EVENT 03.5 | FROM 08.01 TO 08.26

Who makes an event so big it needs two posts? We do! 

starter for @idjunho  xlnc hotel room, party

part of her regrets listening when junho had told her to go up to his room ahead of him. eunju had lingered a little longer, chewing anxiously at her lower lip, worried by the nearly tangible tension in the air, before taking his key card and making the short trek to the elevator that would take her up. she had a bad feeling, hated feeling helpless to defuse a situation that was very obviously, very quickly going south, but she’d had enough to drink that she doubted she’d have really done anything to help either. even now, laying on the first bed she’d reached when she’d walked in, shoes on the floor, tipsy on drinks that she wasn’t even legal to drink in america, she wonders what’s taking so long, if everything had sorted itself out or if it’d devolved into something much worse. they’d both looked so upset, so angry. she hopes sanha gets to his room okay, hopes he sleeps off whatever bug has crawled up his ass and into his head to make him act the way he is. 

(it’s probably the same shitty virus that makes him cheat at board games, which, obviously, she can’t prove but she's a sore loser and that's the only explanation. obviously.)

anyway - she’s here for a reason and thinking about what's going on downstairs is only doing more harm than good for her mood. she and junho had been waiting for an opportunity like this for weeks now - a chance to sneak away from the prying eyes of their peers and the public to spend some time alone. for, well, sex, primarily, but eunju also likes to think that the time spent between fooling around and making googly eyes at each other has been nice, too. she likes getting to know junho, thinks her instincts are giving her all the right signs about him, even though she’s gotten a cut eye or two from trainee friends who don’t trust him. they don’t know him. he’s a good guy. she feels it, doesn’t know why people treat her like she’s dumb when it comes to this kind of thing. she knows people, thinks she knows people - knows they aren’t all that bad. 

she believes in good.

eunju sighs out loud, rolls over onto her stomach, not bothering to tug her dress back down where it’s ridden up under her ass. she’s the only one here, anyway, and it seems like that’ll be the case for a while. she reaches over to grab her little purse, big enough to carry her own room key and her phone, which she pulls out. she’s unlocking it with the intention of very brattily spamming him in kakaotalk with reasons to hurry the fuck up (and to maybe bring back something to drink while he’s at it) when there’s a rap against the door. she’s up in the next second to open it, pausing only briefly to press up on her toes to peek through the peephole.

kcon party, event / @idsuran

he’s had a day to deal with it, and jaekyu still feels like he’s running on empty. his battery depleted. he’s glad atlas’ performance had been on saturday. that he didn’t have to drag this baggage out onto the stage with him. he’s sure the fans would’ve noticed his demeanor. as busy as he was trying to push everything away, force out that same usual smile, the fans still kept asking if he had jet lag, or if he’d eaten enough at the fan sign. were used to his usual antics, spurring things up with the members, lobbing entire plushies at yohan’s head. but this time he’d sat himself as physically far apart from yohan as possible, next to milo.

it had dragged by slow. suran hadn’t messaged him, he hadn’t messaged her. juts kept the whole thing to himself. let it all fester in the back of his head.

when the party hits, jaekyu follows in yohan’s ill advised footsteps and gets himself drunk. it’s not exactly unusual, jaekyu gets drunk often enough. but that’s usually in celebration, in the name of a good time. he’s not like yohan, milo in that regard. so now? now his demeanor doesn’t match up to how he usually is. talking a mile a minute, making new friends, goading people into betting that he do something spectacularly stupid. instead jaekyu just looks off. he switches between pulling himself out of the fray, bee-lining in the opposite direction whenever he catches sight of yohan’s face, and finding people he knows in an attempt to drag himself out of his misery.

it’s probably inevitable that he runs into suran. they catch eyes. they gravitate ( and isn’t that how it usually works out with them? but this time it’s different ). jaekyu can’t even begin to figure out who found who. if they met in the middle. but before he knows it they’re face to face. suran looks the same as always, a little tired, but the same. she smiles when she sees him.

the realization that she doesn’t know that yohan’s told him finds its way to him. he hadn’t bothered to ask yohan how long ago it happened. he hadn’t been searching for details at the time. he’s still not too sure he wants to know them. all he’s left with was that they slept together, that it happened somewhere behind the scenes at produce project filming. he’s not sure how to drop that secret at her feet. he wonders if she cares. if it matters to her, that him and yohan are close. of course, they had never managed to become something solid in name. but for so long they had been tangled up together. even if he was lacking whatever it was suran seemed hell bent on finding. 

jaekyu knows his face is collapsing. he tried to pull it back up in a smile of his own. jams a hand in his pocket, anxious energy. he has too much of it. “hey, you.” his voice already sounds too thick. he clears it. “you’ve been too busy to catch up to lately.” he pushes himself toward normal. he’s not sure why. maybe just to see how she reacts. like he’d be able to read through anything anyway. it’s pointless. 

@idmilo, end of the kcon party ( event )

it’s late -- actually, maybe early -- but either way, san’s completely trashed. he’d had too much to drink with jowi, had managed to fall into something chaotic with yohan, in the sort of ways they’ve been managing to do constantly as of late. it’s a little funny that san considers them to still be friends. maybe his pool is just too shallow to draw from. not that he’s ever blameless. not that yohan’s ever perfect. but he wants to shove him out of his head. his talk with dahye probably should have left him feeling more comforted than anything else, but now san just feels raw. a little vulnerable, the way he always does when he lets his prop-top tent walls collapse in a rush. 

so he leaves the roof, back to the party, on a quest to see if there’s more alcohol to scrounge up. he finds milo on the way. offers him a wide smile. the kind that might’ve looked nice if his eyes weren’t so wild, if he wasn’t half-stumbling over himself on his way toward the bar. “you’re coming too?” he asks the other when he falls in step alongside him. it comes out slurred, and san finds himself laughing. but he twists his fingers in the sleeve of milo’s shirt for balance anyway, blinks his eyes hard a few times, shakes his head, starts walking again.

“where have you been hiding anyways, i was looking for you earlier.” san admits, in that open sort of way he only manages to hit after he’s been drinking so much. he doesn’t overthink it, the words leave his lips and then that’s that. if he were sober, it might be a different story. “i only saw yohan, are you actually mad at me after all?” san asks him outright, one of those thoughts that’s been hung up in his mind for a while now. that he hasn’t found the right way, time to vocalize. he laughs immediately after. 

 { @idjunho | sᴇᴛᴛɪɴɢ: kcon after party }

     stumbling, sanha exits the event hall, sweaty, disgruntled, and disoriented. he doesn’t make it far, a mere few, shaky steps, before he’s pressing his back against the wall, sliding down slow, slow, slow, until he feels like he’s sinking past the ground. it’s that point in the night where everything’s pissing him off, setting him on edge. his skin prickles like needles are teasing along all his joints and ridges. the layer of sweat against his skin sticks like a melting popsicle on knobby wrists from the heat of a too-hot sun, a strange flashback to childhoods that were just as annoying as this night seemed to be turning out to be.  sanha lets his hair thump back against the wall, stretching his legs out in front of him. the thumping of the music reverberates against his skull, an ill-fitted ost to the trainwreck drama of his life. he raises the cup in his hands back to his lips, only to spit the drink right back up, disgusting and tepid, nursed too long in sanha’s palms. 

     going back to his room seems more and more enticing, the idea of a warm bed and a few hours of sleep much preferred to the shit show of party. he’s been scolded by his manager twice already, before he finally disappeared to find his own stress relief and has drunk too much to be safe, making bad decision after bad decision. the cherry to top it all off was catching a glimpse of junho and eunju, and after becoming aware of their... entanglement, it did nothing but cause his jaw to clench and a scowl to form. sanha was sick and tired of being second best, repeatedly. especially during this weekend. no one really managed to make him feel that way quite like junho did, an old friendship that’s been long soured. 

     speak of the devil, his mind chirps, when junho walks out to the dimly lit hall as well. it’s reflex, more than anything, that has sanha sticking his legs out a little further, to trip junho in his stride. partly wanting to call attention, partly for petty revenge that’s been wanting to build up for days, weeks, months, years. unbidden. the wildfire in his chest rushing only higher and stronger in the face of junho’s unaffected demeanor. 

                                              adj.  very bad, unpleasant, or harmful. poisonous.                                               related: song suran and kwon jaewon

kcon party, late. 

suran has never been good at reading people.

this has shown itself in her life time and time again. jiahn easily manipulates her, could do worse if she wanted.  the trainees in the produce show are only known to be enemies once they reveal themselves as such clearly, any deception prior goes unnoticed and gleefully assumed innocent. 

this is first and foremost true with kwon jaewon.  he’d sunk his claws into her so fast. she can remember the exact moment. her debut promotions had overlapped with olympus, and coming off stage she’d still been riding the high of it all, pony tail tied high and shorts criminally short. and she’d almost felt it in the air, the way his eyes had slammed into her like a physical force. the way he’d parted the crowd of other rookies that swarmed around her, emerged in front of her with a smirk like the devil himself. 

had she ever stood a chance? 

the ensuing whirlwind had been everything a natural disaster ought to be : awe inspiring, incredible, terrifying, powerful, all consuming. destructive. brutal. 

the kind of experience you just don’t walk away from quite the same. 

and really, did she ever walk away more than a few steps,before he reeled her back in again like a fish struggling on a line? like a rabbit caught in a trap?

she downs another gulp of her drink. she fills herself with liquor to drown the guilt. it doesn’t work. nothing works. so she looks up, and it’s that easy. 

just once glance and she finds him in the crowd. 

one glance and their eyes meet. 

{ @idseojin |  sᴇᴛᴛɪɴɢ: kcon after party }

     the smile feels as if it's been carved into sanha's face, chisel against stone, stiff and painful even if it looks shockingly realistic. an imitation of humanity, feigned humility in his exquisite nature. he knows what his smile does to people, weaponises it for his own use, to lull people into a sense of comfort---to have them believe an imagined kinship, bonds forced upon sanha through the wonders of networking, by the restraints of idol life. it's only when the man he's talking to walks away that sanha's able to sink into something more comfortable, exchanges one mask for another, sticking his tongue in his cheek as he stretches his face out, ducking his head to make sure there aren't any pictures captured. always painfully aware of his image, sanha was.

     taking a long sigh, sanha takes a sip from the water bottle that has replaced the beer in his hand for the moment. ever so kindly told by the practical-stranger that he was starting to look a little too woozy on his feet. twisting his lips to the side in distaste, he shoots a look over to the other man stuck in that terrible conversation with him, with his brows raised, disgruntled and incredulous as he lifts his water in cheers.

     "i hate that guy," sanha says, plainly, giving a quick glance over his shoulder to make sure he's moved out of earshot. "i mean, maybe hate is a strong word." pouting in contemplation, sanha tilts his head, considers his words. "he's just annoying, y'know?" squinting up at seojin, sanha's lips twitch up, realization dawning on him, slightly. "well, of course you know---what with---" he waves his hand in an outward direction, toward where junho can be seen through the crowd, laughing boisterously.

@idkisol ;; sunday night, kcon party.

the alcohol in dahyun's bloodstream was playing tricks on her, she was certain.

first, it was making her braver than usual. she had always been a bold girl. even as a child, she never had any problem walking right up to strangers and greeting them, complimenting them, or asking them why they looked sad. her parents faces were often flushed with embarrassment as they apologized profusely for their daughter bothering the old woman or the young couple, but she found most people didn't mind. children were innocent, harmless, didn't know what they were doing. it was almost endearing in a way.

when you were an adult, people seemed to mind. you were nosey and obnoxious and too blunt, no matter what your intentions were. so dahyun had learned to dial it back. except tonight. tonight, thanks to the vodka, she was telling people what was on her mind. mainly nice things, of course. most of dahyun's thoughts were pleasant anyways. but there had already been a confrontation with an old friend she hadn't spoken to in years. that was not in the plans for tonight, and if her members had done a better job at babysitting their unnie, they could have prevented it.

second, she was certain she must be seeing things. not only had there been couples sneaking away who were thought to not even know each other throughout the night, risking their careers and hoping no one noticed. she wouldn't remember it in the morning, or would chalk it up to her imagination, but she couldn't say the same for everyone else. plus, the alcohol making her imagine things was the only explination she had for the boy that seemed to be looming closer and closer to her.