He’s standing onstage.

All the years of keeping his passions and talents hidden have led to this moment.

The spotlight is warm on his skin, the bass of the speakers is heavy in his ears, but the applause of the crowd is louder and sending hot tingles up his spine. His guitar hangs by its strap on his shoulders, and his mouth is a few inches away from the microphone. He did rehearsals a few hours ago to make sure everything works, but the real thing, in front of a real audience… it’s different.

The clapping dies down and the campus auditorium falls into an eerie silence. He’s supposed to be giving a speech, an introduction about himself, but his tongue is stuck to the roof of his mouth. The nerves form rocks in his throat and he can’t seem to get a word out. He stands in the middle

looking like a deer in the headlights. Perhaps the fear hasn’t gone away yet, perhaps it goes away through years of experience, but for Jaehyun’s first big performance, the stage fright is eating him whole.

--

“Jaehyun… Jaehyun, focus!”

“I-I can’t do it, Doyoung. Did you hear the other performers?”

“What? Yes, I did. And they’re really good. But so are you, Jaehyun.”

--

Maybe Jaehyun joined this competition on an impulse. Maybe he was too caught up in his emotions at the time he signed up. He did it at the height of a fight with his dad anyway; maybe he didn’t have the actual guts to prove his father wrong.

But they — him and his best friend Doyoung — had been preparing for this for months. They’d worked so hard on it and he can’t throw that all away. Doyoung had poured sweat over this performance, and Jaehyun doesn’t know if he could ever repay him. They’d started with so many ideas, scrapped a few, before finally, finally, deciding on this song they’d finished. Why did he agree to help anyway? Did he really believe in Jaehyun that much?

--

“They’re here.”

“Huh?”

“Taeyong just texted me. ‘Says they’re here already. Should I invite them backstage with us?”

“...Sure.”

“Wait, Jaehyun… So when you go onstage… You’re really going to confess to her?”

“I mean, that’s what I plan on doing.”

“...Well, good luck I guess, Mr. Romantic.”

“S-Shut up and just text them.”

--

His eyes frantically search the crowd. Come on, come on… They said they’d sit where I’d see them.

His head turns from left to right in search of his friends. There’s a sea of students filling up the venue, with the panel of judges seated on an elevated platform in the middle of them all. Among these judges are prospective music producers, talent agents, and sponsors, and Jaehyun has never been as intimidated before in his life.

He can’t mess this up. He’s putting so much on the line for this performance. Once his father finds out, he’d no doubt be enraged. And if he loses and fails, it’d be another level of disappointment and mockery.

That’s why he has to win this. He has to prove his father wrong to ever think little of his abilities. He needs to get his name out there, to maybe start a career in music. To be known as Jaehyun the artist.

His mother would be so proud of him.

A few awkward seconds of silence pass and he spots Taeyong’s head of orange hair on a seat quite far from the stage, towards the side of the concert hall. Maybe meeting them backstage was a bad idea, as they weren’t able to save themselves a good spot unless they’d been to the seating area earlier. He has his eyes on Jaehyun, face still and waiting for whatever Jaehyun has to say. Doyoung sits next to him and is the same, his mouth a straight line, a habit he has when he anticipates something.

Beside them is the girl Jaehyun wrote this song for.

--

“Hey, Jaehyun! Nice shirt.”

“Taeyong! You don’t think the button-down is too much? It’s not corny? It’s not wrinkled, right?”

“Hey, relax. You’ll do great. Just gotta fix your hair a bit like… this… and… done.”

“Do I look okay?”

“What’s important is that you sound okay. Can’t wait to hear you sing, man.”

--

Jaehyun grips the microphone in his hand.

“Hello, everyone. Good evening. My name is Jaehyun Jung, and you might be wondering why a business student like me is here to perform for you tonight,” he starts with a joke to try to get rid of the tension. His words are punctuated by a wave of cheers and laughter from the audience, and that encourages him to go on. “I joined this competition to prove to everyone,” he gestures to the crowd, ”that us business majors aren’t all boring business talk and economics. We’re really cool.”

They cheer, but honestly, if Jaehyun had any mind left he would be cringing at himself right now. Doyoung probably is. Jaehyun smiles and continues.

“I guess tonight, you could call me businessman. And I’d be happy to be your human resource.” The auditorium is filled with audible confusion at the pun, everyone going a collective ‘Huh?’ and completely missing the business reference, and Jaehyun laughs, “Okay, that was pretty bad.”

--

“I can’t wait to hear you sing, too, Jaehyun.”

“Hey… you made it.”

“I promised, didn’t I?”

“Yeah… you did.”

“...Taeyong, Doyoung, do you mind if you give us a moment alone, please?”

--

“This song I wrote… It took me quite a while. I’d have bursts of inspiration from time to time, but I didn’t know just what the source of the inspiration is. But then I realized, it wasn’t ‘what.’ More like, I didn’t know who my inspiration was. But now I do.”

The venue explodes with high pitched cheers, the audience very excited over the romantic story behind the performance. Jaehyun searches the crowd for his friends again, and he sees Doyoung and Taeyong clapping wildly at the confession, screaming, while the girl in question sits quiet and still. Jaehyun is too far to see but he thinks she might be blushing in that moment.

“I wrote this song for a girl I met some months ago, yet it feels like I’d known her longer than that.” He swallows as he thinks of what else to say — he should have prepared this more thoroughly, this confession could be so much more eloquent. He’d sort of had a speech prepared beforehand, but all that went outside the window the second he stepped out from backstage.

“She… She made me view the world a different way, painted it colors I’d never seen before, and…” He adjusts the strap on his shoulder, “the more I fell in love her, the more I learned to love myself.” And the audience squeals even louder at that, everyone giddy at the cheesy remark. But Jaehyun only has eyes on one person, and he looks far towards the back of the hall before continuing.

“She’s here with us tonight to listen to this song for the first time.”

--

“So… You ready?”

“Honestly? I’m afraid.”

“Of what, silly?”

“You know… What if I mess up? Or what if I don’t, but it turns out I just —”

“Jaehyun, stop.

You’ve been preparing for so long, you’re not going to mess up. You’re such a hard worker and I know you’ve practiced so much for this. Believe me, you’re not going to mess up.

And you’re great, Jaehyun. You’re so talented. I may not be able to see you, Jaehyun. But I can hear how good you are, and I feel just how much you want this.

I may be blind, but anyone can see how good your heart is.

Just… perform from your heart like you always do, okay? Don’t be afraid. I believe in you. Taeyong does, too. We believe in you. So please believe in yourself, too.”

--

Jaehyun remembers those encouraging words from maybe just an hour ago. But what happens after that is a blur, because Jaehyun went quiet, and suddenly, the girl’s hands reached out in front of her, traveling up his chest before finding its way on his cheeks and cupping his face. And then she leaned in, and Jaehyun’s mind went haywire at the feeling of soft, warm lips pressed on his cheek. It lasted a few seconds, but it felt way too short by the time Jaehyun’s mind registered what was happening.

So really, Jaehyun had thought out this confession beforehand. But what he didn’t expect is that the girl he likes would beat him to it first.

--

“W-wha—?”

“I-I’m sorry! I wasn’t thinking. Taeyong keeps telling me that maybe you like me, too, and he’s always been better at noticing things like that, so I just thought that maybe you wouldn’t—”

“You like me? You do?”

“... Yes, I do, Jaehyun. For a long time now. I… like you.”

“... I like you, too.”

--

And the feeling of her warm hand in his as he led her out to the main area is something he will never forget. Taeyong did a low whistle at the sight of the two, and Doyoung begrudgingly handed over some bills to Taeyong’s open palm. Jaehyun didn’t — doesn’t want to — ask.

Which brings him to the present moment.

“This is a song I wrote, entitled ‘Blinded’.”