Chapter 1 – A lot to take in

It wasn't exactly common practice for the Seoul Institute of Music and Performing Arts to hire new teachers. Generally, when they secured a good teacher in a position, said teacher remained at the school until they retired. It was even less common to hire someone as young and inexperienced as Chanyeol, but when your sister graduates top of her class and she has connections high up, things usually tend to work out in your favour.

Needless to say, Chanyeol was still shocked when he received an email from Junmyeon Kim, director of the visual arts department at the school, asking him to come by with his resume ASAP.

”Hi, Chanyeol. Please, sit down. Make yourself comfortable—”

Chanyeol was perfectly happy with his day job as a music tutor. He’d never actually expressed any discomfort in his work, in fact he enjoyed it, despite the crappy pay.

”Now, I’m aware the offer may have come somewhat out of the blue, but we’re in dire need of a replacement for our last guitar teacher, Yixing Zhang, who had to suddenly leave to attend to foreign affairs—”

Actually, the fact that his sister was even involving herself in his life like this was almost offensive! Sending application emails in his name, behind his back… did she think he needed looking after? That he couldn’t afford to live comfortably through his own efforts? The sheer gall of it all!

”Of course, you’ll be receiving a full salary, despite starting so late in the term… As for how things work around here, some of the other teachers from the visual arts department will be sure to show you the ropes—”

It was like he’d entered the Twilight Zone. All he’d been able to do during his interview was nod along dumbly with what the director had been saying, completely at a lack for words. Eventually, the conversation had been directed towards his prior accomplishments, which were slim, to say the least, but it had been as if this hadn’t even bothered the man in the slightest.

”As for your prior accomplishments, I personally feel that things written on paper don’t really say much about individuals that are established in music and the visual arts. I’m sure your performance will be stellar, considering what I’ve heard from some of your peers—“

Ah, there it was. His peers. It was blatantly obvious that Yoora had had something to do with this. She’d graduated top of her class, after all, and as far as Chanyeol knew, communications fell under the visual arts. This man was in cahoots with his sister.

”So, with all that said, I hope I’ll be seeing you Monday? 8AM sharp.” The director turned away from his computer screen to finally face a very nervous-looking Chanyeol, clasped his hands together with an eager expression.

The question hadn’t even sounded like a question, but rather a steady assumption.

”Err—sure.” Was all Chanyeol had managed, before offering him a small, unsure smile.

***

The first thing Chanyeol noticed after checking in with Junmyeon on Monday was just how busy the school was. It was nothing like his tutoring sessions, one-on-one with a single student, in his small recording studio that he rented near his apartment.

(Well, at least now that he was going to be working full-time and earning a steady salary, he could sell the place and stop breaking the bank like he had been for the last two years.)

Here, however, there were uniform-clad students everywhere, running around without rhyme or reason, creating a vivacious, bustling atmosphere. Chanyeol, standing in the middle of the main hallway of the visual arts building, didn’t know where he should look first; at the group of students playing flutes, huddled in a corner by the lockers, another group carrying costume rails up the stairs, fallen garments left strewn all over the floor as they went, or even a girl that was practicing solfège by the water fountain, effectively drowning out Chanyeol’s own thoughts with her high pitch. The whole scene had the new music teacher at a loss for words; rooted in place and staring in awe.

“It’s pretty intense, I know,” said a voice from behind him. At first, Chanyeol didn’t even notice that the person was speaking to him. Only when they placed a hand on his arm did he turn around and face them. It was another teacher. He’d seen the man on the staff list he’d been handed in his interview, but for the life of him he couldn’t remember his name.

Almost as if he had read Chanyeol’s thoughts, the man spoke again, “I’m Minseok Kim, by the way. I teach modern dance. You are…?”

Chanyeol glanced at him for a second, failing to realise that the man actually expected a reply. He did a double take before finally answering him with a flustered, “ah, pardon me—I’m Chanyeol Park. Music,” and awkwardly stretching the hand that wasn’t carrying his guitar case out for the man to shake, the sheet music and school guides he’d brought along with him almost sliding out from under his arm in the process.

Minseok offered Chanyeol a warm, welcoming smile as he shook his hand, before gently guiding Chanyeol forwards with the hand that was still braced against his shoulder blade, setting the two of them into motion as they s their way through the throng of milling students. They headed down the main hallway, past the stairs, before turning left and heading down another smaller, yet equally lively one. As they went, Minseok took the lead, his dyed ginger hair springing up and down with every step.

“The music department is on the third floor, but I figured I’d give you a complete tour of the place so that there are less questions later down the line,” the man was saying, though Chanyeol couldn’t say that he was fully paying attention; there was a group of ballerinas—fully clad in leotards with their hair scraped back into neat little buns—stretching outside a vast ballroom, the doors of which were thrown wide open to reveal a series of male dancers twirling about inside. They were obviously practicing a group routine, whilst the girls waited outside for their cue to join them. Mesmerised by the way they were moving so gracefully, so effortlessly that they appeared almost weightless, Chanyeol didn’t realise until it was too late that he was headed directly for a water fountain, and bumped into it rather ungracefully, starkly contrasting the beautiful dancers in the room he’d just passed.

Behind him, the girls started giggling, though they stopped when Minseok turned around to see what was up, reserving themselves to whispering in hushed tones. The teacher backtracked to where Chanyeol was standing, placed his hand back on his shoulder.

“Are you okay?” he asked, though there was still a humorous undertone to his voice.

“I’ll live,” Chanyeol said, though a flush was quickly spreading from his ears, all the way down to where his neck disappeared under his button-up. Throwing a quick glance over his shoulder at the girls, Chanyeol saw that they were already making their way into the ballroom, effectively having forgotten about his little incident already. Turning back around, he rubbed sheepishly at the front of his thigh where it had slammed into the fountain.

With a soft chuckle, Minseok turned around once he was certain that Chanyeol really was okay, before resuming his tour.

***

After around an hour of just walking down hallways and popping their heads in and out of classrooms, with Minseok explaining to Chanyeol what department was where and what the various students were currently up to, they ended up in another building entirely, this one much quieter, carrying a more serious vibe than the visual arts department.

“This is the main performance hall on campus,” Minseok was explaining, “every year, we host three to five events here, ranging from fashion shows to opera performances.”

Chanyeol was struggling to take the place in. The hall was immense; it looked like a grand theatre hall, with high ceilings and intricate moulding plastered along the walls. The room was airy, and the ceiling was mapped by skylights running from one end of the building to the other, letting in the natural light from outside, completely filtering out the yellowy light coming from the wall-sconces mounted along the outside walls of the atrium-like structure.

“—we’re actually currently working on a play that the students will be performing in at the end of the semester. It’s a collaboration between all of the departments—” Minseok’s voice seeped back into Chanyeol’s head, forcing him from his musings. They were moving down a wide hall extending out the side of the atrium now. The walls were lined by a gold banister, above which hung vibrant paintings, signed posters and plaques with hand prints of famous graduates. The floor was covered by a soft, red runner, which muffled their footsteps in the echoey hall.

As they walked, Chanyeol became ever more aware of a soft strain emanating from somewhere further down the hall. As they drew closer to the source of the noise, Chanyeol was able to discern that it was actually a tune that he was vaguely familiar with. At the fork at the end of the hall, Minseok headed in the direction moving away from the sound, though Chanyeol hadn’t been listening when he’d said where to. Coming to a halt, he focused on the sound, trying to make out the tune. He was edging towards it without realising it, going down the hall in the opposite direction to Minseok until eventually he came to a pair of theatre doors that were slightly askew, revealing the source of the sound.

Hesitantly, Chanyeol looked back over his shoulder. Minseok was nowhere to be found.

’This is a bad idea’, a voice inside him was saying, though he paid it no heed. He definitely knew the song, and as Chanyeol peered inside the doors and caught sight of the scene unfolding on the stage down below, he remembered it immediately.

The song was from Grease, a popular western movie that he had watched as a child. He was standing outside one of the balcony entrances into a fully-fledged proscenium theatre, sizeable enough to hold at least 400 people. Plush seats and huge, draping, red curtains accented the place, along with a meticulously painted ceiling with gilded accents. Down below, there were people dotted around the stage, the girls all clad in bright dresses with updos and pink jackets, with most of the guys sporting jeans and leather jackets thrown over casual T-shirts. Some of them had even slicked their hair back.

It was obviously a costume rehearsal for one of the school’s many annual performances, that much was clear. Chanyeol stared in awe as the students milled about before the next scene; there was also a band, he noted absently, with instruments strewn all over the orchestra pit. Regrettably, none of them were guitars.

Chanyeol watched on as the entire room stilled suddenly—the soft music wafting up from the speakers the only thing keeping the mood airy—when another man walked onto the stage. He was also fully clad in jeans and leather, his jacket hanging open to reveal that, unlike the rest of the male performers, he was bare chested underneath. His hair was also dyed a reddish-brown colour, which starkly contrasted the much darker hair of the rest of the assembly, and it shone under the dim stage lights, making him literally stick out from the crowd. His eyes, from what Chanyeol could tell at such a distance, were dark, smouldering—maybe it was eyeliner? It lent him a menacing look that was practically oozing machismo. The students all turned to stare at the man in unison, stilling completely almost like someone had pressed a button on a remote that had paused the whole scene. The moment passed just as quickly as it had come though, and soon everyone resumed what they had been doing, the echo of voices once again reverberating up into the rafters. Some of the students went over to speak to the man, who didn’t slow even for a second to listen to them as he loped across the stage, leaving them to rush along after him to remain within earshot. Chanyeol felt the sides of his lips tug up at the sight.

The group finally pinned the man down and got him to stop for a second in order to listen to them. After what seemed to Chanyeol to be some brief negotiations, they split up again and the man went over to a group of leather-clad students. The group immediately burst out laughing, presumably at something he’d said, though strain his ears as he may, Chanyeol couldn’t make out what it might have been, especially considering the fact that the music had suddenly gotten louder in preparation for the next scene. The laughter died down as the strain rose in volume, and the group seemed to get into some choreographed position, with the man—he had to be the choreographer—turning his back to Chanyeol in order to face the students, who had launched into some kind of dance routine. Lips pursed and nose scrunched up, Chanyeol watched them put on the swagger that accompanied their stage personas and launch into the act, trying to recall what part of the story they might be at—

“Stop!” the man yelled, clapping his hands together, and this time even Chanyeol heard it. He jumped at the sudden, sharp sound, almost smacking his forehead against the doorframe he was hiding behind.

Everyone on the stage stilled, and the man directed them all around until he was standing beside one of the main performers, signalling for all present to watch him. Someone hurried backstage to rewind the track and started it from the beginning, and the man started to move.

And boy, could he move.

It was just a solo segment, with some spins and struts thrown in, but Chanyeol couldn’t take his eyes off him. There was something about the way he moved so fluidly, his strides so confident as he acted out whatever part of the play they were at—Chanyeol honestly had no idea, it’d been years since he’d seen the movie; but what he did know was that whoever this choreographer was, the students were in awe of him, and maybe Chanyeol was a little, too.

He couldn’t ponder the man’s performing abilities for long though, because before he knew it, Minseok was bounding towards him, exclaiming, “there you are!” and coming to a halt behind him. “I got as far as the control room before realising you weren’t even with me anymore—!” Minseok cut himself off when he realised what (whom?) Chanyeol had been staring at, and a slow grin formed on his lips before he said, an air of reticence in his voice, “ah, I see your eyes have been graced by the great Byun Baekhyun.”

Chanyeol’s gaze narrowed at him in question. “What do you mean?” he asked.

Minseok just grinned, before turning on his heel and walking back down the hall again. “Come on, let’s finish the tour!” he urged, and Chanyeol’s brows furrowed in confusion at his evasion of the question. He didn’t bring it up again though, instead quietly picking his guitar case back up and hurrying after the shorter man.

***

The two of them didn’t spend much longer in the main performance hall after that, with Minseok deciding to skip the control booth and take Chanyeol directly back to the music department instead. When they got there, Minseok made sure to introduce Chanyeol to all his fellow music teachers, as well as some others for good measure.

“This is Do Kyungsoo. He’s a vocal coach, though he specialises in opera,” Minseok said, and Chanyeol bowed politely, offering the man a toothy smile. He was of a relatively short stature, with cropped, black hair and a mildly annoyed look on his face.

“I’m Chanyeo—” Chanyeol began, but he never got to finish the sentence because the man was already turning away, ignoring his introduction in favour of wafting his hand in the air dismissively. “I have students to coach, Minseok. Couldn’t this wait until lunch?” he asked, and Chanyeol felt a pang of despondency hit him in the chest.

“Don’t mind him,” Minseok said, “Kyungsoo’s a bit of a tough cookie, but he’s very caring once you break through his outer shell.” Despite his words, Chanyeol struggled to believe this, but he said nothing as he was instructed to leave his guitar case in the classroom for later and to follow Minseok back out again so they could finally finish their tour.

Peering in through the door to the neighbouring classroom, they were met by a group sitting on the floor, notepads in hand with their heads bowed as they furiously scribbled down notes. In a hushed voice, Minseok explained, “this is Amber Liu’s class. She teaches composition. We’re lucky that she’s bilingual, because she’s translated the entire script for the end-of-year play for us.” At that, Minseok let out a small laugh, and Chanyeol couldn’t help but smile at the woman that was playing around with a guitar at the back of the classroom, just past the circle of students. Upon noticing the two of them peering into the classroom, she looked up from her instrument and smiled back, her blue fringe falling into her eyes in the process.

Turning away from her, Chanyeol wondered to himself why he’d even bothered dying his hair a neutral brown to mask the unnatural grey tone it had been before. His sister had given him the impression that the school took its professional appearance extremely seriously, so naturally, Chanyeol had deemed his… eccentric choice of hair colour wildly inappropriate and dyed it back the night before his interview.

The brunette didn’t have much time to consider the unfairness of his hair-predicament however, as the lunch bell rang at that exact moment, and soon Minseok was walking back towards the stairs, beckoning for Chanyeol to follow him towards the canteen. Pouting slightly, he followed after Minseok as they followed the stream of students already heading that way.

Once in the canteen, Minseok directed Chanyeol to the self-service food counter so they could help themselves to a serving each. The place was huge; definitely big enough to fit all the students from the visual arts department in one sitting if push came to shove. There were two floors, with yet another glass ceiling that filtered in clear, natural light, washing the place in bright daylight.

As Chanyeol stood in the queue to pay with Minseok, who had insisted on covering his lunch bill for him, as it was his first day there, he caught sight of a familiar figure walking in through the doors at the other end of the hall. Chanyeol was sure it was just a trick of the light though; that couldn’t be the same teacher from the theatre earlier—his name was Baekhyun, if his memory served him correctly?

No, that couldn’t be the same man as before… that man had been dark, demanding… y, even. This man had a tight, white button-up shirt on, tucked into a pair of blue chinos and a head of fluffy, unruly hair. A pair of round, oversized glasses topped the whole look off, giving him an almost dorky look. No, that definitely couldn’t be him, Chanyeol just hadn’t seen properly. After all, the only real similarity was the hair colour, though judging by the sheer number of teachers with dyed hair that Chanyeol had encountered thus far, it was hard to make any assumptions.

Watching the man walk over to the self-service food counter as him and Minseok had done before, he didn’t realise that the cashier was trying—and failing—to get his attention. A sudden, uncomfortable nudge to his bicep brought him back to the situation at hand, and he realised that Minseok was eying him expectantly.

“C’mon, we’re holding up the queue. Let’s go find somewhere to sit,” he said, before offering the cashier an apologetic smile on Chanyeol’s behalf and ushering the taller man to follow after him. Chanyeol opened his mouth to say something, anything, that might make the situation less awkward. The lady behind the till just stared at him, a calm sort of patience to her expression as the new teacher fumbled for words. Finally, he decided to just close his mouth when he realised there was nothing left for him to say, a sheepish blush creeping up his cheeks towards his temples as he followed after Minseok.

They found a table by the floor-to-ceiling windows at the far end of the hall. There was a beautiful view of the campus spread out outside them, the lush greenery and milling students reminding Chanyeol more of an idyllic park than a school. The only actual hint at the fact that this was a privately funded institute was the uniforms, with the school crest embroidered intricately on the sweater pocket, proudly displaying the students’ affiliation with the school. Well, that and the enormous, bronze statue of the school’s founder situated just outside the administration centre, towering a good fifteen feet over the students’ heads.

“He’s one of the best coordinators to ever grace the academy’s stage, you know,” Minseok said suddenly, around a mouthful of kimchi. “He left us for a while a few years back, but thankfully he returned. Things just weren’t the same without him.”

Chanyeol quirked a brow at him in confusion, before asking in a rather perplexed tone, “I—I’m sorry, who?”

Minseok just chuckled at him. “Baekhyun. The guy in the theatre earlier. He’s our head musical theatre coordinator. He left a while back to run his own theatre with his wife, but we eventually managed to reel him back in to work for the academy instead.”

Chanyeol felt his jaw drop before he could help himself.

What?

Well that was a lot to take in in one go.

The new teacher had so many questions, he didn’t even know where to begin. Thankfully, he never actually got to ask any of them, because they were suddenly joined by a group of other visual arts teachers. Chanyeol had already been introduced to most of them, though he had already forgotten the vast majority of their names, so he gladly let them take over the conversation, effectively leaving him to fade into the background for the remainder of the lunch break.

********

Ahhh I wrote this instead of studying, yay! My PC also crashed multiple times throughout, but let's calmly disregard that fact...

Thank you for reading this (if you did)! Please leave a comment, as I'd really appreciate some feedback and/or suggestions! The probability of there being typos in this work is high, so feel free to let me know if you find any throughout. This is the first fic I've written in around two or three years, so I'm still getting back into the swing of things. I just couldn't ignore the idea I had for this plot any longer—It would not stop gnawing at my brain, darn it!

Also yes, the Seoul Institute of Music and Performing Arts is completely fictional. I wanted to set the scene at a performing arts college, but the plethora of schools in South Korea confused me, so I figured I'd just make one up myself and lay out the rules according to my personal desires for the story's progression.

Finally, I'll be updating the tags as the story progresses. There is a 99.99999% chance that there will be eventual  in this story, so if that makes you uncomfortable, heed the tags and also the notes so that you know which bits to skip. I'll write warnings in the preceding chapter notes throughout, just in case!

P.S. the title of this fic is from a Kiss song. Don't ask, because I don't even know. I couldn't think of anything better, so let's call it a working title for now.