Chapter Text
It wasn’t the composition so much as the lyrics. They were the ones he could no longer conceive.
The music in itself came as easy to him as it always did; the composition of his complex bass lines that acted as a bridge that connected the other instruments together to concoct a masterpiece had never faltered, and he believed it was due to the musical integrity of his members; their individual sense of creativity overwhelmed every writing session, and while at times prior he would find it frustrating having to decide on which idea fit best, he was now simply grateful for the continuous bouts of new ideas; it meant he was not obligated to provide his own, and could simply trail close behind the other members, fitting his bass lines into their original composition; it was a good enough mask to disguise his true fear, but everyone could spot its true form underneath.
He could no longer put words together. And that fact in itself scared him senseless.
He’d tried to write – truly, he tried so fucking hard to write – but the words never came. At least, not in the way he wished for them to. Every word he scribbled on paper, every lyric he conceived throughout his sessions would end up in a pile by the end of the day, discarded and paid dust as they simply just weren’t good enough. He’d spent hours – he’d spent days – cooped up in the studio, doing nothing but writing, telling himself to stop throwing out every bad idea that comes, but it’s always left to little avail. He can’t allow himself to continue on with a draft if he shows no liking to it, and for the past few months, all he did was loathe every single word. They meant nothing to him – they struck no chord, conjured no emotion, created no significance. His words were simply words, and he could perceive them as nothing more.
His lyrics embodied an empty shell without a soul. It wasn’t hard to figure out why, though others seemed persistent to have him concede to it out loud.
“Is it her? Do you not have any shred of creativity now that she’s gone? Shouldn’t the heartache help you write better? Kang Brian, get over yourself.”
His producer had failed to stop repeating the words like a mantra, reprimanding him every time he was unsuccessful in showing him new material by the end of the month. Truthfully, he paid little attention to what the former had to say; if it weren’t for the fact that they remained in a permanent cycle, he would more than likely not even remember the words said. When anyone else, including his own bandmates, brought the topic of her up, he would simply tune them out, playing his own melody in his mind until they would shut the hell up. By then, he would grimly nod and act like he gave a shit about what they had to say – yet another mask to disguise how he felt, but this one seemed to be working better than the other.
He didn’t exactly have the want to talk about losing his muse out loud, not when the thought of her left him the way it did. Most musicians experience heartache so great they articulate their emotions on paper, creating masterpieces so intense the adrenaline and hurt passes through them every time the song’s performed; a pain that continuously tortures even with the years passed by. It was a form of catharsis, really, one that was better than any form of therapy could give; when he had been hurt by others around him in the past, he’d been just like the rest of them. He took his pain and put it into words, not letting it out into the open. It was just better that way; he could hone his craft and still find a sense of release without having to deal with being vulnerable and a crying fit – it was a win-win situation. It was the way things should work.
At least, that’s what she told him. On the first day they met; the first song writing session he’d ever had.
“We’re musicians. When we’re in pain, we write it down – we don’t talk about it.”
“That – that’s not healthy.”
“It’s just what we’re meant to do.”
When he first heard those words, Brian had been sceptical – he knew there had to be so many words left unsaid by never expressing any feelings out loud – the kind of words that could eat people alive. But he’d heard her songs, and he’d heard of her – she was talent embodied into a single soul, and she was the most incredible person he’d ever met.
When Kang Brian first met her, he’d been awed. She was the kind of person he thought existed only in stories – the kind that seems too good to be true, a mixture of beauty and talent and personality that can only be envied, a dream that could never be real.
She was the kind of girl people wrote songs about. And so he turned her into his muse.
At first, everything seemed just right; as the sessions progressed, they grew closer, and the songs grew more and more clear to be of and for her; by the time they were together, she’d become the only centre of his music, the only one he wanted to write about, because any other form of lyrics he could create just weren’t good enough. She was the only story he wanted to put on paper. She was the only lightning of inspiration that could strike him at any given moment. She was his muse. There was simply no point in even trying to write about anything else.
So when she walked out the door, she took all his words with her.
Instead of leaving him with heartache so great he could articulate the emotions on paper, she left him hollow; from the day she left in search of a better path, he’d been unable to concoct, unable to express, unable to feel. He was left with nothing. No muse, no heartache – just he himself, and the sheer frustration of having the worst writer’s block in existence.
And that fact itself scared his producer senseless.
Which was why, almost a year after Brian had broken up with his muse, he decided that enough was enough; the boy refused to talk about his feelings, and he was unable to even conjure them in his lyrics; it had been a year since his name was credited as a lyricist for the band, and while the other members were able to make up for the stagnancy of his ideas, the loss of his lyrics was still a genuine blow; he had a gift, one that shouldn’t go to waste simply because he’d lost the girl of his dreams. He just needed to find release – a sense of closure that could give him back the words he’d lost.
The only way to take back words lost would be to demand them from the one who had stolen them in the fist place.
It took two, three rings for her to finally pick up the producer’s call. It was the middle of the night, and the music studio he sat in appeared soulless, pitch black with the exception of the light emitting from the screen of his phone. His eyes wandered around the room as he placed the phone against his ear, before landing on the dozens of crumpled paper that accumulated in the trash; all the thoughts Brian had tried to turn into masterpieces, incredibly diverse in their own right, ranging from romance to friendships to even his own struggles, but none of it could ever add up.
He knew Brian would hate him for this. He knew this could possibly lead to an even worse outcome than what they already had. But her voice ringing in his ear as she greeted him just assured him this was what had to be done.
“Hello?”
“Hey, it’s me. Yes, it has been a while; congratulations on your engagement, by the way. But that’s not why I’m calling – we need to talk.”