If Music be the Food of Love [Chapter 12]
Title: If Music be the Food of Love
Chapter: 12/13
Genre: romance, humour, AU
Rating: PG-13
Pairings: Henber (main), minor QMi, LunBer, other ninja pairings
Summary: When Donghae decides to skip his first two weeks at SM High, his twin sister Amber impersonates him and joins the prestigious performing arts school to meet her idol, Cho Kyuhyun. Hijinks ensue as she tries to keep from being found out by her roommate Henry, dealing with romantic mix-ups along the way.
A/N: Based on the movie She’s the Man, a take on Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night. The title is a quote from the opening lines of the play.
“Hyung, you need to get up now! We’re going to be late for the rehearsal before the performance!”
Donghae found himself being shaken awake by a pair of thin hands placed on his shoulders. “What?” He yawned unattractively.
Taemin stared down at his fellow dancer, wondering why the older boy’s face looked slightly different than he’d thought it was. He chalked it down to just not being very close to Donghae in the first place. Then he remembered Kibum’s threats of disembowelment to anyone who screwed up their performance, and resumed shaking Donghae.
--
Amber blinked sleepily as she surveyed her surroundings - which all at once looked both like and unlike her room. “What time is it?” She mumbled, clearing her scratchy throat.
“It’s 9am.” An unfamiliar voice greeted her cheerfully, and she bolted upright in the bed.
“What? Damn, I’m late!” She ripped the covers off and stumbled out of bed. “Why didn’t you wake me up earlier?”
Joonmyun looked appropriately worried at her tone. “I- that is, you looked so peaceful sleeping. I didn’t want to disturb your rest - which Jinki-hyung said you needed.” He held out a steaming mug towards her. “I’ve got coffee.”
Amber seized the cup of mind-stimulating liquid and downed it as quickly as she could without burning her throat. “Thanks, Joonmyun-ssi. Don’t forget to catch our performance later.” She reminded him with a smile, before dashing out the door.
--
“Are you sure it’s wise for us to attend this event?” Krystal asked dubiously, linking arms with Victoria. “What if Amber gets found out because of us?”
“Don’t be silly.” Zhou Mi waved a hand elegantly. “Look at the number of people here. We’ll just address her as ‘Donghae’, and no one will be any the wiser. You two will just have to pretend to fawn over her a little.”
“I’m sure it’s not going to be a problem,” Victoria agreed, “but that doesn’t explain why you were so eager to attend, Mi.”
Zhou Mi smiled to himself, remembering Kyuhyun’s adorable nervousness when inviting him to watch the latter perform a song at the school carnival. Usually he’d feel guilty about encouraging romantic feelings in a high-school kid, but Kyuhyun wasn’t exactly your typical jailbait. “We’re here to support Amber, of course. And to be entertained in general!”
--
Eunhyuk was feeling all twisted and chaotic inside his stomach. It definitely wasn’t last night’s dinner disagreeing with him, he decided. It was all because Lee freaking Donghae, who was confusing the hell out of him at this moment.
Something was wrong about him that morning. Firstly, his face looked funny, almost like it was another person’s, more masculine but still kind of similar to the original. Then, not only was he messing up the dance as if he hadn’t attended a single previous practice, but he was making up moves as he went along - moves in a style that echoed the material Eunhyuk remembered from the audition videos.
And of course there was the whole debacle of what had happened between him and Luna last night that had sent Henry storming off in a rage. Eunhyuk sighed at the thought. These Americans needed to learn how to better control their feelings. After all, Eunhyuk had been pretty sad to see Donghae with a pretty girl, but he wasn’t going around yelling at people in corridors where anyone could hear them.
That’s right. Eunhyuk had his spies everywhere.
--
Amber stared in horror at the scene unfolding before her eyes behind the constructed stage. What was her brother doing dressed like the others in a brightly coloured t-shirt and jeans and rehearsing SNSD’s Gee dance? She quickly checked her phone for any messages, and found one from him that she’d missed, stating that he’d be returning earlier than expected.
The music ended, and the group paused before breaking from the ending pose. Amber winced as Donghae stood in quite the wrong position. Oddly enough, it was Eeteuk and not Kibum who pulled him aside to presumably tell him off for messing up the dance. Kibum actually seemed a little distracted by something else, and Amber thanked her lucky stars that she hadn’t interacted with Eeteuk enough for him to notice the difference in their faces.
Donghae scratched the back of his head, rather bewildered by the entire experience of being roped into a dance he was apparently supposed to know perfectly for some performance he hadn’t even been notified about previously. He headed off to find a water dispenser somewhere, and Amber seized the chance to pull him aside. People were milling about the campus and no one seemed to notice the twins.
“Ber? What are you doing here?” Donghae asked in surprise, and frowned as he took in her appearance. “What happened to your hair?”
“Me? What are you doing here? How could you just waltz into the school and join something like this?” She hissed crossly, occasionally turning her head to make sure that no one recognized them.
“I don’t know. These guys are all crazy! They’re all acting like they already know me, one of them keeps staring at me like I’m an alien, and this other guy just gave me a pep talk about teamwork and doing my best for this girly dance, as if I’d been there for their past few practices…” He paused to catch his breath, noting his sister’s expression gradually growing more and more dreadful. “Ber, what did you do?”
Amber buried her face in her hands with a groan. “Oh no. Damn it, this wasn’t supposed to happen!”
Donghae eyed her attire, which matched the rest of the dancers, and then flicked his glance back to her suspiciously styled hair. “You…they were expecting you to dance?” His eyes widened in horror as his mind supplied him with the only possible explanation for all of this.
“I pretended to be you and took your place here at SM High since term started.” Amber confessed, realising now how ridiculous and stupid it sounded. “I did it so that I could meet Cho Kyuhyun. You know, the winner of the campus Korean Idol?”
“You’re crazy.” Donghae shook his head in wonder. “I always knew going to LA must have damaged your common sense somehow, but this is beyond even my expectations.”
“This is not the time to joke around!” Her voice was becoming all high-pitched and panicky. “Oh my God, Luna kissed you last night! And Henry thought it was me...”
“Yeah, that was weird. Have you been seducing girls in my name?” He eyed her suspiciously. “This will seriously damage my newfound gay reputation.”
“No I haven’t- you know what, that’s not important.” Amber thought quickly. “You just go and disappear for now while I perform the dance, and then we’ll just have to come clean with the others about the switching identities.”
“Okay, good luck with that. I’ll come find you later.” Donghae replied seriously, before walking off in a hasty manner designed to discourage anyone who might wish to speak to him.
--
The dance seemed to be a hit with the audience, Henry admitted, as the nine boys on stage made cute fists and crab-danced to the cheers of onlookers, especially those of the female students. It was a little unnerving how much some of them, like Taemin and Donghae, looked like real girls.
“Ooh, the one on the far left is so cute!” He heard a girl squeal to her friend, and followed her pointed finger to see a familiar figure dancing along. He was immediately struck by how much his roommate looked like his twin sister when wearing the fitted tee, skinny jeans and an unidentifiable hair accessory.
Just thinking about Donghae made him angry, and it made him hope that Amber wouldn’t be turning up to watch his performance, since he wasn’t sure he could look at either of them without getting mad. The dance finished amidst loud cheers and applause, and Henry knew it was probably time for him to go behind the stage to get his equipment ready.
Just as he went around, he saw Luna - dressed in a pretty outfit that matched Jinki’s - come over to Donghae with her eyes shining with excitement. “The dance was great, Donghae-ssi! You looked really good from out there!”
“Uh, thanks.”
Henry went over as well, satisfied to see Amber’s eyes widen. “Are you still going to pretend that nothing happened between the two of you last night?”
“How did you know?” Luna asked in surprise, a little annoyed by Henry’s interruption.
“What- no! I didn’t meet her last night!” Amber protested, unwilling to perpetuate the lie if it meant that Henry would stay mad at her. “You don’t understand - I wasn’t lying to you.”
Luna frowned, because Donghae was clearly pretending not to remember. “Yes we did. Is this your way of saying you don’t like me?” She asked, her legs quaking a little with nervousness. “You could just tell me so, instead of pretending that I didn’t meet you last night.”
Henry glared at Amber, who was just about to go out of her mind with all the confusion swirling around the place. “I’m not lying! I mean, I lied, but not about this!”
“What are you talking about?” Jinki suddenly joined the conversation, looking just as puzzled as the others. Eunhyuk and Taemin were staring at her face with strange expressions of their own.
There was no help for it, Amber realised. She’d have to admit her deception to all the dancers and Luna and Jinki and Henry and- oh dear God, was that Kyuhyun standing backstage with all of them? And what was Zhou Mi doing standing next to him, with Victoria and Krystal as well? She took a deep breath.
“I’m not Lee Donghae.” Her statement was met by identical looks of confusion all around. “I’m his twin sister Amber, and I’ve been pretending to be him for the past two weeks, so that I could come to this school and meet Cho Kyuhyun.”
The ballad singer blinked in surprise, and looked to Zhou Mi for confirmation, the taller man nodding soberly. “I’m sorry for not telling you.” He apologised, though Kyuhyun didn’t seem too distraught over this.
“That is the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard.” Kibum snapped.
Amber shrugged helplessly, but understanding was starting to dawn on Henry as he looked at her. “So when I ran into you at the guitar shop…”
She nodded. “That was me just being me.” She looked around at all the friends she’d acquired over the two weeks. “I’m really sorry for lying to everyone. I didn’t think it through before coming to SM High, and by the time I realised how wrong it was, it seemed too late to back out.”
“You…you’re really a girl?” Luna asked faintly, unwilling to believe that she’d been crushing on a fellow female all this while.
Amber sighed and nodded. “Please don’t ask me to strip in front of you.”
“So this means I let a girl sleep in my room last night?” Jinki asked weakly, and Amber actually winced on his behalf.
“What?” Kibum whirled around to gape at Jinki.
“What?” Henry stared at Amber, who glared right back, as if daring him to bring up their quarrel last night.
“What?” Donghae chose that moment to appear next to her, eliciting shocked gasps from the other students. Krystal nearly laughed at how they kept looking from Donghae to Amber and back to Donghae again.
“Nice work on her hairstyle, Mi.” Victoria complimented her friend. “You really made her look like Donghae-ssi.”
Zhou Mi chuckled. “Thanks.” Kyuhyun felt a little annoyed that he didn’t understand the foreign language between the two, but was still occupied with comparing the twins standing side-by-side.
“This is Donghae.” Amber concluded, and Donghae beamed at everyone in general. The charming smile had its effect.
“Your twin brother. A guy.” Kibum stated, as if he couldn’t believe what was happening. In all fairness, Amber mused, he had the right to be shocked, because she’d probably spent the most time with him in class, other than with Henry.
Donghae raised a brow. “I can prove it if you want.” He made as if to pull his shirt off, and Amber half-heartedly tugged his arms back down, though not before Donghae had happily given everyone a peek of his abs. Eunhyuk thought he might perish on the spot.
“Alright, that’s it.” Eeteuk stepped in. “There will be no stripping of any sort.” He looked pointedly at the twins. “Jinki-ssi, Luna-ssi, I believe you’re supposed to be performing next.”
Jinki recovered from the shock first and walked unsteadily over to where they were supposed to get their microphones, pulling a dazed Luna along with him.
“Henry-yah! There you are, we’ve been looking for you.” Sungmin called out, carrying a guitar on his back as Ryeowook trailed behind him. They both stopped when they saw Donghae and Amber standing next to each other.
Ryeowook frowned. “I thought you said you had a twin sister, Donghae-ssi.”
**
A/N: I realise this might not be as exciting as in the movie when the brother plays the soccer game, which I hope is still okay. Please do comment to let me know how you found this chapter! :D
Chapter: 12/13
Genre: romance, humour, AU
Rating: PG-13
Pairings: Henber (main), minor QMi, LunBer, other ninja pairings
Summary: When Donghae decides to skip his first two weeks at SM High, his twin sister Amber impersonates him and joins the prestigious performing arts school to meet her idol, Cho Kyuhyun. Hijinks ensue as she tries to keep from being found out by her roommate Henry, dealing with romantic mix-ups along the way.
A/N: Based on the movie She’s the Man, a take on Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night. The title is a quote from the opening lines of the play.
“Hyung, you need to get up now! We’re going to be late for the rehearsal before the performance!”
Donghae found himself being shaken awake by a pair of thin hands placed on his shoulders. “What?” He yawned unattractively.
Taemin stared down at his fellow dancer, wondering why the older boy’s face looked slightly different than he’d thought it was. He chalked it down to just not being very close to Donghae in the first place. Then he remembered Kibum’s threats of disembowelment to anyone who screwed up their performance, and resumed shaking Donghae.
--
Amber blinked sleepily as she surveyed her surroundings - which all at once looked both like and unlike her room. “What time is it?” She mumbled, clearing her scratchy throat.
“It’s 9am.” An unfamiliar voice greeted her cheerfully, and she bolted upright in the bed.
“What? Damn, I’m late!” She ripped the covers off and stumbled out of bed. “Why didn’t you wake me up earlier?”
Joonmyun looked appropriately worried at her tone. “I- that is, you looked so peaceful sleeping. I didn’t want to disturb your rest - which Jinki-hyung said you needed.” He held out a steaming mug towards her. “I’ve got coffee.”
Amber seized the cup of mind-stimulating liquid and downed it as quickly as she could without burning her throat. “Thanks, Joonmyun-ssi. Don’t forget to catch our performance later.” She reminded him with a smile, before dashing out the door.
--
“Are you sure it’s wise for us to attend this event?” Krystal asked dubiously, linking arms with Victoria. “What if Amber gets found out because of us?”
“Don’t be silly.” Zhou Mi waved a hand elegantly. “Look at the number of people here. We’ll just address her as ‘Donghae’, and no one will be any the wiser. You two will just have to pretend to fawn over her a little.”
“I’m sure it’s not going to be a problem,” Victoria agreed, “but that doesn’t explain why you were so eager to attend, Mi.”
Zhou Mi smiled to himself, remembering Kyuhyun’s adorable nervousness when inviting him to watch the latter perform a song at the school carnival. Usually he’d feel guilty about encouraging romantic feelings in a high-school kid, but Kyuhyun wasn’t exactly your typical jailbait. “We’re here to support Amber, of course. And to be entertained in general!”
--
Eunhyuk was feeling all twisted and chaotic inside his stomach. It definitely wasn’t last night’s dinner disagreeing with him, he decided. It was all because Lee freaking Donghae, who was confusing the hell out of him at this moment.
Something was wrong about him that morning. Firstly, his face looked funny, almost like it was another person’s, more masculine but still kind of similar to the original. Then, not only was he messing up the dance as if he hadn’t attended a single previous practice, but he was making up moves as he went along - moves in a style that echoed the material Eunhyuk remembered from the audition videos.
And of course there was the whole debacle of what had happened between him and Luna last night that had sent Henry storming off in a rage. Eunhyuk sighed at the thought. These Americans needed to learn how to better control their feelings. After all, Eunhyuk had been pretty sad to see Donghae with a pretty girl, but he wasn’t going around yelling at people in corridors where anyone could hear them.
That’s right. Eunhyuk had his spies everywhere.
--
Amber stared in horror at the scene unfolding before her eyes behind the constructed stage. What was her brother doing dressed like the others in a brightly coloured t-shirt and jeans and rehearsing SNSD’s Gee dance? She quickly checked her phone for any messages, and found one from him that she’d missed, stating that he’d be returning earlier than expected.
The music ended, and the group paused before breaking from the ending pose. Amber winced as Donghae stood in quite the wrong position. Oddly enough, it was Eeteuk and not Kibum who pulled him aside to presumably tell him off for messing up the dance. Kibum actually seemed a little distracted by something else, and Amber thanked her lucky stars that she hadn’t interacted with Eeteuk enough for him to notice the difference in their faces.
Donghae scratched the back of his head, rather bewildered by the entire experience of being roped into a dance he was apparently supposed to know perfectly for some performance he hadn’t even been notified about previously. He headed off to find a water dispenser somewhere, and Amber seized the chance to pull him aside. People were milling about the campus and no one seemed to notice the twins.
“Ber? What are you doing here?” Donghae asked in surprise, and frowned as he took in her appearance. “What happened to your hair?”
“Me? What are you doing here? How could you just waltz into the school and join something like this?” She hissed crossly, occasionally turning her head to make sure that no one recognized them.
“I don’t know. These guys are all crazy! They’re all acting like they already know me, one of them keeps staring at me like I’m an alien, and this other guy just gave me a pep talk about teamwork and doing my best for this girly dance, as if I’d been there for their past few practices…” He paused to catch his breath, noting his sister’s expression gradually growing more and more dreadful. “Ber, what did you do?”
Amber buried her face in her hands with a groan. “Oh no. Damn it, this wasn’t supposed to happen!”
Donghae eyed her attire, which matched the rest of the dancers, and then flicked his glance back to her suspiciously styled hair. “You…they were expecting you to dance?” His eyes widened in horror as his mind supplied him with the only possible explanation for all of this.
“I pretended to be you and took your place here at SM High since term started.” Amber confessed, realising now how ridiculous and stupid it sounded. “I did it so that I could meet Cho Kyuhyun. You know, the winner of the campus Korean Idol?”
“You’re crazy.” Donghae shook his head in wonder. “I always knew going to LA must have damaged your common sense somehow, but this is beyond even my expectations.”
“This is not the time to joke around!” Her voice was becoming all high-pitched and panicky. “Oh my God, Luna kissed you last night! And Henry thought it was me...”
“Yeah, that was weird. Have you been seducing girls in my name?” He eyed her suspiciously. “This will seriously damage my newfound gay reputation.”
“No I haven’t- you know what, that’s not important.” Amber thought quickly. “You just go and disappear for now while I perform the dance, and then we’ll just have to come clean with the others about the switching identities.”
“Okay, good luck with that. I’ll come find you later.” Donghae replied seriously, before walking off in a hasty manner designed to discourage anyone who might wish to speak to him.
--
The dance seemed to be a hit with the audience, Henry admitted, as the nine boys on stage made cute fists and crab-danced to the cheers of onlookers, especially those of the female students. It was a little unnerving how much some of them, like Taemin and Donghae, looked like real girls.
“Ooh, the one on the far left is so cute!” He heard a girl squeal to her friend, and followed her pointed finger to see a familiar figure dancing along. He was immediately struck by how much his roommate looked like his twin sister when wearing the fitted tee, skinny jeans and an unidentifiable hair accessory.
Just thinking about Donghae made him angry, and it made him hope that Amber wouldn’t be turning up to watch his performance, since he wasn’t sure he could look at either of them without getting mad. The dance finished amidst loud cheers and applause, and Henry knew it was probably time for him to go behind the stage to get his equipment ready.
Just as he went around, he saw Luna - dressed in a pretty outfit that matched Jinki’s - come over to Donghae with her eyes shining with excitement. “The dance was great, Donghae-ssi! You looked really good from out there!”
“Uh, thanks.”
Henry went over as well, satisfied to see Amber’s eyes widen. “Are you still going to pretend that nothing happened between the two of you last night?”
“How did you know?” Luna asked in surprise, a little annoyed by Henry’s interruption.
“What- no! I didn’t meet her last night!” Amber protested, unwilling to perpetuate the lie if it meant that Henry would stay mad at her. “You don’t understand - I wasn’t lying to you.”
Luna frowned, because Donghae was clearly pretending not to remember. “Yes we did. Is this your way of saying you don’t like me?” She asked, her legs quaking a little with nervousness. “You could just tell me so, instead of pretending that I didn’t meet you last night.”
Henry glared at Amber, who was just about to go out of her mind with all the confusion swirling around the place. “I’m not lying! I mean, I lied, but not about this!”
“What are you talking about?” Jinki suddenly joined the conversation, looking just as puzzled as the others. Eunhyuk and Taemin were staring at her face with strange expressions of their own.
There was no help for it, Amber realised. She’d have to admit her deception to all the dancers and Luna and Jinki and Henry and- oh dear God, was that Kyuhyun standing backstage with all of them? And what was Zhou Mi doing standing next to him, with Victoria and Krystal as well? She took a deep breath.
“I’m not Lee Donghae.” Her statement was met by identical looks of confusion all around. “I’m his twin sister Amber, and I’ve been pretending to be him for the past two weeks, so that I could come to this school and meet Cho Kyuhyun.”
The ballad singer blinked in surprise, and looked to Zhou Mi for confirmation, the taller man nodding soberly. “I’m sorry for not telling you.” He apologised, though Kyuhyun didn’t seem too distraught over this.
“That is the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard.” Kibum snapped.
Amber shrugged helplessly, but understanding was starting to dawn on Henry as he looked at her. “So when I ran into you at the guitar shop…”
She nodded. “That was me just being me.” She looked around at all the friends she’d acquired over the two weeks. “I’m really sorry for lying to everyone. I didn’t think it through before coming to SM High, and by the time I realised how wrong it was, it seemed too late to back out.”
“You…you’re really a girl?” Luna asked faintly, unwilling to believe that she’d been crushing on a fellow female all this while.
Amber sighed and nodded. “Please don’t ask me to strip in front of you.”
“So this means I let a girl sleep in my room last night?” Jinki asked weakly, and Amber actually winced on his behalf.
“What?” Kibum whirled around to gape at Jinki.
“What?” Henry stared at Amber, who glared right back, as if daring him to bring up their quarrel last night.
“What?” Donghae chose that moment to appear next to her, eliciting shocked gasps from the other students. Krystal nearly laughed at how they kept looking from Donghae to Amber and back to Donghae again.
“Nice work on her hairstyle, Mi.” Victoria complimented her friend. “You really made her look like Donghae-ssi.”
Zhou Mi chuckled. “Thanks.” Kyuhyun felt a little annoyed that he didn’t understand the foreign language between the two, but was still occupied with comparing the twins standing side-by-side.
“This is Donghae.” Amber concluded, and Donghae beamed at everyone in general. The charming smile had its effect.
“Your twin brother. A guy.” Kibum stated, as if he couldn’t believe what was happening. In all fairness, Amber mused, he had the right to be shocked, because she’d probably spent the most time with him in class, other than with Henry.
Donghae raised a brow. “I can prove it if you want.” He made as if to pull his shirt off, and Amber half-heartedly tugged his arms back down, though not before Donghae had happily given everyone a peek of his abs. Eunhyuk thought he might perish on the spot.
“Alright, that’s it.” Eeteuk stepped in. “There will be no stripping of any sort.” He looked pointedly at the twins. “Jinki-ssi, Luna-ssi, I believe you’re supposed to be performing next.”
Jinki recovered from the shock first and walked unsteadily over to where they were supposed to get their microphones, pulling a dazed Luna along with him.
“Henry-yah! There you are, we’ve been looking for you.” Sungmin called out, carrying a guitar on his back as Ryeowook trailed behind him. They both stopped when they saw Donghae and Amber standing next to each other.
Ryeowook frowned. “I thought you said you had a twin sister, Donghae-ssi.”
**
A/N: I realise this might not be as exciting as in the movie when the brother plays the soccer game, which I hope is still okay. Please do comment to let me know how you found this chapter! :D