“What?! You’re breaking up your band?!” Taeyeon’s jaw drops, feeling a headache coming on.

This is the second regular customer lost in the past 2 months.

“I know you think you need to grow up, but c’mon, what about comradery, what about the love of music, what about –

Hello? Hello?”

The line flats on her, and her screen lights back up to the same wallpaper that haunts her all the time.

“!” She curses, chucking her phone to the nearby couch.

----

Taeyeon owns a local and pay-to-use recording studio/music store, stocked with used and new CDs that no one ever buys anymore, of bands that no one has even heard of. You could call it antique. The music store is just a fraction of the real business though – the recording studio is where it’s at.

At least, where it’s ‘supposed’ to be.

She houses no big names, nobody like Hallyu-wave level K-pop stars, or up-and-coming underground rappers.

Most of the time it’s just garage bands made up of young, bustling kids who think they want to be singers and rockstars. She lets them use her equipment, maybe even adds some musical input here and there when she can and then she gets paid. Most of the time, there are multiple sessions for one song, so she can get by with a hand full of bands coming in, and sometimes she’ll even get referrals (because she’s cheap and doesn’t really ask questions).

The sad part is that the turnover is huge.

They usually last maybe three to six months (a year at best), recording their first song, singing at a friend’s birthday, maybe even making it to a live house, and making an actual CD. And then the evitable happens – they learn they can’t possibly be singers and grow up and go to college or something, maybe even get a sustainable job with consistent income.

Taeyeon started this shindig for reasons like most others who go down this path – she simply could not hold a steady job because she had a passion for music that just had to be a tiny bit greater than her instinct to be ‘safe and secure’.

So she lives in a hole-in-the-wall-for-an-apartment and works here full time, living pay cheque to pay cheque, if there is one.

Way back when she was younger, she had a knack for singing – possibly the root for her love of music was because she could make some herself and it just happened to be pretty good. She may have even gotten scouted, if she tried hard enough. Someone even told her that Taeyeon should do it.

But she didn’t.

She lost that person too.

Taeyeon doesn’t like to think about regrets because she’s scared they might swallow her whole and eat her alive.

At times like this, when she wants to ignore the envelopes that scream RENT NOTICE stacked in the corner of the shop, or when she doesn’t want to look at the screensaver of her phone that reminds her of all the things she should’ve done, she’ll do one of two things.

Sit in her dimly lit recording booth with the red light on, playing dusted instruments and recording nameless songs with her vintage equipment.

Or.

Taeyeon picks up the phone she threw onto her couch she bought at a stranger’s garage sale.

Hello?

“Son Seungwan, let’s grabs some drinks tonight.”

----

“Miss! Two more bottles of soju please!”

A flustered Son Wendy wipes her forehead with the back of her hand as she’s picking up left over dishes from emptied tables.

“Coming right up!” She yells with sudden pep.

Here is Son Seungwan.

Much like Kim Taeyeon, she has a slightly greater than normal passion for music, although it didn’t prevent her from dropping out of school and more importantly didn’t urge her to pursue things like opening a recording studio that’s in the red or making her incapable of working in a non-music related function.

But that’s the thing.

Her love and talent for singing is pretty much the only thing Wendy thinks she’s good at. She was okay at school (got a degree, has no idea what to do with it), doesn’t really have other hobbies except guitar playing (which she’s average at), and singing (she’s quite good, to be honest), and Wendy pretty much has nothing else she’s interested in – at least to her knowledge currently.

Another problem is that she is perfectly okay with that. Like right now, being a recent college graduate, you’d think the fear to find a stable job might settle in, but with Wendy, she’s perfectly fine with working odd jobs here and there, and getting by. She is a free spirit, trying to enjoy life and ignoring the voices around her that tell her otherwise.

Thankfully, one of them was not Taeyeon.

She met college dropout Taeyeon when the latter had just opened her recording studio, and struggling undergraduate Wendy was one of her first customers – college band that was trying to do one great thing before they all separated into the world that was adulthood. Short-lived, pipe dream, but nonetheless it was the spark that led Wendy to Taeyeon.

Seeing as they haven’t gotten rid of each other yet, you could call it a type of best friendship. They both liked music. They both lived life aloof but strangely enjoyed each other’s company. They were quite similar, and most likely found solace in the fact that neither of them questioned the other’s decisions whether it’d be in relationships, life family, you name it.

Mutual understanding of ‘I-shouldn’t-go-there’.

Now Wendy is a waitress in a late night BBQ restaurant in the heart of Seoul

and currently no idea what she plans to do following this pit stop. Maybe she’ll save her money and travel.

There seems to be nothing that sparks her interest

and it doesn’t seem like she’s going to find anything, anytime soon.

----

One doesn’t know where to go.

The other can’t seem to take a step forward.

-----

“Cheers!” The two idiots clunk their glasses together and down amber beers in one swift go.

Taeyeon especially, takes long, hard sips as if she’s trying to drown her sorrows.

The two had moved locations so Wendy wouldn’t be drunk in front of her bosses. And also so that they could hop from bar to bar.

“How’s the shop?” Wendy asks.

The ‘shop’ is lingo for Taeyeon’s recording studio. Friendship jargon, at best. They try to make themselves sound cool in front of strangers.

“In the red.” Taeyeon sighs, signaling the waiter for another round and grabbing a bite of the chicken skewers they ordered.

“Ouch, not good.”

“I don’t know what I’m going to do.... Maybe I should just sell it after all.”

“Well.... If that’s what you want..” Wendy shakes her head, “But you’re too in love with the space. You’ll regret it forever if you don’t take better care of it.”

“You’re talking as if the shop is my girlfriend or something.”

“....We~ll you did take better care of the shop than your actual girlfriend at one point....” Wendy trails feeling the rage already seep from the older girl across from her.

And just like that, Taeyeon throws an empty skewer in Wendy’s direction.

“Shut up. I don’t have a girlfriend, weirdo.” Taeyeon groans, pushing her jet black bangs out of her forehead.

“Right, right. Ex.” Wendy shrugs, done with her teasing.

Just then, Taeyeon’s phone, face up on the table, rings.

“Speak of the devil.” Wendy snickers. “Oh wow, ‘Jung Soo-yeon’? Not even Sica, or Jessica? As if you’re strangers!”

“Whatever, whatever!” Taeyeon shut off the phone in a hurry, turning it around and putting it on silent.

“Woah, are you ghosting her calls? Ignoring her now, yikes.”

“I’m trying to avoid her, if you can’t tell.”

“What’s the point? You know you’ll give in eventually.”

“Hence the trying part, .”

“Broken up, but not apart.” Wendy holds her glass up. “Your life is so much more interesting than mine – maybe I need a girlfriend too. That might spice up my life.”

“Amen to both those statements,” Taeyeon holds her glass up, and as if it’s a high five, they clink them together for another quick sweep of the brew.

-----

“Al~~~~right, shall we move on to shots?!!!?” Taeyeon’s voice was ringing, singing and high up in the sky.

“Ma’am, yes, ma’am!” Wendy salutes her in exaggerated fashion, pouring her a tall shot of soju and then one for herself.

Wasted.

They are completely wasted.

So much so that they are getting irritated stares and annoyed glances from the other customers in the eatery.

Beside them, is one particular group of guys that are not too receptive to Wendy and Taeyeon’s company.

“Hey! Keep it down, will ya? You’re not the only ones here!” One of them hollers.

The two intoxicated ladies opt to ignore him and continue ordering drinks and overall enjoying themselves.

“Hey! You two! I was talking to you!” The guy physically turns in his chair to rage at them, offended that they ignored him.

Other customers in the restaurant start to direct their attention to them, slightly concerned with the acceleration of events.

Wendy turns her head to glance at him, the slightly less drunk one out of the two of them, but Taeyeon was not having any of it. She was having a bad day already – this guy ruining her night, bills that she can’t pay and ignoring the nagging temptation to not look at her phone and answer the incessant caller that won’t stop haunting her.

When Wendy gives him and grimace and finally turns her head back to Taeyeon, it’s too late.

Taeyeon’s hand is up,

and she flips him off with the good ol’ middle finger. Wendy almost spits out the beer she just sipped on.

“You don’t own this place, dude.” Taeyeon stows her hand away and then holds up a glass to Wendy, who promptly cheers’ her.

“Ballsy.” Wendy whispers, giggling.

“I’m feeling s’well tonight, what can I say?” Taeyeon whispers back, cackling under her breath like a little girl as she sips on her big girl juice.

“The , who do you think you are?” The guy is now getting up, and his friends are trying to stop him, telling him things like it’s not worth it, why are you trying to fight right now, they’re just drunk  etc,

but he lets his ego get the better of him.

“Uh-oh.” Taeyeon widens her eyes, not bothering to hide her sarcasm.

“Taeyeon!” Wendy is half laughing, half panicked. She is confrontational, but not when she has to watch her friends back and not when the opposing party is double her size both height and width.

He gets up.

Oh, , he’s coming.

Taeyeon gets up.

Oh, , wait –

Taeyeon is letting the alcohol build her confidence, her chest out and proud. What is her first point of action? Should she go straight for his s? Maybe the shin....

Oh man, she is getting antsy just thinking about it.

Meanwhile Wendy is beyond scared. For both her friend and this arrogant stranger.

Well... they’re partially in the wrong here too but –

As they get closer and closer,

and eventually, when they clash, it all happens too fast.

Taeyeon is about to open and drop the best diss track of her entire nonexistent musical career, when a nearby waiter comes in between them to try and appease the brewing tension. The guy isn’t having any of it, and shoves him off, apparently angry with him as well. The waiter bumps back into Taeyeon, who slightly knocked out of balance but more because she’s so wasted, takes two steps back, and losings her footing.

She falls. Falling along with her are two empty soju bottles that Wendy and Taeyeon had finished hours earlier.

In a not so dramatically sequenced array of events, there are several restaurant employees who begin to kick out of the group of men due to the horseplay of the one who shoved the waiter. There is loud shouting ensuing as the manager gets involved, but no one notices the two girls who had just fallen on to the floor.

“T-Taeyeon!” Wendy lunges forward to try to break her fall, and in the process cuts her hand on the glass shards of the soju bottle and scrapping her knee.

Taeyeon hits her head on impact with the floor,