So, What? // 1D AU ✓

Chapter 20

~And I don't need you,

And guess what?,

I'm having more fun~

Same bass, different club.

Liam Payne entered the doors of the club, duffle bag slung over his shoulder - full of snacks, water, and clothes. With his work ethic, he didn't stop to eat, drink, sleep, or change. After all, in Los Angeles, there was always somewhere that needed music at all hours of the day.

He worked with an agency that told him where to go and when for his work. And because he was part of an organization, he was one of many DJ's that didn't get to choose what songs to play. Liam wished he could go back a year and a half and tell himself not to sign the contract. No matter what the money is. You'll lose your soul if you go down this path.

It was ten p.m. He had just finished his routine cringing and brooding about the song list, thinking of a billion different songs that fit the mood of tonight better than any single one he had played in the last month.

It was always the same bass, different club.

There were some aspects of his job that he liked, of course. He was always moving, and he liked it that way. The more hours he worked, the more money he had. Saving up towards a better future. All he ever thought about was money. How could be broke despite working 24 hours a day? When he had to take his breaks, he worked on songs. Writing his own stuff. But there was nothing he could do beyond that, and that's what the money was for. Booking a session at the recording studio costs much more money that anyone would think, and there's so many little costs to make it all work out perfectly like he wants.

Could you be anything worse than a songwriter and a perfectionist?

Occasionally, when work was slow, he'd sign up to work sound at concerts. Even that - the most boring work he could imagine - was better than being a DJ. Sometimes he wished that his ears would bleed so he didn't have to hear those same four chords that play on every pop song. Working out on a stationary bike at the gym - usually reserved for the injured and elderly - was better than this.

(I have no personal bias against stationary bikes.)

Always the same bass, in a billion different clubs.

He walked to the bathroom right as a song started, deciding that he needed a splash of water on his face. And that's exactly what he did. Gum in the mouth to prevent the bass from making him puke, and splash, splash, splashing the water on his face. Then Liam looked up, into his own brown eyes. Stubble on his face. Hair jaggedly cut from drugstore scissors.

"I'm depressed," He said out loud, and the reality of that statement sank in as he spoke it true. That may have been the only explanation for everything that had been going on, but manifesting in different ways. He hated everything, hated everything about his life and who he was making himself to be.