Ambling across the hallway, I kept shaking my head from side to side in self-disappointment. Just when Yunho finally gave me a chance to shine, I ruin it by playing like in front of him. Of course, he was super nice about it and still patiently corrected my mistakes, but I could not help but feel as if I let him down as well as myself.

I was snapped out of my depressed state by a cheerful “Hey Jaejoong!”

“Oh,” I replied sullenly, looking up at the skinny figure in front of me. “Hey Changmin.”

“You look beat,” he observed, munching on a bag of potato chips. “What happened?”

“Just the worst lesson I have ever had,” I responded.

“Did Professor Jung criticize the hell out of you?” he asked. “Because if he did, that’s a good thing.”

I looked up. “How so?”

“He only really criticizes those who play well,” Changmin explained. “People who don’t play well or just play badly that day prove that they do not deserve his advice.”

I looked back down at my shoes. ‘Well, that settles everything. I .’

“Anyways,” he brightened up, “You’d better go practice before all of what he says slips out of your mind. He has this ability of remembering everything he says in the lessons, you know.”

I groaned. “Thanks for the tip, Changmin!” I waved half-heartedly and walked towards the practice rooms, intent on practicing until I was sure I would do better the next time I faced Professor Jung.

The first room I came across had a booming Rachmaninoff blasting through the door screaming “TAKEN!”

I strained my ear and heard something that sounded akin to Mozart coming from the second room, and behind all of its elegant harmonies and simple melodies, it, too, screamed out “TAKEN!”

It was only on my third try where no sound leaked from the cracks of the door. Looking at the room number, I realized that this was the practice room with the heaviest Steinway. Opening the door, I scanned the empty space and concluded that this room was vacant.

I smiled. ‘Guess I wasn’t so unlucky after all,’ I mused.

Oh, if only I knew how spitefully fate pulls her puppet strings!

Scattering some pages of my sheet music all over the piano lid like Changmin advised me to, I carefully checked for blades (pulling out exactly six again), sat comfortably on the piano bench, and started practicing. I imagined my next lesson with Yunho lightly criticizing me about my playing. I imagined him telling me to play a passage over and over again until I got it perfect. I imagined him watching me with a twinge of happiness in his weary eyes. That was what I was aiming for: that hint of pride of having a great student.

(A/N This is what Jaejoong is playing, please listen because I love the piece though I still haven’t found the time to learn it: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5M2PO4f5Y7k)

As I played, I felt all of my winter sorrows melt into a spring of hope, and suddenly everything was beautiful.

However, just before I hit the coda (my favorite part of the whole piece, as a matter of fact), the door was opened once again and I found myself face to face with the brawny guy that tried to kick me out last time.

“Hi there,” I greeted him coldly, annoyed that I would have to restart the whole damn piece in order for the last section of the piece to sound its best.

“Leave,” he growled menacingly.

“Why?” I asked innocently.

“This is MY practice room. Get out!”

“Your practice room?” I tilted my head to the side as an act of theatrical confusion, imitating the girl who stole my other practice room. “Since when?”

“OUT!” he raised his voice.

“If you want me out,” I smiled, “Get the office to kick me out.”

“Last chance, you twit.”

I heard his teeth grind together and I had a feeling that he was not kidding. Then again, what could he do? “Then get the office to kick me out,” I stated a second time.

He pursed his lips. ‘Ah hah,’ I thought triumphantly. ‘Because I did nothing wrong, the office would have no reason to kick me out.’

“Now,” I concluded with a sickeningly sweet smile, “Please exit MY practice room because I want to practice right now.” I started banging on the keyboard once more and fought a giggle when I saw that guy huff in anger.

‘That practice room thief of a girl had a great strategy,’ I giggled happily in my head, proud that I learned a great stratagem of keeping a practice room.

How wrong I was.

Instead of leaving like I expected him to, the burly man stomped towards me and crashed the piano lid down on my fingers.

I screamed out in utter pain and grabbed the ends of my fingers. “You jerk!” I yelled while making sure that none of my fingers were broken.

“Are you going to leave now?” he asked. This time, HE had a smug face on.

Hot tears threatened to protrude but I fought them back. “Make me, you bastard!”

Damn, that was a bad idea.

Mr. Bastard grabbed my hair and pulled up. I felt my scalp on the verge of ripping off and I yelped as a single tear trickled down my face. “How about now?” he whispered through his teeth.

“GET YOUR HANDS OFF OF ME, YOU !!!” I shrieked at the top of my lungs, totally frightened. He was pulling really hard on my hair and I was trying in vain to loosen his tight grasp on me. “PICK ON SOMEONE YOUR OWN SIZE!!!”

He then threw me to the floor and I landed with a loud crash, pain surging up my elbow into my shoulder. By then, I was as helpless as a scrawny sixteen-year-old could be against a muscular twenty-three-year-old. Hot tears streamed down my face as I choked out a sob of reluctant defeat. I had neither the energy nor the will to keep fighting against this violent man. ‘How could somebody do something like this just for a damn practice room?’

I heard the door creak open and Junsu’s head appeared.

“Hey Yoochun!” he greeted happily.

Well, he was happy until he saw me on the ground. He observed the situation (Yoochun lingering over my almost broken form) and concluded that things were not going well.

“Junsu,” I croaked out helplessly, looking at him with desperate red puffy eyes. Tears were incessantly falling from my face and the excruciatingly deep mark slashed across my finger joints from the piano lid was glowing bright red.

My surrogate big brother bit his lip and looked at Yoochun who was giving him with a ‘What are you going to do about it?’ look. I saw Junsu’s eyes fill with grief as he shook his head in disapproval.

Junsu picked up all of my stuff, walked towards me, helped me up, and led me out the door, all the while whispering comforting things into my non-responding ear. Before Junsu closed the door, though, I looked back at this Yoochun dude, and to my surprise, he just shrugged carelessly, sat in front of the piano, and started warming up with his scales, seeming as if he did not regret one single act of violence he inflicted on me. I almost stopped breathing as I witnessed his immorality.

Once we were out of Yoochun’s sight, I stiffened in Junsu’s arms and heaved out a sigh of resentment. “You let him have the practice room,” I accused coldly. “You let him have his way. You didn’t stand up for me. I trusted you!” Throwing his arm off of my shoulder, I glared at him with an anger that I have never felt before. I knew I was being unfair to the man who just helped me prevent more bruises from developing on my body, but the rage I felt overruled any other emotion in me.

Junsu sighed. “Jaejoong, you don’t look like you are in the right mind or shape to practice.” He eyed my wounded fingers and puffy eyes.

I scoffed. “Is that the only reason you betrayed me?”

“I did nothing of the sort. You are just a naïve little boy, Jaejoong,” Junsu said with apologetic eyes. “Everybody here knows not to mess with Yoochun. Don’t get me wrong, he is actually a really good guy once you get to know him—”

“HIM?!?” I inhaled sharply. “A good guy? Puh-leez!”

“Just as long as everybody leaves his practice room alone,” Junsu explained calmly, “He won’t do any harm to anybody. In fact, sometimes when he is in a good mood, he even helps people find a practice room if they are desperately in need.”

“Uh huh, right!” I replied sarcastically even though I saw truth in my surrogate brother’s eyes. “After he almost broke my fingers, pulled on my scalp, and threw me across the floor, you still believe that I could actually fathom that Yoochun is *gasp* actually a NICE GUY?! Why do you even stand up for such a beast!?!”

“Damn it, I know him better than you do, Jaejoong!” Junsu raised his voice slightly. “Well, I should, anyways: I am his boyfriend! I have dated him for almost four years now!” By the look on his face after he blurted out the ugly truth, I knew that he immediately regretted what he had just said.

I took a few numb steps backward. After a moment’s hesitation, I felt the corners of my mouth going against gravity. “Ah, the plot thickens.” With that, I turned around with a bitter smile on my face. As corrupt and unfair as it seemed, Junsu and I tacitly knew that he was permanently stripped from his title as my surrogate big brother.

I felt curious discriminating eyes following me as I glided towards the elevator, not even bothering to cover my red puffy eyes. Does it matter if you look like crap if everybody else thinks that you look like crap even when you do not?

A few minutes later, I was sitting in a corner of the library, eyes empty of feeling and drained of all energy. I looked at my hands and winced at the red line that ran underneath my finger joints. It was fading quickly, yes, and by tomorrow all evidence would vanish; yet, the pain was still present, contemptuously throbbing and maliciously stinging, as if it was trying to make me more miserable than I already was.

‘Damn them,’ I swore in my mind. ‘Damn them all to hell!’

I suddenly felt the urge to throw something against the wall and hear it shatter into a million pieces. I wanted to break all ten of Yoochun’s fingers (note: fanatical pianists value their hands more than they value their life) until every single one of them was beyond repair. I wanted to slap Junsu across the face for standing up for his of a boyfriend instead of me. I wanted to beat the crap out of the girl who stole my practice room. I wanted to burn the whole conservatory to the ground, for Christ’s sake! I hated it! I hated them! I wanted to leave the place, even if it meant throwing away a career in music. I just wanted out! I wanted to go home!

And yet, there was one last thing holding me back, which was my piano professor, Yunho. Merely thinking about him seemed to numb my overheated mind like ice does to a wound. It was then when I realized that Yunho was probably the only reason left why I would ever think of staying in this hellhole.

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Thank you for all the comments and your support! I really appreciate them. As a writer, they really keep me going on this.

Thank you again!