#;futurenostalgia

dua lipa’s album is groovy, full of synths and disco beats, but more importantly, bass. he got hooked on it for that reason, such dominant and important bass lines more of a rarity in popular music these days. he managed to listen to it frequently in the early part of april, but since sungwoon’s enlistment, it felt too happy, like salt in wounds that couldn’t heal fast enough. 

he wrote a song, listened to songs about heartbreak, lamented over failing an audition, likely due to the build up of stress from the month. he tells himself it’s time to move on in all meanings of the phrase, even though he knows it’s easier said than done. he doesn’t know if he’ll ever move on from sungwoon, but he also knows he has a tendency to be dramatic. at least it’ll be more fodder for songs he can write-- songs about heartbreak, songs about being in love forever, songs about not moving on, and then eventually, maybe, songs about moving on too. the part of him that loves songwriting almost looks forward to seeing that evolution. 

he wonders what his life will look like in a year. will he still be heartbroken? will he still be a trainee? will he still have the friends he does now? daniel of a year ago-- daniel who just released an album with his band --couldn’t have imagined his life ending up like this. 

worse. it’s so much worse. why did he ruin all of it? why did he insist they sign up for the mgas? why did he put everything on the line for greed? they didn’t need more fans. he would’ve been happy performing their songs to 30 people in underground clubs if he had to; they all would’ve, he knows. they could’ve promoted their album all summer, and started working on more songs, and released another one in two more years. maybe sungwoon would’ve been so happy with them that he wouldn’t have enlisted. maybe, maybe, maybe.

he wonders if he’ll ever forgive himself for it. he wonders, too, if they’ll ever be friends like they were again. sometimes he hears hyunggu’s voice saying maybe it’s a way of the world saying you need to branch out and not only rely on the same four people for your entire life, and then he remembers all of the people he started relying on leaving, hyunggu included, and it all turns bitter.

sometimes he hears woong’s voice saying god never gives you more than you can handle, too, and he has to believe there’s a reason for it all. he remembers the people that are still here: haknyeon, woong, eunwoo-- some of the most important ones, but not the only ones.

he starts writing lists of things he’s thankful for in the back of his notebook, working back to front. one day, the song lyrics and thank you notes will meet, and maybe they’ll combine into a song of gratitude for everything he still has in his life. he doesn’t want to wallow. he knows he’s done too much of it in the past year. 

somehow, this loss isn’t as bad as the loss of empty enigma, even if it brings the mourning back. maybe it’s because he knew for months, and had time to prepare-- time to love sungwoon knowing that time would run out, four months of loving as hard as he could and giving it the very best he had. that was one thing he could never regret. 

it still hurts, but eventually, he can listen to happy music again, and he falls back into the bass lines of the future nostalgia album. he needs something different, and he had absent minded thoughts of covering a song for this album before, so why not all of them? it’ll just be him on the bass, no vocals, no original rap-- a medley of bass, and that’s all.