Whoever thought it was a good idea to seat Jo Kwon, Meng Jia, Jang Wooyoung, Lee Minyoung, and Im Seulong in the same row, in that order, obviously did not know what they were asking for; granted, we were seated in alphabetical order, boys alternating with girls. I suppose by now Ian- I mean Mr. Choe regrets having agreed to getting transferred to this class. I heard he was supposed to be in 1B, but for some reason, the teacher assigned to us this year backed out when she found out those five students were in the same class- and row once again. They weren't trouble makers in the sense of it...not really. It's just that...they can get really really really noisy if they choose to, which is...really not so much of a choice as it is a default mode.

Mondays we have the general Music classes for the second afternoon period. Ian leaned back on his table as he usually did to check for attendance, like always. He just checked attendance this morning so I'm guessing he really doesn't want to lose a student on his first day of teaching. Looking satisfied that we were all here, he brought out an awfully familiar looking mixer. The second row people were still at it as Ian set up his laptop, they were talking about something that happened over the break. Apparently Min got herself a boyfriend, and Jia was asking for more details, and Seulong and Wooyoung were trying to make Min confess to lying about the alleged boyfriend she had.

“I don't care if you don't believe me,” Min huffed, crossing her arms on her chest.

“It's just unlikely that you get a boyfriend Min, you were the one who kept saying most guys our age can't handle you,” Seulong retorted, twisting in his seat so he faced her.

“Does the guy even know you're dating him Min?” Wooyoung asked, to which he received a nice slap on the arm from Jia.

“So Min got a boyfriend, what's the big deal?” Jia said, trying to defend her friend.

“Older guy, Min?” Kwon asked.

The conversation carried over to my corner of the room. I sat directly behind Junho during the afternoons because our Science teacher, Jung Jihoon¹, didn't like me and Jay sitting in between the two seats in front of us; he said it made it difficult for him to walk around so he pushed us to opposite corners. That was his excuse, though I think it was more because he realized early on that Jay and I were just not going to get along. What worried me however, was that Jay sat right behind Taec now, and I was afraid of what trouble he might get Taec into. Well not really what trouble he could get Taec into as it was what trouble he was going unleash on Taec.

“Okay people, settle down. First things first, can I see who signed up for the Music Production class later today?” Ian said, facing us again, his equipment already all set up.

A couple of hands flew up in the air: Taec, Minji, and Junsu. The future producers Class 3B were going to...well...produce, provided we all graduate and actually get into a decent university and make it in life. You know, that's how the drill generally goes. Ah. University. One word I really did not want to think of right now, only it seems that our teachers liked to remind us every single period that we were nearing the end of our line as high school students and that we should already have a career path somewhat planned out. It should have been easy. What do you want to do for the rest of your life? How do you see yourself ten, maybe even twenty, years from now? It should be easy, right? Wrong. If there was another thing I hated hearing so much it was “So where do you plan to go to college and what major will you be taking?” followed by the slow shaking of the head while tsk-ing the life out of me should I not answer within the next five seconds. What's with all this future talk anyway? Can't we just live for the moment?

“Good, then that means we'll be meeting again after this class,” Ian said as he looked over at each student that raised their hand.

So Ian was teaching Production this year. Interesting, not really surprising, but interesting nonetheless. He proceeded to push a few more buttons and keys on his mixer and after a few more seconds, his latest composition started playing; I knew this song, because I followed Ian's music.

“Can anyone tell me what type of musical form this song possesses?” Ian asked looking around the class, eyeing the non-Production students.

This was our Music Appreciation class. I could see the Choreography majors shifting around in their seats, twisting here and there, avoiding Ian's eyes. Ian, however, was highly amused by his newfound power. The song finally ended, only to repeat again as his question remained hanging in the air. Ian pushed himself off the table and started walking around the room; if it wasn't obvious enough, we were all holding our breaths waiting for someone to raise his or her hand to finally get the question done and answered. I could see Seulong release a breath he was holding as soon as Ian walked past him. He immediately twisted in his seat to face Minji who sat behind him, slapping her knee, forcing her to answer the question. Minji jerked her knee back and kicked Seulong's hands away, I couldn't see her face but I was pretty sure she was glaring at him by the way Seulong bared his teeth to her.

Taecyeon was already raising his hand, but Ian only smiled at him, as he made another turn to walk back to the front of the class.

“Minji-ah, I think you should try answering this question, I'm sure you already know the answer by now.”

Minji's head shifted a little bit, and I could see Seulong give her one last glare before facing the front again. “A Ternary ABA,” was Minji's short reply.

Ian smiled, satisfied with her answer. He turned the music off and stepped up to the white board, marker in hand. He began drawing a basic staff with a G-clef to one side with the time common time measure.

The other thing I love about my seat, other than the fact that I could see everyone else, was that I was seated right next to the window. Junho sat in front of me, and apparently he would agree with me with the way he was already looking outside and into the field. A class of first years were having their Physical Fitness Test- I knew they were first years because of the color of the stripe on their uniforms. A girl I recognized from the First Years' Orientation took her place on the starting line of the Shuttle Run track; she didn't look too confident with the way she crouched down as the teacher counted off with his fingers. True enough she slipped as soon as she reached the 50m mark to touch down before twisting on her toes to run back.

I turned my attention to my empty notebook on my desk and copied down Ian's lecture on the whiteboard. It was an introduction to Music Appreciation, and Ian had a smile on his face as he spoke about the latest trends in music for the past ten years. Eventually the period was up, and Ian sent us off to get to our next class, our elective classes where we took our majors. The class broke up again into their usual subsets as they grouped together to walk to their labs or studios.

There were a couple of Dance and Music classes offered this year and we took it together along with other members of the other classes, and a few with a couple of second years as well. I walked towards our little cubicle lockers at the back of the room and pulled out two large notebooks and three pens, blue, red and black, and stuffed them in the pocket of my skirt. By the time I was ready to head to my next class, the music majors were already half outside the door, and the dance people already had their change of clothes in their bags. I waited for them to leave the room first before walking out myself.

“So which class are you in?”

That was my...vacillating seatmate Jay hanging by the door. “This interests you, why?”

He shrugged, adjusting his bag on his shoulder. “Curious is all. Taec and Bangs are in Prod, Junho's in my class, what do you do?”

Bangs? Minji? Taec? Jay Park sits on our lunch table one time, and already he calls Taec, Taec? I have to agree on Bangs though, Minji always did have her bangs in her face. I walked past him and out into the corridor. If I answered that question, it would only open up another set of questions, and none of those questions are any that I would really like to answer.

“Yo, did you not hear me?”

I'm actually trying not to. Students from all three classes were crowding the corridors now, and Jay immediately turned left towards the staircase that lead to the dance studios, stopping when he realized I was not walking towards the same way.

“Yo, which class are you in?” he called out, walking backwards and bumping into someone from 3A.

I point towards the direction of my classroom and turn my back to him to get to my room. There weren't a lot of students walking in this way as the sound booths, music studios, and practice rooms were all towards the opposite direction.

I open the last door down the corridor, and already inside were my classmates and teacher for this course. There were five of us this semester from our year, and two more from the second year. I recognized all but one of the juniors. Choi Seunghyun² sat next to Kwon Jiyoung³ somewhere in the middle of the room, Jung Byunghee⁴ sat behind them, and Choi Siwon sat in the first row, right in front of the teacher's table. Next to him was Choi Minho from 2A, and another girl from 2B. I took my seat next to Byunghee and we exchange curt nods. Seunghyun, Jiyoung, and Byunghee were all my classmates from last year as well- in fact we've shared a class since first year as the only students to take a writing class. The door opened once more, and I'm surprised by the newest member of our class: Kim Junsu, and he quickly took the seat next to me.

“Well, that completes our class.”

Our teacher was one of the new faculty members YG introduced this morning. She was this pretty foreigner whose name escaped me at the moment. She spoke in English, and there was nothing unexpected with that as this was an English composition class.

“My name is Amihan Cruz⁵, and I will be your teacher for this year. Since I'm new, and you all obviously already know each other, let's start this class with a simple writing exercise, shall we?” she said as she proceeded to write the theme on the board.

We all pulled out our writing pads and pens, even our so-called bad boys didn't seem to antagonize this. Seems like having a pretty teacher placates them.

I saw Junsu shift uncomfortably in seat, this was his first writing class, and I knew this for a fact because I have been in every writing class since first year. “You okay?” I asked him.

“Yeah, just a little new to this,” he said, uncapping his pen.

I smiled at him. “I've never seen you in a writing class before, you've been taking up voice and composition for the last two years.”

“Yeah, I though I'd take a class for writing to help with my lyrics.”

That made sense.

Our teacher stepped away from the board to reveal today's theme for our first writing exercise, and I could imagine all our eyes popping out of their sockets. It wasn't her penmanship, it was very neat. It was the theme.

“Like I said, I'm new here, so for your first exercise, I want you to write something about yourselves. Since you all know each other, I think it would be boring for you to go up in front and say something about yourself, so what you'll do is write. What would you like the world to know about you?”

I read the theme on the board again. It was exactly as she said it, Write something about yourselves.

“I'll give you the whole period to do this piece, don't worry so much about the technical aspects to writing just yet, just write freely as if you were thinking.”

I gave her an incredulous look, but she just continued to smile as she took her seat behind the table. The rest of the class was already busy with their pens, even Junsu, and I was left there staring at my still blank sheet. Say something about yourself, write something about yourself, what exactly was I supposed write?

I looked up to see Ms. Amihan looking right at me, and I quickly turned back to my paper and picked up my pen. Getting my name down always seemed like a good place to start writing about myself.

When the period was up, I didn't even look over my work and just passed it forward. Ms. Amihan took the papers and inserted them inside a folder. Junsu, Siwon, Jiyoung, and the second years stood up to leave for their next class. This was how our elective system worked. You choose either one double period class, or you split them up depending on your interests. Junsu, for example, had been taking Production classes since first year, this year, as he told me, he split them up for lyrical composition and music arrangements. Jiyoung was the opposite, he'd been taking the writing class since first year, then took some music composition second semester last year.

Ms. Amihan eyed the three of us left inside the room. No one else was coming because the second period served as your major, which apparently only the three of us had.

“So I did my research and I found out that the three of you have had this class for five semesters now.” She gave me, Seunghyun, and Byunghee a knowing look. “For your next exercise, one that would run for the course of the whole semester, I'll need you to work closely together.”

Ms. Amihan gave us a pointed look, obviously she could tell the enthusiasm that was pouring out of us in spades. “You might like to sit closer together.”

None of us really moved from our seats. Our current seating arrangement had always been our seating arrangement since first year. You could say we were very attached to these seats.

“To the front row please.”

Eventually, the three of us did move to the front seat, and Ms. Amihan had me sit in between the two gentlemen. To be honest it felt weird to not have Jiyoung in the second period class. There had always been four of us, but Jiyoung had found his passion in writing music, and who were we to stop him, right?

“I was hoping I'd get an even number, but I guess we can make this work as well. For our first class, rather than a writing exercise, I'd like to talk to you about something that brought us all to this class now.”

I looked at her, just one look and I knew she was one of those crazy bubbly teachers that would talk about the idealism in life and...the joys of writing...

“So what silences the voices in your heads?”

1 Rain

2 TOP, Big Bang

3 GDragon, Big Bang

4 G.O, MBLAQ

5 from A Writer of Fiction