behind closed doors
hopefully happening in the future

She gets a call in the morning that she has an unofficial schedule to attend to. In her lightheaded revenue, her ears naturally filter out words such as "sm station" and "collaboration". And somewhere in between minute discussions with the company staffs and their instructions to "get ready because we're leaving", she finds herself already on her way to JYP.

"So it's another station song with JYP," Seulgi confirms, observing her manager from the rear view mirror.

"Yes, Seulgi-ah," he answers, tapping lightly on the wheel. "One thing I know for sure is, it's one of the biggest collaboration for station this year."

Seulgi chews on her fingernails. She feels nervous. She loves the fact that her company entrusted her to such a big project, but she's also anxious about working with people outside her company whom she barely got a heads-up about. To phrase her anxiety in two words, she's unprepared.

She hums as a reply and stares outside the window. The ride to JYP goes silent as she ponders about the different questions she has in her head: What kind of station song is it going to be? Is she going to work with Park Jin Young by herself?

But it does seem impromptu. The notice was given spontaneously and it makes her goes nuts.

She doesn't ask who her partner for the collaboration is.

She arrives at the building fifteen minutes later and gets lead by a few staffs to the famous yet familiar recording studio. The narrow corridor is filled with many used appliances, making it seem like each and every gadget holds a significant value because no one bothers to throw it out.

She have seen this sight so many times on television, and it almost feels unreal that she's standing in here, the brown soundproof walls wrapping her surrounding in a square space. It's empty, but the number of desktop computers sitting on the desk and magnificent recording devices makes her feel a sense of contentment. The furniture are situated as if they haven't been touched. It's almost like she's on TV. It feels like this is where artistes should belong.

She gets the information that Park Jin Young will be coming in soon. She can feel her heart beating in her veins and palms sweating.

She wipes her palms on the side seams of her jeans and mopes around the dense room. The tip of her fingers are gently gracing over the marble tops, a strange feeling of cold metallic reminds her of the days where she'd spend hours in the recording room having vocal lessons. She can almost remember everything about the SM recording studio at the back of her hand, things like where each and every device are placed. She's in a different studio now but it still feels peculiarly warm.

Just like how she had predicted at the back of her mind a few minutes ago, there's a knock on the door and it opens, and the producer walks in with a huge smile on his face.

"Hello, I'm Red Velvet's Seulgi," she bows instinctively. Her hands feel sweaty.

"Hello, I think you know me already," Park Jin Young waves and jokes, successfully uplifting the tensed atmosphere.

And then another figure walks in behind him. He's wearing a beanie and a red oversized hoodie.

"Hi, I'm GOT7's leader, JB. Nice to meet you," Jaebum greets and gives a tight smile.

He's nervous too, awkward even.

She bows to him again, making eye-contact. It doesn't feel that foreign since she have actually talked to him, maybe once or twice at the backstage of a music show. But those conversations were mostly one-liners because it's scandalous that a boy group and girl group member from different companies were interacting.

She remembers him. Heck, she even remembers interviewing his group at a music show once. Or a ridiculously large amount of facts she knows about him like: He can speak Japanese! He's a 94-liner too! He likes cats!

She doesn't even know how she knows all that stuff. Probably internet, because that's a scary place.

"You two should know each other," Park Jin Young says, before clapping his hands happily and gesturing them to sit around the coffee table.

Jaebum rubs his palms against his back pocket before his right arm extends almost immediately, giving Seulgi the cue to take a seat first. She does so and he follows thereafter, the couch sinking in when he does.

She can only rest her hands on her lap.

She figures out what's going on when Park Jin Young exclaims, "It's a collab!" She hears a snigger to her left, and she bites her lips in an attempt to not give away any sound of mockery.

The main point is, this station song is going to be a collaboration with JB.

And her.

"Will you like to listen to it? He looks up at her expectantly.

Seulgi snickers and hides her laughter behind the back of her hand. It's a stupid question to ask because SHE HAS TO LISTEN TO IT, but she realises that Im Jaebum is probably feeling as awkward as her and blurts whatever that comes to his mind.

"I'm bad at this," Jaebum remarks when he takes heed of her reaction. He rubs the back of his head and flashes an embarrassed smile to her. This is so out of his league and he feels like dying the moment Park Jin Young decides to exit the room because he trusts that they can do all those getting-to-know each other sitch.

"I'm bad at this too," Seulgi says. "I'm bad at making friends in general."

Jaebum throws his head back and guffaws.

It's odd. The air seems to get lighter as time passes and maybe this is that start, the start of opening up and inevitably becoming close. The idea of seeing him nearly every week appears to be too far-fetched but reality's going to hit her the moment she starts going into the recording booth.

She listens to his song. He explains that it's an orthodox love song that depicts the man's point of view of "you're the reason why I'm existing and breathing," he explains.

She gets the chills when the speaker blasts the beautiful tune and strong beat. She suddenly feels worried that she cannot do the song justice as she scans through the lyrics; each word laying side by side appears as if they were meant to be there.

That is when she realises how good of a song-writer Jaebum is.

Reality check: they exchange numbers that day.

The only thing he texts is a notice that they will start recording on Monday and a see you! But Monday comes faster than expected and she's on her way to JYP again, her earphones blasting the sample of the track as she struggles to memorise the lyrics.

She opens the door to the studio (which she's going to call home for the next few months) and he's already sitting in front of the computer, diligently working on different layers to add onto the track.

"Hi," she says first, closing the door behind her and taking a seat on the studio chair beside him.

"Hi," he replies and rolls his chair to face her. "Are you ready?"

He clasps his hands in front and gazes at her evidently nervousness.

Seulgi heaves a deep sigh and pulls her hair into a high bun before confidently heading to the recording booth, her heels clicking with every optimistic step she took.

Jaebum grins as his eyes follow her movements.

She adjusts the equipments professionally to accommodate to her petite self, making sure that every impedimenta helps her in showing her best self.

"We'll start with the first verse," he instructs, voice booming over her headphones.

She nods while looking at him from the glass panel and he gives a thumbs up.

She clears .

Jaebum bops to the beat as Seulgi's voice fills the room. He's a little in awe as Seulgi hits each and every note, and also giving him the feeling he wants— the girl in a relationship who's fragile and confused.

He's also amazed at how quick Seulgi is able to register the tune in her mind, and how fast she can remember the lyrics.

Proud, he looks at her from the transparent glass and says, "That was good, just a few more times for the layering!"

Seulgi smiles as she glances at his noticeably delighted facade.

She bustles out of the booth with light steps after going a few rounds, and Jaebum passes her a bottle of water.

"Your voice is great," he comments as she takes her seat. "Should we listen to it?"

Seulgi nods, while taking sips of water.

Her voice spreads through the room and he taps his fingers on the edge of the table to the catchy beat. She observes his reaction and she feels tremendously elated because this is the first step to recording and it seems to be going smoothly.

"Next round would be my turn," he says once the verse ends. "Park Jin Young will be here too."

He sighs and leans back on his chair. He rests his loosely interlocked hands on his abdomen and looks at Seulgi.

"You will do well," she cheers, earning snickers from the other party as he judges her bubbly and positive energy.

The thing is, the ice between them have melted.

The seemingly short day comes to an end, but in actual fact they have already spent half a day in the studio. Recordings are always like this. To be perfect is everybody's goal and of course to every other producer out there, it applies. They just pray that every piece of music is perfected to the best of their ability and to be able to let that piece of mp3 touch and relate to the public.

She's in the van on the way back when she receives a text from him.

you've worked hard today and i can really see this track turning out to be really good.
see you this Friday!

Seulgi chuckles at the text before typing a reply.

thanks for being so patient! i'm glad you thought it was good ^_^

Though she doesn't tell him how attractive he looked when she observed him from the booth today.

Her heart squeezes.

The process of recording seems to be interminable, and to their astonishment, they have already been doing this for a month. Their days are mostly just in and out of the studio, the only breaks they have are probably toilet breaks and take-out meals delivered to them solely because it was too