For the first time, in his years of high school, Seungcheol finds himself in the music wing. Until now, Seungcheol's had no reason to come here, being as only music classes are taught here, and he's never taken one before. But the school requires an art credit to graduate, and given the choice between "Drawing and Painting" and a year in the school choir, choir seemed the better option. So he wanders his way to the end of the hallway, to the door labeled "Choir".

The first thing Seungcheol notices is that there are about 2-3 girls for every boy in the room. They're all ages, too, freshmen to seniors, running about excitedly, setting up the room. Most of the seniors have been in this class since freshman year, Seungcheol realizes. So everyone his age already knows each other. Great.

The chairs are set up in a semicircle around the piano, currently being played by a show-off sophomore. He skitters away from it when the teacher comes in, and everyone starts sitting down. Unsure of where to sit, Seungcheol takes a seat in the middle, where the boys seem to congregate. (He later learns the setup, altos on the right, sopranos on the left, baritones in the middle.)

The first class is relatively laid back. It's much less about music and more about getting to know each other. The teacher introduces herself, Ms Mai, and its clear all the repeat students love her. 

Then they get put into pairs, have to talk to each other for five minutes and then introduce each other to the class. He gets paired with a girl named Tzuyu. Freshman, soprano, wants to be a dancer. He repeats this to the class five minutes later,  and she introduces him: Seungcheol, senior, going to college next year to major in Biology. For a first class, its not too bad. Class ends, and he's packing his stuff to leave, when he hears a "Hey!" He turns around to a friendly smile.

"Hey, I'm Jeonghan." Seungcheol remembers him from introductions, paired with a giggly redhead who he's clearly close with. Jeonghan, senior, 4th year in choir, already loved by most of the class. And section leader, and Jeonghan reminds him. "I just know you're new, and I'm supposed to look out for the boys so if you need help with the music or anything just ask me, okay?"

"Yeah, okay." Seungcheol smiles. "Thanks." Jeonghan smiles back.

"Good. See you next class then!" And then he's skipping away, off towards the door to the redhead, Jisoo, waiting for him. Seungcheol leaves for AP bio thinking this credit requirement is going to be a piece of cake.

---

A month later, he eats his words. And wants to murder whoever invented sightreading.

"So the empty circle with a line is two beats?" Seungcheol asks, pointing to at the note on his paper.

"Yes, but that's a dotted half note, there's a dot there, so it's three beats." Seungcheol groans and hits himself in the face with his music folder. Jeonghan laughs.

"It's okay, you're not gotta learn everything in a day. When I first started I didn't even know what the numbers in the time signature stood for."

"I don't even know what the time signature is."

"Oh, it's the two numbers at the beginning of the staff." Jeonghan points to it on Seungcheol's paper. "The top number is the number of beats per measure and the bottom number is the type of note that gets one beat."

"Okay, you lost me before you started."

Jeonghan laughs. Seungcheol's grown quite fond of Jeonghan's laugh.

Depsite hellish sightreading lessons at the beginning of most classes, Seungcheol starts to look forward to his first period choir class. Because yeah, they have to work, they're constantly rehearsing for their first concert, but it's with people he likes, people he has fun with. Although he can't read the music very well, he just stands next to Jeonghan, listens to him, and copies, so he manages.

Mid-November, things go into high gear as the winter concert approaches. No more joking around, singing without sheet music, practicing on fold out bleachers. It's scheduled for Thursday night, at the arts performance center downtown. The day of there's a dress rehearsal held there, mandatory attendance.

"So do you usually walk down there?" Seungcheol asks.

"Usually, yeah." Jeonghan responds. "Some people have cars and drive there, but none of us do, so we just walk. It's only fifteen minutes, it's not that far."

"I have a car." Seungcheol says. "I can drive you."

"Really? You'll give us a ride?"

'Us', it turns out, is a  third of the baritone section. Seungkwan, Seokmin, Soonyoung, Jisoo, and the two of them. Soonyoung and Seokmin share a seatbelt, which makes Seungcheol a very nervous driver, Seungkwan's practicing for his solo the entire ride, and Jeonghan, in the passenger seat, keeps turning back to talk to Jisoo. It's Seungcheol's most stressful driving experience since his driving exam, but with Jeonghan's direction they get there with ten minutes to spare, unscathed.

Rehersal is tedious, but it goes well, and they're dismissed until later that night. For the real deal.

Seungcheol arrives 20 minutes early, as Jeonghan suggested, in the required suit, bowtie, and cummerbund. He finds half the choir is already there, in the waiting room under the stage. He sees Jeonghan sitting with Jisoo. He notices Seungcheol and waves him over. Then Jeonghan laughs at him.

"What?"

"Your tie. Where'd you even learn how to do a bowtie?"

"I didn't."

"Figures. C'mere."

So Seungcheol sits still in front of Jeonghan, both crosslegged, knees touching, as Jeonghan fixes his bowtie. Seungcheol watches him, his lip bit in concentration.

"Where'd you learn?" He asks.

"Youtube." Jisoo answers for him. "Freshman year we couldn't figure it out, sat around watching youtube videos for half an hour. Jeonghan laughs at the memory. He puts the tie tight.

"There we go, all done." Seungcheol looks down to see his perfectly tied bowtie, significantly better with the atrocity he walked in with.

"Hey, thanks." But then he looks up, and realizes Jeonghan is still so close, their knees still touching. Jeonghan's smiling at him, a "no problem" on his lips, and Seungcheol realizes how nice those lips are.

But then Seungkwan's yelling for Jeonghan from across the room, complaining that his bowtie is too tight, and Jeonghan runs off to help. And the moment is over. Jisoo gives Seungcheol a knowing look.

"What?"

"Nothing." Jisoo replies, holding back laughter.

"What?!"

"Nothing!"

---

The concert goes well, and work doesn't start up again until after winter break. For the March concert, it's tradition to sing a musical medley, so they spend several classes watching RENT, which Seunghceol has never seen before. Seungcheol may or may not cry during it. ("Are you crying?" "Shut up." "Have you really never seen this before?" "No, not all of us are theater buffs, no." Jeonghan laughs, the laugh that makes Seungcheol's heart flutter. "You're adorable." "Shut up.")

Jeonghan gets the solo for "Without You," which Seungcheol along with the entire baritone section, is happy about. And this time, he puts a four passenger limit on his rehearsal ride. Jeonghan practices his solo the whole way there, and Seungcheol is much more distracted by his singing than any backseat banter.

Jeonghan's voice is beautiful.

---

Seungcheol contemplates looking up a bowtie tutorial beforehand. He decides to just go with it untied, let Jeonghan do it for him. Jeonghan does gladly.

---

 The concert goes fine, Jeonghan's solo goes perfectly, and the entire choir is still buzzing with adrenaline when they come offstage. "A bunch of the seniors are going out for pizza, you wanna come?" Jeonghan asks, and Seungcheol agrees.

So a pack of them go to a pizza place a block away, commandeer three tables and five pizzas. It's just a group of a dozen or so 17-18 year olds, talking loudly, laughing together. Half their stories are about their past years in choir together, and Seungcheol wishes he could've been there. Jeonghan doesn't eat his crusts, so he passes them off the Seungcheol. He doesn't mind.

---

When Ms Mai talks about their final project, most of the class breaks into excited chatter. Seungcheol just dreads it. In small groups, they have to pick a song and put together a performance, with a handful of requirements. Some people have been planning for this all year.

But Jeonghan pulls Seungcheol into his group, with Jisoo, and altos Seulgi and Wendy, and he's grateful. The girls have picked a song, and they spend the first few days of worktime putting together an arrangement, while Seungcheol feels very unuseful. They're always serious singers, and Seungcheol doesn't want to bring them down.

Seungcheol reserves a practice room, and comes in before class to work on his parts. Jeonghan wrote out his parts for him, and the staff music doesn't confuse him like it used to. He attempts to plunk out his part on the piano. He's not very good at it, but he's figured out the first seven notes when there's a knock on the practice room door. It's a familiar face, Jeonghan grinning in at him, and Seungcheol smiles back. Jeonghan lets himself in without invitation.

"You're here early."

"Yeah, I wanted to go over my part in the chorus."

"Okay," Jeonghan sits down next to him on the piano bench, taking the sheet music from him. "I'll play it for you." And he plays the part almost perfectly, much different from Seungcheol's slow and awkward attempts.

"Now sing it for me." Seungcheol does.

"This is the way you left me. I'm not pretending. No hope, no love, no glory. No happy ending." Jeonghan joins in for the next bit, with the higher harmony.

"This is the way that we love, like it's forever. Then live the rest of our life, but not together." Seungcheol loses the melody to Jeonghan's part, as he has been doing.

"It's okay, it's difficult. Let's just keep trying. Just block my voice out." As hard as that is, several tries later, it's getting better. But not perfect. Seungcheol groans in frustration when he messes up for the fifth time, dropping his head onto the keys, and an unpleasant chord sounds.

"I'll never be as good as you guys."

"You're fine!" Jeonghan says, rubbing circles into Seungcheol's back. "You just need more practice. It's just the rest of us have been doing this for longer. I'm sure if you'd be doing this since freshman year, you'd be better than me."

Seungcheol laughs out loud. "That's a lie and you know it." And Jeonghan laughs too, that laught that makes Seungcheol's heart flutter. There's a lull of silence, smiling, their hands touching on the piano stool. Then Jeonghan speaks again.

"So you wanna run through the chorus again?" Seungcheol groans, Jeonghan laughs. "Okay, enough for today. But we still have-" He checks his phone, "-twenty minutes until class starts."

"You play piano?" Seungcheol asks.

"Um, a bit, I guess. Like, nowhere near performance level, but to play basic stuff, yeah."

"Can you play something for me?"

Jeonghan contemplates. "I wouldn't know what to play, I mean... we can play heart and soul, do you know that?"

"What?"

"Its a duet. I'll play the hard part, don't worry."

Jeonghan starts by playing his part, on the lower keys, a more complex pattern than Seungcheol could ever dream of playing, yet Jeonghan plays it effortlessly.

"And you can do this:" He switches to the higher, simpler part now, teaching Seungcheol key by key.

"How about you try for yourself now?"

Seungcheol attempts. He plays the first three notes right, but hits the wrong key on the forth.

"It's okay, try again." But Seungcheol is flustered, and when he tries again he goes wrong on the second note.

"Here, like this." And Jeonghan places his hand over Seungcheol's aligning their fingers on the keys.  Jeonghan moves, and Seungcheol follows, and together they play the part.

"We did it." Jeonghan looks up at him, smiling, chin rested on Seungcheol's shoulder and Seungcheol realizes how close they are. As close as they get when Jeonghan does his bowtie, except there are no giggling Jisoos or complaining Seungkwans this time. It's just them.

"Hey." Jeonghan says.

"Yeah?"

"Can I kiss you?"

"Yeah."

So Jeonghan does. His lips are as soft as Seungcheol imagined, and Jeonghan wrapped his hand around the back of his neck to hold him closer, and their fingers on the piano keys intertwine. Seungcheol drags his tongue along Jeonghan's bottom lip, and Jeonghan giggles into his mouth, but lets his tongue in.

At some point, Seungcheol decided he wants to say something, but he also doesn't want to stop kissing. The result is jumbles of words against Jeonghan's lips, and between kisses:

"I've wanted to kiss you for a while now."

"Have you?" Kiss. "Since when?"

"Since the winter concert." Kiss. "Before. When you did my bowtie." Jeonghan starts laughing, kissing halted.

"What?" 

"Just Jisoo said that. That you were looking at me with heart eyes then. I didn't believe him."

"What about you?" Jeonghan kisses him again.

"What?"

"When did you, like, notice me, i dunno."

"First day."

"Really?"

"Yeah. Jisoo told me to go talk to you if I thought you were so cute."

"You think I'm cute?"

"You are cute. Shut up." And Jeonghan kisses him again, effectively ending any more questions.

And they kiss until there's a knock on the door, and they jump apart. Jisoo waves through the window, filming on his phone. "Class starts in five!" He tells them, before running off.

But the time Jeonghan and Seungcheol get to the choir room, the entire class has heard about how they made out in one of the practice rooms.

---

---

Seungcheol learns his harmonies. Their final exam performance goes well, and his year of choir, and his time in High School is almost over. Their last few classes mostly involve dimming the lights and watching movies of musicals, sometimes watching with Jeonghan's head rested on Seungcheol's lap.

Their last class, Ms Mai brings in a sheet cake, to celebrate their year together. They sit in circles of friends with their cake slices, enjoying their last moments as a group together. (Seungcheol feeds Jeonghan bites of cake, "You guys are so cute it's disgusting." Seungkwan remarks.)

Seungcheol's going to the local university; Jeonghan's been accepted to a fancy performing arts school three towns over. "I can visit all the time," Seungcheol tells him. "Come see your fancy college choir performances."

With an 'A' in choir, Seungcheol graduates with all his required credits. And he's glad he picked choir over some painting class.