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Part 3: The Play

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“Where’s Jinki?” Jonghyun asked his band mate —slash—best friend as he was taking his electric guitar from its bag.

Minho played absent mindedly with the drum sticks that he was holding and just shrugged his response to the older. He was seated to the front row of seat in their music room, which they have unlimited access to because they are the school’s official band after all.

“Do we have a new song?” the drummer asked afterwards. Eyeing the opened piano on one side of the elevated platform where the other male was busy setting things up.

“I’m still polishing it. But we won’t be practicing it now.” And Jonghyun gave him a half smile. Then they heard soft knocks on the door.

“I’ll get it.” Jonghyun said as he stood up from the stool and opened the door.

“Sorry I’m late.” The person smiled apologetically as he entered.

“S’okay, Jinki. Wanna start now? Or you wanna rest first?” Jonghyun asked when they were all seated, Minho, lightly tapping on the drum set in front of him.

“Let’s start, so we can all go home early.”

And that was what they did. Even if Jonghyun was the awesome main vocals, he sometimes plays the guitar or the keyboard. Jinki played the bass guitar and is also the breath-taking second vocals. Minho on the other hand, plays the drums and is the flaming charisma rapper. They are the members of the school’s band.

Many girls swoon over them, may it be them singing on stage or just walking on the hallway. The older two were in their junior year and Minho was in his sophomore year. They all knew each other since they were young, well, basically they live in the same neighborhood and they all went in the same day care when they were toddlers. They were still together during preschool and elementary and of course now. That was why they treat each other as family, something more than your typical best friends forever.

And what was strange with the three of them? They never —yes I mean N-E-V-E-R, NEVER— had any serious relationship. With that runway model look that Minho had, the gentle angelic aura that Jinki possessedand the adorable yet bad boy image that Jonghyun projected, it sure was strange, right? Sure they had numerous flings here and there, but not one of those lasted more than a week. Yes! Even with Jinki. Even if he looks gentle and angelic, he could make girls —even guys at some instances— cry. Same goes for the other two. Whenever they were to be seen with a partner, he or she would be labeled as flavor of the week. Sweet huh?

After a few songs, which they already knew by heart, they decided to take a break.

“Jonghyun hyung, what are we going to sing in the foundation day?” Minho asked as he played cat steps on the white grand piano that Jonghyun was playing before he came.

“I’m writing a special song for that day. But just one. Then we can sing any song you like.” he answered as he ran a hand through his locks.

Jinki eyed him playfully. “For Kibum?” he asked, followed by laughter from him and Minho.

“Do you want me to answer that or not?” Jonghyun asked them.

“Okay we’ll listen… Hey Minho! Stop laughing already.” Jinki answered while lightly rubbing on Minho’s back as if comforting him because of laughing.

“Sorry… hyung… I’ll… I’ll listen…” Minho said, trying his best to stop.

“Well it depends if he will accept it or not.” And this time they all laughed together, their laughter ringing through the closed room.

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The meeting lasted longer than Kibum estimated and he was beginning to be bored by that. But as what their student council president said, “Meetings are meant to go overtime.” He had no way to complain.

Their meeting was about the program and theme of their upcoming school foundation day. They already came up with a theme which goes like “History; Culture at its best” which most of them did not like, because number one, it is history and number two, because they can’t change it to something more modern.

Kibum started to doodle on one of his notebooks. Then he felt a nudge on his side. He glared at the source and found a smiling Sulli next to him.

“What?” he whispered. Some teachers were around to join them in forming the outline of the coming event, so they had to whisper still.

“What was your secret mission?” she asked again, her eyes showed that she was eager to know.

“Haven’t I told you already?”

“Nope.”

He sighed. “Okay, well whatever. I was just going to look at whoever was the one playing the piano in the music room. Then you came.”

“Eh? Then why were you being sneaky?” she continued to interrogate.

“No, I’m not!” he defended himself.

“Yes, you are.”

“Am not.”

“Are too.”

“Anything you want to share, Kibum, Sulli?” their president called their attention. “Suggestions? Questions?” he added.

With Kibum’s sharp senses and quick reflexes, he was able to answer smoothly. “Uh… a play?”

Sulli passed him a questioning look. He acted as if he didn’t saw it and but nudge secretly her secretly under the table with his knee, which she got as an I’ll explain later and she just nodded.

The other members of the committee and the teachers looked at each other and whispered, considering what Kibum had said.

“I think that would be fine. But how do we connect it with our theme?” One member asked.

And they turned to Kibum again waiting for further details. By this time, Kibum sighed lightly and he stood up. He walked towards the front and started to pull the pieces of his suggestion together.

“Well, you see, we have many stories from the past. And we can adopt them for a stage play. What do you think?”

That was when the meeting became lively. A list of stories was on the white board, it was already narrowed down to five —from more or less than twenty— and a final story should be selected.

“Okay, so the story that got the most number of votes is the story of ‘The Rich Man and The Poor Man’. This will be assigned to the third year students as what we have talked about earlier.” Their professor said as they closed that certain topic.

They moved on to the next points to consider and after what seemed like forever the meeting came to an end. Kibum got his bag and bid goodbye to the others. He was about to walk out the room when he heard Sulli’s voice again.

He rolled his eyes and turned to face her.

“What is it?” he asked, face blank.

“Oppa! I think I can help you out!” she exclaimed when she reached him.

“With what?”

“You know… the piano guy in the music room?” she said a-matter-of-factly.

Kibum raised an eyebrow and crossed his arms on his chest. “Is this in anyway an apology or something?”

The girl blushed and looked at her feet.

“If you won’t say anything, I’ll be going home. I can do it on my own if I wanted to.” Kibum said after a while.

“Ah! Oppa!!! I... well yeah... I feel guilty you know.” She answered as her cheeks went to a deeper shade of red.

“No need, Honey. I’ve forgiven you already.” Kibum said as he smiled sweetly at her.

“Really? Uh… no… I…okay if that’s what you say.” Then she smiled back at him, eyes turning to crescents

“Should we go home now? Or you want to sleep here?” Kibum said as he started to walk again.

“Oppa wait!”

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“As what you guys know, the foundation day is in a few weeks time.” Their adviser started on one fine morning. “Our class will be joining the contest of course and you should win! Because the price for the winning class is a hot spring trip for the weekends!”

And there was commotion in their class room. Girls were immediately talking about what to wear and what things to bring while the boys were talking about how they would be able to sneak at the girls’ bath house.

“Hush now my beloved students!!! You have to win first!” their advised called to attention as he pulled out a small colorful box from under his table.

“By the way seusang-nim, what are we to do? I mean, what’s the contest?” one of them asked.

Even if Kibum knew this already, he couldn’t spill it out, ‘coz that would be unfair. So he was sitting there, smiling at himself. Their exams were over and he could say that he did well; no he was sure he did well and now, it was time to relax and think about the upcoming event.

“Hey, Babe. Wanna share rooms during the outing?” Jonghyun asked, cutting Kibum’s happy thoughts.

“I’ve already have my own plans, and you’re not in it.” He replied.

“Aaaw~ too bad. Then you have to redo it.” The other said with a silly smile on his lips.

“Okay listen up!” their advised called again, banging his palm on the table to silence his excited students. “There will be a play that you guys should perform. This play was from our rich history of literatures. You guys should know this already, the story of the Rich man and the Poor man.

“I know you are all itching to be in the play and be the lead characters.” He continued. “So I devised a way for a fair and unbiased selection.”

All eyes were on their adviser, waiting for him to spill it out. He smirked at them as if teasing them about his plan.

“Yah! Just tell it seusang-nim!”

“Okay! You sure are impatient kids! So, as I was saying, we will use, DRAWLOTS.”

And there were “ooh~”s and “aaah~”s in the class.

“You like it? You like it?” their adviser exclaimed like a little kid who just got a star on his paper, then he laughed like a maniac. “Uhm...so as I was saying... Here are the mechanics; we have here the roles…” he pulled out a folded piece of paper “Okay. Then your names are here.” He said lifting up the colorful box.

There were more “ooh~”s and “aaah~”s and some nodded. They were all eager to know what role they would get.

“You can’t all be in the play because some of you should work in the background. You know, script, costumes and props. Shall we begin?”

“NE~!!!!” the students answered excitement coating their voices.

“Let’s start off with the supporting roles… list your names in this paper when once I called you, araseo?” they started. And because all their names are in the box, a role for a guy can either be played by a guy or a girl.

It was a fun activity that they had.And yes, some girls were already picked for a guy’s role and vice versa. Still,so far, so good.

“For the role of the Rich man…” he inserted his hand in the colorfull box and shuffled the remaining papers there before pulling one out and opening it.“Dun dun dun!!! Kim Jonghyun!” and the class went wild. Of course they would, Jonghyun was one asset of their class, so why not. The next thing they knew, the girls who were not called yet were praying to all those saints and gods that they knew for their name to be picked as the wife of the rich man.

Jonghyun stood up from his seat, brushing a hand through his semi-spiky dark brown hair. He made his way to the teacher’s table and signed his name on the piece of paper.

“You sure got a nice role there, young man.” Their adviser said as he eyed his student who was smiling sheepishly in front of him. “Ready for your wife?” he then asked and the girls couldn’t help but squeal and cross their fingers that her name would be the one’s their adviser would get.He shook the box to mix up the papers some more and let Jonghyun pick the paper. He didn’t peek into it but handed it right away to their adviser.

“…Kim Kibum.”

Kibum tore his eyes off from the butterfly that he saw outside the window of their classroom and directed his attention towards their adviser when he heard his name being called. He felt eyes boring holes through his body. Kibum knew he heard their teacher say something about a wife and his girl classmates squealing. And what was he to do now?

He stood up from his chair, remembering that they were to stand up sign their names in the paper when they were called. He walked towards the table with a blank face. Where were his thoughts all this time? And why was Jonghyun looking at him like an idiot with that kind of smile? And why were his classmates humming that stupid "tan-tan-ta-nan" tune?

That was when everything cleared in his mind and he almost face-palmedhimself. “What the hell!?!” he cursed under his breath when he reached the teacher's table -slash- altar.

“And I pronounce you, Husband and Wife~” their adviser teased which caused the whole class to scream, full volume. “You may now kiss the bride.” Even the girls who were a little disappointed about not being the wife of the rich mancouldn’t help but shriek with excitement at the ‘couple’. The boys let out whistles and howls.

Kibum signed his name and turned to walk back on his seat. Then he felt something warm held ontohis slim waist. When he looked at his side, his husband was smiling brightly at him, eyes sparkling.

“Aish! Get off Kim Jonghyun.” Kibum whispered to Jonghyun without even moving his lips. And Jonghyun swore that Kibum could pass as a ventriloquist.

“Ah, Yeobo~ don’t you think we should start internalizing our roles?” Jonghyun replied a loud enough for the whole class to hear.

“I hate you!” he said and turned to sit on his chair.

“I love you too, Yeobo.”

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A/N: huwaaaahh!!! I did it!!! Update update!!! Keke!!! I know it’s so messed up…sorry for that…and for being late to post someting...aigoo...

Oh yeah! The story of the rich man and the poor man! Omg!!! I just love the JongKey there so…keke…hope you like this :D

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