killing time 𖥻 TOMMYINNIT

XXVI. ego blow

james had taken a shining to iris the moment he met her and now that they had spent four months working in close proximity, he just liked her more. they'd been doing a lot of things over discord calls but every two weeks iris would finish her last class of the day at 1PM and would be at his place a little over three hours later, where she'd stay until sunday afternoon in time to take the 2pm train. a couple of transfers and she'd be back home by 5:30, tommy always offering to drive her home. on the rare occasion he went with her, the two of them sitting shoulder to shoulder at the back facing the wall.

iris and james had been setting up her music registration accounts and everything she'd need. she was kind of just of the assumption that she'd just be able to post a song but james had spent the last few months helping her find an agent and a manager and setting up everything she'd need to release independently.

liam, her new agent had been an immediate click. one of his referrals was james's agent and even james vouched for him. they got on well and he knew exactly what she wanted. she'd been mildly surprised when she'd had multiple people emailing her about the jobs. james's agent had been lovely enough to reach out to a collection of people that he knew who were looking for work.

mia had been a recommendation from jack septiceye. somehow. the fact that that had happened was already insane to her but the fact that mia also knew who she was? that had been a scream-into-her-pillow moment.

so now, four months into her informal partnership with james, they had exactly eight full songs. a few more half completed ones, but a majority of the time had been spent with admin things.

james had been helping produce them, but iris was writing all her own music, and she'd been learning a lot. one of the members of james's band came into help as well, and the three of them had been doing pretty good.

since she was still a minor, iris's mum had been briefed on everything and james sat in on any and all meetings she had with either mia or liam. it had been a very tedious time, in which writing music had been more of a chore than a passion, but she'd made it.

iris herself had been rapidly counting down the days that they had scheduled for releases. it was nuts to her, but she'd been almost non-stop writing songs for about a year now, it made sense that some of them had become polished enough for a release.

there was this one now, then another in four months, and in that four months they were hoping to potentially finish and turn in an album, cover art, shoots, etc. she'd be staying faceless, at least for now, but it was still a lot of things she hadn't considered.

she was in a meeting room in her agent's office up in brighton, james, tom, toby, ranboo, her mum, her brother, mia and liam all huddled around a computer. it was just a small gathering, fully masked and filled with nervous energy. it wasn't even release day, it was literally just release announcement day, but she'd wanted do have a little gathering and everyone had been more than willing to indulge her.

"i'm really proud of you," tommy pulled her into his side.

"i love you," she muttered softly. sure, she'd done small things released on her instagram. but this was real. she'd made such a big hype out of it that if it flopped her ego wouldn't recover.

"are we ready?" mia grinned at iris and she nodded. her instagram was already set up with a timed post that she'd been very adamant about writing herself, despite the fact that it was like, two sentences long. she'd wanted to retain full control over her social media and luckily for her, with the absence of a record label, she had a lot of freedom.

but surrounded by her closest friends (minus her poetry people, but she didn't quite feel ready to tell them about this facet of her life yet), she found that she was a lot less anxious than she would have been six months ago. her ego probably wouldn't survive if it flopped, but she'd probably be okay.

iriside                                                            •••

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iriside my debut single "good 4 u" comes out on october 15. presave link in my bio. ahhhhhh!!! 2 weeks save me

— AUTHOR'S NOTE
i've been talking to one of my friends about it but i genuinely struggle to write characters who are like. happy (and healthy whoops) like it's so much more fun to write angst but i did have fun with this iris is so lovely to write about i'm obsessed with her