The Concert Hall- Auditorium

Emma's attention had been captured throughout the remainder of the orchestra. She smiled when the young man smiled and watched him as he began playing the piano. Just watching him, she instantly grew a great respect for him; for all of them really. She'd had a guitar once when she was younger, but it was another toy to her. She'd never learned to play, or to live and breathe music like these people did. Their world must have been so different from her own. Like another universe.

Dein glanced up momentarily as the president of the charity and owner of the building was announced, and the face was none other than the very one that had dragged a young Miss Detenae across the dance floor. As the boy began playing, Dein laughed, and swiftly exited; he'd be paying no respects to him. When he got to the door, he asked a security guard where the restrooms were, and then quietly left.

Because of her fretting, Aimee didn't even notice Choi's presence until he took her hands in his. Her thought process pretty much just stuttered and stopped, then, her breath hitching in surprise. She froze, hands stilling immediately as she looked at him - he didn't even seem to be aware of what he had just done.

So the man had a heart, after all.

"I..." She had no idea how to respond to the compliment. Secretary Woo's voice drifted out into the audience then, and the orchestra jumped into their first piece. This was one of the rare times Aimee actually heard the entire orchestra together - they were often separated into their respective sectionals during rehearsals. Hearing them all together now was like looking at the finished product of a 1,000 piece jigsaw puzzle - everything fit. She may have been a musician, but it had not been her profession for long and watching the performance like this would have stolen her breath away if it weren't for the fact that they were ending way too fast and her stomach was now proceeding to do back flips inside of her.

She focused her attention back on Choi as he caught himself and pulled away, appearing as composed as ever save the faint blush that tinged his face pink. "I don't- This isn't..." Her cheeks heated up, and she swallowed. "I need a moment, I- I can't do this."

She backed away, making it to the edge of the auditorium relatively unnoticed as the man rose from his seat to join the stage alone. Her eyes slid shut and she drew herself into her mind, blocking out any extraneous sound - even with her vision gone,  Aimee could feel everything starting to sway in a not-so-pleasant manner. Her thoughts smeared and blurred together, any calm notions that had been in her mind previously drowned out by the 'panic' chanting in her head like a frikkin' seance. She could not do this, she was not a posh performer, she had never played in front of a live, hundreds-of-high-class-people audience like this before nottomentionthefactthatshereallyneededtousetheloorightnow, what was she even doing here?. 
Backing out and running far far away had never seemed more of a better idea than right now.

'You will be excellent.' She took in a deep breath, forcing her hands to clap together as Choi strung out his last note. He, of course, had continued the concert without a hitch, playing without her. She could only imagine his irritation at her sudden cowardice, for he showed nothing on the outside when concentrating on his music; he expected perfection from the best, after all.

She couldn't let that expectation down, now could she?

With Secretary Woo besides her, Aimee had been expecting... well, she actually didn't know what she had been expecting. Disappointment? Anger? Certainly not reassurance. The man was as a calming presence in the alien setting around her, and her mind settled down somewhat. She was over her panic attack now, but it was kind of too little too late. She offered him a halfhearted grin. It had been a big screw up on her part - Choi played the audience like he played the violin, as they thundered with applause for him. She could not even hope to achieve such a response like that, but it wasn't like an audience was all that she played for. She wanted to redeem herself, in any case, to both herself and Choi... if he would even bother, anymore.

The secretary announced their performance, and Choi took her hand once more. It was nothing like the time before, an impersonal touch - he wore his playboy, devil-may-care mask as he brought her to the piano. It kind of reminded Aimee of the time they first met, actually. In this very room.

They'd bickered like kids since the beginning, she remembered. He had been kind of infuriating at first but well, he could play worth a damn, never mind his personality. But enough of that - she cracked her fingers, smiling at the habitual action. It was time to play.

The song was more serious than a lot of the things that she's played, but it gave Aimee a sense of nostalgia whenever she heard it. Even without words, it was able to speak to people in ways that only true music could. The violin and piano part sang out together, complementing each other and shining out at the same time. Her fingers danced across the keys, and she poured herself into the song wholeheartedly from the beginning to the end.

Aimee had already forgotten most of her performance when she stood with Choi to face the audience - such was the way for a musician. As she bowed to the audience, the girl peeked a glance over to Choi. He had played remarkably, as usual - nothing less than perfect ever came out of the violinist, it seemed, no matter the difficulty. She followed him out into the hallway, where his persona took an 180 degree change - per usual.

Crossing her arms, she watched as he walked away - she could still hear Secretary Woo's voice from inside. Being a musician for this concert hall felt like an occupational hazard, at times - it was like facing mental whiplash every day. Still, he could have been harsher, so a 'you could do better' was practically like an 'awesome job' in regular, human terms. Furthermore, she had just performed in front of a concert-hall audience for the first time, and the response had been good, everything was swell, so it would take a lot more than a surly director to dampen her elation. She grinned at this, allowing herself a victory jump before the people started to emerge from the auditorium.