shoot!

hellloooooo party people! i’m late to the party but thank you for all the welcome messages so far 8) i’ll be replying to them slowly over the next couple days because i’m going to be a bit busy until early next week but hopefully we can get some plots going! as always, please LIKE THIS and i will come to you through ims to plot

info about saea under the cut! and her about page is here

when they're told about the merger, saea is genuinely surprised. she really hadn't thought anything would change after she had joined sr media, let alone having such a big change that affected all the trainees, and even the staff.

but getting a new building to explore is kind of fun, especially since it's so new. and big. she's honestly pretty amazed and is one of the ones ooh-ing and aah-ing over the place as the staff show them around. she takes note of the practice rooms and some of the recording studios, hoping that maybe one day she would get to be in that for a group that she's debuting under.

it's a far off dream, but maybe it's not so far off after all?

she kind of still feels like she's dreaming, if she's honest.

the axis building is beautiful and she'll admit that she's the most excited about the cafeteria after hearing some staff comment that the food was really good. she's not going to say that the food isn't good at sr media—because she's slowly started trying all the menu items, and someone of them are delicious—but getting a whole new menu is very, very exciting for her.

the whole merger thing is kind of interesting for sea. considering she's only been in sr media for a few months before it, she wonders what's going to change over time. thankfully, the group is had been given is one with people she actually really likes.

chaeyeon had been one of the first people who had approached her when she first stepped into the building as a trainee, and noel and her had had fun during next gen, considering they had spent a good while accusing each other of being spies. and lastly, of course, hyejin was there and she always had a good time with her best friend.

honestly, this whole thing was great just because she got to spend more time with the older girl. it felt almost like when they were in the same group during next gen again.

but the difference now is that they have to be good, right? she has a feeling that they've all been thrown together like this so that the companies can assess who needs to work on what. she also wonders—despite knowing it's much too early for her—whether this will start determining who is going to debut. it's kind of fun for her to see how hard everyone is working and how serious they are, so saea knows she needs to as well.

the song they had chosen is one that saea already knows the dance to, though she's a bit rusty at it. it's different relearning it in a more technically point of view, considering how she originally learned dances was just for visual impact and to be able to interact with the crowd during busking.

ptt is a fun song and it's right up her alley when it comes to the image that she wants to give. that's why she had auditioned with a boy group song, after all. she had always considered her strength to be in boy group songs, but ptt had a similar vibe to the songs that she liked. hopefully, she wouldn't let anyone down.

she had gotten most of the rap parts, along with a few singing lines that she had asked for in hopes of showing that she really could do all three. she was already confidence in dance and in rap, and had currently been working on singing and this was the perfect opportunity for her to show it. chaeyeon got the high notes, of course, but saea had received one of the killing lines and she did her best to portray it the way that she thought it should be.

even better. yuji listens to only a handful, so that’s a fact she’ll store away from the future. she knows where she’ll go again into the future. she cracks a small smile at the joke, huffing out a tired laugh. “i came to the right person then.” yuji muses, placing her hands on her hips. she lucked out.

she lets out a relieved sigh when saea moves to sit. “thank you,” she yuji shoots the other a grateful expression, turning around quickly to prepare. “my timing is off. i’m not sure if i’m skipping over a move or i’m just– overcompensating speed for the beat? i don’t know.” yuji huffs. she opens the original song on her phone and plays it from it’s speakers, squatting so she can set it down and move into position.

she waits until the chorus, and then steps into the beat, eyes watching her reflection for any missteps, while trying not to think too much about saea analyzing her. once she’s finished the chorus part, she pauses for a moment, catching her breath. yuji’s eyes catch saea’s in the mirror, head cocking to the side. “was i on beat?”

     she settles comfortably on the ground, or as comfortably as she can and she waits for yuji to set up everything to prepare to dance. she’s actually very impressed, if she’s honest, that the older girl came right up to her to ask for a second opinion. she’s not one to be super proud or anything, but she knows a lot of people who would rather die than ask someone else’s opinion on something. especially since she’s technically the newcomer in the whole training thing.

     once the song starts, saea pays close attention to every move that yuji does. it’s a song she knows well and one that she actually does know the dance to and she watches carefully to see where something might be going wrong.

     oh. she sees it.

oh. this girl seems like the excitable kind – chaeyeon resist her instinct; to blink at her, laugh through her nose and roll her eyes at that enthusiastic little yes please, and instead smiles back at her, giggling in what she hopes is a good natured, sincere way. sure, this girl, and everyone else too, are competition, but it’s in her best interest to be nice… and chaeyeon is trying to be nice, after all. these days, being mean has lost a lot of its fun. she’s determined to get to know these girls one way or another, and for the time being, the way is by actually trying to get to know them. 

chaeyeon shrugs, hums, and tilts her head to one side, then the other, knocking her thoughts back and forth. by nature, she’s more of a picker, a snacker, than a meal-eater, but since starting as a trainee chaeyeon has been forced to actually sit down and eat three proper meals a day. she’s taken her breakfast and lunch to-go a couple of times, but always finds herself too busy to eat them before dinner rolls around. 

“i stick to the salads most of the time,” she says, totally truthful. “there’s nice ones, with salmon and sesame. stuff like that. i haven’t tried any of the more… decadent offerings.” though, to be fair, there weren’t many of those. chaeyeon looks at saea carefully. “i’m chaeyeon by the way. rebecca. chaeyeon rebecca song. you’re saea, right?” a light, weightless laugh floats from her mouth, and she smiles at her with all the grace she can muster. “don’t worry. you’re the one who was on t.v. – i think everyone here knows your name. you can’t be expected to know absolutely everyone’s in return immediately.”

… though she is a little bit miffed that she’s the one who has to introduce herself. the whole time, chaeyeon continues cooling down with her stretches, though admittedly she’s a little lazy with them. she’ll stretch again before bed, so, like, whatever.

     “mmm, salads,” she repeats, nodding and trying her best not to sound too disappointed by what had been mentioned. it’s not that she’s against salads or anything—she just personally thinks there are so many more interesting foods to eat out there than just eating greens! there’s no reason to waste calories on something that isn’t delicious, obviously, and she’s hoping that chaeyeon will have something else to add. maybe some secret combination that is killer than no one would think of! or secret codes to get the cafeteria workers to serve her something else? who knows!

     when she doesn’t get any more insider knowledge of the cafeteria, saea doesn’t let it defeat her and only thinks that she will have to figure it out on her own. she had scouted out the meals on the menu and also what everyone else was eating around her. thankfully, the meal she had tried had been pretty good and she’s always had a good metabolism too so she’s not too worried. maybe she’ll be able to share the finds to chaeyeon in return in the future.

     “chaeyeon rebecca,” she repeats, doing her best to commit it to memory. to the point that it takes a moment for her to realize that the other girl had introduced herself with an english name and she perks up a bit. “were you born abroad?” she asks, curious, mostly because she definitely wouldn’t mind having someone else to speak english with. her brother doesn’t count, because he coddles her no matter what language she’s speaking in so she never knows whether she’s remembering all her grammar and stuff correctly.

her smile twitches a bit, turning sheepish as saea accepts the bottle. “you caught me,” she admits, retracting her arms to cross them loosely, shifting her balance. it’s not information she’s privy into letting a lot of people know– even some of her closest friends she’s kept it quiet from. being a trainee doesn’t equal certainty after all, and it comes with expectations that yuji isn’t sure she meets quite yet. 

she laughs at the time mention. she does remember the event well, even if it was some time ago now; yuji had left feeling a lot more inspired and willing to be more proactive in dancing afterwards. “time flies,” she muses. “and hey, you guys and your instagram helped me get my own dancing prowess up.” it’s certainly not her best skill, but yuji’s at least confident enough to say she’s improved from before. there will always be room for improvement– but now that saea is here, yuji has more opportunities to learn too. it’s always better to learn when it’s with people you like, after all. saea’s well on her way to that for yuji. 

“how do you feel?” she asks, head cocking to the side. when yuji had first become a trainee, it had been a little bit of adjusting. with next gen, you at least get a taste before locking yourself in. “it’s a lot at first, but after a while…it gets a little monotonous.”

     “at least it was good for something,” saea says with a laugh, a little bit surprised at what the other girl had said but she feels pretty good about it, to be the inspiration behind someone else improving themselves. it’s a nice thought, anf though she misses her busking team and her busking days, saea is pretty excited for what’s coming. hopefully giving up everything that she was used to would manifest her dreams coming true. hopefully.

     she twists open the bottle of water to take a sip, thankful for the gift from the other trainee and she’s feeling rather at peace, considering that she’s only been living this schedule for a few days but she doesn’t mind it much already. sure, the early hours were a bit grueling, but doing the same thing for next gen had sort of prepared her for this.

STEVIE ✨

“no, i’m stevie.” he responds back, armed with a cheeky laugh and a dumb grin. he lets out a strangled noise at the tight hug, wiggling dramatically until she lets go of him. “freedom,” he sniffles, moving his board under his foot left to right slightly. he’s stretching out his arms when she continues, and he lets out a loud snort at the memory.

“dude, still?” he asks, incredulous and just slightly offended. he doesn’t really blame her though; he’d do the same thing if the roles were reversed. stevie pouts regardless. “people kept sending that to me on instagram…” infamous is definitely right. stevie didn’t gain any sort of contract or opportunity for performing or the like, but he certainly got attention of another sort. even if it’s more clowny than cool as he wanted. oh well. water under the bridge!

“it’s okay, though. i know you’re just in awe of my super skilled flexibilit–waah!” he cuts himself off with something similar to a squawk as he steps back, losing slight control of his board and his balance. he stumbles back, but thankfully doesn’t fall, thank god. his previous injuries have just finally healed and faded. “i’m good,” stevie flashes a thumbs up, a sheepish laugh as he pulls up his board. “just been a while.” he admits. 

"are you nervous?” stevie asks, curious. next gen was one thing but training is a completely different story. 

     “it’s my favourite picture of you,” she says solemnly, mock seriousness in her tone as she salutes at him. it’s a great thing to wake up to, considering the first thing she does in the morning is check her phone. maybe she’ll convince him to take a selfie with her to replace the picture—but at the same time, she doesn’t think anything could get better than this picture. one day she’ll use it in a powerpoint presentation or something, just to say that this is one of her best friends.

     the thought is an amusing one.

     his shriek pulls her out of any thoughts she has on a future powerpoint presentation of their friendhsip, not even sure when she would get to showcase that, and saea’s expression is fully alarmed as she reaches out to steady him, hands gripping at his shoulders in her panic. “oh my god,” she exclaims, expression going from worried to playfully annoyed in a second and she slaps his shoulder. “you almost gave me a heart attack.”

     she really loves this last song she had gotten for next gen. it feels like a really great finale song, even if they’re also going to be performing my turn together for the first time since the mcountdown performance.

     it’s exciting and she’s super hype for it. especially since she had enjoyed her team for this song. she was with a bunch of her good friends and she had made a good friend in joomi too. it was nice, she thinks, and this all rounds out in a good way for her.

     no matter how this goes for her, saea is proud of herself and she had had a great time on this show.

JOOMI ✨

it’s all almost over.

honestly, joomi is ready to go back to his regular life; for the most part. somehow, he suspects, thanks to next gen, his life will never quite be the same again in one way or another, but hopefully it’s a good change. 

regardless, he’s tired and relieved and maybe, for some reason, a little sad, all at once. he made more friends here than he ever thought possible, and found encouragement and support here even when he was sure he didn’t deserve it. he hopes it’s all something he can carry with him going forward.

he tries not to think about winning at the end of this, because he’s pretty sure he doesn’t want to be a trainee. instead, he just focuses on the upcoming performance, because he still wants to do his best, if only for the others in this group who seem to want this greatly.

on the last day, joomi figures it’s worth celebrating. maybe he should’ve brought healthy snacks to give the team energy, but instead…he bought cookies. now that he has them, though, he’s overthinking it: what if nobody likes these cookies and it’s all a waste?

at least he tried.

he keeps them carefully tucked away in his practice bag, hoping they won’t be crushed, and during break, he’s ready to unveil them, until––

saea has a cake. that’s far more impressive and elaborate than cookies. he considers just taking them home for a moment, but he honestly doesn’t want to eat all of these himself and his roommate doesn’t deserve cookies, so he might as well offer them.

he pulls them out of his bag, then holds them out, laughing, more nervously than anything else. “i also brought something sweet? so i guess it’s a party.”

     “ooooh cookies!” saea cheers, and she thinks this was a great idea, surprised and pleased that joomi had also brought a snack. it’s always more fun when there’s more food and she’s not going to say no to more sweets, even if her sweet tooth isn’t as out of control as it used to be when she was a kid. she remembers being banned from eating sweets as a punishment instead of being grounded or anything. that had been the worst. 

     but now she’s an adult with adult money so that means that she eats more sweets when she wants to, and is better at portioning and controlling herself. of course, that doesn’t mean that she’s not going to eat cake and cookies right now.

     “we should grab water from the water machine maybe ... unless someone brought drinks?” saea asks playfully, looking around at the other teammates and then even at the staff, placing her hands on her hips as if waiting. it’s a joke, but she thinks she’ll miss the different staff that were always around, having chatted with a few of them when she wasn’t busy practicing.

     she’s still hoping that she’ll be signed and she’ll have a chance to work with these people more often. maybe she’ll get the chance to be signed, but she’s not really holding out hope for it. if it happens, or if it doesn’t, saea is just happy to have gotten the chance to be on the show.