CHAPTER 15: 1AM BY TAEYANG

“Yongbae-ah, you can come back in now,” Teddy spoke into the intercom to signal Yongbae to come out of the recording booth. Yongbae took his headphones off and placed them back into their place. He stepped out of the booth, returning into the main studio room to join the rest of the members on the couch, waiting to hear from YG’s head producer.

“Alright, I think we’re done for the day. Good job guys. Let’s rest for a couple of days from recording. We’ll pick things back up next week since we still have to work on an intro song for the album,” Teddy said before turning back around in his chair to continue cleaning up the song they were working on.

“Assa! I can finally catch up on some sleep!” the youngest happily exclaimed as he clung on to TOP’s arm, much to the latter’s annoyance.

“Yah!” TOP scolded as he tried to shrug off Seungri’s hold. The maknae didn’t seem fazed as he kept a firm grip on his precious hyung while dreaming of the blissful sleep in his near future.

“Come on, let’s grab something to eat before we head out,” Yongbae said, trying to pacify TOP.

The others stood up from their seats and gathered their belongings before bidding their goodbyes to Teddy and headed out of the studio.

“Oh, before I forget. Jiyong!” Teddy called out after them.

“Yeah?” Jiyong turned around questioningly.

“I’m going to need you to stay back tonight. I know you haven’t gotten much sleep these past couple of days, but I have some instrumental tracks I want you to listen to. Let’s get a head start on that intro song so we have most of it ready by next week’s recording session. I’ll see you around ten,” YG’s lead producer said without taking his eyes off his screen. He was the leading example of a workaholic, much like Jiyong.

The rest of the members gave Jiyong a sympathetic look, feeling sorry that their leader still had a lot of work to do while they on the other hand had the next couple of days to rest. He gave them all a reassuring smile, easing their worry.

“Okay, hyung. That’s good for me. I actually wanted to run some song ideas by you and get your opinion on them anyways. I’ll meet you back here later tonight,” he replied before heading down to the company’s cafeteria to eat with s.

*****

Jiyong let out a long sigh as he continued walking down the hallways. He’d been at the YG building for what seemed like forever working on that intro song with Teddy for Big Bang’s upcoming debut album as well as a few other new songs he had recently started making. The two of them wrapped things up around midnight when Teddy decided to call it a day and headed back to his own home for some rest. Jiyong, on the other hand, decided to stay back to continue working, much to Teddy’s annoyance. The latter urged him to return to the dorms to get some sleep, but Jiyong refused. He knew they were both workaholics, but Teddy was still amazed by Jiyong and his persistence whenever he was really into a song they were working on.

It was now a little past 2 in the morning and Jiyong was now on his back to the recording studio. He was in the middle of revising some lyrics when his stomach growled, reminding him that he still hadn’t had a proper meal since that sandwich he had in the afternoon. Thankfully when he went down to the company’s cafeteria, he was just in time to catch the ahjumma’s before they closed up for the night. Now that his stomach was full, he was ready to continue what he left off at the studio.

He turned the corner towards the practice rooms, curious to see if he would find her there tonight. It was pretty late at night, so most of the company was quiet. He looked down the long hallway and wasn’t surprised to see that one of the rooms at the far end still had their lights on.

He slowly peered in through the glass door and a small smile reached his lips as he recognized the petite silhouette of the girl he’d been longing to see for the past couple of days. She was too busy packing up her stuff to notice the door clicking open.

“Dara-ah,” he called out to her, while peeking his head into the room.

She turned around with a playful scowl on her face before pulling her sweater on and slinging her bag over her shoulder.

“D-Dara-ah? Yah, are you ever going to call me noona?” she asked out of curiosity as she crossed the room over to him. She raised an eyebrow at him, waiting expectantly for an answer.

“Nope. I told you before already that calling you noona doesn’t feel right. I don’t know why, but it’s just weird,” he flatly answered with a shrug as he held the practice room door open for her.

“Well, you’re lucky I’m such an AMAZING NOOOOOOOONA, that I’ll let you off the hook for that,” she exclaimed. She gave him a playful nudge and then walked out into the hallway.

“So, what made you stay so late this time around?” he asked