J-Hope saved the files to a jump drive and pulled it out, dancing back into Studio A as the food arrived. RM was finally awake; Suga was curled up, but at least his eyes were open, and he was holding another coffee in one hand. "Aah, yes, a perfect picture for social media," J-Hope said, pulling out his phone and snapping a picture of Suga before he could be stopped.

Suga merely closed his eyes and groaned in protest. "God, not that one. This sweatshirt is so old."

"Why are you even wearing it, then?"

"Because it's my favorite?" Suga sat upright and tugged on the old camo-print hoodie. "Got it for like 20000 won in high school. Nobody needs to see me in this. I thought we were off radar today."

"Yeah, but we'll have to dress up for when we're out on the town later. I wonder if we're going to see a movie premiere? Or go museum hopping?"

"The manager said she already had plans for us," RM said. He turned to Mari. [Mari, are you coming with us after our session today?]

Suga nearly dropped his coffee. "Wait, she can't come! She should, like, stay at her hotel or something."

RM glared back. "And why is that?"

"Because it's safer there? The last thing we need is more scandal."

"It wouldn't be a scandal if she were just nearby. Besides. We don't know what we're doing yet, and if we're able to include her, then we should include her. It's just like that delivery girl from yesterday. How we treat people is going to be a reflection of who we are and what respect we have for the world. We're not every other K-Pop group that excludes everybody. You know that." He turned back to Mari. [Well?]

Mari hadn't understood a single word of the conversation besides RM's one sentence, directed at her, in English. She feigned ignorance. She knew exactly where they were headed. "Uh, I guess so?" And just to check, she flipped open her phone to Twitter while they continued to argue about who knew what in Korean.

Knott's Berry Farm @knotts
Due to a company buyout, the park will be closing at 8 PM tonight. The park will resume normal hours on Sunday, November 17th.

There were a couple of other posts about it, and a lot of people complaining that they wouldn't be able to use their tickets for the full day, but Mari breathed a sigh of relief. Now to just hope that this all went according to plan.

They spent the afternoon going over J-Hope's loops, and RM chose a pad and started to compose over it. Suga sat in silence, writing lyrics. Mari did her best to not get into the Facebook-Twitter-Snapchat loop on her phone, and when she failed for the thirty second time, she walked out of the studio and handed her phone to Zane. Then, she stole J-Hope's launchpad from him. "Can I use this?"

[Oh, yes. I am on my phone now.]

"Okay." Mari scrolled through the banks on the launchpad, finding the drum buttons, then the bass loops. She started pressing some of them, and then she looped them together so they made a consistent bass line. When she pressed several in sequence, she halved the beat and created a trap drum line.

[Nice!] J-Hope said from his seat. Suga looked up from his lyrics and smiled.

"I only use a launchpad to compose," Mari said. She almost said, But Richard never lets me use his, but she figured it would just sound like complaining. Besides, nobody here knew who Richard was, anyway.

RM tapped on the computer and recorded the drum beat that Mari had created. [Okay, if we can slow down the beat just a little bit, it will match up with this pad that J-Hope created. You like this?] He worked on a bass line, and soon, it was consistent, simple, and he added a high hat over some of the notes and saved the file. [Okay, Suga, you got anything?]

[No.] Suga threw down his notepad. [No music, no lyrics, nothing.] He pulled his hoodie over his face, hiding it.

"Aww, Suga has writer's block!" J-Hope called out in Korean.

"Shut up, Hobi."

"If you can't come up with anything now, it's okay," Mari said, thinking of the words Suga had said to her last night. "Your voice is still important. So rest your voice, and maybe something will come tomorrow, okay?"

Suga pulled the hoodie back down. [Okay.] Then, he smiled at her. She remembered all of that? Wow.

[Oh, Suga! You should go play piano,] J-Hope said. [Go, go. The synth in Studio B is nice.]

[You can get some ideas if you just sit down at the piano,] RM said. [He always does.]

[Okay, thank you.] Suga took his coffee with him and disappeared into Studio B. The synth was still plugged in, and Suga added a pedal and sat down at it, changing the sound to a more normal sounding keyboard. He whipped through a few scales and finger exercises before playing some Chopin, losing himself in the arpeggios and cadences. It wasn't what Hitman Bang was looking for, but it was something. He played through a few chord progressions, then used the computer to match the BPM and played a chord progression that matched J-Hope's that Mari had made a drum beat to. It was simple, not really something of importance, but maybe it would fit well. At the very least, it made him feel productive again.

RM ran the preliminary mix through the master and bounced it for the four of them, sending it to their emails. [This is very confidential, but you can listen to it at the hotel and get more ideas,] he said. [And that is our time. Our manager should be arriving any minute.]

Mari grinned. "OK, good."

[Marisol, are you coming with us?] J-Hope asked to confirm.

She couldn't hide it. "Maybe."