New Dreams, New Company || NamJin

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It seems he had been too optimistic about what would happen in the meetings with his company. Jin feels a little paranoid that his company may have played him when it came to his enlistment and when his contract was running out.

It hadn't seemed like such a big deal two years ago, that there would only be one year left in his contract, but now there are only six months left and the tone seems so different in the new meetings.

Jin sits in the meetings feeling like he's playing catch up. It doesn't help that a lot of the staff is new to him. People have been reassigned to other artists while he was in the army and people have moved on from the company. He's left with his old manager at least but there too, he feels a distance that wasn't there before.

They talk about his options and the consensus seems to be that pushing his actor angle is the best choice. People kindly don't mention how his mini-album had done, but it's the only thing Jin can think about.

He feels discouraged, he wanted to talk about the new songs he started writing while in the army and that he'd kept working on since then, but now it seems pointless as nobody is talking about his music anymore. Now it's all about acting and getting him roles.

The meeting ends with people cheerfully full of plans, but Jin has to force himself to return the smiles and to thank them for their hard work. Nobody notices he's acting. At least they're right about how he has a talent for that.

He's been out of the service for six months now, but it's still a bit weird to have so much freedom. His hair is still a bit short compared to what it looked like before and he's kept up the muscle mass he'd built pretty well, but other than that, there's nothing to show for those two years.

Jin stares at his reflection in the bathroom, trying to look at it objectively. He's still handsome, with no visible wrinkles yet, even if he doesn't look like a fresh-faced rookie idol. There's nothing wrong with his face. The hair will grow back and give him a more soft look.

His body looks great, better than it's ever been. He's never loved working out, but the army taught him ways to make it work for him when he was forced to exert himself so hard anyway. His shoulders look even wider, his arms more toned, the muscles in his biceps visible even when he's not flexing. He tightens his stomach and looks at the six-pack that's now visible.

Yeah, there's nothing wrong with his body. So it must be the music people don't like or don't think people would like. His voice has always been something he's most conscious about but his singing teacher had assured him that he hadn't gotten worse and he'd made sure to keep up his lessons whenever he had some leave during his service.

Jin turns on his own album on his phone before stepping into the shower. It sounds fine, the songs are trendy, his voice sounds warm and stable. He hadn't had a hit from the album though, nothing really stood out, even the title track lacked something. None of the songs he'd made during the two-year hiatus had made it to the album, just that one chorus, but Jin had worked on that before enlistment.

He knows he's slow at writing music and usually, the company takes over and changes his fledgling ideas into something not quite what Jin had in mind when he's working on the song. But it's so hard to get his point across and of course, the producers know much more about music than him. Most likely his own songs are even worse than what the producers made of them.

Jin dunks his head under the spray to get the last of the conditioner out of his hair and gets out. He needs something to distract him from his thoughts. There's nothing to be gained from fretting after all.

One thing he's missed a lot while he was in the army was computer games and just time to mess around on social media, so after changing into some comfy pajamas he sits in front of his PC to relax.