CHAPTER I
Playing Or Falling

"A lie could affect your whole life. That’s… what happened to me."

 “Yah! Kwon Yuri! Wake up!" 

I heard a voice screaming in my room. I opened my eyes, but the first thing in my mind is Audition. When I said Audition, it wasn't the actual audition when you stood in front of judges to show your skills, not it wasn't like that.

Audition Online is an online multiplayer dancing game where you need to press the arrows displayed on the screen and pressing spacebar or the control key on every 4th beat of the song. The more accurately the spacebar or control key is pressed, the higher the score, "PERFECT" being the best, "GREAT" and "COOL" still counted as good enough, "BAD" you will get very little score, and for "MISS" as the worst one, no score. If you get a "MISS" you will not get the chance to play for the next move. The player currently with the most points during the game will have their character in front and the most visible part of the stage.

A player is allowed to create a room or join a room. The 'DJ' (the player who creates the room) is given power to choose songs and settings for the room. The DJ also has the power to kick people out of the room and close the dance floor off however; this cannot be permanent. The song's BPM (beats per minute) usually will determine the song's difficulty and speed.

I smiled a bit by the thought of it. Gaming has always been my thing.

"Its 10.30 AM already, we’re gonna be late for today’s class!” I can see a short girl with a short brown hair- with a nice nose. Sunny.

"Ah, my head is spinning." I closed and re-opened my eyes to see her. It was blurry but now it's perfectly clear. Aware of the headache i'm having at the moment, I told Sunny, “I don’t think I will be able to go to collage today...” I say while rubbing my head. I wasn't lying when I said it hurts. 

“Are you sure?” she asks with a concerned look.

 I nod, frowning. 

“Okay then. I’ll see you later Yuri. Be sure to get some sleep and take medicine later. Bye!”

With that, Sunny left my room. I decided to continue with my sleeping, until I heard a familiar footsteps toward my door.

‘BANG’ If you're wondering what was that loud bang, that was the sound of my door open.

...I am going to get scolded again.

“Yuri yah! Stop playing online games 24/7! How long are you going to skip classes every Tuesday, huh?” a beautiful, short haired girl glared at me while crossing her arms.

"Aigoo I am having a headache here, Fany ya.” I reply her with a weak expression. That should reduce her anger, I suppose.

“THAT’S WHY I TOLD YOU TO STOP PLAYING ONLINE GAMES LIKE A FREAK ONE!” she yells aloud, I guess she's really pissed right now. By the way, don’t judge a book by its cover; the first time you see her, you might say something like: “Wah! An angel!” or “How pretty!”, “She looks so fine”, “She must be a calm person” I must warn you, she is not. Well, except for her beauty, that is real.

Tiffany is also one of my best friends at this dorm. She approaches me- on my bed. I shift for a save position, she might kick or pinch me anytime she wants. “Look, your eyes are so bloody red.” She says, raising an eyebrow. Apparently she was checking on my condition.

“Yeah I know,” I muttered.

It’s becoming a habit now that every Tuesday I'll skip classes because of a headache. I know it sounds silly, but yes, every Tuesday I’ll be having a headache. Just as Tiffany says, I play online games everyday. Every time I have free time, I will ASAP sit in front of my pc and then connect to the game. From morning to night, from night till morning. This is me, Kwon Yuri.

Tiffany then stood up and went to sit in front of my PC, but turn around to face me. Sighing, she asks, “What are you going to do now? Sleep again?”

“Seems so?” Obviously I wanted to sleep again.

“Oh my God, Yuri. I should not let you try playing in the first place, if I know you’ll be this addicted.”

Grinning, I turn around to face the wall, trying to sleep while covering my body with my warm blanket. I close my eyes. I notice her presence beside me so I turn around to find Tiffany by my side. She takes my blanket too, to cover her body. I turn to the wall again, smiling. She put her head on my back, on my shoulder. I stay still and close my eyes again.

“Lets sleep for two hours.” She suggests.

“Uh-huh” I answer her. It'll be best for me to say nothing more, since she is fast on falling asleep. One minute on bed and she will off to her dreamland, so I stay quiet and hope that I will fall asleep soon too.

My mind starts to wander around to the past. How I meet my friends.

I knew Tiffany when I was on my 1st year on University, when I went to Sunny’s dorm. Yeah I wasn't in this dorm at first, I moved here because of Sunny. She was the only one I found kind and innocent enough through our first day on Uni. As we got closer, I thought that I need to move here too, so that we could eat together, went to classes together, and it would become easier for me too. Back then in my first dorm, I did not really like it- I meant the place. Yes, the place was big, but the people there were so individual.

I barely made any friends there. Well except for four people, maybe? But three of them could not be really called friends since they just came into my room whenever they needed something that they didn’t have, and I had that. Aside of that, we’d go to class together, but we didn’t really matched well in conversation. And the worst was, I usually ate alone. Sometimes when I was too lazy to ask someone to eat together, I’d just make a glass of a non-fat milk and drink it until it filled my stomach.

I hate my first dorm. But this one was different, and I really liked it here.

When I thought about it again, it might be my excuse to say that ‘the people there were so individual’, sometimes it was just me and my own comfort zone refusing to smile and greet them, so normally I’d just walked like no one was around, I tried not to look at them and as soon as I arrived at dorm, I’d always went to my room as soon as possible.

Kwon Yuri, 21 years old. I am not short, but I am not too tall either, I mean, I’m just 167 cm. I have a kind of tanned skin, which is y… or so they say. I have a long, silky black hair and, I am currently on my 5th semester now.

Activities: playing online games, sleeping, eating, shopping, and go to collage, and study whenever I have an exam around.
Hobbies: playing games, sports, reading, shopping, and stay close with Tiffany, Sunny and TaeTae.

I laugh at the thought.

“Yah, what are you doing? I thought you were sleeping.” She says while punching my back.

“Fany you haven’t gone to your dreamland yet? I thought you were fast asleep. I cannot sleep.” I say to her.

She pouts and takes her mobile phone from her pocket; her head still resting on my back.

Tiffany is the one who introduced me to Audition Online, at first I thought ‘nah, that must be hard to play,’ and refused to try; I just looked at her when she plays with her friends.

The game is kind of cool, though.

We create our own avatar, and get to dance in a room with other player. You can buy pets, clothes, costumes, DJ desk, so when your avatar becomes a DJ in a room it will use that DJ desk that you pay. Everything to get your avatar as attractive and stand out as much as possible, so people will recognize you, when you enter a room to play, and dance.

And I do spend a lot of money for that.

“So what