who i am.
Yuri listened to the music sample, full attention solely on the beat, following the chorus and verses, immersed in each rise and drop like it was her own work. Technically, it was the cousin of her work. A distant cousin.
She shook her head.
“No, stop it. Stop the track. It’s wrong, it’s all wrong.”
Two of the staff in the room threw their hands in the air and left, exasperated and tired of Yuri’s strive for perfection. It was a dumb song by a dumb girl, who fucking cared how right it was.
“This is nothing like the mix tape. This is Britney Spears meets manic pixie dream girl. It’s absolute bullshit.”
Kwon, the main producer and the most patient, who had really tried to meet Yuri’s standards was starting to care less and less because it felt like Yuri’s standards were impossible to achieve. He leaned on the soundboard and preferred to look at the levels and buttons than Yuri’s unsatisfied frown.
“Did it ever occur to you that maybe that’s why it was only a mix tape? That making an actual record is supposed to perfect her sound?”
“This is perfecting? Her fans don’t want this kind of music.”
“Her fans, Yuri, will count for less than one percent of any profit. That is if they buy one instead of illegally downloading it.” His fingers pushed up his glasses that have been drooping all day. They’ve been bouncing between tracks for months now. Nothing made Yuri happy, everything was wrong. People were starting to lose the fire they had begun with, that pure joy for creating music was being snatched away by Yuri’s constant disappointment. He dropped his hand to his hip and partly turned to face her. “We’re trying, Yuri.”
For a moment Yuri said nothing, like she was trying to gauge the honesty in his statement.
“You’re trying to make some tired excuse of an album to get a paycheck and then move along to the next guppy.”
Kwon had flung his hand up midsentence at Yuri’s disparaging comment and was out the door by the time she was done speaking. Shindong had to step in when Yuri made a move to go after him and judging by the look on her face, their encounter wouldn’t have been a pleasant one.
“Whoa, Yul, can we chill for a second?” Yuri turned away, throwing her arm behind her in a silent fuck you to Kwon. “I don’t get this. Your remix of the single is bigger than the original, who cares what the final product is? This isn’t your album. Why are you so involved with this?”
It was a question Yuri had asked herself more than once. She never thought about it long enough to answer it. Nights were always too short, or cut short. Daylight never seemed appropriate to think about it, as if the sun would illuminate the dark corners of her heart to reveal the truth. Fuck truths, it never got her far.
“She’s a friend, Shindong. I want her to succeed and I know how the game is played. I don’t want her to get screwed over.”
“That’s…nice.” Frankly, Shindong was lacking words for Yuri’s mood swings lately. One minute, the barista at Starbucks is her best friend, the next she’s complaining how the coffee tastes like dirt. It was best to switch topics; most likely Yuri would forget whatever outrageous injustice was bothering her and move along. Shindong felt more like a babysitter every day. “But can we focus on tonight? You’ve got two shows you have to attend.”
“Two?”
“The gala is an appearance, but after that you have a set downtown.”
It seemed to work, Shindong’s diverging, the dimming of Yuri’s wide eyes, bloodshot from something other than how much sleep she was getting. He ushered her out of the studio, past the producers who stood outside, glaring and rolling their eyes at her and he knew how they whispered, like whatever she had to say had the same merit of a street hobo claiming to be the new Messiah.
Two minutes into the car ride, Yuri was asleep in the backseat, a scrunched box of appendages, uncomfortable but unwilling to move. He didn’t wake her though; demons seemed to bother her a little less in her sleep.