#sxlo

Glaring at the stage and completely uncaring of the crowd around them, he barely prevents his soft hazel orbs from closing.

Despite popular believe, a lot of entertainers do not actually live for this moment. Being a part and attending awards shows eventually becomes tedious and a chore. Perhaps it's just his way of thinking yet after expanding their collections of trophies and awards from all over the globe, Laurent has begun to lose sight of his main purpose.

Understandably, the perfect place to have an existential crises is in the middle of the MAMA awards. One of the most extravagant concerts con awards ceremony, held at the end of every year for artists across Asia to demonstrate why their fandoms chose them as the best whatever it is they are. It goes both ways, of course, it's an ultimate concert for fans to see multiple performances from a variety of artists and bands alike.

The thoughts deviating from his self depicting mood that he could only hope that his "fearless" leader to notice emanating from Laurent that very moment. Honestly, the last thing he wanted was to get nagged and told off the moment they were out of public's watchful eye. Granted, he is very grateful for the unlimited amount of love, dedication, and support that everyone from every where has blessed them with- leading to the handful of awards previously mentioned. That's exactly it though, Laurent simply could not imagine what else is to come after this.

This is not the first time he felt this way. In fact, this would be the time when his sister would knock some senses into him by telling him that it's time to go back into acting. Afterall, that's where it all started for him. Be that as it may and despite the amount of times they have had this conversation, that he knew very well would lead to him trying to land a role in an upcoming drama or film, maybe even a stage play, one would think his meandering thoughts would calm the brewing storm. But it had the opposite effect. Because now, it made him desperate to hear her voice.

It made him restlessly shift in his seat. Warm orbs anxiously shift from one member to another. Palms sweating and his breathing shallows. Nope he refuses to allow his demons to eat him out in public. So Laurent tries his best to reach for the water bottle in front of him, taking a sip as he makes eye contact with his leader. Because fuck his worries from earlier. There's only a handful of people who could calm him down and Laurent isn't stupid enough to prevent from help. Not after everything his been through.

His movements would have been perceived as sharp and smooth when in reality it was all in an abrupt and jerking manner. Once Laurent found his way into the side of the band leader, he leans down and rest his head against the man for a brief moment, as though he was whispering something interesting to him. All the while, Laurent was simply counting his breathe and regaining his cool composure back.

Scrubbing the tiredness and exhaustion away, he quickly dries up, putting on his pjs before falling face first into his bed. Somehow the regret from the decision to live alone, away from his grandparents and his dad, comes rushing into his system. The dancer never thought he’d ever feel this way, especially towards the family that was barely.. well a family. He had just about stopped crying when he got out of the shower, and the urge to do so again annoyingly takes over his fatigue state.

The rapper takes calm breaths, trying to put himself into a trance and unsuccessfully replaying the last few weeks inside his head. He was riding the wave of the first eliminations, feeling terrible of Wonshik getting cut only to have Seola break down on him a few days later before his thought process was cut abruptly by the blaring of his phone. If he hadn’t given her a specific ringtone, Minho wouldn’t have even bothered moving to get his phone out of his discarded jean pockets.

“What’s up asshole?” Her voice radiating of glee and smugness. “Saw your ugly mug on the screen again, Hiro. Trying to look all cool and shit, tsk. These people don’t know you snore so loud you could bring down the house. Not to mention your fart—“

“Shut up, Mori.” He finally breaks Heeo’s obnoxious ranting, chucking sardonically at her words. “We both know you called me because you wanna congratulate me, you little shit. So do it and get it over with.” His winces at the way his voice sounded harsher than he intended it to be.

“Ay fucker, what’s wrong?” She whispers, annoyance and concern so loudly heard in her voice. “Don’t you dare gimme some bullshit nothing answer too. Or I’ll stick Dahye on you.”

He laughs out loud because everyone and their mother knows that Dayhe can whoop his ass into just about anything. “Fuck it, I’ll just hide behind Johnny then.” He manages to mumble out between his laughter.

“Your dumbass laugh sounds like a hyena. Stop it and start talking.”

Minho manages to calm down for a few minutes later, feeling the adrenaline slowly sipping off him as he finally relaxes into a conversation with his twin. “How’d you deal with this shit last time Mori? Like fuck, Johnny just wanted to see if I can get my shit together long enough to do an audition... now, this. Satan’s ass, man. Last week was so intense, we had to do so many things in one week and the week before that… Heeo…” He gasped, trying to calm his spiking nerves. Apparently, once he starts talking he never shuts up. “The week before that… we lost someone through eliminations; Woshik-sii… Fucking hell, Heeo. You didn’t see it, cause they didn’t fucking air it, but Seola-sii had a break down because of that and Goddammit now they just tossing us up into another team again and expect us to act like we’re some expert shit… This is so fucked up.”

There was a brief moment of silence.

“Are you done?” He hears his sister say, her voice sounding angry for some reason. So he remains quiet, waiting to listen to what she’s about to say next. “Because you’re being a such a fucking drama queen, Toshiro.”

He flinches when he hears her use his full Japanese name. “What the actual shit?”

“Now you shut up you overgrown man-child. We’ve both been through hell and back, fuck it we’ve been dragged around Lucifer’s pit through the last year and survived. This shit should be a bloody breeze for you. When the netizens found out about what happened to our stepda— to him, they ripped me apart, Hiro. When you got shot last December, did you fucking die? No. You picked your sorry ass back up and literally moved on. Because that’s what we do. That’s who we are.” Then suddenly just like that, a tired sigh escapes her lips. “Because that’s what we do Ni-chan. We survive…”

The silence between them was both deafening and comforting, it was a splash of cold water and a warm reminder from a loved one, all at once. He takes a moment, he lets this all sink in and he snorts when he realises that she’s absolutely right. He was being a big ass drama queen. “Seoul’s got me going crazy again, hasn’t it, Mori?”

“Yeah, if I didn’t know any better, it’s got you going dumb too.” It was her turn to let out an unladylike sound.

“Now you’re just being a little exaggerating shit.

Just like that, they banter normal siblings once again. Heeo updates him on how the university is going for her, the friends she’s met and the guy she’s interested in. The latter had him rolling his eyes, but he encouraged her to talk nonetheless. On his part, he tells her about everyone they know, his apology to Yooa, how Johnny now has a princess and keeping her updated with the latest who’s whats and whens with their people.

He stifles a yawn after a while, only realising how late into the night they’ve been talking to. She must have noticed as she said, “Get some rest, Hiro. You’ve got a busy week ahead of you.”

“Eeck—Mhmm, use protection-“

“I hate you. Goodnight asshole…oh and congratulations Ni-chan. Ja ne”

“Your emotions are gross…but thanks for kicking my ass. Ja” He mumbles, before hanging up the phone.

Despite him being near damn fluent in the language, sometimes he still stumbles on some words or his accent comes through rather strongly. It’s not like he doesn’t speak Korean to his grandparents all the time and after joining the navy, for a while it was the only language he spoke. But even then there were times when he slipped up on a word or two and his captain along with the rest of the squad would grill him for the rest of the day. 

But it wasn’t something that was particularly bothersome to him nor did he ever feel as though he needed to work on it. For the most part he really didn’t give a fuck about the whole thing- if it ain’t broke don’t fix, attitude coming from nowhere- but on the other hand it made him feel connected with his home away from Seoul. With all said and done regarding his family, it’s only them that he blocks out of his memory, everything else was pretty decent. 

After running a hand through his hair, he pushes his glasses further up the bridge of his nose, squinting his eyes at the white board in front of him. The exercise for this lesson is to go over tongue-twisters, and with his forever problems about rolling his Rs he already knows he’ll be frustrated by the end of the night. 

With a defeated sigh, he slumps into his chair, waiting for his turn as he repeatedly mumbled the phases in front of him. It’s a good thing there was only a few trainees taking lessons with him, most of them knowing full well that Jinhyuk isn’t the best person to be around with when frustrated. His competitive nature simply would not allow him to act in any other way aside from being disgruntled or temperamental. Especially when he knows he can do it. 

Instantly he transforms from Kim Jinhyuk to Lee Minseo, the overachieving, clumsy intern who was the most recent higher of the bunch. The character is quite different from who he is personally, so in a way, he is challenging himself to be out of the box. Although it’s different from the rookies, he played in Bulletin Inquiry, for this character not only wants to do the best but is more of an oblivious muse. 

Despite graduating in the top university, SNU at the ripe age of twenty. Minseo is a happy go lucky and push over, a tsunde in true form. Clumsy in the most oblivious way, he is only trying his best. He idolizes the boss and supervisor, despite following their instructions he always seems to get the awful results. 

Others tend to find him cold and unapproachable. But in reality, he is just a lost man-child trying to fit into his workplace. He often gets flustered and instead of seeking help, he tries all sorts of shenanigans to make it work in his favor. For instances, there is this running joke that he would climb over the back of the building when they all got locked out, only to have half his shirt ripped off. Instead of being upset, he was overjoyed by the prospect of actually helping out and getting everyone in, for a whole day they called him ‘Shirtless Hero’. Sometimes they still do, and he takes that all in with pride. It's honestly one of the proudest moments in his short time in his beloved workplace. 

The boss has only been gone for a day and already his coworkers are acting as though they have the time off. But considering his position in the company, as an intern and one of the most recent higher, confrontation is currently out of the picture. Instead, he tries his best to do as much as he can. 

Morning started off relatively easy, making sure the pantry was stalked and offices supplies stored appropriately for anyone who needs them. The next was helping out with the administrative work passed on to him, while shadowing the associates who were willing to work and teach him along the way. Which has led him to the advertising team for the afternoon. 

Ironically, it was the same group of people who were supposedly stuck trying to figure out the product designs, honestly, in his opinion they were just being lazy. Especially, since he knows for a fact that they were already almost done with the design before the boss left, it was just a matter of picking the last few details. With that said, it’s probably why they left the polishing of the design up to him. 

For what seems to be the nth time during their boss’s holiday, he was left to do bulk of the work, which wouldn’t have been an issue for him except he still had a lot to learn. Minseo felt as though he was being thrown into the deep end. 

That’s how his supervisor found him by the heated printer by the end of the day, shirt ruffled up, hair messy and ink strain on his cheeks. Honestly, he stares back at his confused supervisor and lazy coworker- who just happen to step into the room moments later- with frustrated and pitiful eyes. 

“I’m just trying to work.” His lips wobbled as he answer supervisor Kim’s inquiry of why he was still in the midst of everything during clock out time. Gesturing towards his cowering coworker, he continues “Associate Nam said that everything must be done by tonight, but the printer stopped working so I’m trying to fix that- but when I was doing so the ink completely just boom.” showing them his inked stained hands, literally almost in tears. 

He was definitely going to take his meds that evening. Although during nights like these, Jinhyuk often thought he didn’t need to take them. But he wasn’t going to take any chances. The day had been gruelingly slow, although fun, there were times when the trainees were questioning their life choices and decisions. Life evaluations often occur in a trainees mind, more so then actual  evaluations. At least posting and waiting for next month’s cover of Harper is something to look forward too. 

With an exasperated sigh, Jinhyuk says his final goodbyes with the crew, shaking hands with some of them. Even exchanging some numbers for work purposes, some of the staff earlier had asked him about possibly collaborating with for future works, and he was more than pleased to agree to work with them, if Legacy would allow him to work on personal projects later on. He makes a point to make connections with those who clearly knew what they were doing, but also those who were part-timers. Having been a part-timer himself before, he knew what a few good gigs could do.

Turning to his fellow trainees and other idols, he does the obligatory ‘we finally did it.’ talk and waves goodbye. Making sure that he bid his obligatory goodbyes to everyone and a final check in with the manager,  even offering any of them for a ride home, if they didn’t have any.  Alas, once the greenlight to go was lit he gathered his belongings and briskly though tiredly walk towards his car.  

He was more than ready to get home. They probably all were. The thought of home, automatically reminded him of the fact that he now lives outside the confines of Legacy dorms. Not quiet out of reach from the company but a place to call his own. A spark of life and excitement seeps through him. 

As she watches plenty of her peers who got signed the same year as she did gradually take on the stage, Maya finds herself in a weird limbo. It's no one's fault but her own, of course. Choosing to master all the skills that she can without bothering to actively take part in situations that might help her progress into actually debuting.

Turning her head to the side, allowing the hairstylist to fix up his artwork, Maya continues her meandering thoughts.

If only she took part in future dreams. Or focused more on agency events that would allow her to at least be featured in commercials or photoshoots like the one she's currently getting ready for. But no, her stubbornness and laser vision have caught her in this predicament. How many more years till she would be able to progress somewhere. Would she be the trainee that would eventually disappear into the void.

No. Of course not. At least not if she has anything to say about it.

Despite her stagnant status within the company, she has gained a lot of skills that would make her unforgettable once she's out there. It's a simple fact. It's just a matter of actually getting out there.

Shaking her head, she smiles confidently at the stylist- both the makeup and hair- before making her way out of the backstage rooms and into the set. All ready to represent both Legacy and Ivy Club.

Aside from harnessing her skills, Maya managed to gather enough information and advice from those who have made it to further figure out what she wants for herself. After all, a person must always have evolving goals, to know that simply being an idol would not cut it for her. This is why in the next few months she would be gunning to transition into the agency path within Legacy, in hopes on finally taking a step forward and closer to achieving her goals.