Karl Hanski was having an unimaginably boring day.
First, he had to scold his manager for a few hours, whom he considered utterly stupid, for not even being able to book the seat he wanted on the flight he had to take for his upcoming tour.
Secondly, he had to scold his stylist for another few hours, because this equally stupid girl could never possibly keep up with his exquisite fashion taste.
She kept putting together performance outfits from brands whose new collections were already a month out of date!
Frustrated, he had no choice but to storm out of his closet and head toward the vocal training class, which his manager had, again and again, failed to convince the label to remove him from as the main instructor.
With a weary sigh and a dramatic groan, he pushed the theater door open, only to catch sight of some black-haired girl standing there, blocking his way like a complete idiot.
"Why are you still standing here?" he muttered.
The moment the girl turned around, his face contorted at once.
So after sparring a few words with her, he took his seat at the table as usual, muttering commands into the mic for the slouching faces who dared to call themselves artists sitting behind him, until they finally got their asses off their seats and onto the stage.
A few hours of auditory torture later, at last, the blue-eyed girl appeared.
The corner of his mouth lifted into a malicious smirk.
At last, this boring day was becoming slightly more interesting.
The girl stood in the middle of the stage now, right where the artists before her had stood, those sleepy blue eyes lazily sweeping across the room without sparing him a single glance.
"I have no homework," she said into the mic, her voice just as sleepy as her face, not a single hint of tension showing.
Karl's brow furrowed with pure displeasure at the disinterest on her face.
"Of course you don't," he scoffed, grabbing the mic from the table.
Then he turned to address the audience behind him, his voice suddenly bright like some smug MC, though mockery dripped from every word.
"Anybody know who this little bird here is?" his voice blasted across the room. "This is Kaija Sepala! She just signed with KE yesterday! With Charles fucking Kosonen himself!"
The entire hall went dead silent.
At KE, an artist signing directly with the CEO of the label was unheard of.
"Let me tell you more about this special one here, fellas," Karl continued into the mic. "Kaija here didn't go through any audition, passed no rounds, and yet here she is. One of you. Aren't you curious to hear how she sings?"
Very quickly, murmurs rippled through the crowd. Almost every artist and trainee in the room started pulling out their phones, cameras readily turned on, wanting a piece of what kind of voice could possibly win such a privilege from their fearsome big boss.
On the stage, the girl blinked a few more times, waving awkwardly at the cameras pointed at her, her face still wearing the same flat, blank look.
That unbothered expression only annoyed Karl further, his patience thinning by the second.
"Sing away, little birdie," Karl grumbled into the mic. "Any song's fine."
"Any song is fine?" Kaija echoed, a brow lifting as she wondered if she'd heard him right.
"Any song is fineeeee," he said, drawling it out as if explaining things to an idiot. Then a mischievous smirk lifted on his face. "Consider it my welcoming gift to you."
"Cool," she nodded sharply. "Hope you won't regret your own words, bro."
Then she turned to the audience, tapping the mic a few times, testing the volume.
"Wassup, everyone," she said, waving at them once more. "I'm Kaija, like Karl here already said for me.
"Well, um, what else can I add? He already said everything for me.
"Let's just get to the song, shall we? Well, today, like any of you would if you were in my place, I'm singing one of my favorite songs.
"This song carried me through the darkest time in my life, back when I still didn't know where I belonged in this world.
"Well… not that I know now.
"But! Now that I'm here with you guys, I suppose I hope I'll stay here for a good, long time.
"So, this one is for you, and for… our instructor here too.
"Here's Sociopath, by Karl Hanski."
The smirk on Karl's face vanished instantly.
His lips parted like he was about to say something. But before he could, Kaija started singing.
What Kaija had said in the introduction had been completely honest.
This was her favorite song of Karl's, from his first album, back when he debuted seven years ago, when he was only twenty-one.
It began like waves crashing against the shore, built to a crescendo, then faded into an aching sense of isolation, of being an outlier in modern society. And most importantly, it was written by Karl himself.
I pour my heart into the verses,
I burn my youth to light the way.
They're telling me to stop, but I'm already deaf.
A sociopath on a social path.
...
The crescendo built on and on, the heart-wrenching lyrics flowing out unrestrained, shattering through the room, blasting through every single soul present in the theatre hall that day.
The girl's voice was a perfect mirror to all the qualities that made Karl's voice unique, effortlessly switching from soaring high notes to deep, gritty rap verses, as if it cost her nothing.
If there could be any female singer who could match up to Karl's insane vocal range, every artist in the audience thought, it had to be this girl.
When the song came to an end at last, Karl still hadn't raised his hand once.
For a long moment, the entire theatre fell silent.
No one dared make a sound, all eyes pointing toward where Karl sat, his figure unmoving.
Another heavy, suffocating silence passed, and, as if they couldn't hold themselves back anymore, some hands in the crowd started coming together.
Soon, more hands joined them, and the whole theatre hall exploded.
Applause and cheers thundered through the vast space, from every corner, from everyone.
Everyone, except the young man in charge of the room himself.
Should anyone in the crowd come and take a look at what sort of expression Karl was making right now, it was perhaps best described as an utter loss of words, and a strange sense of… contentment.
His face was relaxed now, the taut displeasure from earlier completely gone. That angelic calmness had returned, turquoise eyes trembling as he looked up at the blue-eyed girl gasping heavily for air on the stage.
Slowly, he rose to his feet.
The cheering died down immediately.
"Training's over," he muttered to the room. "Get the fuck out of here, all of you."
Then he turned and walked straight out the door without another word.
The theatre hall held its breath, every eye in the room stayed fixed on Karl's figure, until he disappeared behind the front door. When their gazes shifted toward the stage again, the blue-eyed singer was no longer there.
She had already left through the stage exit without making a single sound, heading for her last class of the day.
It was late afternoon, and the soft orange light of golden hour was pouring in through the windows of a photography studio.
The first person to enter the room was a tall young man, a black bag slung across his chest.
He took a good look around the room, then lowered his attention toward the session info paper in his hand.
Modeling Session, the title read, but what caught his eyes was the line right below it.
Trainee: Kaija Sepala.
His eyes narrowed slightly, the green in them a shade as deep and cool as the forest in winter.
"Well now," he murmured, putting the piece of paper away. "Long time no see, Kaija."