"Aww, how cute." Z cooed with a soft smile. "I've honestly been trying to ignore his group because they're so young, but their music was too good. It also helped their leader is the same age as Sammy." He said with a small chuckle. "I hope he gets to go back soon." He added softly.
He smiled watching Hwangjung and Taijia interact. He'd never seen such a cute kid, though he always tended to be biased towards non-screaming children. "Nice to meet you, Taijia." He quipped before following Hwangjung. "Yeah, I wanna see your music stuff, too!" He said with a cute grin.

Z nodded, "Fair enough, learning a group I would assume makes it easier to write a song for them." Though he didn't really know much about making music, he knew the basics, and could see how and why knowing who the song was for would be infinitely more useful than not.

Z squeaked a bit in surprise, though not dislike, at the arm around his shoulders as he got led away, quickly getting comfy so as not to make Hwangjung think he didn't want the touch. He laughed lightly, he could see why that would be Taijia's end goal. Kangwan was one of the success stories of KPop, his band was lucky enough to kick off well after debut, but he thought back to the boy int he other room, and frowned a bit. "Kangwan must've been about his age when he started auditioning, no? Wasn't he the one that auditioned super young? That's got to be hard on someone's psyche though, auditions and training. I hope Taijia will be okay through it." He smiled half-heartedly, "Still, if he does go through it and makes it, it'll be fun to root on someone I actually know personally." He ranted.

He looked through the rooms, smiling to himself, a hand seeming to rest comfortably on his chest. He couldn't help as his cheek tinted pink at the thoughts going through his mind. This is comfortable, I could live here, Imagine getting to wake up to music, etc. His mouth dropped open a bit at seeing the studio. It looked so professional, though he didn't know what an unprofessional studio would necessarily look like. "Wow, it's so cool!" He said, finally remembering using his voice was probably a better indicator of paying attention than just staring at things.

Z shook his head, smiling softly, quietly amazed at the talent of his boyfriend's friends. Sure, Sam was pretty talented in a variety of things, but neither of them had anything to show for their talents. At least Samnang had possession of a violin and he could whip up a song at will. Z just had various notebooks he rarely was willing to show to people.

"Oh." Z said before the words really sunk in. His face displayed a mixture of nerves and excitement. "Oh. Can I? Really?" He asked, his eyes wide. He looked over at the equipment tentatively, already knowing which poem he'd use, though not his own, it was definitely one of his favorites. He looked back to Hwangjung, mouth slightly agape, "i-it's really okay?" He breathed.

Z walked into the sound booth hesitantly, touching everything with such a soft touch, as if any more pressure would cause things like walls to break. He finally stopped being in a daze enough to think over which poem he wanted to do. He was debating between two of his favorites, though neither of them were his own. He wasn't sure which one he wanted to be able to listen to back to back, though. He finally put on the headphones, mouth near the microphone as he did a soft "Test," jumping but laughing cutely as he heard his voice in the headphones. "Wow, this is so weird. Cool, but weird." He said into the microphone, laughter in his smile as he looked to Hwangjung.

Z perked up a bit. "Oh, that makes life simple." He said with a small chuckle. He took a few more moments to get situated before nodding and giving Hwangjung a smile and thumbs up. He took a breath before beginning, "This first poem is by Phil Kaye, called Repetition." He closed his eyes, thinking over the emotions in the words, despite the poem not being his own. "I remember the bed just floating there. / Apart, apart, apart, apart. / My mother taught me this trick / If you repeat something over and over again it loses its meaning / For example: / Homework, homework, homework, homework, homework, homework, homework, homework, homework / See, nothing / Our existence, she said, is the same way. / You watch the sun set too often, it just becomes 6 PM / You make the same mistake over and over; you’ll stop calling it a mistake / If you just / wake up, wake up, wake up, wake up, wake up, wake up, / one day you’ll forget why / Nothing is forever, she said / My parents left each other when I was 7 years old / Before their last argument they sent me off to the neighbor’s house, / like some astronaut jettisoned from the shuttle. / When I came back there was no gravity in our home, beds floating / I imagined it as an accident, that when I left / They whispered to each other “I love you” so many times over / that they forgot what it meant / Family, family, family, family, family, family / My mother taught me this trick / If you repeat something over and over again it loses its meaning / This became my favorite game / It made the sting of words evaporate. / Separation, separation, separation; / see, nothing / Apart, apart, apart;
see, nothing / I am an injured handyman now / I work with words all day / Shut up, I know the irony! / When I was young, I was taught that the trick to dominating language / was breaking it down / Convincing it that it was worthless / I love you, I love you, I love you, I love you; / See, nothing / Soon after my parents’ divorce, I developed a stutter / Fate is a cruel and efficient tutor / There is no escape in stutter / You feel the meaning of every word drag itself up your throat / S-s-s-separation / Stutter is a cage made of mirrors / Every “Are you ok?” / Every “What’d you say?” / Every “Come on kid, spit it out” / Is a glaring reflection you cannot escape / Every terrible moment skips upon its own announcement / Over and over until it just hangs there, / floating in the middle of the room / Mom, Dad, / I am not wasteful with my words anymore. / Even now after hundreds of hours of practicing away my stutter, / I still feel the claw of meaning in the bottom of my throat. / I have heard that even in space; / You can hear the scratching of a / "I-I-I-I love you."

He paused a moment, giving Hwangjung a look to signify that poem was over. Now it was time for one of his favorite poems, ever. He held up a finger, to let his boyfriend know he had one more poem. This was fun, ironically, and he decided he'd want to record his own poems some day. But not yet, this was the test run. "This poem is by Elliot Darrow, and is called God is Gay." He began, pulling away from the mic for a moment to clear his throat. "What if I told you God is gay? / Do you think belligerent bible-belters / Would still holler hate speech to the hilltops / In His name? / Or do you think they would reread the scriptures / They say they swear and survive by / See, I’ve been reading the Bible again lately / And I think I’ve taken a leaf from their holy book, / Picking passages for my purpose / Which is in short / To let you know it’s very possible God is gay. / I mean think about the book of Genesis / In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth / And it wasn’t just good, it was fabulous. / I mean what else is our planet but the pinnacle / Of exterior design, and I don’t mean to generalize / But it certainly seems like that the Garden of Eden / Was designed by queer, I mean divine eye for the straight guy / But some Christians would go as far as to call / God’s creations abominations / Heretics calling themselves faithful / When their faith is full of belief that only God may pass judgment / Matthew 7:1 Judge and you too shall be judged / Luke 6: 37 Condemn not and you shall not be condemned / Fred Phelps 2006: You’re going to hell! God hates fags! / A history lesson: A faggot is a bundle of sticks / Originally used as kindling for fires that engulfed gays / When they were burned at the stake, people were firewood / But Moses came across wood on fire and saw God in it, / What is a burning bush but bundles of branches / On fire, isn’t it funny how faggots and God can look the same sometimes? / Keep in mind Jesus had two dads and turned out just fine / In fact, Jesus had two dads and a surrogate mother / That never had sex with either of them, / Maybe Mary was a lesbian / And I remember the prayer going / “Hail Mary, full of grace” / Not full of sin, / “Pray for us sinners” / For we have become blinded by bigotry. / And forgotten that God gave us the rainbow / As a promise that we will never be flooded again / Either with rain or ignorance / And now all the homosexual Homo sapiens / Stand more united under God’s rainbow / Than all of his denominations do around the cross. / I was brought up believing that my Savior loved us all / And never had to specify “no homo” / But if you have hate in your heart / Say it don’t pray it / Don’t teach it and for the love of God don’t preach it / Because I am tired of these fire and brimstone sermons / Slinging slurs when they’re not firing brimstones / From voices that should be filled with love and praise / Instead of raised with hate and rage / I am a Christian, and I believe in saying the Christian thing. / Which used to sound like “Love thy neighbor as thyself” / But now sounds more like hate at the top of your picket signs / The closest thing to God being “Hell, is waiting for you” / They’re passing out damnation pamphlets / Filled with out-of-context Bible verses / Trying to define God / When his meaning is clear. / He is acceptance, He is pride, He is humility, He is just, / God is perfection, God is protection, God is love, / But most importantly / God is gay."

He sat back, looking to Hwangjung, wondering what he thought of the two poems, chewing his bottom lip nervously.

((Note: In case you wanted to actually watch the poems: Repition and God is Gay))

Z nodded, carefully setting the headphones back where he'd found them and hopping back out to sit by Hwangjung. He nodded, watching the screen as the filters were being run. It was really interesting. He smiled, somewhat bittersweet, and looked down at his hands. "You're lucky then. My parents were so strictly Christian, but they went for more fire and brimstone rather than love your neighbor type of churches and sermons." He took a step back, remembering that Hwangjung just said he was raised more culturally Buddhist. "Um, basically, Christian churches can be separated into evil brainwashing cults and actual, proper churches that read their Bibles in context with the memory that this book was written 2,000 years ago." He chuckle,d looking back at his boyfriend, "If you can't tell, I kind of have a bias. Basically, and I'm sure you've seen it if you've ever paid attention to any gay activist thing ever, the bad Christians will read certain passages, Leviticus is the most popular, and take it out of context from the time - like sleeping with another man was forbidden during Biblical days in Christianity because they were lacking population, not just because God decided it wasn't cool." He paused, taking a breath. "My parents were a part of the bad churches. I spent my entire childhood learning my feelings were sinful. Do you know how to scare a Christian kid? Tell them they're going to hell for something they can't even control, so they repress it."

He looked back down to his hands, once again return to his bittersweet smile. "When I met Xavier, and later his parents, it was the first time I'd seen a Christian family that was so open. So one Sunday, I went to church with them." He smiled, "At first, I was scared, because Xavier kept trying to be cuddly, and all I knew was my parent's church. In a twist of fate, the pastor's sermon that day was about love. I was probably visibly cringing, but the pastor showed all the instances that the Bible had said to not judge one another, and to actively live by the Golden Rule. It was live changing for me."

Finally, he brought the conversation around to the poem, "The poem is talking about that discourse in the church, by doing what the bad churches do and twisting verses to argue that God them self was gay. It's been torn apart by now, mind you, by the exact type of Christians he was talking against. But it really resonated with me because of how I was raised, essentially to hate myself."

He looked up, still smiling that bittersweet smile, because he'd never really discussed why he loved the poem so much. Samnang had kind of put two and two together after a while of learning Z was Christian and had been disowned, but still didn't know the full story. "As for the first one..." He looked up at Hwangjung, "I'm sure you've noticed by now I do occasionally have a stutter. After..." His voice faded, and his face fell, "it," he shook his head, "everything happened, it surfaced. Really... really bad. About the same time as I started speech therapy for it, I had found out about slam poetry, and Repetition was one of the first ones I'd listened to, and it really resonated with me, because even though I couldn't relate, I could relate." He laughed a bit, if that makes any sense. "I hope that answered you...?" He said hesitantly, feeling like he just rambled, and suddenly feel a bit embarrassed about his ramblings.