At the moment they were waiting backstage, every single one of them freaking out. The past two days many changes had been made to the presentation, from wardrobe to distribution to adding new songs. New songs like Moonbyul's. A little fact that had Moonbyul freaking out in a corner. Literally.

“You’d think that she’d be used to crowds.”

“I think she’s turning blue.”

“Oh god what if she dies? I can’t MC in her place.”

“Don't worry about that no one would ask you to MC ZICO. We’d rather have Jackson do it”

“Now what is that supposed to mean?!” two voices said at the same time.

Moonbyul looked up from her seat shaking her head at the nervousness everyone was feeling. None of them had really thought about this moment until 20 minutes ago when Seulgi had started going on and on about how nervous she would be if she were in their place. Goddamnit Seulgi… Out of the corner of her eyes she caught Eddy with a few cards on his hands, shaking and jumping up and down. With a chuckle she walked to him taking his hand in hers, massaging up his nerves to his elbow before doing a couple simple breathing exercises.

“How in the hell do you know how to do that?” Eddy asked once his pulse had calmed down.

“Solar gets really nervous before going on stage so I’d have to calm her down the same way Hwasa calmed down the puppy.” She said with a nod before turning to the nearby mirror fixing her grey suit.

Turning around she smiled as they all had managed to get into fairly formal clothes. Jackson wore a black suit with a pale pink shirt; Eddy wore a similar attire only his suit was a three piece with white shirt. Amber had opted for an all black attire, something Jackson hadn’t taken lightly whining like the mature 23 year old he was. ZICO on the other hand, matched Moonbyul with a grey suit and black turtleneck.

“Ok guys you have 2 minutes to go on stage.” Called Mike, one of the staff workers they had to organise the venue.

There was no place for jokes anymore. Taking a deep breath they gathered in a small circle sharing a few last words of encouragement. As they turned to head to the stage an orange head rushed to ZICO giving him a sound kiss.

“Heyjin?!” Moonbyul asked as she was being dragged to stage. “Wait wait! I need to know what’s going on!!” Eddy and Jackson literally lifting her and carrying her to the dark stage.

In the dark they still had a few moments to take it all in. 3.000 people. Including mayor tv networks and the biggest names in this industry. No pressure. At all. Her eyes scanned the front area where she knew her three friends should be. Well two, the third one was on her way from backstage. Finding Wheein had being easy. She just had to look for the 22 year old jumping on her seat. Moonbyul's eyes turned to her side where she saw a very still Solar. Is…is she nervous? But any trail of thought related to Solar was cut short as the lights and the announcer called each of their names.

“Hello! We are the creative team behind GreySky Entertaiment! Please take care of us!” Moonbyul said with energy as they all bowed to the public. A smirk gracing her features as they audience roared.

After individual introductions Moonbyul and Eddy took the lead in the ceremony explaining everyone’s roles in the company and how it would work.

“Nae, we are not just a company. But a place for idols from every other agency to drop those songs that might need some polish, so they can share them with other musicians and find that sound they are looking for.”

“Every new song we’ve been able to produce was thanks to working as a team. And sometimes the differences between companies haven’t allowed for great duets to happen. But we felt like this trend is slowly fading away. So we want to thank every company that has agreed to let their artists to work with us for the opportunity. We will take good care of them for you.”

“Except for Jackson.”

“Except for Jackson. Don’t worry Mr JYP we’ll make him work so hard he wont have energy to cause you any more trouble.” Eddy said with a bow to where the other CEO was. “To start the night on a good note we wanted to share one of our original songs. Amber?”

“Thank you CEO Eddy Kim sunbae” she said with an over the top bow making everyone on and off stage laugh. “Nae. This song…this song is very dear to me. We want you to understand that every song in GreySky will be a personal project. No song will come out under this label if we don't believe in it. The message is something we’ve all been through.” Amber said walking to the centre of the circular stage. “I urge you to sing along on the chorus. I will guide you alright?”

Cause mom said

I’d be crossing borders

Never be afraid even

When you are cornered.

Stand up straight, fight

Your way

Fight your way, fight your

Way

On the second chorus they group of friends joined in to give Amber some back up vocals. Amber’s voice cracking at one point making the three other rappers take over her words helping her out. Once they were done they all hugged tightly with smiles on their faces. Amber bowing deeply to the audience as they cheered, most of them with tears on their eyes.

One hour into the concert they decided to stop a bit with the music to answer some questions from the fans and clarify thing about the company. Moonbyul quickly taking the lead and shoving Eddy to the side with a chuckle.

“Alright everyone. When you came into the building we gave you a qr code, that code would take you to the appstore or googleplay and you’ll download the GSE from there.”

“So, what’s the GSE app for?” Jackson rushed to the front of the stage with a stand for his mic and a couple chairs for them to sit on. “Well with this app you’ll have total access to the latest news about our artists.”

“Pictures”

“Teasers”

“New Behind the Scenes footage of how we work in the office”

“Not only that but you’ll have notice boards for every single artist linked to GreySky, where they will be dropping news, maybe have a chat with you form time to time.” Amber explained as each of them tried to bring a bit of themselves into the presentation. “Also clues to where secret fan meets will happen or to new songs before we release anything.”

“But!” Moonbyul smirked as she let the pause fill the venue “none of that is important now because what we care about is one very very specific feature. If you download the app, enter your ID…all of it is free by the way, no need to link accounts or anything like that…Ok so you enter your ID blah blah” Taking out her phone she started looking for the button smiling wide at the look of the app on the actual phone. “Right. There’s a button right in the middle of the front page. Click that and you’ll go directly into a menu kinda like the one on screen right now. What this does is let you from your phone choose what camera you are watching out of all the ones being used at this moment.”

“Official cameras” ZICO cut in.

“Yeah yeah the official cameras. We are not gonna hack into your cameras” Moonbyul laughed throwing her water bottle at the older guy.

“That’s not the only thing. During concerts like this you’ll be able to summit questions, challenges…anything you want. We will see them and act on them on this tiny breaks between songs.” Eric explained slowly and carefully to make sure everyone understood.

“Exactly. So to start of with a funny one today…Oh! So many of you downloaded it already. Ok got a good one I think.”

“Ok let me read that one then we’ll just pass the phone around…”

“Ya-ah! Get your own phones!!” Moonbyul whined though she handed Eddy her phone anyways

“Shh oppa speaking here. We start easy, good good, don’t ask the tough ones we are too old to answer” they all laughed lightly as someone on the front rows yelled that he could only speak for himself when it came to age “That was low, just saying. Ok! GreySky Entertaiment family! Why that name? ZICO you take this one.”

“Eh…Right. Well as you know now we lived in London, where the sky is always Grey so we thought ‘Oh how about this’ and that’s how GreySky came to be.” He said seriously before breaking into giggles “No no. When we went away it was because all of us needed some time apart from situations home that hurt us or we couldn't deal with at the moment. And thanks to the work and cooperation we managed to get out of those dark places, so we wanted a reminder that there will be Grey days but that the sun always comes out in the morning.” They al nodded at his explanation smiling lightly at memories they all held dear. “All right next question…Oooh Moonstar this is for you.”

“Oh boy…ok hit me.” She said turning to properly look at him, as she turned her eyes landed on a petite brunette winking at her.

“ ‘You have always been known for your smile, even some said you smile too much’. Yes, she does smile a lot, it’s creepy really. ‘But since you came back many pictures of you with sad and serious faces have come out. Why don't you smile anymore Moonbyul?’”

“Ok that one is just not fair.” The rapper laughed turning to the public “You really expect me to be all giggly and happy when I have to organise a whole company, live with an oppa that can only write music and wake me up early, AND take care of a 174cm tall puppy?” Moonbyul said scratching Jackson’s head before he realised the meaning behind her words and slapped her hand off. “No in all seriousness, we’ve all been working really hard this past week to make sure that today was perfect, that’s why I might have looked a bit down.” Taking her phone back she smirked looking between Eddy and Jackson. “I saw this one earlier and it’s a must. Dance battle. Eddy Kim vs Jackson Wang. CEO vs pet. Ooooh this is amazing, they even gave us song ideas!” Moonbyul rushed to Amber and ZICO looking over the songs laughing as the other two stood in the middle of the stage scared of their friends.

Over two hours later and the concert was a complete success. By now their outfits were a complete mess. All of them had discarded their blazers and sweat covered their foreheads. After a few covers and special guests, like Jimin with her famous song from Unpretty Rapstar or Taeyeon belting out a happy delayed birthday for both ZICO and Amber, whose birthdays had been a few days prior.

“Well I think the end is getting closer and closer but we wanted to gift you another original song.” Jackson said pointing at Moonbyul that was sitting down on the piano they had on stage.

“This song is special for multiple reasons. The first one is because…it’s going to be in MAMAMOO’s new.full.album” She said making pauses between words to make the tension grow.

The second her words left the cameras pointed at the other members of the group that just sat there with their mouths open among the applauses and screams from the fans. Moonbyul chuckled at her friend’s faces mouthing ‘surprise’ to them with a smile. She couldn't help but laugh hard at each of the girls reaction. Wheein’s jaw was close to the floor before she started jumping on her seat happily. Hwasa’s hand shot up to and tears were threatening to come out. Solar in the other hand…well she couldn’t really react to anything, all she did was stare at Moonbyul.

“Well, we all know I’m not the best singer in the group, so” she laughed as the audience told her she was great at singing. “So, I asked a couple of friends to help me this time around.” Moonbyul signalled behind her where Solji, Minah and Choa came running excited.

“Tell us a bit about this song Moonbyul-ya” Amber said as she shoved Jackson a bit so she could sit with him in a small chair.

“Yeah yeah I’m getting there. Don’t rush me.” She laughed as she fixed the height of the mic on the piano and sat down. “This song is about missing that one person in your life that makes everyday special. And how sometimes you can’t say the right words to express how much you miss this person.” Moonbyul said her eyes locking with Solar’s for a moment.

“I want all of you to help me set the beat for this song.” Moonbyul said as the group on stage started marking the beat with light hits to the microphone. “Think of your heart when you see this person... Steady but strong. Good good” Once the base was all around the venue the singer started snapping their fingers.

When I look at the evening sunset,

So much I miss you

On days where the wind feels so good, I…

You you you you

Zico had joined in on the electronic drums giving the steady beat to the girls voices. Moonbyul’s melody on the piano started fairly soft but grew stronger as the song passed. Her voice husky once she finally started rapping.

These days, I sleep with tissues instead of you

My phone playlist is filled with sad songs

Because I feel they’ll comfort me

like this song

But I miss you

She looked up trying to catch Solar’s eyes as she said the last sentence, a small smile playing on her lips.

Everyone goes through breakup but why

Am I acting like this?

I’m even worse today

When Moonbyul's hands started shaking because of the emotions she was going through she was glad the song was over. Standing up she lifted her eyes to Solar. While everyone was standing on their feet clapping the brunette didn't have enough strength to stand and just looked at Moonbyul from her seat. Tears falling freely from her eyes. When their eyes locked she could sense Moonbyul's nervousness. She had missed her, and this was her way of making sure she knew. Moonbyul was then grabbed by her friends and hugged around, what made them break contact but it was ok.

Next to Solar Hwasa and Wheein smiled brightly applauding. Looking down Hwasa gave Solar a one armed hug, pecking her cheek.

“You didn’t really think that she wouldn’t miss you right? You know how shy she can be…She told us she’s been working on that song for months but only found what was missing when you played for her. She’s kinda sweet at times.”

Solar shook her head smiling wide as she finally stood up her hand grasping her necklace tight. “She’s very sweet” Her eyes finding Moonbyul’s again, the rapper smiling bright, nose muscles and all.  

Thank you to all new subscribers and readers! From now on I'll try my best to reply to all your comments and doubts you might have about the story or things that are not clear. I know this is mostly dialogue but I hope it didn't crash too much stopping you from hacing a good read.

Next chapter: the after party and a visit from someone unexpected.