blue.

“i needed this,” he admits, “a night off.” ruwon might know what he means. even around his group, kiwon is pretending. trying. aching. to be less dispensable than he once was. to be more than he has been. he’s tired. he flops his head to the side, onto the other’s shoulder. sets the glass down and shifts, with a feline fluidity, to dump his head in the other’s lap. picks up his hand by the wrist and man-handles the other’s palm to his hair. “pet me.”

there are similarities between them. falsified defenses, too bright to be observed clearly. imitation sunlight. something beamed out from a megawatt lamp. mostly artificial, but still bright. a soft glow, hazy. it’s hard to tell. at the end of the day, sometimes, that’s all that matters to the desperate types of people in their industry. starved for affection and positivity. not that ruwon can recognize it entirely yet. he’s too tripped up in his own delusions and chameleon-like desperation to appease as many people as possible. play it off like charisma, an innate bravado he believes himself to be lacking. 

similarly to kiwon, ruwon wants to be loved, he wants to pull as much love from the masses as possible. the problem with ruwon, is that he gets too hyper-focused on the many and isn’t content with the few. if he had one person in his life who stood firm and proclaimed a constant, abiding, and affectionate love it probably still wouldn’t help. ruwon would work himself up, focus on too many others -- and other’s opinions in turn. it’s hard to let himself feel satisfied when there’s discontent or hate swirling around him. he works himself up into a panic. a panic that he can’t really show anyone. it would break his whole facade, after all. 

so it collapsed from the inside, draperies tossed across him so that others can’t see. a smile constant on his features, lethargic nights spent unmoving underneath his sheets. too hot, but with limbs too heavy to even consider tossing them up, getting up to turn on a fan. his structural integrity is lacking. but ruwon doesn’t have the tools capable to fix it. the thing with kiwon though, is that even if he can’t entirely recognize the similarities, the ways that they’re both fronting, it does feel like a bit of a relief. they both aim to please, to make others happy. 

by default, this turns their relationship into something cyclical, giving. nearly healthy, as far as ruwon’s standards go. it’s different from that constant leak of too much energy put into trying to draw other people into him. kiwon feeds off of it, trades it back. so they keep going. a continuum. 

it’s nice, now. draped across a sofa listening to kiwon’s voice fill the room. he’s floating high on too many drinks. that point where he feels happily tipsy. everything bubble-light in his chest. ruwon quirks his brows at kiwon when the other turns to face him, like some emotionally-driven love ballad. stills when kiwon cups his cheek, a dramatic expression on his face. like he might be the lead in a drama being sent off to war. laughs when the song finishes and kiwon fully collapses down next to him. 

“same. especially with that new fucking track they made us all sing.” ruwon bemoans, though drunk enough at this point to heft up an arm into a flex “we got that powaaa.” he drags out the syllable. laughs again, lightly tosses a fist into kiwon’s shoulder, more of a tap than anything. 

they’d tried it and it hadn’t worked. so she shouldn’t be here. she shouldn’t be stealing the smiles he offers her because he can’t help it. but she’s greedy and she wants that light for herself, so she takes it, returns it in a wry, warped mirror image as she takes a step closer. “you didn’t miss me?” she goads softly, as he skates over her statement in favor of a joke. the masochistic urge to press down on an old wound, a healing bruise. “as long as your three am appointment doesn’t mind it, i’d love some coffee.” she agrees, pauses, “or like, wine.” she mumbles, takes another step closer, and another, until she can tangle her fingertips in the drawstring of his sweats, tugs at it idly. it’s not a sexual movement so much as a bid to draw him closer. “i really have though,” she tells him, “missed you.”  she nips at the edge of her lip. “have things been good?” 

the smile comes, naturally unnatural. but ruwon is the biggest pretender, to the point of wanting to trick himself. life would just be so much easier that way, wouldn’t it? and it’s not as if he doesn’t miss jowi. as if some part of himself doesn’t want her back, even if he knows. knows that they can never figure out how to make it work. because of the work, ironically enough. should he have ever expected less, signing with midas? but he’d been young, hopeful. ready to sing his way into the hearts of thousands, not considering the downsides. ruwon’s always been bad at that, thinking ahead. what he is good at is living with regrets. he has too many to count some days, it feels like.

jowi’s not necessarily among them, but the fact that they couldn’t make it work is. how he feels, now, is a testament to that. part of him is still in love with her, despite the fact that they’d gave it a shot. despite the fact that it had turned bitter and warped. despite the fact that they broke it off and re-mended. there’s chemistry though, something that’s hard to push away. it’s visible, he thinks. why else would they have their strange variety-love following? but then, it’s a silly though. an irrational one, because how the fans view them isn’t how reality works, or how they works. it’s just some silly love story, one that nobody actually wants realized. just encapsulated in something fake, view-able on on thursdays between five and six pm.

whatever.

ruwon should do one of the following: say it’s late, that he should sleep. laugh awkwardly, shrug his way into an indiscernible response. say something stupid and off putting, stress the word friend a good five or six times, maybe.

ruwon does: let his shoulders sag. pull in a breath that rattles his ribcage. shakes his pulse from the sleepy, methodical rhythm it had been sitting at. open his mouth to say, “i mean, yeah, i missed you too.” because jowi refused to feed into his deflection of a humor sideshow act. it edges on rude, honestly.

he stirs, wakes, and milo reaches over to prod a finger into his temple. “we fell asleep.” he tells him, blinking slowly, cheek pressed to the couch. “c’mere,” he adds, fists a sleepy hand into the front of his shirt and pulls him over, until he can press their lips together, before ruwon’s really properly woken up all the way, just the soft exhalation of breath against his mouth. “you gonna go home or stay over?” he adds, nuzzling against the line of his jaw until the boy’s chin juts upwards and exposes the line of his neck, gives him time to mouth over the pale expanse of skin. “pretty sure i won the game, by the way.” he laughs preemptively, sure the other will protest to some exorbitant degree, leans away again with hooded eyes and smug lips, settles back against the cushions in an artful slouch. he sighs out a heavy breath, lets his eyes slipped closed for a moment. 

ruwon creeps toward sentience. there are fingers knocking near his temple, a request for ruwon to join the land of the living once more. he groans. a sleepy gargle of a noise, attempts to roll over. but he’s too cramped. there’s warmth, too. and then motion. another protect, a growl of a noise this time. cracked open eyes, and the press of lips. a moment leading up to clarity. disheveled memories. the expectation of his own bed. unfamiliar company and then- right. he was hanging out with milo. they were playing video games. milo was cheating ( obviously ).

ruwon kisses him back belatedly. milo already pulling away by the time it happens. he stifles a yawn into the back of his hand. tries to blink himself out of his stupor. he’d been dreaming, but now he can’t recall what it had even been about. ruwon’s always been bad about that, remembering his dreams.

but he likes milo. likes spending time with him. it’s in a particular shade. one where they’re both desperate and seeking out validation. one where maybe they want for it to be more. or maybe ruwon does. not in that way where he hopes milo feels a romantic whirlwind way about him. but one where ruwon wishes he did. he thinks he’d like it, being in love with milo. but he thinks what they have is a half-step away from that. not quite. it’s hard to put into words. maybe milo feels differently. ruwon’s never asked him. it feels treacherous, and he doesn’t want to disturb the tranquility and comfort that is their relationship.

“missed you,” she tells him, in a clipped voice, with a wry expression. as if she regrets saying it as soon as it trips from her tongue. “you busy?” she adds, as if that wasn’t something to ask an hour ago, before she begged a ride over here. before she barged unannounced into his building, rang his doorbell. she bites at her lowerlip. “you don’t want me to go, right?” she adds, shoes discarded, mask following, pulling the hat from her head. 

it’s late. early? on of the two, and ruwon’s too tangled in sleep to make a clear cut decision. especially when that decision doesn’t change anything. he’s still awake when he should be asleep, after all. his phone glaring at him, ominously. like the soul of his mother might be occupying it, chiding him to at least try to get a decent amount of sleep. but no, here he is, letting jowi up into his apartment. it’s not a new thing, technically. it’s an old thing. technically. maybe. another one of those decisions that leaves ruwon bogged down in technicalities. 

they should be old news, the two of them. lost to time, and the wind, and whatever other clumsy metaphors poets haul up to talk about what-ifs. pretty words layered over pain in a duct-tape like fashion. like it fixes anything in the end. they’re all just waiting to spring a leak. collapse under years of rust and emotional turmoil. ruwon would rather do that laughing. pretending he’s all shining and new. poetry has never really been his thing.

so he lets her in, for reasons unknown. for reasons he should probably contemplate, like some philosopher still lodged ages ago back in greece. should borrow some sense, maybe. but he doesn’t. just stands in the middle of his apartment, one hand fishing for his pocket, just to hide away his hand. to do something with it. he doesn’t know what. eventually, he grins. because that’s just what ruwon does. he grins in the face of unknowing. laughs when he knows he’s gone and royally fucked something over. but he hasn’t yet reached that point. so he just stands there, grinning like a goddamn fool.

“oh, you know. i’ll have to push aside my...” his eyes drift up and over toward a clock hanging near a wall. more decoration than anything, but his phone’s back in his room. “three am appointment. and i’ve got pre-breakfast scheduled. but i can always make a little room.” this is how ruwon works. humor first, and himself second. but it’s easier this way, he thinks. for other people. maybe himself too. he lifts a hand, tries to scrub the sleep from his face as jowi comes inside. “no, i mean. make yourself at home.” the thing is, he doesn’t want her to leave. the problem is, he should want her to leave. a conundrum, one not easily dealt with. maybe if ruwon had more sense to him. but he never has. 

“but wow, i’m surprised you would think i don’t show respect to my seniors! i respect them a lot, with.. everything in me and i would never dare butcher any song of theirs.” he pauses, almost as if he’s thinking and he makes sure his face is showing just that, “i would actually LOVE for us to perform an indigo song, it wouldn’t shock anyone to see us do it better.” he leans back, arms crossed in front of his chest, “but yah, what am i saying? i don’t like to brag at all, it completely slipped.” and he giggles, as if he’s truly embarrassed, as if he actually didn’t mean to say any of that, which of course would be a huge lie.

“oh right, because that’s why they give groups special stages. that’s why no rookie groups get special stages. that’s why they always go to the groups with the bigger fandoms. silly me. guess i was misinterpreting everything this entire time.” that jab doesn’t get to ruwon so much, and he quirks a brow as he talks.  ruwon thinks he should know. for the longest time indigo had hardly ever been considered for special stages. it feels a little funny, getting them now. not in a good or bad way. but it often just never factored in as a possibility. 

“maybe just, like, i don’t know. base things in fact instead of making up bullshit if you want to get me annoyed. i’ve been in this industry longer than you. it’s not like i’m blind to how it works.” ruwon adds on with a ( kind of mostly obvious ) roll of his eyes. it had been easier to dig at him, at indigo back when they were basically nobody’s. back when inferno was seen as doing so much better than them. but now? things have shaken up. they’re not as similar now, the two groups. if they were bigger people, maybe they could recognize that. but they’re (most likely) not. 

only now ruwon has some ammo to fire back before he’d had mostly nothing aside from personal barbs. but now indigo’s doing well. now they’re out there making a name for themselves. “like, honestly seokyung. i get that you’re stuck in the past, but c’mon. you can say you hate my music, but we’re like a whole...thing now. just because you keep saying we’re not doesn’t magically make it true.” re.group had done wonders for them. they’re known now, especially in korea. a wave of a trend. ruwon’s not sure he’s especially comfortable with it, but that’s not a conversation to have with seokyung. it’s just something to shove into his face. 

“yeah, i guess it sucks they decided not to add any substantial vocalists into your group. good luck hitting our notes, seokyung.” ruwon shrugs as he says it. it’s another case of division of groups. nowadays and indigo is marketed as vocal heavy. talent over anything else. inferno is very much a performance based group. indigo revolves around vocals, and inferno revolves around dance. “i’d actually like to watch that though, i think i’d enjoy it. i think you could barely hit what our lead vocal is capable of. it’d be fun.” ruwon notes, voice sarcastic. 

“okay, yeah, atlas has the story of the century in terms of marketing, but you guys are…like, the comeback kids, or whatever. that’s impressive. meanwhile we’re the shitty emo kids who hang out under the bleachers and don’t get much attention.” he chuckles, as if equating their lives to a high school coming of age flick.  fingers tickle aat his neck and he scrunches, full bodied in reaction to the stimulus. he’s always been sensitive about his neck, as if the skin were too thin, too riddled with nerves, and he whines a little, ends up flopping into a dramatic heap that leaves his head in the other’s lap. he decides to stay there, like that, tilts his head to look up at him with a grin. “i don’t like talking that much. i like you talking,” he corrects, reaches up to tug at the tip of the other’s nose. “i like you filling up the silence with your blah blah blah.”

“yeah, that.” ruwon agrees with a bob of his head as he lets his eyes slip shut. body relaxing in the blanket of the sun filtering in through the window. and then milo’s body when ruwon pulls him in closer. “an entire drama queen.” ruwon accuses, which is really just rich, coming from him. ruwon is often dramatic nearly all the time. or at least in the presence of other people. he crinkles his nose up despite himself when milo’s fingers wander through his hair, musing it all up. 

truthfully, ruwon doesn’t care too much. but it’s not very on brand to not make at least a small, pretend scene about it. he thinks milo might like to hang out with him because of the humor. because of how much he’s willing to talk. because he hates letting things turn serious, and will just keep talking even when milo opts out of speaking words. he’s not sure. not entirely. but ruwon assumes this about the good majority of his relationships, even with those who aren’t as introverted or quiet, so it makes sense for him to assume it of milo as well. 

“the shitty emo kids who still come from midas, at least.” ruwon offers sympathetically. not that bran always means that one’s group will be flung into fame. after all, indigo hadn’t. even backed by msg. midas are even bigger giants though, comparatively. and despite being dwarfed by olympus, ruwon thinks they at least managed to find a good middle ground. “besides, i think it kind of sucks sometimes. getting too famous. i might hate it.” he hasn’t come to a definitive conclusion yet. 

he’s not sure why he’s telling milo this. maybe because he tends to just go on and on around milo in a bid to make him comfortable. to keep the silence at bay. he reaches over to tickle milo’s neck and feels the full bodied flinch it produces. the movement has ruwon chuckling, repeats the action quick once again, though this time on the other side of his neck before he finally pulls his hand away. 

and then he turns around, opens the door. breathes only when he closes the door. 

ruwon doesn’t want to hurt johyun. that’s the furthest thing from his intentions. johyun and him are close. they’ve been friends for so long, have depended on each other, gone to each other in a crisis. this whole reaction, even the moment that acted as a preamble to this, it wasn’t done with the forethought to slight him. it’s a mess, plain and simple. part of the mess is from ruwon, his inability to drag himself past external reactions to who he might be and what’s deemed as acceptable. 

and johyun’s, too. part of ruwon wonders if johyun had gotten over san, or if this was all pushed together in a haphazard attempt to make himself feel better using other people. people like ruwon, who he might deem as safe. maybe they should take about that, on both sides. but ruwon isn’t the one to start that conversation, because it would require himself to self reflect, too. to pull out all those truths and reasons and things johyun might roll his eyes at, but are still equal parts important to ruwon. 

he feels it’s strange. being comfortable with his sexuality in that no fear stems from being with men. that’s not the part that makes him uneasy, that keeps him in denial. he knows he likes men. it’s not hard for him to admit that to himself. he can accept it. it’s just the other people knowing that worries at him. that desire to be liked. it’s hard for ruwon to shake it. makes his life ten times more difficult than it needs to be. so ruwon responds to johyun’s question in a way that alleviates his own fears, burdens. of judgement sure, but also for their friendship. johyun does mean a lot to him. 

he’s important, and how many times has romance ( or the thought of romance ) done something to meddle? and does ruwon want to lose johyun? well, no. of course he doesn’t. and then johyun walks out. an immediate response, a snap of the door that leaves ruwon blinking owlishly at the now-vacant space johyun had previously been occupying. like he’s assuming johyun might be a ghost. might apparate back into the same spot in three more seconds. but nothing happens when ruwon waits. and eventually he turns away, drags a hand back through his hair with a mumbled out “fuck.” 

the younger idol listens to his words attentively. if there’s one thing she has always appreciated it was his candidness. of course she wouldn’t dare repeat such things to anyone else but it was nice knowing there was at least one person willing to say how they honestly felt when she asked a question. at his return inquiry she gave a slight shake of her head, “not anything particular but i was just thinking this year might be the last time i get to enjoy things before they start to. and if that’s the case i want to soak it in while i can.” her hands were crossed behind her back as they walked, a habit of hers. letting out a dry laugh she looked straight ahead, “that probably sounds overly dramatic doesn’t it?” maybe she was overthinking it, or maybe she was finally learning. 

ruwon glances around as they amble. he likes the idea of travel, and taking in new experiences. usually ruwon is too lazy to do the actual traveling part. often, his bed calls to him like a siren song. something for him to sneak into and hide from the world. himself. anything and everything in between. but he can appreciate it now, forced into a new country, with a companion by his side. thrown out of his element just slightly. he has on a cap, the brim tugged down low just in case. 

they’re label mates, him and jueun. so it might not be as bad as if one of him and his other female friends were captured on camera. but still, ruwon doesn’t want to take any chances. it’s nice having his name in the media, sometimes. but there’s always that quick spike of adrenaline. of wondering if he’s done something bad. and he can never seem to stop the urge to click into articles, read and read until he manages to find the negative comments. proceeds to immediately internalize them. he shouldn’t do it, and he shouldn’t click into the articles to begin with. but ruwon has a problem with stopping himself. 

he’s not sure what he’d do if he managed to get into an honest to god scandal, the real kind. die from stress, most likely. barricade himself in his room. refuse to leave. starve because he can’t figure out how to get takeout into his room with a bed shoved in front of the door. not a bright future, all things considered. so he does his best to try and prevent that before it happens. whatever issue it may be. 

“the weather is nice here.” ruwon agrees, tips his hat back just slightly as he looks up at the clouds scattered across the sky. uv rays blocked by the copious amount of sunscreen he’d slathered on his face before he’d left his hotel room for the day. “it makes sense.” ruwon agrees as their conversation moves along, follows their path to undiscovered areas. “i mean, it’s always a bit unpredictable i guess. nobody cared what i did for the longest time.” ruwon admits as he tugs his hat back down, firmly into place once again. 

“not that it’ll be like that for mayday. i don’t how it’ll be. hopefully not that, it sort of sucked.” ruwon continues on, glances at shops and stalls as he talks. “it is kind of nice though, i think. in a way. and everyone just wants to get famous so they don’t realize it, but just having a few fans who are into you and not being obsessed over or whatever. it was nice, back then. that...part, at least.” ruwon tries to articulate his thoughts. part of his hold up now, with indigo, is the dramatic shift he had from nothing to everything almost overnight. 

soho’s brow arches as he laments, reaches over to pat his cheek lightly. “because it was hilarious, sweetie, of course i left you to twist in the breeze.” she teases, nose scrunching up as she does her best impression of a patronizing auntie, lips pursed around the words as she squishes his cheeks before dropping her hand again. “i’m just trying to entertain myself and like, not run into gun or anything.” she laughs. “running away to the maldives for a weekend ..or ten…would really be something else,” she adds with a wistful sigh. “i want to come see your next musical though, do sweeney todd or something. you’d be a really hot murderer.” this is not the takeaway from sweeney todd, but that’s soho for you, an abruptly changed subject and chased by a strange comment par for the course. 

“i do. i’m a cherub. a gift to the world--” he cuts himself off, at a loss for more stupid titles to dub himself. instead, he grins. it’s not like he means it, the added frills. at this point, ruwon has it figured out that he has a solid voice. that’s not the issue. he’s not that lacking in the self awareness department. but ruwon is unsure of quite a many things. to the point where he sometimes doesn’t know how to present himself, or how to act. but around soho he can usually drop those pretenses. 

sometimes they still creep up, grip him and take hold. it’s hard for ruwon to navigate at times. an innate desire to try and appeal or reshape himself. “but, let's be realistic here. talent doesn’t always mean shit. so like, i still think you fate should get off its ass and give you some comeback gold.” ruwon decides as soho flips to talk about herself. it’s a secret that just isn’t one at this point. sometimes groups aren’t reliant on talent.there’s stage presence or luck or a million other factors that contribute to them blowing up. ruwon thinks that if anyone deserves it at this point, it would be soho. 

“oh damn, that’s kinda nice though. a solo schedule. have me as a guest.” he lifts his hands and makes finger guns, shoots them at soho like he might be playing an old arcade video game. “i mean, as far as no-name things go, i think i’d like to play overwatch while not making a name for myself.” ruwon admits with a chuckle. he’d been through the ringer as far as variety went. dropped off here or there by msg and told to act big, loud, grab at attention. he’d have preferred to be big and loud while playing video games, less running around a studio making an entire fool of himself. 

“god, you’re cruel. catch me taking pictures next time you’re struggling.” ruwon threatens, though it’s all playful. he might though, depending on the situation. tit for tat and all of that. ruwon tips his head back with a groan as she continues on, eventually pauses to drink again. “they keep telling me i just don’t have time for a musical. i have schedules, or comebacks, or blah blah.” he complains. 

so jinhwan shrugs, looks away from ruwon again, leans against a wall. “i’m just grateful for a chance to be onstage,” he says, trying to be polite and give the nice answer, before he gives up and adds, “even if i never get a chance to actually play the music i want, let alone play my guitar live at all.”

privately, ruwon struggles a lot with being in an idol group. with managing himself, keeping himself in check and pointing toward what msg want out of him. to let himself be yanked in one direction, and then the other. initially, ruwon had hated indigo. what they were, the music they delivered. and it was his own stupidity that led him to the group. after all, it wasn’t like msg kept it a secret, how they usually marketed their groups. even if indigo had, at first, been a bit more intense than their predecessor. in debt, struggling, the blotch on msg’s resume. that had been indigo. 

and then the tides had changed. and then they were succeeding. and ruwon’s still not content. too much time and then not enough. carrying a weight of debt around with him on his back. having too little attention to too much. ruwon struggles with it. with himself. with judgements. and despite not wanting to care, ruwon can’t help it. he hyper-focuses on it all. judges others, too. a bad personality trait, something he finds it hard to escape from. a boy dictated by society, maybe it makes some strange amount of sense that he’d become an idol. 

“yeah? do you guys get out to festivals and things usually?” ruwon asks. he doesn’t follow other groups’ schedules much. he barely follows his own nowadays. but he thinks he might’ve seen it in passing, somewhere. a news article, maybe. about xlnc playing some rock festival, or doing something overseas. ruwon nods along to that. he thinks it’s a bit dramatic, all things considered. but then, he is a judgemental sort of boy. divisive, sometimes, in how he operates. how he handles himself, too. it’s not a pretty look, not always. 

“i guess it’s similar. we all use backtracks half the time.” ruwon means for singing. an assurance to the fact that everything will sound pristine for tv. it makes a certain amount of sense. he’d appreciated it somewhat, back when indigo had more intense choreographies that ruwon had found it difficult to keep up with. sometimes it frustrates him, so he understands. to an extent, wanting to prove oneself. 

as soon as the producer announces they would be having a break, sohee swears she could no longer feel her limbs now. running man is a great show, but apparently the filming often takes too long and the missions are wearing her out, so now that they are on a break, sohee laughs at ruwon’s complaint, reaches to take the water bottle from him. she takes a large gulp of the colorless liquid, somehow feeling better that her thirst is now satisfied. “how come you are already tired? we were just starting,” she teases, places the water bottle on the ground to tie her hair up in a messy bun. there is no time to look pretty in running man when she’s all drenched in sweat and who knows what else, but she’s confident in her looks to even worry about such thing now. “maybe it’s a sign that you’re getting older, oppa.” she smiles cheekily at ruwon, knows that by now he must have gotten used to the way she jokes around. “that’s why you should take extra care of your body now,” she adds, her smile only becoming wider.

it’s not like ruwon had ever adored the variety schtick. it had just played well to his personality. there comes a point though, when overacting just seems like too much. when some members get to stay rooted in something chill, because ruwon had been thrown that hot potato and been made to dance with it. 

there could be some resentment there, that he had been the one who had eventually been made to pick up the slack. but the cards had all fallen and that was just how things had ended up. how they sort-of remain. nowadays and ruwon doesn’t exclaim out with the same over-shocked fervor. but it’s still part of his image. who the fans see him as within indigo. even if it’s been reshaped, reimagined into something a bit softer, a bit more serious. 

especially after his appearance on re.group where it turned out he was more than a loud mouth, he was a loud mouth that could sing and force himself to dance. he doesn’t have to be a caricature now. doesn’t have to be only that. but it’s still something that’s seen as ‘in his wheelhouse.’ so he still gets sent off to varieties every so often. it’s easier to book things now that they’re more popular. he doesn’t have to act so grateful for it. 

so here he is on running man, alongside an old cohort. it’s interesting, how everything ended up. indigo and jawbreaker ( née her.oine ) have similarities to their stories. no exactly, but it’s enough to find some commonalities there. wonders how they feel, if it’s much the same. if it’s all different. they both started off struggling. for somewhat different reason maybe, and ruwon hadn’t ended up being shuffled into a different company. they hadn’t appeared on a show. but things are looking up now, for the both of them. even if it took a bit to get there. 

tetsuya sits quietly as the room returns to silence—but it’s never real silence with them, always full to overflowing with awkwardness and unspoken thoughts. “i don’t know. i feel like i just– can never really escape the stereotype of the farm kid who doesn’t understand a word of regular dialect. it sounds like something out of a cheesy movie, some low-quality old thing full of classist stereotyping.” he shrugs, as if he hasn’t just admitted something he’s rarely even brave enough to think about, and adds, “but that’s not really failure, per se. it feels like it, sometimes, when i talk to other japanese idols—when i remember that standard japanese, the accent at least, is nothing like what i know.” he pauses. “i guess i’m just lucky that all my shortcomings have been pretty much avoided for me.”

“yeah, it’s just. you know. doing something you hate and all. but i guess it’s just how jobs work. i probably shouldn’t complain too much.” ruwon isn’t sure how tetsuya can be such an optimist. ruwon thinks he’d give up after a whole five minutes of effort. actually, that’s the entire and truthful amount of time. he’d tried it once after reading a self-help article online about positive thinking. he’s just not a positive enough person to look on the sunny side all the time. it’s just not in his cards. 

instead, he uses humor to mask self deprecation, turns himself into a circus willingly. it’s what’s worked the best out of everything he’s found thus far. even if it maybe doesn’t help him in the long run. but who really knows? tetsuya fades into silence, and it crawls awkward underneath ruwon’s skin. he’s always been bad at that. just letting the silence settle. he always feels compelled toward speech, talking, something to fill up that empty void. like he has to keep up an act, lest his company turn to boredom. 

ruwon’s never felt what it’s like to have a comfortable silence, at least, not in the presence of another person. ruwon can’t remember a time. him and tetsuya are different. they always have been. ruwon sometimes wishes they could wipe each others memories. he’d settle on being strangers, not knowing anything about him. it would make it easier, he thinks. not that easier is always better -- but sometimes ruwon thinks it might be. 

“yeah, but you know. it’s fine. it’s been freaking years already. just keep at it. chopping away on that...cutting board of life.” it’s not the saying, but it gets the point across, so whatever. ruwon can’t super identify with tetsuya’s struggles, the same way that tetsuya can’t really identify with ruwon’s. he feels for him to an extent, even if ruwon can’t put himself in tetsuya’s shoes. 

“this song though, it’s fun. it’s catchy.” her head bobs in a nod as she shifts, stretches her legs out beneath the little table. “it was fun to be in love with you for a few hours,” she teases, brow perking slightly. “i’ve been in love with much worse options.”  there’s a thoughtful hum as the other continues speaking and she crosses her arms thoughtfully, scratching at her upper arm through the blazer they’ve put her in. “yeah, definitely. i mean i usually have high hopes, i won’t lie, and then get crushed, that’s been the cycle for years. this was fun though because it’s not a genre i really get to do, this kind of boppy, jazzy stuff? it’s all girl crush all the time over at kjh. which is fine, it’s selling well, and i suit it well enough, but i like the vibe of this. it’s got groove.”  she smiles at her own expense for the silly description. 

“oh no, i need to hear it immediately.” ruwon laughs as he talks, but he still manages to sound sympathetic to her plights. he’s been there. he’s stood in that court. he just got lucky that the music he actually likes is what got him popular, he supposes. and not the other way around. he wonders if some of the others in his group think about it like that. if they liked the style of old. but ruwon’s selfish, at least in that aspect. he suffered for years, they can just suffer right back. 

he nods along to her complaints. sometimes all people need is a good ear, even if ruwon is known for being rather rambly if you get him going. but he has it in him to shut his mouth, too. “yeah, well. on that stupid show they let us sing like that and people liked it, so. guess msg likes money more than their own finely-curated style.” ruwon snorts as he talks. 

it’s stupid because he had been the one willingly signing the contract to get into msg. but then, they’d also had solstice signed at one point. they’d been a little more relaxed on the electronica for them than they had been for indigo version one and inferno that followed. ruwon pulls an affected cringe, bares his teeth like an irritated dog. half dramatics, an attempt at laughter. but she’s right, it’s maybe not amazing. 

“well, there’s a silver lining in everything i suppose. at least you don’t have to cosplay a gun.” ruwon actually laughs this time, a smile overcoming his face. “yeah, it’s nice. i was for sure pleasantly surprised after they came to tell me they accepted a song on my own behalf. graciously, of course.” he taps a heel slowly against the floor as he talks. it’s the way of the company, maybe all companies. annoying, but understandable considering he still needs to pay them back for their (charitable, of course) investments.