blue orangeade

it feels just like the last day of school. he never got to worry about his entrance exams. it was the same ordeal in both cultures he was present, but not a trouble he actually had to go through. 

not that he ever had bad grades. not that he ever had perfect grades, either. instead of going to somewhere like cram school, luccas spent his free time in acting classes and, eventually, in lgc. which now looks like it all paid off. from spending his time after school in acting class to acting in a school. back to being a student after not too long.

the boy gently runs his fingers down the uniform he’s wearing. the han river is right beside them and all that’s left to do is... have some fun. he debates if chanhee’s brightness would interfere with his athletics skills. he settles on the competitive side of him from being raised by his father. volleyball it is, then.

luccas isn’t the most athletic himself, but that probably plays in his favor. his longer limbs and awkward nature act as negatives. while everything would be ending today, he’d still get to see how it’d come out. still early in august, the drama would still take its time to air everything. he wonders if all his scenes would be kept in. he worries if he did a good enough job.

when they call for a quick break to change camera angles, the boy steps off to the side and takes his phone out of his pocket. it’s a beautiful view and a beautiful day. at first, he takes pictures of the river, and also a few of himself. before he was called back, luccas also makes sure to take a few pictures of the rest of the cast and staff while they did their own things. these are the kind of things that wouldn’t come out on the screens. while the show would go on, this experience comes to an end today. 

jung chanhee.

it’s only a supporting role, but he still feels a strong weight of the name on his back. he might not have as many lines as the other more important characters, but he’d still be playing the cousin of one of the main characters. it’s like how people keep bringing up the actress who played hannah montanna’s mother even if it was only for one or two episodes. luccas can’t actually remember her name off the top of his head, but that’s who he’s trying to be.

he’s lucky to have some experience on his back. webdramas aren’t as big as televised programs, but that didn’t mean the budget was too low. there’s a sea of cast members around him and it’s clear not everyone is comfortable in a set (yet). he tries to play it cool and offer his support to whoever looks like they need it. all in subtle ways, of course. pointing out someone looks nervous would only help amplifying the emotion.

it’s the first day of recording, and it’s interesting to watch his seniors on the job. while he isn’t needed on set at every moment, the boy tries to watch whenever he’s allowed to. as an aspiring actor, catching these moments from so upclose can be extremely precious. he can’t write anything down, but luccas makes a mental note of how each character is supposed to act on camera.

the way sehun—his character’s cousin—acts is important to him. if they were both raised in the same family, luccas should look for smaller actions he could incorporate into his own character. while not many people would notice if he did something like this, he still found it important. it’s the smaller things that form the bigger scene.

“kim luccas to the set!” he manages to hear through the noisy collection of staff members doing their best to make this the best it can be. “i’m here!” he’d give it his best, too.

he’s sure they were told beforehand that pictures would be taken, but right now that’s the least of his worries. they started rather early with their day. when their bus left from seoul the sun hadn’t even risen yet, but they were supposed to be bright and ready. luccas isn’t too ashamed to admit he had fallen back asleep on the trip there. the extra energy was definitely much welcome during the day.

it had been a few hours now since he was first sent to the fields. all the grandmas explained how things were supposed to work, but as simple as it was, the job was much harder than he had anticipated. it didn’t take too long for him to start sweating. that was the least of his problems, apparently. having to pick and carry the fruit made his arms and back hurt. at some point, even reaching for his forehead to get rid of the sweat became troublesome.

there isn’t even a commotion when the photographers arrive where he is. everybody should already know and act natural. it takes luccas a bit to hear the clicks and for his mind to connect the dots. the boy looks behind his shoulders slowly and realizes his time is coming sooner than later.

the first thing he does is to take a second to breathe (he hadn’t been doing much of that). the second step is to panic. a brand new dose of adrenaline helps him run a sleeve through his face in hopes of helping him somehow. was it normal to be this sweaty or was he the only one? while his long arms struggle to make his hair behave, someone else approaches him. “bend down.” she says.

it’s one of the grandmas who had been working nearby him. he does as he’s told and bends in her direction. she’s kind enough to fix his hair for him before giving a pat to the top of his head. “much better.” luccas gives her a bright smile. he was supposed to look bright from the start, but this small refresher was much needed to refill his energy. “thank you very much.”

he knew from the moment charity day was announced that he’d like to take part in it. luccas had some experiences with helping charities in the past through donations or charity dinners. those are the things rich people usually do.

when looking through the options, one popped out to him. going to the water park, while he’s sure it’d be tough, felt a bit too close to home for him. the animal shelter was the option somewhere midway. probably more troublesome than children, and the boy’s also sure he’d feel sad for every animal he’d see. something about working at a farm felt like the perfect level of difficulty he was looking for.

luccas had never been to an actual farm, much less worked on one. his meals were always cooked for him and he never even had to look at the ingredients. as good as it was, he felt like experiencing something completely different from what he’s used to would be what’s best for him. 

granted, luccas had to bend a lot further than he did considering their huge height gap, he puts the apple in his basket and sets it down. “you should probably put the fruits away more often! you’re lifting too much weight i think. remember what happens with gus gus in cinderella? don’t over carry the load,” yushin chides him a little. he used to work on a farm for many years, and in fact his family still have a farm. they do have a tiny orchard, among other things and it makes yushin feel natural in this habitat- he could understand if some of the other trainees were a bit more unsure. but he doesn’t want anyone to hurt themselves.

“time for a break for us, don’t you agree?” yushin looks around to see if there’s anyone that’s handing out waters (though it’’s supposed to be the volunteers that help the farmers out with that too.) “come on, let’s get some waters and take a break to cool down before we go onto the next thing.”

“how are you enjoying it?”  

“yeah, i’m okay!” his voice sounds more chipper than he looks. with the fruit back to its owner, luccas uses his free hand to rub his back. god, is this what being old feels like? his birthday isn’t too far but he still had his entire life in front of him.

looking down at yushin, though, gives him a refreshing new wave of youthfulness. he didn’t actually remember what happened to gus gus in cinderella, but the boy looked so sure of it that luccas simply nodded along. “yeah, you might be right...” following the other’s actions, he sets down his own basket on the floor. it’s immediate relief. while it only makes his arms finally feel what they had been, at least he isn’t holding onto what makes them feel that way. 

“it’s been really interesting!” he starts to walk next to the older boy. luccas hits his hands against each other to remove any dirt before looking around. there was still a lot more job to be done. to think he feels like this only after a few hours, it makes him wonder how all the grandmas felt like. “i had never been to a farm before, or worked with things like these... we did plant some things at school when i was younger but it’s nothing compared to this!”

@lgcyushin

it didn’t sound that hard at first. they told the tall, youthful boy to help with picking fruit and luccas gladly went along with it. the heat of the sun felt good in contrast with the usual aircon of the training rooms. in some ways, it felt like being inside a movie. these are the kinds of experiences he would have never gotten to go through, and—to an aspiring actor—could maybe end up being useful to him. if he got to play a farmboy then luccas can actually say he was one for a day.

the more time that passes, the higher up the sun climbs. the repeating movement makes his arms tired. the more fruit he gets, the heavier they are to move around. it’s the rational path things were supposed to take and yet it surprises him. 

uhhhh hey! it’s ghost of christamas past!

i was literally gone for what feels like six months but i swear it was only one. i literally have no idea what’s going on anymore but we’ll try our best! i think i’ve caught up on following all of our new members, and now i’ll advance onto phase 2: getting interactions. i’ll approach people i had threads with to hopefully get something new and updated! to everyone else::: 

luccas is now part of the acting path and he also got into the cram school cast before that. if you are/were in any of those, i’d love to get some threads! he needs to just meet people and make relationships be those good or bad! hate him if you want i’m all for it.

if you’d like to plot something, like this post! if you’d like one of the plots/requirements below, reply with the number! if you’d just like a random starter, reply with a random word! let’s get it.

he has the feeling he hasn’t done anything wrong, but it’s hard not to get nervous when you’re taken out of practice. it’s the same feeling of when you’re called to the principal’s office at school but without all the other kids saying you’re in trouble. he’ll soon find out that this isn’t the equivalent of him getting detention, but more like your mom is here to pick you up early.

when he’s introduced to the woman he bows his head politely. “nice to meet you, too.” everything clicks in his brain like magic. this month he’d complete two years training under legacy. having joined with the intent of becoming an actor, his parents had been constantly asking for updates on his career status. at some points, the boy almost believed they would like to keep him as an idol. this simply settles that he was wrong about that. “thank you very much for this opportunity.” luccas bows his head again.

as happy as he tries to be, something in the back of his head pulls his mood down. had it been so bad to have dreamed these past two years. “i’ll work hard to meet your expectations.”

     luccas’s panicked state of being, tearing open the envelop after denying that he had any sort of large sum of money, just made eunji giggle. she watched his hands fiddle to open it and covered her mouth, smiling, trying to not seem as though she was laughing at him.      she followed him, walking delicately, like she floated on air, up to the booth. she stayed silent. what man taking a woman on a date was unable to buy tickets properly? and to make her do the buying, no less, that would have been a deal breaker. luckily, he took care of it all and even gave her a cute, dimple-filled smile. she smiled right back and could not wash it off.      his sudden peppy-ness, maybe he really was poor if this much money made him excited, did not go unnoticed. eunji happily swiped the ticket from him.      she watched his eyes dart to the cameramen, nervously asking if there was anything left on a nonexistent to-do list. it made eunji ansty. why was he asking the crew for help? he had just asked eunji if she was ready and then completely turned his cheek to her. she crossed her arms, not upset, but rather confused.      “maybe you could do this first.” fed up, she threw her hand at his and grabbed it. she interlocked their fingers and before she knew it she was leading him to the entrance so they could be butterfly-ready.      half of her was smitten over him and the other grew mildly impatient. she was adoring his eyes, his dimples, his smile, even just the shape of his lips had her swooning, but his lack of guiding her, his nervousness to even compliment her outfit? she wanted a man who could show her how to have fun, but, here she was, doing all the work.      well, maybe he’s just nervous. maybe i just need to help him have some fun! it shouldn’t have been my job to hold his hand first, but, maybe if i take charge once i can… break the tension ice! maybe he’ll be more comfortable.

it’s as if they were on level one and his partner suddenly turned into the level 50 villain. not exactly because what she did was evil (it was most certainly not!) but because it is exactly what luccas had been trying to avoid since the start. eunji oh so simply grabs his hand as if it was nothing and started to push him towards the entrance. “oh my god—” the boy covers the lower half of his face with his free hand and walks after her.

there’s nothing wrong with holding hands per se. luccas can hold the hands of any of his friends without worry, but he’d never do it so quickly on a blind first date—and a televised blind first date at that! he had never even seen eunji before between the many different trainees and staff members that walked about on the legacy building. now here he is, unable even to show much of a reaction once they finally make their way towards their date spot.

“can we really do this?” he fastens his feet, taking a few quick steps with his long legs so that he’d be waking beside her instead of slightly behind. his eyes shoot down to their hands. the boy wouldn’t dare to remove his own hand from her grasp. if anything, it had become obvious that eunji was way ahead of him when it came to things related to going on dates. there were several jokes online about pre-marital handholding and he feels silly over how seriously he’s taking this.

they approach the gates and the boy holds onto his own ticket as if it’s his last bit of sanity. once they’re inside, everything will be real real. as if this entire—and surprisingly short—experience hasn’t already been a series of culture shocks. “i don’t want to get us in trouble.” luccas whispers to her before the gatekeepers can hear them. 

seungjae claps his hand softly, his signature square faced smile making it’s way across the screen as he does so. instinctively, he pats lucass’ head –– it’s what he gets for being so cute. “everyone, leave your dodo code if your turnip prices are more than 500 bells. then i’ll visit you,” he jokes (well, half-jokes. if they weren’t on such a tight schedule, he would’ve made his way to sell his turnips ). 

he turns to lucass, and furrows his brows slightly. “do you want to start with mine? i already have my gate open for you,” he says, turning the screen to lucass. it’s also because he’s sort of excited to share how his island looks. seungjae may not look it, but he takes animal crossing rather seriously. he’s got a pinterest board full of ideas and qr codes, and makes his friends send him videos of cool islands from twitter. just like with anything else in life, he takes animal crossing a little too seriously –– yet he acts like he doesn’t care at all.

“ah, don’t be too surprised when you get here,” he says nonchalantly, “i just fixed it up a little,” a lie –– he’s easily spent more than a hundred hours on the game. “let’s read the comments while we visit each other too!” he squints at the screen, “lucass… would you want five seungjaes or one five year old seungjae?” he reads aloud. 

“ay, don’t say that...” as fun as it’d be to visit the islands of viewers, luccas is quite certain it wouldn’t be the smartest move considering they could say inappropriate things. and also, going just because of the turnip price didn’t sound like the best image to create of yourself. while his screen is black loading his island, the boy turns his joystick in circles. a bad habit of his. thankfully, he hasn’t gotten a case of drift yet.

he lets out a soft ‘mm!’ as he nods in agreement. once the screen shows his character, luccas starts to run towards his airport. “i’m sure your island looks great. i’ll make it a big reaction!” the boy looks towards the camera and opens his mouth wide. he practices his surprised expressions. covers his mouth; uncovers his mouth. with a final cheeky smile, he gets back to the game.

Soyoun’s actually happy that Luccas had taken some time out of his busy schedule to play and clown around with her. She knows how booked those in the acting path are these days. Luccas’ future fans can thank her for making him sing. She considers it her act of charity to all of humanity. She nods as Luccas talks about his song knowledge. This should be fun, as Soyoun herself is an old soul and only knows very few foreign songs. Or at least, she can’t confidently sing them yet. 

“Before we start playing, there’s an icebreaker we have to do,” Soyoun says with a laugh. “I teach it to all my guests, but anyone who has talked to me has seen me do it.” She demonstrates the hand and head gesture for Luccas to follow, before she says the now-familiar. “Let’s get it! Skrrrt!” She can already imagine the memes people can make out of this. That’s a way of spreading awareness, after all. 

By the time that’s done, Soyoun and the staff seem to think that it’s time to really start playing. They show the first song, and it looks like both she and Luccas know it. Unfortunately, Luccas has longer legs than she does and makes it to the stuffed toy ahead. She can only stop, stare, and hope that Luccas either gets it wrong or has no idea what the song really is. (For the sake of the game, of course). 

he carefully listens to her final explanation thinking it’d be something of utter importance (as those usually come in the end). good to know he was right. luccas automatically covers his mouth when he sees what soyoun was doing. “what...” his mind quickly reminds him that he needs to do it too and his response is to awkwardly stare at the camera. “let’s get it!” without nearly as much energy as she had done it before him, luccas does the same hand and head gesture. “skrrrt!”

what he’s the gladdest for is how quickly they move on and no one tells him he needs to do it again. it’s probably this weird trance of ‘i can’t believe i was forced to whip while saying skrrrt in front of a camera’ that gives the boy the strength to pull through for the start of the game. it’s like, god, you made me suffer, so now you must repay me.

     eunji beamed at him like the sun, like california’s night time lights from l.a. that astronauts saw from space. he was so weird, something about his movement, it was really like he had never done this before. she assumed there was no way he had been on a date before. his lack of compliments of her dress, of her makeup, of her anything physical, did barely give her a gut feeling of disappointment.      still, she watched as luccas awkwardly stepped forward and took the envelop. as he thanked them, she quickly bowed to them, careful to not mess up her hair in the process. she would keep it absolutely perfect until she got some sort of reaction out of him. the desire for a compliment, an anything, grew in her. perhaps laying traps would not work and she would have to pull out the actual fishing hook and do some of the work herself.      when he looked to her, she just smiled back, and then his eyes lost her. she followed them. she looked at him. he still stared, so, she looked to the building again. was he alright?      she giggled. was it already time to go in? she felt like she had just gotten to say hello. gosh, he did not even open the money yet!      “you must be pretty rich to not need to open the envelope.” she chuckled. she turned to the building and waited for him to guide her. she even gestured with two hands for him to lead the obvious way. she was a princess when it came to expecting chivalry, especially on a first date such as that. “so will you be paying for the entrance fees with your,” she smiled at him, “personal riches, or do we pay with this?”

“oh, no, no!” he was, actually, pretty well off himself. but luccas wasn’t about to explain that he couldn’t do anything right because of his otherworldly-level of nervousness and an actual lack of experience. “i didn’t want to open it too soon and seem rude.” his hands automatically start to open the envelope out of pressure. shit, could he not take a single right guess? if only his instincts weren’t mysterious frozen from the moment he left the dorms that day. nothing he did so far felt anywhere near natural to him and, most likely, to anyone watching him.

he continues walking towards the entrance so that, hopefully, he could get something right. the first right of the day. that’s exciting. “i’ll get our tickets right away!” luccas looks over at eunji and automatically starts smiling. then turns to the kind attendant who welcomed him to the garden. “two, please!” thankfully, not many coins are involved, and he swiftly gathers his first two achievements.

as if a brand new man, he turns to his date with what feels like a brand new level of joy. “here is yours!” he hands her one of the tickets and holds onto his own. “are you ready to go in?” luccas stops. he looks at the cameras then back at her. a new wave of nervousness fills him up. “or do we need to do something else?”

the both of them had somehow agreed to play animal crossings during it, visiting each other’s islands whilst reading up some comments. they’re only given thirty minutes, and he’d love to use it having fun and interacting with whoever might be watching their lives. he may not look like it, but seungjae’s found himself investing a lot of time into a game. pinterest boards for ideas, secret twitter bookmarks for creator codes. he wants to bring out the best in “SKY LAND” (the name he’d chosen for his island).

he takes a seat beside luccas, fiddling with the phone as he attempts to start the vlive. “you’re connected to the wifi already right?” he asks, turning to look at the boy, before he fiddles with it once more and presses start. the screen lights up, and they’re both going live.

“hey everyone,” he greets, waving his hand, “it’s me seungjae and the very adorable luccas!” he pats the younger boy’s head affectionately. “today we’ve got something fun planed out!”

he doesn’t remember quite exactly how they had come to the idea of playing animal crossing on their live, but now they’re there. they had thirty long minutes to use, and anything he could think of would either take too short of a time or too much.

his island felt more embarrassing than others, but he trusted seungjae’s decision to go on with it. for one, he had named it ‘PENGUIN’ after the most popular island he could think of—club penguin. none of his villagers were actual penguins, and he doesn’t really put much effort into making it look pretty. but he’s happy with it. there are many other things luccas needs to stress out over, and animal crossing isn’t one of them.

“hello!” he says at the same time. with waving hands, the younger lets seungjae start things off with a simple explanation. he presses his lips together when a hand pats his head but doesn’t do much based on it. “yes, today...” he continues. “we’ll be showing you our animal crossing islands!” luccas can’t help but immediately laugh afterward. he raises his switch from the table and turns the screen towards the phone for the viewers to see the loading screen. “ta-da!” it gives a small sneak peek of his island, but nothing too much to worry about. “i can’t believe we’re doing it but we are!”

for someone who so confidently says he isn’t scared to step in front of a camera, today luccas can’t help but feel a bit nervous. he’ll not only have to improvise his lines, but he also needs to do it with the jun. this is nearing the levels of badonkers.

he follows the staff member assigned to guide him to his spot without protests. just do what you’re told is the best way to get through these things. for a more hyperactive version of luccas when he was only a child it was a harder thing to achieve, and the boy had already received a good amount of scolding over it to learn.

“hello,” he gives the camera a polite bow before proceeding. “my name is luccas kim, and i’m a trainee under legacy entertainment. i’ll be auditioning for a supporting role. thank you for the opportunity.” he bows again and gets into position.