A/N:

I'd like to apologize for taking awhile to update, and i apologize for ending this chapter in a cliffhanger, and likely making you guys wait for the next chapter again.

I love and appreciate you guys so much, and... I'm sorry.

D-12

There are those days where things go great and at the end of everything, the only thing left to do was celebrate with a glass of wine, maybe even champagne. Then, there are days so uneventful, so neutral, that there wasn’t anything worth mentioning about and when someone would ask how your days went, the answer of it being good or bad on either ends of the spectrum would be an exaggeration. 

The two hypotheticals were always preferable, of course, because … there comes days where it seems like nothing is going your way and will continue to test your patience and sanity, and even as it seems like the ground stops shaking from under you and the storm finally stops thundering and ringing in your ears, you could not help but wait for the other shoe to drop.

Today was one such day for Eunbi.

The first telltale sign was this morning on her way to work, when Eunbi almost ran over a black cat running across the street right as she was about to punch the gas. Eunbi doesn’t really believe in superstitions, but maybe she should have just for today. 

Then after reaching her office––the little studio where she makes her magic, as Eunbi was trying to juggle her laptop, a hard drive, and at the same time gathering some files that she needed to bring to the meeting with her coworkers, her laptop deigned to slip from her fingers. Thankfully, she managed to catch her laptop only inches away from it smashing to the floor. Her hard drive, however, did not manage to be saved, neither did the stack of papers that were now all cluttered around her feet.

Eunbi lets out a grunt, followed by a string of expletives.

After taking a few calming breaths, Eunbi picks up the fallen objects and walks towards the conference room a floor up. She was 5 minutes late but thankfully Irene didn’t scold her.

“Eunbi, do you have that song I told you to keep for Wendy?”

Eunbi almost frowns but quickly schools her expression. “I’m not sure, Joohyun, sorry.” The truth was, Eunbi had no idea which song her boss was asking, likely because it must have happened before the accident.

Irene must have realized it too. “No, that’s alright—It’s just Wendy remembers a snippet of a melody you played for her from a few years back and she thinks it’ll work well as the title song for her next album,” the CEO explains. “I couldn’t find it in our database or emails, so I was wondering if you could find it for me.”

“Any hints on what I should look for?” Eunbi asks. 

“I think... it’s called Psycho.” Irene looks amused at that. “I remember you named it after the weekend Chaeyeon drove you insane.”

Eunbi couldn’t help but let out a loud laugh which was mirrored by her colleagues. “Sounds like her,” Eunbi says, mostly to herself. She quickly plugs her hard drive to look for the song while her colleagues proceed with the meeting. It took Eunbi less than 5 seconds to realize her hard disk broke from the fall. She makes a small sound and everyone turns to look at Eunbi for the interruption. “I might have to look for it in a drive I keep at home.”

Irene hums an affirmation and nods. “Let me know when you find it, ASAP, okay?” Irene stresses the last part. She didn’t wait for Eunbi to respond before continuing the meeting.

The next hour flew by without a hitch, going through lists of their artists’ scheduled deadlines of songs and music videos and all that jazz. However boring it was the rest of the meeting, unfortunately, it would be the only reprieve from all the bad luck thrown her way today.

It wasn’t even her lunch break yet and Eunbi already wanted to pull out her hair. 

A recording booth was Eunbi’s favorite place in the whole world. Even with so many lost memories, she knew this was something old-her and present-her could easily agree upon. The smell of carpeted walls were a familiarity to her, comforting in how it engulfed her in warmth and safety with the way she could shut out the rest of the outside world in that tiny box of a room. The countless rows of buttons and dials of the soundboard that would likely confuse most people gives Eunbi every bit of power and control over her small little bubble. Even if everything else in her life outside of the studio was crazy, she will always have the normalcy of her recording booth.

Then someone just had to ruin her safe haven today.

Eunbi groans to herself. She reached towards the push-to-talk button to speak with the singer inside the booth, “Was the last note too high?––We could do it differently, if you’d like.” They'd been going over the same line for maybe more than a dozen takes and the high note was somehow always disregarded in every sense of the word each time.

The artist had her hands on her hips, her lips pursed in thought. "I just think the song is wrong, you know? It doesn’t feel right,” she finally says.

Eunbi opens and closes . She looks to the monitor with half of the song’s vocals recorded, then back to the artist. “...What’s not right?”

“The song needs something. Like an up-beat bass. It’s too slow, don’t you think?”

“It’s a ballad,” Eunbi answers blankly.

“But maybe it shouldn’t be,” the artist counters quickly. “The title song should be more catchy and up-beat right?”

All Eunbi could think about was how much she wanted to snap at the artist. Each question the singer posed was more like a statement, and that not only ticked off Eunbi because none of those statements she could agree with. Besides, everything about the song was pre-approved by not only Joohyun, but the artist herself, and the album concept was already sent to the stylists and set designers. Changing the song now would literally mean they have to change everything and push the comeback date by a whole lot.

“Is it your cold?” Eunbi asks, still trying to grasp the problem in their conversation. “If it is, we can just reschedule and you can finish the vocals next time.”

“No-no. I just think we can just spice up the song.”

If the recording booth and Eunbi’s side wasn’t only separated by the glass panel then Eunbi was sure she would be screaming right now. But instead, she says, “Why don’t we put a pin on it… and I’ll run it by CEO Bae. Until then, let’s reschedule.”

“Okay,” the artist answers, slipping out the studio quickly after.

It was absolutely not okay because the recording was already delayed to begin with, and Joohyun definitely will not approve of having a change in concept when they already finalised it since last month. Turns out, Eunbi was right. The moment she brought up a change of concept to CEO Bae, her boss/friend had given her the most stern gaze Eunbi had ever seen and she thanked every version of God that has ever existed that Joohyun wasn’t directing that look at Eunbi, even if she had to witness it.

The day continued on at a fairly tolerable pace—but that was an understatement to describe all the frustrating little incidents that happened sporadically throughout the day. Knocking her hand on the edge of a desk, spilled coffee, a paper cut. By the end of the day, Eunbi was incredibly uninspired and she realized any song she’s tweaking with now will probably need a complete redo come tomorrow.

At this point Eunbi has lost all expectations of anything going right