“Class, we are putting on a play!” the teacher said excited. “The Winter Wonderfest is in 3 weeks, and as you know every class has to contribute. We have 15 minutes to fill and I thought we should do a musical medley, how does that sound?” There was a burst of excitement in the classroom and everyone started chatting enthusiastically with each other. Daesung smiled to himself, he loved musicals even though he had never actually been to one. “Now, I want you to think extra hard about this tonight and tomorrow at lunch you will all write down the name of one musical you would like to do and put it into the suggestion box. After lunch I will draw one note out of the box and that will be the musical we are going to make a medley out of! Now off you go!”. The clatter of chairs being pushed around filled the room and the students headed for the door. Daesung followed behind going over all the musicals he knew in his head. There was one in particular he was very fond of these days. Their next door neighbour was a musical nut and had a very handsome DVD collection that he was more than happy to share with Daesung. They would sometimes spend hours on end talking about and reenacting their favourite scenes. He loved hearing Daesung sing and always said that there was a future for Daesung in musicals if he wanted. Daesung just laughed and smiled, who would want to pay money to come see him sing in a musical. No, he was just an amateur and truth be told he only ever let his neighbour hear him sing. Him and his mother on occasion, but besides that he never sang in front of people. In fact he had a great fear for public speaking, so public singing was absolutely out of the question. “Mom, I'm home!”, Daesung ran into the living room, popped in the DVD of the musical he was thinking about selecting for tomorrow and sat happily down on the sofa, his eyes glued to the TV.

Right before lunch the teacher handed out empty pieces of paper and asked everyone to write their suggestion on it, everyone but Seunghyun. Why was he always exempt from class activities? He had never once participated in class, be it schoolwork or extra curricular activities. He kept to himself most of the time and come to think of it, Daesung had never even heard his voice. Who was this mysterious boy and why did Daesung feel so drawn to him? Maybe it was just the curiosity getting the better of him and that was why he sometimes popped up in his mind when he least expected it. When he was doing his paper route he sometimes wondered if Seunghyun read the paper, when he went to the store he wondered what Seunghyun's favourite soda flavour was, when he was walking home from school he wondered what Seunghyun's house was like, probably a great big fancy mansion where he and the rest of his family went about in their dashing way, what an amazing sight that would be. Daesung grabbed his pen and wrote “Grease” on his piece of paper.

After lunch the teacher took the suggestion box and put it on her desk. You could hear a needle drop it was so quiet in the classroom, everyone was holding their breath, hoping that their idea was the one that would be chosen. The teacher raised her hand dramatically, all eyes were on her, and dove into the pile of papers. The hand reemerged with a single note, folded in half. “Drum roll please!”, the students started banging the tables and stomping their feet *bada-bada-bada-bada-BAMM*. The teacher unfolded the note and held it up high for all to see, “Grease!”. Daesung got a pang in his stomach, that was his note! Wow, Daesung had never won anything in his life and even though there was no price or anything, he felt like the price of winning was price enough. He instinctively looked at Seunghyun and grinned like an idiot, Seunghyun was watching him but there was nothing on his face that indicated what he was thinking. Daesung didn't care, he was happy and for some reason his first thought was to share that feeling with Seunghyun.

“Now, let's talk logistics” the teacher said and the students slowly quieted down. “Firstly, it is MANDATORY to take part in the auditions, no excuses!”. Daesung heard someone whisper “Yeah sure, mandatory for everyone but Seunghyun! He'll be let off the hook, just like always.”. The teacher continued talking but Daesung couldn't hear what she was saying anymore. The happiness Daesung had been feeling vanished in an instance, being replaced by utter terror. Mandatory, but... but... then he would have to sing... in front of all of those people. He didn't even feel comfortable enough around them to take part in casual conversations, how was he going to sing in front of them. The color drained from his face, leaving him as pale as a ghost. He looked around the classroom and imagined how they would ridicule him after seeing him choke on stage. His stomach was in a knot and he felt nauseous. His eyes found Seunghyun's and he sent him a silent “help me!” with his eyes. There was no way the message would be received, but he pretended it was so that he would feel less alone. Tomorrow at 3 o'clock, that was when his life would be over.