"Am, oh my god, go to sleep," Amy moans under her covers, still awake at o'clock despite her having a class the next morning at nine, and it's all Amber's fault. Though the young woman returned to the dorm right after her supposed meeting with the orchestra leader, she spent the hours up until now hyperventilating over the disaster that she had landed into.

"Oh god, this is all my fault," Amber bemoans, palms on her face. She hurriedly turns to the side, looking at Amy's covered back in horror. "I'm done. This- this is the end of the line for me! That Henry guy is gonna find out who I am, and I'll be stuck paying off his stupid violin, and- and we won't get a good spot on the showcase, and Hyoyeon will never let me live this down, I- " the blonde groans, turning once more to bury her face in her pillow.

Amy inhales deeply, yanks the covers off her, and squints at her best friend through the harsh lights of the dorm that should have went off a few hours ago. "Look, Am." Amber briefly pauses in her mental session of beating herself up. "Okay, yeah, you messed up, whatever. This can all be easily fixed, and no one's hating you for it. Just go to Hyoyeon in the morning, and, you know, settle back easy a bit because it's not the end of the world," she finishes, a hand coming up to dig her palm into her tired eyes.

The blonde grows quiet, reflecting over the words, and feels a sense of gratitude filling her. Despite the school letting students have the option to dorm with anyone on-campus so long as they were of the same gender, Amy still chose her over her vocal friends, her and her many issues that she often blows up into extraordinary proportions. Amber sniffles, a finger brushing away sweat that's accumulated on her upper lip for the past six hours, and reaches out a hand of friendship to the older. "Thanks, Amy- "

"Ew, oh my god, don't touch me!" the other shrieks, pulling the covers back over her head and rolling away from the offending hand as fast as humanly possible.

The next morning, after the chaos has settled and the sun has risen, Amber gets up out of bed with both a sense of responsibility and dread filling her.

After going through her daily routine, she dresses in a graphic tee and baggy shorts, slips on worn sneakers, and is checking the items she needs for school when an ice-cold flash passes through her body. She can't find her wallet with her photo id in it. Biting on her thumbnail worriedly, the blonde retraces her steps and realizes that it must have tumbled out of her jacket pocket when she was sprinting away from the Auditorium and grimaces.

"Ah, geez," she groans, knowing that she can't get a discount at the store for a tub of ice cream to drown herself in without her photo id, like she was planning to that night. Amber exits the dorm, letting it quietly shut behind her, and slings her bag over her shoulder as she mentally prepares herself for another day of lessons.

Really, everything is fine and dandy until lunch, where she allows her head to touch the table in agony, uncaring of any teenage germs on the table's surface that could infect. Eric mimics her position, except he's long gone into the land of dreams.

Sunyoung peers at her friend. "Where's your lunch?" she quizzes, eating a box of kimbap she made herself. The young woman usually makes her own lunch and has conspiracy theories surrounding the canteen's food.

"Lost my id," Amber grumbles, forehead sure to sprout a red mark later. Students need their cards to buy any meals with their accounts whatsoever. "I'm gonna go find it after school, check the lost and found."

Amy is ready to entertain their friends with a story of what happened late at night, but when she opens , she quickly shuts it, noticing something behind Amber. Victoria's eyes widen, and her eyes flutter from Amber to whatever is behind her.

There's a tap on her left shoulder, and she brings up her head, turning to face whomever's standing behind her.

It's Henry, with an unamused expression on his face.

She yelps in surprise, banging her knees against the underside of the table, and groans in pain. "Dude, what was that for?"

"That was just your own reaction; I had nothing to do with that," he replies flatly, a hand dropping her wallet in front of her. "You must've dropped this running away from our meeting yesterday, Amber."

The young woman winces at the harshness that he uses with her name, knowing that he saw her id, and meekly thanks him for retrieving her wallet.

"Three after classes, today, orchestra room," Henry stresses, turning to leave. "Don't worry -- I'm not leaving my violin out this time." With that he leaves, and Amber feels like curling up more on the bench in mortification because oh geez he heard and saw her racing out of there yesterday.

She turns back to her lunch group, all of whom had their mouths open in astonishment, and Amy releases a garble that probably is supposed to sound like a low whistle. "So that's the guy, Amber? Nice catch."

"What do you mean, 'nice catch,' you doof?" the younger grumbles, swatting her on the shoulder, and the vocalist hisses in pain.

The other two have some sort of mental communication with their eyes, and Sunyoung calmly fishes out her wallet and a couple of bills. "10,000 won."

Victoria grins widely. "12,000," she declares loudly, and places the bills in the center of the table on top of Sunyoung's.

"Hm, no, no," Amy interrupts, clearly in on the conversation. "30,000 won." Victoria and Sunyoung both look at her dubiously, and she subsequently takes off a bill from the top of the stack.

"Wait, I don't understand," Amber begins, brows scrunched together. "W- what's this for?"

Sunyoung wakes Eric up with a slap for him to pocket the money, and Victoria cackles happily. "My shoe collection," she responds smugly, "because I'm right."

—

Lunch ends with Amber having to pry Sunyoung's tugging hands off Amy's hair, because even though she doesn't understand what the cash is for or why she's excluded from this potluck, she doesn't want her friends killing each other over 50k won.

With her limbs feeling as though they are filled with lead, the blonde takes careful, cautious steps into the region where the orchestra faction lies, because according to the rumors by those who arrived in the domain of the strings, they never came out unscathed. She does her best to appear like a strings player (how do they handle themselves?), and mentally crosses her fingers towards not getting egged.

The young woman picks careful steps through to the hall labeled with a gigantic ORCHESTRA, and really, it could be labeled the bottom of the devil's left shoe in the pits of hell, because she would have the exact same churning reaction in her stomach occurring. One foot comes forward on the pavement out of sheer bravery, two back in anxiety.

Amber proceeds to do this for a minute or two before her phone rings and she stops to accept the call. "Hello?"

"Amber?" It's Henry calling. "You here yet?"

There's something that gurgles inside her pitifully when she hears how informally he speaks to her already, even though they're mere strangers. Pehaps it's Donghae's fruit snacks she pocketed in History. "Uh, yeah, I'm just outside the hall."

"Alright, then come in. Stop pacing." Her eyes widen, and she whizzes around to face the hall. "No, I'm not staring at you or anything through an open window; it's the only explanation why you'd be here and not inside."

The violinist hangs up, and Amber, with shaky fingers, pockets her phone and ascends the steps to open the glass door.

Henry is scrolling through something on his phone when Amber comes in, and he looks over and gestures her over. "Come on. Sit down."

"Uh..." Isn't this guy being a bit too amiable towards her for all the events that occurred? "All right..."

She sits, bag set on the floor, and crosses her arms to get comfortable. "So..." Henry slightly squints as he stares her down, and Amber squints back in defiance. "What is this? What- what are we doing?"

"I'm thinking..." Henry replies, tapping his phone against his chin, elbows propped on his knees as he leans forward. "... about why a band geek would actively seek me out and call me, especially about the showcase."

Amber scrunches up her nose. Being called a band geek reminds her of junior high and her Japanese cartoon phase. "And what are your thoughts?" she inquires instead, restraining from making any comments.

Henry stuffs his phone into his pocket. "You want a spot on the showcase," he declares, fingers slotting together like a criminal mastermind, thumbs tapping lightly against each other. "You and your crew think I have connections."

"Okay, first off, don't say 'my crew' when we're a band. A band. We're not a bunch of gangster thieves," she splutters, and Henry narrows his eyes menacingly. She hurries before he could say anything to prove otherwise. "And second, what makes you think that we- we need you for the showcase?"

"So are you saying that you don't?" he inquires, getting up to leave, and doesn't look surprised when Amber leaps forward to pull him back into his seat.

"Okay, okay, stop right there," she quietly mutters, averting her eyes from the smug smirk he gives her. "We, uh, we need a good time slot." She has to clear and repeat her sentence again louder when he states that he can't hear her.

The young male across from her leans back into his chair, an orchestra summer camp tee on his form paired with dark jeans on slim legs, and she turns her eyes to the ceiling in a silent prayer for the meeting to end quickly and without bloodshed. She bites her lower lip nervously, blonde hair as frazzled as she feels, and she almost misses the next words that come out of his lips.

"I'll do it."

Her eyes shoot up to meet his. "What?" she asks in a strangled voice.

Henry shrugs nonchalantly, crossing his legs. "Yeah, sure, I'll do it. I'll help you."

The violinist could have said that Amber would have to suffer through two weeks of wearing high heels to classes as payment and she wouldn't have cared, mouth agape as she stares at him. He grimaces at her look, leaning forward to shut for her with a firm hand, fingertips rough. "If I see drool, Amber Liu, I'm opting out," he says dryly, retracting his hand. "Don't look at me like that; Just consider this a favor for your faction or whatever."

She nods furiously, his words going in one ear and out the other. A good time slot! Oh boy, Hyoyeon will be so pleased with her, and then she won't have to do anything stupid like this again, and-

" -have to, okay?" Henry finishes, and Amber sheepishly bobs her head. His eyebrows furrow. "You weren't listening to a thing I was saying, were you?"

"Nope," she answers, popping the last syllable with a well-natured smile on her face, and he groans tiredly.

"Look, this stuff is important, and you do this for me, we call it even, alright? No paying back for my violin or the showcase," Henry restates, and she nods again, unaware of what she's saying yes to. His face is overwhelmed with relief once she does, however, and gives her the first genuine smile that she's ever seen on the boy. Amber doesn't fail to remember how attractive the other is considered to be by the students on-campus, and she assuredly smiles back.

The brief friendly moment ends when a soft buzzing sounds, and the smile slips off Henry's face and back into whatever murky abyss it came from. He finds his phone, sighs, and stands with his bag in hand. "Have to go back and let my stupid roommate back into the dorm," he grumbles. "Newbie keeps losing his keycard."

Amber makes a sound of acknowledgement, gathering her items as well. "So, uh, are we meeting again to discuss...?"

"Hm?" Henry looks up from tapping on his phone. "Ah, yeah, I'll come find you at lunch, and we can walk through here to the recording studios." The blonde's face morphs into a grimace at the thought of walking through orchestra territory again, and he scoffs. "Don't worry, no one's gonna egg you; they're too busy eating lunch to do that."

"Stop reading my mind, dude," she retorts, though she opens the door and holds it open for the both of them to exit. They part ways with a brief goodbye, and a sense of relief and exhilaration floods her. She did it. She's now responsible for the musical livelihoods of at least thirty of the best players in the band, maybe even more, and lightly begins to skip down the pathway, ignoring other students who give her weird looks as she passes by.

Amber can't wait for tomorrow.

—

a/n: i lOST ALL THE  PR OUGRESS ON THIS CHAPTER BEFORE AND I HAD TO REWRITE K IM DONE

also not proofread + exo's album was ok my answer = best song

also my big hero 6 phase has not died down just yet // tmblr & twit