Chapter Text
Once again she was pacing around the room.
— Well, I still don't know how you managed to deliver the outfits wrongly. How...— She held herself stiffly for seconds while waiting for Naoki to end the excuses. Her friend was happily seated at the couch making gestures while not understanding a thing.
She was speaking Japanese. Literally. And he could barely manage to write his name in the language, let alone understand what was happening.
— I can't help you get mad if I can't understand you. — He said in English and she could not disagree.
— Make a report to me, I'm meeting the group today and cannot deal with this right now. — She heard someone yell at the other side of the line, the studio was probably in complete chaos. — We'll talk later Naoki-kun.
— Are you going to talk to me in a language I can understand or is that too out of question?
She fell by his side sighing.
— Someone mixed the outfits for the deliveries. The packages are coming to Seoul, so it's very serious and shitty, but right now there's nothing I can do.
— Is it that serious? — He asked sensitively, even though she didn't look all that troubled. — I mean, maybe the packages had similar contents?
— Have you ever seen me do similar shit? — At her tone, he held his hands up while receiving a very savage glare. — It's not even for the same group, and I think one of them is for SM. If I lose this contract I'm—
— Wait, you are doing SM again? — His eyes were suddenly wide.
— Same as before, just one guy in the group.
— Oh! — He held his hands up again, but now completely excited. He looked like he was about to hyperventilate. — Is it Yuta?
— It's confidential again, once the comeback is released you'll know.
— Have you been in touch with Jungwoo lately? — He looked so excited she didn’t want to kill his spree. — Oh, God! How come it never crossed your mind to talk to me about that?
She went for a deadpan.
— So you showed it to me before? — A wide smile spreading all over his face.
— Since when do I release something without showing you?
— Then you are coming back with your shady deals?
— Don't come at me with the shady deals, we are in Seoul, I don't even know which company this is, and I can barely speak Korean.
— Well, that's a choice of yours. Tell me again why you totally left K-pop behind.
— Someone's coming. — She sat up, shoulder down, neck long.
— Really, no Korean?
— Hello, I'm Ana. — She smiled as if she was presenting herself with the most fluent of her knowledge in language study, that was pretty much all the Korean she could master at the time, this and a couple of phrases learned in dramas she watched through life.
— Well, I can't say your pronunciation was bad but I'm sure you are going to want to know more Korean as soon as we meet the people we're going to work with.
— Well... — She was abruptly interrupted by her phone vibration and a couple of people bursting into the room. She hurriedly denied the call and got up to her feet while bowing. All in one.
She tried her best to analyse the two women and the men, but it was too much. One of the women was already talking to Dan in perfect Korean, one miss for Ana already, the other was typing furiously her phone as if the whole world depended on that, and the man was just standing in the corner of the room as if ready to vanish.
— Nice to meet you, Ms Ana. — The woman that was talking to Dan served her with one English phrase, and that seemed to be all as well.
— She doesn't speak English nor Japanese, so she brought a translator. — Dan pointed to the guy at the corner.
— We really like your work, and the album we are going to come with is very important to us, so we'll go all the way out if necessary. — The crazy typing habits woman also spoke in English, but Ana was pretty sure she wasn't going to follow them since there was a translator.
— Wait. — There was no straight face she could pull at that moment, she really wanted a new big contract, and even though she didn't know what company she was standing in, a big project would always be a big project. — So this is not an interview? Or test? You guys are already sure you want me to do this?
She waited for the translator to whisper the rest of her phrase to the first woman. Damn it, she didn't want to be followed by a whisperer everywhere she went. — Oh! — The first woman smiled and said words she could not understand.
Then the translator came forward. Thank God he wasn't going to whisper all his way around her. — Your friend Dan already presented some of your work to us and we have been keeping an eye on your work as well, so we hope you'll join us as soon as possible.
Ana waited for a while. Not for more information nor someone to say something else, but for her brain to go back to work and form words. Thank goodness her friend came to her rescue, even though she could not understand one word of her Korean.
— She's a little startled, I kind of didn’t tell her the specifics of the project and everything. — He smiled bashfully. — She doesn't even know what company this is.
When the not-English-speaking woman opened her mouth in clear surprise Ana started reconsidering that maybe Dan had not come to her rescue. And yes, she pretty much wanted to at least understand Korean.
— Are you sure you want to work with us? — That was turning her brain into soup, why did the typing woman think that?
— What did you tell them? — Ana asked Dan whining, was the translator even there for her? He had gone back to whispering to the first woman.
— I just said I didn't give you any kind of information. — He tilted his head slightly clearly trying to calm Ana's rising despair.
— Okay, then let's start over, can we? I don't even know your names, could we start with that?
— I'm Do Mijin, this is Lee Haeun and he is Kim Yejoon. I'm the head of the styling department, Mrs Lee is the head of the concept department and Mr Choi is... Well, the translator as you can see.
— Ah, nice to meet you. — Well, she knew how to pull that off in Korean as well, she did it with the second bow of the day, not that anyone was counting.
— So you don't intend to give up on us, right? — Ms Do asked blank-faced.
— Oh, no, I don't, I just need to understand everything that is going to happen so we can get to work. — She held in a sigh, a happy sigh because things were going to be okay.
The next to say something was Ms Lee so Ana had to wait for Mr Kim to translate before taking action.
— So let's sit so we can start clearing things up.
And they did it in silence.
— Before introducing you to our project let me know, are you going to work with our team of styling or are you bringing people from your studio? — There was no way Ana would be able to hold inside the surprise, her eyes jumped to Dan. — It was not him, as I told you before we have been looking at your work for some time now.
— All right. I intend to come alone into this, my people from the studio already have their own agenda for the whole year.
— The whole year ? — The translation from Mr Choi was not emphatic at all, but Ana caught the proper emphasis.
— Yeah, some agencies booked us even though they still don't know what they want, it's normal these days.
Before Mr Choi finished whispering, Ms Do came again. — Well, and you still want to work with us?
As Ana got herself a little distracted by her friend's poorly stifled laugh; which cost him a kick under the table; the head of the concept department almost lost her mind. — Are you crazy? — That much she could understand. Mijin also got herself a little aggression, a slap behind the shoulder. — Are you trying to make her change her mind?
Dan was understanding everything, so Ana took a deep look into her friend's eyes trying to ask him to make things happen, she did have matters to take care of after all. And their telepathy was probably on since Dan blurted something out in Korean catching everyone's attention, and then. — I guess we can start discussing the proposal now.
Perfect. Give it to Ana for making sure her brain was not turning into soup with a mixture of languages. She wanted to understand Korean again. — Yes please. — She managed not to sound exasperated at all.
Mijin waited no more, being efficient by sliding the pitch to Ana on an iPad. It did not take Ana a lot of time to realise that the contract was more than she wanted since she was currently working for her will, not really for the money. There were a lot of zeros, and she checked more times than she felt comfortable confessing that it was indeed in dollars.
"Keep your eyes in control, no wide eyes, no wide eyes."
And she almost maintained it all except for the gasp that came with the last pages. How could it be JYPE? Her dynamic reading made her let it slide and she started looking for a sign based on her memory of the corridors she had taken with Dan. Cut that off, she was too lost in the studio's problems to be able to see anything.
She stole a glance in Dan's direction. He was smirking. She would not be able to maintain a stern face if she tried telepathy again, but then everything went to shit. After a whole lot of documents about confidentiality and its fees, she got to the page about the group.
She didn't even manage to make a sound, mouth gape.
— Do you want to learn Korean now? — Dan asked in Portuguese this time. The bastard.