can take the time,

I can see my life

As it comes up shining now;

Reaching out to touch you,

I can feel so much,

Since I've found you

Looking through the eyes of love.

And now, I do believe,

That even in a storm, we'll find some light;

Knowing you're beside me, I'm alright.

Please don't let this feeling end,

It might not come again;

And I want to remember

How it feels to touch you;

How I feel so much,

Since I've found you

Looking through the eyes of love.

Reaching out to touch you,

I can feel so much,

Since I've found you

Looking through the eyes of love.

The melody concluded strikingly when we bowed the last note of the song with our violin. I had to suppress my uncontrolled emotions from doing anything stupid. It hurts; it was like they purposely chose this song to torment me. However, I managed to force out a smile and say a, “we did it” before our session concluded.

“Very good!” Mrs. Park said. “That ends our meeting for today and for our next meeting, we’ll have our polishing and after that, we’ll have another musical piece.” She clapped her hands, and everybody followed.

Mrs. Park eyed me carefully, and then said, “Miss Yoona, I would expect better performance next time.”

I flushed, embarrassed. “Yes, Mrs. Park.”

“That would be all for today, you may now leave,” she said.

We stood up and chorused, “Goodbye, and thank you, Mrs. Park.”

I kept my violin back into its case which I then strapped onto my back. I approached the guitar-playing group and saw Kyuhyun packing his own guitar back to its case. “Hey,” I greeted.

“Hey,” he said back, standing up.

“I can’t believe we’re playing classical love songs on music class,” I started with a tone of annoyance.

“Well what did you expect?” Kyu asked, smiling. “Heavy metal?”

I rolled my eyes over the one musical genre which I can live without. “Can we go now?”

“Sure, are you okay?”

I nodded although I wasn’t so sure myself.

“Hey, that’s okay.” Kyu said, “Mrs. Park was just not herself today. You caught her off on a wrong time.”

I looked at him, mildly hurt. “Are you sure you mean Mrs. Park, or me?”

He didn’t respond, pondering over his misuse of words.

“I’m okay, Kyuhyun,” I assured. “I just need time to recover, y’know.”

He nodded and smiled, “Hey, time heals almost anything right?”

I smiled, “Yeah.” Deep in my head, I hope almost anything included a broken heart.