Leo stepped to the front of the circle, pulling his violin out of its case with his left hand while reaching into his coat pocket with his right.
Instead of a bow or a spare chin rest, he pulled out a ridiculously large, multi-tiered brass jingle bell stick.
The surrounding crowd of students and teachers let out a wave of confused, amused murmurs. Leo looked down at the shiny golden bells, his face a hilariously complex mix of aristocratic dignity and absolute, deep-seated resignation, before he gave the stick an experimental, crisp shake.
JINGLE-JINGLE-JINGLE!
I bit the inside of my cheek to keep from bursting into laughter right into the microphone.
Giving Leo a massive stick of sleigh bells had been our emergency solution during rehearsal three days ago. And it was like a cherry on top! What a christmas song with sleigh bells?
Leo had complained endlessly that standing completely still and silent for two whole verses while waiting for his late-song violin solo made him look like an awkward, useless stage prop. Jun-seo had walked over, handed him a set of festive jingle bells, and said with a straight face, "Here. Problem solved."
I would give anything to have a photo of Leo's face the moment Jun-seo handed him those bells, I thought warmly, settling my pick against my guitar.
Leo began shaking the bells in a steady, driving rhythmic tempo. I dug my pick into the heavy gauge steel strings of my acoustic guitar, laying down a warm, driving chord progression. Jun-seo joined in on rhythm guitar, his shaker adding a soft, rustling texture, while Myung-dae's hollow-body bass thumbled softly underneath the firelight.
The five of us locked eyes across the roaring campfire, shared a single, synchronized nod, and roared into the cold night air:
"SLEIGH BELLS SHAKING!"
The music exploded around the courtyard.
It was a world away from our rehearsals in the basement studio.
There were no distortion pedals, no digital synths, no balance monitors, and no polished soundboards. Yet, under the open winter sky, surrounded by crackling pine embers, the acoustic arrangement felt raw, intimate, and impossibly rich. It didn't feel like a performance by ambitious high school trainees vying for agency attention—it felt like the eldest sons of one massive, chaotic family playing around the hearth.
"차가운 입김이 하얗게 번져도," Jun-seo began with honey-like countertenor tone.
"후회 같은 건 녹여버려," I leaned toward the microphone, letting my voice drop into its natural, deep, and slightly raspy register. Following Myung-dae's and Jun-seo's relentless vocal coaching over the past month, I took the opening verses with a fast, rhythmic rap cadence, delivering the Korean lyrics with crisp, punchy emphasis.
"우리를 기다린 무대 같잖아," Beside me, Myung-dae leaned into his own microphone, shifting smoothly from his usual background bass line into rich, soaring vocal harmonies.
It was easy to forget just how terrifyingly talented Myung-dae actually was as a vocalist. Beneath his lazy, headphone-wearing demeanor lay an incredible vocal foundation—a voice so clean and versatile he could easily sit as the lead singer of a top-tier K-pop group, supporting effortlessly high notes without a flicker of strain.
My mind briefly flashed back to that wild, chaotic evening after the joint dinner between the Lee, Yoo, and other Lee(Myung-dae)'s families. The adults had gotten completely smashed on the bottle of Ukrainian horilka my father had given me in Smila, and when we went for a stroll, ending up in a private karaoke room. Myung-dae had taken the mic and delivered a flawless, heartbreaking ballad that had stunned the entire room into silence.
Of course, the performance hadn't been the only reason that night remained permanently burned into my memory—there was also the legendary disaster immediately after, when Yoo Chae-rin had somehow tripped and collapsed on top of me.
'Or was it me who fell on her..?'
Han Min-gyu had walked around the corner at that exact millisecond, catching us "mid-sparring" on the floor. The sheer amount of high-society drama that erupted afterward was astronomical—they had almost broken up, if remember right!
'Ah, good times,' I chuckled internally, shifting my hand down the guitar neck. 'Absolute nightmare levels of stress, but iconic times.'
I snapped my focus back to the present. The firelight flickered against the dark windows of the surrounding resort houses. Beyond our reserved Kirin perimeter, a few external vacationers and local families had stepped out onto their second-story wooden balconies, wrapped in heavy blankets, watching the firelit spectacle below and tapping their feet to the acoustic beat.
The song reached its crest.
The tempo began to swell, the acoustic guitars driving a hard, stomping rhythm against Jin-hyun's cajon.
Jun-seo, Myung-dae, Leo, Jin-hyun, and I leaned into our microphones simultaneously, yelling the pre-chorus hook at the top of our lungs:
"RUN! INTO THE NEW YEAR!"
The chorus hit like a wave of pure electricity.
As we transitioned into the fast, driving bridge section, the tempo slowed down.
The sudden burst of bright, metallic ringing injected an infectious, festive Christmas energy straight into the rhythm.
Leo lifted his bow, tucked his violin beneath his chin, and casually lobbed the heavy jingle bell stick straight across the fire pit!
Jin-hyun didn't even flinch. He snatched the jingle bells out of mid-air with his left hand without missing a single beat, using the golden bells directly against his snare rim as an improvised drumstick.
Then, Leo's violin solo tore through the night.
The horsehair bow danced across the strings, producing a soaring, breathtaking melody that cut cleanly over the thumping acoustic bass and driving guitars.
"We are running..." I sang into the mic, my voice blending with Myung-dae's rich tenor.
"To the new world!" Jun-seo chimed in.
"To the new world!" all together.
The fire roared, sending a pillar of bright golden sparks soaring up toward the starry sky as all five of us raised our voices together for the final, thunderous shout:
"TO THE NEW WORLD!"
Leo dragged his bow across the high E-string in one long, lingering, and brilliant final note, terminating precisely on Jin-hyun's heavy, definitive final strike against the cajon.
CLACK.
Silence.
For two full seconds, the only sound in the entire resort complex was the soft crackle of the burning pine logs and the heavy, misty breaths escaping our lungs into the cold air.
Then, the entire yard detonated.
Deafening cheers, wild screams, and roaring applause exploded from sixty Kirin students, teachers, and parents. People were jumping off the log benches, whistling, and clapping frantically. Even the external guests standing on the distant house balconies were leaning over the railings, clapping enthusiastically for the makeshift high school performance under the stars.
I wiped a bead of sweat from my forehead, looked around at my beaming, breathless bandmates, and let out a long, victorious laugh.
H-Wnot was ready for the Seollal Festival.