Foreword:

This is set after the first Super Junior M promotions when Henry returned to go study. For the purpose of this story, the Vivaldi song Henry played on the violin (The fast one that he created for the Chinese Variety shows) is not the song he used. Just imagine that he performed the Don’t Don solo or any of the violin solo’s from SJ-M’s first album.This is set after the first Super Junior M promotions when Henry returned to go study. It's kind of nessecary to listen to the music that I mentioned so you will understand the emotions that I portrayed during their performances.

STORY STARTS HERE

2008-09

Henry Lau looked up at the clear blue sky, leaning his head back against the wall he was currently leaning on. It was summer and he had returned to the Berklee College of Music after Super Junior-M had finished their promotions. It felt good to be back at college and he was looking forward to classes. He looked around for anyone familiar as students slowly started arriving. Checking his watch he decided that it wasn’t too early anymore and headed off to his first lecture ‘Music and Composing'.

At the door to the lecture hall he looked around and waved to a few of the students who were already inside. After spotting Lauren Kim or Hyun-Ae sitting a few rows from the front he crept over and took the seat behind her. Lauren made no movements and Henry took this as a signal that she didn’t hear him. After grabbing a pen, he lightly it on her bare collarbone. Lauren’s hand went to her neck, thinking that a piece of hair had fallen out of the messy bun she had it in. Instead of this time he poked her on the neck and she quickly slapped the area thinking that it was a mosquito biting her. Grinning because she hadn’t caught him, he leant closely and whispered “Hyun-Ae!”

Startled, Lauren turned around quickly, whipping Henry with some hair that had been loosened from the bun.

“Ouch,” he whimpered faking pain.

“Sorry, Henry is your nose okay?!” She asked concerned as she reached quickly into her bag looking for tissues.

“I’m fine,” Henry said, grabbing her hand before she could find them.

Henry moved over to the seat next to her just as the Professor walked in to start the lecture. He smiled apologetically at her and took out his notebook to start taking notes. Lauren did the same and rolled her eyes.

The Professor’s first lecture of the semester was quite simple. He went over the requirements and the grading system. After all the introductory information he started the class with an announcement. The first assignment was to compose and perform two songs, an original modern piece in any style and a modern rearrangement of an old classical piece. This assignment was to be used to judge the individual levels of each person enrolled in the course. After thanking the class he dismissed them and Henry and Lauren walked off to some tables in the courtyard. After getting out their notebooks and textbooks they sat down in silence.

Henry immediately started thinking. They had three weeks to do the assignment and he wasn’t keen on wasting any time. He thought of various composers and started writing notes down. Bach, Chopin, Rossini, Tchaikovsky, Debussy.....Who had a piece that he would be able to rearrange? He thought of which instrument he would play and decided on the violin, his forte. Looking at his violin which was laying on the table it suddenly hit him. Vivaldi. But what piece? Should he do one of the Four Seasons? Should he do a Concerto? In the background he heard an unfamiliar song coming from a person’s ringtone. Only one lyric processed in his mind. "Walking through a SUMMER storm

While Henry was deciding on his assignment Lauren was preoccupied with her own thoughts. She and Henry had been good friends during high school and it was her that had taught him a little bit of Korean before he auditioned for the SM Global Audition. They had gone out on dates before but they had never made it official. Lauren knew that she was the reason for this as she was the one who had mentioned in an earlier conversation that she didn’t like the idea of a long distance relationship. She had spent the last few years apart from Henry and they had still remained in close and in full contact. Before Lauren was preparing herself for the day that Henry would return from Korea and they would be awkward with each other but luckily this thought had been proved wrong earlier. Lauren smiled and focused on her own notebook, thinking about what composer should she use for inspiration. Bach, Rossini, Tchaikovsky, Chopin, Vivaldi or Debussy? Not realising that she had the same list as Henry she continued writing notes. Before she decided on a composer she decided to choose her instrument. She was as equally talented as Henry and decided against using the violin. This left her with a choice of the cello or the piano. Lauren decided to use the cello as she always played the piano for her composition assignments. Lauren decided to rearrange Cello Suite No.1 by Bach and so she wrote it down in big letters.

Looking up she looked at Henry to ask if he was done brainstorming. She found Henry looking at her with a faraway dreamy look in his eyes. After he didn’t respond when she waved her hands in front of him she decided to creep behind him and give him a kiss on the cheek. At that exact moment Henry noticed that Lauren was no longer in front of him and when he turned to his left side he found he was face to face with her. Lauren inhaled and stopped herself in time from kissing his lips. Both of them blushed but didn’t look away or move positions. Lauren’s eyes were wide open, as were Henry’s.

Just as Henry was about to lean in and kiss her, his phone rang completely destroying the moment. Suddenly Lauren’s phone started to ring as well and two songs by Super Junior could be heard playing. Lauren’s ringtone was the Mandarin version of U while Henry’s was the Korean SS1 version of A Man In Love. Though he was frustrated Henry smirked at Lauren’s ringtone and answered the call. Lauren walked a few steps away to answer her own phone to give him some privacy. When they both finished Henry placed his phone on vibrate and Lauren returned, shoving her phone in her pocket.

“Sorry, I have to go meet one of the student advisors in the other campus,” Lauren said, “I’ll see you later?”

“Yeah, give me a call when you’re done,” Henry replied.

When she left Henry returned to his notes. The almost kiss was still running through his mind. It had happened twice before and both times Lauren had pulled away blushing. This time was different. He had read it in her eyes. He wondered on how he could officially ask Lauren to be his girlfriend in a way that she probably hadn’t seen in one of her favourite Korean Dramas. After thinking of hundreds of ideas and rejecting every single one he thought,

“I can’t get you off my mind can’t I?”

Suddenly he remembered the days they had spent together at dance competitions. Sometimes they had performed together but most of the time they had performed solo and Henry had enjoyed the thought of Lauren cheering for him on the side of the stage. Lauren had always been there for him before he had left for Korea. Henry thought of all the fans and anti-fans he had gained on the way and finally thought of a great idea. He would write her a song and perform it for her before he would show it to the world.

Over the three weeks that followed Lauren and Henry regained the closeness that they had back in high school. They always met outside of school to practise their assignments and soon they had memorised them perfectly.

For their original compositions Lauren was still going to play the cello while Henry decided to also play the piano. Though they knew what instrument the other was going to play with they hadn’t actually heard each other’s composition.

On the day the compositions were due Lauren turned up to Berklee with her cello strapped to her back while Henry carried his violin. The piano was already in the lecture hall. After waiting for other students it was finally Lauren’s turn (alphabetical order). She played the rearrangement of Bach as an faster RnB version. Henry was immediately after her and played his upbeat version of Vivaldi while adding in some dance moves. After that a few more students played their rearrangements and the class started all over again to present their original compositions. While waiting for their turns, both Henry and Lauren looked over their music scores with great focus. When it was getting closer to Lauren’s turn she put her score in order and closed her eyes to listen to the music. Henry took this time to sneak a peek at another music score he had in his bag, quietly flipping through the pages he made sure they were in order and closed his bag just as Lauren’s name was called.

Lauren went down to the front of the stage and held the cello. She arranged her music score on the music stand and began playing. Suddenly a slow song yet emotional song could be heard, and Henry looked at Lauren to find that she was looking directly at him (The song that she had composed was River Flows in You by Yiruma). Through her composition Lauren had hoped to send a message to Henry that she was ready and that she was sorry that she had kept him waiting. After she finished she went back to her seat as Henry walked down towards the piano. He sat down, arranged his music score and began to play. It was a beautiful piece, one that was soothing yet sweet at the same time (Kiss the Rain by Yiruma). Henry did not need to look at Lauren to know that she had her eyes on him the whole time and he used this knowledge to pour even more emotion into the song. When he finished he returned back to his seat to wait until the class finished. The two sat in silence, both relieved that they had succeeded with their compositions. Henry reached for Lauren’s hand who instead leant her head on Henry’s shoulder. They sat like this while listening to the rest of their classmates.

When the class finally ended Henry told her that he wanted to show her something in one of the college recording studios. After collecting their instruments and walking over to one of the unoccupied studios Henry told her to sit outside of the sound booth where the controls were. Once he got inside he told her to close her eyes and listen to the music.

Lauren did as told and Henry started the track:

Girl wo yi kan dao ni, I go C-C-Crazy
Wo zhi xiang yao ni zuo wo de Baby
Wo xiang kan tou ni de xin dan shi wo mei you ban fa, 
Wo ke bu ke yi qian ni de shou?

Ye xu ni ye zheng xiang zhe wo, 
You got me goin crazy, crazy, crazy, yea
Ru guo wo men zai yi qi, shen me dou yuan yi
Oh Baby baby baby

Wo de ai, quan dou gei ni
Wo jiu zai zhe li
Wo de xin, bu hui fang qi
Ni shi wo wei yi
Girl zhe bu shi yi wai, ni zong wo de nv hai
I can't get my mind off ya, off ya

Wo de ai, quan dou gei ni
Wo jiu zai zhe li
Wo de xin, bu hui fang qi
Ni shi wo wei yi
Girl zhe bu shi yi wai, ni shi wo de nv hai
I can't get my mind off ya, off ya (off my mind)

Tian ta xia lai wu suo wei, yi ding bu hou hui
Zai da de shi dou you wo bei (you wo Baby)
Zhi yao shuo yi sheng ok, jiu gen wo zou
Just say ok, and come with me
So take my hand and baby don't let go

Ye xu ni ye zheng zai xiang zhe wo, 
You got me goin crazy, crazy, crazy, yea
Ru guo wo men zai yi qi, zuo shen me dou yuan yi

Oh Baby baby baby

Wo de ai, quan dou gei ni
Wo jiu zai zhe li
Wo de xin, bu hui fang qi
Ni shi wo wei yi
Girl zhe bu shi yi wai, ni shi wo nv hai
I can't get my mind off ya, off ya

Wo de ai, quan dou gei ni
Wo jiu zai zhe li
Wo de xin, bu hui fang qi
Ni shi wo wei yi
Girl zhe bu shi yi wai, ni shi wo nv hai
I can't get my mind off ya, off ya (off my mind)

Oh wo yao zen me dui ni shuo, (wo yao zen me dui ni)
Dao di yao gai zen me zuo? (dao di yao gai zen me)
Fu chu de gou bu gou
Dui ni de gan qing tai zhong~ tai zhong~ (My Love)
Wo jue dui bu xiang fang shou

Wo de ai, quan dou gei ni
Wo jiu zai zhe li
Wo de xin, bu hui fang qi
Ni shi wo wei yi
Girl zhe bu shi yi wai, ni shi wo nv hai
I can't get my mind off ya, off ya (off my mind)

Wo de ai, quan dou gei ni
Wo jiu zai zhe li
Wo de xin, bu hui fang qi
Ni shi wo wei yi
Girl zhe bu shi yi wai, ni shi wo nv hai
I can't get my mind off ya, off ya,, off my mind
O-off my mind, off my mind

When Henry finished singing he told her to open her eyes and she saw that the window of the sound booth was fogged up.

She moved closer to the window and read:

HYUN-AE, SARANGHAE

WITH ALL MY HEART

WILL YOU BE MINE?

She turned around to find Henry already outside of the soundbooth and face to face with her. Just like three weeks ago. But this time she didn’t hesitate, she leaned in and kissed him and whispered:

“Wo Ai Ni, Saranghae, I love you.”