REFRAIN (Jihyo x Male Reader)

At seventeen, the system decided he wasn't good enough.

After three brutal years as a trainee at JYP Entertainment, Y/N packed his bags, flew back to Chicago, and spent the next decade pretending Seoul never happened. He rebuilt his life from the ground up, becoming one of the industry's most respected vocal producers. He made his peace with the past. He just never went back to the company that broke his heart.

Until now.

Hired as a vocal consultant for TWICE's highly anticipated new album, Y/N returns to a brand-new JYP headquarters. He prepares himself for the ghosts of his past, only to find the old building where he suffered has been demolished. The cramped hallways, the terrifying evaluations, the midnight piano sessions-all gone. The only thing that remains from his trainee days is the woman standing on the other side of the vocal booth glass: Park Jihyo.

For ten years, they have lived on opposite sides of an ocean. She is the titan who survived the machine to lead the nation's biggest girl group; he is the boy who left without saying goodbye. But as professional boundaries begin to blur in the quiet intimacy of the recording studio, Y/N is forced to confront the gap between the girl he left behind and the woman she has become.

Refrain is a slow-burn story about the weight of lost time, the silence we leave behind, and what happens when two people who survived the exact same system finally stop running.