#ideunju

                                                  we’re breaking all the rules                                                                              @ideunju

somehow, by the grace of god, junho always found himself in situations he didn’t necessarily ask for, but the same ones he couldn’t attest to. sort of how things played out well enough for him when he’d been picked up by koala.t and all his hard work paid off with landing him as the company’s rhythm guitarist of their idol band — maybe it wasn’t exactly the dream career he had in mind, becoming some sort of pretty boy for something somewhat manufactured, but — it was close enough. there certainly could be worse options for junho, perhaps another three years of singing on the street in the rain and snow had he not busted his ass every single day to get his talent scouted. 

but by then, it would’ve been better to join the army and give up on all of his dreams, so he’s glad this is where the universe has led him to instead.

his night began with nothing out of the ordinary. it meant to be a quick stop at msg’s building to visit one of his trainee friends — since being in a band that required no dancing meant far more free time than most other trainees and idols he knew. being a member in xlnc was something junho definitely lucked out on, and being a musician trained in the realm of instruments and singing instead of dancing and physical performances, xlnc was his lifesaver.

except, of course, there was her. 

pro.j participant and msg trainee oh eunju, female junho recalls never entirely leaving his mind from the time he’d been introduced to her for the first time when his group had taken a day to visit their juniors participating on the show. and just like that day, a day that began normally and was supposed to continue that way — left junho with far more lingering thoughts of if he would see her again.

it’s that same face that nearly renders him breathless in a seemingly endless msg hallway, finding themselves the only ones in what feels like the entire universe when a door opens. he nearly runs into her, they’re already so close and everything else surrounding them feels non-existant and irrelevant; she looks so worn, so drained from her blatantly amount of training she’d put into whatever room she was coming out of.

( with @ideunju, pro.j episode two )

perfection doesn’t come easy, not the way aroon was told his whole life. back at home he was called at natural at everything he tried: writing poetry, painting, soccer. everything aroon did was showered in compliments, his friends and classmates talking about how good he was. here, however, reality came crashing down on him hard.

average, that is a word he loathes. average is one step above bad, but for aroon they are the same: not perfect. hell, not even great or good. he was called average a lot when he first arrived, average height, average face, average skills. it was his hate for failure, his wish to be perfect, not his dreams and hopes and aspirations who brought aroon to this spot he holds now.

which is still a shitty spot if he thinks carefully about it. just a trainee on a show with a chance not much higher to debut as he had before. should anyone be happy to be 0.1% closer to their dream? aroon knows he is not.

so he practices, again and again and until his lungs feel like exploding and he nearly collapses from dancing for hours.

( once there was a boy who taught him to rap, but before they visited museums and looked at sculptures. “it’s hard to achieve this level of perfection,” the boy told him “it requires a lot of pain.” )

and because of this he practices until pain is everything he feels. it’s easier to sleep when you’re too tired to think, so it works perfectly for him. he is laying down on the ground, hair sticking to his forehead and skin glowing with sweat, the picture of every trainee who wants to debut, when someone opens the door of the practice room.

                                                          and for a second there we'd won                                                           yeah, we were innocent and young                                                                                                   @ideunju​

there’s only a few things junho can appreciate from being from a group that isn’t constantly bombarded with overwhelming fans, and arguably the greatest thing to go along with it is his freedom of mobility. how the other more well-known idols of the industry manage to get around a city of ten million without a constant trail of fans lingering behind is beyond him — he likes still being classified as somewhat normal. sure, there are the occassions when someone will recognize him on the street, but those are rare, and most often only result in a few pictures from afar that are only posted to fanclub blogs.

but he feels some pressure now, being invited out for some food and time at an arcade with msg entertainment trainees that include: eunju. it’s a challenge not to let himself seem too obvious, sneaking glances, standing too close when the situation doesn’t call for it. junho has grown far too physically attracted to her in the privacy of their own time that  now is their first test keeping things lowkey in the public eye — literally. so to play the part, junho dresses himself as casually as possible: hoodie, jeans, vans and a face mask to keep the attention off himself not just within the group, but to the strangers around him as well. fan rumors leaking to the executives at his company wouldn’t just be bad for their images as a whole, but detrimental to their relationship as well.

they play along with the whole charade of not being familiar with one another, using formalities whenever they had to around the other trainees. the group gathers around an air hockey table for some time before one of the trainees triumphantly throws his fists up into the air when he beats his friend, 5-4. at first it’s an organized, cohesive group one moment, and the next, slowly tapers off in different directions to play their own games in pairs or smaller groups. he tries to make it look like a casual thing, discreetly making his way next to eunju, half of her bare face saturated in neon lighting. 

“so — what do you want to play?” it’s short and formal, but the connotation holds more than just its meaning at face value. nobody seems to be in direct earshot of their conversation, and despite how normal everything probably seems from the outside looking in, there’s no saying who around them might really be listening. 

constellation – if they were to wish upon a shooting star, what would they wish for?+ @idyujin

if san were faced with this question, he wouldn’t have a knee jerk reaction. there’s not something that he desperately craves, a craving that he also acknowledges. he doesn’t want to fix his nose permanently. doesn’t wish he  were 5cm taller. and, if prompted, he’d probably give you an answer about music, his career. because that is what san always centers around. perpetually. he’d wish for a world without olympus, or one where he doesn’t have to promote with them anymore. he’d wish to be a soloist in a different company, one given more freedom in musical direction, with the kind of dance style he could pair with it. themes, expression. he’d try to make a wish to reshape the only world he knows into something more enjoyable to himself. something he thinks he might love, if he were actually given it. given the opportunity for it.

but if san were able to break past all those constrictive , roped off parts of his mind he might wish for something different. if he were able to even consider a world where he didn’t have to constantly circle around this industry, the gravitational pull of being an idol. it’s hard for him to imagine, to picture. from his youth, he’d grown into this. stepped into the role before he was fully developed, so what else does he know? but there’s another wish there, lurking down deep. a wish he’s too afraid to look toward, because if he acknowledged it, then everything would collapse. would fall to ruin. he’d be aimless, and he so desperately needs a purpose, so desperately needs something to run hard toward, that san would slip. falter.

the wish that he’d had a normal childhood. with skateboard-scraped knees and a band of friends. a life without pictorials, a life without auditions. a life where he might’ve learned to enjoy dance as a hobby. a life where he could go to school without threat of being bullied for extensions woven into his hair, a face in a music video. a world where he could have figured out who the hell he was before his mother decided for him. a world where he could breathe. where he didn’t have to get signed under midas for his mother to praise him.