“ i’ve always wanted to have blue hair. like … cyan blue. my complexion doesn’t really suit it though, ” he admits freely. “ you, my senior ? seoul would fall. ” he puts a limp hand over his chest and pastes an exaggeratedly shocked expression over his features before he lets it melt away in favor of something more genuine, more thoughtful. he places his chin in his palm. it takes a little effort to balance it there. maybe he’s tipsier than he had given himself credit for. “ that would have been fun though, wouldn’t it have been ? ” he says, a little dreamily.
he wonders what it would have been like, if he had continued to date eunjoo. if they hadn’t decided to take a step back to save both of their careers, would they have made it until now ? would they have been caught ? he likes where he is now — the public likes him, his friends like him, his family approves of him — and he doesn’t think eunjoo dislikes where she is either.
“ that’s no way to think about it. ” he tilts his head, lets his hair fall into his face. it really is getting long. at this point, it’s honestly just a game between him and his staff to see how much longer he can keep growing it out until either he or ( preferably ) his hairstylist finally speaks up. a game of hair chicken, if you will. “ atlas records is a family. ” maybe not in the same sense as summit media, but he thinks that because of the fact that atlas doesn’t put pressure on them to all get along, some of the relationships he has with the people he’s known for years closely resembles the relationships he has with some of his family members — petty squabbles and all. “ we should be supporting each other’s releases. ” one side of his mouth lifts into a smirk. “ if not, you’ll just be setting yourself up for disappointment for when we do beat you. ”
“so you want to live your dreams of having blue hair through me?” eunjoo questions. “what if it doesn’t even look good on me?” she thought she looked the best with her natural hair color, but the pink was well received by nectar, so she wasn’t sure anymore. eunjoo’s “i’d like to see how that timeline looks then.” she imagines what her life would’ve been like if that were the case. so much of her personality had developed throughout the years that she had waited, and she liked the way she turned out. who knows what she’d be like if she had debuted a few years earlier. “yeah, it most likely would’ve been fun. things are okay the way they are now, but they could always be better, you know?”
eunjoo prided herself on being an honest person, especially with her friends. she likes to believe that if she was selfish and prioritized her own feelings instead, they definitely would’ve lasted longer. and if she went a bit further into her thoughts in her head, she liked to think that they most likely would’ve still been together if neither of them grew tired of each other. while she didn’t regret ending their relationship, there were also plenty of things she wanted to tell him over the years that were left unsaid. but daniel appeared to be happy with the way things were now, and that’s all that matter to her. as a result, she kept everything to herself, saving it for a rainy day.
“you are right about that. atlas records is like a family. it has been my home for so long. dan, can you believe i’m on my sixteenth year with atlas? it sounds so surreal to me.” she sometimes couldn’t believe that so much time had passed since she first signed with the company. the signing of her contract renewal didn’t feel like it was that long ago. “with that said, you’ve known me for a considerate amount of time. you should know that disappointment would be the last thing i feel. if we lose, then i’ll admit defeat, but that doesn’t mean i’m completely backing down.” eunjoo didn’t consider herself to be a competitive person, but she did like engaging in what she considered to be ‘friendly games’. it always gave her motivation to improve. “i’ll always support you. i’ve said countless of times that i love the music you all put out. you can even call me a mon:chérie if you want, but i’ll still be aiming to be above you.”