2. Memories of our School Days

Most people would describe Kang Minhyuk as cute. I think so too, but I have seen his cool and charismatic side as well, and I would say that side is more towards the real him. Minhyuk oppa is a kind, thoughtful and neat boy, and a darn good brother that will always have your back. He was the reason I survived high school.

In high school, Minhyuk was the cutest boy on campus. Many girls always prepared love letters, lunchboxes and the like for him. What made them very mad was that Minhyuk always hung out with me. This also resulted in me being bullied or threatened by his fangirls.

Talk about meeting Minhyuk, it was really an occurrence of fate. If I was not interested in music, and was not fascinated by drums, I wouldn’t have stepped into that concert hall that day I convinced myself to finally pick up the drums, where Minhyuk was jamming by himself. So I stepped into the dark concert hall, and heard not the soothing sounds of the piano or choir, but instead, the upbeat excitement of a skilled drummer at play. On the stage was a boy my age, headphones on his head, and charismatically playing the drums. His rhythm and flow was good; the high of the cymbals and thumps of the bass drum, along with the flow of the toms made everything really catchy, and made me want to get up and dance. My heartbeat sped up, and I was especially impressed when he made a rim shot – a particularly advanced technique where the metal part of the snare drum is hit together with the snare skin.

As he ended with a spin of his drumsticks and took out his headphones, I burst into loud applause. He startled and spun around, looking for his audience. He spotted me and smiled sunnily even though I was virtually a total stranger. As he walked towards me, he started talking. “I’ve seen you around school! Thanks for supporting me haha. I’m Minhyuk, and you are?”

I smiled back warmly at this sweet guy. I introduced myself, and shared the reason why I was here in the first place – to pick up the drums. Upon hearing that, Minhyuk looked excited and asked, “Then how are you going to learn it? Is your friend gonna teach you? Do you have your sticks already?” Embarrassed, I looked at the floor and shook my head, muttering, “I was just gonna come and take a look and maybe try hitting a little here and there and possibly get the hang of it..”

Minhyuk chuckled, and offered, “Why not I teach you instead? As you can see, I’m an intermediate player. Although I’m still trying to improve my skills, I can teach you the basics first. You seem very keen to learn.” With a pat on my head, he laughed again and took out a pair of extra sticks from his bag. I admired the sticks - it was a pair of Vic Firth 3D made with maple. I always admired drum sticks; I loved their sleek feeling and spinning them across my fingers. I also liked to know what type of wood they were made of and would be an avid collector if they were not so expensive.

He pulled another chair out from behind the stage, and placed it next to the drum set.  He motioned for me to sit on the drum stool, while he sat on the extra chair. Sitting on the soft cushioned drum stool, I was awed by the drums. There was the snare with the white hard drum skin, followed by the two toms, which I learned later, was used during song bridges, or drum solos. These were followed by the floor tom on the right, which produced a very retarded dull sound in my opinion. I remarked about the floor tom to Minhyuk, who laughed and said “That’s a really unique way of describing that! Aigoo you’re so cute~”

I blushed lightly, and Minhyuk started the lesson shortly, teaching me the basics of holding the sticks, and how to actually hit the drums. In between, we talked and found out more about each other. Minhyuk was in the next class; I had seen him around but never talked to him. He was also in a band, which was made up of 2 other members, one playing rhythm guitar and the other one playing lead guitar. He fondly told me the story of how they met each other, and came up with the band name.

“Well it was really random, but I was jamming by myself here one day, and two guys just walked in. They looked like good friends and were carrying guitars, and seemed like they wanted to practice. Anyway, they just came over and said hi, and told me that they were planning to form a band. And they needed a drummer, and there I was.” Minhyuk laughed merrily and promised to introduce them to me.

Minhyuk was a really cheerful boy. He was all sunshine and brought a smile to everyone, especially with his cute and infectious laughter. He was also very efficient, and true to his words, he promised to bring me to meet his bandmates the next day. Although we just met, Minhyuk was the type of person who made you feel comfortable and feel like you can talk about anything with him. He really made my high school life enjoyable and cheered me up on many sad occasions.

And so, here we were, staring at each other. That European-looking boy and me. I couldn’t describe the connection between us. It was like electricity; a live wire, b with the possibility of danger upon touching. I understood that if anything were to happen between us and something went wrong, all the friendships, relationships built on this would crumble. We were all connected.

Jungshin oppa, who took care of me since the time when I could remember, had finally met his lifelong friends. I went home yesterday and told him about the new cheery friend I made and his band, and oppa wanted to come along. Jungshin oppa had a great interest in learning the bass, but did not really have the time due to his various part time jobs to support the family. I always offered my help but he always told me to focus on my studies. He was really a great brother, but he was too hard on himself. I remembered when I went to apply for a part time job secretly, but he found out and was really mad at me afterwards. All he wanted was for his little sister to have a good school life and graduate with great results to apply for university.

Anyway, Jungshin oppa came along, and got along really well with the guys. Minhyuk had brought his friend, Yonghwa with him, and told us that the other band member would be late as he had some class activities. Jungshin oppa clicked really well with the guys, and Yonghwa even offered to lend his bass to Jungshin for him to learn. Yonghwa learned various musical instruments, but his one and only love was still the guitar. The band needed a bass player to complete the lineup, and Jungshin oppa showed great promise. Yonghwa was just teaching Jungshin the basics as the last band member walked in.

-end of chapter-

Author's note:

Hey there! I'm really sorry that i took so long to update. I've been busy towards the end of october, and was trying to think up a good plot and storyline to carry this story forward. Don't wanna disappoint by writing a ty chapter haha. Sorry if it's been boring so far, but i promise things will heat up soon!! :)

I've been kinda distracted -cough- by Woobin AHAHAHA The Heirs is just too nice! The storyline and plot actually kinda , everything's moving so slowly, but i really hope Young Do will get the girl omg.

Talking about CNBLUE, have you seen awkward Jonghyun as MC for SBS MTV smthsmth? He's such an awkward turtle omg but cute embarassment~!  hahaha hope he'll have more projects~ and jungshin's been kinda MIA.

Will update soon! (will try to update once a week!) Let's get this story rolling. :-)