Chapter 63: Writing Songs
Opening my eyes, I clicked the pen and brought the tip down against the fresh white paper.
"Alright..." I murmured to the empty room. "Let’s give Yerin something she can sing from her soul."
I closed my eyes again, letting the instrumental beat dictate the syllable structure. In my mind, I didn’t see a mega-stadium or millions of screaming fans. I saw Yerin-not the glittering, icy ’Nova’ pop star, but the sweet, chaotic girl who wore oversized hoodies, snuck past high-society security guards, and giggled while eating snacks in my bed.
My pen began to move across the paper, the ink flowing smoothly in steady, rhythmic lines.
Verse 1: I used to think the night was all I had,
An empty room, a window, and the rain.
I learned to smile when I was falling apart,
And call surviving something close to living.
I paused, humming the lines under my breath along with the piano melody, making sure the syllable counts matched the chord progression. I scratched out "empty room" and changed it to "quiet room,’ feeling the softer vocal transition would suit Yerin’s upper register better.
Then somehow, without warning, you appeared,
Laughing like the world had never hurt.
You took a lonely heart I’d hidden for years
And made it feel like it was worth being heard.
’Yeah... that’s it,’ I thought, a quiet warmth blooming in my chest as I wrote.
Next came the pre-chorus. The music began to swell here, building tension with a driving drumline that demanded an anthemic, rising delivery.
Pre-Chorus: I don’t know what tomorrow holds,
Or where this road will lead us both.
But there’s one thing I know for sure-
I leaned forward, my pen moving faster as the chorus hit its grand peak in my earphones. This was the core hook of the entire track, the part that millions of fans would be singing along to in the stadium.
Chorus: Where you are, that’s where I want to be.
Through every sunrise, every midnight sky.
If the world changes underneath our feet,
I’ll find you every time.
I don’t need forever promised in advance,
I don’t need to know how the story ends.
Just give me your hand,
And I’ll walk beside you until the road disappears.
Where you are...that’s home to me.
I stopped, holding my breath as I reread the chorus in my head, singing it mentally along with Nova’s instrumental peak.
It was simple. It wasn’t overly complex or filled with pretentious poetic metaphors. But every single word was completely sincere, capturing the exact, unwavering presence I wanted to offer Yerin in a world filled with high-society pressure and crazy expectations.
[Woah...] Paige murmured in my mind, her usual chaotic, teasing tone completely gone, replaced by a soft, awestruck whisper. [Seth... that’s... that’s actually really beautiful.]
I chuckled, tapping my pen against the pad as I moved onto the second verse, addressing Yerin’s reality as a global superstar.
Verse 2: You don’t have to be the girl they see,
The perfect voice beneath a thousand lights.
You can laugh too loud, you can make mistakes,
You can fall apart when nobody’s watching.
And if someday the whole world turns away,
If every spotlight finally fades to black,
I’ll still remember who you were before the applause—
The girl who smiled and made me want to stay.
I spent the next hour completely locked in the zone. I wrote, erased, adjusted syllables, tested vocal cadences, and refined the bridge, polishing the flow until the lyrics fit the instrumental track like a custom-tailored glove.
By the time I wrote the final resolution line for the song’s outro, the notepad page was filled with neat, black-ink lyrics.
I leaned back against the leather sofa, letting out a long, satisfied breath as I held the completed sheet up to the light.
"Track one... finished.’ I smiled, a profound sense of pride filling my chest. ’Now... time for track two."
...
While the first song I wrote was an intimate, heartfelt confession of love directed at the girl who stole my heart, the second track needed an entirely different emotional core.
This second track was the centerpiece of Nova’s global farewell tour. It wasn’t just for us, it was for the millions of fans across the world who had followed Yerin’s music for years, who had grown up listening to her voice, and who were now preparing to watch her step off the global stage.
It needed to capture the bittersweet, lingering magic of a temporary farewell, a promise that even when the bright spotlights fade and the stadium empties out, the connection remains unbroken.
It took me a little longer to find the right cadence for this one, but as the rhythmic, swelling pop-ballad composition played through my earphones, the words began to take shape on the paper.
"When the lights go down, and the last song fades away... I’ll carry every sound of the love you gave me yesterday..."
I leaned over the notepad, clicking my pen as I hummed along with the beat, polishing the bridge and chorus transitions until every line hit with maximum emotional impact.
"This was never our goodbye... I’ll take your dreams with me, you take my songs into the night."
"And... done," I muttered to myself, holding the fresh notepad page up to the light with a long, satisfied sigh.
[Awww~ Look at you, Host!] Paige cheered in my head, her virtual voice practically bursting with dramatic excitement. [A poetic master, a devoted boyfriend, and a savior of pop music all in one afternoon! I’m practically swooning! Though... speaking of swooning...]
Paige paused, her tone taking on a ridiculously mischievous, teasing lilt.
[...Are we just gonna ignore the fact that you’re sitting on a sofa surrounded by executive luxury, right next to Sarah’s desk, where her black lace E-cup bra is still sitting in that drawer? Because if you write a third song, I’m pretty sure it should be dedicated to managerial plot assets.]
"Paige, I swear to God, if you start singing about Sarah’s chest again, I’m going to mute system audio for an hour," I warned her, even if a smile was threatening to form on my face.
[Hmph! You’re no fun! You were the one staring at it earlier with a gulp like a thirsty cartoon character!] Paige huffed playfully. [Admission of guilt, Host! Total admission of guilt!]