Harry's POV
My headache was almost gone when I woke up. The weather felt pleasant, when I slid the curtains from the window. Of course I had missed the morning bliss, it was almost lunch time. When I walked in the living room, everything was at its place. The mess I created last night was cleaned up by the housemaid, who was paid enough to never question anything. I sat on the couch. Brian, my cook appeared in front of me:
" Would you like to have breakfast Sir?"
"Just a cup of coffee"
I answered vaguely. He went back after he heard my order. I sighed, resting my head against the couch. Empty was all I felt like. I was too honest inside out. The roughness that people always felt in my personality was the reason for my strange kind of music. I never understood why it was so necessary to write things about love, when all that matters to the world is money,wealth and status. But this ugly world wanted me to be a hypocrite as it was itself. Even if I tried, I knew nothing about love and affection. It always felt useless to get attached to people, to care about them when all of them were the same. Greedy .
Brian appeared again with my coffee and I took it from him. Bitter and black, as I always liked. But never bothered myself to thank Brian. Of course there was no need to be thanked when he was already being paid. As I was lost in my thoughts, I heard a familiar voice:
" Did you just wake up?"
It was Billy. My very own vocalist. Many of my hits were sung by him. Also the last album for what I got an award for was vocalised by him. Although he was younger we were close. Besides the fact he was annoyingly talkative, I trusted him.
"Yeah." I answered casually.
"Is everything okay, your eyes are a little red" he said, leaning on me to take a close look of my eye.
I backed up and replied:
" yeah I am fine." I never liked sharing problems. Like it's useless to tell him thatI got upset last night, didn't eat anything and was experiencing migraine all night. Even my sleep was disturbed. Yes , he was my friend but that was irrelevant.
He sat on the couch, giving me a bunny smile for God knows what reason.
"Aren't you gonna thank me?"
"For wha-" but before I could complete my sentence, he cut me off:
"I am Harry Calloway,it was meant for me" he mimicked me and laughed. He should have watched last night's interview. I didn't sound like him, he was acting like a mad dog.
" So what's your plan?"
"About what?" I inquired, taking another sip.
" Do you want a party?" I guessed.
"No." I took a glance at his face, trying to figure out what he wanted.
" What about make an album, about love this time and shut them all"
I wanted to hit his sculpted featured face but I resisted myself from doing that.
"I don't wanna talk about this."
"But why??" he asked.
He was always like that, too simple, too normal and too ordinary. That's why I preferred him in the first place, he was harmless. But now it seemed like I spoiled him a bit.
"Look we will figure out something but atleast try. We can shut them off" he gave me reasons to go against that huge personality of mine and make music about flowers, spring and love. Like it was that easy. He had the point to shut off all the drama. "It's not like that" I tried to let go of the conversation but he was very enthusiastic.
" Clarke and I talked abot this, he says he has a whole plan to manage the whole drama with triumph."
"What plan?" I asked , stretching my legs.
"He will tell you. Let's go to your office."he stood up.
"I am not into it"
"Come on bro." Obviously, I wanted to stop all this criticism but writing a love song was never on my list.
"Tell Clarke I will figure it out on my own"
"But-" I cut him off.
"Get the hell out of here, before you are no more able to walk"
He took the signal. Sighed in resentment and left eventually.
Sarah 's POV
I felt better than last night and was very thankful for my breakfast. I had woken up with extremely painful stomach cramps. I was definitely on zero energy level. But then I heard my doorbell. Which I opened and found my teenage neighbour Lilly. My attention got distracted by a very pleasant aroma of fruit and maple syrup. She was holding pancakes on a plate with a glass lid on it. She greeted me with her usual too clingy attitude:
"Hey ! I made this today for the first time, Mom is not home. So I had no one to try my pancakes. So can you taste it."
I didn't know if it was my hunger or any other thing, I didn't want her to say the word 'taste'.
"Sure," I said
I lifted the lid. Sweet aroma of pancakes started disturbing my stomach again. I put the lid back and turned to get a fork also being afraid of my stomach growling. When I came back she asked :
"What are you doing?"
"Tasting the pancakes." I stated.
"Oh no,no that's all for you , I didn't come from my apartment all the way down to just give you a bite" she giggled. My starving self didn't have that much time to waste.
" Thank you, I am sure it will be tasty."
She peeked inside my room, got a sight of my desk.
"Oh! You got another badge?" She asked in excitement in her usual nosy habit of peeking in my apartment.
"Oh yes, I got it yesterday for lab work." Not mentioning other things I also got yesterday.
"You look tired , everything okay?"she asked.
I really wanted her to leave and to dive into pancakes. I took the plate from her carefully. Which she gave me easily.
" yeah, just studies.".I answered vaguely.
"I should go now," she said walking backwards.
" Bye" I almost shouted. In return she just waved her hand and closed the door.
Immediately I found myself consuming pancakes on my bed. I was starving badly and yes pity. There was no one to have pity on me. I had taken 5 -6 bites when I stopped again and looked in the mirror in front of. I almost couldn't recognize myself. I was anaemic and also looked absolutely like shit. It was getting out of control when I felt a tear rolling out of my eye. I got back in my action, and started eating again with watering eyes. No, that's not okay. I said to myself.
Luckily, there was no class today as I had no energy to deal with drama. There were still two hours free until my shift. So I decided to scroll through social media. I always had to keep in touch with advertisements for odd jobs as I had to leave part time work after some time. As usual, jobs were available at low or high prices depending upon the work hours. To my surprise I found a very suitable paying job with only data management work. It was more like work from home. Junior assistant was written in the designation column. I searched for the company name. KC productions was written. I immediately searched for its location and was surprised to see it was situated on my way to university. CV and other details were required to be submitted by hand. I decided to give it a chance because my current job was absolutely not paying me enough and I also had no security. Customers were always flirting and my boss didn't care about it at all. So I had to keep a backup.
Harrys's POV
"I don't care about them" I clearly stated, when Clarke showed me some articles published recently talking about my music.
"Oh really, Ki everyone wants something different, you are not only a producer, fans are absolutely obsessed over you."
I stretched myself on my comfy Rolling chair. Trying to process his words.
"Hey buddy, we have to engage them, if you can't write about love songs. At least we have to give them something they would talk about. We have to create a highlight, this way your music will never die for them because you will still be interested in them and they will listen to your work of course."
Anger, confusion, rage, chaos all these emotions were running through my body. I felt him right and wrong at the same time. But to clear my own confusion I asked:
"So what's your plan"
He gave me a triumphed smile, which made me regret my question.
"You will marry a girl"
I literally thought his nerves were not working properly when I heard the word marry. I tried to keep calm and said:
"Are you in your senses?" I scoffed.
"I can't even resist the same face in bed more than once and you just said that I should marry a girl?"
"No, no like fake marriage"
"Why the hell is marriage necessary for being highlighted in the media, I really don't understand."
My elbows were resting on the front table now, I felt tension in my head.
"Look we will use the curiosity of your fans, first we will hide the girl intentionally, we will pretend that we don't want the media to know about it. Eventually, the internet would be stormed about that mysterious girl. And then at the right time we will reveal the girl, that will be another headline. You both will do some public appearances and PDA just to amuse your fans. After some time you will end the contract and the next headline will be about your divorce."
No matter how crack headed the idea was , somehow it started to make sense.
"And yes , we will choose some ordinary girl who is far from the media industry just to make it interesting."
I totally agreed with him with this idea, because all the other girls I knew like Tina , they would be annoying as hell and it would be too risky to tell them such a secret.
I rested my back against the chair again when the door opened, I heard Tina arguing that she doesn't need permission to enter my room. And then my assistant appeared with her ,
"I insisted her to wait, as the two of you are in meeting but she-"
I cut him off by asking her:
"What do you want Tina?" In the most annoying tune I can manage to create.
Clarke stood up and directed the assistant to leave.
"I am free today." She said,
"So?"
She walked towards me and bent on the table to whisper in my ear.
"Maybe we should have some fun"
Her eyes were shining with her desires. My face remained as calm as it was disappointing her expectations.
"I don't have time today,"I said to her face.
"Oh really ? You don't have time to-"
" Yes I don't have to entertain you."
She turned to Clarke,
"Were you talking about something so important? Is it about me?"
Clarke rolled his eyes to tolerate her self obsession.
"It's confidential and no it's not about you."
"I think you should leave now" I declared, not having enough patience left. Her face turned red and all her beauty disappeared.
"But-"
"OUT NOW!!"
I shouted. Her jaws clenched and I saw her walking out ,stroking her heels on the floor. Almost creating noise pollution.
When she was nowhere to be seen I turned to Clarke and stated:
"Do that work quickly"
"What work?" He asked
"Find the girl for the contract"
Clarke didn't expect a 180 degree shift of my personality.
"Oh that," he was surprised,
"Well that was fast" he scoffed.
"Just do what I said".
"Okay, okay" Was all he said.
He stood up and walked out leaving me with my thoughts.
Sarah 's POV
Surely this place belongs to a very rich person, I thought as I stepped in the building. And I felt like I was in another world. Delicacy was screaming at its peak. The architecture and the design was just wow. Wooden brown and white were the main colour scheming. But also some contrast of chocolate brown was present in the minority. Reception was kept simple yet decent. At the centre of the front large spacious hallway there was a piano. Maybe just for decoration because the ceiling above it was crafted to be seen like the sky is falling on it. I wasn't very much a fan of art or music but I did get the impression that whoever this person was, he would be an art himself. I was drowning in my own thoughts completely forgetting my purpose, when I heard a soft male voice:
"Is something wrong?"
I turned to take a glance at the blonde haired man in front me. I looked at him, his hair was slick back , and eyes were blue but in darker shade. And his dresscode did impress me, that I guessed he might be the owner of the company.