Finding the Right Words

Chapter 71- Not A Good Person

The Super Junior dorm was disturbingly empty. The scratching sounds the scrub brush made against the wooden floors echoed around the vacant walls as I washed the floors. They'd packed quite a bit this time, leaving the entryway void of the dozens of pairs of shoes that always cluttered it despite my best efforts. 

Although I was paid to keep the dorm clean, it just looked so WEIRD being this pristine and perfect. I kept waiting for the door to open and for someone to come in with dirty clothes, or a wet hat, and throw it on the floor somewhere, even though I knew it wouldn't happen for a few days yet. I bent back down to my work, using this odd opportunity to scrub out the stains on the wood floor.

Scritch-scratch scritch-scratch scritch-scratch... My mind wandered as I worked, back to the practice room less than a week before, when we all watched Sunsaeng drag Oh Soyu down the hallway. Well, everyone but me. I, instead, couldn't take my eyes off of Heenim's face. His eyes were cold and hard, as forgiving as a mountainside. He began to turn away, and, braving the shadows, I called after him. 

Scritch-scratch scritch-scratch scritch-scratch... I'd asked him why he was there, and after a long silence he said that he'd heard about the little girl, too. He'd come to tell her to get out of the company. He didn't need fans who alienated each other. But he got there just after everything happened.

When I asked him if he was going to tell Sungmin, he'd grinned. "Of course", he'd replied.

"Are you really going to be that cruel?" I'd asked. "She's just a kid. And she's already going to get kicked out of the company. She's already losing almost everything."

"I tried living as a very nice person, but there’s no need to be nice .. you have to be mean to survive." he'd said finally, before beginning to walk briskly down the hallway. He'd said it before, I knew. It was another one of those strange moments when the words that come out of his mouth described a huge part of your life. "Someday, you'll learn that, too. But it always comes the hard way." 

My phone rang, yanking me out of my thoughts. I snatched it out of my pocket, blinking away the memories. Heechul had been back to his usual, silly self immediately after that, anyway. He'd let me pet his cat, Heebum (HanJayHeebum). We'd gotten along just fine until he'd had to leave. Still, that period of time disturbed me.

It was a text message from Min Hee. "Hey, can John come watch us practice tonight?"

"So long as he doesn't turn it into a porno," I texted back, "see you then."

I put the phone down and looked over at my purse. My two selected pieces of music stuck out of the top, white sheets of paper against an otherwise pale purple bag.

I pulled them out, sighing and looking down at the title. One was the song Min Hee and I were performing as a duet, the other was the song I had chosen to sing myself. I wanted to do it, but... it was going to be hard. 

"Are you sure you want to sing this song, Mel?" Min Hee had asked. "It's in your range, but the way you have to sing it... since she wasn't really trained in chest-singing like we were, a lot of the notes are belted. Not your head voice. It'll be pretty stressful on your throat..."

I wanted to sing it. Especially with Lily in SM now, I wasn't so confident of anything anymore. I picked that song because it conveyed those feelings. 

I shoved the sheet music back into the bag, looking at my watch. Almost time to go. 

Quickly, I rinsed the floor and dried it off, gathered my stuff, and headed to my dance class.

Okay, so it wasn't really a dance class at the time. Not while everyone was preparing for the exhibition. Pretty much everyone used the time to practice their dance performances, and get pointers from Sunsaeng if they needed it. I, on the other hand, wasn't doing a dance performance, unlike the vast majority of the other trainees. I'm just not a dancer, okay?