Chapter Text
The bass pulsed in Jihoon's ears as he walked to class. The new song he was creating was missing something but even after spending the entire night at the studio Jihoon could not point out exactly what it was that was sounding off, so he decided to listen to it while heading to his music production class.
Hanlim High School was one that was art based and art focused so it was not completely out of it to see people dancing in the hallway, especially when practice rooms were full.
Unfortunately Jihoon was so engrossed in finding out exactly what was wrong with his music that he didn't look were he was going until someone crashed into him.
He moved back a little, catching the person in his arms. The boy he was holding was taller than him. wearing a ridiculous tiger print track suit. His hair was a faded blonde and Jihoon stared at his cheeks which were scrunched up in pain.
"Ouch." he said but he raised his head and when he saw Jihoon, he immediately rushed forward. "Oh I am so sorry, are you okay? I'm sorry I should have been more careful."
Jihoon just nodded, pushing the boy's hand away as he tried to reach out to him and walked to his class, sitting in his usual corner with no one attempting to stay around him because of his resting bitch face. Plus he really didn't like most people in his class and he was sure that the feelings were mutual.
After three minutes, the teacher, Ms Bass came into the class and started.
"Why do you produce a song?" She started the class. "For the past few weeks I have taught you the basics of music composition, production and lyricism but now we have to go to the crux of the entire issue. Why are you producing the song? What exactly is the response you want to get from the audience when they hear the song? What choreography should a dancer do to match your song? What drama could your song be a backrack to."
She stopped dramatically and turned to survey the class. The dread Jihoon felt in his stomach spoke of impending doom. She was about to assign something he would hate.
"This assignment is going to be fifty percent of your finals grade_" groans, moans and whines filled the air and she raised her eyebrow sharply and everywhere became silent.
"You as a music producer should be able to work with any other type of artist. So you are to create a song and collaborate with anyone else to make it a performance. You'll be submitting this the weekend before your finals begin. Goodluck."
Jihoon sighed as the class continued, only half interested with the rest of the class. He now had to find someone who was talented enough to sing the song he was producing and dancing at the same time. Basically he needed someone with insane skills - that he would be willing to talk to.
This was already impossible and he hadn't even started.
He went through all the classes he had and went to lunch. Grabbing his tray he went to his usual corner and took out his production laptop. The beat he had been working on needed to be reviewed but as his headphones were low, he decided to work on the lyrics. Zoning out the lunch time noise was an easy feat.
"Hey." Jihoon flinched as a tray was dropped in front of him and the boy he bumped to in the morning sat down in front of him and smiled. He had changed out of the track suit, wearing black on black but there was tiger head at the front and he was wearing tiger print eye shadow and eyeliner.
"Hey, how are you. I'm sorry about earlier. You're Jihoon right? I've seen you around. You're a production student. We've used your music before in our dance performances. You're really talented. My name is Kwon Sooyoung. You can call me Soonyoung." Jihoon snapped out of the shock.
"Why should I call you anything? We aren't friends." Jihoon snapped and Soonyoung pouted. What the hell, is he four? Jihoon thought to himself.
"Hoonie you're so mean. We just met and you're already being mean to me. I like you. So, want to hang out with me after school?" Soonyoung asked and Jihoon rolled his eyes. Luckily, he finished his lunch so he started packing up.
"Don't go, I just wanted to apologize about this morning." Soonyoung said, sounding much serious and Jihoon sighed. "Look, I'm fine. It was also my fault. Can we not talk again?" Jihoon asked and Soonyoung pouted at him again. "No, I like you, let's be friends." Soonyoung whined and Jihoon grabbed his laptop and stormed back to his class, cursing out the boy in his mind.
He picked out his phone to call the only friend he actually had. They had met about a year and three month prior and Jihoon was his producer for his debut song. Unfortunately they had never met in real life before because of the terms of his contract. The debut song that Jihoon had released with the name Woozi was doing very well.
"Hey Ji, how are you doing? Are you done with school?" Seokmin asked and Jihoon sighed. "Yeah, we have an assignment and I genuinely hate you because if you were here I would definitely use you and not have to meet up with other people.
Seokmin laughed and Jihoon smiled. "So what are you going to do now?" Seokmin asked and Jihoon rolled his eyes. "I have no idea. I have to meet someone and actually talk to them."
"Oh no, what a nightmare." Seokmin teased and Jihoon barked out a short laugh.
"I'm heading home to work on our next album, want to have an early meeting this evening so you can listen to all the drafts I have before the company?"
"Yeah. definitely I'll talk to you later, okay?" Seokmin said goodbye and Jihoon ended the call.
"Maybe Soonyoung was a one time thing and by tomorrow he'll forget all about me." Jihoon thought to himself, taking a deep breathe and heading home.
He was wrong.
* * * * * * * * * * * * *
After that day, Jihoon unfortunately could not get rid of Soonyoung. He was a bubbly boy, sparkly makeup, usually always tiger themed of some sort to match his outfits, always yelling out "Hoonie! Hoonie! Hoonie! Hoonie!" and always beside him except when he had classes. He also had lots of tiger stuffies and a tiger backpack. He was an enigma for real but after a while Jihoon started getting used to his presence.
They had lunch together for about two weeks after that. Jihoon was still struggling with his song and he still had no one for his assignment.
"What's wrong Hoonie?" Soonyoung asked, sitting beside Jihoon on one of the hallway benches because he had seen him sitting down looking completely down trodden. Jihoon turned and seeing the innocent shiny eyes, actually looking worried for him, Jihoon felt his heart melt a little bit.
"Fine. I have an assignment and I have absolutely no idea where to go with it. It's really frustrating." Jihoon explained and Soonyoung looked confused. "What kind of stuff is stumping you? You're super talented." He said, looking so confused that Jihoon let out a breathe of laughter.
"Okay I'm supposed to produce a song for someone to perform. Usually, the songs I do are just for me but now I have to do a different style entirely." Jihoon explained but Soonyoung looked even more confused.
"Any song could be used to do anything. Just write your song and any good artist should be able to use it. Come, let me show you."
Soonyoung grabbed his hand and pulled him, half running, half walking to the dance studio, Jihoon was too surprised to pull away so he was dragged there.
The dance studio wasn't empty by any means, people were in each corner and there seemed to be an unwritten rule that a part of the floor and mirror belonged to each dancer that was using it, boundaries were not crossed. It was chaos, but managed in a way that wasn't overwhelming.
Soonyoung dropped down his backpack and took out a small speaker. "Come, I'll show you that a good artist could work with any song."
Jihoon sat down at the corner, a bit intrigued by the dancing Soonyoung was going to show him.
He knew that Soonyoung was a dance major, they had met when he was practicing for a class in the wrong place. He knew Soonyoung was popular because he was a good dancer but he had never actually seen him dance before.
"Here, you're in charge of the music so you don't think I'm playing." Soonyoung handed him his phone and Jihoon rolled his eyes but scrolled through the music. Deciding to do a random play, he chose - One dance, a song by Drake.
Watching Soonyoung dance was watching him in his natural habitat. He was confident, his moves were sharp and clean sometimes then over done and filled with energy, then technical, then easy.
However his facial expressions brought out a whole new thing.
He was a delight to watch as he was having fun and it showed.
'I want to work with him.'
Jihoon heard in his subconscious and he stopped the music.
"Hey what's wrong? Why did you stop playing the songs?" Soonyoung asked in confusion, his face flushed and puzzled, a bit red from the dancing.
"Do you want us to work together for this assignment?" Jihoon asked and the beaming smile he got in response would have been answer enough but was it really Soonyoung if he wasn't being dramatic.
"Yes I dooooo" he screamed and jumped on Jihoon in a huge hug.
While shorter than most, Jihoon spent most of him time not used creating music in the gym so catching the surprisingly light boy was not a problem
"Don't do that to people, what if you get hurt?" He scolded and Soonyoung smiled brightly.
"Aww Hoonie you love me. Don't worry learning to fall is something every sports person can do. Plus I knew I wouldn't be needing it. I knew you would catch me."
"That's stupid, what if I let you fall and get hurt?"
"It's not stupid. It's trust. And I trust you."
Jihoon looked at the boy who was creating a space for himself in his heart and his life without permission.
"I guess I trust you too Soonyoung, come on, I have some ideas for our performance."
"Yesss I get to perform with the best in the school"
Jihoon let his lips quirk up in amusement as Soonyoung walked beside him, chattering a mile a minute with Tiger backpack with him.
Soonyoung wasn't bad at all.