Taste | Changbin

Chapter One

"What?" Changbin pulled his eyes off his phone to glance over at Bang Chan. "What did you say?" 

"I said that our makeup artist went into labor late last night. She won't be able to do our makeup for the next few months while she's taking care of her newborn. We'll have to visit her in a few days. She's still in labor at the moment." 

"Who's replacing her?" 

"I don't know her name, but it's some girl from America. She just moved to South Korea not that long ago. Why do you ask?" 

Changbin groaned and let himself fall against the chair. "What if she makes me look ugly? You know how I feel about makeup artists. It took weeks before Hana could do her job properly. I don't want to go through that again!" 

"Could you relax, mate? You haven't even met her yet. Cut her some slack, I'm sure she'll be great. Do you really think JYP would hire her if she was bad? Part of our job is to be attractive."

Lee Know stood in the doorway. "Yeah, all those big muscles and yet you're still lacking in the brain department." 

"Hey!" Changbin sat up, "it's not nice to eavesdrop." 

"Funny, considering the door was left open and we could hear your complaining down the hall. I'm trying to come up with a new dance and you're ruining the vibe. Could you shut up for once? If I can't come up with a dance, our management is going to kill me." 

"Touche." 

"If you're this worried, why don't you talk to her? I'm pretty sure she's over in JYP's office. He mentioned he was meeting a new staff member today and giving them a tour of the building. Scavenge the building and you'll probably find them. In the meantime, shut up." Lee Know pulled the door shut before going back to the dance studio. 

He grumbled all the way there and shut his own door. He didn't need anyone bothering him. He needed to be alone with the music. He was running out of time. There were only a few hours left until they could go home. The company was expecting a new dance by the end of the day. 

He still had to come up with the rest of the moves, figure out what could be improved, and improve it before he could show it to management. If management didn't like it, they'd get other choreographers to add things to it. He chased perfection and today he was lacking. He wanted to go home and crawl into bed as soon as possible. 

Meanwhile, Chan glanced back down at his laptop. "Do you want to come find her with me?" Changbin asked. "We could introduce ourselves and perhaps get started on the right foot." 

"As much as I want to, I can't. I'm still working on finishing this song. Besides, we'll get to meet her tomorrow morning. We have that one interview and since Hana won't be there, the new girl will." 

"Remember when Hana first did our makeup? It took her ages to get through all of us quickly. I bet tomorrow morning is going to be the same way. We're all going to have to get up early and w-" 

Chan narrowed his eyes. "Is there something wrong with you?" 

"What do you mean?" 

"Usually, you're pretty okay about meeting new people. You haven't even met this girl and you can't find anything nice to say about her. What's your problem?" 

"The problem is that I wake up every morning with a very strict routine. We start our days early and I start my days by working out. If we have to come into the office early, I'm going to have to get up earlier to work out. You know how much I love sleeping." 

"Why can't you go to bed earlier?" 

"I like staying awake and having time for myself! I like this job, I love it, it's great, but sometimes I want to relax. I want to go home and lay down on the couch. I want to turn on Netflix and be a little lazy." 

"I'm sure it'll be fine. You're overthinking this whole situation. If it'll make you feel better, go see if you can find her and introduce yourself. I'm sure you'd feel better if you knew her name." 

"You're right, but your song. Do you want me to help you with it? I haven't listened to it yet, but I'm sure I could think of somethi-" 

Chan put up his hand to stop the younger member's sentence. "Go see if you can find the new girl. Keep your phone on and I'll text you if I need you. Until then, go find her and get your head out of your ass." 

"My head is not in my ass!" 

"Uh-huh," sarcasm laced Chan's voice. 

"It's not!" 

"Keep telling yourself that."

"I-" 

"The longer you stand here talking, the longer it's going to take you to find them. If you keep it up, you won't have to worry about meeting her. She'll be gone and you'll never get your chance." 

"I'm going!" Changbin held his hands above his head. "I'm going, happy now?" 

"Just peachy." 

Changbin rolled his eyes and reached for the door handle. Maybe Chan was right, maybe she'd be nice and everything would be fine. He wouldn't know unless he found her and had the chance to talk to her. 

How bad could it go?