A voice to love

Chapter 1 - Hyun-mi

I woke up as I heard the familiar sound of my alarm clock. With sleepy eyes I searched for it with my hands and pushed the snooze button. Ugh, five more minutes, please.

"Hyun-mi! You're going to be late for school" I heard my grandmother calling from downstairs.
Growling because I needed to get up I literally dragged myself out of bed. As I stood in the middle of my room, I walked to the curtains and peeked through them.

I saw a clear blue sky above the whole city. "Hyun-mi!" my grandmother called again. "Yes, I'm coming!" I called back.

I rushed to my closet and went for a cute red skirt and a white t-shirt with an apple on it. Then I ran to the bathroom and quickly took a shower and got dressed. I returned to my room, brushed my hair and styled it into a cute ponytail.

As I had layers, a few of them decided they did not want to be in a ponytail and placed themselves around my face. I pouted at the mirror in front of me and sighed. Might as well go with it.

In a fast pace I went downstairs where I saw my grandmother waiting. "Hyun-mi, can you just for once be careful? You always rush down those stairs, you're going to hurt yourself one day" Grandmother said worried.

"I will, I will" I said laughing.

"Food is ready" I heard Grandpa calling. "Coming" I called and smiled at Grandmother while I fastened to the table.

Like an animal that jumps on its prey I started eating. Everything Grandpa makes tastes delicious. I looked over at him and smiled. He started laughing, "well seeing you enjoying the food like that, makes my work more honorable."

I smiled once more and clocked the tea down my throat.

"I'm off for school" I said. I stood up, wished my grandparents a lovely day and left for school.

Good thing the school wasn't that far away. I have lived in this city since the day I was born, I knew everything from this city, the best spots to be, the nicest restaurants and so I can continue on and on. But also from the day I was born I lived with my grandparents.

My mother died giving birth to me and my father disappeared in thin air, thus ever since I lived with my grandparents.

They cared for me as they once did for their daughter and raised me. My seventeenth birthday was coming up soon too, which was always a happy and a sad day.

I stopped walking as I heard a familiar voice screaming my name.

"Hyun-mi!" screamed Kate on the top of her lungs. I smiled as I saw my best friend running towards me. She hugged me and looked at me. "Deep in thoughts again?" she grinned.

"You could say something like that, yeah" I laughed. She always seemed to get my mood brightened up.

"Hey, hey, have you heard the new song from Jun-ho" she said getting her phone out of her bag. "No, omg, is there a new song?" I said in shock as I watched her phone. "Here" and she handed me one of her earplugs while she turned the video on.

The song was called 'Timeless' and sounded gorgeously once more. In fact all his songs where incredible and he wrote them all by himself. The song ended.

"It sounds so good!" we said at the same time. We looked at each other and laughed. It always seemed that we thought the same things, but we've known each other for such a long time that it was almost undeniable to not think the same things.

My mother used to be friends with her mother and after my mother died, Kate's mother came to visit a lot with Kate. Kate was one year older than me, but still we were in the same class as I started going to school a year earlier, because I wanted to be with Kate all the time. Actually I think she's more my sister than my best friend.

We walked through the school gates when the school bell started ringing.

"O dear, we are going to be late if we don't hurry now" Kate said. We raced our way through the halls and where just on time as the teach was about to close the door. Kate and I walked to our seat at the backside of the class.

The teacher began the lesson. We had biology, which I thought was quite fun actually. Kate always seemed to less enjoy it. She was more of the history type of girl, something I really, really hated. My favorite lesson had always been music and I couldn't be more happy that it was the next lesson. Music always made me happy and my biggest dream was to become a singer. Just one like Jun-ho is. He has always been my favorite idol, I looked up to him in every single way possible.

Still I was really shy when it came to singing in front of a lot of people. The only times I sang was with my grandparents and they would love it. They even would always ask to keep going and sing a few songs more. I sounded just like my father did they would always tell me that.

***

The bell rang and everybody packed their bags. Loudly we all left the classroom and went to the music studio. The whole class sat down and started listening to our teacher. Miss Plum has always been my favorite teacher. As she finished her talk she went looking for our assignments. She left the room and came back with the papers. She started handing them out at us. It was an assignment that had to be done in groups of five people. You had to choose a song and everybody would cover one part of the song. Which could be, the drums, the piano, the guitar, singing etc.

We chose the groups ourselves and sat down to discuss what to do. "So, who's going to sing?" I heard Tyler ask. It became quiet and I suddenly felt all eyes on me. "Uh-hm?" I said.

"O, come on Hyun-mi, your grandparents always tell me that you have such a lovely voice" Kate said. "O-Okay" I said and nodded. "Great!" Tyler said smiling and everyone got one role.

So we started working on the song. It was a very meaningful song. While the others learned their parts on their instruments, I tried memorizing the lyrics. "Let's try the instrumental one more time" I hear Tyler say and they started to repeat. After a minute of three the finished it and looked at me. "Will you try the singing part with us now" Tyler asked with a smile. "Yes" I said and picked up the mic. I took a deep breath and started singing.

By the time I finished they were all staring at me. There was something wrong with the way they all stared at me, but I couldn't figure out what it was. I just thought they looked like love sick puppies. "That was gorgeous" I heard Kate say. I felt that their way of looking at me changed. Suddenly I felt the urge to continue singing, something I had never felt before. I kept myself from doing that and looked over at Kate. The look in her eyes had returned to normal and I let out a breath of relief.

What just happened was the strangest thing ever and something that had never happened to me before. Why did I wanted to continue singing? I thought. More and more questions came up in my mind. What if this happened again? There was only one way to find out, the presentation of the song in front of the whole class.