Fate | Jakehoon

chapter 11: shout it out

2022
Seoul, South Korea
9th of May

Jake has been sitting in the studio and listening to BTS's Magic Shop and Mikrokosmos on repeat for the past two hours. He's desperately looking for inspiration that can help him write at least one verse for the song he's been given the opportunity to work on. The title of the song has been chosen as Shout Out, the instrumental composition has been completed and most of the lyrics have already been written by the talented people working on it. What's left for Jake to do, is come up with some lyrics for the bridge and maybe one or two new lines for the  chorus.

The song is supposed to express their love for the fans, and from looking at the already written lyrics, it does exactly that, but he really wants to contribute with his own personal experience. Unfortunately, he feels a bit limited in his Korean writing, due to the language barrier, and he doesn't have much experience in the sense that, although he knows they have many fans who support and love them, they haven't performed in front of a crowd that's only there to see them, yet. So, it's all up to his imagination.

Half an hour later, it's completely silent and he's staring at the wall. His mind is blank right when he needs creative ideas, and it's stressing him out.

But a sudden notification that pops up on his phone screen catches his attention and Jake sees that it's a message from Sunghoon, asking what room he's in.
He replies, wondering why Sunghoon's at the company since their dance practice starts only after lunch. Jake came to the studio earlier because he considered it a better environment for writing, being quiet and peaceful, as opposed to the dorm, which can get extremely noisy when the seven of them are home.

Minutes later, Sunghoon knocks on the door, holding a bag of chips, a box of chocolate pepero sticks and one of ferrero rocher chocolates in his hands.

"I brought you some snacks," the blonde boy waves them in the air with a grin and Jake is already on his feet.

"Pepero!" he exclaims, snatching the snack out of his hand and Sunghoon laughs, placing the rest of them on the table.

"Did you come here just to bring me these?"

Sunghoon nods. "I thought you could use some food motivation. But I actually came with Jungwon because he wanted to film a tiktok with Taehyun for their new song," he continues, and Jake suddenly remembers seeing a congratulatory message from Jungwon to the TXT members on their group chat, by the time he arrived at the studio today.

Jake hasn't had the time to listen to it since their album literally dropped this morning, but Jungwon was already on top of it. Their leader sure keeps track of everything. He's also gotten quite close to Taehyun, although the latter is two years older than him.

"How's it going?" Sunghoon notices Jake's frown and the open file with their song lyrics on his laptop, along with a few paper sheets entirely blank next to it.

"Not great," Jake sighs, furrowing his eyebrows. "It's like my brain's empty. I can't think of a single line to match with the rest of the song," he complains, frustrated.

He has two days left to send something, anything, to the producer and he can't to give up. He was entrusted with the task and if he likes Jake's lyrics, there's a big chance he'll get more opportunities to be involved in their future albums. He doesn't want to disappoint the producer, their CEO, Bang Si-Hyuk, and all the people involved in the process. But most importantly, he doesn't want to disappoint himself.

"I'm no expert in writing lyrics, but why don't you think less and focus more on feeling?" Sunghoon suggests, but Jake looks at him like a lost puppy, which makes him giggle.