It was a whole lot of pressure being the producer of Seventeen. Jihoon felt suffocated sometimes, like everything came down to him. Seventeen’s popularity depended on him. Seventeen’s image depended on him. The careers of 12 aspiring boys depended on him. The CEO even indirectly hinted that the future of the entire company depended on him.

It was too much pressure for a 19-year-old, barely-just-starting producer.

Sometimes, he is faced with his music software, feeling pressured to write a song so that they could comeback soon. His blank composition sheet would drive him insane, and no matter how many templates he worked with, and how much effort he put in, everything he composed .

Sometimes it was so hard that Jihoon just cried as he stared at the screen. He tried to imagine putting different sounds together to produce something melodic, but the effort was just eating at his soul; it was so dispiriting.

He usually locked the door to the office when he worked. He told the members and the staff that it was because he needed peace and quiet, which was only somewhat true. The reality was that he was a mess when he tried to produce a song, and he didn’t want anyone to see that. The stress was just a huge burden for him sometimes, and he wanted to deal with it without any pity from everyone else.

-

Jihoon, Seungcheol and Soonyoung had a meeting with the Pledis CEO that evening. It was decided that when NU’EST comes back, Seventeen would comeback immediately after.

“Immediately?” Jihoon asked Pledisboss, trying to keep his cool.

“Yeah. How’s the new song coming along?” Pledisboss asked him.

“Okay,” Jihoon lied. It was actually going terribly.

Pledis had asked Jihoon to compose something “extraordinary” for the Seventeen comeback this year. “No pressure,” he had added. But boy did it put so much pressure on him. Extraordinary? Ordinary was hard enough, Jihoon thought. It felt like Pledisboss thought it was easy, like he could just sit down and poop out a song. It didn’t work like that. Jihoon wanted to tell the boss that, but he didn’t want to be rude.

Jihoon had been listening to songs from all around the world for inspiration. He was trying to create this extraordinariness that Pledisboss wanted from him, but everything he made sounded like such a huge mess to his ears. He would just exit the program without saving his work in frenzy.

“What’s the concept like?” Soonyoung asked. “So I can start thinking about choreography…”

“And how is the meter for the raps?” Seungcheol asked, “I want to start writing the lyrics soon.”

Jihoon felt cornered and pressured beyond all words. Literally, everything depended on him. He felt like he was going to suffocate.

“I’ll get it to you soon,” Jihoon responded hesitantly, trying not to seem too anxious as to not worry them.

“Alright, would you be able to finish it by next week?” Pledisboss asked him. Although it was a question, Jihoon felt like Pledisboss was actually setting a deadline for him.

“Yes, I would,” Jihoon said, but he wasn’t too convinced of himself.

“Perfect,” Pledisboss said, “we’ll meet again next week to listen to it and discuss it and suggest edits. Good work.”

The meeting was thus dismissed, leaving Jihoon with more stress than ever before.

Soonyoung rushed on over to join the other members. Jihoon lagged behind to mope about by himself and try to process how he was going to meet the deadline for the song.

“Wooz, you okay?” Seungcheol asked, noticing Jihoon’s changed behavior.

“Yeah,” Jihoon responded with a tired smile.

Seungcheol saw right through Jihoon though. This was not the Jihoon that Seungcheol had known for all their years of training. Jihoon had been this very ambitious, enthusiastic and energetic person before debut, but ever since Seventeen hit big, it seemed like all of that positive energy was drained from him.

Seungcheol thought that was because he had been tired. During promotions, all of them were tired. The packed schedules and the high expectations were not really conducive to restful peace of mind. But now, they weren’t working. Pledisboss had given them a lot of days to sleep in and their schedule was not nearly as hectic. However, Woozi never returned to the person he was before debut. He was still tired, quiet and… well, sad.

“Is there something you’re not telling me?” Seungcheol asked.

“Nothing’s wrong with me, hyung,” Jihoon responded with a fake laugh, “you worry too much.”

-

Seungcheol indeed did worry, a lot more than was probably healthy for a leader. He worried for Jihoon very much and spent a lot of time trying to think about something that could have happened to that made him seem so lifeless. Something was wrong with the younger member; he knew it.

He needed to talk to Jihoon alone, but being in a group with 13 members really didn’t allow for time like that. There was really no way he could talk to Jihoon alone in the dorm, where it was so cramped anyways and privacy did not exist. There was no way he could talk to him alone in the practice room, because he had the responsibility of making sure everything was in line with all members during those times;  there wasn’t really time to pull Jihoon out to have a long, private conversation about what was depressing him.

There was only one time and place where Seungcheol gathered they could talk in private: the office where Jihoon sat to compose songs. When Jihoon was composing, usually the other members had free time to do whatever they wanted. Sometimes the dance unit worked on new choreography. Sometimes the hip-hop unit wrote lyrics. Sometimes the vocal unit did song covers, or brought food and snacks to the other members.

When Jihoon was up in the office, Seungcheol told s that he was going to check up on Jihoon, and they could do what they wanted.

The office was in the Pledis building, on the second floor. Jihoon usually locked the door so that he could block out all distractions and focus on his compositions. Seungcheol really hated distracting him, but he felt like this was their only chance to talk about it.

Just as Seungcheol was about to knock the door, he stopped when he heard Jihoon groan from inside.

“I can’t do this,” Jihoon mumbled to himself . Seungcheol then heard a sniffle.

Was Jihoon crying?

Seungcheol lingered outside for a while, his ear against the door trying to make out if Jihoon was indeed crying. He heard more sniffling.

“I can’t do this,” Jihoon said again. He heard Jihoon work on the keyboard, but then he heard Jihoon pound on it in an expression of frustration.

Jihoon was crying. There was no doubt about it. Seungcheol finally understood what was making the younger member so sad and dispirited lately: he can’t write the song.

Seungcheol felt so guilty all of the sudden. Everyone thought that Jihoon was just this musical prodigy that could write songs as easily as he could count. He had written so many songs before, so no one had ever thought that he would ever have trouble with it.

Seungcheol knocked on the door.

After a pause, Jihoon responded, “who is it?”

“It’s me, Coups,” Seungcheol responded.

“Do you need anything?” Jihoon asked, clearly trying to suppress that crack in his voice that resulted from his crying.

“Yeah, I need to talk to you.”

“I’m a little busy,” Jihoon said, maybe later.

“It’s important. Open the door, Woozi.”

“Give me 10 minutes, let me just finish part of the song. I’m in the zone now,” Jihoon said, but Seungcheol knew that he was just stalling so that Seungcheol would not see him in that state.

“I know you’re crying,” Seungcheol told Jihoon calmly.

Jihoon didn’t answer. A few seconds later he opened the door for him.

Seungcheol beheld the crying Jihoon in front of him, and his heart broke. It’s not that he had not seen Jihoon cry before, but this time, Seungcheol could not help but feel like it was his fault.

“Oh Jihoon,” Seungcheol said, stepping inside and closing the door behind him, “what’s wrong?”

“I can’t do it,” Jihoon replied, slumping down against the wall on floor and covering his face, “I just can’t write anything for Seventeen anymore. I’m so sorry.”

Seungcheol sat down beside Jihoon and put his arm around his shoulders, “don’t apologize. I’m sorry for not realizing earlier. Don’t stress over it too much, okay? I’ll talk to the CEO, and we’ll postpone the comeback until whenever you’re ready…”

“No!” Jihoon said, “I’ll feel so guilty if our comeback is postponed because of my incompetence. We can’t afford to go on hiatus for so long, hyung.”

Seungcheol realized only then just how much pressure was going through. Jihoon felt like he had Seventeen’s entire comeback on his shoulders…

He looked onto the younger member sympathetically, wishing that he could help him. He didn’t know the first thing about composing songs though, and he knew that postponing the comeback wouldn’t make Jihoon feel any better.

He grabbed Jihoon’s arm and pulled him off the floor, leading him back to the desk with the computer and all the equipment he needed for composing a song. He sat him down on the chair, and pushed his chair forward.

“Go on, then,” Seungcheol said, “compose.”

“It’s not that easy, hyung,” Jihoon said, as he wiped his eyes with his thumbs.

“Do you need inspiration?”

“Yes.”

“Okay then,” Seungcheol pulled a chair beside him and sat down and opened a browser. He went on YouTube and searched up cute cat videos.

“What are you doing?” Jihoon asked, laughing and crying at the same time.

“Cute cats are always inspirational.”

Jihoon nodded and watched the cute cat videos with Seungcheol. They weren’t really inspiring in the sense that they helped him get a tune in his head to compose, but they did give him a bit of time to just sit back and let go of pressure for a few minutes. He also stopped crying, which was good.

Jihoon also felt that Seungcheol was watching him more than the cat videos. He could feel the leader’s sympathetic gaze. It unsettled him slightly, but at the same time, he was happy to have someone support him.

When the cat videos were finished, Seungcheol asked Jihoon if he was inspired yet.

“I’m okay, hyung,” Jihoon replied, “I just need a little time. Something will come to me eventually.”

“Let me listen to what you have so far,” Seungcheol asked. Jihoon opened the application and played the basic sounds he had for Seungcheol. It was a mess of different noises, and the beat was off and Jihoon couldn’t fix it no matter how hard he tried.

He was so ashamed of it that he couldn’t even look at Seungcheol while he was listening to it. It was just so embarrassing, and he didn’t want to see the leader disappointed in him.

After listening to it once, Senugcheol asked to listen to it again.

The fifth time of listening to it, he took the keyboard from Jihoon and paused it at a certain point.

“That acoustic sound at this point doesn’t fit in my opinion; I think you should remove it.”

Jihoon nodded and silenced that part, and Seungcheol listened again. He kept making suggestions, and Jihoon fixed them all without even thinking about it or offering his own opinion. At least he was making some sort of progress, however impersonal that progress was.

Seungcheol listened to it again one last time, “I think that sounds better, what do you think?”

“Yeah, I guess,” Jihoon said indifferently with a shrug.

Wow, he really is out of it, Seungcheol thought as he looked on to the overwhelmed young composer in front of him. At least Jihoon had stopped crying, but Seungcheol still felt like he had to do something more.

“Come on,” Seungcheol said, pulling Jihoon off the chair, “we’re going to go find some inspiration.”

“Hyung, it’s not going to work,” Jihoon told Seungcheol in frustration, “I’m just not capable of producing anything at the moment.”

“Then don’t try,” Seungcheol said, “we can get another produs for our comeback.”

“No!” Jihoon said quickly, “Please don’t. If I don’t produce anything, the fans will be so disappointed. I see it online; they’re so proud of Seventeen, the ‘self-producing’ idols. If I don't write the song, we won't be self-producing idols anymore.”

“Then what do you want to do?” Seungcheol asked.

“I don’t know,” Jihoon said, rubbing his forehead and beginning to cry again.

Seungcheol put his fingers under Jihoon’s chin and lifted his face up, “listen Woozi, I know you can do it. The only reason you’re stuck right now is because you feel pressured to produce something better than Adore U and Mansae. Don’t think about the pressure. Just produce a song you like.”

“But they don’t want a song that I like, hyung. They want something ‘extraordinary,’” Jihoon said, feeling the pressure break him down again.

“The extraordinariness is not all on you, Woozi,” Seungcheol told him, “it will be extraordinary when we sing it, dance to it, rap to it. All together we’ll make it extraordinary.”

Jihoon sighed and leaned back in his chair, “sorry I’m like this. I’m not talented enough to be Seventeen’s producer.”

“You’re not Seventeen’s producer, Woozi. You’re Seventeen’s member, who just happened to be extraordinary enough to produce as well…”

Jihoon smiled at Seungcheol’s compliment. “Extraordinary,” Jihoon repeated, “everyone says that I am, but I’m not.”

“Oh come on, what other rookie is able to produce his own music,” Seungcheol said.

“That’s the thing though, I’m not able to produce music. Not anymore.”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Seungcheol said, “you’re just stumped right now, and that’s okay. All great artists get stumped at some point.”

“Extraordinary,” Jihoon repeated again pensively, thinking about the word and the way it sounds. It was a great word, really. The sounds all come together really nicely, and it’s fun to say. If words were songs, then “extraordinary” would be an extraordinary one.

Six syllables, emphasis on the third syllable. Percussion at the second with the ‘x’ sound. String at the end with the “ary” part. Perhaps a guitar – and Jisoo could play it! A beat was suddenly forming in Woozi’s head. He quickly grabbed his notebook as he wrote down the notes that were forming in his heart.

“Extraordinary,” Jihoon repeated again, pensively.

He opened a new project on the application and began to work on it, not heeding Seungcheol at all.

Seungcheol sat back and let Jihoon do his thing, afraid to say anything that would break his train of thought. He watched as Jihoon played with the equipment and wrote compositions in his notebook. He played them on the piano next to him, nodding his head again and again.

“Can you please bring Josh?” Jihoon asked Seungcheol, busy with something on the computer.

Seungcheol nodded and immediately dashed out to find Joshua.

When Seungcheol brought Joshua, he saw that Jihoon had made a lot of progress on the project. So many more sound thumbnails appeared on the screen; Woozi was in the zone.

“Perfect,” Jihoon said when he saw Joshua there. He tore a piece of paper from his notebook and handed it to Joshua, “play this.” Jihoon immediately went back to the computer as he kept compiling the sounds that he needed.

Joshua took the piece and read the notes. He put the piece on a stand beside him as he grabbed guitar that was connected to the computer and indicated to Woozi that he was ready. Joshua strummed the notes as Woozi listen to them carefully, fixing a few notes and asking Joshua to play it again and again until it was perfect.

Seungcheol was really impressed with the way Jihoon was working. It was like nothing else in the world mattered but the song. The stress that he had showcased earlier had faded away completely, and he was whizzing through the work for this song so effortlessly all of the sudden.

He really was extraordinary.

When Joshua was done with his piece, Jihoon stayed another three hours in that room creating the song. Seungcheol left him alone eventually, not want to disturb his work. He did go up a couple of times to check to see that Jihoon wasn’t breaking down again. But every time he put his ear on that door, he heard Jihoon tapping the beat on the tables, or working diligently on the keyboard and mumbling the rhythm under his breath.

Seungcheol didn’t let the managers disturb Jihoon either. It was 11:00 PM and Jihoon had been in that room for over four hours now. The managers wanted to take the other members back to their dorm for their curfew, but Seungcheol didn’t want to break Woozi’s train of thought.

The other members were tired, however, and so Seungcheol suggested that they all go ahead without them. “I’ll stay over with Woozi. We'll meet tommorrow.”

When three more hours passed and it was 3:00 AM, Jihoon was still composing. Seungcheol decided to interrupt him for the first time.

“You need to eat something,” Seungcheol told the clearly exhausted younger member. Woozi had wide, pink eyes with bags under them. There were crumpled up pieces of paper all around him and little notes everywhere. Even his hair was a mess because of how much he took off his headphones and put them back on.

“Just give me 20 more minutes please,” Jihoon said, almost desperately, his eyes not leaving the screen, “I’m almost done.”

Seungcheol nodded and sat down on the chair beside him, waiting for Jihoon to finish. Having not been asleep in almost 24 hours now, he found that his eyelids were heavy and putting his head on his arms on the desk was the most comfortable thing in the world.

Seungcheol was dozing off to sleep on when Jihoon announced that he was done. Immediately, Seungcheol raised his head and wiped the sleep from his eyes.

“Congratulations!” Seungcheol told the younger member with a bright smile on his face. He handed Jihoon a banana that he was saving him when he was done. Jihoon took it immediately and began to eat it; he was very, very hungry.

“Listen to it,” Jihoon told Seungcheol with his mouth full, unplugging the headphones from the computer so that the sound plays out loud.

Seungcheol waited eagerly as Jihoon dragged the clicker to the beginning of the composition. He felt special to be the first one to listen to it, to be the first to embrace the product of Jihoon’s blood, sweat and tears.

Seungcheol did not know what he expected to song to sound like, but he just knew before Jihoon even played it to him that it was going to be amazing.

And indeed it was. Seungcheol listened to it, and it was beyond anything he could have ever hoped for. It was perfect for Seventeen, perfect in every single way imaginable. Seungcheol was smiling as he listened it, and when it was done, he turned to Jihoon and said: “it’s extraordinary.”

Jihoon began to cry when Seungcheol said it. He couldn’t finish the banana, and thus put it on the table so that he could focus on his emotional mess of a self.

“Why are you crying?” Seungcheol asked his friend with a chucke

“I’m sorry, it’s just such a relief to hear you say that,” Jihoon said. He sniffled and wiped his eyes.

Jihoon had been suffering with this song for so, so, so long. It was a source of so much distress in his life, and now it was finally complete. When Seungcheol called the song “extraordinary,” it just felt like everything was back in order, like he lived up to everything that was expected from him. It was a wonderful feeling.

Seungcheol stood up and opened his arms, indicating that he wanted a hug. Jihoon also stood up, after which Seungcheol immediately lunged forward and wrapped his arms around him. Jihoon smiled brightly and wrapped his arms around his hyung.

“Thank you,” Jihoon whispered in Seungcheol’s ears.

“Why?”

“For giving me the time and space to write this song. For actually inspiring me to write it. For being here with me at like four in the morning. For giving me that banana.”

Seungcheol laughed and broke away from the hug and let Woozi get back to eating the banana.

“Really,” Jihoon said before taking another bite from it, “without you, God knows how much hair I would have lost due to stress.”

“If you’re ever stressed again, I’ll just show you cat videos. Clearly, that’s where your inspiration came from,” Seungcheol joked.

“It actually came from when you called me ‘extraordinary,’” Jihoon responded cockily, “so do that more often.”

“Nah, I’m pretty sure it’s the cat videos,” Seungcheol said jokingly.

Seungcheol played the song again while recording it on his phone. As he listened this time, he could imagine the lyrics, the rap, the concept, the choreography, the MV. It was going to blow everyone away; Seungcheol knew that it would.

After listening to it a couple more times, and joking about how the cat videos had probably inspired certain parts of it, Seungcheol yawned so much that tears came out of his eyes. He was really, really tired.

“We should sleep,” Jihoon said, also realizing that he was tired, “we have schedule in like three hours.”

“How about the sofa in the lobby? We can both probably fit in there, and the members will wake us up when they get here in the morning,” Seungcheol suggested.

Jihoon nodded, and then went to save the song on the computer’s desktop. When he saved it, he was asked to provide a title for the composition. Jihoon hesitated on the keyboard as he tried to think of a tentative title. He had no ideas what the lyrics would be, and so he didn’t know that the song would be called.

Seungcheol noticed Jihoon’s ambivalence, and saw that he was trying to think of a title. “What about ‘Cute Cats,’” Seungcheol suggested, only half-jokingly.

“I think I’ll name it ‘Extraordinary,’” Jihoon said.

“That’s boring.”

“Then what do I call it?”

“You should call it ‘I love S.Coups’?” Seungcheol suggested, “given that I was the one who inspired it.”

“I’m just going to call it ‘Extraordinary.’”

“Suit yourself,” Seungcheol said with a yawn, “meanwhile, I’m going to the lobby to sleep.”

As Seungcheol was leaving the room, Jihoon quickly typed ‘I love S.Coups’ as the song’s tentative title. He saved it ten times over and sent it to his email just in case. He then logged off the computer and trailed behind Seungcheol to sleep beside him in lobby sofa.

He climbed in beside Seungcheol, whose eyes were already closing.

“Did you save ‘Extraordinary’?” Seungcheol asked sleepily as he put his arm around .

“I actually called it ‘I love S.Coups,’” Jihoon said.

“Mmm,” Seungcheol replied in a tired mumble. Jihoon knew that Seungcheol did not really hear him. He could tell from the leader’s loud breath that he had now dozed off into a deep sleep.

A/N: Was it nice? Was it boring? Was it cheesy? Idk how to feel about this;; anyways, I hope you guys somewhat enjoyed it though!

Also fyi this fic actually happened irl so yeah. Yall are gonna have to wait a few months before you hear the extraordinariness that Woozi produced for the next comeback – but trust me, it’s very extraordinary and it was originally titled “I love S.Coups” but then Pledisboss said no.

Okay I’ll stop talking now. Please comment to let me know what you thought? :D Thanks :)