Play Hard in Proportion to How Hard You Study (2)
Exposition, development, climax, resolution, denouement.
These are the terms commonly used to describe the structure of a novel. But they apply not only to fiction — they apply to real life as well.
The moment Yeoncheong agreed to the post-exam outing was the exposition. The café and the photo booth were the development. And now, arriving at the karaoke box —
Yeoncheong had hit the crisis.
Four people. Not too many, not too few.
The four of them paired off and walked down the sidewalk in twos — Hasol and Suyeon leading the way, Yeoncheong and Seoha behind.
They were following Hasol, who claimed to know a karaoke place they frequented.
Having more or less enjoyed herself up through the photo booth, Yeoncheong's head was now full of worries.
A song... what am I supposed to sing?
Everyone has those moments of belting out a tune in the shower. The same had once been true for Yeoncheong — but not anymore.
When she had first become a girl, nothing had been harder to adapt to than her voice. That high, bright tone felt so utterly foreign that sometimes it seemed as if a stranger were living in her home, speaking whenever she opened her mouth.
In other words, it clashed terribly with the men's karaoke anthems she had loved to sing all her life.
"What are you thinking about?"
At the voice beside her, Yeoncheong's head turned to the left. Seoha's red eyes were gazing steadily at her face.
Close...
Startled by how near Seoha was, Yeoncheong edged a little to the side.
It was a mistake.
Other pedestrians were coming through on the other side, and the four of them were hugging the edge of the road — a detail Yeoncheong, lost in her own worries, had failed to notice.
Her right foot, planted on the curb, slipped off and plunged down. The ground giving way so suddenly, she staggered — and her off-balance body tipped toward the road.
But just as she was spilling into the street, she jerked to a halt. Seoha had thrust out a hand and caught her.
The two in front belatedly noticed the commotion and turned around.
"Yeoncheong, did you fall?"
"No, she just missed her step. I caught her."
Seoha answered Hasol's question in her place.
Yeoncheong climbed back onto the sidewalk, but Seoha showed no intention of letting go.
"Seoha, I'm fine now."
"And what if you fall again?"
So saying, Seoha drew in the hand that had been holding her arm. Yeoncheong's body naturally came along, and Seoha folded her arm through hers, linking elbows.
"Wait, no—"
Hasol, apparently finding Yeoncheong's flustered reaction amusing, slowed her pace slightly and claimed the spot on Yeoncheong's right.
"She's right. You fell during the fitness test, and again playing basketball. If you get hurt here, there's no school nurse to nag you and patch you up."
"Urgh..."
She had plenty of excuses she wanted to make, but not a single one that could dispute a word that was one hundred percent true.
Suyeon, left somewhat out of the loop, muttered to herself.
"Am I the only one getting ditched here?"
"I'll switch seats with you in a bit."
Only after hearing Hasol's promise did Suyeon regain her smile. Once again, Yeoncheong had been smoothly overlooked, and her eyebrows climbed upward.
"Hello? What does the person in question have to say about this?"
"So it's fine for you two, but not for me, huh?"
But Suyeon held her ground, narrowing her eyes in response. It was Yeoncheong who folded first.
"N-nooo... that's not it, really..."
"Then we have no problem at all."
Only then did Suyeon stride ahead toward the karaoke place Hasol had told her about. Yeoncheong followed, hemmed in between a yellow flower and a black one.
Two microphones. A tambourine resting on a chair. A room sized just right for four people.
"Yeoncheong, Seoha — have you picked your songs?"
Hasol and Suyeon returned from the restroom and took the remaining seats.
When neither of them gave an answer, Suyeon reached out toward the remote near Yeoncheong's knee.
"This place charges by the hour, you know. If you're not picking, I'm going first."
Suyeon grabbed the remote, punched in a number with practiced ease, and took up a microphone.
As the intro played, Suyeon nodded her head along to the beat. Hasol naturally followed by queueing up the next song.
Hasol then passed the remote to Yeoncheong. Facing her hesitation, Hasol asked,
"Have you never been to a noraebang before?"
"It's not that. Just give me a little longer to think."
"Okay. Then Seoha, want to go first?"
Hasol handed the remote across to Seoha, who considered for a moment before accepting it.
"It doesn't have to be something upbeat, right?"
Hasol shook her head as if it made no difference at all.
"Of course not. Sing whatever you want."
Seoha used the instrumental break between the first and second verses to search for a song and finish her reservation. Yeoncheong quietly noted to herself that Seoha sang too.
"Hey, guys. Give me some call-and-response here. I'm getting lonely."
During another break, Suyeon demanded some audience participation.
Hasol shook the tambourine to fulfill the request, and Yeoncheong chimed in after her.
Listening to Yeoncheong's awkward attempts at a backing chant, Suyeon thought to herself:
...Well, give it time and she'll loosen up.
Apparently content with this much for now, Suyeon sank back into her song.
Suyeon, having finished her song with passionate abandon, soothed her throat with bottled water from the convenience store. Hasol, taking the microphone from her, immediately readied the next song.
On the screen, amid a round of applause, the score flashed up: 95.
"Ahh, imagine if that were my midterm score."
Feeling flushed, Suyeon fanned her face with her hand and peeled off her blazer.
"So hot. When do we even get to wear the summer uniform?"
"The schedule says mid-May. If it keeps warming up, it could come sooner."
To the school plan announced by Seoha — the student council president, best informed of all of them on school matters — Suyeon grumbled,
"Plenty of kids don't even wear blazers in the classroom... Seoha, I think we should factor in global warming and move up the summer uniform date."
"I'll bring it up."
"Really?"
No answer was to be had.
Hasol's song had begun, and Suyeon, without so much as listening for a reply, shook the tambourine and worked up the mood.
Starting is always the hardest part of anything.
While Seoha waved her hand along to the beat in her own way of joining in, the upbeat song lifted the room's atmosphere, and even Yeoncheong raised her voice.
It was thanks to Suyeon and Hasol working the crowd so hard up front.
"Phew... So? Pretty good, right?"
Suyeon answered with a thumbs-up — the very same gesture floating on the screen.
After the class's two best mood-makers had sung, it was Seoha's turn.
A calm ballad, cooling the air the two had heated up to almost excessive levels. It was a choice that showed she knew exactly what she was good at.
But a ballad didn't mean Hasol and Suyeon would sit still. They swayed their arms side to side, turning the room into something like a concert hall.
When Seoha's soft, tranquil song ended, the three others erupted in applause, stunned.
Hasol and Suyeon leaned forward to get a better look at Seoha at the far end of the couch.
"Seoha. Is there literally anything you can't do?"
"Seriously. To think I only just found this out... Let's come here together again next time."
"Thank you."
Seoha passed her microphone to Yeoncheong, the only one who had yet to sing a single note.
Worried the momentum might slip away, Suyeon urged her on.
"Yeoncheong, hurry up and pick. Is this your first time at a noraebang?"
"She says it's not."
At Hasol's explanation — they'd had this exact conversation moments ago — Suyeon raised her eyebrows at Yeoncheong.
"If that's not it... then is it that you can't sing?"
Nodding to herself as if she'd figured it all out, Suyeon unknowingly poked the bear.
"I can sing just fine, for your information."
"Funny, I thought you said you were only around average at studying...?"
Out of words, Yeoncheong quickly found a song. Showing once properly beat explaining a hundred times.
But at the unfamiliar accompaniment, Hasol and Suyeon traded looks of bewilderment.
"Hasol, do you know what song this is?"
"I've only ever heard the title."
Just as the two were murmuring over this fresh — if fresh was the word — song choice, Hasol suddenly brightened as if remembering something.
"Oh! I've seen this on TV. It was on one of those rankings of men's karaoke anthems!"
"Huh?"
As Suyeon tilted her head at the true nature of the song choice, Yeoncheong began to sing.
Yeoncheong's vocal technique wasn't bad. If anything, it was quite good.
True to her claim that this was a song she was confident in, she handled even the trickiest breath control cleanly.
Hasol and Suyeon let out small exclamations of admiration at the first verse, but slowly their heads began to tilt to one side.
"Well... yeah, I guess. She's not bad."
Having listened through to the second verse, Suyeon revised her earlier statement. But Yeoncheong, visibly dissatisfied, was staring hard at the screen where the score had appeared.
79 points.
After the three scores before hers had been so high, the number stood out all the more starkly.
...
The microphone in Yeoncheong's grip trembled.
"The song choice was a little off, huh... How should I put it, it just doesn't quite suit you. Try a different one next time."
Even Hasol's consolation left Yeoncheong utterly unmoved.
It had been the safest possible pick, the one she trusted most. But with her vocal range now completely different, the score had come out lower than she could have imagined.
Suyeon glanced at their remaining time and grabbed the remote.
"Who cares about the score as long as we're having fun? Time's ticking. Keep 'em coming!"
Suyeon set about reviving the mood with another upbeat number, and the plan met with reasonable success.
The four of them, having made frugal use of their time, filed out of the karaoke box. It was nearly time for school to let out — uniforms from other schools, ones with no exams that day, had begun appearing here and there.
After singing several more songs, Yeoncheong had managed to salvage a little face by the end, but the indescribable feeling lingered.
The thought that she could no longer sing her favorite songs the way she used to.
Sensing Yeoncheong's complicated mood, Hasol and Suyeon changed the subject.
"Yeoncheong, where to next?"
"Again?"
Hasol answered her reluctance directly.
"We've still got plenty of time. Just one more place, and that's it. Seoha, you're okay with that, right?"
Seoha checked her phone and nodded.
"Even Seoha's in. You're not seriously going to be the one to bow out, are you, Yeoncheong?"
Her yellow eyes caught the sunlight and sparkled. As always, Yeoncheong couldn't hold out against it to the very end.
"It's not far, is it?"
"Nope, it's just a short walk."
With a light sigh, Yeoncheong accepted the proposal.
"Fine. Let's hurry, then."
Before she could change her mind, Suyeon pulled from the front and Hasol pushed from behind, and the four of them set off for their final destination.
Then Yeoncheong, who had been walking along in silence, brought everything to a halt.
Hasol, pushing from behind, bumped into her, and Suyeon, leading from the front, turned around.
"What's wrong all of a sudden?"
"Where are we?"
"Here? It's a clothing store, obviously."
Trapped front and back already, Yeoncheong regretted it in her heart.
Ha... I should've asked where we were going...
Having survived the crisis of the karaoke box, Yeoncheong now crossed the threshold into the climax: the clothing store.