show yourself

{ ☼ }

“so, something funny happened today,” she begins, going over to her training bag and picking up her water bottle as an excuse not to look eve in the eyes. “i got called to baek jiyoung’s office, and there was a royal rep there. he said they want to buy out my contract.” she pauses, and for a split second, considers leaving it at that, but she can’t possibly keep the truth from eve. she needs her to understand why she’s going. “xayah left luxe and they want me to join.”

eve knows how tempted she’s been to give up on debuting– how she stays because there’s nothing better for her to do, and she thinks there are still things for her to learn. they’ve both been here too long, and they both know it. she doesn’t know what to expect from eve. really, she doesn’t expect anything from her. she just needs to know.

@rkxeve – *

the fog has been better today -- just a bit clearer. eve has found it easier to chat with the other trainees, easier to laugh without feeling like it’s forced for fake. when someone asks her how have you been, her response of i’m fine is still a lie, but it doesn’t feel like as much of one today. she really has been fine, at least today. she’s been learning to deal with it, learning to push through. 

some days it’s just too hard to push through. she tries to do it anyway, and usually fails. but today is a good day, so she tries not to think about that. 

luna is quiet, though, and it makes eve antsy on the way home. she fiddles with the hair ties around her wrist as she watches luna approach her training bag and pick up her water bottle, motions that are all too familiar and easy between them, but the way luna is avoiding eve’s eyes sends a chill down her spine. she can’t pinpoint why she’s so anxious all of a sudden -- usually it’s easy to be in comfortable silences with luna, but something about this silence gives eve a bad feeling. 

she hopes she’s just getting worked up over nothing. 

( she isn’t. )

when she speaks, luna’s voice is far too casual, and eve freezes. all at once, her jittery motions stop so that she instead more resembles a statue than a person -- and she better matches the way she feels like her insides have just turned to stone. don’t be leaving, she thinks, and of course that’s exactly what’s happening. she listens to luna’s words, delivered bluntly as she does everything, and stares open-mouthed at her best friend, unable to fully process the news for a moment. 

this is a good thing, part of her says. luna gets to debut, and with a concept that suits her. she’ll be happy. 

this is the worst thing that’s ever happened, most of her replies, falling to pieces inside eve’s head. she’s leaving. she’s debuting without me. she’s leaving.

{ ☼ }

she lets herself into eve’s room after knocking, and smiles in return, though it morphs into a near-scowl as soon as she detects the insincerity on her best friend’s face. “okay, what’s wrong?”

luna’s face morphs away from its familiar smile immediately, and eve silently curses herself -- of course luna would notice something is up, she knows eve better than she knows herself sometimes. “what do you mean?” she asks, trying to relax her face into a natural smile, an unconcerned expression. 

she doesn’t try to say i’m fine or nothing’s wrong, because she doesn’t want to lie outright. she knows that this is already lying in its own right, but it feels different from saying words aloud that she knows are just straight-up lies. especially to luna -- she doesn’t like the idea of looking her best friend in the eye and telling her a complete lie. she knows that not telling her what’s wrong is kind of also a lie, but she doesn’t see anything else to do. 

how is she supposed to tell the truth when she doesn’t know what’s wrong? the truth is that nothing is wrong, but somehow everything is wrong at the same time. the truth is that eve is constantly exhausted, constantly sad, constantly struggling to keep herself moving and keeping a smile on her face. 

she’s got (almost) everything she’s ever wanted, so why is she still so sad? why is every day such a struggle? she can’t even explain these things to herself, let alone to someone else. 

she moves to the door, taking the doorknob from luna and opening it wider so she can move past her friend, avoiding the other’s eyes. “do you want something to eat? i didn’t really eat a lot at dinner, maybe we need to make a snack before bed,” she says, hating how she can hear her voice trembling behind her smile. 

yerim’s surprised when eve takes her arm, pulling her along but she can’t ever say no to such a pretty girl – no matter how hard she tries. there will always be a sweet spot and room for a crush, though she knows the boundries and the distinct fear of coming on too strong keeps her from saying much, if anything ( typical sapphic behavior ). “yeah,” yerim says, pushing a strand of purple hair behind her ear. “it’s okay. i don’t mind.” she flashes eve a smile. 

“wow,” yerim says shaking her head a little bit. “four and a half years?” the thought of training that long almost seemed intimidating to her. she wanted to believe she could make it that long, at least if it came down to it but yerim felt a little doubtful for a moment. “how’s it looking for debut?” she hopes the statement doesn’t come off as rude. “i mean, not– i just mean in general, do you think they’re gonna do something with the girls anytime soon?” 

eve hums at the other’s amazement, nodding in agreement. “i know. like i said, it’s hard to believe it’s been that long, some days. other days it feels like i’ve been here forever.” she taps her chin with her hand as they walk, thinking about how best to answer the newer trainee’s question. the truth is that lately, especially since convex’s debut, she’s been pretty frustrated with the lack of news on anything for her and the other girls, but she also understands that the company needs to devote quite a bit of time and effort to convex before doing anything for another new group. 

strangely, as lazy as luna is, there’s a part of her that likes this– the singing and rapping while dancing, anyway. the extra stamina training she can do without. all of that running on a treadmill while singing? no thanks. all of that being said, she can feel herself improving, so she knows the coaches know what they’re talking about, and she supposes that improvement is what’s most important. she’s content enough, aching limbs and constant lack of air in her lungs aside, even for as exhausted as she is. she’s set to perform an original song by the end of the month, whose choreography she had a hand in creating, and she’s excited for it, though she wishes more than just the coaches could see it. maybe one day.

she runs through her performance a few times at the end of the day, frustratingly still out of breath by the song comes to a close. she can’t seem to overcome it, always running out of steam before the end, and she wonders if more practice will even make it better, or if she’ll just need to run on the treadmill more, or endure more of this cruel stamina training regimen. three run-throughs satisfies her, and she decides it’s probably best to just get rest. that seems like a key part of putting together a good live performance, though she’s sure as an idol she’ll need to learn how to function with even less sleep.

luna notices something isn’t right with eve about as soon as she steps into the practice room, and she frowns, concerned. “are you ready to go?” she asks regardless; maybe going home and resting is all eve really needs. she hopes so. she’s about to walk over to turn the music off, wondering if that’s why eve looks so unfocused– because she can’t hear or something– when eve stumbles, and luna puts out her arms to catch her immediately. it sounds like her voice won’t even come out, and luna’s worry grows. “are you okay?” she asks, though she suspects the answer is no, clearly. it’s more of a test to see if eve is able to even respond to her or not. she remembers something suddenly, and digs in the practice bag slung over her shoulder until she retrieves her water bottle, and she offers it to her friend. maybe she’s not staying hydrated.

now that the dizziness and exhaustion have caught up with her, or maybe just now that she’s noticed them, there’s no getting rid of them, apparently, luna’s shoulder is blissfully comfortable, but eclipse’s song playing over the room’s speakers is suddenly grating on her ears, and every beat feels like it’s pushing eve’s dull headache closer and closer to a migraine. her vision still refuses to clear, so she just closes her eyes, trying to focus on breathing deeply to make sure she’s getting enough oxygen, at least. 

“a...pparently not,” she says, her voice slightly louder than before, but still not at full strength, clearly. she even has to pause after the first syllable to take another deep breath. eve feels luna’s shoulder move under her forehead, and she raises her head, wincing at the bright lights of the room once she opens her eyes. she takes the water gratefully, and gestures behind her with her free hand as she leans back further from her friend, standing up on her own again. “can you turn that off?” she asks, actually sounding close to normal now. 

“Wouldn’t it?  Though sometimes I wonder if I’ll ever make it,” she admits to herself, which probably isn’t fair, Eve had been there even longer than she had been, but even for her, it felt like forever, especially seeing other companies debuting girl groups.  She hoped that someday they’d get their chance, she really would love to get out there for the world to see.  “I wonder what type of group they’d make out of us…”

She laughs a little when Eve mentions growing impatient if she thinks about it too much and she has to nod in agreement.  “Like I have been lately?” she smiles, thinking that perhaps she was letting herself get too carried away. She had heard some people would wait practically forever before getting the chance.  “I know I shouldn’t be, I should just let things happen as they do, but it’s been tough not wanting it lately seeing the other girl groups out there. I want to be with them too,” she says, running a hand through her hair, though she’s staying lighthearted. That’s easy to do around Eve, one of the first friends she ever made at Sphere that wasn’t one of her former roommates.

“yeah, sometimes i feel like i’m being forgotten,” eve replies, pursing her lips. “like, not by sphere, necessarily, ‘cause they’re focusing on convex, and i want convex to do well. but i feel like everyone’s forgotten that we were on the mgas too, you know? you’d think they’d think about us more, after all we went through to get here, but since there’s been another season they don’t think about the old winners anymore, i guess,” she continues with a shrug. “but that’s a pretty negative way of thinking, so i try not to think like that!” she says, trying to put cheerfulness back in her voice. thankfully, that isn’t hard to do with seulgi so near. 

yerim’s feeling the drag of the day go on already, and it’s been only about a week. the only thing she’s really looking forward to is lunch and the sweet, but frustratingly temporary, release of sleep in her warm bed. she’s even tired of doing her makeup, which she usually never leaves the house without it. but there’s just no time and she’s losing energy by the minute, if she’s honest. 

she’s setting her guitar in it’s case as she looks up to see a new face introducing themselves to herself. she smiles back, undoubtedly delighted to see someone so pretty in the same company with her. eve’s beauty is enough to put back the pep in her step. “hey,” yerim says pulling the case to stand up, leaning slightly on the top of the guitar. “i am new. it’s nice to meet you, eve.” yerim’s lips pull up into a smile and she looks down before back up to eve’s gaze. “yeah, that’d be really nice,” yerim answers before pushing her hair behind her ear and trying desperately not to let a pink hue flush across the tips of her cheeks.  

her guitar is left in the room with the other instruments as she allows herself to walk with eve down to the cafeteria. “how long have you been a trainee? i should have looked up who i’d be working with after i got signed, but honestly it all seemed surreal and everything happened so fast, i was a little overwhelmed. do you enjoy it here?”

eve is glad to see that the girl seems comfortable, if a bit tired. she only has a handful of memories of her first few months in the company -- in that time, she was getting adjusted to training while also trying to finish high school, and she was stretched so thin she has no idea how she had time to eat, let alone sleep, what with the extracurriculars she refused to drop after getting signed. as such, most of those five months from september to february are a blur to her, but she knows that new trainees spend most of their time exhausted as they try to adjust to the drastic schedule and lifestyle change. 

eve is completely oblivious to the girl’s slight blush, as she always is when people react to how pretty she is. she walks along with the girl with a bounce in her step, hooking her arm into the newbie’s elbow and walking close to her -- she has very little concept of personal space around sphere trainees, even the new ones, apparently. “is this alright?” she asks, because she isn’t rude. “you can say no. i really love skinship, but i know it’s not for everyone.” 

Eve was definitely making the encounter a light-hearted one and Seulgi couldn’t be happier. She was the first one that had made her truly feel welcome to the company aside from her friends at the time, so she always held a special place in her heart because of it.  “We need lots of them! I’ve been deprived for so long!” she jokes, though her joking quickly disappears feeling the hands on her sides.  “Wait, no, no!” she shakes her head quickly, but it goes away in a burst of laughter as she is tickled and before she knows it, her knees are buckling a little bit as she squirms in Eve’s grasp and almost slips to the floor, laughing hard, only to be held up by the other.

“Ah!” she knows her whole face is red and tears were leaking from her eyes, still giggling a little bit from the other’s action.  “Mmm… yeah, I feel that way too.  I mean, they still pop up every once and a while, but it’s not much,” she agrees, thinking it over herself a little bit.  She misses having them around too, when they were training to be in Convex, it seemed they were all over the place, but now it’s just like they were gone as much as they had been there.  “It is a bit weird, yeah…” she barely even saw Jinki now and she considered him to be one of her better friends.  “Maybe that’ll be us someday.  We’ll debut and then we’ll just be gone from here all the time. Wouldn’t that be crazy?”    

eve is still chuckling as they right themselves, and she keeps her arm around seulgi even as she repositions them, moving into a walk with her arm still around seulgi. the other’s words pull a laugh from her, and she runs her free hand through her long hair, pushing it back from her face. “wow, yeah, imagine that,” she says. it isn’t often that she allows herself to think much about her potential debut, but she does now, smiling over at seulgi. “it’d be so fun to debut together,” she says, nudging her hip into the other’s as they walk. 

jihoon sometimes ate alone, not that he didn’t like other people;s company, he enjoyed that, but sometimes, his height didn’t allow him to see where trainee’s or his group mates were sat. so he gave up after a while, sitting on a table alone, phone out on the tray as he scrolls through social media. might as well pass time while eating while looking at what his non trainee or idol friends were up to, huh?

however, a chair gets pulled across from him and jihoon looks up to see who it it, only to be greeted by no other than his celebrity crush. it was nice to see her, every moment jihoon got to spend with the trainees in sphere, even if it was during the times in the loud canteen, he enjoyed them. quickly, he pulled the phone away, shoving it in the pocket of his hoodie, pretty much indicating eve had all his attention now.

things have happened, lots of them, especially after rome’s departure. it feels like a roller coasted of everything possible, just crashing on them. however, he never kept up with the news, never looked up at netizens, he only knew stuff he was told by his friends, sometimes parents, groupmates. he never seeked out knowledge on how the media could make them the villains or whatever.

“hey.“ he replies back, continuing to eat his food in the usual slow pace he has, shrugging when the question was asked. “i mean, i’m okay? i gotta be, don’t i? gotta move on, because apparently, that’s what baek ji young wants us to do.“ maybe jihoon does sound very unaffected by this whole situation, but he was never the type to be forward with his emotions. even if he was upset over the whole situation, he always read what other’s wanted, and now, their ceo wanted to move on. “it’s.. a bit empty at the dorm. what about you? everything going well?“

eve can’t help but be concerned about her friend. they’re a bit close in age -- he’s only two years younger than her, but despite that fact eve doesn’t really see him as a younger brother figure -- jihoon has always felt more like her equal in terms of maturity, ever since he signed with sphere and they started getting to know each other. sure, it was pretty cool and also a bit amusing that he seemed to be a bit starstruck around her and seemed to have a bit of a celebrity crush on her, but they bonded fairly quickly over their shared love of girl groups, and eve has seen him as a good friend ever since. 

she’s friends with most of the members of convex, so of course she’s worried about them now. she has no idea what losing a member must be like, when they spend even more time together than she and luna do. she tries to imagine what it’d be like if luna suddenly disappeared from her life, but can’t think about it for too long before the thought of it makes her feel a bit nauseous. 

“i’m sure she wouldn’t mind if you spent some time thinking about it, though,” eve replies, quietly. based on what she knows about their ceo, she can’t imagine that jiyoung would want the remaining convex members to just suddenly forget all about rome just because he broke contract and had to leave. “she’s kind, baek jiyoung,” eve continues. “i’m sure she knows how hard it must be on you guys.”

eve hums, her utensils poking around on her plate as she considers her friend’s words. “weird to consider a dorm of twelve people feeling empty,” she muses. “but i understand. it’s been empty around training ever since you guys debuted, and there’s tons of other trainees. it’s weird to suddenly lose anyone from your life, i guess.”

“so what,” luna counters with a languid eyeroll. she looks over at eve briefly as she fusses with the pillow, but decides to let her struggle instead of throwing it to her. she turns her attention back to her phone, now in the notes app, where she writes down all of her song choices. there’s pitapat by bestie, afterschool’s flashback, sonamoo’s dejavu, rainbow’s whoo, and more, but she can’t reasonably learn all of these, even though she’s worked on the raps for all of them just for good measure. she rolls from her stomach onto her back, holding her phone in a similar position to eve prior, but she’s careful not to drop it on her face. she switches it back to the dance practice for pitapat, watching it. it’s a lot of butt-shaking, which luna will take over cutesy stuff. it’s not bad.

“not yet. i’m working on a few,” she replies. love songs just aren’t her thing, so it’s hard to settle on one she really vibes with. whoo is even cuter than her usual, but she likes the air of elegance that’s mixed in. dejavu is straight out hip hop, but the choreo might be too hard, and it’s hard to tell it’s even a love song. flashback and pitapat are more the best of both worlds, so she thinks she’s between those two. “yeah,” she laughs as eve mentions twice. “i’d rather not, but i’ll keep it in mind.” she does have some worries. everyone got into groups so quickly, and she’s still deciding on a song while they’re only allowed one performance each. she doesn’t know if there’ll be anyone that needs a group by the time she’s ready to recruit. she might have to do twice after all. god forbid.

she looks back at eve, eager for a distraction from this now. “texing jinwook?” she guesses. “are you telling him how cool i am? he already knows.”

eve hums at the response to her offer, not really surprised by it. she knows luna will take care of herself however she needs to, and if she ends up needing to join eve’s group of course eve will let her. it isn’t even really eve’s group, of course -- minhee kind of spearheaded the whole process of getting the group together and distributing lines and such, but since almost all their members are sphere trainees ( except for a couple kt trainees, and one nova trainee who almost immediately dropped out ), eve is sure it wouldn’t be too hard to get luna in with them. everyone in sphere knows eve and luna, after all, since they’ve been here for so long. beyond any feelings of friendship between the trainees, it’d be downright rude for minhee or anyone else to say no to their sunbaes, though sphere has never really been a place where trainees use ranking against each other. 

she recognizes the song luna’s playing, though she doesn’t really know it well enough to hum along. she blinks at the mention of jinwook, her lips pursing at how easily luna guessed it. but of course, no one knows her better than luna, and she doubts anyone else would be able to guess that she was texting jinwook. eve can count on one hand the number of people who she’s even told about her and jinwook’s relationship. besides, the only two people she ever really snapchats with any sort of regularity are luna and jinwook, and since luna’s right here, it couldn’t have been a hard conclusion to come to. 

the moment he hears that voice and that nickname, he lights up, knowing exactly who it is. their ritual was something junmyeon was pretty fond of, and since it had been pretty hard for him to make friends and find amiable relationships with people in sphere, he was glad to have this. it was one of the few things keeping him at least somewhat excited to head into sphere everyday. 

he makes his way over and takes a seat across from her. “hey you~ long time no see?” he jokes, because they see each other all the time in the sphere building. he looks to the thermoses set out, taking the one meant for him and opening it to get a whiff of the contents. he could smell the chocolate already, and he was itching to try it. “wow, this smells amazing. i’m excited~” 

it was sweet of her to consider him when she had picked her new blends up, and he definitely appreciated it. the more time he could spend with his friend, the better. “the chocolate flavor won’t necessarily be sweet since sugar gets added to chocolate treats, but it’ll make the flavor a lot richer for this blend, depending on what else is in there.” he actually felt pretty confident that it’d be a blend he liked, so he wasn’t too worried about it. “shall we?”

the easy camaraderie between them comes after only a few months of junmyeon being in sphere, thanks to this habit of bringing tea for each other. eve’s smile is genuine as she continues blowing into her thermos to try and cool off the hot drink, her eyes sparkling with unreleased laughter as she does. “you know i always add a little sugar, junmyeonnie,” she says, mock-offended. “you know better than that.” 

after a final long breath over the top of the drink, she sends a smile across the table to her friend. “we shall!” she says, tilting the thermos back carefully, allowing a small sip of tea to slowly pass over her tongue. it’s still hot, but it isn’t quite hot enough to be painful, since she made it a while ago now. the thermos has retained a pleasant warmth to it, though, and eve hums contentedly as she considers the taste of the tea, glad that it isn’t so hot that it burns away taste buds. 

                                                    ❤  ◞  

time freezes on the spot and jiwon can feel her breath shorten ; clinging to her lungs as she prays to whatever god that was up there that what she had just heard was a figment of her imagination. that she hadn’t just been overheard. ( and here jiwon thought she was being as quiet as a mouse, figures – even that would backfire on her )

“u-um,” she turns on the spot, confronted with one of the other girls who had a laundry list of qualifications that jiwon could only dream of obtaining. not that that was a particular dream of hers, but wasn’t that what people usually said when they were confronted with overly-famous people who probably had better things to do than speak to normal mortals like jiwon, herself? ( yes, a hundred times yes ) nervous fingers shake, enough that jiwon has to forcibly use them to push blonde tendrils behind her ears in order to justify their uneasiness, stopping them as actions place necessity to the limbs and distract them from her anxiousness.

“i .. um, what i meant was –”

her heart is hammering against her ribcage as she tries to think up of all the excuses that could be said in that moment and she finds betrayal in her words because as honest as the blue sky, the words spill from her lips ; cheeks twinged red with shame. “i just … feel like …” she looks away, eyes downcast as she pulls at the sleeve of her sweatshirt, curling her fingers within the fabric. “it was a mistake … joining the group.” she looks around, straying her eyes away from the girl. anything to distract her from her friendly gaze, a gaze jiwon knew she’d fall victim to and spill to her heart’s desire if pressed ; at least, that’s what eve looked to be. she looked too trusting, too comfortable and jiwon was still a stranger, she couldn’t be swayed by nice girls she didn’t know ( no matter how pretty they were ).

“everyone is just … they’re so talented and i just know i’ll bring the group down.” i’m a nobody, after all.

eve’s casual curiosity morphs into concern as she looks at the girl who’s clearly about to die of nerves. she worries for a second that she’s done something to make the other nervous, but what could she have done? she’s been nothing but kind since she approached, and even before this conversation -- eve has always focused on being friendly, especially to the members of their group who aren’t sphere trainees. she supposes that it may be intimidating, since such a large portion of their group is from sphere, so they all know each other. 

“why would it be a mistake?” she asks, her eyebrows furrowed in concern. she wants to step closer, to provide the girl with a comforting shoulder touch or something, but if she’s somehow the one making her nervous, eve doesn’t want to make it worse. 

the other’s confession, her doubt in her own talent, has eve’s heart breaking just a bit. “don’t say that!” she says, unable to resist stepping forward and placing a cautious, gentle hand on the girl’s shoulder. she pauses for a second, remembering their introductions from the other day -- eve already knew everyone except for the three who weren’t from sphere, so with only three names to learn it isn’t hard for her to come up with the girl’s name. “it’s jiwon, right?” she asks, trying to make eye contact with the girl. “you’re in kt, aren’t you?”

she’s fairly sure she’s right about that, so she continues without much of a pause. “you know they signed you for a reason, right? i may not know how you were signed, but i know that katie lee and all the other ceos don’t offer contracts lightly. she decided to trust you in her company, you know? and she knows talent when she sees it! so even if you don’t think you’re talented, remember that katie lee thinks so.”