After lying on my laptop for a moment in thought, I straightened my back, turned the laptop back on, and slowly began listening to the completed fourth song. As I slowly sang along to the lyrics I’d written to match the music, I firmly shut my mouth.
“……Suffocating.”
The song was so suffocating that I couldn’t continue singing anymore. It felt like singing with only my face sticking out of water. The lyrics were depressing too, and as I crawled along the floor, fatigue made me naturally press my fingertips firmly against my eyelids.
It was quite a polished song with its own charm.
However, the reason I still couldn’t readily submit my songs to the meeting was, first, because it was too difficult for a rookie idol album, and second, because it felt like something Ka Jerim had made, not me.
♩♪~
When I stopped singing, only the empty instrumental flowed through the studio.
I can’t sing it.
But if I write another new song, I feel like I’ll die from exhaustion.
While thinking that and blankly replaying the song, there was a tap-tap-tap sound of someone knocking on the studio door. When I opened the door, Park Eden and Ma Doun poked their heads in.
“Jerima—.”
“Jerim-ah, are you really struggling?”
“Doun-i hyung, Eden-i hyung.”
Since the company’s studio was cramped, it would be too much for three people to enter, so I came out to the hallway. Looking at Ma Doun and Park Eden, who had dark circles down to their chins yet were worried about me instead, I forced a smile.
“You hyungs must be struggling a lot too, right?”
“Yeah. I feel like I’m dying……”
Ma Doun muttered gloomily and started complaining.
“Director Gye must think we’re robots. He seems to think songs just pop out like magic.”
“The schedule is a bit tight.”
When I agreed with him like that, Ma Doun got excited and chattered on, while Park Eden silently watched us before suddenly asking me.
“Did you organize the title concept well?”
Director Gye had told us to work on our own tracks while also fleshing out the incomplete title track we received the day before yesterday and roughly setting the concept.
“It’s tomorrow, right?”
“Yeah. It’s tomorrow.”
Tomorrow was the day to finalize the most important title track and do a midpoint check on each of our assigned tracks. It meant we couldn’t postpone it any longer even if we wanted to.
“I did it roughly, but I’m sure I’ll get harshly criticized. There are too many gaps.”
When I laughed while saying that, Park Eden ruffled my hair with a face that said I’d done well. I smiled back and asked Park Eden in return.
“What about you, hyung?”
“I did mine, but my concept won’t be chosen anyway.”
“Right. Eden-i hyung… shouldn’t be picked.”
However, Park Eden naturally said that what he did wouldn’t be chosen anyway. When I asked back with doubt about that, Ma Doun nodded his head repeatedly and answered.
“Why not?”
“Yeah. The concepts Eden-i hyung pays attention to fail.”
“……Whoa.”
“It’s been really strange since our trainee days. You know, every concept hyung said was good completely charted out.”
When I giggled because it was funny, Ma Doun also looked at my face and said “Jerim is laughing,” happy about it. Park Eden frowned slightly and glared at us, seemingly displeased that we were laughing at him as a joke. Then, as if suddenly remembering something, he rummaged around in his pocket and took something out.
“Just take some herbal medicine.”
Why on earth does herbal medicine come out of a jumper pocket like taking out gum? And why does the wild ginseng from the pharmacy last time come to mind?
Looking at the herbal medicine Park Eden gave me with a troubled face, the color was especially dark. It seemed like it would be bitter enough to make my head spin if I drank it, so I frowned slightly, and Ma Doun seemed to be the same as he shook his head and said.
“No, why did you prepare herbal medicine again? The color is all murky and dark, and I don’t like herbal medicine because it’s gro……”
“My mother prepared it.”
At those words, Ma Doun quickly changed his stance.
“……I’d drink it if I had some, right? Looking at it again, the herbal medicine has such an amazing, amazing gradation.”
In the end, we had no choice but to down the herbal medicine in one shot with death-like expressions. Only after seeing us down the herbal medicine in one shot and grimace did Park Eden let us go, then waved his hand and entered his studio. And as soon as Park Eden’s studio door closed, Ma Doun dry-heaved.
“Hyung, are you okay?”
Ma Doun quickly took out candy from his pocket and hurriedly put it in his mouth. Since it was an unusually shaped candy, I opened my eyes wide in curiosity, and he said shyly.
“A fan-nim gave it to me.”
I’d never seen anyone add ‘nim’ to ‘fan’ before. ‘Fan-nim’ was such a cute expression. Since the candy was quite big, his cheeks were puffy as he mumbled while speaking, and I ended up bursting into laughter.
“Oh, it smells like corn.”
When I detected the sweet corn scent and opened my eyes wide, Ma Doun, perhaps feeling sorry for eating candy alone, held out the remaining candy to me. The outside really looks like corn. Since it was an unusual shape, I curiously touched it, and he smiled brightly and said.
“Cornd candthy.”
“Ah, hyung, your pronunciation is off.”
“It’s because of the candy……”
Ma Doun’s eyes were full of injustice as he hurriedly spoke. I looked at his face like that and burst into laughter.
“You’re cute. Hyung, you’re totally cute.”
“What good does it do for me to be cute.”
Looking at Ma Doun speaking sullenly, I momentarily went ‘oops.’ It was because I remembered the several times at recent meetings when we’d advised him to hide this naive aspect of Ma Doun’s personality.
Personally, I thought showing Ma Doun’s side like this would make him more popular, but the company people opposed it considering Ma Doun’s appearance and rapper position. Ma Doun also seemed to have come to dislike being called cute since everyone around him kept saying that.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean it like that. If you don’t like it, I’ll be careful.”
“No, no. I……”
I made Ma Doun uncomfortable by bringing up something unnecessary. To quickly end this awkward situation, I grabbed the studio door handle, telling the still flustered Ma Doun that I’d go in to work now and that I’d finish working and see him later.
“Jerim!!”
At that moment, Ma Doun rushed up to me and suddenly called my name so loudly that the hallway echoed. Startled by the sudden loud voice, I quickly turned around.
“I was star…tled…? Yes?”
“I!”
At Ma Doun’s loud voice, Park Eden, Onseol, and even Seon Hobeom, who had been working on the same floor, seemed surprised as they flung open their doors and stuck their faces out into the hallway. I too was so surprised that I stared blankly at Ma Doun without even having time to greet the members.
Ma Doun, still unaware of the situation, shouted at me with his neck and ears turned red and his eyes tightly shut.
“You!”
“Um, Doun-i hyung? Your voice……”
“To me!”
“……”
He’s lost it. He can’t hear my voice at all. In the meantime, the Abyss members who had only stuck their faces out came out of their studios and watched this situation with intrigued faces, and even employees passing by stopped in their tracks at the commotion and looked at us.
Ma Doun, as if completely unaware of this situation, continued speaking.
“I like it when you call me cute!!”
“……What?”
What did I just hear?
“Keep calling me cute from now on too!!”
When Ma Doun finished speaking, his face had turned bright red. Asking me to keep calling him cute from now on. It was such an unexpected thing to say that I didn’t know how to react, so I just stood frozen in front of the bright red Ma Doun. Then suddenly, I heard clap-clap-clap, the sound of applause from behind.
“Wow. Our cu.te. Doun’s courage just turned the hallway upside down.”
“Oh, Onseol?”
Only then did Doun open his eyes wide, discovering that a tremendous number of people had gathered behind him. Onseol, who appeared while clapping, emphasized ‘cute’ as he approached us, and Park Eden followed behind him, also clapping.
“Our Doun isn’t a cool tomato but a cutie-pie tomato.”
“Hy, hyung!”
Seol and Eden enthusiastically clapped in the hallway, and behind them, Seon Hobeom, who had been watching this situation, burst out laughing and sat down while making a strange laughing sound.
“Cutie-pie…… keu…… kyakkyak.”
“Hey, Seon Hobeom!”
“Kyugayuga…… I’m…… crying…… kyakeu…… Hyung. Cu, tie…… pie…… kkeupkkeuk.”
Seon Hobeom sobbed while bursting into real laughter. While Seon Hobeom rolled on the floor saying he wanted to speak but couldn’t because it was too funny, Park Eden and Onseol seemed to have found fun in teasing Ma Doun as they repeatedly teased him, asking “Did you want to hear you’re cute?”
In the meantime, even the employees who had stopped their journey due to the commotion also all clapped together and said things like.
“I support Doun-ssi’s cuteness.”
“Now he’s not MC Doun but MC Tiny.”
“Ah, no……”
The chaotic hallway finally calmed down after a long while.
“Now, now, everyone be quiet.”
Onseol, standing next to Ma Doun who had turned purple beyond red, settled the situation.
“Ah, my stomach hurts…… I don’t want to go into the studio.”
“Seon Hobeom. Hurry and go in.”
“Hyung always only scolds me!”
Though Seon Hobeom grumbled, he obediently entered the studio, and Onseol also lightly patted the back of Seon Hobeom’s head, then greeted me and Park Eden before taking the still-dazed Ma Doun into the studio.
“See you all later.”
“See you later.”
When I greeted Ma Doun and Onseol and turned around, Park Eden was standing there.
“Then I’ll go in now too. Fighting, Jerim.”
“Fighting to Eden-i hyung too!”
“If you have any difficulties, make sure to tell me.”
Tak—
The moment the door closed, silence came. Having been in a noisy space until just now and then sitting quietly in the quiet studio felt somehow strange. When I did a simple back-stretching exercise to start working again, my phone vibrated.
“Hm?”
It was a text. Since I usually use messenger with the members, I rarely use texts. Then is it a fan?
