lucid dream.

surreal.

the gods of fate are truly laughing upon her this year. while 2020 had been amazing for her, 2021 was kicking off not to well. put into a position she felt highly uncomfortable in and under qualified for, she also just had to get roomed up with the one girl in their current line up she couldn’t stand at all. unable to take criticism, an insufferable ego and cocky attitude; ara was about everything that unnerved jieun to no end. 

being paired for this segment with her was just yet another test to her patience and how well she could act it up for the cameras when all she wanted to do was throw a fit and refuse to work under these conditions. like a true little diva in the making.

ara smiling at her, them seemingly on the same page about at least appearing civil in front of the cameras, jieun purses her lips and furrows her brows, clearly reluctant to stick her hand into a mystery box without knowing what awaits her. “hmmm maybe it’s better to do it at the same time…,” she muses quietly, taking a hesitant step towards the box.

“alright,” ara says, not really wanting to disagree over something so small. that happened enough behind the scenes, and for a new-ish (second reiteration rotation group), she’d much rather not be the antagonist in front of the camera. if anything, she could put her competitive nature against jieun into the guessing game, because there could only be one winner. ara’s eyes exchange a look with the other girl, flickering from the box back to her eyes. what was on her mind? the tension was something that hopefully would not be picked up by the camera, because then they’d certainly get a talking to, no doubt about it.

control me.

At this point, Soyoun thinks that a massage would be welcome. After all, her muscles (her feet in particular), have gone numb from all that exercising and dancing they do in practice. However, the consequences of screaming in pain have Soyoun’s eyes bugging out. “Bugs?” she whispers to Ara who seems just as horrified as she feels. On instinct, she takes the younger girl’s hand. 

“Ready as I’ll ever be,” Soyoun replies as she gives Ara’s hand a gentle squeeze. “Let’s just not think of the punishment and hope this massage doesn’t hurt too much.” She gently lets go of Ara’s hand to take a seat on the other massage chair. Soyoun has lost the last shreds of her dignity ages ago, so she supposes there’s nothing else to lose… Besides having to deal with bugs. “Let’s try our best not to scream in pain at the massage. But realistically, the bugs will make me scream more than any pain this massage can bring.” She shudders at the thought of it.  

“i thought massages were supposed to be pleasant.... and....relaxing,” ara sighs, wondering if there is any way she could make it seem convincing that this would be. but if it is meant to induce punishment, there is no way. “have you ever eaten bugs before? i heard they’re a delicacy and very good for you, so maybe that is a perk.” if only there were punishments such as... eating pizza rolls. squeezing soyoun’s hand back, they take their seats next to each other and her eyes glaze over as there are some more words spoken by the host and she prepares herself for what is to come next.

.・゜this is me trying ゜・

sighing to herself, yue can’t help but to hit her forehead (in the same way children do when they’re playing around) teasingly with the back of her fingers in a snapping motion. “you idiot. come on, let’s go.” she says as she situates herself. yue turns around and offers her back as she comes to a crouching position, her hands at her hips. “i’m strong enough to lift you and me both, so don’t worry about it. Okay?” she says immediately, attempting to be reassuring. after all, years of martial arts had made her build take more than she appeared to take. though she always made sure to not eat too much protein as to not build too much muscle, caring about her feminine looks more than others thought she would. 

“Where at the dorms are you staying? i heard some debut kids were changed, so i don’t want to get it wrong.” it goes without saying, but it’s been a while since they met. with ara’s scheduled packed, and yue having her own training to do in the acting path, it was hard for their world to collide from time to time. “what were you doing anyways, practicing until this late hour? what if something worse happened? who would have come then?” she nagged at her, her mind unable to help itself into the worst case scenarios. “i haven’t heard from you in a while and… I guess you were lucky i was looking at my phone.” she mentioned casually, as if she hadn’t waited for her response, someday… soon.

“you’re so mean!” probably words she should not say to her saviour. but she can’t help it. the words left her mouth before she had any self control to stop herself. “calling me an idiot. i already know that! don’t knock me while i am... literally down,” ara loudly sniffs. she can’t tell if it’s for dramatics anymore, or if it’s solely from the pain. all she knows is that there’s this peculiar behaviour around yue where it seems that she somehow turns even more childish... it’s safety. she feels safe with yue. the yue who has come here out of her way because ara had to be clumsy and get hurt. again. her voice turns meek after the older girl’s reassurance and letting her help her. 

“yah, are you any good at handling spiciness?” she asks ichika after they’d been relayed the instructions on what to do. or what not to do, aka react to their food. it’s been awhile since she ate those popular korean fire noodles that got really viral on social media. and she’s pretty sure she remembered crying a little bit from those, so this might end up being trouble for her.  if ichika could handle spicy food, then at least only one of them would get doused in the punishment. why is this show so insistent on ruining her image? it’s all in good fun, they say, so she’s going to try not to be a sore loser- but ara has a sinking feeling that she’s going to fail miserably.

“we can do this, ganbatte!!” ara says with enthusiasm, but she’s also worried about her stomach that is rather empty right now. how many hours has it been since they woke up and had breakfast? too long. they better be giving them milk afterwards to temper the spiciness down - unless they were just exaggerating. the dish is placed in front of them, and she exchanges a glance with ichika. “is that... mapo tofu?”

the concept itself is easy enough. guess what’s in the box. stick your hand in. take a guess. touch around, squeeze it, it could be alive, it might be a stuffed animal. anything goes. but why does she have to be paired up with jieun? is there not enough girls in the unit? she inaudibly sighs, aware she’s on camera as she and jieun wait for their instructions. standing awkwardly beside her, arms behind her back, she doesn’t look at the other girl, their leader, until necessary. fake it until you make it, they said. at least this sounded and felt easier than the other events that the girls had been put through. ( seriously, spicy noodles!? those heathens... ) 

when the host directs them to finally guess what’s inside the box, she looks at jieun, a small smile on her face. not going to go too ham, otherwise people will wonder why she’s acting so peculiar around jieun. she cannot make their behind the scene awkwardness go in front of the cameras otherwise the company may intervene. “should we do this at the same time, or go one at a time, jieun-ah?” 

so she doesn’t look that thrilled about being on variety. she’s heard about japanese variety shows. she’s probably going to be in for a wild ride. ara looks to her partner for this specific event. it shouldn’t be too bad, right? “a massage? sounds... easy!” then the host continued talking. and the platter of bugs is shown on the side. “wait, what?”

she holds onto soyoun’s arm in horror, avoiding the sight of the bugs. “oh no, i can’t do this. take me out now. what’s the challenge again? we have to not scream? aish, the punishment itself will freak me out and get me screaming without any effort... are you ready for this?” her voice trembles at the end, as she takes a seat down, already biting down at her bottom lip in nervousness when it hasn’t even begun. there is zero percent of her that wants to participate in this and she wants to run away. her image (what image?) is going to be ruined! 

-✧- talk to me -✧-

danbi’s rather resigned herself into believing that she’ll never be good at japanese—despite the company choosing her to debut in the county of the language’s origin, she’s (for lack of a better word) given up.

that doesn’t mean she doesn’t still attempt to learn, no, not when she has an official korean debut—and her dignity—on the line here. so she sits up, takes notes, pays attention, and tries to cram as much japanese into brain before they’re ultimately shipped off to tokyo for promotions.

danbi’s been trying her best—believe her, she has—but other languages might as well pose as rocket science to her, and when their teacher breaks in lesson for their individual practice time, the redhead can’t help but sigh at ara’s question. “no. i just don’t understand why it’s so hard. i thought knowing korean would make learning japanese, specifically, easier, not more difficult.”

“maybe ichika can answer all the questions for us...” ara taps her pen idly on her notebook, although the fact that the company hired someone to assist was a blessing. not to be stubborn but she doesn’t even know if she would remember the majority of the words and grammar after their stint in japan. or would it continue on? ara would eventually like to also promote in... korea, to be fair, since she wasn’t in the first session for lgc girls.

“one fact you might not know about me? i have a horrible habit of collecting things. mmm, please do not tell me that it is a bad thing to admit. it’s really bad. i think it started from when i was little with cute stationery sets, and stickers. and notebooks. tell me you don’t also have a lot of empty notebooks piled up somewhere in your home!” it’s something that drove her mother crazy when she cleaned up after her back home. it’s not as bad at the dorms for ara due to the fact that it’s a rather small space in contrast to her room back home. where things could just pile up with little to no effort.

“nowadays, i don’t collect stickers... as much. i also had a horrible habit of collecting plushies. here, look,” ara shows off a picture from her phone, displaying an array of pastel random stuffed animals that she’s collected from childhood. “i don’t even do anything with them. i only have one in the dorm with me, so i am not cluttering things all over the place....”

lgcxjongsuk

​:

it was too easy to tease ara and jongsuk had to hold himself back from taking things too far and getting too comfortable that he’d end up flirting again. keeping himself aware of the tiny microphone attached to his jacket did help keep his mind straight and his head in the game. “there’s nothing wrong with being short. not only can you duck and dart away but you can also get easily into narrow spaces and low hiding places that I would have more trouble getting to, to look for flags,” he points out encouragingly.

treading forward with her, jongsuk entertains the idea for a second but his ambitious spirit has him hum. “I can see the perks but I’d hate the thought of having lost my tag,” he admits while rubbing the back of his neck. “oh? I see something over there…,” he exclaims, pointing ahead to a pole along their path that seems to have something bound around it.

“okay okay, it’s not ‘the plan’ to get my name tag stolen, i understand.” but she wouldn’t be mad about it either. she understands there are some people who can be very competitive in this game, and yes while she has the drive to win for the team, ara isn’t necessarily the one who would get mad about things going awry. it’s a game. there’s only going to be one winning team as it stands. but she’s not going to announce that to audience on full display. “but if it happens, it happens. and i’ll work on whatever i have to do. i guess we should stop talking about potential ‘what if’s. might be a bad omen.” ara pretends to zip her lips shut.

“do you think i should give it to the fans like this?” the idea in itself of making or putting together gifts did not seem appealing at all in the start, but now it was growing on her. also it helps that she isn’t alone as she sits here and writes little notes on the mints that she is giving to them. it’s not much, but she thinks mints can be refreshing in the sea of whatever everyone else is giving. besides, they’re from her and - it’s hard for her to figure out what to give people when she doesn’t know them. yes material goods and gift giving are definitely at peak of her love language list, but to people and from people she knew. 

“what are you going to be doing, arin?”  she puts her pen down and peeks over to where arin is, putting her head on the other girl’s shoulder. personal space is something that is completely foregone between the two, as she blinks upwards at arin.