"It don't matter how we make it 'cause it always ends the same"

You Could Be Mine

It was about a week after the show, and things had been going... unusually well for the SUG4RPOP girls.

They'd played covers of songs at the Vieux Carre almost every night this week. They were planning on checking out recording studios this week, since their landlord was starting to complain about the noise.

Because of this the girls had decided to take up jobs, or in some cases, second jobs in order to get ahead with their bills. Byeol had continued her job at the vacation booking agency, but was also working part time as a receptionist at a hotel. Kaguya picked up more shifts at her engineering firm, Kaen took on more hours in her acounting department, and Lily found two jobs, one as a waitress a job at a nearby bar and one as a clerk in a clothes shop.

In truth, it was becoming exceedingly difficult to find time to practice or compose any material. Outside of their shows, they only had maybe an hour or two a day to rehearse? Byeol was starting to feel it. She wasn't doing as well at her shows, none of them were. They were getting run ragged.

Today, as Byeol was rushing back to the apartment on her lunch break to get in a bit of practicing, she began to wonder how much more of this they could take.

For now, though, she had bigger things to worry about. It was almost time for rehearsal, and she couldn't afford to be late. Lisa was stressed out enough as it was.

Byeol jogged down the building's hallway, digging through her purse in search of her phone and simultaneously pulling off her sweater.

As she pulled her sweater up over her head, she felt her shoulder slam into something firm. She reeled back, struggling to untangle herself from her net of cashmere.

"Ow, shit!" Byeol swore as her head was finally freed from her shirt.

She felt a hand pat her upper arm carefully, and she jumped. Oh crap, did I hit a living person-

"You okay?" It was a young man's voice, thick with worry and a heavy Northern British accent.

Byeol glanced at him, straightening up when she noticed that the boy was actually pretty cute. "Oh um, yeah, I'm all good! How about you? Did I hurt you or anything?"

He shook his head and ran a hand through his messy, honey-blond hair. "Nah, I'm fine. Don't sweat it, miss!"

Byeol stuck out her hand, flashing him a warm smile.

"Sorry again for bumping into you. I'm Byeol, by the way."

The young man shook her hand.

"Xander. You sure you're good, miss Byeol?"

Byeol nodded with a small laugh. "Yeah, I'm sure!" She glanced up at him, blinking as she thought to herself.

"Um, sorry if this is weird, but have we met? I feel like I recognize you from somewhere."

Xander shook his head. "Can't say we have..." He mused. "I do live here, though. That might be it?"

"Yeah, probably," she didn't feel like that was quite it...

"Anyway, I gotta go. My bandmates are waiting for me outside," he gave her a cheeky smile and a wave, turning away from her.

Byeol waved back as she started walking to the apartment.

She mused over the meeting as she trudged across the threadbare carpeting. "Band..." She mumbled.

Her eyes widened as realization hit her. "I've gotta tell the girls-"

─── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ──

Byeol threw the apartment door open, startling Lilliana so much she dropped her cup of tea. The thick ceramic bounced off the hardwood and dumped its contents across the kitchen floor.

"I just saw a semi-famous person in the hallway and I ran into him," Byeol anounced as she quickly kicked off her slip-ons.

Lisa sighed, not looking up from her laptop. "Really. Who was it?"

"I think it was one of the boys from a band! Isn't that cool?"

Kaen dropped her magazine and shot up from her seat on the sofa. "Oh my God, which band? What'd he look like? Was he cute? Does he live here?"

She gave a tiny gasp. "Is he single?!"

"Oh, I think he's from a band called Obsydium or something-"

Kaen's face fell immediately. "Oh. I see." She turned away.

Byeol was slightly shocked by her reaction. She'd never seen Kaen be serious before. She always thought the girl lived in a perpetual state of 'happy'. It kinda concerned her, to be honest.

"Kaen?" Kaguya asked, setting down her coffee. "You okay?"

"Oh yeah, I'm fine," she whipped around. "Except I'm not!"

Lisa rubbed her temples, already anticipating one of Kaen's lengthy tantrums. "Oh, for the love..."

Kaen began to pace around the room. "Look, some of you might not be aware, but Obsydium is the biggest up-and-coming all-boys rock band in Korea! They're huge in the music scene! Which means, they are our competition!"

Kaguya leaned back in her chair, pushing her round glasses up. "Obsydium... Kaen, isn't that the band you auditioned for as a backup vocalist? The one that didn't pick you?"

"No! I-I mean, no. Anyway, you can't talk with him anymore, Byeol! None of you can! For multiple reasons!"

Lilliana blinked. "Why not? We're all musicians, shouldn't we-"

"Absolutely not! They are the enemy!"

"Kaen, don't be ridiculous. It is massively important for us to form strong ties and relationships with other bands. It opens up opportunities for-" Lisa was interrupted by Kaen snapping her fingers in front of her face.

"Shush it! We can do that with other bands, but not them! Never them!"

The girls all fell silent. At the end of the day, Kaen was their leader, and what she says, goes. Even if it was a terrible idea that could potentially cost them a lot of invaluable opportunities.

Oh well!

─── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ──

Outside in the parking lot, Xander slid into his band's car, twirling his drumsticks. Their lead singer, Laronzi, turned in his seat to look at him.

"What took you so long, Xander? We're gonna be late, dude!"

"Sorry, guys- I ran into a girl in the hallway and almost knocked her over."

In the driver's seat, their bassist Haittou gave him a dirty look in the rearview mirror. "Did you help her up, or did you just leave her there, like that time Ronnie fell down in the gas station parking lot?"

Their second vocalist Isaac shook his head at him. "You better not have left her there!"

"Don't be stupid, I don't just leave cute girls on the ground. I'm not an ass."

"Debateable..." Laronzi mumbled.

"Oh, that's rich coming from you, Ronnie-"

"No, shut up," Haittou interrupted. "No arguing. We have more important things to do than listen to your guys' petty fighting."

"Yeah, we gotta keep it together today, alright?" Elijah, the band's guitarist, turned around from his place in the front seat to face Xander and Isaac. "This meeting's really important, we can't afford to screw things up."

Haittou nodded in agreement. "If we can get this agency to sign us, then it's gonna open up a lot of opportunites. If we're lucky, we'll never have to play for another wedding or graduation party ever again."

"I like playing at the graduation parties..." Xander mumbled, sliding his drumsticks through his belt loop.

"Don't be too sad, Xan," Isaac said reassuringly. "We still have that show at the Vieux Carre coming up, so you still have plenty of opportunities to be a major showoff before we become idols!"

Xander narrowed his viridescent eyes at him. "Why do you always start to say nice things like that only to turn around and be a di-"

"What did I just say?" Haittou said loudly, his knuckles turning white from how hard he was gripping the steering wheel.

"No argui-" Isaac started, only to be quickly cut off by Xander crying "He started it!"

Elijah grinned and snickered at their arguing as Ronnie rolled his eyes, pushing his glasses up and going back to scrolling the band's socials. "Idiots..."

─── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ──

Xander was feeling a bit out of his element at the moment.

He sat beside his bandmates, listening as Haittou spoke with one of the idol agency's managers. He didn't understand very much of what was being said, honestly. It was a whole lot of business terms, but from what Elijah explained it was just negotiating the terms of their contracts.

At last the manager, Haruto, clapped his hands and grinned.

"Welp, that settles that! Soon as you sign your contracts, you'll all be under the management of AngelEyes. Be sure to read your contracts carefully; if there's something you want to dispute, now's the time to do it, 'cuz after you sign it there's no going back," Haruto warned, passing each member a piece of paper.

Xander took the paper and a pen from Haruto's hands. His eyes flitted over the paper carefully, examine the clauses and rules.

"'Romantic relations, private or public, are strictly prohibited'..." Elijah mumbled out loud. "Do we actually have to follow that?"

Haruto nodded, leaning his chair back on two legs. "'fraid so, Mr. Diango. That's one of the non-negotiable terms, unfortunately. Never made sense to me, but whatever."

"'AngelEyes reserves the rights to all media, members, and names used by the talents'- so we wouldn't own our own band anymore?" Ronnie asked, pushing his glasses up.

"Technically, yes. We would also, by extension, own the talents. That's you guys," Haruto said, shrugging apologetically.

"Wow, this is... super weird," Isaac mumbled, biting the end of his pen.

"Look, I'm not gonna lie to you guys," Haruto said, leaning forward against his desk. "I'm not crazy about these rules either. If it were up to me, you guys would just do your own thing and our company would just back you up and help you release your music." He leaned back, folding his arms behind his head. "But this is the best I can do for you guys right now. I've already asked my higher-ups to lower or get rid of a lot of the rules they wanted."

Haittou nodded. He took his pen, and was the first person to sign his contract.

The other boys followed suit. As the sound of pen scraping paper filled the room, Xander paused and anxiously read over his contract again. This, honestly speaking, kind've sounded like a really bad idea. All the weird, convoluted rules and clauses and terms- this had to have some weird binding consequences, right?

Surely they couldn't take this at face value...

Xander sighed heavily, scribbling his name across the dotted line as the other boys passed Haruto their papers. The manager smiled and stacked them neatly, shaking each of the band members hands in turn.

"Thanks, boys! I'll ask one of my higher-ups to look over this. Congrats! You're officially members of AngelEyes idol agency. I'll write down the directions to the dorms so you boys can move in sometime this week."

Elijah punched Ronnie's shoulder playfully as the boys filed out of Haruto's office, following behind Haittou. "This is great, man! We're on our way up!"

"Still dunno how I'm feeling about this," Isaac mumbled. "This whole thing... weirds me out."

Xander nodded, running his hand through his hair as he frowned. "Yeah, but I guess it gives us some more opportunities, at least. We'll just have to deal with the weird rules as best as we can..."

Ronnie gave Xander a slightly judgemental look over his shoulder. "But we all know you're not the best at following rules, huh?"

"Why do you choose violence every day?!"

Haittou ignored the two of them as they began to argue, looking excited as he walked out the door of the office building into the fresh evening air.

"Well, that went well. You know, I think this could work out really good for us, guys!"