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❝ ᴄᴏᴀᴄʜ ❞
Seowoo's phone buzzes with vigour, startling her out of her daydream. She had been taking a break from hardcore vocal practice with her devilish coach.
She reaches for her phone that is stuffed in the back pocket of her jeans and smiles when she notices the Twitter notification from her admirer. Grinning from eye to eye, she happily clicks on the floating banner and giggles even wider when she is greeted by a video of Jungkook jamming to her latest song.
Anyone would think he is just excitedly bopping his head to the beat and mouthing the lyrics but Seowoo isn't anyone. She knows he's clowning the way she sings and that is enough for her to dial his number.
"Really?" She whines, "that's very childish of you."
"Says the one who's using her baby voice over the phone," Jungkook snickers.
Seowoo gasps in offence, "what baby voice? This is how I sound like all the time!"
The idol mocks her, repeating her words in a higher pitch to annoy the heck out of her.
"Kim Seowoo!" A shrill voice shrieks from afar, causing the backstage singer to gulp in a mix of fear due to her coach's scary nature and guilt because this means having to hang up on Jungkook whom she only managed to talk to for less than a minute.
She yelps, "I gotta go, Kook." A sour expression sits on her face as she stomps away while shoving her phone back into her pocket, completely forgetting to end the call.
"Should I... Hang up..?" Jungkook asks despite knowing that the other can't hear him. His question remains unanswered and his uncertainty grows, until he hears her training her vocal chords in the most melodic way possible.
He decides to keep listening.
Seowoo's only testing the width of her vocal range, yet Jungkook feels his heart flutter and warm at the sound. She has the kind of voice that one would hear in commercials, assisted by the soft chirping of birds and lovely noises of nature — the kind of voice that anyone would deem ideal for mothers to have when singing lullabies to their newborn children, coaxing then to sleep.
"Enough practice!"
Jungkook flinches at the vocal contrast and immediately shields his ears to prevent further damage to his eardrums. However, he quickly removes them when he hears the familiar tune and lyrics of Bunny.
The backstage singer hums out the instrumentals, training her diaphragm as she waits for the next verse to begin. She flawlessly and easily reaches all the notes of the song — something most singers are unable to, due to its high-pitched nature and the much needed constant switching between chest and head voice.
"Stop!" The coach shrieks and angrily nudges her right in the chest, "stop, stop, just stop!"
Seowoo's face scrunches into one of utter annoyance, peeling her headphones off and distancing herself from the microphone stand.
"Come out."
And she does, reluctantly moving out of the recording booth with heavy steps. The look her coach has is absolutely indescribable — what in the world does furrowed eyebrows paired with a snarky grin mean?
"Your voice grows more and more irritating by the second," the coach snarls. "No wonder our poor Yoomi's fans are leaving. Little angel just has to suffer because of your incompetence, huh?"
Jungkook silently lets out a gasp of offence, mouth agape in the most awkward manner. He angrily prances around his room, mouthing curses at the coach. "The only irritating thing is you, not noona's voice," he softly cries out. Well, at least that is what he thinks happened.
"Did you... Call me irritating?"
Oh. Oh no.
"What? No- I- Oh, Jeon Jungkook."
The coach raises an eyebrow and turns to where Seowoo is poised towards, gazing ruefully at her phone that sits innocently on the couch. She picks the device up and notices the screen, lit with the name 'Jungkookie <3'.
•••
Surely, news broke out.
The female vocal coach quit, insisted that she was too ashamed to have a known idol standing up against her to defend a mere backstage singer.
Her leave shocked the company. Everyone, especially the president, could not help but fear what would come with the chipped relation between her and Seowoo — the spillage of their deepest, darkest secrets may just be the fate she has prepared for them.
Meanwhile, Jungkook... Well, Seowoo confronted him, to which he constantly whines over even after days have passed. All he did was offer help, not end the world!
"Great!" Jimin groans, "now we need a new vocal coach to perfect your vocals."
Yoomi plants her head atop her palm, "I don't know what you're talking about, manager-nim. I think Seowoo sounds perfect just the way she is."
The backstage singer simply purses her lips, "eh. I could do better." Her bottom lip slowly juts out as she thinks of the many times she had to pause in the middle of performances to control her breath.
"Who cares? No one's perfect anyway!"
"You just said I sound perfect the way I am."
"...it's complicated..."
Jimin clears his throat, "I just found this part-time vocal coach who has really great reviews. He used to be a trainee but gave up on waiting so he decided to pursue a modelling career. He acts too, apparently."
