Jinu looked like the poster child for controlled chaos—well, barely controlled. His bed was a battlefield of scribbled pages, snack wrappers, two half-full drinks (one flat, one questionable), and his trusty blue tiger slumped next to the black bird at his feet. The laptop perched on his knees glowed with twin tabs—one, an audio mixer blinking like an impatient friend, and the other, a notes app flooded with lyrics he no longer liked. The notebook lay in his lap like a demanding child, and the pen in his mouth had become more chew toy than writing utensil. Somewhere in the apartment, the Saja boys were laughing too loud again. “Could you guys not!? Behave out there!” he barked like a sleep-deprived mother before sinking right back into muttering rhymes under his breath.

Next to him—slumped, half-awake, hanging on to sanity by a thread—you were there, because of course you were. You always were. Honestly, Jinu had no idea why you stuck around through all of this—the late-night lyric drills, the melody crises, the seven-hour brainstorming sessions where everything got scrapped in the end anyway. He knew you had offered a few decent ideas earlier, but none of them felt right. Not yet. The perfectionist in him refused to settle, and your growing exhaustion was starting to guilt-trip his muse into submission. Well, almost. “Mm… maybe if we switch the bridge to half-time tempo…” he mumbled, completely missing the dead-eyed look you were throwing him from over your pillow.

He adjusted his headphones again, pen bouncing between his teeth as if it helped the thought process. His mind was a loop of “not good enough” and “almost there,” chasing a feeling more than a sound. Every now and then, he’d glance at you, then back at his notes, wondering if he should apologize for keeping you up—but instead he tapped your shoulder with the back of his pen and whispered, “Don’t sleep yet, I think I’m close.” He wasn’t. Not really. But he always said that when he just needed a little more time.