December 24th [COMPLETED]

Part Five: A Mixtape

George and CJ were eventually missed and the rest of the members found them taking pictures in front of the Winged Victory. When CJ passed along the good news that George would be joining their team, officially, as their producer, a cry of joy and excitement echoed through the empty hall.

George thought she had imagined it, that maybe her eyes were playing tricks on her but the more she thought about it, the more she was certain she had seen Jae Min sigh with relief.

The eight of them took a photo in front of the statue, George making sure to capture this moment on her camera, knowing that this photo, out of all the ones she had taken on the trip so far, was the one she was the most excited to see up on her wall, the one she couldn't wait to point to and tell her kids all about.

Sydney captured a digital version of that moment on George's phone and that night, after they had returned to their hotel and left the hollowed halls of the Louvre behind, George sent the photo to Felix with a message consisting of two sentences and eight words.

They were the greatest eight words George had said to Felix all year. The message was this:

"You were right. The real work starts tomorrow."

And start it did. Not with a whimper but a bang.

Turns out, the group had been holding out on George. And now that she was a fully-fledged member of the creative team and no longer just their studio tech, George was finally granted access to the full story behind their new project.

As a group, they were just coming back from a long break, the tour being a way to celebrate their return and get back on stage as soon as possible. As far as their highly anticipated comeback album went, every member had the same vision: they wanted to do an album that was just them, just the seven of them. They wanted all of the writing, all of the producing, done by them.

Their company was hesitant about this idea. They had entire teams of producers and writers more than happy to bend over backward to create the group's greatest album ever as a way to celebrate their return. But that was the problem. The group wanted sole control, over every aspect of their next project as it was their biggest yet.

So the company granted them a trial run. Ten songs, done by the time they returned to Seoul from tour. Whatever they got done on the road determined whether or not the project would be completed. If what they had was good and determined worthwhile, the album would be officially greenlit. If not, then they would put those teams of producers and songwriters to good use and make their next album the way they always had.

The group was three weeks into the tour and already they felt like they were falling behind. From what George was able to understand during their debriefing the next day in the main hotel suite, every member could all produce to a certain extent and all the songwriting was mostly finished, but so much of the heavy lifting was falling on Jae Min's shoulders to get the album down in time. The low level of stress and urgency George had been picking up on from Jae Min since the beginning of the tour, the way he had breathed a sigh of relief when she had said she'd take the job, it all made sense now.

"We were going to ask you to help us, when we came up with the idea," Jae Min explained.

"But then everything kind of..." The youngest member started, finishing his point with an explosion sound effect and his hands recreating the metaphorical demise of George's official producing career.

"We figured we'd at least get you to come help out and maybe, if things got better..." CJ finished.

"I get it," George replied, nodding.

Their debriefing was short. George made sure to keep it that way. She didn't need any explanation as to why the group hadn't been upfront with her before. This project was hanging on by a thread as is and they were not going to bring her into the fold if she wasn't going to be able to see it all the way through to the end. But the last three weeks on the road had done something inside her. George's old self was coming back to life and the thought of working again, with this group of all people, had lit a fire inside George she hadn't felt in years.