"You nervous?"

Key handed Jonghyun a glass of water as he stares at how his cousin warms up. According to the boy, his prodigy cousin needed no warm-ups to score a falsetto.

"Hmm... I don't know," Jonghyun stopped as he drinks the water, shrugging his shoulders. "I haven't been performing for a long time. Not even back in England."

"Je vois..." Kibum nodded. He looked at the opposite corner where another group is sitting at. He tried to catch their attention, though he failed, as their group was the next on line.

“Group number twenty-one? It's your turn now,” a committee called out for their group number and Jonghyun stood up as the cousins walked to the room together.

X X X X X X X X X X

"Oh my gosh, who's playing in there?"

"I don't know. Hyejin, do you?"

"Well, I heard that it's the heir of Arpeggietta and his cousin in there, but I'm not sure."

"Are you serious?! Daebak!"

Chats about the melodious playing and singing in the locked room continued until an unlocking doorknob was heard. All participants, male and female, stared at the two cousins as they walk out from the room with satisfying smiles on their faces. Everyone clapped and cheered...

...Well, almost everyone, to say the least.

"I told you Jonghyun's the man!"

"Yeah, yeah. Whatever." Byul rolled her eyes and took a sip of her drink. She does not take disliked subjects easily, but recital auditions are a different story. She stopped performances ever since that boy left her, but music is way too powerful to stop her from playing in public. And when this girl says "focus", she closes herself up, borders herself from gossips and friends and start working.

"Get ready, twenty-three!" there goes the committee again. Both girls stood up and followed him into the room.

X X X X X X X X X X

"Alright... Seo Byul and Im Jin-ah?" One of the judges read out the girls' names.

"Yes, sir." Byul responded, yet no emotions or sights of nervousness showing on the girl's face. At least Jin-ah smiled.

"Well then, you may start."

Jin-ah took her place at the microphone stand while Byul headed towards the black grand piano at the corner of the room.

A compound-timed melody introduced the judges to their performance - Sekai no Yakusoku, The Promise of the World. The school played the performance everywhere in the campus where everyone can hear what's happening, and it stopped everybody from what they're doing, their practices, studies, duties... Everyone stopped and listened to the powerful voice and the soulful keyboard accompaniment.

Jonghyun, walking back to his room with his cousin, smiled and let out a relieved sigh. She's still the same Seo Byul I met.

X X X X X X X X X X

The following week

A piece of printed paper has gained a crowd of people's attention. The results of the audition has finally been announced.

"Yes! We made it, Byul! We made it!" Jin Ah squealed in the cafeteria once she received a message from her classmate congratulating their qualification. Byul rolled her eyes.

"I wouldn't have entered if it weren't for you, Jinny. Why tell me this?"

"Well I say it counts since we're in a team," Jinny stuck her tongue out mischievously and turned to the other two male at the table. "What about you guys?"

Jonghyun looked up from his phone with a frown, then immediately transforming it into an excited smile.

"That's good news! Now all four of us can collaborate!" Jin-ah clapped her hands in excitement and sent a signifying grin to Kibum.

"Collaborate?" Byul didn't seem delighted. "Then you three go unleash your cooperating skills. I'm on solo." she said her final sentences before leaving the conversation and the cafeteria. The crescent-shaped lips slowly faded as Jonghyun watched the girl leave. Kibum witnessed and patted his cousin's back.

X X X X X X X X X X

"It can't do! This song will sound totally horrible if I remove the violinist!" Jonghyun panicked as he walked around the room. He deeply regretted bringing the sheets to class and caught his teacher's attention, and as the chairman of the year's recital, wanted him to perform the piece as a performance. It would be a perfect trio if he gets a violin part, since he has chosen to be the pianist and Kibum as the cellist, but the school has only three violin geniuses - A really distant one that Jonghyun has forgotten; then Henry Lau, one of the most ambitious and talented student of the academy that just finished his diploma course; and there is Byul. The distant one? If only Jonghyun had a way to contact him. Henry? Nah, Jonghyun thought. The boy must have his own pieces to handle. Byul? Pretty obvious enough.

"You sure you don't want to go up to her and ask her yourself?" Kibum stirred on the cream of his Starbucks cappuccino. "Most people just won't answer their 'yes's unless someone makes a move first."

Jonghyun lifted an eyebrow at his cousin in disbelief. "How can I trust you?"

"Dude, I'm your relative! And an aspiring psychologist, too." Kibum patted his own chest. "I swear, mon cousin, that I will wear a bright pink tutu and dance any female Korean artist's dance at the Myeongdong streets!"

"Stop making me laugh when I'm not supposed to," Jonghyun burst into laughter as he pictured how his cousin will look like, wearing like a ballerina and dancing to songs like "Gee" or even worse, "Nobody", at a place where thousands are watching. "I'm supposed to be all tensed up and stressed out but you just made my tears fall."

"Then is it a deal, or not?" Kibum stuck out his pinky and gestured to his cousin. Jonghyun hesitated a bit, before hooking it with his own.

It's done! Phew... took me an hour... crap :P

Hope you this filled you guys' free time!