╾ hello
@fmdlyra
Another long day was coming to an end – nothing out of the ordinary, since almost all his days were long and had been for a good while. Most days, it was a schedule keeping him up, a taping that lasted until the wee hours of the morning, Moonjin unusually talkative on the drive home because he would never not feel indebted to his manager and keeping him company as he, too, worked late was the least he could do. Sometimes, it was by his choice only, when he got lost in a song and refused to put down the pen, or when he wasn't satisfied with his performance, with the way his movements never quite lost their harsh edge, even during songs that weren't meant to be hip-hop or fierce in the least, with the way his facial expressions were never genuinely sweet, not in a believable way. At the end of the day, it was all the same.
He rarely ever turned in early, and he wasn't sure if he'd be able to sleep before one day had gone and the other was already starting anyway. It wasn't that he didn't get tired – he did, rubbing at his exhausted eyes ever so often and letting his teeth sink into his bottom lip to suppress a yawn when members of the staff were around. His body was almost constantly running on too little sleep, all too eager to catch up every time he wasn't keeping busy with one thing or another. What kept him up were his thoughts alone – if he hadn't gotten enough done in a day, how could he allow himself the luxury of sleep? Impulse would always come first, without a doubt.
That day, too, he wasn't satisfied with the progress he'd made, but it was 4am already and he knew that no sleep wouldn't help with being more productive the next morning either, which was why he had reluctantly called it a day either way. As expected, sleep never found him when he actively looked for it. He needed a distraction – a listening ear, perhaps, though he wasn't sure he even had anything to say. For a second, he considered slipping into Ilwoo's room, knowing full well he wouldn't mind being woken up, not if it was important to him – but it wasn't. It was no urgent matter and the other deserved all the rest he could get.
So Moonjin sat cross-legged on the living room floor and scrolled through the contacts on his phone. His sister would surely still be awake; her sleeping schedule had been messed up for as long as he could remember. She was a safe option – a good idea. Lying down with a soft sigh, he mindlessly clicked the call button and waited for someone to answer. Someone did pick up soon enough, but it wasn't his sister's voice greeting him from the other end. Instead, it was a senior artist from Gold Star he didn't exactly have the best relationship with – not the worst, either, for that matter, but a strained one nonetheless. It wasn't someone he trusted and thus not someone he wanted to be talking to at this hour, not when fatigue was wearing away at the walls he built during the day and his thoughts were one tangled mess.
“Hello,” he greeted as casually as he possibly could while he was mentally slapping himself for being careless – repeatedly. “I hope I didn't wake you. Are you available to talk?” It had been an accident, but he couldn't just apologize and hang up on her now. That would have been not only rude but also embarrassing. Having a short, normal conversation with her couldn't hurt, whether it was the middle of the night or not – right?
