#bc of different creative applications + The Nostalgia

[blastlight]

something that gives me joy is the fact that some people still haven't played Minecraft. they can pick up Minecraft for the first time! and play it! and I can still share Minecraft knowledge with people who need it! the world is full of wonder

[404fmdhaon]

creative verification — meteor

summary: jiwon (npc) crashes at his place, and in comes a song slated to be the title of the next album — rare glimpses of optimism. (this song is Gyu’s Song, and nobody can take that away from him ♡ ) warnings: none wc: 1658

it’s the bean bag in the corner of his room he rarely frequents. but tonight, something hits different when its molded to the shape of his body, and his palms are pressed against his head with legs crossed tapping away to a mindless beat presented.

jiwon’s always been talented — gyujeong’s always given him the upper hand on that matter. and when free days become scarce, it’s the rare times he possesses in a quick flash of a text that brings jiwon back to his home studio. (in reality, bc building — third floor studio room feels more like home, crafts more of the creative freedom. but still, it’s a nice makeshift set when he’s at home). the beat possesses something like a homecoming. everything falling into full circle by the time the heavy bass and snares of the drum hit in the background (his input, not jiwon’s), and he dips his head in tandem with the steadiness of it all.

jiwon swirls around, a yawn escaping his lips. in comes the sudden greetings of tokki hopping into the lap as if he weren’t the owner himself — jiwon smirks, gives him the signature mocking grin with the flash of his teeth. “bc finally gives you an album, and you call me as the last hope to save the day — fucking dick.” 

it’s all good hearted jokes when gyujeong flicks him the middle finger, tongue in cheek with eyes too wide for the ungodly hour of the night. “yeah, so you can swim in royalties when it hits first on melon. how long do you even plan on living in that half-basement — it’s fucking gross.” 

“sorry, i’m not living in this luxury.” a quick spat back, and his arms motion out for the house of a sell-out. but gyujeong takes no offense, a narrowed focus on the beat looped in the background. something’s missing, he knows — just doesn’t know what, yet.

silence takes over, and it feels like they’re transported back to old times. homecoming, familiar. too eerie when they’re on opposite playing fields, and he wears the choker of knight’s bitch boy across his neck. but for now, he forgets. at least tries to, when he hears the electric keys and the simplicity engrained in each and every move puts them in a drunken nostalgia — half-mused smiles, and empty views. 

but he ends up breaking the silence anyways, when full circle means falling further back — back into familial ties. his throat looses, the dryness of the cough smoothening the sudden jumps mid-way through. “are you gonna call me a pussy if i suggest adding an orchestra?”

a pointed look, and he’s met with observation. “a full out orchestra? you got enough money for that?”

gyujeong shakes his head, denial — not the violin nor the sounds of a backing chorus he’d never imagine. instead, he wages his guess in one form: the dusty cello out of tune in the corner of the room, unboxed and poised for no use. “just the cello — add it in double stops by the time the ending chorus hits.” a pause, he forgets he hasn’t touched the cello in years. “use the apple keyboard — i’m not touching an actual cello. that shit’s way behind me.” 

the night ends as easy as it started — it doesn’t end, just continues through the paces back and forth, listening to a tune that clocks his own homecoming. a solo that he calls ‘home’.

—

he doesn’t ever get sappy.

at least, not in the context of music when he’s constituting his own words into frame. the lines of poetry no longer applicable, it’s his thoughts that rove over the subject of ‘homecoming’ and the aspect of outer space, which leave him fruitless. 

nine years in the making, and the solo comes as quick as the snap of the fingers. a song pushed inside a time limit, and he’s left in the barren ideas — drowned from post-love blues and now sitting empty handed, where his heart carves out something more. (for the first time, he thinks music. a love he’s forgotten long ago).

nostalgia comes when he writes down the first few lines of forgetting the man in the mirror. twenty-something, and he barely calls himself a man — still a boy stuck in the confines of bc entertainment, the independence he wanted now an abstract afterthought after too many years in. he waits, thinks to the first few steps into bc as a minor. a hapless stroke of luck, and fate that dragged him onto the life of perfect timing and mismatched encounters. 

they joked if he wanted to be a star — he told them, yes. yes for each instance of his parents’ disapprovals and each yank back to the states in lieu for another life to carry on the family name. it was the desperation in shaky palms and the history re-written when he decided to pave a life of his own past the tempest tides of uncertainty. (he’d think he was a fool by the time he waved off each sunbae telling him to sign his rights to the devil — he writes that down too.)

only, he knows far too well now: the devil would be kinder than any match of bc entertainment.

not when they buy into the public painting him a nightmare, a monster. the domino effect of scandals toppling one of after another. after the years, he’s become numb — a scandal a dime a dozen, and he’d been a martyr for all of bc’s lost causes.

perhaps, he’d only been a meteor all along.

a huge meteor, shattering the illusion of bc formalities. the perfect idol image that comes in cheap smiles and the act of family all painted on lasting nothing more than a few hours. 

but he tells himself, he’s the star in the first verse. and the second — the star centered around his own path he crafts for himself. the fairy tale dreamed of by the young boy at twelve in doe-eyed and a heart full of gold, now walking through a reality when dreams become granted in a flick of a switch. 

(dreams, an odd word when you’ve lost all notions of the definition.)

it only becomes secured in validity when he was a young boy, chasing the life beyond the nine to five of hakwons. the billowing imagination of a life outside of hannam, and into the life of the underground scene — years on end, day after day. hour after hours. 

maybe imagination changes, but some habits don’t change. not when songs come on the daily in a catchy hook jotted down in the screen of his phone, or a saying that peaks soul deep that scrawls away on the pages of his leather-bound journal. 

he wonders if it’d all been a dream. 

writes that down too when he feels an uneasy force encroach on his life — moving one position to the next, and whether that suits fantasy or reality, he doesn’t know. doesn’t have time to mine over when his mind’s inside tunnel-vision. maybe, it’s the force of nature that puts everything into fate.

(karma, he doesn’t believe in. god, he’s lost hope for. at this point, he believes in nothing but his last morsels of dignity).

he wants the words to come to life when he tells his own story. his story of a full-circle homecoming — but he knows, morbidity has never lied inside his past history. only the lighthearted warmth, fleeting feelings of optimism that exude when he faces the near future. bright lights ahead, gyujeong wants this feeling to last forever. never wants to stagger back to the past — positive affirmation, and he tells himself. writes away, he believes this can last forever.

—

the tables turned, it’s now jiwon busy. one club stint after another that leaves his schedule spread transparent, but gyujeong doesn’t mind. he falls into the role of a bystander, vicarious living when he watches from the backseat: a few videos sent, and the hash of youtube comments praising the newer beats of a friend now raising the public attention.

but by the time days pass, it’s another free day for them both. the same situation with jiwon in the seat of a producer, and gyujeong’s own body stationed nearby tethered to a mic dangling a few feet away. the headphones over his ears, it’s the first warm-ups in ad-lib form when the ‘ah yeahs’ become more for what they’re worth in the introduction — the playback, tells a different story when his brows knit together and his head tilts.

a groan, and he’s back to square one with frustration painted and a friend who deciphers each subtle look with a pop of his gum.

“look — i’m telling you. travis uses autotune, so does asap. so why’s your dick in a bunch, just fucking use it.”

the comment slowly lulls him outside of his reservations, a quirk of his brow upward and chuckles that burst when fatigue presses too close. “whatever. fuck it, put it on.” 

concession, full-out. no longer clashing with the faux pride he’s built up in the course of the night. gyujeong trades it in, when the first few bars come in a spoken shout marred by the filters of autotune — he clocks it as charming, finds the joy inside over-exaggerated filters faceted over his voice. 

the charm of rap, he supposes. all in its wide array, in constant fluctuation — he deems it art. and by the time he flashes a smile, genuine and honest past the mic when the second verse is done, he’s met with the claps of jiwon, loud and boisterous.

“i might buy my own masi now that i know this song’s bound for greatness — i have a good feeling chung gyujeong. so, stop being a pathetic little sad fuck.”