tiny heart

how can i blame the cherry blossoms for rejecting this floating world and drifting away as the wind calls them?

[senahd]

"excellent!  then,  let's  move...  let's  go  there,"  sena  stated  before  leading  them  in  the  direction  he  had  pointed  to.

the  dance  studio  had  a  rectangular  table  pressed  against  one  of  the  soundproofed  walls,  accompanied  by  a  few  foldable  chairs.  his  secretary  tried  to  rush  over  to  the  table  first  but  he  swatted  at  her  hand  and  beat  her  to  it,  so  that  he  could  be  the  one  to  pull  out  two  chairs  and  unfold  them  for  the  ladies  to  take.

himself,  on  the  other  hand,  swiftly  hopped  onto  the  table  itself  without  prompt  and  perched  his  behind  onto  the  edge  of  the  table,  patting  the  space  on  the  table  right  beside  him  as  a  gesture  for  her  to  set  her  laptop  down  and  take  a  seat  on  the  chair  he  had  set  out.

"for  now,  let's  see..."  how  much  time  did  he  have  again?  the  thought  crossed  his  mind  briefly,  but  he  decided  to  ignore  whatever  measly  allowance  his  secretary  had  managed  to  squeeze  out  for  him.  it  was  not  as  if  he  would  have  heeded  anyway;  he  would  only  leave  once  he  was  satisfied,  or  had  heard  enough.

"give  me  three  of  the  tracks  you're  most  proud  of.  if  you  don't  have  three,  that's  fine,  just  give  me  what  you  have  then.  i'll  let  you  know  if  i'd  like  to  listen  to  more  after  i  hear  the  first  three  you  share  with  me."

[hdsakura]

sakura followed after him with her laptop hugged against her chest so tightly it may as well have been another rib. she thanked him, barely louder than the air, then sat with that princess posture miru-san is known for.

the screen woke beneath her fingertips. folders, waveforms, little dates she had not looked at in months... suddenly every file seemed unbearably embarrassing. she knew where everything was when she was alone, but with sena watching beside her, even moving the cursor felt difficult, "…hm, these ones are okay." the corners of her lips pinched together when she pressed play.

after they were done, her cursor lingered lower. there was one file she hadn't opened since leaving japan. its title was plain, forgettable, tucked quietly between more polished projects. "…this last one…" she murmured. her fingers rested on the trackpad without clicking. "i think… this is the one i truly love."

she listened to hikari mitsushima's shadow dance many, many times before she made it. not to copy… she only liked how… unfinished it was that way you can even hear breathing. it feels like the song is allowed to be a person before it becomes music. "it was the last song i composed before my old company decided i should stop making music and become… more of an idol, model... it became a goodbye, maybe." of course, sakura did not know it while writing it, only after.

only then did she press play.

[boynextdoors]

[hdsakura]

a rare afternoon in tokyo free of cameras is giving to them, and sakura should be enjoying it. hiding behind a shelf of notebooks feels a more fitting though...

she really come to look at the stationery, since she likes buying notebooks, she likes writing down and imagining future versions of herself who would fill every page with plans and confidence. through her search, she catches sight of chaeyeon behind the rows of neatly arranged pens. everybody likes chaeyeon. that much has become impossible to miss. you'll get along! one trainee insisted. she's really sweet. she's kind of… different. like you. different... sakura had smiled politely when they'd said it. but later as she laid in bed, she'd stared at the ceiling for 20 whole minutes wondering if that had been a very elegant way of calling them both slower than most.

…which in hindsight is so rude.

here, she's just… chaeyeon. quietly browsing the shelves with the same attention sakura had been giving them minutes ago. and somehow, that makes it worse. scary people are easier to prepare for, kind people expect conversations. sakura immediately debates retreat. instead, she accidentally reaches for the exact same notebook at the exact same moment as chaeyeon. "…" her fingers freeze before she retracts her hand so quickly she nearly bows to the stationery. "i-i'm sorry! you can have it."

˳.⋅ ̩͙𓉳 (2022) Honeyworks "可愛くてごめん" 𓆉 ◦°˚° @hdchaeyeon

[senahd]

in  an  instant,  sena's  eyes  miraculously  sparkled  even  brighter,  like  a  diamond  refracting  the  blistering,  unapologetic  rays  of  the  sun.  except  in  this  case,  he  himself  was  the  priceless  diamond,  and  all  before  him  need  only  bask  in  his  radiance.

"brilliant!"  sena  cheered  and  swiftly  switched  to  japanese  without  the  slightest  hint  of  whiplash,  not  at  all  caring  that  the  young  lady  in  front  of  him  seemed  to  shrink  and  even  quiver  in  his  presence—or  worse  still,  what  if  sena  had  not  realised  the  psychological  assault  his  arrival  brought  at  all?

he  quickly  stepped  into  the  room  and  distractedly  gestured  for  his  secretary  to  close  the  door  behind  her,  not  even  waiting  to  ensure  she  had  done  just  that—because  sena's  words  were  law  and  acts  of  treason  were  not  seen  in  favourable  light  by  the  mercurial  sovereign.  sena  kept  his  full  attention  on  the  trainee  who,  for  better  or  worse,  had  the  misfortune  of  catching  his  interest.

"i  heard  you  were  a  musician  before  you  joined  us  as  a  trainee,  yes?"  sena  chirped  with  unbridled  exuberance,  his  lungs  honed  from  years  of  vocal  training  and  singing  not  needing  an  intake  of  air  before  he  prattled  on.  "firstly,  let  me  just  say,  i'd  love  to  hear  what  made  you  decide  to  audition  as  a  trainee  and  not  apply  to  be  a  producer,  but  we  can  pick  your  brain  regarding  that  another  time."

he  closed  the  distance  between  them  with  the  leisurely,  terrifying  grace  of  a  feline,  stopping  just  inches  short  of  the  fragile  boundary  of  her  personal  space.  "for  now,  i'd  like  to  hear  some  of  your  work.  apologies,  i  haven't  had  the  time  to  give  them  a  listen  prior  to  me  coming  to  find  you.  but  surely,  you  can  understand  how  eager  i  was  to  see  for  myself  what  new  talent  we  have  to  work  with."

[hdsakura]

the switch to japanese is so sudden that sakura almost visibly buffers. she's been told by other japanese trainees to keep things careful, formal korean always, but hearing her native language suddenly makes the conversation less intense. her shoulders loosen, just enough that she stops resembling a startled deer searching for an exit through bright headlights.

"ah… yes." she nods quickly, then immediately worries she nodded too quickly. "i made music before. very online, actually. my company did their best to manage me." her gaze settles somewhere near his collar instead of his eyes. looking directly at people for too long has always felt a little like staring into the sun. "i... never thought about applying as a producer. i also did not think i would pass an idol audition, so…" the sentence simply dissolves into a sheepish little shrug.

her grip tightens around the edge of her sleeve before she slowly lifts her laptop with both hands, offering him and his assistant to take a listen. "but… if you really would like to listen, i can show you."

[dinhui]

Visit Original Link

[hdyeonseok]

yeonseok is about four minutes into a fifteen-minute break when he hears sakura approach. he’s pink in the cheeks, dabbing distractedly at the thin sheen of sweat that rests right at the edge of his hairline, and initially, the look of him is preoccupied. unfocused, before his attention shifts without warning and the weight of it falls upon the semi-familiar face of his new brown-eyed visitant. “… hi,” he returns.

there is a brief pause. in it, yeonseok mirrors sakura’s posture and silently drops both hands to his sides. only when she reaches the end of her sentence does he work to piece it all together: hello, / i was / observing / you. it sounds almost like a threat. it probably shouldn’t, given that 1) sakura looks about as threatening as a haribo goldbear— which is to say she hardly looks very threatening at all— and 2) she seems to be having trouble with her words. even so, it’s yeonseok’s personal rule of thumb to never minimize a perceived threat, regardless of whether the person who’s issued it is profoundly reminiscent of bear-shaped gummies. both amusement and uncertainty cling to his mouth as it curls itself into a smile.

sakura concludes her series of declarations with a statement of intent. not a question. not a request. and yeonseok says, “thanks. i guess.” he takes a pause of his own. “… think my body drives me more than i drive it? dunno if i have any wisdom to impart, but, uh— well. how are your reflexes?” he mimes winding up to throw her a baseball pitch but then abruptly changes course half of the way through. instead— he leans down to scoop up some trainee’s neglected bottle of tea and, in that same, fluid motion, casts it to her in an underhand toss.

[hdsakura]

why did yeonseok think a demure girl like sakura was prepared for this?

her hand shoots out, the bottle bumps awkwardly against her palm, nearly slips free, and for one horrible millisecond she thinks she's going to drop it directly onto the floor. somehow she manages to trap it against her forearms instead. "..." she looks back up at him. "i think that answers your question." her korean may be rusty, but embarrassment is an international language. "my reflexes are... surviving."

sakura is still hovering near the doorway, still carrying that faint tension of someone who isn't completely convinced she should be talking to a male trainee, right now or in any occassion. "i just noticed you move like you're not thinking about it, like your body already knows what it's supposed to do." her fingers tighten around the bottle.

"our dance instructor said when i dance, i look like i'm hm, thinking hard? but they also tell me timing needs to be right. they think i'm always standing weird." a faint flush creeps into her cheeks from being so bad at expressing herself. she doesn't expect him to have an answer, but because lately she has been asking herself the same thing almost every day. seeing yeonseok gave her an epiphany that everyone here already looks like they belong while sakura is sneaking around pretending.

"sorry."

[hdmiru]

for a moment, miru wondered just how many girls could promote at once. was there a record for that? eight didn't seem like a handful for now, but the pressure to be a good leader increased with every member that got added.

she's seen sakura around before her debut. there was something a little too soft about her that made miru feel both frustrated and protective. miru recalls how there were days when she might've been kind of harsh on the fellow japanese member, but it seems to have all been worth it considering they've debuted in the same group.

"you'll get used to it," she muttered as the stylist made some finishing touches on her makeup. they had been selected for a shoot together, and miru could feel the intense stare from sakura as they were getting ready. makes sense, really, considering it's her first shoot and all. "just make sure to greet everybody. first impressions always matter."

letting out a soft breath, she does her best to remember how she felt during her first schedule. it was nerve-wracking, for sure, so miru didn't want to be too harsh on sakura. not today, at least. "they'll most likely have reference photos for us to follow, but if you get lost, just ask me, yeah?" that's what a leader was for, wasn't it?

[hdsakura]

"okay."

the answer leaves sakura before she can think too hard about it. it feels nice, hearing something so simple from miru. she isn't sure why. maybe because everyone keeps telling her she'll get used to things eventually, but miru says it like a fact and the world suddenly feels right.

sakura lowers her gaze for a moment, mainly because the studio is too bright, full of people moving with purpose while she struggles to figure out where she's supposed to put her eyes. "i can do that," she says after a second. "the greetings, i mean." her smile is small, apologetic. "i practiced them." the admission sounds a little silly once it's out loud, but she really did. she stood in front of the mirror in her dorm, bowing to her own reflection until it felt natural enough.

"I'm pretty good at following people around." the joke is awkward then her eyes flicker back toward miru through the mirror, lingering for a moment before she looks away again. she wished they had time to interact before being put together. "and hm… thank you. i really look up to you and feel like i can learn a lot from you. i'll watch you closely from now."

[senahd]

⟡  @hdsakura  —  thread.

sena  kairi  was  the  sort  of  creature  notoriously  fuelled  by  sheer  whimsy  and  dangerous  impulse,  much  to  the  chronic,  ulcer-inducing  vexation  of  his  fellow  executives  and  superiors.

the  very  second  the  whispers  reached  his  ears—a  new  trainee,  one  who  harbored  actual,  technical  musical  experience  before  donning  the  idol-in-training  veneer—his  labyrinthine  mind  immediately  re-routed.  the  subsequent  'discussion'  with  his  secretary  regarding  his  calendar  was  less  of  a  negotiation  and  more  of  a  tyrannical  demand  to  ruthlessly  slash  through  his  afternoon  engagements.  he  had  intended  to  carve  out  an  entire  half-day  just  to  psychologically  dissect  this  fresh  blood,  even  contemplating  pushing  his  evening  flight  to  tokyo  deeper  into  the  night.  only  a  withering,  deeply  exhausted  lecture  from  his  loyal  secretary  managed  to  tether  him  back  to  reality—because  even  he  was  quietly  forced  to  admit  how  utterly  ridiculous  that  would  have  been.

refusing  to  waste  another  second,  sena  made  his  descent  to  the  lower  floors  of  the  building—where  the  dance  studios  and  practice  rooms  were  located—as  soon  as  the  last-minute  apologies  had  been  sent  out  and  he  was  free  to  be  a  menace  to  the  young  lady  who  had  made  the  unfortunate  mistake  of  piquing  his  ravenous  interest.

with  his  secretary  trailing  faithfully  behind  him,  sena  peered  into  the  glass  panels  of  each  room  until  he  located  a  solitary  figure.  bypassing  any  polite  semblance  of  a  knock,  he  swung  the  heavy  door  open  with  theatrical  flair.

"hello,  young  lady,"  sena  projected  in  smooth,  only  slightly  accented  korean.  his  voice  carried  the  grandeur  of  a  man  who  knew  he  was  gracing  the  very  air  in  the  room  with  his  presence  alone.  "i'm  looking  for—ah,  wait,  what  was  her  name  again?"

a  long-suffering  sigh  escaped  his  secretary  as  she  murmured  the  young  trainee's  name.  sena’s  dark  eyes  immediately  sparked  with  predatory,  chaotic  delight  as  he  smiled  devastatingly  at  the  lone  occupant.  "yamashiro!  i'm  looking  for  a  yamashiro.  do  you  happen  to  know  where  i  could  find  her?"

[hdsakura]

inside the company every step echoes too loud, every reflection might be staff watching, turning her spine into pulled wire. sakura keeps her head down, sunglasses too big for her face, lets her hoodie swallow her fac. she's trying to quietly disappear piece by piece since she's the new girl at a major conglomerate. a door slams somewhere down the corridor and her shoulders jump before she can stop them. she hates how her body betrays her first and thinks later. fight or flight it's how it goes, except she's already halfway out the door in her mind before she even knows what she's running from. she'll always pick flight.

she keeps moving. left turn. oops, wrong turn. another glass panel. another version of herself staring back, and she almost doesn't recognize the girl with the dark lenses and the careful steps. that girl looks like she knows what she's doing? so very strange... sakura slips into an empty practice room, closes the door softly, and quietly settles to rehearse some of her lines. for a second, she thinks this is manageable and no one will be able to find— the door swings open and sakura freezes. the senior's voice fills the room easily but she misses half of what he and his secretary says because her brain is busy doing a thorough inventory: strangers, not staff she recognizes, too confident, not safe-not unsafe just marked as "unknown." there's a moment where she considers pretending they got the wrong girl. it would be easy. she's already halfway invisible.

"…sorry," she adds, a little late and automatic, slipping into politeness as if it's a borrowed coat. she dips her head for a bow, "i didn't hear you come in." which is a lie, she heard everything. her fingers curl tighter in her sleeves again, "…yamashiro, that's me...?"

[hdsakura]

sakura thinks there should be a manual for this.

singing and dancing at least have counts, shapes, a beginning and an end you can memorize until your body stops arguing. but standing in the same room as another person and not knowing when or where to look, when to speak, how long to pause before it becomes strange, that feels like being dropped into the middle of a song. at least she notices yeonseok before she decides to approach. he is rather… noticeable. loud, even when he's not speaking. sakura tells herself she will only pass by, maybe nod his way then her steps slow against her own reflexes and she comes to a full stop. after a small, silent negotiation with herself, she takes two steps closer than necessary. close enough that she can hear the faint sound of his breathing, which feels like an invasion, even if she is the one doing the invading.

"…hello," she says with a bow, a fraction too late. or maybe too early. it is difficult to tell. her hands stay very still at her sides, thinking if she moves them, something important will fall apart. "i was… observing," she adds, because it feels like an explanation is required. "you." that sounds wrong. she tries again like stepping across stones in water.

"you dance with… intention," she settles on saying something that feels true. "even when you are not dancing." sakura nods once, she has completed social task one of the day. "i would like to learn how you do that," she says rather matter-factly.

ଘ(੭ˊᵕˋ)੭ ੈ♡ (2024) HALVES "嫌々" 𐐪𐑂 @hdyeonseok

[hdsakura]

at practice, the girls go again, again, and again. repetition becomes a kind of quiet punishment until the instructor stops the music right in the moment her foot lands wrong and points her out by name.

stiff, the instructor says. the weakest i've seen. the words come in pieces, but they stay. sakura nods anyway, automatic, tries to do the same move again, and gets an exasperated sigh from the instructor this time. do you want to be here?

sakura nods furiously and tries her best to continue, but that sentence breaks her tiny heart in halves. she doesn't notice tears at first only that the room goes wobbly at the edges and the girls around her lose their sharpness. and suddenly she is aware of water gathering at her eyes, of how close it is to a downpour. she presses her lips together, like she can hold it in that way but she can't. this... this will be the fourth time she's cried. sakura bows immediately she wants to make herself take up even less space now. "excuse me," she manages, then she turns before anyone can see the rest of her crying game, and slips out just as the door opens.

she walks too fast down the hallway, then faster, until the bathroom door closes behind her. she stands there in pity, while tears stream down. looking in the mirror doesn't help. she avoids eye contact with her it. "it's fine," she whispers; she's practicing. "i'll fix it." she straightens up, taps her puffy eyes, breathes once more, then opens the door—

"nayoung-unnie…! i'm sorry," she adds, unsure for what this time, "i'm..."

꒰ঌ·✦·໒꒱ (2021) SPEED "nettaiya / 熱帯夜" °❀⋆.ೃ࿔*:･ @hdnayoung

[hdsakura]

"miru-san."

sakura, a soft balloon finding somewhere safe to land, reaches her groupmate. japanese comes to her without resistance, settling on her tongue in relief. she doesn't have to measure herself, she doesn't have to pause and rearrange the sentence in her head before letting words fly. "…i'm sorry," she adds while her fingers fold into each other, careful, quiet. "i think i might be a little slow today." she uses a tiny pause to search, gently, for how to sound less like uncertain... she doesn't quite find it.

"there's… a lot of people," she tries again, somehow even softer, "and i don't really know where to look yet." the sentence feels incomplete, but also the closest she can get. the sleeve of her robe slips, brushing past her wrist. she fixes it instinctively, smoothing the fabric back into place, and then stops again, almost immediately, stares like she's aware of the movement only after it's done.

another breath, slower this time.

"but i'll follow your lead," sakura says, and she leans towards trust without naming realizing, too. simple and true. and miru is so cool… even back home, people talked about her debut in girlnextdoor like it was something everyone was supposed to already know. standing next to her, sakura feels small. her eyes drift again after, uncertain where they should rest, she thinks there are too many right answers and she doesn't know which one belongs to her? "…if that's okay."

✿ ˚₊ (2015) AKB48 "sakura no hanabiratachi" ♡ ˖⁺ @hdmiru

[hdsakura]

⌇ ♡ ʟɪᴋᴇ ᴘᴏᴘᴄᴏʀɴ ᴘᴏᴘᴘɪɴɢ ᴛʜᴇ ᴡᴏʀᴅ "ʟᴏᴠᴇ" ɪꜱ ᴅᴀɴᴄɪɴɢ / ᴊᴜꜱᴛ ᴛʜɪɴᴋɪɴɢ ᴏꜰ ʏᴏᴜʀ ꜰᴀᴄᴇ ᴀɴᴅ ᴠᴏɪᴄᴇ ᴍʏ ʜᴇᴀʀᴛ ɢᴏᴇꜱ "ᴋʏᴜɴ ᴋʏᴜɴ ᴋʏᴜɴ" ᴏɴ ʀᴇᴘᴇᴀᴛ ♡ ꜱᴀʏ ᴍʏ ɴᴀᴍᴇ ʟɪᴋᴇ ᴀ ꜱᴏɴɢ — ɪ'ʟʟ ꜱᴘɪɴ ᴀɢᴀɪɴ ᴀɴᴅ ᴀɢᴀɪɴ. ⌇ ♡

penned by carrie for hydrarpg !

yamashiro sakura (山城 咲良)… or like. formerly known as sakura.exe which already tells u everything and nothing at the same time. she's 20, freshly dropped into the kpop trainee system, and is now too polite to leave. like she didn't grow up wanting to be an idol in the traditional sense. she built herself sideways. everything about her start is indirect:

didn't show her face

didn't train formally

didn't even trust her real voice enough to use it unedited

get to know her:

online sakura: confident, uber stylized, curated, emotionally articulate

real sakura: pauses mid-sentence, forgets where to look when someone's talking to her, talks softer than expected, apologizes for taking up space, and she's not shy exactly… she's not used to being perceived in 4k real time

also she processes things late which is. so important

if someone insults her, she'll nod, move on, and then three hours later be like "oh"

re: her recruitment (because this is where it gets a little…. hmm) she genuinely believes she was scouted and talked into by her agency for something about her like her tone, her lyrics, her ~potential~

meanwhile hydra labels is like: numbers 📈 engagement 📈 japanese market appeal 📈 = ₩₩₩₩₩₩💳💳💳💳💳💳

she won't be oblivious forever, just… not yet

i think the moment it clicks for her is going to be very quiet and very devastating. a total shift in how she holds herself around the label

skills wise (we love a gap!)

vocals: she can sing, but can she sing?

dance: she's trying 😭 she counts under her breath, gets stuck half a beat behind, but she feels music in a way that can make her pass evaluations

performance: put a camera in front of her and suddenly she knows exactly what to do, put actual people in front of her and she's hello kitty (mute)

random little things because i love details that probably won't make it into threads but still matter to me:

from the quieter side of osaka, more residential streets, convenience store glow at night, n everything closes a little earlier than you want

attended a private girls academy in osaka. she wasn't unpopular she was hard to place. teachers liked her because she was quiet and turned things in on time though

dad works in corporate world, mom is a piano teacher at the private girls academy, and she's an only child but living around her aunties and cousins made it so she was never lonely

her school reports always said things like "should participate more in group settings"

she used to spend lunch breaks in empty classrooms editing audio on her phone with wired earbuds, back when her setup was literally just free software and stubbornness

early teen modeling happened almost by accident a year before graduation. street snap turned into small features, then digital editorials. nothing huge, but enough to orbit the industry without fully entering it

magazines she's brushed past, in varying degrees of "blink and you'll miss it": seventeen japan, popteen, non-no, vivi, larme, ginza, indie zines / online lookbooks where her face was obscured, cropped, or stylized beyond recognition

she learned early that if she tilted her face just slightly or let her hair fall a certain way, she could control how much of herself was "seen"

she learned most of her korean from lyrics, comment sections, and subtitled content, so sometimes her phrasing is oddly poetic without meaning to be

she mouths along to the processed version of her songs instead of singing live, just out of habit and irritates their vocal coaches like hell

she reads comments. all of them. even the mean ones. especially the mean ones

she's better at typing than talking. if your muse texts her vs speaks to her, the difference is super noticeable

she doesn't really know what she looks like from other people's perspective yet. mirrors feel… unreliable to her. basically she wants to be a baddie

she's definitely cried in training in front of the girls

dynamic-wise / plotting crumbs:

trainees who are blunt with her vs trainees who are overly nice (she reacts to both in very different ways)

someone who was a fan of sakura.exe and realizes its her 👀

someone who immediately sees the company's intentions and either tries to warn her… or uses it

romantic status: huh?

friendships where she's quietly loyal but not expressive about it

people who prefer her online self vs people who prefer her real self

i'm honestly super open to anything… angst, growth, unbalanced dynamics, soft friendships, slow-burn connections, all of it !!

okay this got long but that feels on brand for me and for her 😭 pls come talk to me about your muses, i can't wait to write with everyone ♡

[tmblr-sins]

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[boynextdoors]

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