My adrenaline from the basketball game carried me through the locker room. I changed back into my jeans and t-shirt, the swish-swish of the orange suit thankfully silenced. I had just enough time to swing by the faculty office, bow to a surprised Ms. Choi, and grab my guitar case. My next class, "Applied Performance," was a combined one.
With class 2-A.
I found the room: a medium-sized recital hall with a polished wooden stage at the front and tiered seating. I slipped in, trying to be quiet. The class was already full. And my heart sank.
It wasn't just my class, 2-B. It was another, full class of students I didn't recognize—all of them with the impossibly stylish, artsy vibe of the Visual Arts wing. And right in the front row, sitting with her arms crossed, was Yoo Chae-rin. Our "avoid her for a week" plan had just lasted about sixty minutes.
I saw Ha-neul, sitting with her perfect posture. I saw Kang Min-ah, who saw me, and her eyes lit up—this was getting good. I saw Kang Min-hyuk, the Taekwondo team member, who gave me a subtle "dunk" gesture and a grin. Jun-seo and Myung-dae's seats were still empty.
I slid into a seat in the very back, hoping to disappear. My guitar case felt like a coffin I was carrying. At the front, a professor I hadn't met—an elegant woman with her hair in a severe bun, who commanded total silence—tapped her pen. "That's enough, Min-jun. The technique is there, the feeling is not. You are singing, not expressing. Next. Yoo Chae-rin."
I froze. Oh, God. This is it. I was about to hear the ice queen sing.
Chae-rin stood. She walked to the center of the stage, next to the grand piano. She nodded once to the accompanist. She was, as always, perfect. Annoyingly perfect. Then she closed her eyes. The piano began, a soft, heartbreaking melody. And she sang.
It was Baek Ji-young's "Like Being Hit by a Bullet." And it was... terrifyingly beautiful.
Her voice wasn't just "good." It was flawless. It was pure, clear, and dripping with a raw, aching pain that I didn't even know a person could make. The ice queen was gone. In her place was an artist. She wasn't just singing the song; she was bleeding it. The air in the room got thick. The girl next to me was literally wiping her eyes.
I was a musician. I knew what was real and what wasn't. And this was so, so real. My heart, the same one that had been pounding with adrenaline in the gym, did a stupid, complicated flip. It was the same feeling I got when I first heard a perfect guitar solo, that mix of awe and jealousy and... something else. I think, my traitorous brain whispered to me, I just fell in love.
The last note hung in the air, vibrating. The hall was dead silent. Chae-rin opened her eyes. The spell was broken. She was the ice queen again. She bowed curtly. As she walked back to her seat, her eyes scanned the crowd, and she saw me. She saw me staring, my mouth probably open. Her face, which had been full of tragic, beautiful art, instantly twisted into a look of pure, unadulterated disgust. She looked away, as if I'd just contaminated her performance by witnessing it.
"Good," the professor said, her voice crisp. "The control in the chorus is much improved, Chae-rin-ssi. That is what I mean by expression." Her sharp eyes scanned the room, and they landed, with terrifying accuracy, right on me. And my guitar case. "Ah," she said. "Our new 'Representative of Foreign Students.' Oleksandr. 'San.'"
My blood turned to ice. "Ms. Choi informed me you are a musician. A guitarist." I just nodded, my mouth suddenly dry. "You have your instrument," she observed. It was not a question.
"Yes, seonsaengnim."
"Perfect." She gave a thin, reptilian smile. "Yoo Chae-rin has just demonstrated the soul of a Korean ballad. Now, you will come up and demonstrate the soul of... Ukraine."
A wave of whispers. I could feel every eye in the room—Ha-neul's curious, Chae-rin's murderous, Min-ah's gleeful—lock onto me.
Slowly, my legs feeling like they were moving through wet cement, I stood up.
I grabbed my battered case. I walked down the aisle, every step echoing.
I got to the front, standing on the same stage that Chae-rin had just owned.
The polished wood felt like an execution block. I unzipped the case, my fingers clumsy. I pulled out my old acoustic guitar. It looked like a piece of firewood compared to the gleaming grand piano next to me.
I stood there, in the middle of the stage, under the bright lights, in my jeans and my wrinkled t-shirt, guitar in hand. I avoided Chae-rin's gaze. I avoided Ha-neul's gaze. I stared at a spot on the back wall. "Um," I said, my voice coming out as a croak.
I put my fingers on the strings.