Goodbye My Delusion | TXT Beomgyu

38

One more week. One more week.

I repeat these three words like a mantra in my head.

On Monday, I wake up with an ache in my chest. I had a nightmare about my ex boyfriend. He continued to stare at me on his bed, as the world outside turned to dark midnight and he repeated the words again and again: "I think we should be friends. I think we should be friends. I think we should be friends."

By the time I wake up, my pillow and sheets are covered in my sweat. I must've been rolling back and forth for the whole night.

Sunlight streams in from the opposite side of the room. Dust motes swirl in my vision, and Beomgyu's lightly snores from his side of the dorm. He's still exhausted from recording in the studio all last night, and I don't want to wake him. So I glance at his peaceful face once before heading to the bathroom to get ready for our first class.

By the time I get out, after washing the sweat from my face and changing into jeans and a white t-shirt, Beomgyu is awake. He stretches his arms high above his head, sighing away the tiredness of the night.

He takes one look at me, my dark circles and the slump of my shoulders. "Hey, are you okay?"

That's all it takes for me to reflect back on my nightmare. I sit down on my bed, trying to calm myself with deep breaths. "Not really."

Beomgyu accesses me one more time, his mouth pulled to one side in thought. "Let's skip class today."

"Huh?" I feel my own forehead, the heat emanating from it like the nightmare turned up my body temperature by a few degrees. "We can't just skip class because I had a bad dream, Beomgyu."

"We're only supposed to watch a movie today," Beomgyu says. "One day of skipping class won't hurt us."

"What about my Korean language class?" I ask. "I've never been more unsure about what grade I'm going to get."

Beomgyu looks at me with calculating eyes. "I'm full Korean, Jayden. I can help you study for your exam. Just skip this one day, please." He stretches out the last word like a toddler begging for a piece of candy. I find it endearing and entirely too convincing for his own good.

"Fine," I say. "Where do you plan on going?"

"Let's go to the company," he says. "I have something I want to show you."

Thirty minutes later, I'm entering the BigHit building with Beomgyu. He takes me immediately to one of the studios. I enter the room with a pounding building up in my chest. This is where the magic happens. This is where TXT recorded their first album which enchanted me a few months ago and made me into a dedicated fan. Bright lights in the shape of orbs hang from the ceiling, and an array of instruments are set to one side of the room. A producer is waiting for Beomgyu. He exchanges greetings with Beomgyu as I take in the cream-colored carpet, the insulated recording booth, and the setup of the mixing and mastering station.

"I have a crazy idea," Beomgyu says.

"Oh, I love those," I say. "Anything to get my mind off things."

Beomgyu smiles. "You see, I made you more adventurous in the short period of a couple weeks. I'm pretty proud of myself."

Beomgyu takes me into the recording booth, where a large microphone is suspended next to a pop filter. "Do you remember the song we wrote last week?" He points to sheets of lyrics on a stand. "I printed out all the lyrics. I was working on recording it with our producer. But it's missing something. You know what that is?" Beomgyu looks at me and squiggles his eyebrows along to his question.

"I don't know," I say, even though a snaking feeling in my chest is nudging me to the correct answer.

"Background vocals!" Beomgyu says.

I clutch my chest, feeling my heartbeat speeding along with no hint of ending. "Beomgyu, are you crazy? I can't even sing."

"I heard you in the shower a few weeks ago," he says. "You were singing an Ariana Grande song, and you sounded pretty good. Way better than I did when I first started."

"You're a trained professional, Beomgyu," I say. "I'm no one."

The producer, from outside the booth, is setting up something on his soundboard. He gives Beomgyu a thumbs up, and I realize that this might have been planned before I even stepped into the building.

"Jayden, I really want you to do the background vocals for this song," Beomgyu says. "You don't even need to harmonize. Just follow my melody and we'll layer it into my voice. It'll be perfect."

When I was little, I dreamed of being a pop star. I would dance in the shower when I was younger, belting out the notes of songs that I could never hit. I was obsessed with the Disney princesses, Demi Lovato and Selena Gomez, along with Taylor Swift and Ariana Grande. I guess you could've called me a typical fan of everything pop and girly. Beomgyu caught me red handed while singing "Just a Little Bit of Your Heart," a ballad that always gets stuck in my head from time to time.

But I don't know if I could accomplish what he's asking. Even though recording a professional song has always been one of my dreams, I doubt whether my voice would come through as clear and liked. No one has ever complimented my singing, and I often compare my voice to a squealing pig or a chicken signaling a new morning.

"C'mon, Jayden." Beomgyu gives me his best pouting face. "Please?"

Of course, I can't refuse him, especially not after everything he's done for me. We go over the lyrics one time, and I recall that magical night where everything fell into place and my ability as a writer shone through in the phrases we managed to concoct.

Then, I hear Beomgyu's voice through the headphones I put on. Beomgyu makes sure the headset fits my ears well, that the volume comes through perfectly as I get ready to punch in my own vocals.

Then I sing.

I realize two things about myself. The first is that I'm not half bad at singing. I can follow a melody, and I can imbue feeling into my voice so that I don't sound like a monotone robot.

The second thing is this. I love creating, the feeling of making something out of nothing. I guess I should've known this about myself before, with my dreams of making it as a big author one day. But I learn that creating can come in many different forms. Putting my voice into this recording is one way of expressing myself.

Beomgyu cheers me on as he stands beside me in the recording booth. He claps every time I finish a take, and the producer outside gives me multiple rounds of thumbs up, our simple form of communication. When he plays back the music with my vocals layering Beomgyu's, I have to admit that I don't sound half bad.

Thank God for Beomgyu, for his voice and his willingness to take a chance for me. I allow myself to dream of myself on stage, singing this song along with him. Even though it may never happen, I allow myself the right to that fantasy.