* one shot two shot.

hiya, folks!! it is currently 7 in the morning and i just woke up but i came to tentative decisions when i read the post last night so i’m here to follow the trend of announcing them! excuse ugly formatting because i’m mobile. i’ve already been struggling with yujin and her muse since last year so she, unfortunately, will be dropped. not an easy decision since she was my first girl but!! gotta let go sometimes. suji will ideally be keeping her position as equinox’s main vocalist while hyeju will also ideally be following through and being lily’s lead vocalist/lead dancer/rapper. as for jaein, it’s still up in the air for her. she may be dropped, i may be able to find a new position for her, i’m not sure right now. update: jaein’s getting dropped! she’s retired and now living a super quiet life where nobody knows where she is <3

if hyeju was enjoying her time talking to jeonghwa, then she’d consider that a worthwhile interview. who cares if her questions weren’t particularly relevant. fans didn’t want to hear about this; they only wanted their idols to enjoy their jobs. maybe jeonghwa should become a professional interviewer –was that a job? whatever, she’ll ask dimensions to make it a job.

“that’s when you’ve gotta grab your members and start,” from her position, jeonghwa moved one of her legs side to side in the, as she called it, un-stanky leg from genie, “give them a bit of dancing.” they couldn’t be bored if they were getting an impromptu concert from their favorite idols. “what would you say is your go-to dance move?” jeonghwa readjusted, and put a hand out, pausing mid-air the same as the conversation. “imagine with me, say you’re at a party and you see someone you think is cute. what’s your instinct to change it up? don’t think about it, just go.”

there was something almost cute about the way jeonghwa carried herself throughout the interview, and hyeju couldn’t stop herself from bursting into laughter at her attempt at the genie dance. the next question, however, is something that throws her into a deeper thought. despite what people may believe, hyeju was quite serious when it came to dancing. she’s been slowly participating in choreographing some of her own solo tracks. while she wasn’t a master just yet, she was hoping she’d continue to improve where she can do full out choreographies on her own. 

having been stuck together for so long already, minah knew all of the lipstick girls came with their own things, their own unsavory habits, their own pet peeves. hyeju’s distaste towards lipgloss was probably a pretty good example of that. minah could never find it truly annoying, something she had simply learned to overlook in favor of the many more wonderful sides her friend had to offer. there was no use in getting stuck on the small things. if anything, minah found it kinda cute. hyeju didn’t often get so pouty and whiny. “our only relevance with the international crowd is screaming in donut dresses. how do you feel about that hyeju?” minah teased softly, nudging the girl with her elbow.

minah scrunched her nose as hyeju admitted to preferring party over lipgloss’ music. of course, her friend was entitled to her own opinion but still… she was wrong. “party makes me feel like discount bee. like, bee’s summer songs if they were bad.” minah shrugged casually. she knew she would never like every song lipstick would put out, she would just like for those she didn’t like to stop making a come back every once in a while  “wanna make a deal?” she offered. “i cover your parts in the lipgloss songs and you do the same in party. no one will suspect a thing.” she laughed at her own ridiculous suggestion. minah reached over to pet hyeju’s hair. “oh, such a good big girl you are. i’m very proud of you.”

“it makes me want to pull my hair out,” she confesses with a scowl on her face. as much as a good number of their fans and the other members of lipgloss enjoyed the content the unit put out, hyeju could never admit to having fun with lipgloss performances. some of them were so ridiculous to the point where she did find it amusing, but she wouldn’t describe it as an entirely positive feeling. it’s just that every time she looked in the mirror and found herself dressed as food, she couldn’t help but let out a laugh. it definitely wasn’t what she signed up for a decade ago.

chung gyujeong is a damn lap dog, whether he wants to be or not.

the dog at every beck and call of the cameras, putting up a show that crosses his moral line of dignity. he throws in the towel, lets his dignity die there each time the shitstorm of camera work becomes the focus of bc’s schedules. 

so, when hyeju’s comment paint an almost ironic picture of the five-minutes-ago puppet show, all gyujeong has is the half-breathed chuckle leaving his mouth. “like that asshole even watches any of the clips get recorded — probably his little bitch workers doing the brunt of the work.” gyujeong responds, blunt and sharp as he coaxes himself into settling down to something less on edge. “now, if you recorded lipstick’s whole shit with goeun — that is something i bet the public would eat up.” it’s a jab at bc’s own sore pocket, none directed at hyeju. but when the company all becomes a cesspool of chaos, all he has left is the sore spots exposed by the public, and the whispers he’s picked up in the hallways of bc over the years.

gyujeong cross his arms against his chest, braces a shift into subject to a tone lighter. “but since goeun is gone, maybe next bc event we can stage a shitstorm fight, and see how the camera crew handles that. what do you say?”

the mention of lipstick’s ex-member makes hyeju scoff. it feels like ages since anybody around her has actually brought her up. while she tried her best not to have any bitter feelings towards the ex-member, she couldn’t help but feel that, at the least, they could have gotten a head’s up about her decision to leave. the lawsuit that followed definitely didn’t help lipstick’s career either so yeah. she’s bitter, and now she can admit it out loud. 

“if there were cameras in front of me the next time i see her, i’m sure i’ll make it to the sbs morning news for assault.” it’s bluff to be completely honest because there’s no way hyeju would physically fight anybody, but she can think of some nasty words that might be thrown around. “i can already see the community posts posting all those speculation posts. you think i’d have more people on my side or her?” she doesn’t actually expect an answer from gyujeong seeing that it was more of a rhetorical question for a rhetorical situation. she’d hope so at least. 

( ... ) 

“ is there anything you could suggest ? ” erii asks, head quirked to one side. “ clearly what i’ve been doing hadn’t really been working. ” she notes. she takes a moment before nodding slowly – “ a bit, yeah. especially since they’re solos first, so there’s the focus to make us good individual performances – but it hasn’t been a focus for me yet. more, getting everything down, ” she points out, although erii’s sure she has the dance and lyrics memorized already. “ do i look at the floor when i’m performing ? ” she questions, brows furrowed. she genuinely hadn’t noticed – but was aware she’d become a bit more self-conscious in her dancing since she began training at bc. everything was wholly different here, and especially as her debut came closer, erii felt very self-critical. it wouldn’t surprise her. “ what if i’m thinking too hard about paying attention to the cameras that i miss a step, though ? ” she asks, frowning. “ because then it’ll show on my face, i’m not very good at covering that up. ” she note. erii knows that they’re not expecting professional-quality from a rookie, but she also realized that there was still a higher expectation for the group as a whole, chroma was debuting each girl solo before they debuted as a group. they had to look good as individuals before they could look good as a group.

it felt like there was a heavier weight on erii’s shoulders with that knowledge. she draws in a breath. “ what would you do, if you were in my position ? ” erii asks, eyes steady on hyeju’s. “ be as harsh as you want, i don’t care. there are certain expectations for this group that somehow i don’t think we were prepared for … ” erii sighs. not as much as she would’ve liked, at least. “ i don’t want to look like a fool onstage. ” she points out. “ but i’m worried i’m going to … ” she admits quietly. 

hyeju never thought she came off as intimidating until she had some juniors approach her later on in their careers to confess that she had indeed intimidated them back when they first debuted. it’s not like she tries to appear like that, but it’ can’t be helped. those memories strike back again when she sees erii take a drink of her water and almost look terrified. or perhaps the younger female always just looks like that with her big eyes and furrowed brows. it could also just be her nerves eating her up with a solo debut coming up. she recalls how afraid she was of debuting solo, and that was when she was already a debuted artist. here she was having to come out as a soloist first. in her opinion, it was a stupid move on bc because frankly she doesn’t think any of the chroma girls really have it in them to pull off a solo stage already, but it’s some kind of business tactic that she won’t understand. again.

“then maybe you aren’t channeling that into your performance correctly,” she suggests before crossing her arms across her chest. she doesn’t say it out loud, but she does think it could also simply be erii’s age. she’s young which means that no matter how much she exercises to build up her stamina, there may be a wall she runs into. she leaves that behind because she doesn’t think the chroma member needs an answer that basically tells her that she has nothing else she could do. “you just need to be more consistent. it’s not that you can’t pull off a live performance, but you just can’t pull it off long enough.” that’s not really a solution to her problem, but hyeju doesn’t see her having enough time to fix it in time for her debut. it’s something that’ll come to her as she continues on with her career though.

with a nod, she looks down to erii’s feet and then back up to her face. “well, that’s just something you’ll have to practice then. rather than memorizing your choreography as something you need to do step by step, you need to really feel the song. at this point, your moves should be coming out almost mechanically because of how much you practiced it. you shouldn’t be thinking about missing steps at all.” perhaps it’s a little harsh, but erii had asked for her help for a reason, right? “at the end of the day, what stays in people’s memory is how much you can flirt with the camera,” she says. she stops for a moment when she hears erii’s sentence fade off into silence. 

lipgloss was… complicated ground for minah. she loved their subunit, loved the girls and surprisingly, liked the music a lot more than she had expected initially. but due to bc using them as a distraction when lipstick was a mess, public perception had turned against them and with the many stressful memories tied to it, it was hard to look back fondly at the subunit. most of the time, it seemed like bc was as desperate to forget about their failed plan as she had been and lipgloss performances were rare to come by at this point. it was a miracle almost they were even performing now.

well, a miracle to minah. not to hyeju though, the younger girl draped over her side while whining dramatically. minah just laughed quietly, fingers coming up to comb through hyeju’s slightly damp hair in an attempt to appease her just a little bit. “i think it’s a pretty cute song.” she offered like that would make any difference. “it’s just this once, then bc will go back to forgetting it even exists to begin with. you can do it and i know you will do a great job at it.” because even though hyeju was all but happy about it, minah knew that at the end of the day she would do incredibly well on stage, she always did. “just try to think about all the other good songs were performing yes? its gonna be a lot of fun.” a moment of silence before adding. “except party, i hate that song.”

there are times where hyeju begins to wonder how annoying she probably sounds to both minah and minhee seeing that she seems to be the only one of the trio that has such a big distaste for lipgloss. don’t get her wrong because she absolutely loves performing with the other two lipstick members; she simply hates the concepts that lipgloss have been subjected to. truthfully, there must have been another member that could have taken her spot and pulled it off better. sometimes she feels like she sticks out like a sore thumb because of how terribly she does in comparison to minah and minhee. 

cute. jeonghwa’s face split into a grin. honestly, she had never thought about an answer to a question like that before, so how could she expect hyeju to have had some super creative answer off the top of her head. thinking of being interviewed like this herself was already a weird thought on its own. “a triple threat? then i’d have to ask what your triple would be? because, of course you’re a vocalist and dancer, but if i recall correctly, you’ve also rapped here and there. you’re also an actress, a model with that gorg face, a variety star, ost darling, and viral sensation. at this point i think calling you a deca-threat is most appropriate.” finishing off her speech, jeonghwa tried to redirect the conversation to a less rhetorical question. “the real question i’m sure everyone is dying to know, what can’t you do?” the question wasn’t meant to be negative, but knowing how she’d already likely get reamed for going off book, she tacked on, “any fire-starting cooking skills we should know about?”

hyeju thinks she should be used to interviews by now, but there’s so few times she’s done them on her own that this simply feels awkward. there’s too many cameras and too little people in front of them. the attention that’s being put solely on her makes her wiggle in her seat for a moment before she turns back to jeonghwa. she can’t help but laugh at the compliments that come from the junior girl group member. a part of her thinks it must be part of the script but judging from the few times she has actually interacted with the lucid member, she wouldn’t be too surprised if it was all her either. 

minhyejs: nine years already? thanks, vanities 💄💋

Load more comments...

gyujeong doesn’t understand why bc bothers. a sea of faces and other idols springing that bullshit shine inside their eyes, yet he doesn’t get why he’s the one standing in front of the camera waving sarcasm. 

it doesn’t stop there. doesn’t stop when he juts his chin towards hyeju, poignant in the small smirk — what he means is, this is bullshit. but those words fade out on the tip of his tongue, saying nothing more than a mediocre, “so great to see every single label mate in this venue — my monthly quota to catch up with everyone has been reached.” the statement’s a double edged sword, meant to jab right into bc’s constant flush of company-wide schedules while sparing the slap-on-the-wrist response from the company.

by the time the cameras turn away, gyujeong leaves his dignity with the last drawl of a heavy sigh.

hands run through his hair, it’s a mess-up to the stylist’s finishing — but he’s never given two shits about that. 

“that was the biggest bullshit i’ve been subjugated to. nobody buys this bc is family bullshit to begin with — it’s been fucked from the start, so why bother?” gyujeong muses out loud, not expecting any answer. past unveils a series of patterns, all alluding to: bc doesn’t seem to stop any time soon.

since the day lipstick was revealed to the public, their most notorious haters came from fans of bc’s other groups so no, she didn’t believe in the whole bc family bond thing. sure, there were probably people out there who kept up with every group who debuted under the company, but she was aware that it was mostly a publicity stunt that fans didn’t even fall for. that being said, she couldn’t tell why the company was so stubborn on trying to keep up with it. was it working with chroma? she couldn’t really tell because compared to the money bc threw into the pre-debut group, they haven’t been garnering that much public interest. 

she slaps another forced smile on her face, leaving it there until she sees the camera crew start to walk away in which she quickly deflates and rolls her eyes. “it was kind of funny,” she admits before letting out a chuckle. "you think byungchul will keep that clip or just throw it in the trash. i mean, we’re supposed to be sibling groups so i’m sure he’d want some clips of us bonding.” the sarcasm has yet to leave her tone as she puts on a faux look of excitement before returning to her stoic expression. 

location: bc dance studio when: during solo preparations with: @fmdhyeju

while erii felt like maybe, just maybe, she would be able to prepare just using the advice of the coaches that were teaching her, erii quickly realized that they cared more about just teaching than perfecting. no, she was expected to perfect the performance primarily on her own, with evaluations on her progress in-between. and while erii believes she’d probably be fully capable of doing that herself and monitoring her performance to ensure that she would perform well onstage, erii decides she could use some help.

erii approached hyeju some time ago, asking for advice – but they both realized it may be easier if perhaps hyeju could see the progress that erii’s made on her solo. thus, they ended up in the studio, erii running through her choreography. she also sings, erii’s been working so much on her stamina while singing live – but none of her performance feels like enough now that it’s under another’s attention. especially hyeju’s. after all, hyeju had been a soloist for some time now, making music outside of lipstick. erii on the other hand had a few years experience in the japanese industry, and secretly felt stressed about making her debut solo instead of with her group in the korean industry. they were very different, and erii hadn’t quite thought herself ready for a solo, admittedly.

but she was trying to fake it til she made it – and would never admit that the closer they got, the less she felt like she was ready. as the song came to an end, erii drawing in deep breaths while she holds her position until the music fades out, erii turns to hyeju. “ it doesn’t feel like enough. ” erii states, breathless. “ the trainers keep saying i’m making good progress, and i know it’s still a month away but … there’s always room for improvement, right ? ” she chuckles, shrugs. “ specifically, any advice for singing live … i don’t know how much bc expects us to be able to – ” erii knew the scandals that wish had been involved in, after all, but erii didn’t want that to happen to her “ – but we’re suppose to make good impressions, that way the group gains more attention … right ? ” she shrugs. “ but anything’s helpful. ” 

frankly, hyeju doesn’t think she falls into the category of caring seniors. she’s met a handful of juniors throughout her career who listed either lipstick of hyeju as their role models, and while she gratefully appreciated their appreciation, she didn’t do much other than acknowledge them once or twice. if someone asked, she’d take them out on a meal, but most of the times they were intimidated or too shy to ask. 

however, she’s never been afraid to help out if someone outright asked for help. thus when erii came to her for advice on her upcoming solo, she didn’t hesitate to say yes. chroma was still a complete mystery to her, and she’s not sure what bc was thinking when they invested so much into what looked liked a pre-debut project especially because she doesn’t see it working, but that doesn’t mean she would turn the other way when one of their members reached out. while she wouldn’t describe herself as some superstar on stage, she doesn’t think she’s too bad. there’s a reason she’s been able to stay in the industry for almost a decade, right? 

/

alice is working so hard in the dance practice rooms and onstage lately, she’s really not concerned about her figure. besides, it’s her birthday, and birthday calories don’t count. she’d be petite as ever without issue, in her mind. regardless, she was giving business to locals, which could only be a good thing, right? and between her dozen cakes, it was a fair amount of business to go around.

alice laughed at hyeju’s response - they haven’t exactly spent time together, but lipstick is an industry senior and lip gloss was a favorite of alice’s. between that and making a point to know minhee’s members, it wasn’t hard for alice to tell exactly who she’d run into. “thanks. and no, no party - i just wanted to try some of everything, and i thought maybe i’d donate leftovers when i’m done.” alice explained. after all, there was no reason she’d need to have all that cake alone, it made more sense to eat her fill and share when she was finished. 

she’s not sure why anybody would need so much cake to begin with, but she doesn’t question it any further as she hears alice’s explanation. “with how much cake you have, you could probably film a mukbang.” hyeju wasn’t an avid watcher of said videos, but she knew that they definitely were up to people’s tastes. stepping over, she reaches to try to help the other girl with everything she was carrying. 

hosting was probably one of the parts of being an idol jeonghwa was worst at. presenting herself as prim and proper was already an issue enough as it was, but sticking to a script felt impossible sometimes. she’d learned, from back in school, actually, that she did best giving speeches and the like when her cue cards were only reminders of the general topics she wanted to talk about.

thankfully, dimensions realized she wasn’t the best for hosting, and didn’t often have her do so. whatever the opposite of thankfully was, her manager had handed her an ipad with pre-made questions that completely contradicted the talking points she’d hand-written down on her papers.

rebel as she might be, before sitting down for this interview, jeonghwa skimmed over the company-approved questions she’d been given, and as how worked best for her, decided she might incorporate them, if she felt like it.

jeonghwa sat down across from hyeju with a genuine smile on her face. towards the camera, she gave an introduction of herself and her guest, then turned to hyeju. “now, my first question, it’s more of a request. you’ve been in this industry for almost a decade now, so i imagine at this point, giving your official greeting would be tiring, at the least. at this point in your career, if you were to come up with your own greeting suited to this version of you, what would you have it be? i think vanity would love to see it.”

@fmdhyeju

hyeju doesn’t think she’s that old. however, she must be alone in the thought because here she was, seated down with a junior across from her like she’s on some victory tour after surviving fifty years in the industry or something. it’s only been nine this year. there were still tons of other groups that have outlived lipstick, and she doesn’t know how she feels about being treated like such a senior.

she likes to think they were being generous though by bringing in jeonghwa to being her interviewer. having released a single together, though nonpromoted, made this match up make sense. almost smart, but she wouldn’t want to give either bc or dimensions any credits of the sort. knowing jeonghwa, at least she knows the interview won’t be a complete bore. unless she’d been threatened or something. in that case, she has the same cookie cutter answers she’d been giving for years.