"Uuuuuuggghhhh... It is so impossible to make up two weeks of school in Korea!" I whined, laying my head down on top of my psychology textbook.

John reached across the lunch table and patted me on the head. "Don't worry, you'll catch up eventually. I have faith in you."

"Shut up, John, you're doing worse than I am!"

He shrugged. "It's the thought that counts, right?" 

"Not coming from you. The thought means absolutely nothing."

"Would it be better if it came from Sungmin?"

"Is that a question? If I even got a word with Sungmin, the entire world would be sunshine and rainbows!" 

"I take that as a yes. And also that you haven't seen anyone from SJ yet."

"Just Henry. Apparently the other members have many more responsibilities than he does."

"Yeah. Sure. Hey, can I go to your apartment after your vocal training thing, so we can work on this homework together?"

I bit my lip. "Sorry, John, not today. I have to finish composing the song with Henry. He told me today that if I didn't show up, he was going to tell all of my weirdest, creepiest fangirl desires to the other members of Super Junior. He's pretty serious with his blackmail."

"And what exactly are these weird, creepy fangirl desires?"

"Uh... Let's just say that I haven't had an innocent mind for a very long time. Long before I discovered SuJu."

"ert."

"A bit. It tends to happen when you're in theatre. You get desensitized."

"I guess I shouldn't go to your apartment, then. I might get attacked."

"Min Hee will be there, you know. I'll ask permission for you to come over tomorrow, okay?" I replied, rolling my eyes. 

"Yeah yeah, sure sure. Just don't molest me."

"I'll try not to."

"It's hard, I know."

"Okay, class, today we'll do a review of all of what we learned over the past two weeks, since a certain someone," Sunsaeng began, looking straight at me, "has been missing for a while. I expect her to catch up quickly. If she doesn't, she'll be sure to fail our little upcoming test."

"Test?" Jung Ah asked.

"That's right. A test. Just to gauge where you are in your dancing abilities. And also your partnership skills."

I looked past Sunsaeng when I saw Henry enter the room and wave.

"Henry Lau, glad you decided to join us today," Sunsaeng said to him without even looking at him. "You'll be working in pairs to make a dance performance. That means two people. A dance duet. You'll be choreographing your dance all by yourselves, and then performing it for the class and a set of judges. Get it?"

We all nodded. 

"You remember this box?" Sunsaeng asked, holding up the box of papers that we had used to pick our song for our pretest. "In here are slips of paper. Each one has a number on it. There are two of each number. Whoever has the same number as you is your partner. Each number also represents the song you'll be doing, which I'll tell you once you get your partner. Ready? Come get your papers." 

I went up first, just to get it over with. I plunged my hand in the box and came up with the number four. While everyone else went, I waited until all of the papers were gone to look for my partner. 

"Number four? Who's number four?" I called, then felt someone tap me on the shoulder.

"Minsung? You're number four? Then I guess we're partners." He held out his hand. "I'm Choi JiHoo, by the way. In case you didn't remember." I shook his hand, feeling bad, because I really had forgotten his name. Give me some slack, I'd been gone for two weeks! 

We went up to Sunsaeng with our numbers, and he gave us our song. "Dong Bang Shin Ki- Mirotic." He grinned at us evilly. Oh god. Oh god oh god. We had to dance to Mirotic?! You've got to be kidding me!

When everyone had their partners and their songs, he faced us all. "I wish you all luck. And don't forget, you are to choreograph these songs on your own. You are not allowed to recieve any assistance on choreography from anyone," he emphasized, glaring pointedly at Henry, and then at me. Henry just met my eyes and shrugged. 

"Is that clear? Well then, best of luck. You have today to review, and then the next three weeks are all about choreographing and practicing your pieces. Enjoy."

"Of all the songs in Kpop, or even just SM, why did it have to be Mirotic?!" I complained to Henry as he walked with me to the vocal training room for my lesson. "It's just so awkward! I don't even know JiHoo! And the only way we can make this song is to get really, really..."

"Sensual?"

"Close. I was going to say 'close'."

"Sure you were."

"Shut up, Henry. It's just that I'm behind in the class, and Min Hee can only do so much!"

"Hey, don't worry. It's not the moves that you at, anyway."

I glared at him. "Yeah, thanks, that makes me feel so much better."

"Hey, I'll help you."

"Didn't you hear Sunsaeng? You're not supposed to help me."

"I'm not supposed to help you with the choreography. He never said anything with helping you figure out how to stay on your own two feet."

"And how do you plan on doing that?!"

I never got an answer, because we arrived at the vocal practice room, at which point Sensei looked up and said "Minsung, I'd appreciate if you would refrain from yelling. And Henry, if you're going to be a distraction to Minsung, maybe you should consider not being present." 

"Hey, maybe I want vocal training, too!"

"Somehow I doubt that. Take a seat," she replied smoothly. Somehow it was always difficult to ruffle Sensei's feathers. Maybe it was an Asian teacher thing, because back home I was always able to confuse the heck out of my teachers. Not here, though. 

"Hey, Nakata-sensei, can I make a suggestion?" Henry asked, leaning back in his chair. 

"As long as it's not too ridiculous."

"Can you devote a few lessons to teaching Mel-"

"Minsung," she corrected.

"Sorry. Minsung. To teaching Minsung how to read music? It's kind of important if she wants to be a songwriter."

She gave me incredulous eyes. "You can't read music, Minsung?"

My eyes found a place to focus: a very odd-looking spot on my shoe. Or maybe they were just too embarassed to focus on Sensei. "No... I can't."

"But how have you learned songs? You've been doing fine so far..."

"I learn them by ear. I listen, match my voice to the notes, and go from there. I can't actually figure out which note something is by listening to it, or what pitch to give a note on a piece of paper. It's all so complicated, I've just never worked with it enough to try to figure it out."

"Well, that will definitely be a problem if you want to write songs. I'm surprised that you didn't tell me this earlier."

"See what I mean?" Henry complained, elbowing me in the side.

"Yes, thank you, Henry-san. Very helpful. Now be quiet while I begin adressing Minsung's problem. Minsung, you'll have to be patient, because this will be a long process. Reading music is, as you said, complicated..."

"Well, that was fun," Henry remarked when Sensei left. 

"Says you! You fell asleep!" I squeaked at him. 

"Hey, I only slept three hours last night!"

"Not an excuse. You're a musician. It's only natural that your schedule gets busy sometimes."

"Well, sensei told me to be quiet, and I think I was doing that pretty well, wasn't I?"

"Until you started snoring."

"I was snoring?!"

"Obnoxiously. Sensei was thinking about throwing you out."

"Did she?"

"Well, you're still in here, aren't you?"

"Good point." He shook the sleep out of his head. "So, let's continue working on this song. Did you bring the papers we used last time?"

"Yeah, here they are."

"Great. So I was thinking of adding a piano background, like this, for the refrain," He began, playing a series of gorgeous notes on the piano. 

"Does that match what I already made for the ukulele?" I asked, just to make it sound like I actually understood the exact mechanics of the piano sounds. Mostly I was too dazzled by how pretty it was. 

"I don't know. Let's try it. Now, remember what i said about being careful about where your hands are one the strings..."

Henry had a pen mark on his cheek. I think it was from one of the times he stuck the pen in his mouth while he played another set of notes on the piano, and accidentally got his cheek with it. But he was too immersed in what he was doing to really care.

It was bothering me, though. Just a black mark on his nice, clear, Mochi cheeks. I couldn't stop looking at it. Finally I couldn't take it anymore. 

"Henry, sit still." 

"What, huh?"

I grabbed a tissue and put some water from my water bottle onto it, and proceeded to wipe the black mark off. Henry just looked at me like I was nuts.

"You got pen on your cheek. I was debating telling you about it or not, but it was annoying me too much not to do anything."

"Oh... sorry." He shook his head and returned to the piano. I sat back, still watching. He was so focused when it came to his music. I felt a bit bad because I didn't know the piano at all. I couldn't even plunk notes. My sister had told me that it wasn't so difficult once you figured out where "C" was, but I couldn't really figure that much out, either. So I just sat back and watched him, and istened. Occassionally he'd lean over and scratch a series of little dots and lines on the paper. I knew the lengths of notes, and what they meant, I just wasn't very good at the little extra symbols, and matching notes to sounds. he seemed to know, though.

After a little while he stopped playing and triumphantly snatched up the paper. 

"It's finished! Now, let's run it through one more time, ukulele and piano. And then we can get one of the producers in here to listen to it..."

"Tomorrow. We'll run it through today, but it's already getting late, and it's my turn to make supper today. Can we show it to the producers tomorrow?"

"Yeah, sure. Now come on, you just oplay your mini-guitar, I'll do my part. And you get to do the words. Can you handle that?"

"I think so. Shall we try it?"

"Yeah, okay. You start, and then I'm going to come in. Make sense?"

"Yeah."

"Alright, one, two, three, four..."

The next day I called John, to tell him to go ahead to my dorm after school, I'd be there later. Just as long as he didn't drive Min Hee crazy. When he asked why, I had to tell him that I was going to try to go pro with one of my songs.

 As expected, dance practice with JiHoo did not go well. At all. Neither of us knew where to even start. Every time he accidentally brushed my arm, he'd jerk away as if I'd electrocuted him. 

"JiHoo, if we're going to do 'Mirotic', you're going to have to get used to touching me!" I half-shouted, getting frustrated. 

"I'm sorry! It just feels awkward, because I don't want to make you feel... violated."

I took a deep breath. "If anyone's uncomfortable here, JiHoo, it's you. Trust me. I've been desensitized way too much to care about getting touched."

"De... sens...itized?" 

"It's a theatre thing. If you want to be an actress, you have to get really comfortable with your sense of self, because you don't have time or room backstage to care who sees what parts of you. And the theatre people have a tendency to be... personal."

I didn't really know how to describe my first year as an actress in high school, where I had initially been freaked out at just how much the actors were apt to purposely violate your personal space as a joke. You got used to it after a while. 

"Alright, I'll try."

After that, though, it was me that caused problems, since I couldn't seem to keep my feet going the ways i wanted them to. I was pretty sure that Jihoo was relieved when the class ended, so he could get away from me for a while. Maybe I freaked him out for being totally not shy. 

I headed to my vocal training lesson, but didn't see Henry anywhere. So we went through the lesson, discussing sharp and flat notes, which symbol indicated which, and how i was to sing/play each one. Riveting, I know. 

When it was finally over, I peeked out into the hallway, still not seeing Henry. He was going to come, wasn't he?

I went back in and pulled out my phone. "You coming or not?" I texted Henry.

"Yeah, I'm just trying to convince some of the guys up top to come listen. I'll be there in a minute with some people, so get ready."

 I put my phone away and picked up my ukulele, my heart pounding. I was so nervous. What would happen if they liked it? Would it get published? Would I have to perform it again?

I peeked through the door again, almost smacking my head into someone. I jerked back, bowing an apology. 

"Choisoimida!"

He just laughed and patted me on the head. Wait, patted me on the head? Am I so short that I look like a little kid?

"It's alright, Choi Minsung. Actually, I was on my way into that room to see you."

"See me, sir? ...May I ask... who I'm talking to?"

"You don't know who I am? I'll have to ask how well this company's being run if you can't even identify your CEO."

"Choisoimida! Choisoimida, Kim Young Min -shi! I'm so sorry, I didn't realize-"

"It's alright, it's alright. You can calm down, Minsung. Please, continue preparing."

"Minsung! Are you ready?" I heard Henry call from down the hall. He was being followed by a few people in business suits. Daunting.

When he came up, suddenly I found Henry between me and CEO Kim. He was purposely keeping me behind him. Why?

"Minsung is just a trainee, CEO Kim. I hope you keep that in mind while you listen and talk to her. She's not a trainee yet."

"Yes, Mr. Lau, I'm aware of that. If you don't mind, I'd like to hear this song. Written by you and Minsung, right?"

"Written by Minsung. Composed by me and Minsung."

"Minsung and I" I corrected from behind Henry's back. "Henry, I can't see what's going on. Could you please move?"

"Stay there," he hissed back, looking back at CEO Kim, and then Producer Soo Man, who had also arrived. "Minsung and I hope you enjoy the song. If you'd please make yourselves comfortable, we'll start in a moment."

The producers regarded him for a moment, then went into the room. Henry seemed to start breathing again, and then whipped around to face me, putting his hands on my shoulders. 

"Look, Minsung, you're still a trainee. The people up top here are pretty dangerous. They can judge you and get rid of you in the blink of an eye, just because you slip up one time. When they want something, they don't care if they have to use force to get it. You have to be really careful, okay?"

I got a chill down my spine. "Then why'd you bring them here?!" I squeaked.

"I didn't expect the CEO to come!" He hissed back in a whisper. "Just the producers!"

"Okay, okay, I'm sorry." I took a deep breath, then looked back up at him. "Thanks, Henry." I'd just realized that he'd been protecting me earlier. Which put a lot on the line for him, since his reputation as an artist at SM wasn't exactly spotless. 

"Yeah, don't worry about it. Just get your in there, and don't screw up!"

Easier said than done, I thought as I walked into the room, where a good number of SM's high-ups were waiting.