Chapter Text
It started in high school.
Hamada Asahi was 16 years old when their family migrated to Korea and continued his studies there. He never even wanted to leave his home country, it's all just because of a casual family problem. Nevertheless, it didn't bother him at all. It isn't actually a big deal for him because, well, he didn't have any acquaintances he could say goodbye to. Sure, he was the smartest in their batch, his classmates look up to him and adore him being a genius and all, but they are also too intimidated to approach him. No one has even tried to, because he emits an arrogant vibe and a dark aura, according to them. Add to that his constant glaring at people, which he swears isn't intentional because it's just how he normally looks at people. His little actions are always misunderstood by the people.
And if migrating to a new country solves the problem, he would have already made tons of friends in his new school right now. Trying to learn in a new environment is definitely a struggle, but it is also his conflict to deal with the same stereotypes about him that he encountered in his former school.
Good thing he had Jaehyuk who truly understands him. The two met during the preparation for the English Fair, where they became partners. Each partner shall be able to come up with their best project, and the project that receives the highest mark will be the one that will represent the whole class for the fair. Of course, the project that was chosen to represent Class 1-1 was none other than Jaehyuk's and Asahi's. With the creative mind of Jaehyuk, they came up with a short story titled, 'Orange', featuring magnificent illustrations by Asahi's artistic hands. Their short story will be presented next week, right at the English Fair's official launch. It will be displayed at the school hall – where campus events usually take place – together with the project from each of the classes in tenth grade.
It was 7:30 in the morning. Asahi is casually strolling around the school grounds and going straight to their building. Classes start at 8:30 AM and he arrives earlier than usual, so he took time looking around. Normally, at this time of the day, he would run as fast as he can, sometimes accidentally bumping into someone. Fortunately, he woke up early this day, and won't luckily mess up his attendance for the first subject.
He was about to take the flight of stairs going to the second floor when he passed by the bulletin board that was standing just beside it. He took a step back to see a new flyer posted at its center. Not that he was interested, but the poorly designed poster caught his eye. He winced at the unnecessary use of fancy, curly font at the words 'Auditions are now open!' and at the picture of a group of instruments that still had a white-and-gray-checkered background – it seems like the user got fooled, thinking he downloaded a transparent image. Below the said elements are once again a set of fancy italic font saying, " Club Legato is in need of new people. If you love music, join us now! " Of course, he didn't fail to see the giant smiley emoticon positioned at the bottom left corner of the page. The only proper thing in that poster is the contact details written below. It appears that the editor doesn't want to miss the opportunity of having a potential auditionee.
Regardless of the bad graphics, he grabbed the poster and continued to go upstairs to their room. He may hate the layout, but at least it caught his attention. Well, he may also be interested in auditioning, since he needs one for his extra curricular.
He's already in front of their room when he noticed that there were already people inside, including Jaehyuk who also came early and was seated at his usual place – beside Asahi – with his earphones on, casually listening to the music. Jaehyuk was originally seated at the front, a column away from Asahi's seat, but Jaehyuk proposed to sit beside him. Asahi's seatmate eventually agreed to exchange seats because she can't see what's in front, since they are seated almost at the back of the room.
"Hey," Asahi greeted and placed the poster he snatched earlier at the top of Jaehyuk's desk. Jaehyuk looked up at him and greeted a good morning before looking down at the poster. He removed one of his earphones and observed the horrible flyer.
"Woah, they opened their recruitment earlier than usual. Legato usually opens their doors during March and October." Jaehyuk turned to look at Asahi, who's also looking at him. "Do you intend to join?" he asked.
"Yeah, and I want you to join with me…" he replied, finally putting down his messenger bag. "...if that's okay with you," he added slowly, settling down after.
Jaehyuk laughed. "Come on, Sahi, I can't even sing."
Asahi narrowed his eyes on him. "Liar. I heard you singing once when I was asleep during the break. You were wearing your earphones back then, you didn't even know you were already singing your heart out," he exclaimed, mimicking how he sang that day.
"Ya! Stop it!" Jaehyuk's face turned red from embarrassment and stopped him from his actions. "Why didn't you tell me if you knew? God, that's why they were giving me judging looks that day!" He covered his face with his hands and turned away from Asahi. He might never be able to live his life peacefully from now on.
Asahi laughed at Jaehyuk. "Hey, at least you got a good voice. Like, really, you sound so good." He isn't even good at lying, Jaehyuk really has a nice voice. "I'll stop nagging and teasing if you join me later at lunch," he said and turned Jaehyuk around to face him.
He removed his hands from his face, sighed in defeat, and replied, "Okay, fine. Just…please delete that scene from your memory."
"What scene? Hmm?" He raised his eyebrows and brought his face closer to look at his blushing face.
"Asahi…" Jaehyuk groaned, which made Asahi burst into fits of laughter.
/ / /
Later that day, they went straight to the auditorium where the club held their auditions. At least 20 people are already lined up, waiting for their turn to be called onstage. The judges are seated just in front of the stage, behind them are a few audiences that wanted to watch the auditionees' performance. Asahi and Jaehyuk went backstage to line up as well.
Asahi tapped the shoulders of the guy in front of him. The latter turned his head over his shoulders and looked at the former. "Hi? May I know if you are lined up according to your number or are they just randomly calling out everyone?" Asahi asked the stranger in a small tone. Fine, he's now a teenager, but he's still having a hard time communicating with other people.
"No," he replied and pointed outside the stage where the judges could be seen from their point of view. "Look at the papers they're holding. It's the application forms we submitted. They call us according to whose name appears next on that pile," the guy added.
Asahi nodded. "Oh… thanks!"
The guy smiled. "Aye, no problem."
They waited for their turn to be called. Half an hour had already passed when one of the judges yelled, "Next! So Junghwan! Yoon Jaehyuk, kindly prepare next for your performance!" Jaehyuk froze in his spot. He scanned his surroundings to confirm if he is the Yoon Jaehyuk they had called or if it's another person with the same name, he even pointed to himself while looking around.
"It's you, stupid," Asahi announced nonchalantly. Jae stared at him, frowning. He's still bewildered and can't believe what he's hearing right now, let alone understand everything, as if nothing is making sense at that moment. They just stared at each other for almost a minute before the realization hit him hard in the face.
"Ya, I'm just supposed to come with you here and, I don't know, maybe support you in your audition. But I did not say I'll join you in auditioning," Jaehyuk started.
"Uh, yeah… you did not say you'll join, but I did say that you'll join with me no matter what," Asahi explained to him as a matter of fact. Actually, he was the one who signed Jaehyuk up in this audition. Of course, he kept it a secret, knowing that he’ll react like this once he knew about it.
Jaehyuk chuckled nervously. "I think we misunderstood each other, maybe you can just inform the judges that I ditched–" He turned and started walking to the exit, but Asahi was quick to pull him back to his place.
"Nuh uh, not so fast. You'll have to go there upstage, okay? Please? I'll treat you to lunch everyday if we both make it through the auditions," he pleaded. As a matter of fact, he didn't take Jaehyuk with him just because he wanted a companion. Sure, it was part of the plan, but more than that, he wanted the people and Jaehyuk himself to acknowledge his own talents and capabilities. He may be good in academics, but he should know that he is also a good singer. Jaehyuk is too shy to admit that because he wants to humble himself and Asahi thought to bring him there to realize it.
Jaehyuk sighed, accepting defeat. "Fine. Just promise me that you won't ever drag me again in these auditions if ever I didn't make it, which I know already that I really won't. Okay?"
"You're such a pessimist. We'll both make it, don't worry." Asahi patted his shoulders to calm him, at least. "And to answer your request, sure, I won't bother you again. That is, if you failed," he added, smirking at him before he was called again to now get on stage.
Asahi held both of his hands to ease his nervousness and wished him good luck after. Jaehyuk now strides towards the stage, not really knowing what to do. Heck, he hasn't even prepared something to perform because he was busy arguing with Asahi earlier. He can't think of a song that he wanted to sing in front of many people. There is only one piece that comes to his mind right now.
Unfortunately, that piece is the school's very own hymn. Yes, he sang the school hymn for his audition piece in front of the judges, the audience, and Asahi who just put his thumbs up at him.
/ / /
Two days after the audition, the club released the names of the auditionees who passed. They had posted it on the same bulletin board with, again, fancy fonts and bad design. Fortunately, both Asahi and Jaehyuk had passed the auditions and are now a part of the club. Of course, Jaehyuk definitely knew right then that Asahi would eventually be able to be one of its new members. Why not, though? He showed an exemplary performance by covering Lay Me Down. He easily got the judges hooked and amazed at his high notes. Even the intimidating president of the club praised him when no one in that audition ever received his compliment.
Jaehyuk, on the other hand, currently laughs at himself. He didn't even know what he did back then for his name to be included in the list of the applicants who passed. Asahi jokingly claimed that he bribed the judges to let him pass together with him.
As the new members of the club, they will be one of the performers who will do some intermission number on the English Fair program. It is already a tradition in the club that new members shall immediately perform depending on which program or event the school currently has. The reason being is to celebrate their membership, kind of like a ceremonial matter, and, of course, for them to get used to being on stage as early as possible.
Asahi prepared a self-composed piece also entitled, 'Orange', as what their fair project is named after. It was initially written as a poem, then Jaehyuk added a storyline, which they decided to just make it a short story later on. And finally, Asahi recreated the story into a song for them to perform on the day of the fair. They assigned each other's parts and roughly rehearsed for two days. They would sometimes practice during lunch hours and after school.
Then came the D-Day. The English Fair is a two-day program, and they are assigned to perform on the first day, together with another pair of newbies and the club vice president, Park Jeongwoo. The performers on the next day would be another set of newbies and Watanabe Haruto, the club president himself.
Jeongwoo is now standing onstage, a microphone stand in front of him. Asahi and Jaehyuk are the last ones to perform, right after the tanned boy. Audiences are now gushing and screaming just by seeing the kid on the stage. Well, he's one of the most popular guys in the entire campus. There are even lots of banners with his name and face, making it look like his own concert.
The music has now started and more screaming can be heard, especially from the fangirls. Jeongwoo scans his eyes among the crowd of people, seems like he's finding something or, who knows, maybe someone. He started singing and right at that moment, everyone, even Asahi and Jaehyuk backstage, melted hearing his honey-like voice.
She's my sunshine in the rain
My Tylenol when I'm in pain yeah
Let me tell you what she means to me
Like a tall glass of lemonade
When it's burning hot on summer days
She's exactly what I need
He literally sounds so good, add to that his nice set of riffs and runs that can make someone already ascend to heaven because of his voice. Some fans who knew the song also sang with him. Some even waved their hands, bobbed their heads, and moved their body according to the music.
She's my smile when I'm feeling blue
She's my good night sleep when the day is through yeah
Let me tell you what she means to me
Jeongwoo removed the microphone from its stand and faced it towards the audience. "She's kinda like this!," they responded, earning a beautiful smile from the lad.
She's so beautiful sometimes I stop to close my eyes
She's exactly what I need
She's exactly what I need, yeah
He finished with a smile, saying thank you, and the audience were screaming again at the top of their lungs.
Now, the pressure is weighing heavily on Asahi. In the span of 16 years, he has been living his life in constant pressure, and everything to him seems pressuring enough not to bother. Jaehyuk saw this and instantly calmed his nervous partner.
"Relax. They just love Jeongwoo so much, but I know they'll eventually like our performance," he stated in a calm manner. Asahi doesn't need someone who'll raise a voice at him right now. All he needs is an assurance and Jaehyuk is gladly there to lift his mood up, even though he is just as nervous as he was.
They finally walked towards the stage. Fortunately, the crowd is still lively enough and cheers on them once they get on the stage. Jaehyuk has a guitar strapped on his body and two mic stands are in front of them, one for each. They scanned the crowd, seeing the anticipating eyes of the audience waiting for them to start performing.
Jaehyuk tapped into the mic and initiated a talk with the audience. "Uh, hi. Before we start I would like to say that this song is written by Asahi himself," he glanced at the other boy, "and this song is based on our fair project. If you would like to see it, just go to the campus hall. Thank you." Asahi, together with the crowd, giggled at his little promotion. Well, it wasn't intentional as it was just a slip of the tongue due to his nervousness. The two looked at each other and Asahi nodded, signaling the other to start.
The instant Jaehyuk started strumming, the people immediately got immersed in their performance. Asahi then started singing after a few strums.
I’d like to see you a minute and a second faster
You’re always busy, so we spend a limited time again
I’m so sorry, the happy time will go by soon
I still like it, I like this better between us
Oh, to hear his angelic voice. If the audience feels like they have ascended to heaven from Jeongwoo's voice before, now they are beyond heaven hearing Asahi's voice.
I talk a lot with you
Then look at my watch, I'm surprised
Jaehyuk also started singing his line. His deep voice blends well with Asahi's soft ones, especially when they duet on the chorus. Soon, the audience were waving their hands again, feeling the song into their bones.
You're colored in orange again
I think I'll go back home, still feeling sorry
I want to be with you more
Like the sun sets and rises again
I want to see you tomorrow
Whenever they sing together, they have this undeniable chemistry that people think only they have. One would never think that they only rehearsed this in two days.
Time has stopped, like this
I don't want the sun to set
I hope you smile at me
So that I can go home happy
That sunshine says it's sorry
Go ahead, I'll send you with a smile
As if the universe is conspiring with them, the skies were lit up with orange hues. The sun is beginning to set now, as the duo finishes the last chorus of the song. People's faces are now drenched in orange, their bodies casting shadows on the field. Sunsets may be seen as a goodbye, but they also symbolize beautiful beginnings. This. This moment is the beginning of Asahi's life.
Jaehyuk ended the song with the last strum on his guitar, and with that, the crowd burst out clapping. Some were shouting encore, wanting some more from the duo. They bowed after saying their thank yous and bid their goodbye to walk off the stage.