#rosesblve

hair net. soup ladle. a scowl on his face, because while he's a regular volunteer at house of broth, a soup kitchen a good hour away from seoul, he's never been at it with someone else. and heejin looks almost dumber than he does in the uniform, an enthusiastic little shadow by his side.

then again...he's been grudgingly quite impressed at how ready she's been to learn. prepping the ingredients, making the ginseng chicken soup and politely greeting the rest of the staff that daehyun's gotten so close to.

the old ladies here love him, though maybe that's not much to brag about. maybe it's because daehyun's attitude here—they don't take it quite so seriously, instead scoffing at him whenever he borders on the side of insolent. and they take his mask even less seriously, smacking him when he turns the charm on. and so it is that house of broth has become daehyun's favorite volunteer spot, a place he comes to at least once a month. here, there are no masks, there's no pretending. just focusing on whatever task is at hand, whether it's cooking, serving, or cleaning, and letting the ladies send him home with some honest-to-goodness delicious ahjumma cooking.

right now, he's cutting peppers for this evening's banchan. he doesn't even remember how girl code's dependable leader ended up finding out—or joining—him on his near-sacred volunteer work, and how they ended up slicing peppers across from each other on an old woman's back porch. it's nice not having to pretend to be anyone but himself here, and heejin—despite being someone in the idolsphere—isn't enough to make him give that up. so he's been content to leave her in icy silence, not bothering to keep the usually-pleasant look on his face.

they've been at it for nearly an hour when he jolts out of his focus. he curses under his breath. "dammit. we weren't supposed to cut all of these; we were supposed to save half for tomorrow's lunch." he grimaces. "imo-nim is going to skin me alive."

"that feeling of being loved and adored by people who don't ask for anything else in return. they always say that loving someone endlessly is hard, but i can feel that love whenever i stand on stage or whenever i meet our fans."

it may sound cheesy, but it's definitely what kept jiho going despite all the hate that had been thrown at girl code within the last year. while there were probably more hate comments, she still found herself smiling whenever she found that one comment from a fan or just someone who claimed to support the group.

it almost felt ironic if you asked jiho. they were riding high off the success of whiplash, and there were talks of a comeback around the midas buildings. jiho was aware that this would be an especially important comeback to solidify their spot in the industry, so she was curious why midas music thought this was the right timing to send them abroad to film a reality show.

not even a documentary but a reality show.

how were they supposed to relax when this next comeback could really make it or break it for the group? one thing's for sure: jiho doesn't think she'll genuinely be able to layback and enjoy this vacation, and she just hopes it doesn't appear too evident when she's being filmed by the cameras.

they've finished filming for the day and have returned to their hotel rooms. upon being given the signal that cameras will be off, jiho let out a long, exhausted sigh before glancing over at heejin, who happened to be her roommate. "have you been able to relax throughout this whole trip?"