gunslinger

The hardest episode of idol project had been this past one. Mirae knew that at some point she’d have to say goodbye to friends– not everyone could win and that meant they’d be eliminated at some point. But that didn’t mean Mirae had been prepared for it, and now that so many people were gone, it was hitting her harder than she thought it would. She’d been so focused on competing, that now that the dorms were a little more empty? She barely knew what to do with herself. She kind of needed time to just.... grieve, for lack of a better word. But Idol Project didn’t care if she was ready or not– when she was done sulking, she had to woman up and face the cameras. There were still two more episodes, and she was still in it to win it. She was on a streak. She hadn’t dipped below first place yet, and she wasn’t about to. Now was not the time to break and show weakness, even if she was more upset than she thought she would be.

Writing her own song turned out to, again, be a nightmare. She hated it so much. She hated writing. Hadn’t they remembered the past week, when she’d needed her hand held through it all? And they were gonna make her try again? She understood pushing her, but that didn’t mean she had to like it. After laying on the floor hating her life for a solid fifteen minutes, she sighed and sit up, motivating herself. What would Ryukji want her to do?

She came up with a chorus first, since those were always repetitive and easy and that was like half the song done right there. That alone took her a stupid long amount of time, though, and gave her a headache. Plus, she’d made it so vague. ‘I’m in Trouble and I like it’? That could be in reference to anything! Especially in Mirae’s life. She sighed deeply– she might as well go with the teen-romance-crush-on-a-boy route, she decided. People liked that. People could relate. Plus it’d be easier to write– she could recycle ideas and sentiments from the legit billions of songs that were about the same topic. Was the song particularly special or original or tailored to her? No. But it’d be a passable song, and since Mirae couldn’t write lyrics for shit, that would have to do. She was a little disappointed that her first (and probably only) solo song would be this basic, but she told herself that she’d make good choreography for it and that the producers would take it and run, and that made her a little happier.

When she was finally done, she brought it to the producer that had been assigned to her, and they made some corrections and updates to the lyrics. She let them have full reign– they knew way better than her. That left them to go work on music for her song, so Mirae was brought to the studio to rehearse and record her part for the group song. She was the only female contestant left that was really a rapper, so she got the big rap part, which she was happy with– not to mention that, as the favorite to win, she got a lot of center time. She got a lot of lines, especially compared to the boys’ side, and she loved it. It didn’t take her long to get enough good takes for the the producer to work with, and by that time, the first day was done. And boy, was she ever exhausted. Writing took a lot out of her.

By the next morning, the rough cut of the group song had been put together, which meant they could learn the choreography for it while the individual producers worked on music for their solo songs. Mirae couldn’t decide how she felt about the choreography. It was kind of cool in places, but the divide between the male and female trainees was stupid. The “boys vs girls” challenge had proven that the guys knew how to move their hips, despite how much they pretended otherwise. And Mirae was more than strong enough to keep up with the more masculine choreography. But, whatever. She wasn’t going to complain where cameras could hear her.

After learning the choreography, it was time to record her own song, now that the music had been made for it and there was a melody worked out, and that took the entire afternoon and well into the evening. Not only did she have to give good performances for the producer to work with, but also backing vocals, and vocal snippets for them to layer. It took a while– they probably could have finished sooner, but Mirae’s producer wanted to be absolutely thorough, and Mirae respected it. This song would be attached to her name for the rest of her life, after all. A little less sleep was probably worth it.

The next morning she slept in a little bit, and then spent the rest of the morning practicing the group performance on her own before she got a rough cut of her solo song to practice with. She’d been offered a choreographer, but this was something she wanted to do on her own. She’d written her own lyrics, for fuck’s sake. If she was going to do that, she was going to go all out. So she started choreographing for herself, and by the end of the day, had a pretty solid idea of what she wanted the performance to look like. Three days down, four to go.

The next morning was spent polishing the group performance, and then she spent the afternoon polishing the choreography for her own song to her liking. It wasn’t groundbreaking. Definitely not Slash or Yein-level choreography, but this was her first time every choreographing for real, and she was proud of what she’d come up with. It was more advanced than most choreo she’d been forced to do, at least. The next day, she taught her choreography to back up dancers, and worked with them to give them a routine too– it’d be just plain boring if they did the exact same thing as her. There needed to be levels and depth and variety. It needed to be a well rounded stage. The days after that were spent polishing and polishing, until everything was perfect. Myungji and Mihye were going to be invited to come watch the concert, after all. And there was no way Choe wouldn’t find a way to sneak in and watch with her. She had to look good.

The cool thing about the concert was the costume changes. They’d kind of done that during the week where they’d had to learn, like, eight songs, but this felt like there was more pressure. They were kind to her this week– instead of the hair extensions like the past week, they just braided her hair and put a hat on her head for Born to Be Wild, dressing her in an oversized t-shirt tucked into jean shorts. It was easy to perform in, and easy to change out of. That performance went well, though they’d done it in front of an audience before, so Mirae supposed that made sense. And since they’d done it before, it went pretty seamlessly. The Volume Up stage went by even faster. There was barely choreography, after all. It was hard to mess up walking around and talk-singing.

Next, she performed her solo song, and that costume was simple enough too– a white t-shirt, the same jean shorts, a huge flannel (seriously, it could fit some of Choe’s bodyguards) and some sneakers (she was so happy she didn’t have to wear heels). They put some cat ears on her too, for some reason. She guessed it was cute.

She didn’t totally understand the costumes for the group song. Didn’t they want to match everyone? The guys were all dressed like they were Legacy, and for some reason the girls were made to look like members of Clover during Lalalilala. It didn’t match at all. And she had to wear stupid boots with a big heel.

Mirae was frustrated. She felt like she was trapped in a fishbowl. No matter where she was or what she was doing, there was some sort of camera on her. She had to watch everything she did and said. She felt so repressed– no cussing, no making stupid jokes, no saying anything bad about anyone else, no rolling her eyes or making weird faces because god forbid they be edited weird…. she never had a moment to herself. Even at the dorms, she couldn’t curl up in a corner without looking up and seeing a camera recording everything in the room. Usually to blow off steam, she worked out or trained, but it didn’t feel ass good when people were watching you do it. It wasn’t as satisfying when you knew it was going to be edited into a television show to fit a narrative.

The only room on the whole set that didn’t have cameras was the bathroom, but locking herself in there just made her feel trapped and claustrophobic. It was a break, at least– she slipped in when all the other girls were occupied, taking a deep breath and leaning on the sink. After washing her face, she had an idea.

They were luckily on the first floor, and the bathroom had a window. High up and small, sure, but it opened and Mirae was small enough to fit through it. She turned on the shower and let it run before opening the window; it took some careful maneuvering, but she managed to drop out safely, into what seemed to be an alley. An empty alley– thank god. She figured she had about fifteen minutes before things got weird and people would worry. She had to remind herself to run her hair under the water when she went back in so she wouldn’t tip anyone off, but for now, she just sat, taking deep breaths of the fresh air and staring at the building next to her.

Mirae hadn’t been told that her mother was coming on the show as a mentor, though honestly, why would they tell her? She was legally Choe’s daughter, not Mihye’s, and gay marriage was illegal. And gay relationships were taboo. It probably didn’t even cross their minds to mention it. So when Mihye walked out with all the other mentors onstage, Mirae burst into tears. It wasn’t even cute photogenic crying; she was sobbing into Yihwa’s shoulder.

Maybe it was silly for her to get so overwhelmed. Tons of kids went to boarding school, and there were a lot of idols who didn’t get to see their parents very often, but Mirae didn’t have a family until she was 12, and after that, she had never gone a day without seeing Mihye and Choe. She didn’t talk about it, or even really make any indication that she was having a hard time, but she missed them both so much. That was the hardest part for Mirae– not competing, and not the pressure or the other people. She just missed her moms.

And maybe it was just one of them here. But one was better than none.

It got cut from the episode (probably for the gay taboo reasons), but as soon as the teams were made, Mirae found her mother. While the producers set up for the next shot and the trainees had about twenty minutes of downtime, she spent that time with Mihye, crying on her shoulder and telling her about everything that was happening that didn’t make it onto the episodes. Asking how Choe was doing and how Mihye was doing.

Mirae has a complicated relationship with other people in general, so people who are considered rivals to her (as in idol project as a competition, and competing with siren trainees to debut) would be harder for her to connect with. Mirae is set to debut in Midnite, though, and that’s taken a lot of the pressure off, making it easier for her to connect with people.

Out of the entire Midnite lineup so far, Mirae is closest with Soeun. They have such drastically different upbringings, but Mirae thinks Soeun is cool. She’s fun and spunky and ambitious, and the two of them are pretty similar.

Erii reminds Mirae of Myungji-- older, quiet, polite, responsible. She was the perfect choice for the leader. And since Mirae’s entire family is basically found family, she’s pretty confident in saying that Erii’s basically her family at this point.

She doesn’t know Ahki at all, yet. Ahki came to Siren while Mirae was still at IP3. She’s seen Ahki perform, but mostly just knows the stories about how bad Ahki was treated. Mirae hopes that Siren is a better fit, but to be honest, she’s fairly skeptical as to Ahki’s addition to Midnite.

As for trainees, Mirae likes Yihwa a lot. They got along before the show, but since being on Idol Project together, they’ve bonded. Trauma bonded, if you will. And now she’s one of Mirae’s best friends.

After five episodes of confessionals, she knew the drill by this point. It was getting a lot easier to recall stuff on demand at the very least. Plus she’d been informed that the camera cut off at her midriff, so she could wear sweatpants and sit cross-legged while she recorded it, and that was nice.

“I really liked my groups this week. I love Yihwa, and Sangah is a great singer. Eli and Hope both seem super nice too, and they worked hard.

“Writing lyrics is so hard. I don’t know– I couldn’t do it. No matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t make it happen. I don’t think they used any of what I came up with for the song, you know. That’s how bad I suck. I’m a….kinetic learner? Is that what they’re called? I dunno….I’m great and moving and dancing and am super athletic and have great coordination, but if you tell me to sit down and write something….well, it either won’t happen or you’ll get really bad results. BUT YEah, even though the songs came mostly done, any little input they wanted me to add was bad. It was hopeless.

“The choreography wasn’t as cool as the dance Yein sunbaenim put together for us last week, but I mean….it’s hard to sing when you’re doing something like that so it makes sense.  I definitely liked the Born to be Wild dance better than Volume Up, though.

“You know, hair extensions are really heavy? They don’t seem like they would be, but they are. I’m not even sure why they put them in– I have pretty long hair as it is, but they said something about giving me a sassy ponytail. I mean it looked cute, but after a while it gets heavy and pulls on your real hair. And if you’re dancing, you’re just aggravating the soreness even more. I thought my scalp was going to get ripped right off my skull– that’s how stupid it was. And I got so sweaty in that jacket. So sweaty, dude. Kinda to the point where it was gross.

Though working with Minsuk hadn’t been as bad as she thought it would be, she was happy when she didn’t have to work with him again. He was too intense. She was the intense one-- it was a conflict of interest.

The season was following the formula of the last two seasons to a T, so as predicted, the next episode would be group songs. Mirae was nervous. She never got nervous, but this was special. Instead of just performing a cover or something laid out for her, this would be hers. It would go on iTunes with the name “Kang Mirae” in the artist category (next to whoever she was working with, of course). She was curious to see who would be producing the songs, though–  Mirae would probably sell her soul to work with Shin Yuji.

Her letter grade team, she was confident in. She love Yihwa, and Sangah seemed talented enough. They’d put together a good song-- a sentiment only heightened when they announced Hyosang would be producing that song. Her other team, however, she was less confident in. Sookie was cool and all, but she was still so young-- how good of a song could she really produce? Plus, her letter song was going to have ass choreo. Yihwa and Sangah were both power vocalists-- there would be no crazy dance routine. She’d been hoping she’d be paired with Ilhoon and Hyunjoo or something. The Higher boys that could dance. But Eli was a new dancer, and Hope was nothing to write home about.

As she predicted, Volume Up’s choreography was laughable. It needed to be that way to support Hwa and Sangah, but it was so boring. It was basically nothing. Mirae was sated by the fact that she was basically the center for the whole song, but still. It was boring, and definitely wasn’t going to be top of the week. Her saving grace was Born to Be Wild, and she was going to make sure it was perfect. She pushed both of her teammates hard, trying to get them on her level in time for the performance.

At the end of a week of rehearsals, Mirae was pretty optimistic about the stages to come. Being in a recording room for the first time had been really freaking cool. She got to sing and rap in the songs. The Born to be Wild choreo sorta made up for the Volume Up choreo. Plus, she was really curious to see what the heck the stylists would put her in. She literally had no idea.

And even that turned out to be great. Shorts and a tank top with sneakers for Born to be Wild? Literally a dancers dream outfit. She was so grateful that they hadn’t put her in heels, at least. And sure, the jacket they put her in was a little cumbersome, and the hair extensions they’d used on her ponytail kind of hurt her head, but those were manageable. She was pretty happy with herself. And the Volume Up outfit was cute too, with a long flowy cape thing that made her feel extra dramatic.

Team A were the first to perform, and it went well. Mirae thought so anyway. All three of them were very good performers, after all, and there was an extra push to be good, considering the celebrity producers and the fact they were on a competition show and that it was their song and all. Mirae always knew she wanted to be an idol, but she got an extra little reminder that she was born to do this. The sound of having a crowd full of people scream and shout your name was invigorating. When it came time to perform Born to be Wild later, she was buzzing with excited energy, and it only made her look that much more magnetic onstage.

she’d like to think that the fight was pretty even, but she pretty much had just gotten her ass kicked. and even worse on top of that, two of her sunbaes had to come help her. two people she looked up to so much had to see her getting the shit beat out of her. two of the most influential and iconic people in the entire company had just had to help this tiny helpless trainee because she had gotten in a fight. not only was it humiliating, but what if they told the other ceos or the trainers? would she get thrown out of the company?

they’d made sure she was okay, and that she hadn’t had a concussion. ryukji sat with her and checked her eyes (for a concussion maybe?) and asked if she wanted her to call her parents (which was a hard no) while her manager went to go get an icepack. jinsun had gotten some really good shots in. there were scratches and scrapes all over her limbs from the pavement, but he’d punched her in the jaw and along her cheekbone. they were throbbing, and probably already swelling, just her luck. when the too men were done fretting over her, they’d had to leave– they were late for a practice of their own. that left mirae alone in a public bathroom, holding ice against her jawline and trying really hard not to cry. she swallowed a couple of painkillers dry and then went to practice. the world wouldn’t stop just because she’d made a bad choice. people looked worried when she walked it, but she waved them off, insisting that she was fine, and she’d just tripped on the stairs up from the subway she took to radioactive, smacking her chin on the steps and her head on the railing on the way down.

as soon as she was done with practice, she’d booked it back to the bathroom, extra clothes she kept in her locker in hand. she quickly changed into those– they were longer, in case of cold or rainy days, so that covered up all her scratches and scrapes on her body. but that didn’t help her face.

the bruises were bright and apparent now, and things were definitely swelling. the same old story she’d been running with at the company wouldn’t work at home; not only was she not a good enough liar to lie to her moms, but choe had been in her fair share of fist fights. mirae knew she’d be able to spot this shit from a mile away. she didn’t want to tell them what happened though, because mihye would worry and probably start crying, and choe would probably try to hunt the stupid boy down and quite literally end his life.