The Real

“it is! if it’s written on a piece of paper, it’s a recipe!” namil insisted, though he wasn’t sure what noeul meant by weird. sure, some of his culinary dabbling had been adventurous, but weird? namil didn’t see it. “your mother is cooking too– does that help?”

“Are you following it, though?” Noeul considered with some apprehension for a moment, he didn’t know much about cooking, admittedly. But that sounded like it was right.  “I guess so... yeah, it does help a little bit.”

“it’s so stupid– shows like sketchbook always like advertise themselves as having such a high standard for vocals and being so real, but they’re the worst culprits. and then you’ll hear the raw footage from a fancam, and it’s not even bad!”

“i think, at the very least, we were a lot looser than groups now. if that makes sense,” he mused aloud. “we didn’t have the polished choreography, and we didn’t really lipsync. i think having a rock version for our live performances suited us. but i have to agree– travelling for concerts is exhausting, but somehow, i still got more sleep doing that than a normal promotion circuit.”

“family dinner this weekend– you’ll all be there, no exceptions,” namil announced, pushing his sunglasses up his nose. “i already have talked to all of your management, so you can’t pretend like you aren’t free. i learned a new recipe just for the occasion!” @rvnoeul​ @rvbeomsoo​ @rvmiran​ @rvnari​ 

Noeul didn’t have any problems with visiting family, but the prospect of his dad’s cooking is definitely something that he’s tried to avoid in the past more than once. “Is it an actual recipe this time? Please tell me it’s not something weird!”

“i feel like there’s no shortage of world records as long as  you put enough qualifiers,” matika agreed with a snort. “those world record books get thicker and thicker by the year.”

“super niche, but super cute– i’d love to see something like that someday! i mean, for a band group i guess. symphony groups don’t seem to be a thing on the horizon,” she laughed

“yeah, and jei seems to really like working on terra. i mean, i don’t know her personally, but she does all her own music, right? and her boyfriend helps? which means she kinda can control when she promotes. i think all things considered, new age is doing okay,” hoa insisted optimistically. “and i know people were worried about byulbit being on all the time but…honestly the only person to worry about is tiwi. the rest of us are only in one or two units so we get long breaks, but she’s kind of always going…”

“I’m not sure exactly... that sounds right, though,” Noeul said. “Getting to be on stage that much sounds kind of ideal to me, but like -- I kinda wonder what they were thinking with putting her in so many subunits that are like... all over the world. I guess there’s not really overlap, but still.”

“mostly rock instruments. some keyboards and synths and dj set ups for looping and incorporating some other sounds too, though. i always enjoyed it– it gave the concerts a very fresh feeling compared to, say, music show lives.”

“totally depends on who you are,” she giggled. “it’d take me a week. deokjun is mister math, though, he could do it in an hour.”

“it really is! i know a lot of people kind of hate it because of like…how much new age seems to be overloading themselves, but i don’t know… maybe time will tell, but so far, no one’s really dropped off? except for like….jei and yeong sunbaenim, but that seems like more their own choice,” she mused

“Honestly, at this point it feels weird even seeing Yeong promote, because the last time he did my group was like, still a rookie. But you guys getting the attention means they can take however long they need for them to put together their stuff and come back when they’re ready so like... I think it’s worth it.”

“oh god, don’t say that. as a loyal member of the royal family since debut, the thought of two byulah’s existing is overwhelming. i think i might die.”

“oh yeah totally– it couldn’t be an inkigayo stage with a cool set. but so many shows just use the LEDs anyway, right? that could still be utilized really effectively!” sola pointed out

“i guess inkigayo is considered a bigger show for a reason, hey?” chiharu retorted. some of the stage sets for can’t stop me were incredible

“if they even got to record live at all– i can totally see that group being permanently slotted to a prerecording position just because of that,” ahmi pointed out.

“it probably wouldn’t matter– you know those shows. autotuning even the best singers. they’d probably dub over it with audio from a different show,” she laughed