By the time Chaerin gets the call, she’s almost given up hope.

“Meet me in the studio, bring the others,” Bom breathes down the phone. She sounds hopeful, she sounds victorious.

So Chaerin calls up Minji and Dara, bundles them into the back of a taxi and sets off for YG HQ.

“I’m so glad she’s ready to work on her music again, I’ve missed her,” Dara grins, practically bouncing in her seat with excitement. Minji flips through her phone with an expression of calculated boredom, but there’s a smile tugging at the corners of too.

When they arrive, there’s a ping pong ball sitting squarely in the lobby. Chaerin feels her stomach drop. “It’s just a coincidence,” she says all too brightly, and no one present believes her.

They take the elevator to the second basement and march into the studio all smiles. Sure enough, Bom is waiting to greet them with excited squeals and enthusiastic hugs, she drags them into a group embrace babbling about how much she’s missed them all.

Through the mess of limbs and greetings, Chaerin glances over Bom’s shoulder to the studio sofa. Perched on the arm rest is a ping pong ball tube.

The ping pong ball tube.

Chaerin steps back abruptly, “what the is that doing here?”

“Well it’s not like I could leave it at home,” Bom laughs, “the last time I did that it leaked so badly my apartment flooded with the damn things.”

Minji and Dara clock what’s going on just as a ping pong ball shoots out of the top of the tube and clatters across the floor. Looking around, several others are visible, sitting under the desk and in the crevices of the sofa.

“I thought you were gonna get rid of that thing!” Minji yelps as another ping pong ball pops out of the tube.

Bom shrugs, “I tried everything, even threw it in a furnace but it sped up production and pushed itself out of the flames on a bed of ping pong balls. I can’t throw it in the ocean because it’s only gonna raise sea levels twice as fast as they’re already rising. What can I say? You can’t just get rid of an infinite supply of ping pong balls, and I’ve spent long enough trying. It’s time for me to start making music again.”

“So what? You’re just bringing it back here and now it’s all of our problem?” Minji looks supremely unamused.

“It’s not a problem though!” Bom beams, rushing over to the mixing desk to fiddle with some of the controls, “I’ve been working on some really cool beats using the sounds it makes.”

She flicks a switch and the studio fills with the sounds of ping pong balls, bouncing off things in a complex and somewhat hard to follow rhythm, but it’s not bad. There’s definitely the beginnings of an interesting beat there.

The ping pong tube, as ever, appears to be sentient, and starts popping out balls in time to the beats coming over the speakers. Chaerin glares daggers at it, but she supposes it can stay for now.