First Impression | Yangyang

5

"In the middle of their youth, a girl and a boy live on a small island. The mood is like the weather here, bright red fruits have blossomed" - Soulmate by ZICO, feat. IU

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As usual, practice began with tuning. Pitches and notes flew all over the place as the oboe tried to keep everybody in some sense of organization with the A440.

"Fuck why the hell is tuning so hard."
"I know right-"

Soon, the tuning session was over, leaving far too many people frustrated with how their pegs just wouldn't turn the right amount.

After a simple warm up of a C major scale, the conductor looked down at her papers, flipping to a page before turning behind her to look at the director of the whole event. Picking up the score, she pointed and confirmed the bar measure before turning back.

"Alright, let's run through the entire thing. I have a few parts I want to go through with after the run through, as requested by WayV. For now, I want to see both groups perform it," She raised her baton and made eye contact with every one of the musicians before starting.

Yangyang didn't have to worry much about screwing up. He had practiced this song far too many times and all he needed was a bit of focus. Of course, it would be the best if he put his mind to it but it was almost second-nature to him. The choreography came out naturally, the lyrics automatically flowed. He couldn't help but look at Dongmei when he had gone off the center. The girl was paying attention to the score, bow moving up and down in a rhythm that he could hardly comprehend. Her left hand as well, moving smoothly to play the right notes.

A small tap of his shoulder shook him back to reality, Kun grabbing his arm and shoving him to the middle. A millisecond passed before he processed the music and found his position, which luckily was not late. Or at least not too late as he received a glance from some of his members.

Quick notes and practices passed and break soon approached.

Dongmei did have music theory and more rehearsals for her music degree after this, all rearranged. Her teachers were nice enough to allow her to move around her classes for the next few weeks, although she would still be missing group lessons. Music school was indeed tiring, but it was better than law school, or medical school in that case.

Taking a quick sip of the bubble tea she had been gifted by the shop manager that she had left in her tumbler, she opened up her phone for no particular reason. The familiar screaming vibrated through her ears again, wincing at the piercing noise.

Yangyang noticed the girl hiding away from the rather large crowd near the vending machine and approached her, "Hey."

"Hello," She replied formally, without much emotion. Only glancing at him as a formality, she pulled a tight smile. "Uh, I need to look through some of my pieces for music school tests."

"Ah ok, I'll leave you alone then."

Yangyang had never really understood why Dongmei, or the bubble tea shop girl in his eyes as he hadn't caught her name yet, always pushed him away. Yes, it was in a way that he couldn't really call rude as she always seemed to keep a business relationship with him, only interacting when necessary. After all, she was just a violinist while he was up there performing.

It occurred to him that something had gone wrong somewhere in their non-existent relationship. And of course, the only real interaction they had was the whole bubble tea mess. But what did go wrong? It was just a little order, her working and him ordering, simple life. A consumer at a shop. Nothing more.

Right?

To Dongmei, definitely not. Not only had Yangyang screwed up her whole mood, he had screwed up her perception of him, as an idol and a person.

The fact that he had demanded so much from her wanted made her want to kill him. Not literally, of course. She didn't really understand what situation he was in that day.

Yangyang walked back to his friends, trying to smile again. Maybe he really did screw up. This stuff wouldn't usually affect him so much if everything was just a lie. His heart felt a weight on it, like it did whenever he lied or screwed up.

Unsure what to say or what to do, all he could do was act normal, as if the sudden realization of what he had done had never happened. After all, he knew these people very well and they would immediately notice if he showed even the slightest sign of unusual behavior.

As for Dongmei, the possibility that Yangyang would apologize barely mattered. With her overthinking, he would just doing it to save his image with so many people around. None of it would be genuine and it was all just a little act for himself. At least that how she looked at it.

Stubborn to her own ideas, it made it impossible for the girl to accept anybody else's ideas into her heart. She was just a little too self-centered and independent to understand so many other things in the world as all she saw was her own black and white bubble of work and life. Just herself. After all, she couldn't trust anybody but herself. No exit, no entrance, she had created this tiny world around herself. Nobody ever broke in, and she never realized she had trapped herself, never freeing herself.

Reality came back when rehearsal continued. At this point, the rehearsals were beginning to feel pointless as everybody knew their parts but Dongmei knew that the more practice, the better. So she didn't complain, despite the upcoming exams that were beginning to stress her out.

Quick notes from the conductor ended, as well as some announcements by the director and everybody was released. Yangyang couldn't help but worry as he walked to the car back to the dorms. Had he screwed up? Exactly what did he do wrong? 

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sooo who's gonna tell him