Z.A.Y.N.

TRACK 6

"I'm gonna run it back. Just take it from the top."

Behind the glass of the plush recording booth, Zain readjusts his headphones and nods in recognition.

Liam's hands are a blur, twisting one knob and flicking up a level tab expertly. It's like he'd said to Zain about keeping on beat - practice enough, and it'll become second nature. When he was seventeen, all Liam knew how to do was turn up the volume of a mixing board, but two years of music school and an insatiable want to learn, and now he was a pro. Even when classes ended, Liam had always been the one to stay after hours, tweaking the smallest of things to make sure the sound was to his liking. It's those restless nights and early mornings that got him to where he is in the producer's chair today - quite literally.

It's been two days since Zain filled up Liam's stomach with a light tofu and rice dish that the latter had insisted upon so his trainer seriously wouldn't have a go at him, and the two called it a night. For Liam, it was an odd thing - to stop working on a song just because a certain hour had hit, but Zain had insisted that if Liam didn't want his rims to go missing, he should go. It was such a tender demand that the singer didn't even put up a fight, say that he was more than capable of handling his own on the walk from the front door to his truck, he just acquiesced with a promise to text Zain as soon as he finished the story waiting for him in his inbox.

It took all of three hours, from start to finish, before he was sending a message: book was fucking brilliant mate. Gonna try and find studio time at night asap to finish the song

At that point it was almost midnight, and while recording studios themselves were usually nocturnal, their front desks were not. There wasn't anything wrong with Zain's makeshift front room studio, in fact, Liam actually found it inspiring in itself - homey and intimidate in a way that professional places weren't - but equipmentwise, a real studio couldn't hurt.

In less than twelve hours, Louis had somehow managed to snag them a two hour slot at one of the city's best studios for the next night. Liam didn't dare ask what sort of favour would need to be redeemed in the future to whoever originally had the spot.

From the second he'd received the news, to the moment Zain entered the booked room smelling of a mixture between lamb and duck an hour ago, Liam had been throwing around ideas for lyrics to build around the writer's chorus. It helped that they had already put together a sound for the track at Zain's, but there was a worry that lingered inside Liam each time he wrote down a possible line or two.

This was based off of Zain's story, Zain's creative work. For whatever reason, Liam felt like there was more room for error or to offend because of that. Maybe it doesn't make sense, since writing about someone's love life is just as personal, but when it comes to someone as private and as sensitive to words as Zain is, Liam will do anything to avoid letting him down.

He didn't vocalize his fear in those exact words, but when Zain accidentally took out his recipe book instead of his writing one, Liam was reminded that there's nothing superhuman about the other male; he's a regular person who isn't only his lyrics. Just like how he's treated normally by the writer, Liam needed to do the same for him. So he did.

After Zain playfully shoved him in an attempt to get him to quit going on about how much he loved the short story and move on to the song, Liam didn't hesitate to show off a few lyrics he'd come up with on his own.

Turns out he'd been nervous for nothing; Zain loved what he had and things clicked into place at the blink of an eye. Not only was it a huge pressure lifted off his chest, it was also an electrifying moment knowing that he could jive so well with someone he admired as much as Zain.