Chapter 145: Studio Five

For all the shit Park had talked since arriving at NX Arc, all the flirting with Viktoria, all the jokes about rookie tables and corporate oppression and the confidence he wore so naturally people probably assumed somebody had stitched it into his skin at birth, the moment the heavy door of Studio Five’s recording booth shut behind him, most of it quietly disappeared.

Park stood there for a while and forgot to perform for anybody.

The booth itself was beautiful. (IMAGE)

Léonie sat behind it with the recording engineer, another producer leaned near one of the secondary screens, and the composer was already settling in with a tablet.

Viktoria stood farther back beside Sloane while Quinn had taken a seat near the rear with Park’s things.

Park barely noticed any of them at first.

His attention stayed on the microphone, his song was loaded onto those screens while name was outside the studio.

Actual producers were waiting for Nathaniel Park to begin.

His fingers moved over the microphone carefully. There had been nights after failed auditions when he’d gone home cold, hungry and pissed off at the world, then opened his laptop anyway and watched studio footage until 2 in the morning.

Park used to wonder what it felt like to be on the other side of that glass with people waiting because something inside his head mattered enough to record properly.

He’d wanted it badly enough that those videos eventually stopped being inspiring and became emotional self-harm; a car killed him before he ever got close and here he was.

Park lowered his gaze and rubbed his thumb once against the microphone.

’I don’t know how to thank you, God.’ It sounded stupidly sentimental even inside his own head; he didn’t care. ’I really don’t but thank you.’

Nobody interrupted him, Léonie (the lead producer) seemed to understand that dragging him out of whatever was happening would be stupid, and even Viktoria had lost the amused little expression she’d carried since Park kissed her hand.

The recording engineer finally checked the incoming signal and gave Léonie a thumbs-up. "We’re ready."

She pointed toward the headphones hanging beside Park.

He slipped them over his ears, and her voice arrived immediately.

"Comfortable? Can you hear me properly?"

Park looked through the glass. "Unfortunately."

Léonie laughed. "Good. Before we touch the production, I want to hear exactly how want the song to sound. Don’t worry about explaining everything technically. Show me."

’Much better.’

Park had no intention of standing there vomiting production jargon until he sounded like a nineteen-year-old music manual wearing human skin. Pretty Little Disaster already existed inside his head. He only needed to translate it.

He picked up the guitar and adjusted the strap, then looked toward the piano beside Léonie and pointed at her.

"You want me following?"

"After the opening. Let me give you the shape first."

"Anything specific?"

"Don’t make it too pretty."

Her eyebrow rose.

Park smiled. "Please don’t make it too pretty."

"There. Your mother did teach you manners."

"Debatable."

The engineer armed the tracks and across the main screen, an empty timeline waited beneath several audio lanes while Park settled his fingers over the strings and began.

The opening progression was deliberately simple, clean guitar with enough empty space around it for his voice to eventually sit close to the listener. There was already a small bounce beneath the softness though, a hint that the song had no intention of remaining innocent for very long.

Léonie listened through the first progression without touching the piano. Park repeated it, changed his attack slightly and showed her where the imaginary first verse wanted to begin.

Then her fingers moved and a soft piano joined him.

Park looked up through the glass, he nodded.

Exactly.

From there, the song began laying itself out almost embarrassingly quickly. Park changed the strumming as the verse moved forward, opened the rhythm toward the pre-chorus and struck the chorus wider. Léonie followed each change while the assistant engineer dropped markers onto the timeline and the composer added the chord progression beneath them.

INTRO. VERSE 1. PRE-CHORUS. CHORUS. VERSE 2. BRIDGE. VERSE 3. FINAL CHORUS.

Nobody stopped Park every 30 seconds to ask what he meant.

They simply listened.

That was probably the first thing he loved about working with people who knew what the fuck they were doing.

The guitar itself explained plenty; a harder strike told Léonie where Park wanted more weight. Muting the strings told her he wanted pressure without volume.

By the time Park completed the guitar-only run, Léonie already understood most of the song’s shape.

"Again," she said through his headphones. "This time sing."

The engineer started recording.

Park began again, and his voice entered over the guitar low and easy, intimate enough that he didn’t bother trying to impress anybody. He let the first verse sit close to the rhythm as though he were singing directly to one particular girl who had personally annoyed him into songwriting.

Then something shifted; the song had started life as modern pop, but halfway through the verse Park felt the words wanting more movement. His phrasing loosened, a few lines flowing faster over the beat, almost spoken in places before slipping smoothly back into melody.

The guitar changed with him, muted strings adding a little punch beneath the faster words.

Léonie caught it immediately.

Her piano moved.

Park glanced at her... she was already watching him.

He lifted his chin slightly.

’More.’

Her left hand thickened the progression.

Park smiled and kept singing.

The strange part was how quickly conscious thought stopped mattering. His breathing found the right places on its own.

By the pre-chorus, Park pulled the guitar almost completely back.

Léonie thinned the piano before he even looked at her and the chorus opened as his voice widened without turning into some screaming power-ballad nonsense.

The guitar gained bite, Léonie rose beneath him, and the modern-pop foundation suddenly picked up a little dirt around the edges. There was pop-rock in the guitar now, only a touch, while Park bent one phrase with a playful alt-pop flavor that made the composer lean forward.

Léonie smiled.

Park saw it and smiled right back.

’Fuck, she is good.’

He didn’t need to stop and explain every damned breath. A raised finger, a nod, one look through the glass and she was already there. When he wanted her louder, her hands rose. When he backed off, she softened. Once her piano became too full during a transition and Park shook his head while still singing.

She removed the extra notes before he reached the next line.

That was when Park really understood what experienced producers were worth.

Anybody could have ideas but catching somebody else’s idea while it was still moving was another skill entirely.

The take ended... Léonie pressed the talkback. "Again."

Park pulled one side of the headphones away. "Bad?"

"No."

"Then why do you sound offended?"

"Because you changed the phrasing halfway through."

"It sounded better."

"It did."

Park smiled. "You’re welcome."

The engineer laughed.

"Again," Léonie repeated. "Same version."

Park did it again, and this time her expression changed halfway through. The new phrasing landed in almost exactly the same places. The guitar pauses returned. The shortened chord before the pre-chorus came back where she’d remembered it, even the little breath before the hook sat where it had the first time.

’Poor woman.’

She’d expected rookie chaos and gotten a godly copy-and-paste.

When the second take finished, Léonie immediately asked for a third.

Park stared at her. "Now this is workplace harassment."

The third take became the best one precisely because Park stopped trying to preserve the second. He changed one line in Verse 2, letting the words dance over the rhythm more playfully, then pushed the pop-rock edge slightly harder in the final chorus.

Léonie followed.

By then the 2 of them had stopped merely reproducing the arrangement and started playing with it. She tested a different piano voicing beneath his pre-chorus, Park heard it and shifted the melody just enough to leave room, and the recording engineer eventually stopped watching Park altogether.

He was watching Léonie.

When the take ended, Léonie stayed at the keys for another second before looking up at him.

"You’re annoying."

Park grinned. "That’s practically affection."

By late morning, Pretty Little Disaster had grown far beyond the little acoustic skeleton Park walked in with. The arrangement had a body now, multiple guide vocals existed, although the engineer had quietly stopped calling several of them guides after realizing Park apparently didn’t understand that temporary was supposed to sound worse, and the producers had enough material to begin building the fuller record around him.

Park had made the terrible mistake of enjoying himself, so they did another song.

And another.

Beautiful Morning moved quickly because the room already understood his working language, but Halfway to Heaven was more troublesome. Park wanted the climb into the chorus to feel larger, Léonie wanted more piano underneath the pre-chorus, and they spent almost 10 minutes arguing over something most listeners would probably never consciously notice.

By lunch they’d worked through 3 songs. They weren’t finished records, and Park wasn’t stupid enough to think otherwise. There was still instrumentation, vocal layering, production work, editing, mixing and mastering ahead, enough invisible detail for professionals to ruin marriages arguing about snares.

But the performances and structures were there.

And Park’s stomach had officially become louder than his career.

Quinn arrived with lunch.

Park looked at her as though she’d crossed a battlefield carrying medicine.

"My beautiful savior."

She handed him the bag. "There are vegetables."

His expression collapsed. "And you ruined it immediately." Park accepted the bag. "Thank you, Guard Queen."

He left with Quinn and Sloane before the conversation developed into a hostage situation.