For CNBLUE'S Minhyuk featuring Yonghwa

“She’s going to be cleaning or something, since this week it’s her turn to do chores, but she’s going to be busy the rest of the week, to get it out of the way.” Yonghwa hyung explains to me as we walk down the street towards his house.

Hyung’s lucky to have an actual house with a backyard and everything instead of just a regular apartment like everyone else. Otherwise, we wouldn’t have anywhere else to practice without his garage.

His sister is nice too, but hyung always tries to keep me away from her since apparently she has a ‘secret crush’ on me. I don’t really believe him since she has plenty of friends, lots of them being guys, but it’s kind of true that I don’t really look at her that way. So I guess it’s better that Yonghwa hyung keeps me away on his own just to avoid awkwardness.

Not that she’s awkward. She’s actually one of the friendliest and coolest people I know. No wonder that so many people like her. It’s just that I personally haven’t found particular traits in her that appeal to me, since I don’t know her too well. Yonghwa tends to push her away when we’re here and practicing.

I suppose I can understand him since we’ve finally been scouted by a record company. We’ve already been training for a couple of months. The managers were nice enough to let us schedule our own practice times. Maybe because they don’t have a band room to provide us until we make it big. But it’s still exciting nonetheless. I feel as if I’ve got more of a purpose when I pick up those drumsticks now.

Twirling one of the wooden sticks in my right hand while my other hand holds the other stick, I can hear Yun’s music on as we get closer to the house. Well, their family does love music a lot.

Yonghwa hyung unlocks and pushes the door open, kicking off his shows and placing them on the shoe rack near the door. I follow his lead, holding my drumsticks together to pull off my shoes and place them on the floor next to the shelf instead.

Yeah, the music is really loud. But it sounds good. “Hyung, what is this song? It sounds good.” I nudge Yonghwa’s arm.

“I don’t know, we’ll ask.” He suggests, heading up the stairs to the small upper den they have where the music is coming from.

♪ ♬

The sounds of the raindrops falling

The sounds that dig deep in my heart

You flow from my tears

You, who is flowing down along my eyes~

♪ ♬

The long note the singer holds is extremely high and it still sounds really good. And it seems to get higher…

♪ ♬ Ooh oooh ♪ ♬

We should get a girl singer for our band like that.

♪ ♬ I will think of yoooo----

Yun cuts herself off when she turns around and sees us. Her arm is still stretched out in front of her as if she was just really into what she was singing at first.

She just stares at us for a second or two, before standing up straight again with her broom at her side and bowing to us quickly, “Sorry you had to see that.” She clears before taking the broom and walking out of the small den and down the stairs. The song is still playing on the speakers her music player is plugged into. Turns out it wasn’t very loud at all. The singer’s volume doesn’t even match up to how loud Yun was at first.

“Well…. that was….” I trail off, hoping Yonghwa will finish for me.

“Don’t mind her. She belts like that all the time. Whenever she thinks no one’s around, she screams as loud as she wants.” He waves it off, heading towards her music player top of the wooden media stand that holds the TV, stereo, DVD player and stuff. “It’s called I’ll Think of You. By those Davichi Girls.” He tells me.

Quickly, I grab a pen from the table stand near the couch and scribble it down on my hand to check out later when I get home. Yonghwa’s family has always had good taste in music, but since we have practice to focus on now, Yun is the only one who has time to look into music trends and find new, legitimately good music to listen to. Sometimes we look through her playlists to find songs to listen to, or even experience playing with during practice when we’re bored.

Come to think of it, she is pretty talented.

“Hey hyung, isn’t the company looking for trainees right now?” I ask Yonghwa.

He looks up from Yun’s music player and gives me an expressionless look before slowly shaking his head once, “Don’t even try it man. She doesn’t do performances unless she’s the one calling the shots. Whenever she performs in plays and talent shows to represent the school or something, she won’t listen to anybody. She doesn’t like taking advice.”

“But she’s good. I think….”

“She could make it? Well, she can. But she doesn’t like auditioning. She has to be the one asked to do something. Pretty conceited trait in her, I must say. I don’t where she got it.” he says as he fixes his hair, looking into the somewhat blurred reflection of himself on the TV.

“Did you do that on purpose?” I chuckle.

“What?” he asks, turning back to me.

“Never mind. But I think she should do it. She’s going to be a senior soon right?”

“So?”

“Is she going to college?”

“Probably.”

“What’s she going to study?”

“I don’t know. Probably music, I guess.” He shrugs. Then he drops his shoulders and turns his neck a little more to look at me, “I see where you’re getting at.” He nods.

“So we should tell her to sign up and send in an audition tape.” I decide to roll with it.

“How are we going to get her to do that?”

~ ♪ ~ ♬ ~ ♪ ~

“This is her ballad playlist. You can barely hear her sing!” Yonghwa whispers to me.

I make a gesture with my fingers telling him to zip it. Otherwise the camera will record his voice in the audio too. He gives me a look asking me if I’m serious, since we can barely hear her from here behind the door of his parents’ room that’s across from the kitchen where Yun is singing as she washes the dishes.

“Fine.” I stop the camera. “This is where you come in and change the song on your own. OH! You should choose a duet for you guys to sing together, so the company managers will know that she’s associated with us! And it’ll look unique too.” I whisper-shout at him.

“You’re going to look like a stalker behind this door with a camera.” He says.

“Whatever. Just do it.” I roll my eyes.

He lets out a sigh before leaving the room. I start recording again, and I see Yonghwa search through her music player as she continues singing to herself softly, paying no attention to her brother.

When he finally chooses a song, I can see he’s chosen to sing that acapella that IU and Kim Soohyun duet did together in Dream High. He starts it off and it sounds good on him.

It’s soft, but there’s another camera hidden somewhere in the kitchen closer to Yun so that one should be getting good footage too. When she starts singing, it really seems to fit her. Kind of like the lyrics wrap around since they come out smoothly, just like her brother.

Yonghwa, in the midst of it, is pretending to search for something to eat, going through the refrigerator slowly, and pulling out a bottle of water. Yun doesn’t find this random duet situation strange at all, since apparently they sing a lot together randomly anyway. Even though they don’t show it when guests are over, I know they have a pretty close sibling relationship.

Finally, the song ends and Yonghwa leaves, but Yun continues singing as the next song comes on. She’s bobbing her head to this one and it’s livelier than her ballads so far. I have to keep recording. What if she ends up singing something better than she already has?

Yonghwa enters the room again with his water bottle, sighing quietly at me and my seemingly stalker-like ways. I really do feel like a creeper. This is something I would never have done in my lifetime at all. But Yun’s talent kind of drives me into wanting me to get her recognized for it. Everyone needs a little push right?

Several songs later, I’m still recording. Each song gets better than the next and I’m afraid I’ll miss out on something really great worth showing, so I’ve been here for another 15 minutes just recording. Yonghwa’s already fallen asleep on his parents’ bed.

When Yun finally finishes washing the dishes, she pulls the gloves off and washes her hands. Then she pulls her hair tie off, letting her hair cascade out of her messy bun. Then she pulls it up again and swirls it into a tighter bun, turning her artistically edgy look to a more classy, and taller. It makes her shoulders look a little sharper and her body more lean in her white tank top and black sweatpants that are fitting but aren’t baggy either.

I never really noticed before.

Suddenly, a new song comes up on its own and it’s…. very slow and…. seductive. There’s no other word for it. I know this song; it’s TVXQ’s Before U Go. It’s most definitely a slow and seductive sounding song even though it doesn’t have lyrics that attempt to provoke the listener.

And now Yun has slipped on those mop slippers that sweep out the floor as she walks, and her legs are…. Moving slowly. They match the rhythm of the song perfectly. She starts waving her arms above, around, and underneath her, her torso and waist complying smoothly with whichever movements she decides to swing into.

It’s obviously just a freestyle dance since her moves keep changing. But they still mix fierceness and grace together perfectly. One leg bent to the side while the other sweeps a circle on the floor around her. And her arms form one shape after another, sometimes resembling a sun, sometimes a waterfall, maybe moving to convey a snake’s image, or moving her arms in a spontaneous box formation in front of her. No matter where she puts her foot, her hip, her head, her hand, it looks good. I can tell there were a couple of instances where she lost her footing or balance but she would just bend lower and catch herself in another graceful pose, making me think she had planned it all along.

I almost forget to keep a good grip on the camera in my hands, but I catch it before it can fall out of my grasp and continue filming her, not at all regretting the last 20 minutes of ‘stalking’ I did to get this footage to send with her application to the company manager later.

When Yonghwa wakes up ten minutes later, he sits up to see me sitting against the wall, immersed in the camcorder in my hands. He turns toward the sound of the shower running near door, then turns to me again. “You finally satisfied?” he chuckles, fixing his hair.

Not looking up, I continue to watch the last couple seconds of the cleaning dance ritual that Yun had just performed. After just staring at her working her body like that, I have to clear my throat a little.

When I finally look up at him, I can tell there’s a sort of glazed look in my eyes, “Hyung, I think found my Natasha.”

~*~*~*~*~

A/N: You can probably tell that i just finished watching Heartstrings. And that I'm pretty into the new Davichi song. Before U Go will always be a classic to me. 

Happy Valentine's Day!