Genius of a Performing Arts High

Act 11: Slowly 1

“I heard that freshman junior left?”

The club president of the musical club Cantabile, Kim Sukwon looked forward feeling displeased but saw his colleague tilting his head without a particular expression.

Judging that it was just a question asked out of curiosity, Kim Sukwon slightly turned his head back and continued typing.

“Yeah. She sent me a message last week, saying she wanted to quit.”

“Really? That was sudden”

“Not really. From a while back, she didn’t hide her intention to leave.”

“That’s weird.”

Kim Sukwon halted his fingers.

Weird huh… To those that didn’t know about the situation, that might be a natural thing to feel. Song Mirae leaving the society did happen out of the blue as well.

What kind of place was Cantabile?

It was a renowned society which any student from the opera department would die to enter. Leaving such a society that came out on top of all sorts of competitions on their own was definitely a weird choice.

That is, unless they were aware of what happened between himself and Song Mirae.

Letting out a snort, Kim Sukwon indifferently opened his mouth.

“In the first place, I didn’t like her from the start. Did you see her talking back to me last time?”

“Did she?”

“She did. Plus her greetings were rude and her wide open eyes were always vicious. No manners despite being a junior…”

Thinking back, it felt like her attitude during the interview into the society was halfhearted as well. Back in my days, you couldn’t even look into your sunbae’s eyes… Kim Sukwon was murmuring that when the man faced a dumbfounded look at him.

“…Didn’t you fight with the club president when you were in first grade?”

“That was a difference in opinion.”

The man stared at Kim Sukwon for a while before shaking his head.

“Ehew. Right… that’s unfortunate though. She was good at acting, and her singing was decent as well. So, which society is she going into?”

“I don’t know. Where could she go though, during this time period? Some random place maybe.”

“That’s true. A society that has a spot open this late won’t be a proper one.”

There was something more important to handle than Song Mirae who had already left. Shrugging his shoulders, Kim Sukwon double-checked the completed document flashing on the screen.

[Club Activity Plans]

Saving the document, Kim Sukwon smiled in satisfaction.

*

“He’s Lim Suhjoon, a second-grader from the Violin Department. He’s a great guy that helps me a lot. Although he whines a little, he’s kind so you can ask him for a favour if something happens.”

“I don’t whine…”

Yun Soojin patted the complaining Lim Suhjoon on his head and gave us a bright smile.

“Nn… Is that it for the self-introductions? Ah! I’m a third-grader from the Visual Arts Department, Yun Soojin. Don’t be scared of me just because I’m older. Let’s have a fun time together!”

“Okay.”

Song Mirae grabbed Yun Soojin-sunbae’s hand and shook it which marked the end of self-introductions of the society members for Song Mirae. I stared at that scene before throwing a glance around.

The club room. It was Song Mirae’s first time coming here due to preparing for concerts and whatnot, but I had come here a few times already. Compared to a week ago, there didn’t seem to be much of a difference.

There was a long table in the middle as well as a few chairs here and there on which six upperclassmen seniors were sitting, waving their hands. Closets and bookshelves could be seen on either side of the room, and they were filled with bunches of papers.

Perhaps the sunbaes preferred clean environments, the room was relatively tidy. Seeing that unexpected cleanness, Song Mirae’s stiff expression eased slightly.

“At least they organised things nicely…”

Judging from her mutters, it seemed that she had been expecting an extremely dirty room.

Hmm… well, the building is quite old, so it was natural for its outer appearance to give a bad first impression. With a grin, I pointed to the side and introduced Song Mirae.

“She’s Song Mirae from the freshmen Opera Department and… originally she had been in the musical club but decided to leave it this semester so I brought her here.”

“Ahh~ the musical club? Nice to meet you Mirae!”

“Hello!”

After a back and forth relay of greetings, we were finally allowed to take our seats. Dragging a seat backward, Lim Suhjoon-sunbae collapsed on the seat and tapped on the table.

“Mm… Right. Both of you, welcome to our society and let’s try our best. First, since you’re new, I’ll give you a simple explanation about our society.”

“Okay.”

I glanced around and realised that Lim Suhjoon-sunbae seemed to be in the lead. Few second-grade sunbaes on the side stayed still and nodded their heads, while the only third-grader, Yun Soojiin-sunbae did nothing but smile.

Maybe the actual president of this society was that senior from the Violin Department. As a proof, when Lim Suhjoon-sunbae was explaining, words flowed out like a river and he seemed very used to it.

“Like I said before, we are a society that does everything, but the main activities we focus on are operas, musicals and plays. We can’t actually do anything we want right?”

Seeing us nod, Lim Suhjoon-sunbae continued his words.

“But apparently in the past, we had mostly been doing opera acts. After all, our school is on the classical side right? Back then, we had a lot of members from the Opera Department as well so there probably wasn’t much difficulty in carrying out operas.”

“…”

“A few things happened, and from our original club left the Musical Club and due to that, we lacked students from the Opera Department. Musicals and operas actually need quite a lot of members and since we lacked singers, we changed to plays and… yeah that’s what happened.”

It was a more eventful society than I thought. I listened to Lim Suhjoon-sunbae’s words with excitement as he rested his chin on his two hands and stared at us.

“Up to there is our society’s history. Next, let’s talk about our objectives for this semester.”

“Objectives?”

“Yes, goals. This semester, you guys as well as us decided to do a musical so we need to set our future goals.”

After looking into my eyes for a bit, Lim Suhjoon searched through his bag and took out a paper.

[Club Activity Plans]

I was reading the large words printed on the paper when he started speaking again while tapping on the paper.

“Doing a musical is good, but first we need money. Props as well as inviting a singing teacher from outside can only be done if we receive club support funds from the school. For that, we need to complete this, saying that in this semester, we will be doing this and that. We must promise them a good result plus a complete plan for the school to even consider giving us money.”

…Societies operated in a complicated manner huh.

I, who had only been following others as a non-executive, blankly listened to Lim Suhjoon’s explanation.

“Thus, our society’s objective for this semester is the presentation of a musical play and to be more specific, our goal will be to hold and succeed in the Future Arts High Festival held in November. We need to show that much of a result for the school to acknowledge us as a proper society, right?”

Festival – hearing that, Song Mirae and I looked at each other.

The Future Performing Arts High School Festival, also referred to as the Future Fes is a huge event held every November, where societies presented their performances polished throughout the year.

Indeed, it was a big event and will be a good record for future support funds.

“We should practise a lot, I see.”

“Yes we must. Well, our primary objective is to perform it during the festival and if that goes well, we will enter other contests as well. The issue though is that we aren’t the only group doing a musical…”

Scratching his hair, Lim Suhjoon-sunbae’s expression turned dark.

Club performances.

In other words, other clubs and societies will be performing as well, which meant that Cantabile, the musical club will also be presenting. And their performance will most likely be a musical like ours.

“A competition.”

“…Right, there will be a competition. The year before last year, our societies overlapped and the atmosphere back then was no joke apparently.”

Perhaps it was natural considering that they were originally one society that separated due to a difference in perspective. It was obvious that they won’t be on good terms, and if a competition was added onto that, the atmosphere definitely wouldn’t have been a positive one.

“But it was fun.”

Taking his eyes off of Yun Soojin-sunbae’s smile, Lim Suhjoon-sunbae let out a short sigh.

“Anyways, it won’t be easy. There’s a competition and while they are a musical club, we don’t have many members. To be honest, I am grateful that you joined but am also a bit sorry.”

I could see Lim Suhjoon-sunbae feeling down and shook my head.

“You do not have to. We came because we wanted to.”

“…”

Besides, I can’t even enter the Musical Club in the first place. Lim Suhjoon-sunbae didn’t know that, which was probably the reason he was so thankful.

Feeling a little awkward, I looked into his eyes and nodded.

“For now, I get the situation. We will also think of what we can do for the club.”

“…”

Lim Suhjoon-sunbae stared at me with a strange look on his face as he tilted his head.

“By the way, why do you speak so stiffly? Just speak comfortably.”

“…”

Closing my mouth, I gave an awkward smile.

…It was because I still didn’t know how to treat seniors that were younger than me. Things were easy with classmates because I just had to speak casually but…

Thinking that, I said okay and escaped the situation.

*

After explaining about our future plans and objectives, our club activity of the day came to an end. Since it was the first day Song Mirae came, we lacked time to start anything else.

I closed the door behind me in thought when a familiar golden light appeared from the other end of the corridor.

Chloe.

As that word surfaced inside my brain, I raised my hand up and called her.

“Chloe!”

“Yes?”

Turning her head back with a flick, Chloe found me and a smile resembling a flower bloomed on her face, as she ran up in small steps.

“Yunjae! Why are you here? Hello as well Mirae!”

“Hello~”

“Yeah, hi. I came because of my society.”

Hearing that, Chloe widened her eyes, seemingly surprised.

“I came because of that as well. They told me to visit and have a look.”

Now that I think about it, I realised that Chloe also hadn’t joined a society during the first semester. Maybe she was thinking of joining a society this semester, considering how she was going around having a look.

I opened my mouth with a nod.

“So? Did you like it?”

“Noo. I didn’tt…”

Seeing her lower her lips like a depressed puppy, I suddenly thought of the words I heard inside the room. The sunbae said we needed a lot more members right?

Maybe I should bring a few of my acquaintances in. With such thought, I first asked Chloe about her opinion.

“Then do you want to join our society? We decided to do a musical this time…”

Chloe listened to my explanation in silence before immediately nodding her head.

“It seems interesting!”

“It will be interesting.”

Just like that, we got ourselves another member. Regardless of whether she would be playing the piano or going on the stage, Chloe will give a good impression because she had good looks.

I smiled in satisfaction when Song Mirae tilting her head entered my sight.

“Did your visit just end? It’s been quite some time since the club activity times have ended though?”

Checking the time, I nodded in agreement. Because of our long conference, the allocated time for club activities had already passed quite some time ago. It was a bit strange for a club visit to end this late.

Chloe’s eyebrows twitched a little as she soon gave a bright smile.

“The sunbaes had a lot to say so… Huhuh.”

“Ah, I see.”

Like that, we chatted while walking outside.