Connections

Sana and Jihyo were connected at levels very few could understand. Where one went the other was often close behind. When one did something the other was close behind hyping the other up or copying the other. When one liked a boy the other often felt the same, and recently that’s what happened; Jihyo fell hard for a boy, and Sana being her best friend would do all she could to help. That’s where you come in.

You are an indie artist who has been rising due to your unique sound that often leaves those raw with emotion and leaves your peers begging to learn the secrets behind your unique sound. Here’s the thing after your latest album and tour you have come into the wall every artist's face: writer’s block. So while you waited for inspiration to come back you did the next best thing collaborations. You had been featured with artists ranging from “Bring Me the Horizon” to “The Weekend” and when you were done the question was always the same “Where’s the next album?” So after a year of features you began working on that new album well you would until you got a call you never expected. On the night before your scheduled recording, you received a call from an unknown number. Procrastinating you answered it on a whim.

“Ahoy” you greet the caller

“Yes is this Sad Face Happy face?” The caller asks in an accent that seems vaguely familiar.

“Yes, this is he?” You responded

“Well I’m a representative for JYP and I was wondering if you’d be interested in doing a collaboration song with our Artist Twice.” Your eyes pop out of your socket almost. You loved twice, they were one of the artists who inspired you to make music originally during COVID. Their infectious tunes and melodies often helped you through those dark years. So it was a no-brainer you accepted in a heartbeat.

Cut a few weeks later and you found yourself in South Korea to discuss business. You didn’t know if you were going to meet twice today but just in case you wore one of your shirts from their American tour. As you ride the elevator to the high-rise your nerves start to ramp up

“What if they don’t like me?” you think

“What if they hate my ideas?” Your mind races as you approach the office door. You take a breath and open it.

You are greeted by 18 pairs of expectant eyes staring at you as you walk in. You take another breath and introduce yourself

“안녕하세요 저는 Sad Face Happy Face” Even with hours of practice your voice is still shaky but the eyes that stare at you seem to soften.

They go through the greeting you’ve heard thousands of times and give a small wave.

Mina and Dahyun are delegated English-speaking duties

“We would like for you to be featured on our next full album,” Mina says to you.

“I’m honored. I love you guys so much… I mean I love your music so much” you say realizing your mistake halfway through. The nine girls laugh with you as you nervously chuckle. Thankfully the rest of the meeting is super business-focused and less stressful. You discuss royalties master rights etc. The only weird part for you was the feeling that Sana and Jihyo were glaring at you the whole time. Externally you remained calm but internally you screamed. Your biggest bias and your biggest bias wrecker glared at you with such contempt that it vexed your already anxiety-addled brain. After the meeting, you would have been quick to go back to your hotel if not for Chaeyoung’s insistence on getting your number so you can introduce her to your tattoo artist, and Momo trying to get you to sing her favorite song of yours “Rush” it was all surreal but after 30 minutes and your phone being passed around by the entire group you finally made it back to the hotel.

After 30 minutes of decompression, you began to write. As you did the emotions you had been bottling up for the last year had rushed to the forefront as they often had. Your melancholy at the stagnation of the music industry, your rage at the abusiveness of it all. It all boiled and you realized that you didn’t have writer’s block in the classical sense. yours stemmed from the realization that you wanted to do something different but that something different would alienate your fans. the most frightening part. This different path you wanted to pursue wasn’t a phase. You had legit frustrations with the world and music was your outlet, you just never leaned into that. You leaned into this hope that your desire to make it big and be famous would overcome how miserable you felt, however, that hope had long faded after your second world tour and the fame lost the luster that it once had. So when the first song of this new album came out Jaded:

“I tried to break through but I find myself broken and bruised. What must I do to remain true? The suffering extends. Wondering if it will ever end. I am a shell of a man. All that’s left for me is pain….”

You began as you were about to do the next bit when you noticed your voice was taking on an aggressive edge that sounded more in line with Silverstein or “Bring Me The Horizon” than the more hip hop pop sound you cultivated that had you more in line with acts like Post Malone or Lil Uzi Vert. You decided to step away from the notebook and guitar you had brought with you and lie on the bed, but you were restless your emotions running high, and quickly found yourself back at both finishing the song. at least the first verse

“We are Hopeless, Selfish, all we do is to captivate and display an image on the case. We trample over others. leaving them smothered, and I can’t take I’ll break it I will make this right, because someone has to make it right. Oh God, please someone save me from the pressure to be what everyone wants me to be. Let me garner a victory or even some semblance of Peace. I am broken, beholden, to my Jaded piece of mind.”

As you finished up the first verse you got a surprising text. It was from Jihyo that it read, “Can you come to this location please?” You responded “Sure” In the flash of a second it took you to process her message. You headed out almost as instantly. When you got to the location you were surprised it was a restaurant. It wasn’t super high-end but more business casual as opposed to the numerous fast-food joints you had been to. Due to not only your height but also your skin color you stood out from the other patrons. As you walked in so did Jihyo and Sana. You bumped into them as you tried to look for them…literally. Your head and Jihyo’s knocked into each other

“미안해” you both responded. To your surprise, Jihyo was all smiles here as was Sana. Gone were the glares and looks of disapproval. It put you at ease only slightly as you sat down with them.

“So what did y’all want to talk about?” You ask after being seated in the restaurant and getting your drinks.

Sana whose English wasn’t as good as Jihyo's said

“We want to know if you are…(her eye went up to the top of her head as she thought about something to say) real.”

You looked at both beauties confused “Real? What do you mean by that?”

Jihyo intervened at this point “Your music seems…synthetic and not sincere now having seen you in person and up close. Jihyo said sternly “You were this smile but you carry all this…pain.” she added

“Oh, really a K-pop star is going to attack me based on my music being manufactured. Something Kettle Something Something Pot something Black,” you respond.

Jihyo smiled “See that was real, that was genuine. Your music sounds forced.” she asserts. The way she speaks and moves confusingly arouses you. It’s like she’s insulting you but in an almost flirty way. Like she is prodding at something but she isn’t sure yet. So you play along with her game.

“So I am just supposed to be happy that my music has constantly been overlooked for awards when artists like you keep seemingly having everything granted to you?” you ask, and at that moment you see it in Jihyo’s eyes. She caught you, and you both knew it. Sana watched on eager to see how the night would unfold.

“Oh so are you jealous of us?” Jihyo says playfully

“No, never you girls are fantastic, talented, and deserve every success you have. I am just competitive and my album that came out that year was better than yours.” you confidently. Jihyo smiles widely.

“Oh really and why do you say that?” she asks innocently

“Oh because even you said it.” You respond showing her a screenshot of her hyping up your album on her story.

Jihyo laughs “Oh wow. you follow me?” she questions surprised. Sana giggled seeing the two strong personalities clash. “But I thought our music was…Manufactured.” Jihyo teased.

You eased off, “Yeah and I never said there was anything wrong with it. You said that about my music, and hey I at least felt my music before.”

Jihyo softened upon hearing this. “Wait what happened?”

Your emotions were so high when she became soft again and showed genuine concern you faltered. This caused Jiyo to ask again.

“The last year has been rough on me. After watching what happened with a lot of the artists I enjoyed being attacked it became hard to make happy, optimistic music about how great the music industry could be.” Jihyo awned at your explanation and gave you a big hug. She was unbelievably soft and warm. After the hug, she smiled at you and texted you. She told you to wait till you got back to the hotel to read it. The rest of the dinner was nice but less flirty, which disappointed Sana as she very rarely met a boy who could go with Jihyo at such a tit-for-tat level, but Sana knew one thing after watching the two of you. You two needed to be together. After dinner, you went back to your hotel again. After you showered and got ready for bed you finally checked out the text from Jihyo.

“Let’s make some music tomorrow. Meet me at this studio tomorrow.” the text read. Your eyes widened and you could barely contain your excitement.

The next day you arrived at the studio Jihyo mentioned early, but not earlier than the Bathykolpian Beauty herself .she was dressed comfortably but not modestly. When she saw you she smiled and asked if you were ready you nodded swinging your guitar around to show her. She nodded and led you into the studio. You started with the beat. You had been recently listening to Silverstein and so the drum parts sounded a bit similar to the ones heard in the song Bankrupt by the band meaning they were big and booming. Jihyo fed off this and started working on her vocal warm-ups. After that it was keyboards. You decided to do something a bit more acid jazz adjacent for this, however, you went for a more subdued sound that helped round out some of the rougher drum parts.

“So you play all these instruments?” Jihyo asked as you began to move to the guitar parts.

You nodded explaining, “I learned the basics of how to play and then began playing by ear.” you explain.

“오 대박,” she responded. You smile as you start. You begin to hammer at the guitar in a way similar to a song you heard recently but couldn’t remember who it was by. After that, it was based on which you did an extremely calm blues sound. After that, you went to the mixer room and began tweaking and going back and rewriting until everything sounded just right. You always did vocals last as you never knew what the song would bring out in you, or who you worked with. Jihyo watched you work with exceptional intrigue. After finishing up the instrumental you turned to her and said “You ready?”

She looked at you surprised as if taken out of a trance of the instrumental. She nodded with determination as you got ready to record her raw vocals.

“Do you have anything you want to talk about?” she asked.

You shook your head and said “Just listen to the instrumental fully and sing what you feel. We will take it from there.” Jihyo nodded and felt herself get lost in the music. She was used to more structure and more rigidity, so this power and this freedom, which she was granted by not only the music but the process of creating it was empowering a bit too much.

You watched in awe as the shot got lost but then she began to sing. her powerful voice was at complete ease in this powerful song.

“What’s atop the mountain what do we chase when we’ve won the race? Who are we when there’s no one to beat? I can only face myself and keep upping the seat. My throne of Glass and Marble will stay atop the mountain built to last you can’t stop me. You can’t stop me. The only one who can is me.”

Her voice was inspiring as you listened to her belt out assertive and robust vocals that gave the track both soul and presence. using her springboard as the chorus you went in after.

For the first time, you didn’t get caught up in the artistry you just came as you were and went for it. Jihyo watched in awe as you took the baton of liberation and excellence she handed you and delivered an unusually punchy yet soft verse that was followed up by a bombastic and energetic second verse, a meandering bridge that was brought home by a skull-crushing last verse, and an outro. When you finished you listened to the song and began tweaking lyrics for better flow and clarity within the scheme you two had set up equalized the mixing and finished the song. For the final version you had her sing in her native tongue and to your surprise her change in tone and approach bolstered the song even further satisfying your more perfectionist tendencies. .After finishing Jihyo noticed you were anxiously biting your thumb.

“What’s wrong?” the ethereal beauty asked

“It’s just I am not sure that people will like the new sound you know. This is a very hard departure from what I usually do and I hope that people will like it, but you know part of me worries ya know.”

Jihyo’s leader self-kicked in. She grabs your face and says “Look at me. You are an excellent artist who embodies his music and whose music embodies him. This song will speak to the right people if you let it.” The bronze baroness smiles at you as she lets you go. “Come on you know you have to help us with our song now, and I am going to need you to be at your A game.”