What if Rona had taken up Seokhoo's offer to go to Jullliard at the start of season 3. What awaits Rona and Seokhoon in USA, and how would the story change for Penthouse?
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In the past month, with the war in Hera Place finally over. Seokhoon and Rona remain oblivious to the fact that Joo Dante and Cheo Seojin were gone (granted their parents never told them this). They had to concentrate fully on their assignments, competition and exams. Last week was the qualifying round for the USA contestants for the Queen Elisabeth competition.
The ratio of how many people would qualify goes by the size of the country. So in the case of the USA there would be up to 12 people selected from each category. The Queen Elisabeth Competition had an extensive category - piano, violin, voice, cello, and composition. If you qualify to be in the 12, you would move onto the 2nd round which takes place in Belgium on December the 4th. After that, from the 1st round the contestant will be narrowed to just 12 in total.
From the total of 12 finalists, will be the final round and then the top 6 will be announced. To get to the top 12 was going to be a steep road. You were basically competing with the best of the best from not just one country but many. Luckily, Juilliard this year was the centre for the qualifying round for the USA. This gave Rona and Seokhoon some home ground advantage.
To ensure that the qualifying round was fair, the judges that were selected were from outside of Juilliard and other major performing art schools. The qualifying round had to be split over several days due to the sheer number of contestants who signed up. It took an entire week before the final list of who would be qualifying for the Queen Elisabeth Competition was out.
For Clark and James in particular they were really happy that Seokhoon and Rona both qualified. This meant that they could go onto the 1st round of competition in Belgium. Rona and Seokhoon both breathed out a sigh of relief, they had been rather stressed about whether or not they would qualify. After all, they were up against hundreds of contestants, from that 100 to 12 was a really tough thing.
When they both found out the other managed to enter the first round, they were really happy. Now they could focus on finishing the semester well and then competition. They had about 3 weeks before they would fly to Belgium for the first round. Once they were confirmed, they began to discuss with their mentors on what pieces they would be performing for the 1st round and began practising.
The weeks flew by, exams had come and gone. It was only after the exams, did Seokhoon and Rona tell their friends about where they were going. They were all really happy and excited for them. They were a bit bummed that they would not be able to spend Christmas with them but nevertheless they were really happy for them.
Since the semester had ended, Yoo Jung and Ryo both decided to head back to Korea and Japan respectively to spend time with their family and friends. So Hyun and Seungho were planning on staying in the States. Airplane tickets were not cheap, so So Hyun decided that it would be wiser to just stay on in New York and work and save money. Seungho was rather happy knowing that she was not going back, so he had the time during the holidays to spend and hang out with her more. Stephanie and George were both going on holidays with their family during the Christmas time.
With that, the 3 weeks of prep time had passed quickly, and soon Seokhoon and Rona were boarding a plane to Belgium.
Note: This competition is rather complicated, so I will try to still be as realistically accurate as possible but also saving myself some stress with not really being too detailed about it all (since you know I don't really know haha)
