Violin ≛ Seo Changbin

underground

I parked the motorcycle off to the side as the two of us got off. We stood before a long, dark alleyway with an unsettling shadow looming over the place. The only source of light to be seen was about ten feet away, where a dim lampost flickered on and off. Besides us, not a single soul was around.

"This seems like the perfect setting for you to murder me right now..." she said, eyeing the vandalized walls and empty aura that crawled through the area. 

"Don't worry," I said as I helped her remove her helmet. I made my way towards the alleyway, only to see she was no longer beside me. 

"I-I don't know about this anymore... can we just go home?" Her legs trembled as she fearfully backed away. 

"O-oh..." I felt guilty for making her feel so uncomfortable, but I took her all this way for good reason. "I understand your nervousness, but can you just do this for me?" She didn't reply. "Don't you trust me?" I offered my hand up to her, and she looked over at me in thought. She gulped before slowly nodding and taking my hand. I led her down the alley and through a large metal door at the end. Stairs sat behind the door, and the steps seemed to be endless as we went down staircase after staircase after staircase. I rubbed her palm with my thumb comfortingly as we clambered down the steps together. Finally, we reached the bottom, where a large and buff man with dark skin stood in front of a doorway, which was covered by a curtain. 

"Changbin! My man!" He said as soon as he saw me. 

"Whassup," I grinned as we pulled each other into the classic bro-hug. He allowed us through the doorway and I smiled proudly when she gasped at what she saw. About a hundred people swarmed the area, cheering and laughing with their friends. A stage sat in the middle of the room and several bleachers surrounded it. I'll be honest, the place was a little trashy, as the walls were crumbling and the ground was covered in litter, but that's what gave it character. 

"What is this place?" she asked, talking louder in order to be heard. 

"This, my friend, is where people like me hang out as underground rappers." 

"Woah, that's so cool!"  

"C'mon, let me introduce you to my friends." Still holding onto her small hands, I took her through the crowd of people to where my friends and I normally meet up. 

"Changbin's here!"

"Hey guys!" I said. "These are my friends, Chan, Hyunjin, Felix, and Jisung." I pointed to each person as introduced them to her. 

She bowed her head politely. "It's nice to meet you guys." She shyly waved at them and scooted closer so that she was somewhat behind me, which I was perfectly fine with. 

"Wah, I've never seen Changbin bring a girl here before. Are you his girlfriend?" Felix questioned.

Her face turned bright red as soon as he said that. We both immediately spoke at the same time, "No- it's not like that!" I waved my hands around, trying to cover up my embarrassment. 

"Oi, we should get going," Chan said.

"Alright. You stay here for a little while, okay?" I said to her. Her eyes widened and she shook her head. "Don't worry, Hyunjin and Felix will take good care of you, I promise." 

"A-alright," she squeaked. The two guys invited her to sit with them on the bleachers and she reluctantly obliged. As for me, my heart was pounding as Chan, Jisung, and I headed for the stage. The people running the music and audio instantly recognized us and handed each of us a mic. 

"Now is the moment you've all been waiting for!" one of them announced. "It's time for the performance of the powerhouse rappers, 3racha!" 

We stepped onto the stage as people began cheering. My hands felt clammy and shaky around the mic and my breathing became uneven. I've performed here just fine many times before, so why is it that all of a sudden I'm overcome with nervousness? My eyes scanned the seats until I landed on her. She cheered and waved her arms at me, and I couldn't help but smile at her and wave back. 

Then familiar music came on, which the three of us composed ourselves. The song was P.A.C.E, and Chan got the first lines. The stage was practically shaking with the energy we gave off, along with the excitement of the crowd. When it was my turn to rap, I instinctively looked in her direction, where she was in complete awe. I've never rapped with so much strength before, and the people seemed to have caught on as they began getting hyped up too. It was like an unknown motivation was pulling at me, telling me I had to make this my best show yet. So that's exactly what I did. 

As soon as our performance successfully finished, I made my way off the stage and ran back to where she was seated. 

"Changbin! That was awesome!" She clapped, grinning so wide it became contagious to me. "You guys did great too!" She high-fived the three of us, continuously complementing our show. 

"Really? You liked it that much?" I beamed.

"Yeah! I've never seen anything cooler than that before. Your stage presence was insane! Thank you so much for taking me out here, it was super fun." 

My heart may have somersaulted a few times from all her words of support. "Of course! And actually, maybe someday you could go on stage and perform with just as much confidence. I know you have the ability to leave an audience in awe, so I hope you'll take inspiration from this to get out there and shine brighter than all the stars in the universe. I know you can." 

.

wah I hope this wasn't tooooo cheesy
Also the word count for this was over 1 thousand so I'm kinda proud for making it longer?
if you liked this chapter, a vote and comment would be much appreciated! uwu <3