The studio looked like a crime scene where creativity had been murdered.
Pages lay everywhere — on the floor, on the table, stuck to the wall like desperate confessions. Coffee stains marked the carpet like ancient curses. A whiteboard stood in the corner covered in so many scribbles it looked less like brainstorming and more like someone lost a battle with a black marker.
Nain sat in the middle of the disaster, slouched in her spinning chair like a dead queen of chaos. Her eyes were hollow from nights without sleep, and her hair stuck out in directions that defied gravity and dignity.
Life sucks, she thought. Being a director looked so easy in interviews. They never show the part where you slowly go insane at 11 a.m.
She pressed the back of her hand to her forehead dramatically.
"I can't do this anymore," she groaned, louder than necessary. "Eommaaa…"
CLANG.
A sharp metallic noise echoed from the hallway.
Her soul left her body for half a second. She checked the clock — 11:00 a.m.
"Okay good," she muttered, slowly grabbing her coat. "It's not time for the ghost to come aliv—"
"AHHHHHHHH!"
She screamed as someone stepped into the doorway.
"You scared me!"
Park Mina, her adopted mother, blinked innocently then burst into laughter.
"Oh my, did I scare my baby?" She crossed the room, pulled Nain into a hug and kissed her forehead like she hadn't almost murdered her daughter's soul. "Working hard?"
"Me? Of course," Nain said immediately, flipping her hair like a diva in a sari commercial. "I am working extremely hard to keep this company alive and to give our workers two meals a day."
Park Mina nodded seriously. "Noble. Very noble."
A crunch echoed behind them.
Jung Jisoo stood leaning against the wall, taking a slow dramatic bite from an apple like a villain in a teen drama.
"The company," Jisoo said, chewing, "is barely surviving."
Nain glared. "Shut up. Sometimes I really question if you're actually my best friend."
"I also question why fate did this to me," Jisoo replied, with zero emotion, raising the apple like a toast to misery.
Nain gasped. "You—!"
"Okay, enough." Park Mina clapped her hands like she was separating two puppies fighting over a slipper. "You're not children. Now tell me, darling, any ideas for your next story?"
Nain collapsed back into her chair dramatically.
"Eomma, I can only create story when I see the site myself. I need the atmosphere. The vibe. The aesthetic. The depression."
Jisoo nodded slowly. "Unfortunately, madam delusional artist has not found a suitable location to hallucinate yet."
Nain launched a pillow at her. "YOU—"
The door BURST open.
Assistant Minji barreled in, gasping for air like she sprinted up seven flights of stairs, fought two ghosts, and wrestled a printer.
"W–we found s–something!"
Nain froze.
Park Mina straightened.
Jisoo stopped mid chew.
Minji's eyes sparkled with excitement — or madness — maybe both.
The studio, for the first time that morning, went silent.
This… might finally be it.