Kwon Jiyong

6 years later

Seoul, South Korea

   “Nooo! Don’t give up on her yet!” moaned Seunghyun-hyung at his cellphone, wide-eyed and looking totally absorbed in the drama he was watching. It looked as if he was starting to go crazy like the rest of us.

“Ah, hyung! You’re so loud! I’m trying to sleep!” whines Daesung from the couch on the other side of the room. Frustrated, I sigh heavily and continue my editing on the computer.

“Jiyong-hyung, can we start that over again?” Seungri asks through the intercom from the recording booth. I nod lazily and replay the track to his part.
When Big Bang had first received the news of a comeback, we were all ecstatic. Enjoying the first few weeks, we slowly transitioned on to the not-so-fun part of preparing for an album:  hours on hours of recording in the recording studio, going through a million possible concepts, and worst of all, frustrated slash agitated members bickering one after the other.

Spending another 12 hours in the studio was the last thing any of us would want to do, but here we were, trapped in the recording studio like prisoners. It was currently 6 p.m. in the afternoon and  the Big Bang members and I are desperately trying to finish the last few songs for the deadline and trying not to tear each other’s heads off all at the same time . Some of us were not taking the isolation like a normal human being. Seunghyun-hyung is sitting on a lounge chair, all teary-eyed and emotional, watching his soap opera. Daesung, on the other hand, lay on the other couch, a very inappropriate manga covering his face as he snored like there’s no tomorrow. Youngbae sat beside me at the desk, head banging and dancing to music while Seungri, bless him for being normal, was in the recording booth trying to record his part.

“Yah, Seungri, that was good. I think you’re done now,” I mutter through the intercom and turn to elbow Youngbae. “Yah, it’s your turn. Get in there and please put us all out of our miseries and don’t take two hours in there,” I say, emphasizing the two hours part so that Seunghyun-hyung could hear. I couldn’t help, but mock him. Seriously, who in this whole world takes two hours to record a five second part? Princess Choi Seunghyun, that’s who.

Completely hypnotized by his stupid drama, he gave me the finger and proceeded to moan at his phone screen. Seungri walks out of the recording room, high-fiving Youngbae, and makes his way to the unoccupied seat next to me.

“Hyung, what time are we going to be done? I have to get ready and it takes me a long time to style my hair perfectly,” he complains, taking his phone. I turned to him, eyeing him suspiciously.

“Who is it?” I mutter at him.

“Who’s who?” he replies, distracted by his phone.

“Who’s the girl you’re so desperately hooked on that you need to style your hair for her?” I say, smirking at him knowingly. Seungri’s face turns red, blushing uncontrollably.

“Ani, there’s no one,” he says quickly.

“Then why are you asking me when we’re finishing so you can go style your hair?”

“Did manager-hyung not tell you? It’s President Yang’s company dinner tonight,” Seungri mutters, tearing his eyes away from his illuminated phone screen for a few seconds.

“Oh yeah, I forgot that was tonight. Sajang-nim said that it’s mandatory, so don’t go ditching,” I hear Seunghyun-hyung say, coming up behind us.

“Bwoh? Sajang-nim’s dinner?” I ask, confused.

“Mm, he’s calling it a ‘company dinner’,” says Top-hyung, making quotations with his fingers as he says company dinner, “but it’s really just a dinner to introduce the new girl group.”

“Yeah, and I must say, Sajang-nim made very good choices when he picked them,” said Seungri, dreamily staring off into space.

We jumped at the sudden interruption of Youngbae’s voice through the intercom. “Yeah! Sajang-nim is jjang at picking girls!”

“What, you’ve met them?” I ask mindlessly, distracted by my phone buzzing in my pocket.

I pull it out to find Kiko’s name flashing on my screen. I stare at my phone screen, deliberating if I should answer or not, but I end up pressing Ignore.

“Yeah, Youngbae-hyung, Seunghyun-hyung,