Inked

Chapter 9 - Monotone

The new training program had great potential. We were able to adjust the training individually to all the trainees on paper.

I met the training team in the morning for a meeting alongside the managing department including JYP. For a few hours we went through the plans and they were all agreeing on a trial period of 1 month to see if the predicted progress can be seen.

"Great then! That is all right?", JYP asked us all.

I shook my head.

"There is something else. The global auditions are starting soon or you will announce them soon. Sir at this rate I think we can not allow anymore trainees because we are saturated already. We need to train the ones we have now and skip this year's audition. My recommendation is that we need to change the audition process aswell. We take too many new trainees and just 10% make the cut. We are wasting their time and ours aswell. If there is no potential than we should not take them. That is my opinion", I said seriously and his face went blank.

There was a silence among us all and I thought that he would yell at me any minute or kick me out but he just nodded.

"Write a report up and I will think about it alone", he said grabbing his files and leaving.

The meeting was dismissed. Jo turned to me surprised and exhaled.

"I thought he will fire us after you said that. Good that he didn't", she said and I laughed.

We headed to our office together and I looked at her: "Jo I want you to develop a new audition process. We have talked about the issue before a lot and I trust your abilities enough to let you work on this solo. I remember your project back in uni where you made something similar to that".

She was clearly touched by that and started after I said that. Tieing her hair up she started to type away. For a while I stared at my screen just zooning out. To be honest the team did not need me here all the time. They knew how I wanted things to be done. It was a great feeling to start something and see it all running on its own without much of effort. The next few days I was in meetings over meetings while Jo took care of the office life.  I noticed that I was not euphoric anymore as I used to be. Work became monotone and I did not like it.

It was 6pm when most of the staff left to celebrate our success so far on my expenses. I still had to do some reports for JYP so I could not join and stayed behind. I was done with it within 2 hrs but refrained of joining the team. I was exhausted and drained but not because of the work itself but rather my state of mind. I was not needed here anymore and I felt like something else was waiting for me. I missed making music and being involved in it myself and write. Whenever I wrote music I felt alive and could vent about my worries. After that they were gone and I was feeling like me. Truth was I was not myself anymore and that frustrated me alot. I shut the computer down and rested my eyes awhile in the deserted office of mine. Even my thoughts were not peaceful and I could not shut down. I sighed and opened my eyes and was startled to see Uka sittig infront of me starring at me.

I sat up straight and looked at him.

"How long have you been here?", I asked him as I cleared the paperwork from my table.

"Not long. Jo Nonna told me that you were still in the office so I came to check on you. Seems like you are done..", he said smiling and stood up, "Come on I have a suprise for you. You are done here anyway and I doubt that you are joining the rest at the party".

He turned around to grab my coat and handed it to me and he made it clear that he would not accept a no from me. I gave in and followed him out and to a cab that was waiting for us. He whispered the destination to the driver and turned to face me with a very serious expression.