Comeback
Crescendity
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For nearly an entire week, the new members of Crescendity worked hard on legalizing the club. Considering it had been disbanded before, they needed to fill out paperwork and other legal documents to officiate its revival.
They had made Hyunmi and Mira’s room their base camp for tonight. It was nearly 11 PM when someone opened the door. Four people looked up, halting themselves from their work. Only the girls were present, considering Kibum wasn’t interested enough to help, and Jaehwan claimed they’d all be fighting for his attention if he were the only boy in the room.
“Wow, I did not expect to see a crowd welcoming me back,” Mira spoke, letting go of her lilac colored suitcase. She held her arms out for the girls who welcomed her with a group hug, Heejin being extra fond of physical cuddles as she embraced her the longest. She wore a summery dress and seemed to have gotten a tan. “So what is going on?”
“You didn’t read the email?” Hyunmi immediately asked.
“I was in the plane and my batteries died as soon as I got off. I have no idea how that happened either,” Mira said, chuckling a little. Her eyes fell on the heap of papers in their midst. “So really, what is going on?”
“We’re reviving Crescendity, the show choir club. And you are a part of it!” Hyunmi declared, not giving Mira a say in this decision. The other three girls clapped along to the new member initiation.
“Uuhm… Okay?” Mira said unsurely. She vaguely remembered Hyunmi, Heejin, and Maerin always talking about this choir club, but her busy schedule as a dentistry major prevented her from exploring the idea. Perhaps it was time to try something new.
“Yay, we got more people. I’m so happy,” Heejin clapped her hands. She then led Mira to sit on the floor beside them. The five of them formed a circle among the neatly stacked documents.
“So, give us all the updates. What happened in London?” Hyunmi immediately asked with a wide grin. If there was one thing that could momentarily take her mind away from Crescendity, it would be someone else’s love story.
“What do you mean what happened?” Mira repeated, deciding to play dumb. It wasn't her fault their question was vague to begin with.
“What happened between you and Mark?” Yerin asked, including more detail.
“Did you kiss?” Heejin asked, squealing to herself as it got more personal.
“Did you two ?” Seulyi dropped the ultimate bomb, invading one’s personal privacy.
Mira, and the others, threw a horrified look at Seulyi.
“Language, Seulyi!” Hyunmi quickly reminded her friend to be more wary of her filthy language.
“Could not have been more direct,” Yerin added sarcastically, shaking at her friend.
Seulyi only laughed. “What? I heard it’s easier to do it in airplanes. Some lavatories are soundproof,” she defended herself.
“On the contrary to what you are all thinking, Mark didn’t end up coming to UK with me,” Mira said, holding up her poised posture as she took one of the legal papers in front of her. Her eyes pretended to scan over the words, but she was really waiting for them to switch to another topic.
“Aw, why not?” Yerin asked, pouting along to the words.
Mira should’ve known they would be stubborn in this matter. There was no other way around it but to bluntly state the facts as they were.
“Mark and I broke up.”
The silence in the room afterwards became a clear indication that they knew not to ask anymore. Mira had always been good at hiding her true emotions, and no one truly knew whether they read sadness or relief on her face.
“Okay guys, let’s give Mira some space and not talk about this for now,” Hyunmi spoke, defensively holding a hand in front of her roommate like a bodyguard.
“Okay,” Seul Yi agreed.
“Sure,” Yerin nodded.
“You’re right,” Heejin spoke.
“Thank you.” Mira sighed out in relief.
“We’ll just interrogate her tomorrow!”
“Okay!”
“Sure!”
“You’re right!”
Mira flattened her eyes, watching as her friends laughed at her misery. She saw it coming. The fact they would chose not to interview her would’ve been as odd as a volcanic eruption happening on top of Mt. Everest. She supposed it was a sign of their affection, but Mira had to mentally prepare herself for the questionings.
Luckily, when the next day came, everyone was immediately occupied with matters of the club. They had taken Mira along to room 215, the empty music room that would become their official choir room. Inside, she saw some unused instruments such as the electric piano, a drum set, some acoustic guitars, an electric guitar, and a bass. These were the basic set of a band.
“Good morning,” Leeteuk said when he saw the students walking in. He was already waiting inside with his sleeves semi rolled up, holding a marker in his hand.
“Isn’t that Mr. Park? Our English teacher?” Mira whispered to Heejin who walked in front.
“Yeah, turns out he can sing too. He volunteered to help,” Heejin whispered back to her.
“That’s so nice of him,” Mira spoke, staring at their English teacher with a newfound perspective. When he met her eyes, Mira suddenly began to blush. English had always been her favorite subject for a reason.
The chairs were laid out in rows facing the whiteboard, a familiar arrangement usually used during a seminar. The room was big enough to seat around fifty people.
Lee Biah was already present there since the morning, truly joining this club despite the impromptu invitation she had received.
Seulyi was about to take a seat at the farthest back so she could text and take a nap during lesson times, but Hyunmi pulled her to the very front and center seat with her. Seulyi groaned. This was why she avoided taking the same classes with the other. Though she could cheat off Hyunmi during exams, it wasn’t worth the extra attention.
“Where’s Kibum?” Leeteuk asked, having perfectly memorized the name of the students. Instead, the only two guys he saw were Jaehwan, and Hwang Minhyun.
“Yeah, he’s not coming,” Hyunmi said. After continuously texting him to the point she may have spammed him, he ended up temporarily blocking her ID, and turned his phone off to reject her calls.
“It’s okay. Calm down, calm down. We have Hwang Minhyun to accompany me. It would be dangerous if I was the only guy in the room,” Jaehwan said.
“Jaehwan, trust me, you are not our type,” Yerin corrected him.
“Cause your type is someone like Park Chanyeol,” Hyunmi did not miss an opportunity to friend.
Yerin sighed, rolling her eyes.
“Park Chanyeol? Really, sis? You like him?” Minhyun, being the younger brother of Yerin, asked. He did not have that much interest in singing as the others did, but Jaehwan promised he would clean up his side of their room if he joined. Plus, Jaehwan also said he would start taking showers at least three times a week. What an improvement!
“Not at all. I joined because this is a Chanyeol free zone,” Yerin said proudly, folding her arms with relief. Finally, she could have a few hours of peace without being stalked by that idiot.
“Well, that is quite a problem,” Leeteuk interrupted their discussion, smiling sheepishly at them. He had written out four words on the whiteboard, and pointed at them one by one. “In a choir, you need four different voice types. A soprano, contralto which is also known as alto, a tenor, and a bass. I am not sure we have everyone we need.”
Mira shot her hand in the air. “What are the differences?” She politely asked.
“For a female voice, they are usually classified as a soprano or alto. The soprano can sings the highest female notes, while alto are better off hitting the lower notes. There is a mezzo soprano as well, which is right between the two, but most music arrangements for a choir come in the SATB format.”
“What? STD? Isn’t that a disease? We sing about STDs?” Seulyi repeated, widening her eyes in shock.
“No, SATB,” Leeteuk corrected her, laughing awkwardly at her rather fatal mistake. He was glad to have corrected her before she ran off telling people they sang about STDs.
“What does the SATB refer to?” Mira was once again being polite, always raising her hand up instead of throwing a direct question.
“I am glad you asked, Mira,” Leeteuk smiled dazzlingly at her. “It simply refers to the four voice types we discussed earlier: soprano, alto, tenor, and bass. These four are used to arrange a song in order to get different harmonies.”
“What are tenor and bass?” Minhyun asked, unable to hide his curiosity.
“The ranges for a male voice. Tenor are the highest range whereas bass is the lowest. In some cases, however, some males are able to hit the range of a soprano,” Leeteuk continued explaining.
“That’s me, I could hit it,” Jaehwan bragged shamelessly, and the others decided to ignore him.
“We need to have at least one person per voice type. What would you classify yourselves as?” Leeteuk asked.
Before anyone could answer, a small intermezzo erupted when the classroom door opened. A familiar pair of faces walked in, having returned from their summer holiday.
“Maerin! Taemin!” The students yelled, cheering at the two like they were athletes crossing the finish line.
Leeteuk let them be as the students got up to greet one another. Youth was all about forming friendships and making memories, so he was more than happy to see everyone in their state of bliss.
“I remember you said to come to room 215 as soon as we got here,” Maerin said, staring at the entire music room with awestruck wonder, as if she had only seen it for the first time, although they had multiple music classes here before.
“How did Taemin get here?” Yerin suddenly asked.
“Did Kibum send you to go in his stead?” Hyunmi suspected, knowing Lee Taemin was unfortunate enough to be Kibum’s roommate.
“No, I met Maerin in the hallway and showed her the way,” Taemin answered as he and Maerin exchanged a look with each other, smiling in a furtive moment of their own.
No one actually questioned why or how Taemin knew about the choir club. It had become a default image to see Taemin and Maerin together. Yet, no one thought much about it, accepting it as the status quo.
“I ended up getting lost. I thought I knew where it was, but I ended up outside near the soccer field,” Maerin said, laughing out loud at her own mistakes.
“See? See? I’m not the only one!” Jaehwan immediately said, nudging Heejin by her arm to prove his point. For once, he wasn’t bluffing.
Heejin smiled out of formality and moved away from him.
“Take a seat, we have just started,” Leeteuk said, resuming his introductory lesson. He showed amazing patience as he waited for everyone to settle back in their seat before continuing. “As I said, you should all know your voice type and range in order to join the right section in choir.”
“How do we do that?” Mira was somehow a little too eager to ask all the questions. She hoped the others would forget all about the interrogation i
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