#i hate pending verifications so im getting it all done now ~_~

[404fmdhaon]

creative claims — artist

summary: goofing around with his pal siwoo (npc), and this song comes as a collab of some sorts. warnings:  wc: 1236

bc’s never felt like home, not then. not now. nine years strapped inside the riptide of a company that soothes itself as suffocating than the oxygen he craves, it’s times when he’s trapped inside some half-basement apartment with an old friend that suddenly, life no longer bears and burdens but instead relieves itself as an escape.

an escape from home, this becomes a taste of oasis.

the bpm yanked high, on overdrive. he’s set the basis of the upbeat funk that comes from skewed filters and the off-beat set of the snares that become the upbeat emphasis of a beat. no moody colors, it’s bright, nearly orange the way the room’s lit with a disco ball flare and the drunken laughter that fills the void between them.

“this sounds like a track to nintendo, fuck.” gyujeong barely musters out in between the short breaths of his chuckles. siwoo’s already on the keys, an electronic brand touch signature to his style — it all mixes into an off-put disoriented mix of elevator music and groove, tinged with hints of jazz.

“if we add a layer of saxophones, you think anyone would listen to this fuckin mess?” the good vibes are infectious, a bellowing burst of half-drunk laughter that slaps back at him.

“i don’t know, try it.” gyujeong juts his chin forward, hands reaching for a flask that hinges on empty. what he gets out, is the last swift gulp of bitter soju — a flask of soju, hapless in how the divide in their lifestyles match up after all these years. 

the room fills with a hit of saxophones, harmonious in how siwoo manages to blend it together right on beat in line with the rest. a jangled image now comes clear, sharpens itself into something poppy, jazzy. a contradiction that poises itself as manageable — maybe, it’s just the alcohol talking. 

“add a spin to it, a retro drive. you know? one of those things that distorts the beat into a shift for when you have a change into another verse. a build up, before you draw it back to the chorus.” hands pressed behind his head, inspiration dawns when his spine eases into his chair, and when he’s no longer fixated and held against a wall with a knife that bc wields together.

the beat’s enough to get him off his seat, bouncing on the soles of his feet — there’s a bend in his knees as he swipes away a pair of shit sunglasses hung on the wall. it’s the effect of siwoo, not just any company. a musical soulmate enticing the two when they were nothing more than two kids sharing the same cup of ramen inside the corner seven eleven. and now goes, where one of them remains in the same basement apartment while he’s left to sell out inside the luxury of hannam. 

“you look fucking stupid, you know that?” siwoo’s voice is bright despite the pricked edges of his words and dismissive shakes of his head, but the grin perched across his face gives otherwise. “you know — let’s just record this shit? lyrics about artistry, being artist.”

“you add saxophone on one song and you think you’re picasso or some shit?” 

“yeah because we are, we are, we artist baby.”

the phrase has a ring, and the grittiness of gyujeong’s own voice echoes it loud. but they work in sync, like clockwork the way siwoo already manages to hit red to record the spews of drunken slurs. 

a person who is bored and about to die, a man that never is a man. who dares to shave only to make a rash? people who are going to shatter very much, oh yes

it’s rapid fire, a makeshift freestyle that skips past logical ties. instead, he pins it down to ease — the blurbs of words mangled. carefree, weightless. it’s how music should be, he thinks. the feeling of bouncing, a skip in his feet. the shattered disillusions of struggles fled from his shoulders, rounded about in how he carries the world by storm. invincibility comes when he’s one cup too deep in soju, floating to the ripples of slipshod beats hoping to make a subtle move.

and it sees it easy — the art of no longer giving a fuck. no longer tied and beaten, or drowning the woes of misery no longer there. the thoughts no longer clouding his head in a moment of invincibility, there’s a new world he crafts together painting the boundaries. it’s a house of mirrors, no boundaries — eternity that spans the dangerous taste of feeling limitless.

don’t think about it too much, you hold the brush you have the best feeling in front of his house mirror

“life is short, art is long — we are, we artist babey” siwoo’s voice yells past the blaring speakers. the reaction of laughter is instantaneous in how gyu hugs his stomach, crouching over at the melodious ring the notion has. artist, sellout — life is short, art is long. irony makes him laugh and he’s been in the game far too long to dispose this as a trash take of something headed straight towards the bin of beats done and gone. 

by the time he’s back on his two feet, laughter subsided, gyu’s back onto the chair that swallows his body, reeling it back in. the mic out and yanked in front of his face, it’s a silent gesture that spurs his own hand reaching for the headset on the desk. 

he clears his voice, a grumble of his throat loosening for the lyrics siwoo’s managed to type up. incoherent spellings, yet it’s enough to get the gist — the surface level that memory takes over when he hears the clicks of the metronome cue. prep. set him in place for the reel in to seriousness that seizes the formalities of creating something useable. 

“be the pretentious dick i know you are.” instructions call out from the production seat, siwoo’s dictation he knows far too well. “you know? the whole what the fuck mood — i want you to rap it like that.”

a nod of his head, and he goes through the first verse. there’s a lightness, a nonchalance to his diction. the deadly stares of high above you tides humanizing itself into his voice, latching on to each and every syllable of the dynamic tone. no longer a grittiness, instead the chest heavy voice pulls into the lines spoken — a billowing open voice loud enough to seep to the family living a floor above. 

gyujeong continues, lets what comes natural. innate take over — no second guessing, or over analysis in caution of how others perceive. it’s freedom floating letting the facets of his persona uncovered with no expectations as to who’s to witness it. here, there are no victims, only witnesses to the chung gyujeong he’s sealed and kept away. 

but this stays in the confines of siwoo’s place, and gyu would be damned if a solo came across the horizon anytime soon — wishful thinking, and he’s abandoned that shit a long time ago.

instead, this becomes the flashback into his taste of what drew him into the scene. the taste of love when he feels the beat hit a notch into a special place he’s pocketed in his mind — music stripped away as an occupation, and what remains is the highs of music as a hobby. a first love.

“fuck man, i forgot what it feels to make music like this.” an afterthought that escapes without thought, and tonight becomes the first instance where he’s found the novel feeling again. bursts of honesty and creativity, jams upon smashed notes and bashed heads — fuck it if bc doesn’t care, it’s a line he draws for himself. one as a personal saving win.