one.

Jiyong pinched the bridge of his nose with one hand, removing his headphones with the other, letting them hang on his neck. He sighed, attempting to massage away the building headache. He then pushed the button and leaned into the microphone.

“You’re not putting enough feeling into it, Chaerin,” Jiyong said, punctuating the word ‘feeling’ with a pointed gesture of his hand. Chaerin placed a hand on her hip, cocking her head to the side, her foot tapping impatiently.

“So you’ve said the past ten times we’ve attempted to record this part. Would you like to enlighten me by what you mean by feeling, oppa?”

Jiyong pulled his headphones over one ear and pushed a couple of buttons on the soundboard in front of him, replaying the most recent rendition of Chaerin’s recording. A portion of the song filtered through the speakers.
 

This is a beautiful lie 
My last lie
Even if it hurts to death
I am hiding myself under a mask for you
 

“This little passage alone,” Jiyong said. “It’s – it’s flat. The song is supposed to be a duet, two people confessing to one another, but you make it sound like you’re reading to script.” Jiyong scratched at his head, mussing up his gelled hair in frustration.

“Please, don’t flatter.”

“Like here,” Jiyong muttered, paying little mind to Chaerin’s comment. “'Even if it hurts to death.' You have to put a little power into it. Not too much, but raise your voice throughout the line; reflect the pain.”

It was Chaerin’s turn to sigh. She hung her headphones up and came out of the recording booth, taking a seat beside Jiyong. She rested an elbow on the table, her eyes narrowing as her gaze swept over Jiyong. He shifted slightly in his seat, unused to the scrutiny.

“It’s past twelve, Jiyong. We’ve been at this for hours.” Her voice was tense, and Jiyong could tell what she was saying was not what she wanted to say.

“And we’ll keep going until we get it right,” Jiyong said, meeting Chaerin’s eyes with set determination, challenging her. Chaerin rolled her eyes.

“You said you needed a girl and I’m here,” she said. “But it’s becoming clearer and clearer that what you want is not a girl.” She waved the paper with the lyrics in Jiyong’s face.

“You’ve been quite vocal about what you want in this song. You want someone with a clear but soft voice, with a little power, but not too much, a lot of feeling, and lilting vocals.” She poked Jiyong on the forehead. He flinched back at the unexpected touch. “You do know who you’re describing, right? You are describing him to a tee. You wrote this song with Seungri in mind. And if you want him so bad, then call him and ask. Otherwise, settle for what we have.”

She threw the papers onto the table and stormed out of the room, slamming the door none too gently behind her.

Jiyong stared dumbfounded at the now closed door for several long seconds before shaking his head. He turned, picking up the papers that were now scattered around the table and stacked them up. He stared at the lyrics he had written, a voice – the one he had been imaging filtering through his mind.
 

It’s alright if you leave me
I want you to be happy
Oh I’m
I’m a beautiful
I’m a beautiful liar
 

The voice, like always, was soft and haunting and ever so familiar. Seungri. It was ridiculous that Chaerin had to be the one to point that out to him, that he had been imagining the song with Seungri’s voice all this time.

But Seungri was long gone. He hadn’t even set foot in Korea for the better part of eight years, why would Chaerin even think to suggest Jiyong call him? He didn’t have Seungri’s phone number but if he – no.

Jiyong closed his eyes and leaned back in his chair, quickly diverting his thought process. He would record the song again with Chaerin tomorrow and move on to working on choreography and the music videos. With that plan in mind, he grabbed his jacket off the hook by the door and locked the studio behind him.

Outside, the mid-October air was frigid, Jiyong’s breaths created puffs of smoke in front of him, his nose numbing in the cold. He pulled the flaps of his jacket collar around him tightly, lowering the hood over his head. He cursed himself for forgetting to bring a scarf. Even if it was late, it would have made it easier to avoid prying eyes as well as the biting cold.

When Jiyong stopped at an intersection, he ducked his head to keep from being recognized, absent-mindedly scanning the tabloid in the front window of a 24-hour convenience store.

He frowned, the yellow bubble with giant black text catching his eye. He walked into the store, making a beeline for the magazine; he flipped to the page 23 as the front directed him.

The magazine almost slipped from his grip when he saw the picture on the page. The picture was blown up past its original size, making it slightly pixelated, but the person the photograph was of was easy to make out.

Covering the two pages of the magazine, in black and white, security camera-like quality was Seungri, unaware of the photo being taken. It was a taller, older, thinner Seungri, but still unmistakably Seungri. Jiyong blinked hard and closed the magazine.

He made his way to the cashier, slamming the magazine onto the table.

“How much?” The lady manning the cashier looked up, her eyes widening at the sight of Jiyong looming over the counter.

“F-Five thousand won,” she stuttered. Jiyong pulled out a ten-thousand won bill and placed it on the counter.

“Keep the change.”

He turned briskly on his heel and left, making his way as quickly as possible to his apartment down the street. He opened the door so violently, it creaked ominously on the hinges, and stomped into the living room. Youngbae was lounging on the couch, his feet casually on the table, sipping a drink while flipping casually through a trashy romance novel. He looked up when Jiyong entered.

Jiyong threw the open magazine onto the coffee table.

“Did you know about this?” Youngbae closed his book with a snap and leaned forward. Jiyong watched as Youngbae’s eyebrow rose.

“No, actually,” he said as he scanned the article. Jiyong crossed his arms.

“But Chaerin does.” Youngbae looked up at him sharply.

“How do you know that Chaerin knows?” Jiyong gritted his teeth.

“She told me, when we were recording. She said, and I quote: ‘If you want his voice so bad, call him and ask.’ I made my own inferences.”

“Well, she’s not wrong,” Youngbae muttered. “But he didn’t contact me.”

“Why? Why wouldn’t he even try to get in touch with you?” Or me?

“Well, I could think of a few: he just came back, he’s busy. I would suspect though, it has something to do with the fact that I took your side.”

“That picture was taken almost a week ago,” Jiyong said. He paused for a second before continuing. “And you didn’t. Take my side I mean.”

“I might as well have.” Jiyong let out a long breath, falling onto the couch.

“I’m not going to call him,” he muttered.

“No you’re not.”

“I don’t need him for this song to sound great.”

“No you don’t.”

“I don’t miss him.”

“I’m sure you don’t.” Jiyong glanced over at Youngbae who had picked his book and resumed reasding it, his tone more and more indulgent with each passing statement. Jiyong swallowed.

“I’m going to get Chaerin in the morning and finishing the song.”

“Yes, of course,” Youngbae said, rolling his eyes. “And we’ll finish our feature song afterwards?” Jiyong nodded.

“Yeah, sure.”

***

Jiyong was rudely woken at an ungodly hour in the morning to his phone blaring in his ear. He groaned, smashing a pillow over his face and reached out blindly for his cell. His hand made contact and without opening his eyes, he jammed his finger onto the screen.

“H’llo,” Jiyong said, his voice still thick with sleep.

“Oppa,” Chaerin said on the other line, her tone distinctly apologetic.

“Y’s?”

“I – um, won’t be able to record today,” she said. That statement woke Jiyong up immediately and he shot up in bed.

“What! Do you have any idea how far that would set me back?!” Jiyong all but yelled, his voice raising at least an octave throughout the statement.

A moment of silence followed, and then: “I called Seungri-oppa.” The statement didn’t quite sink in and Jiyong blinked into the meager morning light of his bedroom.

“What.”

“I called him. He said yes.”

“He – he did?”

“Well, he said yes to me, but he didn’t quite know what he was agreeing to. But! I will tell him. I’ll get him to say yes.” Jiyong groaned.

“Chaerin.”

“Don’t worry!” Chaerin said. “Anyway, either way, I can’t make it. So you’ve got nothing to lose.”

“Right. Nothing to lose. If you screw me over, you’re the one explaining it to boss when you fail.”

“If, oppa,” Chaerin all but sang. “If I fail, and I’m not going to fail.” Then she hung up before Jiyong could respond. Jiyong placed his phone onto his side table, inhaled sharply and then proceeded to silently freak out.

Jiyong emerged from his room several minutes late, frazzled and slightly off balance. Youngbae took one look at him and raised an eyebrow.

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