I swear I only have one reason why I am here in Korea—to finish my masters studies and to get to be friends with TVXQ. Okay, make that two.

But who would have thought that it wasn’t my dream to be a renowned historian that I’ll get to fulfill here but another one. I became friends with TVXQ—no not that, I’ll tell later. My dream of becoming a musician is what I’m talking about.

On my last year, I and three other friends crashed on an SM Global Auditions. Well, not exactly crashed. You see we were supposed to be on a vacation then just out of spontaneity, since we were on the same town where the auditions were held, we tried out. We all passed but only two of us went on with the training because, well, it was just really for fun.

+

SM Building PracticeHall C

I and my two bandmates were about to finish another rehearsal session.

“We’ll end here. So far we sound great. Don’t you think so?” Haru said, the leader of our group who plays the acoustic guitar, never the electric guitar.

“So far? What are you saying? We always sound great..Haha.” That would be Jine, our not so arrogant bassist. When we really do great, he never fails to declare it that way. But when we , he it up and never say a word about it. That would be my part to point out.

“We all contributed in composing this song, no wonder we easily play and sing in sync with one another,” I, the keyboardist, explained.

“It’s really a good thing that we get to write together from time to time,” Haru agreed with me. “So let’s just call it a day. I will have to go now, anyway. My mom arrived from Japan. I have to join her for dinner.”

With that Jine’s face turned to me, “Then it’ll be just us who’ll have dinner together. Will you cook for me at our apartment?”

“No,” I answered with my usual poker face.

“Yah! When was the last time you cooked for us? You moved into our apartment. You have your own room, but that doesn’t mean you keep your cooked food to yourself!”

“This little kid. I’ll cook for you, but not tonight. Next time, okay? Haru has to be there, too.” Then I added a small smile at him.

“Pinky promise?” He put down his bass and walked until he was in front of my keyboard then held out his pinky finger to me. I hooked mine to him. “And I am not a little kid. I am oppa to you.”

“Whatever.”

“I’ll look forward to that dinner, too. See you later at home, though I might stay out late.” Haru slipped out of the room with his encased guitar backstrapped on him.

“So what will we take out for dinner?” Jine asked me.

“You’re the guy here, you decide,” I answered without looking at him. “And besides, you have to go ahead without me. I’ll stay here for a bit more. It’s still early.”

"Nine o'clock is early for you. Right. Okay, I’ll go ahead,” he carefully placed his bass guitar in its case, turned off his amplifiers and picked up his transparent backpack (he says it has to be that way so he know if he did bring the things he needed with him). “Favor. Whatever you’re going to write this time, please create it with a strong bass line.” He knew I had a new song I want to work on. I guess in the two years of jamming back in the university and another year of training, Jine had observed me enough to tell when I want to just write and not be disturbed.

When Jine walked out of the room, I heard him greet other fellow artists. Seconds after, faces peeked through the door where Jine disappeared.

“Unni, annyeong!” greeted a female junior and behind her were others smiling at me. “You’re done with your practice? We were wondering if now would be a good time to hear from you the song you promised us.”

“Well, I guess I can use some time to relax and play some for you.” In a blink of an eye, three girls and three guys filled the room and stood in front of me and my keyboard. “I actually thought of this song when I saw you guys watching our seniors Yunho and Changmin last week. You were all exclaiming how good they are but you were also having doubts if you will ever do good as they have.”

“You heard us? That is so embarrassing. But we really are far from how they perform,” answered a guy who I heard last time say that he wanted to be able to scream high notes just like Changmin.

I simply smiled at him and then began to play slightly fast high notes. The notes were just in me. I remember playing it right after I got back to my keyboard after seeing them. But I haven’t worked on the complete lyrics that would go with it. I got to sing two stanzas for them anyway. I can feel their smiles coming from their hearts when I looked at them as I sing and play. When I finally played my last note I proceeded to play Mirotic—in my own piano ballad version [Mirotic piano ballad here.  That's not me, of course but Keudae.  I just found this clip. :)]. Being the singers that they are, and because it wasn’t the first time they heard me play it that way, they sang with me.

As I ended, I looked up at them but the clap of hands came first from someone at the door.

“Changmin sunbaenim! Annyeonghaseyo!”

“Neh, annyeong! I was passing by when I heard a good music playing and then I realized that the lyrics you were singing was our song.”

“Oh, sorry about that. We were just playing around with some music and—” I tried to explain. I haven’t really been around Changmin, and Yunho, since I got into SM. Who knows if he would snap at me for playing their song differently.

“No it’s okay. I just got curious as to who was changing our song very well. Haha,” Changmin commented, which gave me a bit of relief. “Oh, excuse me. I’m TVXQ’s Changmin. I believe we’ve been introduced before. You are part of the 世界首歌 (ShijieShou), right?”

“Yes. I’m Raya from the trio band ShijieShou. President Lee Soo Man introduced us on the company party after you finished your album tour.”

“Ah. That’s right. I remember now.”

“Excuse me,” the junior who wanted to scream like Changmin spoke. “I’m curious. I heard that there are plans on having ShijieShou collaborate with TVXQ. Is that true? Maybe that is why you are here sunbaenim?”

Before Changmin could answer, the head of the other member of TVXQ appeared on our door.

“Ya, Changmin. What is taking you so long here?” Yes, it was Yunho. It seemed only after he spoke that he realized that Changmin wasn’t alone in the room. “Oh, hello everyone! Is Changmin disturbing you?”