"I could have danced all night!"

Wang Ming Yue belted her heart out as the stage crew observed her with stone faces.

It had been a hot minute since her audition, and she had done her best to practice the songs well for the musical. In an arduous effort to present a stellar first performance, she had even convinced Song Chin-Hae to practice lines with her in the family mansion for the past several days.

No matter what the drama threw at her next, she would prevail!

"I can see that," joked Li Jun as he watched from the side on stage.

"What do you think? Was it powerful enough?", nervously asked the female lead.

"It doesn't matter what I think as this is my first musical."

"Oh," she uttered in response. For a moment, she had forgotten he wasn't used to doing musicals.

"But it sounded great," he added, folding his arms neatly as he itched to put on his sunglasses.

"Places everyone!", called the director. "I want this rehearsal to be spotless! No mistakes! This is for the lighting and stage crew to get attuned with your movements."

"Can we take a break, sir?", asked one of the other supporting actors.

One of the actresses echoed back his statement. "Sir, we've been at it for hours. Since sunup in the practice room, and now this is the second time through the play tonight..."

"Yes, but we've only been doing specific scenes," the director countered.

Clapping, he barked, "Xiao Jun, you're up next."

"Yes, sir," he mumbled, taking his place alongside Wang Ming Yue.

"Now, from the top!", he whispered excitedly, snapping his fingers to cue the spotlight.

"I can't change my nature or my manners," stated Professor Higgins, Li Jun now immersed in his character.

He continued, "My manners are exactly the same as Colonel Pickering's."

Protesting, Eliza Doolittle proclaimed, "That's not true. He treats me a flower girl as if I were a duchess."

"I treat a duchess as if she were a flower girl."

"I see. The same to everybody," she responded, making a face as she did so.

The music swelled around them as he started, "I shall miss you Eliza. I've learned something from your idiotic notions."

"When you feel lonely without me, you can turn it [the gramophone] on. It has no feelings to hurt."

"Well I can't turn your soul on."

"You devil!"

Their rehearsed conversation cut in and out as the passerby's watched their intense exchange with worried glances.

"...Yes and you may walk out tomorrow if I don't do everything you want."

Staring deeply into the male lead's eyes, she quipped, "I wouldn't marry you if you asked me, and you're nearer my age than what he is."

"In short, you want me to be infatuated about you as he is, is that it?"

Random opera performers that had been peeking in unannounced stared wide-eyed at the tension you could cut with a cheese grater.

"Man, they're good at acting," muttered an opera performer.

"That's why they get paid the big bucks," replied an extra. "They make it seem like they're a couple in love squabbling."

The female lead chided Henry back. "What I done...what I did was not for the taxis and the dresses...but because we were pleasant together and I come to...I came...to care for you."

"CUT! That was excellent. Xiao Jun, can we have a word regarding your next song performance?"

Blinking, Little John snapped out of it, and stepped away from his costar's face. "Of course, what do you need?"

"WHOO! That was hot," quipped a fellow cast-mate, fanning away the chemistry the pair share.

"Chin-hae!", called out Ming Yue as she spotted her fiancée in the audience.

"Darling! You did great," he exclaimed, placing a kiss on her cheek as he did so.

"Thanks, it was mostly due to you helping me though," she teased.

"I just wish he had been more than an inch away from your face," mumbled Song Chin-Hae.

"Aww...were you jealous?"

"No I wasn't! It's just...personal boundaries and all that."

"It's so adorable!" The female lead erupted into giggles at the sight of her man blushing.

"I am not adorable, OK? I am a former athlete, a boxer that got a scholarship to uni on his ability, and...been trained in martial arts since I was very young so I repeat I am not..."

Squealing, she shouted, "That makes you even cuter!", causing several other performers to cast side-eye at the lovey dovey couple.

While this was going on, Xiao Jun had been paying attention to the director, and discreetly casting glances at his female lead.

Seeing her kiss the male lead on the lips, he continued nodding to the director's advice, but felt a abrupt tightening in his chest.

Aish. It still hurt. Why did he have to torment himself like this?

Knowing she would never love him and yet having to appear by her side...it was pure torture.

Sighing, he wondered if Lee Tien-Sing was right.

Was the cause of his own unhappiness?

Meanwhile, Lee Chang-Min was having the time of his life recording a music video in Korea.

Taking a swig of water, he excused himself and headed out to the hallway for a quick stroll around the studio.

He had been here many a time, but still had a habit of strolling through the premises in search of...well he wasn't exactly sure what.

Hearing the elevators ding, he moved out of the way, and caught a lean girl's frame out of the corner of his eye.

Curious, he spotted that she was going in the direction of the shoot his group was at and followed her discreetly. Stopping before tripping over an exposed cable, he looked up and saw her staring back at him.

"And you are?", she asked, perplexed that a young man had been walking behind her this whole time.

"Oh, I'm Lee Tien-Sing," he introduced himself as he reached out to shake her hand.

"You're here for?"

"I'm with X-PLOSION, I mean I'm one of their members...idols... so I just was on my way back...", he explained.

"Oh. Well I'm a dancer, nice to meet you," she stated, still refusing to take his hand.

"CHANG-MIN!", yelled another one of his group's members as the lights dimmed.

"Sorry, I have to go," he mumbled while he tried to pass her.

"Chang-Min?", she echoed, turning to face him.

"It's what the Korean fans call me. My stage name, as it were. Nice to meet you anyways, bye!"

"Bye," she responded before being told by a production assistant to head on in.

"Interesting."

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Author's note: I can't update it later tonight so I'm posting it early, enjoy!

Lyric vocab notes: (thanks YT comments!)

T.O.P - twinkling of paradise D.R.C - Dangerous, risky, chaos D.O.P - Delight of passion D.O.G - Delight of gorgeousness M.I.L - Millennium innocent love