CHAPTER 12
⤫ AEON : END OF AN ERAChapter 12
“one two three four five six seven eight,” Youngbae led the count as they went over a new bit of choreography they were rehearsing. Nothing groundbreaking, just a slight change for the upcoming festival.
Jinyoung was only half paying attention as they ran through it once again. He couldn't get himself to care, honestly. He'd mastered the new steps on the second try and all they were doing now was going over them so that Chanhee and Seunghoon would remember them too. It was a waste of his time. He'd much rather be shut in his own room getting drunk right now than stuck in this practice room running through moves he already knew for the sake of a bunch of people who'd also much rather he wasn't here.
He knew what they thought about him. That he was ungrateful. That he was dragging the group down. That not even the fans wanted him there anymore and maybe they wouldn't keep tanking in sales if he wasn't here. He knew it was what they were thinking, it was plain there on their faces every time he grumbled at another run through. Every time he sighed when Youngbae turned the music back on. Every time he rolled his eyes when Chanhee messed up the steps again.
He was so tired.
“Would it kill you to put in some effort?” Chanhee asked when the song came to an end. Good Chanhee. Perfect Chanhee. He wasn't so perfectly nice to Jinyoung anymore since he knew what Jinyoung really thought of him. Good. “We're all putting in a team effort here.”
Jinyoung shrugged. “I know it already so what's the point?”
“The point is we're a team,” Youngbae said. Taking Chanhee's side of course. “You're one of the best dancers, it sets a good example if you actually put in effort.”
putting in effort. How much effort had he put into Aeon and how much had he actually gotten out of it? Zilch. Nada. Without his Troublemaker- ugh he didn't even have the energy for this. “I'm out,” he said. “Look at perfect Wonwoo for an example or whatever. I don’t care.”
“You can't just walk out of a practice,” Chanhee argued. Jinyoung didn't much care about what Chanhee argued. He grabbed his bag and his keys.
“It's nothing he hasn't done before,” he heard Seunghoon say. Seunghoon too. He closed the door behind him. all of them.
He got into his car. No fancy sponsorship car for him, one he had bought with his own money. Reliable and his. One they couldn’t take away from him. He closed the door, started the ignition, and drove away.
He didn't even feel angry. God, he missed feeling angry. He missed that rage he used to get, the yelling and the cursing and the smug satisfaction of winding them all up like wind up toys. At least then he had felt something. Now it was all just empty.
He stopped by his favorite liquor store on the way. A shop in a little alley, one of privacy. He briefly wondered what he should get today, but it wasn't like he'd taste it after the first few shots. Still he was a celebrity and should have celebrity taste, even if the fame was more infamy. that, too. He bought a nice scotch, would probably taste like piss for all the money it cost, but it'd get him nice and drunk while feeling like a king. A king of an empty kingdom still wore a crown.
He used his credit card of course. The company would foot that bill. They owed him.
Back at the apartment he didn't even bother with anything but grabbing a glass and retreating to his roof. He knew after a few glasses he'd start drinking from the bottle but before then he could keep the illusion of decorum.
The roof was empty as it usually was. Most people who lived here were celebrities who had better things to do than wallow on the roof garden in the middle of the night. Seunghoon came to smoke sometimes but he'd learned to avoid the late hours. Those were Jinyoung’s.
He poured a glass and gulped it straight down. It burned his throat. Good. It was strong stuff.
He looked at the glass in his hand, turning it this way and that so it caught the light above the door. Illusions were all that life was made of anyway. Illusions of fame. Illusions of fans. Illusions of grandeur. Illusions of friendship.
absolutely everyone on this planet.
He poured another glass and drank it as a shot, pouring it all down his throat in one go. Two down.
Chanhee for being the catalyst for his downfall. Seunghoon for leaving him for that like the rest of the world. It was always Woo Chanhee this, Woo Chanhee that. Everyone was bending over backwards for Woo Chanhee. Joowon for abandoning them. Youngbae for being the worst leader in the world. Wonwoo for being boring and perfect and oh so ing holier than thou. Hana for being an unloyal . Helix for cutting him loose the moment the coals got hot.
Another glass right down the gullet. His hands were going numb. Good.
His vision was starting to get hazy, the edges of his perception were blurring, the details were going soft. Were there any more yours on his list? That was about it, he thought. Helix, check. Hana, check. Wonwoo, Youngbae, Joowon, check. Seunghoon check. Chanhee, check check check. Yeah that was the list.
What was honestly even the ing point? the list. He took a swig straight from the bottle. decorum, too.
Oh! Seokmin! Seokmin for looking at him with that pity in his eyes. That ing pity. him in particular. Like he couldn't believe what ing monster little innocent Jinyoung had turned into. How sweet Jinyoung had been twisted and corrupted into this bitter broken thing and it pained Seokmin to look at him.
He laughed, a short burst as bitter as the scotch in his system. As if he didn't know that himself. He didn't need some crony company lap dog to tell him what a monster he was. Didn't need Seokmin to tell him about everything he'd lost. He just had to look into a mirror to see all of that.
Another swig. It didn't even burn anymore. How ironic that now he felt numb, like he didn’t feel numb every other moment of the day. What was even the ing difference?
Tick tock tick tock. Ten years were almost up. And what did he really have to show for it? Bitterness and a bank account propped up by album sales made not because of him but despite of him.
Tick tock tick tock. Here was the waste of space called Seo Jinyoung. Couldn't even get himself to run through a dance practice. Couldn't even get himself to not be a for an hour. A single hour.
Tick tock tick tock. If he was lucky he'd be remembered as the greatest up in South Korea since ing Kangin. He should step into a car right now and hit a pedestrian and maybe then his name would stick.
Tick tock tick tock. He was goddamned tired of everything.
Another swig. Why was he even drinking? What was even the point of it all? Was it just a point of habit? When he was sober he couldn't wait to get drunk, when he was drunk all he wanted to be was sober.
It was easier being stubborn and bitter and angry and numb sober.
When he was drunk he just hated himself.
It was rare nowadays that Seunghoon found himself at the company HQ. He didn’t practice much anymore, not since he started working. It was only supposed to be part time, but shifts had been heaping up anyway, more than he thought his contract allowed but he didn’t mind. At least his boss had told him that he’d be allowed to take most of a few weeks off when they actually managed to have their comeback, whenever that was. It wasn’t like there really was a need to practice anyway, not until they actually got more of this self-made comeback stuff rolling.
He was a little skeptical about the whole effort. They were an idol group, not an indie band. What idol group actually wrote their own music? It was unheard of. Well, Big Bang probably, but they were different. They’d always been different. Point was, what made them think that they could actually do a good job? What made them think that they could do all the things the company usually did for them? The CEO had made it clear he wanted nothing to do with this effort, that they had to do absolutely everything themselves if they wanted this. It felt silly to think they who knew nothing about any kind of music promotion or production could just do the jobs of those who were actually professional
But maybe they could? They had Joowon on it, and Joowon said they could, and Joowon could usually do whatever he set his mind on. If there was anyone who could actually get this done it was Joowon.
He had no idea how to write lyrics either. He’d considered contacting Eunha but he didn’t feel like he knew her well enough to start asking favors. He’d only met her twice. That had to be way too soon for this sort of thing. Maybe Jinyoung knew what to do, Jinyoung usually knew better. He’d been the one to actually teach Seunghoon proper singing technique and the like, maybe he totally knew about this too?
So that’s why he was at the company now. He had a shift in a few hours so he couldn’t stay long, but he knew Jinyoung would be here. Jinyoung had been here almost every day since the hiatus started. It was admirable to Seunghoon that he was putting so much effort into getting better, it made him feel a little bad for not putting the same effort in but he supposed it was easier when one didn’t have a job and bills to pay.
Wow. Bills to pay. Man that kind of .
At least he’d been too busy to stop and think much about other things that were definitely not getting thought about.
Jinyoung was in the practice room going over a dance, as expected. A new one it seemed. “Hey Jin!” Seunghoon said, leaning out of the doorway
Jinyoung visibly jumped. “Woah- oh hey Hoonie. You startled me.”
“What were you practicing?”
Jinyoung walked to the open laptop and turned off the music. “Just some dance I found on Youtube,” he said. “I wanted something a bit more difficult than our usual stuff. So I can get better. Just practicing our own songs isn’t going to make me a better dancer.”
“Oh. That makes sense.”
“What’s up? I haven’t seen you around here much.” Jinyoung almost sounded hurt.
“Well I’ve been working a lot,” Seunghoon defended himself, though truthfully that wasn’t the only reason.
“How’s work going?” Jinyoung asked. “You’re working in a supermarket right?”
“Yeah! It’s, eh, it’s kind of fun actually,” he said. And it was true, strangely. He had felt so nervous going in for his first day, hadn’t known what to do at all, but it was easy. Stocking just meant he had to go and restock things as they were bought and his coworkers were really nice. They often just ended up chatting while working, and while he hadn’t actually told anyone that he was an idol yet they had asked him a ton of questions about his little farm village. Most of them were students so he kind of stood out as an oddity but he didn’t mind. “I mean it’s mindless work but it’s easy and my coworkers are nice.”
“Oh. Well. That’s nice I guess.”
“Yeah…” Seunghoon trailed off. He felt like he should say something, show some interest in Jinyoung, but what to ask? “How are your parents? Have you been practicing every day?”
“They’re fine,” Jinyoung said. “Not every day, I help my mom at home sometimes, but I come here most often. I don’t really have anything else to do. Wonwoo and Baekhyun join me sometimes.”
“At least you’re not alone.”
Jinyoung shrugged. “I don’t mind being alone. Sometimes it’s easier that way. They’re not my favorite people to begin with, Baekhyun always asks me to slow down.”
Seunghoon didn’t really know what to say to that. Was Jinyoung accusing him of not practicing enough or was it just innocent? He honestly couldn’t tell and he didn’t like it. Time for a subject change. “I came here to ask you about songwriting actually,” he said. “I mean I don’t know anything about it but I thought you might?”
Jinyoung shook his head. “I’ve never done anything like that before either. I just know how to sing.We’ll figure something out though, we could always as Joowon hyung for help.”
Seunghoon nodded. “Yeah. Yeah that’s true.” He didn’t really want to though. Joowon had been doing so much for them, and he was already producing so much of the actual song. Seunghoon felt that they should at least give him a break with this. Maybe the internet would offer help?
“Did he finish the instrumentals?” Jinyoung asked.
Seunghoon shook his head. “Not yet.”
“Then why did you come all the way here?”
“I thought maybe we could brainstorm a little?” Truthfully he’d just wanted to talk to Jinyoung a bit. He hadn’t seen him in two weeks, he’d had to work late and missed the last Aeon Thursday Dinner Hangout, and even then it wasn’t quite the same with all of them. It felt weird with Jin now but he still wanted to try.
“Oh, well, I’m actually kind of in the middle of learning this new dance,” Jinyoung said. “Why don’t we wait until we actually have the music?”
“Right,” he tried not to sound too disappointed. “I should probably go too, I have work in an hour.”
“Alright. See you later?”
“Yeah.”
“You should call sometimes,” Jinyoung said when Seunghoon was almost through the door. “Just to talk or something? I’m usually home during the weekends?”
Seunghoon smiled. “Yeah! I’d like that.”
He tried not to feel too disappointed as he left the practice room behind. He’d give Jinyoung a call on the weekend before his Saturday evening shift and they could talk more. That would make things better, right?
He paused when he heard some music from somewhere. The plucks of strings on a guitar. Was there anyone around who could actually play guitar? For all he knew the actors were doing… well whatever it was the actors did on the first floor and nobody but them was in the basement like ever.
He couldn’t contain his curiosity. Man one of these days he was actually going to walk into a serial killer and die but he couldn’t help himself. He opened the door and looked inside. There was a guy sitting on top of one of the tables playing the guitar. He looked over, grinned, and strummed once more. “Hey there!” Oh it was the intern!
“Sorry!” Seunghoon said. “I heard the music and got curious.”
“Don’t sweat it, it’s not like I’m doing anything important.,” the intern said with a grin. “What can I do for you? Seunghoon, was it? You were the one with the cool whiny voice. Wait you’re a 90-liner right?”
“Yeah!” Seunghoon wavered in the doorway. He felt kind of bad for forgetting all about the intern’s name while the intern obviously remembered his.
“Nice, me too. Come in!” the intern said. Well there went Seunghoon’s hopes of masking the forgotten name with a ‘hyung’ here and there. “Please relieve me of my boredom. Do you want some coffee? I make a mean coffee.”
“Okay.” He wasn’t going to say no to some free coffee. He looked around the room, he’d never been in here before. It looked like a combination of a staff room and a technical music room. There was a computer with some sound boards and a keyboard and a little kitchenette on the other side with a sink and a can of coffee and some mugs. “What is this place?”
“Well when they hired me they didn’t really have a room for a composer, everything was outsourced to other companies. They kind of had to scramble when I came around, not that they ever let me use it.” He made a face. “I’d offered the internship to find some place quiet but I think I got more than I bargained for.”
“You offered this yourself?” Seunghoon asked.
“I did. I mean there were the usual placements everywhere, the big three, Cube, Starship, or some indie labels that I could have applied to, but competition was crazy for those spots. I figured I’d have a better time just finding somewhere quiet where they could really use my help so I emailed Helix. Free labor was a good incentive I guess. Didn’t really count on you guys being made non-active within like a month of me working here,” he laughed. “Anyway, you wanted coffee right?”
Well he was sure… direct. It was all true though so he guessed he couldn’t blame the guy. “Yes please!”
The intern (Seunghoon wondered how long he could keep this going before he had to admit he’d forgotten the guy’s name) set the guitar down against the wall and jumped off the table. “Oops, sorry, that wasn’t very tactful of me was it?This whole deal probably a whole lot more for you. How do you like your coffee?”
“It’s okay,” Seunghoon said. “It’s kind of but it is. We’re not really supposed to have any sugar, or, well, I don’t know if anyone still cares now but just in case, black I guess.”
“Have you tried it with milk? Coffee snobs usually sneer at that sort of thing but this coffee snob,” he pointed at himself with a grin. “Says that , the milk really brings out the best of the flavor.”
“No I haven’t! I’ll try it.”
“Excellent.” The intern said cheerfully before handing him a fresh cloudy mug of coffee.
“So what do you do all day then?” Seunghoon wondered. “I mean now that we’re not doing anything anymore either.”
“I sit here and I strum my guitar, my friend,” the intern said. He grabbed his guitar and gave it a good strum for effect. “That’s all I can do. Well that and I get people coffee. I try to write some songs here and there, mess around with the equipment, do some personal stuff. Maybe I can write some songs that can get sold when I graduate. I check twitter way too much too. That’s about it.”
“Oh! You know how to write songs!”
The intern laughed again. “What did you think I was here for? Well, to be fair, mostly to aid the ones actually writing the music, no company is gonna let its intern dictate an artist’s sound, but still. Yeah my dude, I’m a music student.” He strummed the guitar again.
“Can you teach me?”
That seemed to have caught him by surprise. “What? Teach you how to write songs?”
Had he assumed too much? That was probably way too much to just teach him. “Just writing lyrics,” Seunghoon said quickly. “Not the actual musical bit, I only know how to play piano and just a little bit of guitar.”
“Why do you want to learn?”
Should he tell him? Well he didn’t see why not. “We’re kind of writing our own song right now,” he said. “And I’m supposed to write the lyrics with Jinyoung.”
“That’s cool,” the intern said. “You’re taking your future in your own hands, I can respect that. Yeah, why not? It’s not like I have anything better to do. Do you have the music?”
“No, not yet, but I can come back when I do!”
The intern smiled. “Sure thing. How’s the coffee?”
Oh he’d forgotten to even try it. He took a sip. Huh. The milk did make it a bit softer and it was nice. “It’s good!”
“See?” the intern said with a happy grin. “I make the best coffee in this building.”
Seunghoon couldn’t help but laugh. “I admit, it’s really good coffee.” Maybe even better than the coffee Chanhee always got him from that cafe (though Chanhee’d get super offended if Seunghoon ever told him, maybe some things were better left unsaid).
“Told you! I know my coffee.” The intern leaned back with a goofy smile, looking ridiculously proud of himself.
“So you do.” The guy’s good mood was infectious. He seemed like an amicable enough guy, Seunghoon figured he could risk a small truth bomb. “So, okay, I’m going to admit that I totally forgot your name.”
The intern threw his head back and laughed. “I had an inkling!” He said. “Don’t worry about it, it happens to anyone. It’s Lee Doha.”
“I swear I won’t forget this time!”
“I’ll hold you to that.”
Seunghoon checked the clock. Oh darn it he had to go or he’d be late. “I have to go, sorry!”
“No problem. If you ever feel like having a coffee break, come find me.”
“I will! And I’ll let you know when Joowon hyung is done with the instrumental.” He closed the door behind him.
He’d been so nervous about the prospect of having to write their own music, he hadn’t thought of the possibility of finding help! Maybe, with a little help from a friendly intern, they could do this thing after all?
But first he had a a supermarket to stock.
Make a song, he’d said. It would be fun, he’d said.
Joowon grunted, slumped over the laptop. He had a dozen tabs open with various pop songs and tutorials and everything he could find to help him but it just wasn’t coming together. He knew what a title track should sound like. It should be layered, it should be danceable, it should be interesting. He hadn’t anticipated how difficult it would be to actually make one.
Well, no that wasn’t true. He had known it would be difficult, he had felt apprehensive about trying, but he’d pushed for this anyway. He wasn’t sure if that made it worse or not. He had to do it now, there was no way around it.
He had a pretty good drum line going, he thought. It kept a quick pace, with a little bit of synth distortion to keep with the trends. He wanted to keep things natural and keep the synths to a minimum, but he thought it’d be good to keep some so it wouldn’t sound too dated. They’d stand out more if they went with an overall more analogue approach, everyone and their uncles was doing dubstep or other synth-heavy music nowadays. The trick was standing out but not too much, not like a sore thumb…
He’d tried to infuse the song with some trumpets to really keep that real instrumentation feel going, but he was having trouble with getting it all to be balanced, and that was nothing compared to the trouble of toplining.
He’d never been the best at the melody aspect, even when he’d been in high school fidgeting with music. It was one thing to get a simple acoustic melody going, but now he had a drumline and some synths and some trumpet (a bit of a mess of it all honestly, but still), and how was he going to turn it into an actual song? There was something missing and it was bothering him, it was too sparse. Too simple. Not enough layers. He’d done extensive research, listened to what felt like dozens of songs to see how the beat and the topline interacted with each other, built each other up. How the layers of the song worked together in harmony to create an interesting listening experience… It was so much easier to listen to music and analyze it then it was to actually make it. He could spot an error in another song from a mile away, and he could spot an error in his own song too, but it was much harder to figure out how to actually debug that error.
He leaned his chin on his hand, looking at the empty library in front of him. It was 3AM, of course there weren’t any students around right now. Well, there was the one guy sleeping at the table in the corner, but that guy was almost sleeping at the table in the corner. Joowon wondered if he had a home at all or if that was the reason why he always slept at the library, head on some book. He was a little concerned, maybe he’d ask the guy if he was okay when he woke up.
For now there was nothing to distract him from his task, a task that had been taking too long as it was. He was supposed to have finished the instrumental days ago and he wasn’t even halfway. He pressed play again and buried his head in his hands as his headphones played the song and his brain told him that it wasn’t good enough, that something was missing.
He’d experimented with many a synth melody and it never quite fit right. He’d tried to put in more brass but that overpowered it all. He’d tried putting in piano but it just didn’t fit.
He scoured more of the internet, finding more obscure music to take inspiration from. He was hardly hearing the songs anymore but he had to keep going. The song had to be done soon. It had to be. They were depending on him.
He was on some blog now, some musician listing her top 20 obscure pop music compositions. He was good enough at English to have a gist of what she was talking about but he was mostly interested in listening to the songs as well. There were some European songs, two Arabic one, even an Israeli one. It was interesting to hear the additional micronotes in the Arabic song, it made them sound strange and foreign to his ears but in an interesting way. Still, he didn’t think adding micronotes was going to fix his composition.
There was one more song, some obscure song from Sweden. Joowon’s eyes widened as he listened to it. It had two different melodies in different ears, little airy guitar lines that made listening to it very interesting despite the fact that the song itself was quite sparse. It was brilliant! The two lines brilliantly played on each other, why hadn’t he thought of playing with the suggestion three-dimensionality? He could even keep the echoing going in the vocal topline as well, a call and response in both instrumentals and vocal line would tie them both together. Airy adlibs throughout could keep a whimsical feeling going throughout the song...
He pulled up the music program and cracked his knuckles. It was time to get going.
~*~
It was 3AM by the time he played the instrumental back to himself and it sounded good. It was 6AM by the time he had softly recorded a decent enough topline of nonsense into his small portable microphone, doing his best not to wake up the student in the back of the hall. It was 7AM when same student was sitting next to him, listening to the song and nodding with approval.
“It’s good!” the student said with a grin. “What’s this for?”
“My idol group,” Joowon said, chest filled with so much pride it might burst.
“An idol group producing their own music?” the student whistled. “Impressive. I have to go get ready for class but good luck with your song!”
“Hey,” Joowon tapped him to stop the guy in his tracks. “Are you doing okay?”
The student frowned. “Yeah,why? Oh, oh I don’t usually spend the night here,” he laughed sheepishly. “I live a bit outside the city and by the time I’m done writing an essay public transport has stopped so I just camp out here sometimes. No biggie!”
“Glad to hear it. Look out for Aeon’s comeback okay? It’s going to be great.” He couldn’t help but grin as the student left the library. He gave the song one more listen, nodding along with the beat. He’d done a lot today. Added guitar lines, edited the trumpets to be less overpowering, added the vocal topline. He was a little concerned that it might be too similar to the Swedish song, he knew he borrowed some ideas for the topline as well, but it was only taking inspiration from it. He honestly thought that with that inspiration he’d made a song that was even better. A song that was worthy of Aeon. Not the most sophisticated probably, definitely not the most trendy, but upbeat and fun and something they could dance to and be proud of. Everything their previous songs hadn’t been.
He was proud of himself. He couldn’t wait to show them. Maybe, with this song, they could finally put down a performance that they were all proud of
One two three four five six seven eight. One two three four five six seven eight. Jinyoung kept his eyes on the mirror as he ran through a new dance. He kept his eyes on his frame, making sure it moved just right, exactly the way it was supposed to..
There was something missing. He glanced at the screen of the laptop showing the video of the dancer, the old laptop he’d ‘borrowed’ from his dad and he very much hoped his dad wouldn’t miss. The dancer made it look so natural but it didn’t look quite the same when Jinyoung did it and it was driving him insane. He missed that, what was it, swagger? Something like that. The guy dancing to the Chris Brown song was all swagger, moving his body like he’d never done anything different. Jinyoung just couldn’t match that no matter how hard he tried.
He’d found out quickly enough in his self-imposed daily training sessions that just learning idol dances wasn’t actually going to make him a better dancer. The robotic synchronized movements could be learned by anyone with enough repetition and practice (exhibit A: Seunghoon), but real dance required something more. He’d never actually been taught real dance, it had always been learn from idol dancing, follow the same choreographies over and over again until they got it. Jinyoung picked them up quickly enough now, but turn on a random song and ask him to freestyle and he’d be lost.
He needed more. He needed to do better. Unfortunately he had no money for classes, this youtube learning was the best that he could do right now.
Jinyoung was startled out of his thoughts by the opening of the door. Seunghoon peeked in. “Hey Jin, are you ready to meet with Doha?”
Jinyoung blinked. “Who?”
“The intern I told you about! He’s going to help us write the song, remember?”
Oh , he’d totally forgotten that was today. “Right. Yeah. Let me just put my stuff away.” He closed the laptop and wiped some of the sweat off. Had he remembered he would’ve have pushed himself less hard today but nothing to be done about that now.
He was a little worried about having to write lyrics, he hadn’t done that before ever. He’d been curious about music and the writing thereof, had wanted to learn since he got into music, but he’d never had the opportunity. Now that he did it was daunting.
He followed Seunghoon to this little office/staff room holding a singular guy with a singular guitar. Jinyoung remembered him from the last recording session, he’d been nice.
“Seunghoon!” the intern, Doha, said. “Has the time come for you two to join my flock, padawans? Sit, I’ll make some coffee and we can get to work.”
“We got the music from Joowon hyung two days ago.” Seunghoon grabbed Joowon’s laptop from his bag and put it on the table. Jinyoung took a seat.
“Play it!” Doha instructed while making coffee, and the familiar instrumental filled the room. Jinyoung had listened to it a handful of times since Joowon had emailed them all the file. It sounded pretty good even with the gibberish guide vocals, though he was also a little dubious. It didn’t sound like any of the music that was popular right now. He was also afraid that it would be too out there, that it wouldn’t make a difference.
Doha set two mugs of coffee in front of them and took a seat, sliding a notebook and a pen over. “Neither of you has written a song before right?” Jinyoung and Seunghoon both shook their heads. “No poetry either?” More head shakes. His dad had objected to him singing, he didn’t even want to think of what his dad would have said had he come home wanting to write poetry. Nothing good that was for sure.
Doha leaned back and tapped the notebook with a pen for a moment. “Alright then, let’s get this party started. I’ve never taught anyone before either so we’re both out of our comfort zones!” He paused and thought for a moment. “Well, lyric writing is basically writing poetry with musical constraints. You have a small canvas, most songs are only about 100-300 words long, and you have to match both the tone and the meter of the song itself. When I’m tasked to write lyrics to someone else’s composition I usually like to close my eyes and listen to the composition a few times, let the music take me where it wants to take me. I don’t know what the composer had in mind when they made this piece of music so I have to let the music tell me instead.” He pushed the notebook between Jinyoung and Seunghoon. “How about we do that, and whenever the music tells you anything you write it down like a mind map. Think about mood or imagery, anything big or small, with no wrong answers. If you’re not sure, it’s okay, we’ll put it on repeat and listen to it again until the music has penetrated every fiber of your being.”
It sounded insane, but Jinyoung nodded anyway when Seunghoon did without hesitation. He supposed he could give it a try. He closed his eyes, and he listened.
“And?” Doha prompted once the song was done.
“It’s up beat but also a little sad,” he said.
“You think so?” Seunghoon asked. “I think it sounds quite cheerful.”
Jinyoung nodded. “I do. It sounds like it’s just trying to be cheerful all the time, but it’s not really, you know?”
Doha snapped his fingers. “That’s a very interesting angle, I like it! Tell me more, why is the song trying to be cheerful? What’s the story behind it?”
Jinyoung frowned. “I don’t know. I’m not sure. Maybe he wants to keep hope strong and doesn’t want to give up?” Oh no that sounded way too personal. “N-no- I mean-”
“It’s okay, that’s a good idea,” Doha reassured him. “What do you think, Seunghoon?”
Seunghoon glanced at Jinyoung, and he squirmed a little. “I think it might be a good idea to relate it to us,” he said. “The group, I mean. Maybe we could write something that’s personal to us?”
Jinyoung shook his head. He didn’t like that at all, it felt… vulnerable. Opening himself up like that did not seem like a good idea at all. “Shouldn’t we stick to a love song? Those sell better, don’t they?”
“The beauty about poetry is that you don’t always have to say things outright,” Doha said. “The artform is there for deception, for hiding its true meaning under silvery words wrapped in metaphor. Sometimes the poet is clear with his meaning, when he really wants to make sure that people understand was is conveyed. Sometimes he is indirect, waiting for the listener to unpack his meaning, when only those who put in the effort get to partake in the understanding. A love song is the more palatable option, but that doesn’t mean a love song always has to be just a love song. Sometimes a song looks like a normal peanut butter sandwich from the outside, but when you take a bite you find that it’s also got delicious jelly in it! The jelly doesn’t erase the peanut butter, it just enriches it. Sweet and savory all at once.” He laughed. “Is anyone else hungry?”
Doha left the room to grab some food for the three of them and Jinyoung leaned to Seunghoon the moment the intern left the room. “What do you think?” he asked a little nervously. “Do you think we can really do this?”
“I don’t see why not,” Seunghoon answered. “Wouldn’t it be cool to write a song for ourselves for once? I really like the idea of commenting on everything in the guise of a love song, that was brilliant of you!”
“Oh,” Jinyoung blinked. “Oh, yeah. It was, wasn’t it?” He hadn’t thought of it like that. And it would be nice to write some lyrics for once! He had considered learning songwriting for a while and maybe this would be a good opportunity?
Seunghoon beamed at him. “Don’t worry, we can do this I’m sure. I mean you’re already doing this, right?”
Jinyoung smiled back. “Right!”
When Doha came back the three of them bent over the notepad to pen the actual lyrics and Jinyoung found it was easier than he thought it would be. Well, to be fair, Doha did half of the work, translating his thoughts into actual lines to match the beats, but still! It took them three hours to get to a final draft, but when they did Doha set down the pencil and leaned back. “I think this is it!”
“Are you sure the hook isn’t too on the nose?” Jinyoung asked. He didn’t want to be one of those whiny groups who just sings about how ty they had it, but Seunghoon and Doha had grabbed onto the idea fiercely.
“‘Nothing’s Over?’” Doha asked. “I think it’s perfect. It has clear connections to a breakup but it’s also a message where fans might want to read into one.”
Seunghoon nodded along. “I like it.”
Doha turned back to the notepad ahead of him. “Okay so let’s go over things one more time, shall we? Make sure they’re coherent. We have: ‘You’re getting further away, a distant dot, I can’t take a single step, only my heart is chasing after you. I’m still, I couldn’t even make an explanation. I take a step back and say goodbye. Just for a short moment I say goodbye.’ That sounds finished to me, yeah?”
Jinyoung nodded, feeling the bubble of pride for having come up with a good half of those lyrics.
“And that follows up with the chorus ‘Nothing’s over, nothing’s over, nothing’s over, I memorize this spell. You can’t move on from us,. It’s not over yet, I can’t let this go.’”
“Can we make this bit in the chorus more specifically love story?” Jinyoung asked.
Doha nodded. “Okay, we can change it up a bit. Maybe ‘You can’t meet another guy’ instead? The implications are still there.”
Jinyoung nodded. “Yeah, that’s better. And the last part too? Maybe it can be ‘we can break up’ instead?” That should keep things from getting too close.
Doha looked at Seunghoon. “Do you protest the change?”
Seunghoon frowned and for a second Jinyoung thought he would, but then Seunghoon shook his head. “No it’s alright.”
Jinyoung let out a breath. And Doha hadn’t even had to supply the actual line! That did feel good. “Is that it, then?”
“Do you have anything you want to change?” Doha asked Seunghoon.
“No, I think it’s perfect.” Seunghoon said. He glanced at the clock. “Oh it’s late, I should get going! I have to work soon!”
“Oh,” Jinyoung said. He’d hoped that maybe they could do something after they wrote the song, maybe he could get Seunghoon to practice with him for a bit like they used to. They both got up to leave and Jinyoung felt his legs complain about sitting for so long.
“Writing a full set of lyrics in three hours with two noobs is no small feet,” Doha said. “You should both be proud of yourselves. And don’t forget to credit me when you register the song!”
He hadn’t thought about the crediting thing, of course Doha should get a songwriting credit. Probably one above the two of them, he’d done more work after all.
They said goodbye to the intern and Seunghoon was off to go to work, leaving Jinyoung all alone again. It was only late afternoon, he should get back to practicing. He still hadn’t mastered that natural swag, but he sure wasn’t going to give up now.
Youngbae was in a bit of a pickle. Why had he volunteered to front the money for this comeback effort? Well, he knew why. It wasn’t like he could offer anything else so he figured he should at least foot the bill. At least then he’d be contributing something. As the leader it wouldn’t be right for anyone of the others to be burdened with this after all. Seunghoon had been working so much to be able to afford the rent and he hardly saw Joowon anymore wi
th all the part time jobs he was doing. It should be him.
His bank account was emptying fast though. The last bits of money he had left over from the college fund his parents had been giving him was draining. There were maybe a few months rent leftover, and that was without also taking the money for the MV shoot into account.
Chanhee had come up with the genius idea of talking to some film students and seeing if they couldn’t strike up a deal with them. They’d get to do something cool for an assignment or something and get a little bit of pay out of it and Aeon got a cheap but creative music video. That sounded perfect, right? But things like location, props, equipment, and the small wage they were paying the students still had to be paid, and Youngbae had been dumb enough to volunteer for it.
Where was he going to find the money?
He couldn’t borrow it, what bank was going to lend him money? He didn’t know much about the borrowing of money but he did know that they wouldn’t give you anything if you didn’t have a job. Youngbae had been trying to find a job but it was difficult. He had no credentials at all, the company didn’t want them to work and had strongly discouraged (in their words, Bae knew well enough that it meant do not under any circumstances in nicer language) and he hadn’t been so lucky as Seunghoon and found something right around the corner. No such luck for him.
So he’d mostly been practicing here and there, helping Baekhyun with his rap, and hanging out with Jinah whenever possible. At least things with Jinah were great now! It was almost as if nothing had changed between them (well, aside from less kissing and , that was Taehyun’s job now. Ew.).
He’d met her boyfriend a few times now. He was kind of spineless, Youngbae thought. He also didn’t like Youngbae much, or so Youngbae thought as well. He probably felt threatened. So spineless. He honestly didn’t know what Jinah saw in the guy, he wasn’t even all that handsome, but oh well. It was her choice. Rather her than him in any case.
So here he was, going up to her apartment once more to watch some movies with her. No biggie.
“Hey Bae,” she said after he knocked on the door. “Come in!”
“I brought chicken,” Youngbae held up the bag of takeout chicken wings that had been tempting him for the whole walk here. “Did you get the movie?”
“One terrible horror movie, ready to go! Let’s eat first and then watch the movie. We don’t want a repeat of last time.”
Youngbae laughed sheepishly. Last time they’d eaten takeout ramen while watching a horror movie and he’d jumped and thrown it all over both himself and Jinah. “Okay yeah that’s a good idea.”
Jinah grabbed the little table while Youngbae grabbed cutlery and plates and set the table. Before long they were both digging into that sweet sweet meat. “So,” Jinah said between bites. It always amused Youngbae how she could demolish food despite being a dentist. Was chicken bad for teeth? He didn’t know. Wasn’t any food bad for teeth? “How are things going with the group? You guys are working on creating your own thing right? Is that still going well?”
Youngbae grimaced. “Sort of. I mean the song still isn’t ready but that’s fine, I think they have a deadline next week? But also I, eh, might have offered something I can’t quite make good on and I don’t really know what to do. Eh. Do you know how people borrow money? Like from a bank? Do you think they’d lend money to me?”
Jinah put the chicken leg she’d be chomping on down. “Bae, what have you done? Are you okay? Are you in trouble?”
“No no!” he quickly said. She was going to think he’d fallen in with a gang or something! Or had they just watched too many crime movies? “No it’s just, they need me to find the MV and I don’t have enough savings left. But if I don’t do it then there won’t be any money for the MV and then everything we’ve worked for will be gone.”
“Oh Bae, why do you put yourself into these positions?” Jinah said unhappily. “What about the others? Can’t they help?”
Youngbae shook his head. “They don’t have much either and the company is refusing to help us. We’ve already got some free clothes thanks to Wonwoo’s connections but that’s all going to be for nothing if we can’t shoot the MV too. I have just about enough but if I pay that out of my savings then I won’t have enough money for rent.” He buried his head in his hands. “I don’t know what to do!”
Jinah sidled up next to him and gave him a hug. “It’s okay, shht. We’ll figure something out, okay? Maybe my parents can help? They always tell me to call them if I need more money, we could help you out as long as you pay it back, okay?”
“Really?” Youngbae hadn’t expected her to offer anything like this! He’d only just wanted to get his worries off his chest and see if he could get some advice from her. “Oh no but isn’t that too much to ask?”
“I know this is important to you,” Jinah said.”And you’re important to me. You’re family Bae. If you’re in trouble then I’ll be here for you. No matter what.”
He hugged her tight. “You’re family to me too! Thank you so much oh my god!” What would he do without her? “You’re the best human on this planet Jinah!”
She laughed. “I can’t breathe Bae!” He released her just a little. It felt so right to have his arms around her again. He thought the same thing every single time they hugged goodbye, but especially now. It felt so right. It felt so right and he hated that Taehyun guy so much.
“So when do I get to hear this new song of yours?” Jinah asked, disentangling herself from him and returning to her plate of chicken. As always there was a Jinah shaped hole where she’d just been.
“It’s not done yet,” Youngbae said. “Joowon is still working on it, though he’s supposed to be done soon. Then Seunghoon and Jinyoung will make lyrics and Wonwoo and Baekhyun will make the dance and it’ll all be done. I think they want to make a comeback by the end of the month at the latest.”
“Have you thought about what you’ll do if this one doesn’t work out either?” she asked.
Youngbae shook his head. He’d thought about anything but that, honestly. “I don’t know. Keep trying. At some point it has to work out right? It will only fail if we stopped trying.”
Jinah nodded. “Just, you know, keep an open mind too, okay? You never know what happens, but that can be both positive and negative.”
“I will,” he said, making absolutely no plans to. Things would work out, he just knew it. They worked so hard on this it would be cruel for things not to work out. Such hard work had to be rewarded somehow. “Should we go watch the movie?”
“Help me clean up and we can watch.”
They both cleaned up the chicken, putting the leftovers away and cleaning the table, before they settled on the sofa to watch the movie. Youngbae loved horror movies the most because Jinah always got scared during them and then she’d get all cute and curl up on herself and he’d put his arm around her to make her feel better. To make her feel safe (and to make himself feel safe too, horror movies were scary, even the bad ones).
With the lights off, the glow of the television illuminating their face, and Jinah curled up next to him with her hands covering her eyes, well, it all felt like it had been before. It was all just the same. Nevermind that he’d have to take the night metro back home or sleep on the sofa. Nevermind that there was that slight awkwardness whenever they accidentally touch. That was all forgotten during the movie and they were just two friends huddled together and scared.
Just two friends. Nothing more. Just friends
“Where are we meeting these students again?” Joowon asked.
“We’re almost there,” Chanhee said. “It’s just some empty building but it’s got everything we need. Here, take a right here and it should be at the end of the road.” Chanhee pointed at the exit and Joowon steered the van into a turn.
It was criminally early, something that seemed to be a pattern for these music video shoots, but Chanhee was too hyped on excitement to feel tired. The sun only just peeked out from the horizon, barely visible between the distant skyscrapers of Seoul, but Chanhee was pumped!
Youngbae leaned in from the back, almost buried by boxes and supplies and clothes wrapped in plastic covers. They were all packed into Seokmin’s van (which he’d been nice enough to lend him after Joowon had reminded him of his apparent promise to help them. Chanhee had been impressed.), including Wonwoo’s little sister who wanted to help, plus supplies and everything the twins had asked them to bring and to say it was a full house was an understatement. “Who are these students again?”
“Lee Minhyuk and Lee Minhee,” Chanhee said. Hyeran had known two students who might be able to help them when he’d blabbed a bit about a film project, and he’d found the twins to be pretty damned awesome so that was a bonus. “There they are!”
As the building rose into view, so did the twins, a girl and a guy, standing on the big empty parking lot next to two vans and a trailer filled to the brim with all sorts of stuff. The building itself was squat and rather boring, Wonwoo had said something about them turning it into some sort of office space, but Wonwoo’s father had done a favor for the developers once and they were allowed to use it for free this weekend.
Chanhee leaned out of the window and waved at the twins. “Hey!!”
Joowon got out of the van first to greet them, and Chanhee sauntered after with a grin. “Hey, I’m Joowon,” he said, holding his hand out to the guy. “You must be Lee Minhyuk.”
“Oh- I’m- not-” the guy stammered. Chanhee burst out laughing. He’d been waiting for this all day.
“I’m Minhyuk,” the girl interjected, pushing her brother aside to shake Joowon’s hand. “Don’t ask, it’s a long story.”
“It’s not that long,” Minhee said.
“Yeah but I don’t feel like telling it every time we meet someone ne-”
There was a crash behind them. Bae stood next to the van, one box still in his hands, two other boxes were now on the floor, contents spilled onto the concrete. “Sorry!”
“Let me help,” Minhee hurried to help put some of the clothes, thankfully wrapped in plastic, back into the box. Their sweet stylist Ahyoung had somehow managed to get a clothing store to sponsor them. Nothing gucci or prada, it was a budget store, but it worked and Chanhee rather liked the pastel pants the outfits had going on.
Minhyuk clapped her hands. “Leave everything but the newspapers and the pillows and the toilet paper rolls, we’ve got to set everything up first.”
“Should you show them the storyboards first?” Minhee wondered.
“Oh, right! Let me show you what your MV will look like and then we can set everything up accordingly. Oh, it’s okay if I blog about everything too, right? Minhee might take some photos here and there for the site, but I thought it would be cool to write about the makings of an idol music video.”
“I don’t see why not,” Chanhee said, glancing at Joowon. “What say you, hyung?”
“Sounds fine to me,” Joowon said.
“The hyung has spoken. It is allowed,” he said solemnly and laughed as he ducked to dodge a flick from Joowon. He quickly joined Minhee. “Tell me about my breakout role!”
They quickly went over the storyboards Minhyuk had drawn out while Minhee got to work setting up some newspaper-covered cardboard walls. Chanhee had to admit it was genius, he’d be going around heartbroken while the rest of the members tried to comfort him in various ways. Minhyuk explained that she had designed a complex set designed to connect together in one take, and that the last half would be more improvised because designing the first half had been hard enough as it was and they just had to deal with it, a logic Chanhee found difficult to argue against.
Youngji just stared at the storyboards with big eyes. “This is so cool,” she said.
“Let’s get to work!” Minhyuk said when she finished explaining. “Did you bring the newspapers I asked you to bring? All of them?”
Jinyoung grabbed the thick thick stacks of newspapers they had systematically stolen from the Joowon’s university library, Seunghoon’s supermarket, and their families. “Is this enough, you think?”
“We’ll just have to find out,” Minhyuk said. “Minhee’s setting up the newspaper walls and ceiling, but for the floor we’ll have to put down a plastic tarp and plaster it with newspapers so it fits the aesthetic but is sturdy enough to dance on.” She regarded them all for a moment. “Why are you all so short. Okay, you,” she pointed at Wonwoo, the only one of them who was fairly tall. “Go help Minhee set up the ceiling and the curtain racks. What use are men when they’re all tiny,” she muttered to herself. She pointed at Jinyoung and Seunghoon. “You two are on toilet roll stacking duty.” She pointed at Chanhee, Joowon, and Baekhyun. “You three go plaster newspapers onto the tarp, and please try not to get glue on everything.”
“What about me?” Youngji ased.
Minhyuk grinned. “You’re the only one I trust to help me with the rails.”
Youngji’s eyes widened. “There’s rails?”
“Well yeah, the chair isn’t going to move itself, is it? Let me show you how to get the mechanism set up, it’s really neat. I kind of stole it from the faculty though so we have to be careful with it.”
They were all put to work, but Chanhee had to admit he loved it, even if all they were doing was glue newspapers onto a tarp with rough paint brushes like some paper mache kindergarten class. He would also never admit to being the one to launch a blob of paint at Joowon and accidentally hitting Minhee straight in the face, nope, never.
After setting up the walls and the ceiling, Minhee went around with a camera taking photos of all of them at work, which brought with it a whole other game as Chanhee tried is best to ridiculously photobomb exactly all of the photos taken in their room. Even Seunghoon was having a good time, he noticed, when he and Jinyoung burst out laughing as they accidentally toppled over the toilet paper roll wall for the second time. The whole atmosphere was light and fun, Chanhee would never have guessed that manual labor would be this much fun, he was almost tempted to do it more often. Almost.
When the floor and the toilet paper rolls were done they were put to work stacking boxes exactly the way Minhyuk instructed. They were all wrapped in white tissue paper and Chanhee wondered how much effort the twins had put in to ready all of these materials. She even had boxes with the letters N O T H I N G S O V E R cut out of them for in the background, and a old ty television wrapped in cardboard. She’d thought of anything.
“What do you think?” Youngji asked when all of them stepped outside for a break. She stepped aside to reveal the back of one of the mattresses with tape spelling out ‘Not Over’ on it.
“I think it’s perfect,” Minhee smiled.
“It was her idea to use the tape to write things,” Minhyuk said. “We’re gonna use it for the ending shot too. This girl could become a ing film student.” Youngji glowed at the praise.
Chanhee took charge when it was time for them to get ready for filming. It had taken them many hours to get everything ready, it was already afternoon now, and quite hot too. He was glad the pastel pants and t-shirt combos were first. He went around tossing packets of clothes at the others. Baekhyun liked pink so he got the pink treatment, the purple color was awesome so it went to Seunghoon, Joowon had been in the navy so he got navy, etc.
“Why do I get the other pink?” Youngbae complained.
“Hush,” Chanhee said. “This is my contribution and you all have to listen to what I say.” He was definitely enjoying this way too much. Accessorizing here and there, tucking in a shirt here, artfully messing up some hair with hairspray at the ready there, and they all looked perfect. Well, as perfect as they could without a stylist on hand, but beggars couldn’t be choosers now could they?
“We have to do this in one take,” Minhyuk said when they were ready, pacing in front of them like a military commander addressing her troops. Minhee was still taking photos behind her. “You have to get this right or we have to do everything all over again. That includes stacking the toilet paper rolls.”
“Please don’t mess it up,” Jinyoung begged. “Please.”
Minhyuk turned to Chanhee. “Chanhee, remember what we practiced? You spin the record, get the ring, look super sad until the camera pans back to Wonwoo and you have to get onto the bed next to Seunghoon. Wonwoo walks backwards while lip syncing and holding the television, and when he’s done the camera turns to the gap in the box wall to Seunghoon and Chanhee. When you’re done, Wonwoo, make sure you get back to the newspaper room and sit down. When you’re done with your lines, Seunghoon, the mattress will fall down and both of you go via the right and position yourselves in the newspaper room and wait until Jinyoung’s mattress smashes through the toilet paper wall. Then Jinyoung, you join all of them and you lip sync and that’s a take. Do you have that?”
“Aye aye, captain!” Chanhee said.
They didn’t have that. First take didn’t even go past Wonwoo as he almost tripped while walking backwards and came this close to knocking the box wall down with him. Second take they messed up the mattress drops and all of them had to stack all of the toilet papers back up again. Third time was the charm, though, and the finally managed to get a good take.
“How does that look?” Joowon asked as Minhyuk was looking at the footage on her camera. Chanhee noted that it was a far cry from the big screens that were used during real MV shoots, but he kind of liked it. It was all analog.
“Looks good to me,” she said. “But let’s run through it one more time so we have two good takes to work with.”
Again the toilet paper wall was built up, and again they ran through things. After that they shot a dance shot (which Minhyuk insisted had to be there, if she was going to shoot an idol MV then she was going to do it right).
Chanhee had to admit he was very nervous when he got into the chair on the rails and had to trust Baekhyun to push him forward. He likes Minhyuk and Youngji a lot, but trust them on a rickety rails with his life? Nope. But, as much of a miracle as that was, the rails performed as they should and he survived the encounter while Youngbae poked and prodded him as he delivered his lines.
It was already late when they got to the outside bits and, right after filming another dance cut, Minhee gleefully sprayed them with this foamey spray (“Is this really necessary?!” “It is! The faculty had the spray and I really really wanted to use it!”) while Jinyoung and Seunghoon serenaded him.
His favourite part, by far, was the one where he got to drive away from those s in the cute little minivan that was apparently Minhyuk’s. He considered waving goodbye and driving onto the road, he should be crowned a saint for nothing it, honestly.
Twilight was bathing the parking lot in shades of purple when he stepped out of the car, letting the car door bang closed. “That’s a wrap!” Minhyuk called out with a grin on her face.
“Good job!” Minhee said, going around with high fives.
“Did we do it?” Youngbae asked. “Let’s get some drinks to celebrate!”
Minhyuk burst out laughing. “Oh- oh that’s cute! Oh you’re adorable, oppa. Off your asses you butts, you’re not leaving here until everything is cleaned and backed, and careful with the equipment!”
It took them hours to strip everything and pack everything (and they had enough toilet paper now to last a whole apocalypse). They had to carefully repack the clothes, dismantle the rails, take off the tarp with the newspaper stuff, clean the place, and pack everything into the vans. Five hours later Joowon slammed the boot of the van down. “There,” he said. “I think that’s all of it.”
“Do you still want to grab that drink?” Minhyuk asked with a lopsided smile.
Youngbae laughed and looked back at the others. Chanhee mouths “god, no” with wide eyes.
“I think we’re going to pass,” Joowon said for him. “All we’re going to do now is grab food and pass out.” He shook their hands again. “Thank you so much for the help with this, what you made was amazing.”
“Hey, the most time-consuming part is still ahead of me,” Minhyuk said with a cringe. “Talk to me when it’s edited. At least I can say that I’ll have a one of a kind year project under my belt. I’ll let you know when the MV is done, and don’t be a stranger!”
The twins filtered into their own cars while Joowon drove the group back home. There was a silence is the car as the streetlights streaked across the windows. Chanhee leaned his head against the window himself, he didn’t feel much like talking either. He was exhausted, eyes drooping. Man though. Man, that had been an amazing day. He smiled to himself. He didn’t think he’d ever enjoyed himself so much on set, and the best part had been simply working together to put it all up. He was never underestimating the role of the production crew ever again, but he also didn’t think that he’d ever forget this day.
They would have the best MV of the year, that’s what he was sure of, and none of the groups could say they put as much effort into it as they had.
He just hoped that effort would be enough.
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