"again? do i really have to? this shit is embarrassing. okay fine my first crush was on duri, way back when i was still in middle school! granted, at the time i didn’t register it as a crush because oh boy, if i had there surely would have been a lot of things in my later live that would have run a lot more smoothly. but no back then i was convinced these were incredibly platonic, incredibly heterosexual feelings of admiration i had towards him. looking at it now... yeah... that was definitely a crush. but we don’t have to talk about this!”

                         no today jingjing felt like he had seen more idols than he could count. and… it was quite embarrassing because jingjing barely knew of any idols, so it was kind of like… he just had to guess his way into knowing who were idols and who were not, and truly today he had probably guessed wrongly more than once, thinking staff were idols and idols were staffs. however the poor jingjing who barely knew of any idols kept trying his best in figuring out who was what. on the positive side, jingjing had today heard of a lot more new groups, not that they were new, he just didn’t know of before them before, but then again. he would most likely forget all these faces and group names again soon.

“if we keep logic out of the picture, knight, no brainer. knight has been my favorite group pretty much since their debut, before i even came to korea. they’re just, really the blueprint for boy groups you know? no one is on their level. i don’t think i’ll ever look up to a group as much as i look up to them. other than that... maybe vive? maybe because of the mystery element, no one really knows what to expect just yet and i think that’s really cool. but also just, with what has been released so far i really dig it, feels very early days charm, i’m sure they put their own twist on that but i feel like there is not enough of that kind of fun, soft concept among boy groups these days.”

he wasn’t sure if it was forbidden or against the rules for him to seek out an outside studio for him to lay down tracks that he had written on his own, but at that point, guanting was desperate. dimensions wasn’t giving him the green light to work on his solo music yet, which meant that he couldn’t get any studio time at dimensions’ headquarters. he had taken the time to research good recording studios in the area, and when he found one he immediately booked a booth for a few hours. he was there by himself, which was a little foreboding, but he enjoyed the time alone to collect his thoughts and get into the zone before he started recording. 

sung kicked the water. most of it went back into the pool, just further out, but some splashed across, making a line like a knife. the sound of the patio door opening turned sung’s head, to meet duri’s eyes. barely said was, “hey,” then louder, more confident in the concept of starting a conversation. “out for a swim? or, just,” sung paused to pat the spot beside him at the edge of the pool, “wanna join me?”

As it happens, she just got off the phone with her oldest brother when she shuffled back into the main hall. With a sixteen hours time difference and their busy schedule, Iris makes it a point to always respond to his texts or answer his calls as soon as she can. Especially when she felt like the last few years has been a whirlwind of change for both of them. 

With her shoulders a little more loose, her smile now relaxed and at ease, she struts' straight to him when she spotted him. Still high from speaking to her brother, Iris felt that it was only right to speak to the one who became her brother’s figure in BC. 

“i’m pretty comfortable in the ballad market really so... i don’t really know? i think i’d lean into a softer bright pop sound otherwise? i’ve never paid it much thought i feel like the sound i got right now works really well for me. whatever it is, i’m not doing any choreo though. i dance enough for lipstick and poorly so. i’m not a dancer, i’ll never be, no one is gonna pay to watch me dance without the rest of lipstick present.”

“my favorite thing is probably how comfortable and easy-going our relationship is, i know it’s cliche but she really is both my girlfriend and my best friend and having been so close for years before we even considered dating has really brought a lot of good things, she knows me in and out and vice versa and there is nothing more that i could ask for than that. my least favorite thing? that we don’t get to see each other all that often. okay, no, kidding, that’s a bit of a cop out. i think how stubborn she can be and how she tends to pass up looking after herself in stressful situations, i just wish she would put her wellbeing first when it comes down to it.”

“Christmas shopping isn’t supposed to be complicated, right? I know what to give my mom and my dad, but my brothers are much more difficult to please,” Sooah says, and she knows she’s almost whining at this point, but she started searching for gifts back in November, and despite finding some really great items for her friends and parents, getting something that she thought was worth for her partners-in-crime was something else entirely. Why was she complaining about it to Duri was another story entirely. He was probably just unlucky that had happened, but she couldn’t deny she was hopeful he’d end up giving her a solution for her problem. Duri did have that superpower of giving her good advice, after all.  “And Kihyun is bringing his girlfriend along too, and that’s the first time he does something like this in years, so it must be serious. Should I get her something too?”