“Jung Yonghwa!” The teacher threw the baton at the snoozing guitarist. “Would you mind staying awake for at least the first 30 seconds?”

     The student in question just threw the baton back. “Sorry saem.” He picked up his guitar and started strumming the intro to the piece and promptly fell asleep again.

     “Oppa, I made these cookies, do you want some?” A tiny violinist shyly walked up after class and held out a pink box.

     “If you don’t want them, I guess I’ll take them.” He picked up the box. “Thanks.”

     “No problem!” She squeaked as she hurried off to class.

     Yonghwa flipped up the hood to his jacket and walked towards the student center. Why on earth were there so many? This was a university anyways. He grinned at the thought of finally being able to leave in a couple months.

     “Hyung!” Minhyuk ran up to him. “Hey hyung people are talking about your magical powers again! Are those cookies!?!”

     “Yeah here. I was going to give them to you anyways. And what do you mean magical powers?”

     “unaw fah pira”

     He rolled his eyes. “Chew first.”

    “You know, your guitar! You fell asleep the entire class and still played perfectly.”

     Yonghwa confiscated the rest of the cookies, he liked chocolate chip too. “Yeah okay whatever.”

     “Hey the guys were asking if you could play basketball, but I told them no because you hurt your wrist yesterday.” Minhyuk stopped. “Wait, how did you play if you hurt your wrist?”

     “It wasn’t that bad of a sprain. I can still go play basketball, let’s go.” They had reached the dorms now and he threw the cookie box at a frantic Jonghyun studying for his next test.

     “But it was a bad sprain! You had to get those weird bandages from the nurse’s office!”

     “And they work miracles. Jungshin! Want to go play basketball?” Yonghwa banged on the door.

     “Sure, but shouldn’t you be practicing hyung?” Jungshin came out with a ball and a letter. “This was in your mailbox, which I know you never check.”

            “Too many girls with too much perfumed letters.”

            “And it says you made it to the second round and they changed office locations.”

            Yonghwa’s eyes almost popped out as he looked at the gold envelope. He sniffed it, and frowned. “Why does it smell like flowers?”

            “Probably cause it was on top of the other icky letters. You auditioned for something and didn’t tell us?” Minhyuk perked as he tried to open the letter.

            “Yeah, but I didn’t think I would make it. It’s just some record label that sounded cool and was looking for a guitarist.”

            “And handsome looks, and the voice of an angel.” Jonghyun called out from behind his music theory books. “I did some research on it. I still can’t believe you made it.”

            Yonghwa frowned and chucked the basketball at the stack of papers. “Yah! Well I would’ve taken you but they said they needed someone with a soothing temper and a certain age.”

            Jonghyun pouted as he looked at his almost perfect presentation. “Yes you’re the perfect image of a soothing temper you old grandpa.”

            “So when is your next audition hyung?”

            “It says it’s the day after tomorrow.” Yonghwa threw the letter on his bed and retrieved his ball. “Let’s go play.”

            “Shouldn’t you be practicing hyung?”

            Yonghwa raised an eyebrow and looked at the stack of offers from various companies on his desk. “I think I’ll be okay Minhyuk-a.”

            Maybe it was because he drank too much coffee that morning or because he hadn’t gone to bed until 4 the night before, but Yonghwa was very wide awake during the next day’s history class.

            “Hello class.” The teacher dumped a stack papers on his desk. “I’m sure you’re all anxious as to how you did on the last test of the Shilla kingdom.”

            Yonghwa sighed and wished he could sleep through however badly he did on that test. All that was keeping him in the school were his musical abilities, his parents’ money, and the fact that the president’s daughter had the biggest crush on him.

            “But I’ve decided to drop this grade so I won’t even bother handing these back to you.” He graciously smiled, as if he was waiting for some form of applause. He frowned when he didn’t get it though. The fact was that the kids who cared were devastated because they had probably gotten good grades on the test, the kids who might have done okay were fine with it whatever and had no reaction, and the kids who did badly didn’t care anymore and most of them were sleeping next to Yonghwa on the back row.

            He coughed. “Yes well, I’ve also decided that the Korean history seems to drag a little, so we’re going to have a slightly fun day and talk about greek mythology.” The teacher shoved the papers into the recycling bin. “So who knows anything about the Olympic gods?”

            Yonghwa sat up a little straighter at the lecture. Greek mythology had interested him since elementary school when they had to pick a god and dress up as him or her. Most of the guys had wanted to be Zeus or Poseidon with their sky and water powers. But Yonghwa had liked Apollo the most.

            Who wants to be in charge of the ocean or lightning anyways? Apollo had the sun, poetry, medicine, and most of all, he had music. Yep, the guy was pretty much good at everything and Yonghwa liked all of them.

            He actually sat up straight and jotted down a few notes, but he had pretty much known all of the basics really. The pop quiz that came the next class ended up being a 100 for him and maybe he would actually pass the course.

            “Hyuuuuuung! Are you going to your audition now?” Minhyuk asked as he hung off from the edge of the couch while watching tv.

            “Yep, wish me luck.” Yonghwa zipped his black hoodie, tied his converse, and grabbed his guitar.

            “Hyung!” Minhyuk called out again.

            “What?”

            “Nothing, it just feels like I might not see you for a while. You’ll probably get the contract and never have enough time to hang out with us anymore.”

            Yonghwa chuckled. “I’ll be right back.”

            He walked into the tall building and was surprised to see it empty except for a lady working at the front desk. For an entertainment company, it was pretty different. The first round had consisted of a line of audtionees out the door and down the street and only one judge. Now, everyone was gone.

            “Annyeonghasaeyo, my name is Jung Yonghwa and I received an offer to audition…” he trailed off as he noticed her dress. It shimmered and seemed to be white and every single color of the rainbow at the same time.

            “Ah yes, Jung Yonghwa. Vocals and guitar?” she barely looked up and scrawled something down. “Yes a special case I see, requested hmmm.” She looked up now, her nametag said her name was Iris, but that was scratched out so she was Jaekyung. She frowned and stared at his face. “Have you been here before?”

            “Excuse me?”

            “No, never mind. You guys are all so handsome these days that you all look alike. Please go up to the second to top floor and someone will be with you shortly.” She gave him one last probing look and then returned to her work.

            “Gamsahamida.” He bowed and walked towards the elevator. It was weird, it wasn’t that tall of a building, and yet there were over 100 floors. He pressed level 120, the second to top floor, and closed the door. In what seemed like milliseconds, the doors opened again and he found himself on a completely different level.

            There was something weird going on here…He looked to see rows of doors looking back at him and he realized that Jaekyung or Iris never told him which door to go to. The rooms were all identical, it looked more like an office space than a place where musicians practiced.

            His footsteps echoed in the vast building and he couldn’t hear anyone else on this floor. He carefully tested a door handle to find it locked. That made it a little easier. The only problem was there was only one door unlocked and it was empty. The last door he tried led to some stairs that went up for what looked like miles.

            Yonghwa shook his head, his mind must be playing tricks on them. He shrugged and started climbing up.

            He eventually came to a golden door with faded old hanja. He knocked and was surprised to see it open to what seemed like a deserted palace? It was a pretty nice one but it was completely empty except for music, pretty good music, coming out of a central room.

            Banners stretched across hallways wishing someone named Leeteuk or Zeus happy birthday. So maybe the entertainment company was full of egotistical people that liked to think of themselves as Olympics gods? No thanks, he turned around but saw that the door he had come out of had disappeared.

            There was only one way out and so he walked towards the castle.

            The music grew louder as he roamed the halls and wandered into what looked like a concert venue. The music was like that of a concert, the atmosphere, screams and all were like that of a concert. The only problem was, it seemed like a rock concert where everyone was dressed in their Sunday best. Old dresses and suits and some were wearing what you would think the wizards of Harry Potter would wear.

            Yonghwa wondered if they were all audtionees. If so, there was going to be some steep competition. He watched as 12 boys, all pretty, danced in a formation and sang. There were some solo acts that were good. One man in particular, he looked a little bit older than him, was really really really good.

            But then again, some were weird. There were five guys singing happy birthday until someone decided to switch it and a fight broke out…Happy Birthday?

            He looked around to see a man sitting on what looked like a huge throne and eating some cake. Was that the CEO and was it his birthday?

            Yonghwa was so confused and he felt a little out of place. Here he was in jeans and everyone else was dressed very well. An MC walked out and announced something like the 9 muses. Weren’t they a kpop group?

            He looked to see 9 extremely pretty girls walk on stage and start singing. One of them stood out to him and caught his eye and looked surprised. Yonghwa smirked, clearly these girls were going to start be like those university girls and scream his name. But instead of breaking formation, she just frowned at him and continued the performance.

            Yonghwa raised an eyebrow and wandered away towards the back of the stage. He ran into a couple of guys backstage.

            “What are you doing here?”

            “Um, well I’m pretty sure I’m up next, they gave me an official invite and everything. Don’t worry I don’t need any special effects out there like the others had with that fire and grape juice. Just a mic is all I need.” He took out his guitar and tuned it.

            “What’s he doing?”

            “Must be some new minor god, some hotshot.”

            He rolled his eyes and wasn’t so sure of auditioning anymore. Who goes around calling themselves gods and goddesses….it was so weird. And it was the first place where people looked at him weirdly when he asked about auditioning.

            The girls danced backstage and cheered at a job well done. The one that had frowned at him earlier walked up to him. He noticed she was really pretty, well all of them were, and tilted her head. “What are you doing here?”

            “Same thing as the rest of you.” He raised an eyebrow, why would she wonder what he was doing just because he didn’t get the memo about attire, and walked on stage.

            He heard a hush as people looked at him and he bowed.

            “Annyeonghasaeyo, my name is Jung Yonghwa and I will be performing a song I composed myself for my audition.” He put the mic back in it’s slot and started singing.

Hey guys! Wow so much support after 1 chapter! Thanks to people coming from my old fics and hi to new people! I'm kinda winging this story so if there's plot inconsistencies...I'm really sorry! :)

thanks for reading!

- chocolate-notes :)