Chapter 39: The Girl on New Year's Eve (Part 1) Second Update

  The second update is seeking recommendations!

  A bit of a writer's block, probably due to the poor rest over the past few days. Neurasthenia is really torturing me!

  Thanks for the rewards from classmates Yixiao Ruoxu and Wuyude Menchao!

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  "By the way, Junhe, it's New Year's Day today, how about I treat you and we go out for a drink?"

  At the behest of An Junhe, the nickname "General An" was added to the official website. Seeing An Junhe's fans in the community constantly posting topics expressing their surprise and delight at this nickname being officially recognized, he couldn't help but smile and suddenly remembered what holiday it was today.

  Rubbing his fingers with a slight wet mark, An Junhe shook his head and smiled: "No need, I'll spend New Year's Day with my sister. You should also go home and accompany your wife and children more, recently following me to run around the scene, there is not much idle time to accompany them."

  "Hey, what's good to accompany." Gwon Bo-geun is a relatively old-fashioned Korean who values his career over his family and is not romantic or rarely shows warmth. When asked about this, he shook his head repeatedly.

  "Had a candlelight dinner with aunt, accompanied daughter to Lotte for a stroll, such simple things!"

  "Hey, no way, I won't be able to do those things, and soon I'll have to contact Teacher Yu to ask him to arrange a schedule to help you produce an album... Junhe, are you really going to write the song yourself? Are you confident?"

  He listened to him for two or three sentences, then turned back to work. An Junhe couldn't help but feel a little helpless, and he didn't try to persuade him anymore. After thinking for a moment, he said: "I'll write the two main songs myself. One is '1 Minute 1 Second', which I sang on Mid-Autumn Festival evening. The other is a dance song. As for the remaining four songs, you can just pick them up from the company's music library or the Composers Association."

  "Ah!" Quan Baogen nodded and quickly took notes: "Are there any style requirements?"

  "Eclectic style, no too many requirements, you can refer to the company's production team, as long as it is suitable."

  Quan Baogen was a man of action, and as soon as An Junhe finished speaking, he closed his notebook and stood up: "Alright, I'll go find them now." With that, he hastily departed.

  An Junhe was left standing alone in the empty and cold studio, with a faint bitter smile.

  A 20-ping space, which doesn't sound very big, but because there are no partitions, the entire 60+ square meters blend together, with only a few sofas, bookshelves, desks, musical instruments and small cabinets sparsely arranged, making it impossible to feel cramped, still looking empty and spacious.

  Originally, at this time, Zheng Zhuo, Xi Cheng and those girls would come over to freeload food and drinks, bringing some liveliness, but today on New Year's Day, they all took the day off and went home, suddenly there were fewer people talking around me, and I immediately felt very lonely.

  He let out a soft sigh and withdrew his gaze from the window, walking over to where the instruments were placed. There was only an electric guitar, an electronic piano, and a drum set.

  He casually picked up the guitar and strummed a few chords, and in the soft and soothing arpeggio sound, an improvisational piece of music was played out, the rhythm gradually changing from gentle to passionate. After venting for a while, he finally picked up the five-line score on the music stand and continued his unfinished work.

  What is called work, naturally, are the two title tracks of mini one's album. The company decided to release his first album in April this year. Although it's only a mini version and contains only 6 songs, considering song selection, recording, choreography, dance practice, and the MVs for the two title tracks, three months' preparation time is not considered ample.

  He is currently working on the complete composition of the first main song "1 minute 1 second", which the company promised to be a collaboration between Bao Er and him. Recording and MV shooting will start in half a month, because from the end of January, Bao Er also needs to prepare for recording her fifth Korean regular album, hoping to release it in June.

  The reason for the rush is not only that the plan has already been set and can't be changed, but also because the company hopes to use Ahn Jun-hee's mini-album to pre-heat things up for Bao'er, since she hasn't released an album in a year. Similarly, releasing Bao'er's fifth album shortly after Ahn Jun-hee's first one also has the meaning of borrowing Bao'er's popularity to extend the sales period of his album.

  Recently, the audio of "1 Minute 1 Second" has been extremely popular on the internet, which makes the company very confident in trying this out.

  As he wrote, he pressed down on the scattered notes on the electronic piano beside him, constantly approaching the adjustments in his memory. Time quickly passed in such a somewhat dull repetition, until at some point, everything in front of him was completely dark and he couldn't see anything clearly. An Junhe just woke up and opened his phone to take a look, only to find that it was almost 6 o'clock.

  Without turning on the light, he got up from his seat, stretched several lazy waistlines, exercised his muscles and bones, then put away the five-line score book, preparing to lock it in his office desk.

  At this time, even the snow outside the window cannot cover up the prosperous world. The lights have been lit one after another, gradually gathering from a few twinkling stars into a vast ocean of orange, colorful neon lights. Various rays of light are mixed together, spreading from high to low, and then reflected back into the air by the accumulated snow, shining with the dancing snowflakes, as if a layer of colorful aurora borealis is hovering above the city, like a dream.

  In such a dreamy and colorful scene, his gaze accidentally swept across An Junhe downstairs and suddenly froze.

  In the field of vision, under the street lamp in front of the company gate that emits a halo, a small figure is crouching there. The wind and snow are still howling, and the red down jacket has long been stained white. From a distance, it looks like a rolling snowman, occasionally shaking slightly, as if wanting to shake off the snow on its body, but the cold wind forces her to curl up tighter to keep warm.

  He slightly frowned, "She hasn't come home?"

  Thinking of it, quickly packing things up, hastily locking the door and rushing downstairs.

  ……

  "Doraji, doraji, doraji, the white wild chives are growing all over the mountains and fields. If you dig up one or two, you can fill Taeyeon's small basket..."

  The wind was like the breath of a giant beast hiding in the darkness, ruthlessly sweeping away the snowflakes, and coming with ferocity. Even the thick down jacket couldn't stop its arrogance. Taeyeon hugged herself tightly, trying to squeeze shut the gaps in her clothes, not letting the cold air seep in, desperately preserving what little body heat she had left.

  The girl who hadn't eaten all afternoon was cold and hungry, her stomach kept rumbling, she could only keep singing her own randomly modified songs to distract herself.

  The dormitory door was locked, and she didn't bring the key. The rest room and practice room in the company were also closed due to the holiday. She had just looked from downstairs and saw that Junhe's studio was not lit, probably no one was there. Her father was blocked by the wind and snow halfway and couldn't rush over for a while. After talking to her father on the phone, the last bit of battery on her mobile phone was used up. What's worse, she didn't have a single coin on her... Taeyeon stopped singing, huffed out a breath, why was she so unlucky today?

  After muttering a sentence of complaint, the girl felt a faint sense of loneliness in her heart. This New Year's Day, she would have to spend it alone, how pathetic!

  She suppressed the choked and resentful feeling that rose up in her chest, thinking to herself in a self-mocking way.

  Then I started daydreaming, wondering what my mom was doing at home now, maybe she had already prepared a sumptuous meal and was waiting for her and dad to hurry back. That Jin Zhiyong guy must be impatiently asking mom when dinner would be ready over and over again, Xiaoyan was probably also being picky, thinking about how to get out of eating vegetables during dinner.

  Her tongue was a bit sour and saliva flowed out... Taeyeon embarrassingly wiped the corner of her mouth, looked around sneakily, saw no one on either side, and quickly picked up a small piece of snow from the flowerbed next to her and stuffed it into her mouth.

  At the entrance, the snow water melted, and a cold current quickly flowed down the throat to the stomach, and the hungry fire heat was greatly reduced.

  When she was a kid, she often did this. Of course, at that time, it just felt like eating snow was fun, and growing up in a small town, she wasn't as particular as city kids. As an adult, she stopped doing it altogether, thinking the snow wasn't clean and people would laugh at her for eating it.

  "Anyway, no one saw it at this time."

  She ate a small snowball and found that this method could really alleviate her hunger, so she thought carelessly. The chill of the ice that had slid into her stomach was quickly dispersed by her body temperature, and the fire in her stomach rose again. She rolled up another one and stuffed it into her mouth, while opening her eyes wide to observe around sneakily.

  But what she didn't notice was that a head emerged from behind her, with complex eyes staring at her, and then suddenly sighed: "So hungry like this..."

  "Ah...... Pffft——!" Terrified, Taeyeon spat out all the snow water in her mouth, some of which even entered her airway, causing her to cough violently.

  "Cough, cough, cough..." The girl's face turned bright red as she coughed for half a day, tears streaming down her face. Only when she finally felt like she could breathe smoothly did the feeling of difficulty breathing subside, which had almost made her think she was going to die. At this moment, she couldn't help but lift her head in anger to see who dared to scare her so much.

  Then a familiar smiling face wrapped in an overcoat with its collar turned up appeared before his eyes.

  "Uh...brother?"

  ……

  The bathroom was filled with the sound of running water, and the steam rising from the hot water enveloped the small space. Taeyeon's snow-white skin glistened in the mist as she indulged in the warm water caressing her skin, while also playfully covering her face with a hint of shyness.

  Today was really embarrassing, I was seen eating snow by Junhe brother, and then coughing so hard that my face was covered in snot and tears, dirty like a little kitten, he must have lost all impression of me.

  Then, he took me back home like a stray dog and gave me a bath at his place...

  This previously overlooked realization made Taeyeon's skin, already reddened from the hot water, even more flushed. It was still her first time, although she had been close with Junhyeok in the past... but for a girl, taking a bath at a boy's house held a completely different meaning; in her mind, it seemed like only couples did that sort of thing.

  Such ambiguous thoughts made her heart beat suddenly faster, and then she quickly shook her head to dispel those messy ideas. She quickly washed herself, ran to the dressing room outside, put on her clothes, and quietly opened the door. While wiping her hair, she curiously looked around this apartment that was not spacious but decorated with great care.

  The corridor outside the bathroom door, with only a few dim yellow lights dotted about, warm-toned paint being haloed by the light, looking at it feels like it's warmed up from the bottom of my heart. Opposite the bathroom, two doors on either side seem to be two bedrooms.

  At the end of the corridor at the back, there is also a room with closed doors, and it's not clear what it's for. The front end connects to the living room and kitchen, where the sound of stir-frying in a wok can be faintly heard.

  "When I first came, I didn't notice that the brother's place is quite comfortable!" The girl nodded with a bit of attitude and was about to head to the living room when the door to the bedroom opposite suddenly opened. A girl in a wheelchair came out, saw Taeyeon, and looked taken aback: "Who are you?"

  Taeyeon stared at her in shock: "......really looks like..."

  ;