Like a Rolling Stone

“isn’t that what they employ maintenance for in the first place? i don’t think i could work with something constantly dripping.” music, the general background noise of other people shuffling around, even outside noise was fine, but a leak would drive yifan out of their mind. “guess you never know what’ll be useful until it’s too late.”

“hey– i hear that. some of my favorite choreographies i’ve ever made have been inspired by nature or things i’ve seen out in the world.”

“i resent that,” nathan laughed, handing her the notebook. “i’ve written a part of almost every juno song since debut. if i were that bad, they wouldn’t let me do that.”

youngmi laughed, shaking her head. “i’m not much for mobile games, to be honest.” she occasionally did a crossword or even a game of sudoku, but most of the time she spent on her phone involved scrolling social media, texting her friends, or reading. “i had a lot of schedules that day, so my lesson was at like 5am.” she rarely missed a day of vocal training – liberty had her with a trainer 5 days a week.

“you don’t need to be a lyricist to have an opinion. or to read something and think it’s stupid,” nathan pointed out. “i don’t need you to write a verse or something. i just need to know i’m going in the right direction before i sink three months into i.”

siwan rolled his shoulders and slumped back into the chair “that makes two of us, then.”

ahki was sure that if she was a musician, she probably wouldn’t care. she knew how to play instruments, but those had been learned while training with liberty– singing had always been her passion. had guitar been her passion, heart2heart probably would have been a dream gig. but she’d always wanted to be a singer, like lucille ahn or juliette. this was not what she signed up for. “thanks, seulgi,” ahki replied with a sigh. “like…i get that i do a lot for the group, technically, but……you could take me out of heart2heart and no one would notice. someone else could play the music, or they could play an instrumental track, and it would be lke i was never there,” she said. “did you know in my last vocal evaluation, i got top marks? my trainer said it was one of the best evaluations he’d seen in a long time. but for some reason, liberty thinks kwak minji invented the wheel or something, and i’m just here to be her sidekick…”

“well, yeah, that would definitely be cool, but i meant more the actual sound of the drops. the would be a super cool unconventional sound to put in a song, yeah?”

“you would think they’d have someone from maintenance check that out before it had gone on so long that you could memorize how it sounded….” they trailed off. “maybe you should’ve recorded it if it was something useful.”

“a leak? it’s probably good it didn’t damage anything. or some poor trainee didn’t trip on it and get hurt,” daeseok commented

“wouldn’t that be terrible, though?” meng wondered aloud. “like water torture. i feel like listening to that would drive me nuts.”

chaesung rolled his eyes good-naturedly, lips pressed together so he wouldn’t laugh obnoxiously. he knew he wasn’t the smartest person in the world – honestly, that was probably sikyung – but he still had intelligent thoughts from time to time. okay, occasionally was probably a better descriptor. he pouted, exaggerating how offended he really was. “noodles don’t have muscles, though!” he protested, flexing to show off the guns he’d worked so hard to develop. 

“thanks,” yue replied brightly. “you know, it’s totally something i could see you pulling off. very punk rock and alternative. perfect for a drummer.”

“that leaky ceiling has been why i haven’t been coming into work this week. that and no other reason,” jaekyung replied. really, though, why did they have to come in when reflexion wasn’t do anything? it wasn’t like they were going to forget how to drum or something.

“it’s probably good they got it fixed though, yeah?” chunja pointed out. “i doubt it’d be good if someone slipped on it and got hurt. or if it somehow ruined some equipment or something.”

“come on, seulgi,” jangbyul said teasingly rolling her eyes. “here i thought you were a great drummer! do you really need a ceiling to make good beats for you?”