“Mirae ah, can you come here for a second?” a voice calls faintly, accompanied by a soft knock. Lifting her head in surprise, Mirae blinks for a bit, not understanding the situation, before letting out a soft, ‘oooh’ and removing her headphones. The minute the sound cancelling device left her ears, the knocking immediately became louder. Pushing back from her desk, Mirae rolls over on her chair and punches in the password, allowing the door to become unlocked.

            “It’s open,” Mirae calls, pushing herself back to her workstation. The door opens gently, opening until a head pokes through. Recognizing the face instantly, Mirae jumps slightly in shock before immediately getting up and bowing.

            “No need for the formalities Mirae ssi, I’ve known you for two years now,” Yoo Hyeri, CEO of Yunrae Entertainment, waves Mirae’s frantic bowing away. “And we’ll be working together a lot so let’s get friendly hm?”

            “A-ah, okay Yoo-nim,” Mirae sighs, knowing Hyeri was extremely stubborn and would probably insist on having things her way. “Is there any particular reason you came down here to see me? Usually you’re only roaming the top floors.”

            “That’s because there are a lot of management and business affairs to tend to,” Hyeri groans lightly. “But I’ve come down here on a mission; Jinhyuk ssi tells me you’ve been working on some music?”

            “Ahh, Jinhyuk-nim told me that you’d be coming down for this haha,” Mirae laughs softly, moving her hand over the mouse and clicking through a bunch of folders and files on her computer. She presses a couple buttons on the keyboard before turning back around. “I’ve been working with him in polishing up a few of my best songs. I’ve yet to write any lyrics for them though.”

            “No problem, mind letting me hear?” Hyeri asks, watching as Mirae’s slender fingers dance over the keyboard, making last minute adjustments to the track. Mirae nods and reaches over to pull her headphones out. Making sure her speakers were working and that the door was closed (last time she forget to close it some pesky trainees had come and peeked into her studio). Finally clicking play, Mirae leans back and watches Hyeri’s reaction.

         The older female taps her finger to the beat, completely focused on the melody playing from the speakers. She made no other action other than nodding to herself every so often at certain parts of the song. Hyeri was always like that. Mirae had found it nerve-wracking at first, how the normally playful and childish CEO could turn into a serious professional within two bars of a song, but now the sight was welcoming. If Hyeri heard something she didn’t like, she wouldn’t waste her time with it. She’d stop the song, dance, rap, whatever it was, within the first ten seconds and blatantly tell the other party that, well, they . So the fact that Hyeri was staying quiet and actually listening to the whole song meant that Mirae’s arrangement had already passed her first test.

            “That was good,” Hyeri says slowly after the song finishes. It replays again, looping in the background as Hyeri gives her criticism. “The chorus is a bit lacking though, you can’t really differentiate it from the pre-chorus and I think the bridge could use some cleaning up but other than that it’s solid. Fix it up and I’ll have Minseok ssi help you start writing some lyrics.” Nodding, Mirae stands up and thanks the CEO before Hyeri leaves; humming the song she had just listened to.

            Letting out a breath she didn’t even realize she was holding, Mirae leans against the wall and slides down a couple inches. Although the reaction had been good, Mirae had been secretly nervous about what Hyeri would think. Mirae had composed and produced songs before, back when she had been in Jellyfish Entertainment, and had had people listen and critique them, but nothing compared to the feeling of your boss dissected your work.

            “You should be used to that no?” a voice asks cheerfully, shocking Mirae out of her trance. Whirling around, Mirae’s eyes open as she stares at the taller male in front of her. “I mean, we’ve all been through monthly evaluations.”

            “Daehoon!” Mirae hisses, annoyed at the number of people that had been sneaking up on her lately. She glares at the older trainee, to which a small smile is returned.

            “That’s Daehoon oppa to you thank you very much,” Yoon Daehoon says cheekily, tapping Mirae on the nose before dancing out of her reach. “Don’t you have dance lessons in a couple minutes?” he asks in an attempt to distract her from yelling at him. Standing up straight, Mirae checks her phone and curses under her breath.

            “Great, now I’m going to be late because of you,” giving Daehoon one last mean stare, Mirae disappears into her workroom and grabs her bag (filled to the brim with musical scores, notebooks, and pencils) before locking the door behind her. “Don’t you have somewhere to be?”

            “Probably,” Daehoon shrugs, smiling at Mirae’s scowl. “You shouldn’t be so mean looking, what if the wind changes? Then your face will stay like that.”

            “What kind of saying is that?” Mirae rolls her eyes but finds herself smiling anyways. “You’re stupid Daehoonoppa, hurry up and go to practice.”

            “There you go, now you’re ready to face the world,” Daehoon grins, silently congratulating himself. “And I’m done practice, I’m going home now.”

            “Lucky,” Mirae sighs, checking the time. It was almost 8.

            “Well I’ve kind of been here since 4 AM so yeah,” Daehoon shrugs. “Good luck on your lesson, although the great Kim Mirae doesn’t need luck right?”

            “Yeah, yeah, yeah, whatever,” Mirae laughs a bit at Daehoon’s antics before shoving him in the direction of the staircase. “Now go, have a nice night or whatever. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

So I figured out what to do with Mirae. ^_^ In all honesty I said she wasn’t going to be a part of Cosmos yet I didn’t really know what to do with her lol. Low key wanted her to debut but I also felt like she’d be more of a behind-the-scenes producer. Well, now I’ve decided what her future is (and hinted at it xD). Can you guess what it is?? :D

Also, as you can see (or maybe you didn't) this is set in the past. I'm in the process of choosing characters rn and I'm planning on have a chapter for each of the chosen characters so be a bit more patient?

Hope you're smiling!

~ Yun