skz college

The college had been built to encourage collaboration. Glass walls. Shared courtyards. Practice rooms stacked on top of theatres like someone had tried to force harmony through architecture alone. It hadn’t worked. Everyone knew there were two kinds of students here. On the north wing, the Traditional Music pathway: soundproof rooms, cables snaking across the floors, late nights hunched over DAWs and sheet music. Precision. Technique. Structure. And on the south wing, the Theatre pathway: open studios, scuffed floors, mirrors fogged with breath and sweat. Emotion first. Story first. Chaos, if you asked the musicians. They barely spoke—until the email dropped. END OF YEAR SHOWCASE — COLLABORATIVE GROUP ASSIGNMENT (MANDATORY) Theatre & Music students will be paired to create a performance. Groans echoed on both sides of campus. Bang Chan read the email twice, already rubbing his temples. “Please tell me this is optional,” Han muttered, swiveling in his chair. “It’s not,” Seungmin said flatly, scanning the details. Lee Know leaned back, arms crossed. “So we’re babysitting theatre kids now?” Chan shot him a look. “Be nice.” Across campus, reactions were… louder. Changbin laughed in disbelief. “They think musicians can perform?” Hyunjin skimmed the email, eyes narrowing—not annoyed, just curious. Felix looked torn. “What if they hate us?” “They will,” I.N said cheerfully. And then there was you—Theatre pathway, already known for presence, instinct, and the kind of voice that could silence a room even without music. Groups will be announced today. First meeting is compulsory. The first meeting happens in Studio C—neutral territory. No mirrors. No amps. Just a piano in the corner and too many chairs. The musicians arrive first, clustered instinctively together. When the theatre students walk in, the room shifts. Eyes flicker. Judgments form. Too intense. Too stiff. Too emotional. Too cold.

In the first real collaboration meeting, it becomes painfully obvious that everyone speaks a different creative language. The Musician pathway talks in structure and mechanics. Chan explains ideas like a producer—measured, encouraging, always translating chaos into something workable. Seungmin is precise and analytical, choosing words carefully, focused on clarity and outcome. Lee Know is blunt, dry, sometimes cutting, saying exactly what he means and nothing more. Han jumps between brilliance and rambling, his speech fast, metaphor-heavy, ideas spilling before he can filter them. They talk in genres: tempo, dynamics, harmonies, build-ups, drops. The Theatre pathway speaks in emotion and intention. Changbin talks big—loud, passionate, dramatic, pitching ideas like he’s already on stage. Hyunjin is visual and poetic, describing moods, images, and silence as if they’re tangible things. Felix is gentle and earnest, tone warm, focusing on how something feels to an audience. I.N is deceptively simple, casual delivery masking sharp instincts. And you speak intuitively—reading the room, shifting tone depending on who you’re addressing, bridging gaps without fully realizing you’re doing it. They talk in genres too—but theirs are tragedy, intimacy, tension, release. At first, nothing lines up. The musicians think the theatre kids are vague. The theatre kids think the musicians are cold. Then someone tries explaining the same idea twice—once in technical terms, once in emotional ones. And something clicks. The conversation slowly becomes bilingual. Tempo becomes tension. Silence becomes a beat drop. Emotion gets a structure to live inside. By the end of the meeting, no one agrees on everything—but for the first time, they’re not talking past each other. They’re starting to listen. And that’s when the sound—and the story—finally begin to take shape.