“Let me out!” cried Shin Hye, tossing and turning in bed.  “I can’t get out!”

“Shin Hye!”

“Let me out!”

“Wake up!”

“Waaaaah!”  In a panic, she shot up from the bed and careered headfirst into Teacher Jung’s shoulder.  Her cheek grazed against his ear and her hands held onto him while she tried to get her bearings.

She sobbed in relief at the sight of his room.  It had all been a bad dream.

“Are you okay?”

“Yes.”  She sat back with a blush.  “Sorry if I scared you.  Bad dream.”

“Maybe we were being too loud for you.”

“Hmm?”

He nodded at his open window.  It was pitch black outside.  She realised that she must have slept the whole day.

A car horn beeped, making her jump.

The sound was close.  Too close to be coming from any road nearby.

“What is that?” she asked.

His toothy grin appeared.  “Wanna see?”

The next thing she knew, her teacher was leading the way up the building’s fire escape.  On reaching the very top, he pushed down on the door handle and let it fly back for her.

Students from different dorms were there.  Their laughter and chatting carried far in the night air.  Many of them were playing strange sounds on their mobile phones.  The lights from the devices looked like fireflies buzzing around in the night sky.

A car horn honked, and Shin Hye followed the sound to Hibari, who was surrounded by her faithful group of four.  She glanced up from her phone and indulged Shin Hye with a smile she usually saved for the boys.

“Shin Hye!  Come and sit with me.  Teacher Jung has asked me to sing, but I told him that I wouldn’t do it if I had to sing in Korean.  MOVE OVER FOR MY BEST FRIEND!”  She shouted this last part at poor Erika.  The girl slid off her seat and gave Shin Hye a sulky look.

‘Beep!’

Shin Hye jumped.  “What is that?”  She peered down at Hibari’s phone.

“Well.”  Hibari tossed her hair behind her.  “Teacher Jung took us all into the city today.  One of our assignments was to collect sounds.”

“Teacher Jung took the sounds and made a whole song, Shin Hye,” piped up Komari.  “It’s really good.”

“Be quiet Komari!” ordered Hibari.

“Want to hear my sound?”  Juri lifted her phone.  “Teacher Jung says that it’s the most important part of the song.”

“He was just being nice,” snapped Erika.

Hibari glared at her, and Erika looked like she was going to cry.

“All right!” shouted Teacher Jung.  He stood up on a part of the ledge so that everyone could see where he was.  “This is the final time through!  Do your best!  Ready Hibari?”

“Hai!”

“Seung Gi?”

“Over here!”  His eyebrows went up when he spotted Shin Hye.  She tried to hide behind Hibari when he winked at her in front of everyone.

Yong Hwa narrowed his eyes, but he left Seung Gi alone and carried on.  “Min Hyuk!”

“Ready to go, Ssaem!”

“Teacher Lee?”

No answer.

“TEACHER LEE JUNG SHIN!”

“Don’t yell, I’m over here.  I was just teaching some of the students here about emoting.  Omo!  Shin Hye?  You’re better now?”

“That’s right!” answered Yong Hwa.  He jumped down and gestured for Shin Hye to come to the centre of the rooftop.  The students stared at her as she walked over.

“Everyone, Shin Hye is your first test audience.  Pretend that this is the real thing.”

The students readied their phones like an orchestra tuning their instruments.

Shin Hye looked up at Yong Hwa.  He smiled back and then turned his attention to the students.  With one lift of his finger, the entire rooftop grew silent.

“One,” he whispered.  “Two.”  He mouthed the count of three.

Shin Hye gasped.  Her ears were assailed with the strange but organised sounds of cars, engines and traffic from all sides.  Motor bikes were purring by.  The whistles of the traffic officer were crisp and clear.

Yong Hwa waves his hand, and the sounds changed.  The traffic faded to make way for people talking, women laughing, men arguing over a business deal, songs being sung at food stalls.

Then there were music shops playing the latest pop, children throwing tantrums, art students playing for dinner, coffee shop machines grinding beans.

Jung Shin’s guitar came to the fore.  She imagined stopping in front of him playing in the city, and she thought that he would have had a lot of admirers.

A high pitched sound made her whip her head around.  It was Hibari’s voice, and it was the sound of a nightingale.  It was sweet and beautiful – nothing like the girl at all.  She didn’t sing in Korean, but it was the kind of song that still touched her without the words.

Hibari held the last note, and the song came to a peaceful end.

There was a beat of silence, and then the students drowned it out with cheers.

“We did it!” roared Min Hyuk.  “We got it right!”

“Thanks to me!” insisted Hibari.  “Shin Hye!  Did you like me?”

“Of course I did!”  Shin Hye patted her friend on the arm.  “I didn’t know you could sing like that!”

Hibari blushed and waved a dismissive hand.  “Stop it.”

“No, really!”

“I hope that you’re telling the truth, Shin Hye, because I’m going to sing it at the dance.”

“Dance?”

Hibari nodded.  “You’re going, aren’t you?”

“Yeeees.”  Shin Hye tried to remember when the dance was.  “It’s the pyjama one, isn’t it?”

The Osaka girl blushed more.  One finger twirled pieces of her hair around in coils.  “Would you...would you go with me?  As my date?”

Shin Hye blinked.

“I could do your hair so that we’d be matching?” offered Hibari.

“Go to a dance with best friend instead of Seung Gi...”  Shin Hye tapped her lips.  “Okay.”

“Eeeeeh?” whined Seung Gi, appearing in front of her.

“Congratulations everyone!” shouted Yong Hwa.  “Follow Teacher Lee to his Arts dorm for dinner.”

The students cheered again and began filing down the fire escape.  In the midst of the excitement, Shin Hye was bear-hugged by Hibari.  The girl seemed so happy.

“This is really messed up,” grumbled Seung Gi.

“Huh?” asked Shin Hye, struggling with Hibari’s weight on her.

“I said I’m starving!  I’ll see you down there.”

“Bad dream forgotten?” teased Yong Hwa.

He had caught up with Shin Hye in the stairwell where she had been waiting for him.  The others had gone on ahead to have dinner.

“Mmm.”  She pretended to consider it.  “Yes!”

“That’s a relief.”  He leaned forward to inspect her face in the dark.  “You look like yourself again.”

“You don’t look like yourself at all,” she countered.  “You look different.”

“You cut my hair, remember?  Not my fault.”

“No.  You look different as in who are you and what have you done with my grizzly teacher?”

He pretended to glare at her.  “He’s not brooding.”

She leaned closer.  “Hmm.  It suits you.”

“Tch.”  He hesitated, and then reached into his pockets.  “I have something from the city for you.”

“Oh?”

“Give me your phone.”

She handed him her phone and watched him go into her contacts list.  “What is it?  Whose phone number is that?”

“You can call it once you’re ready for a dance tryout.”

“Mwo?”  Shin Hye’s eyes flew to meet his.  “But I can’t do that!”

“Why not?  Girls go for dance tryouts all the time.”

“Those sort of people won’t want me.”

“Course they will.  You can dance, and you’re in great shape.  Coach Lee has made you strong enough to kick Bruce Lee’s .”

She let out a short laugh.

“Or.”  He handed her back her phone.  “You can train to become a national baseball star if you were really serious about that.  Were you being serious?”

Shin Hye stared at him.  She’d forgotten about that spur of the moment career decision.

“What is it?” he asked.

“Nothing,” she said with a sheepish, almost guilty smile.

He leaned in to look at her face, not giving her any room to hide.  “Seems like something.”

“It’s about what Coach Lee said this morning,” she admitted, lowering her eyes in shame.

“Ah.”

“I know that Coach Lee’s suggestion is not something to think about, and that you can only be my teacher.”

“Shin Hye.”

She shook her head.  “No, let me say it.  I just thought, if I was older, do you think that you would have wanted to do what Coach Lee said?  Would you want to spend time with me?”

If he could just tell her that one small thing, then she thought that she could do anything.  She could dance in an audition where all the girls were years younger than her.  She could become a national baseball star.  She could even tell him all of her secrets.

He let out a long sigh.  “Want me to leave this school?”

“No.”

“Then stop it, Shin Hye.”  He flicked at a few strands of her fringe.  “I like being your Ssaem and watching over you.  That is the one thing I’m grateful to Coach Lee for.  Okay?”

She nodded, subdued.  “Yes Ssaem.”