TIME AND TIDE waits for no man. And in this predicament, aforementioned abstract forces were personified into the being that was Foressa's manager.
Candance was ridiculously quick on her feet.
No more than an hour after she had ended the call, Foressa received a carbon-copy of an email reply to Blake Tan's proposal. Candance had constructed a concisely-worded email requesting for a contract and further details regarding the world tour.
Based on her speed, it was clear that she had feared Foressa's fickle-mindedness would result in a quick renouncement if she dwelled any further on the subject. She wasn't wrong; Foressa was highly likely to have done that on any other occasion but in this instance, Candance needn't have fretted for Foressa valued Lara's company far above petty pasts.
On the same day, Foressa received another carbon-copied email— accompanied with a fastidious twenty-paged contract.
Foressa scrolled through the attachment, eyes tracing each and every condition thoroughly. Her facial expression was the epitome of focused : creased eyebrows, twitching nose and pursed lips.
The contract was divided into five sections, namely regarding living arrangements, destinations for the world tour, rules and regulations expected of her as an artist, a non-disclosure form and promotional events. It was followed by an unending litany of subclauses.
She whistled chancing upon the sum bolded in brackets next to each destination which symbolised her earnings. The hefty sum was definitely no cheap expenditure for their label.
Not that the obscene number would make a dent in their bank accounts. A large proportion of the promised payment would be covered by the various sponsors and tickets purchased by their supporters; labels were conniving liars in that sense.
With elaborate words and gestures, they made it seem like a dream materialising into reality but, it didn't take long before the 'other shoe' dropped. Stricter rules, more demands, more pressure.
And with that came the final stage : disillusionment. But by then, it was too late. Bounded by what they had signed on the dotted line, most were unable to escape, finding themselves sinking deeper into the pit of despair.
It was why Foressa wasn't signed to any particular label, instead choosing to abide only by Candance, the option of which gave herself increased rein over her own music.
The coveted dream eventually winded up being the shackles that tied down the aspiring artists.
Foressa frowned to herself, shaking her head; she was getting carried away. It wasn't always as bad as she made it out to be, she just had her own vendetta against labels.
And whose fault would that be? A voice inside her head crooned. She scoffed aloud, causing Candance's eyes to flit up to hers.
"Hm? You saw something you disagree with?" Candance arched a brow, interpreting Foressa's scoff as one of dissent.
"Not yet." Foressa replied.
"This is pretty solid." Her manager admitted, gesturing towards her own screen.
Foressa hated to admit that Candance's statement had a high veracity. This was an iron-clad contract, with nothing in particular she heavily disagreed with, nor were their demands of her as an artist too strenuous.
Even so, her tense shoulders remained locked in place, fingers sliding against the trackpad of her computer as she scrolled back up to the top of the document. Another round to go.
"Again."
Once upon a time, she had made the naive mistake of arbitrarily scrolling through a contracted document; she wouldn't make that same mistake again. Once was more than enough.
Candance relented, dutifully directing her eyes back towards her own screen. A silence ensued between the pair as each became engrossed in their own readings. Time moved forwards as they did so, and before long both were at the final page for their fourth time.
Finally begrudging that the contract was up to her satisfaction, Foressa tilted her screen slightly downwards and leaned back into her chair further.
"Blake agreed to Lara presence's there, then?" She crossed her arms as she directed the question to Candance.
"As long as she signs the same non-disclosure agreement, Blake has no qualms about it."
Of course he wouldn't; anything for monetary gains. She thought wryly to herself.
Propping her feet against the chair opposite her, Candance's face automatically contorted into a grimace but she remained silent. Foressa knew the feat always annoyed Candance but her manager's kind-heart forbade her from ever reprimanding the girl otherwise.
The sun's midday afternoon rays streamed through the tiled windows of Candance's office, casting a myriad of iridescent hues across her desk. Glancing at the clock, Foressa felt her palms begin to grow clammy. They had arranged for a conference call via Zoom with Blake to negotiate the final terms and conditions of the contract at two pm. It was one-fifty pm at the moment.
None of the band members would be present in the call — a silver lining Foressa was grateful for. She didn't need to spend any more time with them than necessary and, if she was being entirely honest with herself, she wasn't ready to see them face-to-face just yet.
Her jitteriness was painfully obvious. She jumped at every passing car; felt the sound of every tick the clock's hands made to her bones; even a slight commotion outside Candance's small office-room caused her arms to fling out in a melodramatic manner.
"You look as if you're about to jump off the building," Candance commented, setting aside her reading glasses.
"Wow, what gave that away?" Sarcasm dripped off of Foressa's every word, eliciting a choked laugh from Candance.
"It's only Blake," Candance offered.
"That doesn't make me feel any better." Foressa muttered, sinking deeper into her seat.
Candance sighed, just as the cuckoo clock chimed twice ominously.
"Prepare yourself." She murmured, fondling with buttons on her computer. Foressa moved herself closer to be within vicinity of the camera. Clicking the link that had been sent by Blake, Foressa held her breath as the screen went dark momentarily before another face materialised in its place— Blake.
"Ms Candance," Blake tilted his head down slightly in acknowledgement, pausing as his gaze landed on Foressa.
"Blake," Foressa drawled out humourlessly, expression taut.
"Ms Foressa. Pleasure, as always."
"Nothing pleasurable about our meet-up circumstances." She shot back, face contorting with pain when Candance nudged her sharply with her elbow. Behave; the action threatened the possible infliction of more pain if disobeyed.
Blake didn't appear angry about her insolence, instead bearing an amused expression.
"Ah yes, the tweet was...unprecedented but," he shrugged his shoulders as if saying 'What can you do?' "We've got to make the most out of the circumstances."
Foressa bit down on her tongue to inhibit the retort that threatened to unleash itself.
"Let's begin then," Candance — thankfully — hurried out, taking the reins of the meeting.
Three hours went by excruciatingly slowly as the trio engaged themselves in a discussion of the contract, clarifying any misunderstandings and editing accordingly.
Foressa exhaled an audible sigh of relief as both managers appeared to lean back in their seats, ultimately satisfied with the outcome of the contract. At one point during the meeting, she had begun to think they were never going to be finished.
"Now, we've settled on a contract we both have no qualms about." Blake declared in a tone of approval.
"Indeed we have." Candance replied coolly, gesturing at Foressa to take a digital pen.
Exhaling, Foressa picked up the pen, scrolling to the final page where the dotted line stared intimidatingly back at her. Inhaling a deep breath for courage, the next action she performed sealed her fate.
Her signature glared back at her, almost taunting her with the prospects of what she had just resigned herself to. She had made a deal with a devil; the move was set in motion.
"You can start moving in by the end of this week." Blake spoke, breaking Foressa from her trance.
"Rehearsals will commence as soon as you settle in. The label and myself estimate that two week should be enough for both of you to get familiarised with the structure of events during the tour days."
"Thank you, Blake. We'll see you then." Candance bade a cordial farewell to Blake, hovering her cursor over the red 'end' button. His face vanished as her finger pressed the button, the screen returning to its default black screen.
"So," Foressa made a clicking sound with her tongue. "Guess I'd better start packing."
Candance knew for a fact there would be absolutely nothing of significance for her to pack. Foressa's apartment was as bare as a newly installed one despite having lived there for three years.
The girl didn't like to personalise the places she lived in, not even her home. All she viewed it as was a roof over her head; it was all but another fail-safe attempt to guard her heart.
But none of that knowledge stopped Candance from allowing Foressa to head towards the door. She knew what Foressa needed was space, and that any words of reassurance would simply be redundant.
Even though Foressa had agreed to this entire predicament, having the predicament actually materialise into something of substance — a fully-fledged contract — finally hammered into Foressa that this was real; that she was actually going to meet the band. That she could no longer avoid them.
And that in itself, was something she needed time to come to terms with.
Hence, she merely spectated silently as the door closed behind Foressa. As it did, she let out a soft sigh.
Foressa would ultimately be fine. Nothing could break the girl, and Candance knew Foressa wouldn't have agreed — wouldn't have called even with Lara's coercion — if she had had any doubts that she couldn't handle it.
Fishing out her phone from her pocket, she set her own personal reminder. D-Day.
🎵🎶🎵
A SIGH OF EXASPERATION elicited itself from Mason Kohl as he scrunched up another piece of paper, haphazardly throwing it into the waste bin.
His fingers burrowed themselves further into his head of blond curls, tugging at the short locks vainly in a futile attempt to coerce his brain to produce a satisfactory piece of work.
A brief glance flit away from the blank sheet in front of him had his face contorting into a weary expression at the sizeable mountain forming from the discarded papers. Leaning back in his chair, Mason closed his eyes and relished in the rare quietude of his room.
Much like other entities in his profession that suffered from a 'block' numerous times throughout their careers, Mason knew that he had hit his. His precocious proficiency in writing songs, a skill that had once come effortlessly to him, was dwindling before his eyes since he released the band's second album eight months ago.
It wasn't his first block, but it was proving to be the most persistent one.
He needed time — but he was running out of that. Fans had started badgering the band for new content via their social medias and in an industry with as cut-throat competition as theirs, Mason knew he had to deliver. And soon — before they decided to start jumping to another artists's band wagon.
His only silver lining at the moment was that the prospective world tour would resurrect his lost inspiration. Even then, Mason knew he had his work cut out for him. Everyone was expecting the band to produce bigger, bolder things. Bigger than the two albums they had released prior.
He tried not to think about that too often yet; he still had a year to recuperate.
An ear-piercing crash outside his door startled Mason from his reverie. He stood up abruptly, walking towards his door.
"... Noah!" A voice hollered belligerently. "Get your own damn food!"
Mason groaned. Not this again, he thought exasperatedly.
Another lighter voice joined the argument, yelling back with equal fervour. "This is mine Kayden. It was on the table and therefore I claimed it first. Yours is still in the fridge."
"No it isn't!" The voice protested.
Mason flung the door open — just as a plate of food went flying.
The plate suspended itself momentarily in the air before gravity acknowledged its existence. It shattered, the myriad of shards skittering across the floor like scrambling ants while the once-edible remnants found a new home atop his slippers.
Blue eyes flitting up, Mason met the sheepish gazes of his two bandmates — Noah Kev and Kayden Zhen.
With his lustrous auburn hair, innocent blue eyes and charming personality, the trifecta of characteristics often painted Noah Khev as a darling in the media's eyes though behind the scenes, he was far from the angel with his inclination to pull up pranks of the most ludicrous degree.
Yet with a single bat of his eyelash, everyone was tripping over their own feet to vehemently deny any offence he had committed.
His polar opposite came in the form of Kayden Zhen. If Noah Khev was a media darling, then Kayden assimilated the role of an enigmatic mystery.
The guitarist of the band was seldom caught uttering more than a few words in front of the cameras, often resigning himself to the corner of the room and wholly content with allowing others to speak on his behalf.
Rather than this dubbing him as a 'spoilt brat' or a 'creeper' as was often be the case for most ordinary citizens, his broody, taciturn personality had acquired him the status of 'enigmatic'. The irony of fame was never lost on him.
"...That was mine." Mason stated dryly, "Though I assume it's sufficing to say that it's not anyone's any longer."
Kayden forced his gaze down to avoid Mason's piercing stare, his ebony locks falling messily across his forehead as he did so. Noah's mouth formed an 'o' shape of realisation.
"Oops," he whistled innocently, sneakily backing away as if he hoping the action would prevent himself from being incriminated of any involvement.
The dream was short-lived. Preoccupied with Mason's death stare, he backed up into a wall — howling in agony as his toe stubbed a corner ledge. Mason cringed as another head popped out from the corner of their shared house, evoked by the glaring noise.
Xander Dane, the fourth and final member of Chaos Ensues. Sporting a sleeveless singlet and loose track bottoms, his eyes were clouded over with sleepiness; all key indicators that he had only just woken up.
He stretched out his lanky arms, the action followed by a cacophony of bones snapping into place; his idiosyncratic habit.
Eyeing the shattered plate unperturbedly, his lips pulled up into a half-smile.
"Aren't you both a little too old to keep having fights over such petty matters?" Xander commented wryly.
"Kayden started it." Noah declared defiantly with his freehand; the other was still nursing his stubbed toe. Mason sighed at his childishness. For someone who was twenty years old, Noah never acted a day over fourteen.
Kayden rolled his eyes. "We seriously need to start investing in those innovative sticker-label machines so that we can differentiate between whose containers is whose's."
Bemused by their bickering, Xander opened his mouth to articulate a response but an abrupt ping cut him off before he could even begin. His eyes pivoted to the source — Mason — who had fished out his phone and was currently reading its contents.
"Blake wants to meet us in fifteen minutes, says it's about the tour." Mason informed, turning to face Noah and Kayden.
"Both of you clean that up while I head to take a shower." He instructed sternly, voice leaving no room for dissent — not that either of the pair had enough courage to. Xander disappeared back into his room to neaten his appearance and presumably change into more appropriate clothes.
Mason gingerly stepped away from the pile of muck, wrinkling his nose at the acrid smell that had begun to permeate the atmosphere and his olfactory senses. The meal may have once been delicious, but having stayed overnight in a fridge had ruined much of its beneficial qualities.
In the shower, his mind drifted to the sudden meeting Blake had requested. It was an odd announcement, to say the least. Blake prided himself on being meticulous — and that was putting it lightly. The band's manager was the only person Mason knew whom had a colour-coordinated blocked schedule for his daily routine.
It's probably nothing, he reassured himself. He might just want to run the order of events over with us again.
With the world tour set to commence in a little over a month, setting down the semantics were imperative to ensure a smooth-running of the actual event. Especially with the large volume of attendees they were to have, it was always better to run frequent pilot studies instead of ending up with unfortunate shortages or mistakes.
Or, Blake could want an update about the band's music progress. Mason grimaced at the thought. Though he knew Blake would be understanding towards his 'inspirational block', it didn't alleviate Mason's worries that he had reached his end.
Shaking his head, he brushed the pessimistic thoughts from his mind, refocusing himself on scrubbing his toes which had incurred the brunt of the food remains.
That bridge would be crossed when it came to be.