𝚋𝚕𝚘𝚘𝚖.

IDOLIZE EXCLUSIVE MEME 09.23 - 10.20

Here you go, it’s our second meme! Please keep in mind the standard meme etiquette — reblog to participate, give as much as (more!) than you receive, send to everyone who reblogs, etc. Meme replies are not eligible for activity, but are a great way to think through your muse a bit, or show off some aspects of development you haven’t had a chance to reveal yet.  For every response to a meme questions that is 250+ words, you’re eligible to add +2 EXP to your points page! This does not include duplicate answers to the same prompt, but you’re welcome to answer more than once. 

“ oh, he’s more interesting than … him? i’m sure. tell me about him. ”  his name is on the tip of her tongue, daeho, daeho, but she bits the inside of her cheek. it’s not like her, to be so transparent like this. 

“daeho,” eunju fills in the blank, for the most part oblivious to suhee’s inner turmoil. the bitterness in the younger girl’s tone is almost palpable, though, and she takes another brief pause to search suhee’s features before continuing. “he says it was cool - he never really showed any pictures or anything but he’s part of the reason i wanted to go to california for art school before all of this. i don’t see him very much anymore.” now that she thought about it, there wasn’t much of her family that did actually like her uncle daeho. he was the family’s black sheep - roaming on the outskirts of the collective like scar from the lion king or something. “anyway, uncle eunjung is a street artist even though he tells me not to tell people that because he wants to be mysterious or something. he’s not very good at it, though. i think he kind of regrets not going into the family business. what he lacks in talent, he makes up for in passion! he makes a mean fish fillet, it’s the only thing he makes really well - i eat a lot of it every time he comes down for chuseok and i don’t even like fish all that much.” she hasn’t  been home in two years, almost three now. her dad hasn’t called in a month and half. she wonders what she’ll do for chuseok this year.

eunju stops again, toys with the hem of her shorts as she gauges suhee’s reaction again. “we don’t have to talk about them anymore if you don’t want to, though.” it occurs to her that it might not be half as interesting to the other girl as it is to her, that this - a massive family with tall tales and obscure in-jokes, might not be something suhee can even relate to. she feels kind of inconsiderate, chews on her bottom lip in concern. 

his eyes try not to sparkle too brightly when he looks her in the eye. it’s not even really so much a question, rather, a suggestion to get away from everybody else. “how about dance dance revolution?” 

it’s still new for her, having to be more aware of herself in public rather than being just another face in the crowd. she’s by no means famous, that much she’s certain of - the ratings that the show reel in leave nothing to the imagination in terms of consumerism and she’s not super sure how she should feel about it - but she’s lost the luxury of relative anonymity. it feels like a curse in situations like this one, where she can’t even hold hands with her boyfriend (wow, her boyfriend) just in case there’s someone who recognizes their eyebrows from afar, just in case one of the trainees they’re out with tonight decide that they’ve got nothing to lose and rat them out to get a leg up with management.

they’re both lowkey, her own outfit, a t-shirt tucked casually into a denim skirt, hair tied off into a low bun, customary black face mask a civilian compliment to junho’s own. to the naked eye, they’re two people who just happen to share a group of friends and it feels that way for a while, eunju keeping herself occupied with banter with meihua and dasom, a newer girl trainee, whilst they wait their turn to play. she’s thankful for the time she gets to spend in the company of people she cares about but she’s even more thankful when things naturally disperse.

she supposes she should be happy that they even have this much of an excuse to see each other, regardless of circumstance, time like this isn’t easy to come by and it’ll only get harder when promotions kick up again for xlnc, even harder when eunju has her own schedules to adhere to once she debuts. sue her for wanting to spend her days kissing junho’s cheeks and pretending they’re normal people who aren’t risking their livelihoods by being together, but sometimes she wonders how different things would be if they’d met in another universe, one where they aren’t public figures, one where they’d met out in the real world or something. 

he’s nowhere near as close as he could be but eunju still feels giddy when they’re next to each other - finally, after ages of talking from opposite ends of their companions. she doesn’t think this feeling, the thrill of being around him, will ever wear off. she hopes not, anyway, hopes she feels this same excitement hundreds of days from now. thousands.

their discussions always amused him, giving him that little push of fun that he needed in order to get through his day but not even this could cover up the raw emotion he was so desperately trying to hide. “are you going to tell on me like a little kid? i wouldn't be surprised if you did.” 

on any other day, their banter would’ve dissolved into something petty and childish, a mutual rundown of the day’s frustrations translated into dickish remarks about height and ability and the stupid look on jingyi’s face and eunju’s inability to stop squawking at jingyi like some kind of building security guard.

he was infuriating on the best of days, enough to wind her up tight and bound, but even she could admit that it was kind of fun to watch him tick and explode. “watch your mouth, you peevish bastard - you’re lucky i don’t go run down to security and get you banned.” the banter was fun, sure, of course it was, but that didn’t mean that eunju liked to see him distraught.

he seems like something’s bothering, a touch of emotion somewhere under the cut of his words, something more lethargic than usual in his comebacks. it’s almost like he’s drained of all energy. she’d heard some of what things were like for titanium at the moment from aroon back at kcon and she wonders if this is what the culmination of it all looks like on someone built differently than he is.

but the light in which fell over eunju’s face now, dimmer than last time, a better cover up for how shy she actually was set the mood to something different, something that confirmed any lingering counter thoughts about what he felt before.

“you’re cute,” eunju says, grins. “i made it to the top ten, are you proud of me?” it’s an encouragement she hadn’t known she’s needed to hear but she revels in it nonetheless, especially now that she’s been questioning how worth it it’d been to participate in the competition at all. it’s a kind of support she hadn’t known she’d been missing over the course of her tenure as a mini idol. she likes it. she’d blush again if she weren’t already on fire, but at least she knows it goes both ways, that she’s not the only one unwavering in the need to see the other succeed.

more often than not these days, she’s found herself frustrated with the lack of appreciation that junho and his band receive. they deserve it, if their music is anything to go by, if their personalities are worth anything to the public. he looks good on stage. he shines then, shines now.

he’s bad for her focus, really, in the grand scheme of things. she should be more focused on arpeggios and scales than what his favorite food is, what kind of toppings he likes on his ice cream, if he was the kind of kid to play on tire swings or if he’d spent the peak of his youth playing first person shooters in his bedroom. important things, too, though - his dreams and aspirations, where he sees himself years down the lines, if he sees her there, too.

“maybe a couple dozen,” she concedes, playful, giggling when his lips meet her skin again - it tickles, tingles and her giggles hitch into sighs, the spot behind her ear a weakness much like the slope of her neck, the curve of her waist. “you’re really funny or whatever, when you’re not busy being a pain in the ass.”

it feels real now, in the hush that falls over them when his hands bare her shoulders. her breath catches in her throat when the weight of it all catches up with her. “i really like you, too,” it’s a soft declaration. “fancy that.” there’s something light-years more intimate about this, them, than anything she could've anticipated in the days leading up to this moment - to the finally, the heaving sigh of relief now that they've found the opportunity to indulge in each other. it’s a risk, every aspect of what makes them what they are, and yet the daunting does little to quell her desire to have him. it’s the little things, really, the playful kisses and the coy banter, fingers tangled idly as they chat mindlessly about everything and nothing at all. stolen moments at msg when there’s an excuse, a made-up reason for him to be there, the live wire spark that lays between them buzzing with the threat of what would happen should they bridge the gap.

they’d set the world ablaze.

“are you happy with your last ranking? we’re top ten, so the public might really like us, huh?” he asks. aroon remembers eunju ranking right after him, wonders if she is annoyed about it. he has more fans already, more popularity. and isn’t it the whole point of the show? to be popular, to be the best and guarantee a debut? aroon himself is surprised with his rankings, how high he was able to climb once he put a bit of effort into it. the fans noticed his good personality, there is already buzz about him. it’s good, he thinks, to be this popular so soon into his career. better than nothing, at least.

“no, seriously, it’s a masterpiece - hats off to the people who helped produce it! i hope it does really well on music shows and stuff.” it’s a sincere sentiment. eunju wasn’t someone who was entirely capable of saying things she didn’t believe, it was often clear on her face when she felt distaste toward something, even more apparent when she genuinely enjoys something. it was something she’d been learning to school more and more in the company-given acting classes she was willingly participating in.

they’d long decided that she would be a gem for television, variety had been a given but dramas were a shot in the dark. she wonders, vaguely, if her participation in the produce project would get in the way of people taking her seriously on emotionally-driven shows, if she and the other trainees would forever be remembered as those kids who put themselves out there on that survival show that tanked in ratings.

oh, she knows well who it is, his face burned into her memory, even if she hasn’t seen it in fourteen years. her mother refused to keep any photos of him around the house after he left, sitting herself and suhee down at their kitchen table with a pair of scissors each, snipping him out of any and all pictures when they were sure he wasn’t coming back. frankly, suhee thought she would never see him again, but of course, the world would never be so kind.

it’s easy enough, really, eunju’s desire to build meaningful and fulfilling relationships with any smiling face being both a charm and a downfall of hers. it’d taken almost nothing at all for her to fall into the trap of befriending the younger girl, happy to have found someone with similar interests and an appreciation for going beyond the shallow, surface-level niceties that the produce project set had cultivated in place of genuine curiosities and depth.

it doesn’t hurt that this serves as an excuse for her to reminisce, something she hasn’t had much opportunity to do with so much else on her mind. half of it being entirely male and wonderful and the other half being a conglomerate of stress and anxiety from the lack of contact her father has felt inclined to make with her.

“hm?” eunju hums in question, pausing in her explanation about the time her boy cousins from busan had come over during the winter and tried to throw her in a lake out by the field her granddad liked to grow his crops on and how it wasn’t quite a farm but just a plot of land for vegetables grown for the family restaurant, upon suhee’s inquiry. it’s weird, especially considering who exactly it is she’s asking about. “oh, that’s just my uncle - he wasn’t around for a long time when i was little - i didn’t even meet him until i was five or six, i think. he came out of nowhere telling everybody he’d been living abroad for a while.” she pauses, looks at the picture, considering. “he’s pretty cool, though, i guess. for an uncle. he used to buy me and my other cousins ice cream from this place that was ages away in the actual city.” 

he heard someone clear their throat behind him, causing jingyi to freeze in place before turning around and seeing the one person he didn’t want to run into during this tragic time. "i realize that you didn’t expect to walk in and see that, but… let me explain, okay?“ there was nothing to really explain in this odd situation. he wasn’t supposed to be doing this, not in another company building that is.  

she’s finishing up a vocal session when she hears it - the opening traditional strings of titanium’s shangri-la. it’s a song she likes, one that aroon does justice to, so she’d know it anywhere, especially given the number of plays it has on her phone. the only issue is, really, where she’s hearing it. it’s not against the rules, exactly, to play songs by other company’s groups or performers and it’s common for trainees to practice with songs by any number of senior group in the spirit of improving. companies always wanted the next bigger, better thing and that meant knowing their competition inside and out.

hell, honey were under the same company and eunju can’t count on her fingers and toes how many times she and other msg girl trainees alike have done their songs. after hours spent in practice rooms, it’s child’s play.

anyway, it’s not a big deal until she turns a corner and still hears it, turns another corner and sees it playing on the screen of the west wing corridor’s tv on the wall. she’s lead on what feels like a wild goose chase, going to every hanging tv in the company building before she finally finds the culprit. she wishes it were more of a surprise but titanium’s main rapper had a nasty tendency of popping up within the hallowed halls of msg’s main building more often than explicitly necessary.

there’s a pause, and he smiles down at her again. everything that comes from his mouth when there’s no one else around carries so much more weight to it, he makes sure to get his point across. “i probably streamed all the produce project episodes fifty times this week — but only your parts.” he finds her hand and laces their fingers together, pulling it to his lips to kiss every knuckle. “i really liked that segment where you kept doing all that little fingergun stuff. i knew you were referencing me, because you knew i was watching.”

eunju blushes, wants to duck and hide away from him but can’t find it in her to move. it’s different like this, the two of them pressed together on a bed, undeniably alone. it’s nice, having him so close, settled between her legs, his lips on her own - that alone is enough to elicit a fiery haze over her cheeks but that coupled with the candor of his words, sweet and just-for-her, is fatal. her eyes search his face for any hint of a lie, try to catch his bluff but she melts nonetheless, melts further when a hand comes up to brush back her hair. “i missed you, too.” she says, grins again, even though it goes without saying, as if the trouble they’d gone through just to see each other now doesn’t get the point across on its own. “it’s nothing i can’t handle. i’m sure you had a lot more on your plate, anyway.”

she thinks back on the conversation she’d had with jowi earlier on in the day, about how things like this rarely ever worked out, how it was all about the product, about the marketability and the stock and the whether-or-not-it’s-worth-its; thinks about how she’d said it’d feel good until it came down to choosing, how new things aren’t worth taking a chance on her career because when the verdict came, you were never the choice they’d make. it’s a cruel reality of their lifestyles - of being an idol, in the making or otherwise, in the current scope of the industry. she hasn’t even told her parents about any of this, about meeting a boy and liking him so much she’s willing to risk something they’ve invested so much money and stress and time into to make sure she can thrive in seoul.

her father already hates the thought of her being an idol now that it’s so close, he’s seen her on produce project, had been completely on board the first few episodes but he’d lost his drive when he saw what they had her doing. he hasn’t called since her performance of mirror, mirror. her mom tells her he’s just worried but it feels a lot more like shame budding undercurrent now that he understands the reality of things. now that he knows that he’d sent his daughter, his only child, off to be consumed by the masses in some way or another.

she can only imagine how he’d feel if he knew about this. it makes her sad. it’s not the time.

junho’s cute, even if he doesn’t mean to be. she feels so much. “how do you know i don’t just like finger guns?” she teases, uses her free hand to do the motion aimed at him, a whispered ‘bang, bang!’ to match. “you’ve really been watching for me?” sweaty, practice couture aside (which was hardly a concern at all considering their hookup prior - even their initial meeting had framed a routine practice on set), it was nice to know that he cared enough to watch her progress on the show, made her feel less embarrassed about the wealth of xlnc music that had come to populate her streaming services. she found herself watching interviews and music videos just to see him. embarrassing. “i might’ve watched a video or two of you, too.” she half-confesses, trying to play the role of nonchalant and unaffected, transparent as anything. “i didn’t know when i’d see you next so i had to make do, i guess.”

“just. be careful. if he’s… new….” she tilts her head, searches the other’s features, tries to soften her usually brutal turn of phrase, “even when you love each other… eventually you’ll both have to pick. them or the career. sometimes… they pick the career, and you’re left holding the pieces, you know? just be careful.”  she scrunches her nose, rights herself, pushes the lump back down her throat and flips her hair over her shoulder. “thoroughly hypothetically of course.” she adds, flashes a grin befitting aj, a familiar mask behind which to retreat. 

their similarities are almost too good to be true, two sides of the same coin or, rather, a reflection in a symbolic mirror - each standing on the other side, facing each other. the past, present and future.

she wants to ask what she means by souring the product, feels her stomach twist at the implications of that kind of wording. she hadn’t expected that level of candidness, unaware of just how much she still didn’t know, and her brows furrow in a mix of thoughtfulness and offput. it dashes her hopes a bit, makes her feel a bit stuck for what to do. it’d be smart to let go of her thing with junho now, while it’s still easy, while it’d hurt less to let him go, while the cost was at its highest for her. it’s only been a few weeks at this point, they’d met entirely by chance, in a way that should’ve been impossible considering how preoccupied she’d been on the show. this was dangerous. a misstep could mean the end of everything she’s worked for, a mark left onthe wrong patch of skin was the difference between debut at msg and the end of her career before it’s even started. for him, she wonders how much he’d lose, if the standards are really that different and he’d make it out unscathed or if his company was just as cruel.

her own heart breaks just a little then.

she wants to lash out about it, ask her who their company thinks they are to dangle that kind of thing over her head, to make her have to choose between living and living her dream. better, more marketable options - and what was that supposed to mean? eunju had heard of pr relationships but she hadn’t thought much of them from the outside looking in. it all feels real, in this moment, like a ghost in stories at sleepovers that you never think to believe in until you’re face-to-face with it yourself, until you get the chills they mention. it’s too real, but she’d wanted real. she wants to ask if that’s what made them so okay with her dating marco, if his star power was enough for them to let her be, wants to ask if it’d made her happy to hear or if it’d felt a little bittersweet to know that someone she loves could’ve been tossed to the side for not being enough for her, for her brand - wants to know what she’d have done if things were different, if she’d fallen in love with someone she shouldn’t have. she doesn’t ask, though, knows this isn’t the place to make a scene and give herself away in front of these sorts of people. (she’s so close.)

“oh,” eunju breathes, deflates. jowi has a point, she supposes, knows more about the world than eunju could ever dream to - but that’s not how it’s supposed to go. love is supposed to trump all. it’s supposed to be worth it in the end. it’s supposed to be able to work if you try hard enough, if you want it hard enough. still, she’s not one to look a gift horse in the mouth, realizes the wisdom she’s being fed is from experience, trusts jowi not to lead her astray. “i’ll be careful, unnie.” she says softly, wistfully, before she catches herself. “hypothetically, yeah. thank you.” she chews on her bottom lip now, ducks her head, anxious yet somehow soothed. it’s not quite resignation. “i think i really needed to hear that, actually.”