wildness

he thinks briefly. it wasn't like he was... well really good at practicing either. he tended to mill over things until they were perfect. he probably wasn't a good example at this kind of thing, but he really did mean it. practice made perfect-- even if it wasn't perfect even after 100 times. "how... about some puzzles? it'll be good for you to stream or video? and it's sort of calming. when i used to do music a lot i would do crossword puzzles to sort of challenge my brain in a different way." he smiles. "it was nice and different.... butttt. you also don't have to be good at this. you can be good in other things." if only he could take his own advice but that was another challenge for another day. instead, he hums some, hearing her and ignoring how his ears were turning a familiar shade of red. "... well, it is." he murmurs, biting at his lip. "yeah, maybe so. dating is a lot though. i don't think anyone is really interested which is alright. i need to focus on the group for now."

“puzzles?” she hums, “i’ve only done those for really young kids with like fifty pieces… but it is a place to start? doing a puzzle might help me work up to eventually putting a piece of furniture together” she shrugs. “maybe i should take your advice, and buy me a puzzle or something, it’d be nice to have something to do in this apartment… generally i just play with my hamster, who doesn’t seem to care that much about me” she pouts.

“who knows when it’ll happen. i don’t know exactly what the cast directors are thinking of when casting, but i like to believe that as long as you keep working and improving your craft eventually you will get the main role.” aeri reasoned based on what she’s seen in the past acting projects. while some of the acting projects she’s taken were produced by legacy, she noticed that everyone usually got a chance to be the main role. for her, it had been a few years since then but she didn’t mind since the characters given to her were challenging in some ways. “i wished i did get a chance to host a show before my personal channel.” she expressed one of her regrets during her time as a trainee. there were so many people hosting their own shows and guesting on them that in hindsight, aeri wished she ignored her hesitations and did more of it. “at least with a show it encourages you to interact with other guests and it’s a good segue to having a personal channel. there are still some parts of having a personal channel that i’m getting used to.” the actress hoped that with more feedback from the viewers that she could figure out her niche and be known for it.  thinking about what cherry had said, aeri offered a few words of encouragement. “i think people will give your acting a chance too. sometimes it depends on the project or role, but if so many people already know and enjoy your variety and hosting work, they’ll eventually become interested in your acting and other activities too.”

“with hard work, it should happen eventually, shouldn’t it?”. cherry knows it might take a while, she’s not the best actress yet, and she’s generally a slow learner, it might take some time before she’s good enough to get a main role, but at some point, it should happen, right? “if it all goes wrong though, i still have my youtube channel” she shrugs. at this point cherry was confused what was her plan a and what was her plan b, she was probably focusing more on her acting, but her mcing and youtube channel were definitely doing better. “were you fast?... at learning how to act? or did it take a really long time like it did with me?”.

“they wouldn’t?” he questioned, not wanting to assume why cherry thought that way about the assignment. “um…” sanghyun pondered how he would answer her question. while it’s a common question to ask when learning a new language, sanghyun felt like spanish was one of those languages he should have learned with all of the traveling he did as a child. “it’s a bit of a challenge,” to him, it was more than just a bit since he had spent the first few days recalling his experience with learning japanese last year. “i thought my english fluency would help a lot here, but i’m not sure anymore.” he added belatedly as he felt a hint of embarrassment. shifting his attention temporarily to his notebook, he shook his head when he heard cherry’s question about acting. “i’ve been picking up acting for a while actually. whenever i’m not modeling, i’m taking acting workshops on the side, but a lot of my knowledge and experience is towards stage acting. this will probably be my second audition for a film.” he wasn’t sure whether to even count his first foray to films considering that he only had a guest appearance. “is this your first time auditioning for a film?” sanghyun returned with a question, since he was curious to know how the other would plan for the audition.

“well, let’s just say, had i done the assignment, i probably wouldn’t have done it very well” she shrugs. it was like that for cherry in school too, and how she passed all of her classes is still a mystery not even cherry knows the answer to. she was not particularly smart, nor was she happy about studying, hate was a good word in this, she hates studying. “oh you speak fluent english?” she tilts her head to the side “i didn’t know… but i speak english fluently too! not that it’s helping me learn spanish though…” she pouts.

“maybe earlier in the party?” yerin suggested, though she suspected that was the most obvious answer. still, she couldn’t shake the feeling that they had met before tonight. “ah, no.” she shook her head in reply. “i was wondering if he might have passed through here earlier.” there was a bit of hesitation as she debated whether to share the next part to the other woman. “we were actually supposed to come to the party together,” she said at last. “but something came up for him at the last minute, so he told me to go ahead and said we would meet here later.” but later seemed far longer than yerin had imagined, which made her worry that something had happened to him on the way to the party. however, yerin didn’t want to linger into that thought too much since it would quickly escalate to her thinking about the worst possibility. “it’s a pleasure to meet you, jahye.” she bowed her head and offered a handshake for the sake of politeness. after a moment, another thought occurred to her – one that she believed would give her a bit of hope at a time like this. “if you don’t mind me asking, when was the last time you spoke to him?”

“seems like both of us share the lack of knowledge about where he is currently” she looks around. still, if he told yerin he was gonna meet her here, shouldn’t he have arrived already? it’s not like the party just begun, jahye has attempted to smoothly move around in her search for this very particular man. maybe he’ll come later, but meeting his actual partner? it kind of makes seducing him feel… weirder? that’s someone’s man she is going for, sure she’s flirted with lots of taken people, but she usually doesn’t meet her targets’ partners.

he's loved every moment with the pokemon collaboration and working with nintendo. it's like a dream come true, being a kid who couldn't really get new consoles or handhelds, and now working with them? neat. he was never much of a gamer in his youth, but when he has time nowadays, he likes to pick up cozy games or look into his island on animal crossing... though he knows it's out with the old from switch 1, and into the new with switch 2 for most of them. good thing they could transfer data on the cloud. "hi cherry! good to work with you again. i am so down for modeling, even if its something i'm very good at, if i say so myself," yushin grins with two thumbs up, "but anything for a cozy, and a pokemon game - combined! did you get a chance to check it out yet? or do you have a favourite pokemon?" he wonders if they'll digitally put the pokemon over them, or have them pose with.. "ooh plushies," he holds up a ditto, and squishes it. "i'm thinking a cute pose would probably be the most appealing for the one with the greenscreen background. it's such a... cute game. i need to stop repeating that word."

cherry knew surprisingly little about pokemon and nintendos, considering she’d done multiple commercials for it. she was just… lost? she didn’t know a lot of stuff about a lot of stuff, and even when she took the time to learn a new bit of information, she’d usually just forget it again. she does feel like she should’ve researched the game, and that was her original plan, plan just didn’t go like she wanted it to… she’ll, do something though, she’ll wing it somehow, it seems like usually things work out for her.

the truth was he didn't mind helping, and it gave him something to do that wasn't spending his constant time in the studio milling over and making sure every single move of his was perfect. being in the group longer, and even more so-- being a trainee-- meant that he while he had to be perfect in that regard, it had taught him that perfection didn't really exist and was hard to come by. he had to settle with it being 'good enough', and somehow, he was growing more and more okay with that. so he offers a soft chuckle, nodding. "yeah, i had to put my furniture together across the pond." he offers, shrugging. "you just need practice." he says with a grin, before he's already moving, chuckling at her words. "i believe you could do that now, actually. it may take some time. but... for the record i can't cook, either." he admits, shrugging himself. "cherry, we're friends right?" he pauses, running a hand through his hair. "isn't that payment enough?"

“practice… yeah…” she nods. thinking about it, besides acting and hosting, she doesn’t do much practice. she’s used to sucking at everything, so why even properly try? her whole youtube channel is about her trying new things, and majority of the time, almost all the time, she fails, and then she just never tries it again. “i think i should start with something more simple though” she hums “i don’t know which kind of furniture is the easiest to build though” cherry would like to know how to build furniture, she’s just already accepted she sucks at it, that she’ll never be good at it, so why try?

now cherry surely had jino stumped there because for the life of him, he couldn’t quite figure it out either. was the agency branching out in the western arts? would the actors be embarking on their own spanish-infused tour? the possibilities were quite literally endless and jino often remarked that his overactive imagination would surely be lost trying to figure out just what production had in mind.  “give me a second, google has not caught up to your question.” he jokes, pretending to type in said question into the search engine as he lets his phone screen fade to black. “while it did not help me learn the language, i definitely feel like it has given me a drop into the culture aspect and that counts for something, si?” don’t @ jino, he’s not sure if he’s used the right context there but he pretends for the sake of the lesson they just tried to learn. 

cherry could only hope this was the last time legacy made her learn a new language. she’s pretty sure speaking english, korean and japanese was more than enough, yet, here she sits, learning a new language. she can’t even properly figure out what she’s doing this for, are they branching out to a spanish audience? is she soon joining some spanish show? definitely not… right? cherry doesn’t think she can become good enough at spanish to actually be in a spanish show…

while cherry’s passion very obviously was acting and hosting, it was fun to do other things too. cherry had never felt like she was particularly good at modeling, but modeling gigs were here and there sent her way, and cherry’s modeling skills very slowly improving. it did feel crazy to model for nintendo, even though this wasn’t her first time modeling for nintendo, she still felt kind of… starstruck? it was a bit unbelievable such a big brand wanted her to model for them, so when she got the opportunity to model for them once more, she was very excited.

truthfully cherry didn’t know much about the game “pokemon pokopia”, she’d promised herself to investigate the game and figure out what it was about before the photoshoot, but her terrible memory made her forget about that. so now she’s here, for the promotional photoshoot. she spots a familiar face she hasn’t seen in a hot minute, and walks over to the other “hey yushin!” she says, waving excitedly at the other. “ready to do some modeling?” she asks, tilting her head a bit to the side.

yerin felt a bit of tension as she noticed the woman’s gaze on her. she studied the stranger carefully, noting the tilt of her head and the way she approached. in her eyes, it seemed calculated, but yerin was beginning to think she was assuming too much in such a short period. “i– i think we might have met before,” yerin said cautiously, choosing her words. there was some uncertainty in her voice as her mind ran through an internal debate. should she reveal more about her connection with her missing partner or keep it vague? the longer she contemplated her choices, the more aware she became of the crowd around her. part of her wanted to disappear into the crowd while another part yearned for a reason to stay. “my name is yerin,” she added, finally deciding to let it slip out, even if she was carefully watching the other woman’s reaction. “as for the man, just mr. kim, i believe.” there was a hint of vagueness in her tone, though it was hard to tell whether it came from memory or caution. “maybe we could have met before? but i’m not really sure where, though.” a nervous laugh escaped her lips. “have you seen me somewhere before?” she asked, silently hoping that she could go along with whatever the woman said next.

there’s such unfamiliarity in this woman’s face, yet it seems so familiar at the same time. jahye finds herself staring, and she finds herself unable to look away, curiosity fully haven taken over her body. is it rude to stare? yes. and had the other person been the one to stare, jahye would’ve long ago come with a snappy comment. “ah… yerin you say?” jahye finally briefly looks away, running over where the familiar name comes from.

“ah… mr. kim… i guess that’s where i know you from” well… awkward, the woman of the very man she was trying to pursue, right in front of her. she’d walked around this party to find that particularly man, only to be met with her competition, the one person that stood between her and mr. kim. “i think we’ve met, or at least briefly seen each other before” she nods her head, looking a bit away “i’m familiar with mr. kim, so i guess that might be where we know each other from” she shrugs.

"living alone has been lonely for me, too," minji notes. ever since the girls got their own units within the dorms, she hasn't had other members to talk to all the time, being an extrovert, that can be difficult to deal with. "i go to my grandma's restaurant some of the time, or somethings i just stick around at the company building instead. i think i just like being surrounded by people." she's surprised to hear cherry say she can't sing. "really?" she asks, clearly surprised. "i'm sure you're not that bad." she nods in complete determination. "absolutely. i haven't found a spice level i haven't been able to tolerate yet. well..." she giggles, thinking about a few times where she did go for it, but it was probably a bad idea. "i want to try it at least once before i go down a level! i work backwards when it comes to spice." the girl taps both of the orders, and then immediately shoves her card into the card reader. "it's on me today!"

“well, if you’re ever feeling lonely, you’re welcome to hit me up” she smiles to minji. “i suppose we both have busy schedules, you’re a very successful idol and i’m” she hums “getting more gigs… kind of?” she tilts her head to the side. “well i’m surely not doing nothing, but i don’t think i’m on your level yet” she shakes her head. cherry still had a long way to go, though she was landing bigger roles, when people recognized her, it was still mostly from her youtube channel.

“sanghyun.” he corrected her gently, knowing that her guess was close to his actual name. letting out a chuckle, he understood cherry’s words. the last time legacy had their specialized workshops, he was surprised by how the language workshops had assignments and exercises for them to do before their next class. it reminded him of his university days, but at the same time sanghyun had to remind himself that this was probably one of the ways the teachers could assess each person’s language abilities. “yeah, well they did say it was due next class and next class is today.” he stated as he resumed flipping through the pages of his notebook. as soon as he found the notes he had written in the previous class, he added, “they wanted us to fill out some vocabulary worksheets talking about food and drinks.” sanghyun paused, thinking about what they would learn next. he imagined that at some point grammar would be making its appearance, but as he experienced from past language workshops, grammar was sometimes the most difficult thing to grasp when it came to linguistics. he admitted with uncertainty, “i’m not quite sure how this would exactly pertain to the audition, but…i guess it might help in case they ask us to act out a scene in spanish.”

for a second it felt like cherry was back in school, studying and homework… when chery had picked her career as an actress, she definitely hadn’t expected… this. sure she knew she had to learn a lot of new things, but she’d assumed it would’ve been something she would need for acting, why did she need to speak spanish for acting? then again, she knew people that had learned weird… unique? things for their acting roles, like learning how to do a rubix cube, or something alike.

...

daeun has always been cautious at these events. she’s sure she’s not the only one here with an ulterior motive. sure, some people are here to party and have a good time. it’s more likely, though, that the majority of them have a specific task they set out to accomplish. “well, i was invited.” she’s suspicious of jahye, so she tries to keep the conversation light. daeun smiles and takes a sip of her drink. “i’m not one to turn down an invitation to the hottest social event of the season. i assume you’re here on an invitation too? unless somehow you managed to sneak in?” she tilts her head as she questions the other girl. “i know that’s not what you wanted to hear,” daeun says with another chuckle. “but i am here to have a good time. what about you?”

it’s a bit of a disappointing answer, but what had jahye expected? that this daeun would spill her whole life story and all her secrets? jahye looks away for a bit, a pout showing up on her lips, a bit unsure what to say next. “i was invited of course” she turns her eyes back to daeun, resuming their conversation. “i’ve been invited quite a few times, yet i’ve never noticed your face before” she looks away briefly “well i suppose there’s a lot of faces here…”.

“it’s a bit uneventful, but i didn’t do anything special when i found out about it. i think it was more of after the drama ended that i did some things to celebrate the occasion. for instance, i created my own memory box where i put in some of the items that reminded me of the drama. i think i even put some of my scripts there because i’d always prefer the physical version of it over the digital.” aeri explained, wondering for a brief moment where she had placed the box. “i kept it to remind myself of everything that happened during that period of my life.” she added belatedly with a warm smile. “the nice thing about having extensions is that if your hair is short and you need it to be longer for just a day or two, there’s always that option.” she reasoned. thanks to the conversation they were having, the thought of having shorter hair (even if it was just a wig) seemed tempting for aeri and one that she would consider doing as long as she didn’t have an acting project any time soon. “about two months ago? so it’s really not that long.” aeri confessed. she’s seen some of the videos other actors and models have released and was impressed by how many episodes some of them have released. “during my early acting days, i like the privacy i had with people knowing me strictly for my work or music. but after a while, i did see some people wondering how i was behind-the-scenes. i know some people could get that from behind-the-scenes content that legacy releases, but it feels nice to be able to share other hobbies i do in my spare time and see people comment and share tips about those hobbies.”

“eh! that’s cute though, i do like that idea” she nods with a smile sitting on her lips. cherry doesn’t ever want to forget about her actress journey, and having something to remind her of her achievements could be a good idea, cherry just isn’t exactly sure how she’d do it. “i hope there doesn’t go to soon before it’s my turn… i know i’m still not the best actress and i have far to go, but i’ll work hard to become better”. it almost felt weird to be so passionate about something, cherry was used to sucking so bad at everything she would barely even try.

“oh? that’s not that long…” she says, a bit of surprise in her eyes. “before i had my youtube channel though, i had my youtube show and podcast, so my fans didn’t exactly see a new side of me when i got my youtube channel” she shrugs “i guess the new side of me is actress cherry, i think… i think my fans are used to me being goofy and unserious, but i hope they’ll be able to see me as more than just that” she bites her lip. “my youtube channel is still a way bigger success for me than my acting career, and i don’t mind being known as a youtuber, i just hope… people will give my acting a chance too” she shrugs.

the adventures of kim cherry - season 7, episode 4