None of Us Saw This Coming

July, 2019: Heard You Found Somebody Else

Lisa had found herself coming to the agency more often than before for the past few months. She had been isolating herself inside the studio blasting the loudest music possible as she danced herself out—hopefully until she could figure out from where she picked up an unidentified unsettling feeling or how she could shred the annoyance in her heart out of her system. It had been hours and she still had yet to stop.

She did not care.

She would do anything just so she could take her mind off of things. See, nothing worked lately. The company had been facing the biggest issue and scandal they had ever faced; their CEOs were forcefully stripped of their position due to several accusations and allegations under the law and one of her close friends from the company was also dragged into a mess that he ended up resigning and going AWOL. Her fight with Irene back in February had yet to find its enlightenment either and Jennie had never been more distant than she was at the moment. So yes, to the current Lalisa Manoban, nothing worked.

"Ah, you're here," a familiar voice knocked her out of her reverie.

It was Yang Hyunsuk—their recently stripped down CEO. Lisa did not know that the man would be around that day, considering how he had not been around for quite a while by then. If anything, really, Lisa thought it was a miracle that the company had not gone bankrupt yet.

"Oh! Sajangnim, have you been well?" Lisa bowed automatically.

"Yes. Yes," Yang Hyunsuk answered her but his eyes were wildly thrown anywhere else but the woman who addressed the question to him. He was looking around, scanning the whole room where it all started, as if studying every crease on the wall and absorbing in every bit of the atmosphere inside the room—after all, he would not be around for an indefinite time or probably he would not even be around forever, he could no longer tell.

"This is the only place that hasn't changed over the years," he whispered. There was a sentiment latching in his words and his eyes were empty. It took them a few seconds, being stuck in the stillness of the air surrounding them until Yang Hyunsuk smiled quite bitterly and shook his current state off, changing it to his usual cheeky self.

"Show me what you've been working on."

"Eh?"

"You've been locking yourself in here forever, Lisa. Might as well show me what you've got," Yang Hyunsuk shrugged as he took his position at the furthest back of the room, for the first time ever Lisa saw the man sitting on the floor instead of the bench at the back of the studio.

So she blasted her music again; it was unlike the other up-beat music she usually danced to, the music she played was mellow and sentimental, it was slow and calm. It was unusual but nothing around them had been usual for the past months anyway, so Yang Hyunsuk kept his wonder to himself as he watched Lisa starting to blend into the music. That was the thing about Lisa that caught his attention in the first place; even when she was still an unpolished jewel, he knew that she was a diamond. Her talent was raw and it could only go bigger and bigger as time went by. She was meant to shine. She caught eyes and kept all the attention on her when she started moving her body, you feel what she wanted to say, all those that the words failed to say. It took him a couple of seconds after Lisa finished the song for him to ask the girl he watched growing up to sit next to him in the corner of that room. It was hard not to be left stunned by the overwhelming emotion that Lisa just exhibited.

"Have you been well, Lisa?"

"Yes, sajangnim."

Yang Hyunsuk scoffed bitterly at Lisa's way of addressing him. It sounded familiar but it was so distant for him then. There were a lot of things that had changed in the course of less than a year. They were at the peak of the momentum; everything seemed to be going perfectly and they were untouchable—they were sky-high, so they thought, but then there they were, trying to collect their scattered pieces from the impact of their free-fall.