Track 3 - Can I Be Close To You?

We Were Once
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♬♬♬

Yoo Si Jin



"Hey, I was going through the song you made me listen to last night and I think it could make the cut to the album. It's a different feel. Even the other boys think of the same thing," The voice on the other line was muffled and too difficult to even comprehend early in the morning, "Care to meet us at 10 at Taebaek Records?" 

"Yeah. Sure. Okay. That's great. Yeah,"

I didn't even have the right words to say after being woken up by Dae Young's phone call. All that was there to be understood was that he thinks the song sounds great, and that he wanted to get it in the next album. I had no objections about it whatsoever, but I was extremely peeved he cut my sleep short. 

"What?" I heard him ask from the other line, "You think it's okay?"

I wasn't really okay; deep within me, I wanted to curse at him and whack him on the head with my guitar for disturbing my peaceful sleep. 

"What makes you think I'm cross about it?" I mumbled instead, but I was clearly internally irked.

"Nothing. I just thought maybe you wanted it to be a single," Dae Young shared, which I thought was a good thing too. Having that newly-composed song could either be good in an album or as a stand-alone. There was no right or wrong on that little shot; all we had to do was to choose which is the better option. 

I was about to put my phone down when Dae Young made me not to with what he was about to say. 

"You've gone viral over the past sixteen hours, just so you know," He told me, "You've had about twenty seconds of morning fame in the early entertainment news," 

"Was it because you made a little teaser out of the new song?"

"Nope. It was about fans claiming they saw Eugene last night at the park," 

I sighed. Never did I expect people to still know me after a few years of lying low and keeping it all discreet in the music industry, "It'll die down soon, I hope," 

Dae Young chuckled on the other end of the line, "Don't worry. There aren't any negative comments about it. People were just wondering where you'd been this whole time," 

"How sweet," Sarcasm was within me.

"Why don't you come to one of our gigs?" 

I raised a brow, "I always come to your gigs. Every one of them," 

"Aigoo. You know I meant something else. Get your guitar and your up onstage once again. Everybody misses the five of us together, especially you," 

There he goes again, blabbering about the good old days I never want to go back to. Seo Dae Young was the most persistent panther in getting me back to play, but I never was drawn into the lights or the tours or even the filthy music industry itself. I loved making them, and moreso playing alongside one of the best group of people, but never to get music and talent sold and make a fortune out of it. 

I brushed my knuckles against the soft sheets of the bed before answering. 

"Um, let me think about it...no. Bye." I said before hanging up and putting the phone back to its rest on the bedside table. The whole room was back to its quiet, peaceful state—the way it was back when I could only think about sleep—but I was already shaken awake with the phone call. The numbing, lethargic feeling had already died down and left me, and there was no other option left except getting up and get working. 

My home has been my workspace since I graduated from college. Dad thinks I was a sorry excuse for education because I ended up following music than the course I took up. Clearly, it wasn't my choice to study business. The moment I was through with college, I wanted to be away from home (and from the uptight, constant nagging of working for the family business) to do what I loved doing. 

The downside though was that I had to do things on my own. It was difficult at first, not having anyone to clean after your mess, but I guess anyone could pick up to that kind of maturity and sense of responsibility. My little apartment loft has been pretty much kept clean by my good pair of hands and the mini vacuum cleaner Mom brought me last Chuseok. I also had the liberty to put up some of my music mementos, and even get a huge rack of vinyl records up on one side. 

I loved my cave. 

As soon as morning coffee was done brewing, I took a cup and quickly sat back by the little couch in my bedroom. My guitar was on top of it, still inside the huge case and left untouched the moment I arrived home from Dae Young's place. 

I wondered if Kang Mo Yeon secured my phone number, and if she did see the note I attached to the bill. If she was studying medicine, she must be trained to be very particular in detail. A little rolled paper should be visible to her eyes, but she had never left a call since I arrived from our little impromptu gig by the park. 

"Oh well," I mumbled, placing the coffee up the table and taking the guitar out of its case. The new strings did make wonders last night at the park; I never knew it sounded good, much more with a cello. Her cello.

I never knew it would feel good playing in front of a crowd of people. Perhaps it was because of the silence. The stillness that accompanied with the music. People weren't screaming my name, nor were they screaming hers, or anything in particular. They had their eyes focused and their ears glued to each flick of a chord. 

They listened. 

My fingers instantaneously moved to the memory I had of the melody instilled in my mind—way back when I last saw her by the bus stop. The same one that I felt that night by the park. 

The same thoughts I'd feel when she was there. 



In the morning when I wake
And the sun is coming through 
Oh, you fill my lungs with sweetness
And you fill my head with you

Shall I write it in a letter
Shall I try to get it down
Oh, you fill my head with pieces 
Of a song I can't get out

Can I be close to you? 
Can I be close to you? 




The whole solo session was a rad one until the phone rang again. Great. Everytime I get to be at my calmest, most serene state, someone just succeeds in ruining it with a telephone call. 

I got up, simultaneously reminding myself to throw the telephone away and just rely with the street payphones. "Yeoboseyo?" 

"Hi, um, Yoo Si Jin-ssi?" 

. It's her. It was definitely her. "Mo Yeon? Kang Mo Yeon-ssi?" 

"Yes. It's me," She sounded uneasy and out of breath.

"Were you running? You sounded like someone was chasing you," 

"I had to. From the second floor down to the payphone. How could you not tell me?" 

"Tell you about what?" 

"That you're Eugene?" 

I blinked, "How did you find out about that?" 

"Ji Soo arrived earlier telling me about you being spotted at the park with a cellist, and she's really getting way overwhelmed about you coming out to the public of a sudden," 

I chuckled, "Wah. Is your friend like, a member of the band's fanbase?" 

"I don't know, but she could possibly be one, but that's not what's important!" She basically shrieked on the phone that I had to pull it away immediately, "How come you never told me about you being the band's composer?" 

"You didn't have to know, though. You said you never took interest with bands like ours, and seeing you not giving a damn while I was around was a total relief, I needed someone like that. And so I thought I might as well be the friendly guy you'd see lounging by the bar than being thought of as the ex-band member who didn't want the fame," I explained, wishing that I was telling her all of this personally than on the phone because I was curious how she was taking all of this. Was she excited? Was she sad or disheartened? I really couldn't tell with just her voice. 

"Well, okay," 

"Are you mad?" 

"Aniya," She breathed hard that it whirred on the line, "I'm kinda overwhelmed and curious," 

"Because?" 

"Probably overwhelmed because I'm talking to a legit musician-slash-songwriter," She continued on, "And partially curious with your actions," 

"What actions of mine make you curious?" 

"I don't know. It might not be really much of a huge thing for you, but for someone like who just heard about you seconds ago, it might be. It's probably because you got out of the group? Why did you go? It seemed like a sad time to leave when the band's still at the top of its game, isn't it?" 

Her questions were the same as the usual ones I'd encounter, but it was overwhelming that I sat on my bed and eventually laid down on one side; my right ear pressing the wired phone down against my pillow, "I'll pass in answering that, but perhaps your friend might know. She probably has more to say than I do," 

"But you gave me your contact number," 

"I gave it for a different reason, Kang Mo Yeon-ssi. I think I wrote it clear on that note," I said, "I don't want to treat you like a fan, nor do I want you to see me as someone famous," 

"News flash: you still are famous," 

I laughed, "I insist I'm not. But please, can we be friends instead?" 

There was a long pause on the other end of the call, but I was certain she was still there. The soft music of her room's radio was filling the void for us. 

"Okay," She snapped, surprising me, "We're friends now. No longer strangers who met each other at the pub many days ago," 

"I'm cool with that," 

"But you know, friends still got to get to know each other. You cannot simply stop me from asking you questions, because I have a lot of them," Mo Yeon sounded threatening, as though she was warning me she could pull off something that I was not capable of facing, but I wasn't threatened at all. In fact, I found it cute. 

"Relax," I held on the phone receiver's body with both hands, because I badly wished it was her face, "I've got answers for that," 
 


♬♬♬



The day finally begun once I got dressed up. It was 9:50, and I had to get to the recording studio by 10 to meet up with the band. With only ten minutes to spare, I quickly got to the basement and hopped on my cream-white Vespa scooter to the studio. 

I know, it's vintage material, but the Vespa wasn't from Matt Spencer. I just had this strange liking for anything laid-back and old. Back in graduation, Daniel knew I got the crazies about owning a Volkswagen Beetle (clearly a weird choice because everyone would've wanted me to own a Hyundai), but instead of getting me that, he gave me a Vespa to remind me that we don't always get what we want. He didn't know I thought of the scooter as something better than a car. 

Gladly, the ride to the studio took about six minutes; the roads were clear enough for me to speed up and zoom past vehicles and other motorcycles. I parked the trike right at the little bike lane on the ground floor and quickly got up the two-storey building in Myeongdong. 

Taebaek Records had always been our band's go-to place when we wanted to do music. The owner of the place, Park Byung Soo, always left us alone to toy with the controls and the instruments, so despite him being irritating at times we still have a bunch of other things to be thankful for. Today, however, the studio area looked like it did a little remodeling; its walls no longer consisted of eggtrays plastered on it, but it had patterened foams to cover the whole place. The thick glass window that separated the control room from the recording area also replaced the old, busted one, which meant sound was more compact and kept in the room. Inside the music room were the band members: Seo Dae Young, who was the vocalist ever since, Choi Woo Geun who played the rhythm guitars, Im Gwang Nam on the bass, and Gong Cheol Ho who was sitting back behind the drum set. 

"You're finally here," Dae Young was the first to get up and pat me on the back as soon as I showed up, "We've been waiting," 

"What's the hurry?" I asked, and he reached for something out of his back pockets: a crumpled, glossy black envelope. 

"Sugar Entertainment came along with this," He smirked, "I crumpled it for you. Do you like how I crumpled this envelope this small?" 

"Oh, definitely. Thanks for doing the honors," I took the envelope from his grasp and tore it piece by piece before throwing them on the trashbin in one of the room's corners. That company had been doing everything it could to get us to sign a contract with them, and all the while we thought they were keen enough to see that the band wasn't interested. It turns out that talent agency was becoming way too stubborn.

Woo Geun, our guitarist, flicked the amp on, "The song was great, by the way. We figured we'd start recording now," 

"Sure will," I was glad that my friends had listened to the song in advance, which meant we didn't need to go through hours of refining the notes, "We'll start then," 

While everybody was fixing their instruments and keeping them in tune, I immediately raced outside towards the controls. Behind it was a younger man, whom I've recognized as an employee who frequented the place. "You're Gi Beom, aren't you? Kim Gi Beom?" 

"Ah, yes," He quickly stood up and bowed. Gi Beom was a young man, probably in his last few years in high school, and I only got to know about him because I usually see him lounging at the studio. I thought he was some relative of the owner, but it turns out he works here part-time, "May I say I'm a huge fan of your music?"

"Uhh, sure you may?" That was confusing to answer. 

"And I hope you don't mind, but can I ask you something?" 

If it is about me leaving the band, I'm too tired to answer, "I don't mind at all. Ask away," 

"Those guys earlier. Sugar Entertainment, they really promised to give your band a big break, but Dae Young-ssi and everybody

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mmmmminorities
Track 3 for We Were Once is posted, everyone! Feel free to check it out (and don't hesitate to leave your comment/thoughts on it!) <3

Comments

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winter_beauty
#1
I'm really really seriously miss this story so bad. Please come back mich
winter_beauty
#2
It's been months, dear. We really do miss your updt.
winter_beauty
#3
How I miss this story. Authornim, please updt asap.
hello_ace #4
Hope u will come back soon :(
pabo_genius
#5
Chapter 4: If it permits can you update please ... I am curious about what made Yoo si jin forget about mo Yeon... my heart clenches
winter_beauty
#6
Am I the only one who desprate for this story's updt? Mich, authornim, updt please
leoeng #7
Mich, update please? Thanks!
beccalim #8
Chapter 4: YAS thanks for the update :))
pabo_genius
#9
Chapter 4: Oh my gosh ... this story /chap is so beautifully written, especially the last part... thankieww so much mich! I think I just fell harder for you..... stories XD
Hope to see the next update soon! Have a great day ahead!