As routine, I changed into a pair of jeans and a clean shirt, and combed my hair until it looked half-presentable. I had to walk to the end of the hall to brush my teeth and wash my face, but in no time I was set to go.

Still half-asleep, I stumbled my way towards the elevators to visit the practice rooms. I gulped remembering the disconcerting incident the previous day, and as a result brought a metal rod along with my sheet music.

Why a metal rod, you ask? Well, I planned on running the metal across the keyboard in a slow glissando motion; a blade would be revealed if the rod had trouble continuing or if I heard a dissonant scrape. This saved time and energy from going through every key individually. Hey, what did you expect from a guy who went through high school in only two years?

Because I woke up early, there were no people occupying the practice rooms, and I had no trouble at all finding one. After checking for blades, I took my time trying out all of the grand pianos, concluding that there were exactly three good Steinways, four crappy Steinways, and two so-so Yamahas. There were many uprights, but everybody knows that if one wants to become a world-class musician, one needs to practice on a world-class instrument.

I chose the heaviest of the good Steinways. A piano with a heavy touch helped strengthen your fingers, made you more sensitive to the sound, and was good exercise. It also made lighter pianos easier to play in the long run.

What worried me, however, was the fact that this particular Steinway had six blades hidden in its keys while the others did not have any.

‘Is it a curse or something?’ I asked myself.

Ironically, I wasn’t that far off the bat.

At exactly eight o’clock in the morning, a brawny guy stormed in without knocking. I stopped playing and smiled artificially. “Hi there, may I help you?”

“This is my practice room,” he said sternly.

“Really now? Why is that?”

“You are not a student here,” he replied.

“Yes I am!” I retorted.

“Where is your student card?”

I sat there, dumbstruck. THAT’S what I forgot. “I left it in my dormitory,” I admitted sheepishly. “But I DO have one.”

“Really now?” he raised his eyebrows. “Only students are allowed to practice here.”

Even though I actually WAS a student, I knew that he was also lying about how practice rooms are reserved for them; the website itself stated that strangers may use the practice facilities at anytime besides schooldays.

‘And guess what, Einstein, school didn’t start yet.’

“Where did you see that?” I asked complacently.

“It’s obvious, isn’t it? This is a CONSERVATORY. With STUDENTS. Now please do not waste any more of my time. I need to practice.” He was losing patience quickly, like a time bomb in its last five seconds.

I kept a straight face. “I have the right to the practice room, whoever-you-are. I came here first, and therefore have the first priority to it; it IS on a first-come-first-serve basis, am I right? Come back tomorrow at five o’clock in the morning and then you will be able to use this practice room to your heart’s content.”

The guy pursed his lips and I knew that I won. Without a word, he walked out and slammed the door shut behind him. I breathed out a sigh of relief. The music world really IS a tough world.

```

The trouble did not stop there. I was always told that practice rooms were difficult to obtain, and was expecting some heated conflicts. Then again, one actually needs to experience it firsthand in order to know what “difficult” actually means.

After three hours of practicing, I wanted to go to the bathroom, and left my bag on the piano bench before walking out the door. It hardly took three minutes, really, but by the time I got back, my bag looked as it was thrown outside the room and I heard somebody banging the hell out of the piano inside.

That ! I screamed in my mind. I picked up my bag and knocked on the door before entering (manners, people, geez!).

“Excuse me, but I was using this room,” I explained politely to the lady inside. The smile I wore on my face did not reach my eyes.

“Really? Oh I didn’t know that!” she exclaimed, obviously feigning her surprise.

I clenched my teeth together to stop an insult from hurling out of my voice box.

When she didn’t move, I breathed out patiently and tried again. “May I please have this room back?”

“Hmm?” her eyebrows were raised quizzically.

“I said,” exaggerating the enunciation of my words, “May I please have this room back?”

“What do you mean? Have the room BACK?!” she exclaimed. “At the moment, I am here, so I’m sorry, but you need to wait until I am done with this room. Why do you want this room so badly anyways? There are some down the hall, you know.”

‘Yes, but they are all effing uprights,’ I screamed in my mind. “I want this room because I was using it before you came. All I did was leave to go to the bathroom.”

“Ah hah! You left, you said? Because you left, the room was vacant. Moreover, your things weren’t in here when I came,” she stated innocently.

“Yes they were,” my voice rose a little bit. “You threw them out!”

“Did I? How come I do not remember doing that?”

I breathed in and out slowly to calm myself down. “Well, you did.”

“Did what?”

“Throw my stuff out.”

“Really? I do not think so.”

“But you did!”

The girl scoffed. “You know, I would think that I would know what I have done,” she reasoned with a smug look on her face. “Do you need to see a doctor? There is a really good psychiatrist a block from here.”

“What?!? Me?!?!”

“There isn’t anybody else in the room, isn’t there?”

“Indeed,” I whispered with fire in my eyes. Damn it, this girl was just so irritating.

The girl smiled. “Well, it was nice meeting you! I hope to see you around! Bye!”

She started banging some more before I could get a word in. Infuriated, I left.

After walking three steps, I bumped into someone. “Hey, watch it, will you!” I retorted.

“Oh! Uh, sorry, Jaejoong!” Changmin stood in front of me, surprised by my outburst.

I regained my senses. “Oh my god, sorry, Changmin, I didn’t know it was you,” I started hurling apologies at the thin taller boy in front of me. After all, he was the closest I had to a friend at the moment. Junsu was definitely nice and stuff, but I can’t exactly talk to him the same way I would a friend. The only reason I called him my surrogate brother was because he was willing to help a person in need, unlike a lot of people.

“Why are you pissed off?” he asked, cutting to the chase.

“I got kicked out of my practice room,” I admitted angrily. “But it wasn’t fair! I was there first! That girl was lying through her teeth!”

Changmin rolled his eyes. “No, Jaejoong, if you got kicked out, you were not there first.”

I tilted my head in confusion, awaiting an answer.

“It doesn’t matter if you were there first or not. The point is if you SEEMED to have been there first. You got kicked out because all of the evidence stating that you were right was gotten rid of.”

“But that isn’t fair!”

“Nothing is fair, Jaejoong,” Changmin sighed.

Indignant, I started explaining the whole situation, from the time I went to the bathroom to the present.

“And that’s what happened,” I concluded. “Unfair, isn’t it?”

“Yah, it was your fault,” Changmin simply replied.

My head snapped up incredulously. “My fault? How?”

“You only left your bag on the piano bench. Anybody could get rid of the evidence in less than three seconds. Most smart people would leave their coat on the keyboard or scatter sheet music all over the piano lid. Even smarter people would leave their whole breakfast there, and trust me, that is a pain in the to get rid of.”

I could only stare.

“But NO!” Changmin continued, “You had to make it so easy for practice room hunters. It’s like an animal den. If you make it so that your smell is all over the place that it practically reeks of you, other animals would think twice about entering. However, if the smell is not there, they would think that it is vacant and thus take over it.”

“But the world is not a jungle anymore!”

Changmin put his hand on my shoulder, sighing pitifully. “You’d be surprised, Jaejoong.”

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Sorry I didn't update.
I'm still waiting for the poster that I requested.
I hope that it comes in soon.

@Koizora: Yunho's age is part of the plot. You'll see.