Seulgi honestly didn’t really mind the fact that she had been sleeping on the floor, she was just sorry she had been in the way of Juhee when she was trying to go use the bathroom. She rubbed the spot where the younger’s foot had hit her hip when she tripped on her, it didn’t really hurt, it was just one of those ‘oh’ moments.
She leans against the wall now that she’s on her feet again, but soon her eyes are closing again, lightly drifting off, only to jerk her head up, hitting it against the wall slightly when Juhee knocked on the door. She whined slightly, rubbing the back of her head, wincing. It wasn’t enough to leave a bump or anything, but it still smarted a bit. Her morning wasn’t starting off quite right today, hopefully things would turn around by the time they were to go through the course of the promotion day.
The question posed to her is a good one, and one that she really didn’t have an answer to. “Not originally… I definitely was in my bed last night. If I was sitting here…” she said, pointing to the spot she was now standing in. “I must’ve been waiting for someone to get out of the bathroom to use it or someone left the light on and I thought someone was in there,” she shrugged a little bit. “Oh, yeah, just a bit stiff, I must’ve been there for a while,” a yawn interrupts the middle of her talking, her hand coming up to cover her mouth. “Oh yeah, I sleep anywhere I can. As long as it’s safe, anyway.”
⭑ ━━━━━━━━━━━ ∙∙∙ ×
unlike seulgi, juhee didn’t have a penchant for sleeping anywhere -- if anything, the problem was trying to sleep in general. while usually, it wouldn’t necessarily take her long to find slumber, if it wasn’t in her bed, juhee could spend ages looking up at the ceiling, trying to beg her brain to sleep. even in the first few months of moving into the and﹡roma dorm, she had stumbled upon a few sleepless nights that hardly equipped to a good night’s rest ; but she had got used to it. so, seeing seulgi feeling oh-so-comfortable with just falling asleep anywhere had her feeling slightly jealous. she wished she had such a trick up her sleeve, maybe it would have made adjusting to a new environment all the more easier.
“ah, but that can be so dangerous.” she mumbles with a small frown, slightly concerned -- “are you able to still get enough sleep like that?” if it was juhee, she felt like she would be getting more interrupted sleep than not -- and she could not have that. it was already had enough getting her rem cycle to not be temperamental, finding bumps and cracks in her usual seamless slumber, that was a no-no -- especially on top of their heavy schedule during promotions. “oh, if that’s the case -- did you want to use it before me? i can wait ...” juhee suggests, stepping further from the bathroom door so that seulgi can go on in -- she didn’t mind waiting. it wasn’t like she took a long time in the bathroom anyways.
the idea of a cafe-themed show is brilliant in theory, even if they only use the gimmick for a small portion of the program. meiqi thinks it would be miles better if they served desserts instead, or at least paired the drinks with baked goodies like a real cafe—maybe she could tolerate it, then.
as it stands, meiqi hates anything coffee-related. she’s never been a fan of lattes or americanos, the flavour being too strong and bitter for someone with the sweetest tooth around. she’d tried coffee once before, back when she was in high school, and immediately spit it back out. therefore, it’s not the easiest task to pretend like she’s enjoying whatever concoction the mcs of the show have planned for them. so she simply takes one brief sip, then leaves it untouched in favour of having fun and joking around with everyone. no one will notice.
when juhee jabs at her waist unexpectedly, meiqi almost knocks the forgotten drink over from the surprise. she tries to hide the reaction with an exaggerated laugh, as if she’s just enjoying whatever is being talked about, before she levels juhee with something close to a glare. “what are you doing? why are you asking?”
her expression falls quick, however, as meiqi is never one to dwell on something for so long. she spares a glance at the younger girl’s drink when juhee asks about her own, suddenly wondering if it could be as bad as hers. based on the faintest furrow of her brows, it probably is.
meiqi’s fingers curl around her abandoned cup, probably for the first time in twenty minutes, as she lifts it to juhee’s lips. with her free hand, she steadies the straw for her member to take a sip. “try it,” she whispers, almost conspiratorially. “i don’t like it, so you can have it if it’s your style. just pass me yours and i’ll get rid of it somehow.”
⭑ ━━━━━━━━━━━ ∙∙∙ ×
she meets meiqi’s glare with an eye roll -- feeling the whites of her eyes roll to the back of her head in exasperation as she fits her lips around a sluggish frown. her finger points at her drink before making a rotten face. “mine is too sweet.” and looking at the stark difference in aesthetics between her drink and meiqi’s, juhee had a feeling she would like meiqi’s a lot more ( and no, this was not her trying to covet over meiqi’s things, mind you ) -- the moment meiqi offers her straw, juhee’s frown is wiped clean and a happy smile slips right on as she leans forward to take a hearty sip only to feel it go down the wrong pipe and she’s coughing up a lung.
in reality, her coughs were probably tiny and harmless but the suddenly onslaught of bitterness was too much of a difference after having had her sugary drink saturating her taste buds.
“ugh.”
while it was more to her taste, that sudden reaction between sweet and bitter was not for her. if anything, juhee was lucky enough that the contents of the drink didn’t go flying through her nose at the suddenness of the sip. after a few more gulps of air, and a cough into her fist, she takes the drink, trying to be as discreet as she could be before pushing her own drink in the place where meiqi’s hand been. she just hopes the mc’s didn’t catch her coughing fit.
“Of course, I do,” Wendy says with a laugh. “I trust you to make us both look pretty. But if even you can’t make me look good, then oh well.” Wendy shrugs. She’s always known she wasn’t among the members people considered visuals in AND*ROMA, but at least she can sing. There’s nothing she can do if she doesn’t fit the masses’ idea of beauty and all that jazz. She might as well just have fun with what she’s given.
She knows she isn’t the best at taking selfies, and she also wanted to make Juhee feel included. This is a win-win deal. Besides, she knows Juhee’s social media game is advanced compared to her own, so she’ll let their youngest take the lead in this one. “If you want me to do any poses or if you have any ideas, just tell me and we’ll do them together.”
⭑ ━━━━━━━━━━━ ∙∙∙ ×
“don’t say that, 언니, if there’s a will, there’s a way!” or so george herbert said. taking the phone into her hand, juhee makes sure to glance at the mechanisms -- she didn’t really do anything really fancy, in terms of optimizing the widgets that came with the camera settings, but she just wanted to make sure she wasn’t working with something she was unfamiliar with. “ah, we can just smile or wink in this one? and then we can look through the fun filters. there’s this one with silly stickers that i really like. it makes it look like there’s a bunch of faces on yours. like this one.” she moves to show the options to wendy, crouching down beside the other as she does so.
if only she was using her phone, she could have shown the older girl all the filter she had saved up on the snow app -- while it was one of her favorite applications to apply filters ; it did get a little to wacky and too out of this world for her taste when it came to morphing your looks. when she had let her younger brother play with the app, he suddenly had the eyes the size of saucers and a chin that was as pointy as a number two pencil. juhee still wasn’t sure how he had even gotten it to get that far ‘til this day. ( and she was too scared to ask ) “do you have a go-to pose, you like, 언니?”
sunmi figures that this promotional cycle would be quiet. in the sense that there’s no chances for wins, nothing extraordinary to come out of this release. she knew nova was just forcing them back onto the public while they were still fresh on everyone’s minds so they could take a win somehow. but even with an empty house, would it really be considered a win? not her book, at least.
she’s fine with a slower, not as exhausting promotional period. though she knows the girls have a lot of plans with the buwygf choreography they wanted to do. so in between days off, sunmi’s time was dedicated to that with the other dancers in the group. in fact, in the waiting room for the music show she was going over footage from their dance practise that they had. it was more of a freestyle kind of thing, trying to see what worked for them best. they weren’t going to get into seriously choreographing until a little later.
when juhee re-enters the waiting room sunmi looks up, ready for the water bottle that the younger and the manager had set off to retrieve only to be subject to the younger’s rambling about sunmi going viral. “what are you talking about, munchkin?” she asks juhee with an amused grin. she playfully bunts the maknae’s forehead, reaching for a water bottle from the manager who seemed to have picked up extra on his way in.
“show me what i could have possibly gone viral for, silly.”
⭑ ━━━━━━━━━━━ ∙∙∙ ×
she takes a deep breath, suddenly at a loss for breathable air after her sudden race to get through the door. she ignores the way their manager rolls his eyes at her before she’s moving closer to sunmi, less wild, but still waving her phone about. juhee takes another breath before beginning her long-winded explanation. “so, i was scrolling through naver -- you know trying to find comments, t trying to see if the netz were saying anything about our comeback today, yadda yadda yadda, and guess who i see on the trending list?” she pauses, but not long enough for sunmi to really get a word in -- “your name!” she says again with even more excitement.
before long, she’s thrusting her phone into the other girl’s face -- forgoing her usual bashfulness in favor of haste as she siddles up to her leader. “look look look -- see!” her index finger immediately points at the number one spot, just in time for the leader’s stage name to be highlighted. “apparently a lot of people have been searching your name up ever since we did the ‘up and down’ cover!” she nods, eagerly. taking her phone back once more to dwindle through the archives until she finds the famous fancam video that had made sunmi’s name go to the highly-coveted number one spot on naver. “look look look!” she says again, once more shoving her phone in sunmi’s face, albeit trying to avoid smearing the screen into the other’s makeup they had painstakingly sat in chairs all morning for.
she pondered briefly if tap would be able to fix a broken heel, like how ron tried to do so in that episode of harry potter. it made her crack a smile on her own, as she shook her head to wave that image of a badly tapped heel half dangling as the younger girl walked. it’s a dangerous feat, not that any stylist would ever let her go on stage like that.
they would be scolded though. their outfits weren’t exactly cheap, plus most of them were rented or sponsored to be returned; kaeun knew how that worked when she was doing some modeling and influencer work in the past. never fun when you break something you’re not meant to break.
trigger warning: diet, food
she digress. “oh, a nutrition bar?” kaeun frowned, lightly patting juhee on the head as her way of expressing concern and affection. she’s never big on replacement meals despite resorting to that from time to time during her modeling gigs. still, it’s not healthy, no matter how much nutrition the package claimed to have. a proper meal is what gives the body the right amount of fuel, or at least that’s what she believes. “is that enough? let’s have a good meal after the performance,” she added, trying to give the other an encouraging smile.
“i managed to get up early enough to make some breakfast. maybe next time i’d pack something for you too,” kaeun hummed. “our schedules are more hectic lately thanks to comeback, which means we should take better care of ourselves during this period, okay?”
⭑ ━━━━━━━━━━━ ∙∙∙ ×
TW / FOOD, DIET, WEIGHT
“yeah, it’ll have to work for now. manager 오빠 was in such a rush to get here this morning that i wasn’t able to make myself anything better.” she sighs. she wasn’t on any big diet or anything ( thankfully the nutritionist back at nova was fine with her weight, currently ) while juhee wasn’t the biggest appetite around, she also wasn’t necessarily one to skip meals whilly-nilly ( even if the contents of said meals could be questionable at times ) -- but to kaeun’s words, do her eyes glow ; sparkling heavily in agreement as she nods happily. “yes please! i’m sure after rehearsals my stomach is going to be making more noise than the backtrack.” another joke -- even though, she wholeheartedly was sure that that would be the case by the end of their performance. it happened last time, she was sure it would happen again.
she feels her heart burst a little at kaeun’s suggestion, eyes suddenly rounding into an even wider form of appreciation. “you would do that?” she says, softly -- her heart flutters slightly. she had never been one who wanted to inconvenience another person -- especially if it was someone she was still getting to know but it made her happy that kaeun was taking a step forward with her -- even if juhee was still trying to dip her toes into the water as she worked from acquaintance to comfortable with the rest of her members. “okay, thanks for caring, kaeun 언니!” her cheeks warm a bit at her words, but she tries to play it down as she widens her smile.
ANDROMAGALAXY [ 🍊 ] a gift 🎁 for our fans! we hope you enjoyed a new flavor of and*roma, now that high heel promotions are over 😢 i miss our fans more often, let’s hope we can see each other before the weather gets cold 🥶 ? yes? 🙋♀️ #AND*ROMA #안드로마 #소라
⭑ ━━━━━━ superNOVA . 〖 안드로마 〗 ┊ 20.09.25
'break up with your girlfriend, i’m bored’ performance /
ever since dance-line had showed them the choreography they had been playing around with, juhee had been aching for the day they would film it for the world to see. ( they just needed the okay from the company and all that legal yadda-yadda ) but the day was finally here! while it isn’t some public performance, behind cameras is all juhee needs to shine. ( if she was a smidge more confident, perhaps she could say it out loud ) it is through no fault of her own that she jumps in her own soles as they get ready to film.
but while this was different, juhee couldn’t help but enjoy that difference ( shockingly ). too much of a creature of habit, who clung to familiarity like it was her very own security blanket. she was shocked, too, when she had come bounding onto set -- eagerly greeting the staff and changing into their designated outfits to begin filming. maybe it was just her running off of the high from their first win -- still a sweet moment in her book despite its significant being sometime at the beginning of the month.
oh, how time flies.
now september was barely here and they’ve finished their ‘ high heels ’ run.
surprisingly, the choreography -- although purely a stark contrast to and﹡roma’s usual discography, it was a welcomed difference. it wasn’t completely unfamiliar to juhee, in fact, the choreography felt more familiar to the things she used to do back in kt than any of their group songs, combined. don’t get her wrong, juhee didn’t mind the cutesy act that nova pushed for them to do, it probably -- in the long run -- fit her better than any of this stuff, but juhee was never really one to break out of molds, or going against the grain. never one to really outright speak her mind for things she didn’t like -- especially if it would start things she had no way of finishing -- but this, this type of barricade in that current wasn’t bad.
it wasn’t bad at all.
as they prepare the set, juhee can see how different it is to what and﹡roma is usually given. the dimmed lighting, the opaque brick barely lit to the human eye, the barely-there set was much, much different to the loud and in-your-face colors that screamed naivety and fresh girl. no, the set right now could only be described as the opposite. they even got a smoke machine this time! a mature feeling that even juhee could feel was beyond the scope of what and﹡roma was currently offering -- not that they couldn’t, nova just deemed that it wasn’t in the stars for them at this very moment. ( unfortunately )
she hears the staff tittering about on the side, waiting for the rest of the girls to file in. juhee takes the time to stretch by the wayside before making her way over ; listening carefully to the directions of their director -- from the special techniques they were using to the positions they would be using with the camera. as it was going to be a one-take recording, they all had hoped to finish it in one go. ( unlikely, but the director seemed upbeat enough to wantonly wish for such ) even the warnings -- these were important -- to be heeded when ducking out of frame during the transitions. they wanted to be safe and finish the filming in one piece.
juhee just hopes she doesn’t accidentally trip on any wires while going around the camera equipment as they film.
much like july, when the choreography had first been shown to them, juhee was surprised when the other members had suggested she take the first position -- while it was mostly because it had the least margin for error ( she was practically standing still for that part ) ; juhee still appreciated the sentiment. especially in a group with so many great dancers, she had feared that she would just be pushed to the back for most of the choreography ; nor was she really one to fight for a better position, usually it was more her style to take what she was given -- no questions asked.
but in that same vein -- when she was given, she took happily -- almost greedily.
the choreography becoming a nonstop reverie of motions until the day they decided to film. it was practically ingrained into her mind until the very moment the camera turned to them and the director yells ‘ action! ’ from the side.
right before she closes her eyes, she sees the camera’s light blink red, announcing the commencement of recording.
remembering sunmi unni’s advice, juhee had made sure to practice her faces in the mirror that very morning. making sure to stop herself from smiling out of nervousness and instead to press her lips together into a small pout if she ever felt the urge. the mood for the choreography wasn’t for uncalled for grins and girlish smiles -- and juhee didn’t want to bring the mood down nor be mistaken for having broken some random part of her body again.
the moment her eyes open, she feels that urge -- but rather than smile, her lips press into each other ; hands running up to grasp onto her members’ hands as she’s pulled down so meiqi can come up from behind her. the work of the camera would focus on meiqi as juhee was made to crouch below. it isn’t long before she shooting up again, hands going to her waist then up.
it’s a quick movement. all straight lines and cutthroat movement that doesn’t leave space for hesitation. because in mere seconds, the camera is moving through the group to follow seulgi as she makes her entrance before regrouping ; leading the girls as they enter another succession of strong movements ; straight lines and fast limbs twisting and turning and that. once more, reprise for hesitation is nowhere in sight. somewhere, juhee thinks she must be running on auto-pilot for her to be going this far without a flinch of reluctance in her bones.
as juhee walks off to the side, the camera continues to follow seulgi as she joins the other girls before switching out centers with kaeun and finally sunmi as the rest of the girls join them for the last stretch of the choreography. for a mere minute and a half -- the choreography wasn’t strenuous, but it wasn’t easy ; inciting floor work that even pulled the breath from juhee’s excited lungs. the turn on the ground has her hair in her face, that she promptly pushes out once the camera zooms into wendy before panning out to capture the entire group as they become a collective.
as the last of the song begins, she once more enters the center frame -- arms elongated before they’re pulled in and pushed out ; an invisible force that allows the camera to go from her to the remaining focus -- from her to sunmi, seulgi, wendy and finally, meiqi.
the video finishes as they all walk off to the side, the camera crew running up the middle to the last person, kaeun, before fading into black.
SORA IC CENTER POSITIONS / 0:05 - 0:11, 0:15 - 0:22, 1:13 - 1:26 .
sungyeol had heard that there were some new people who had joined the company and more specifically and*roma and even per*se but he wasn’t entirely sure who they were since he was often busy with his own things lately and only now had more or less a moment of free time. since he had no idea whether this was a promotional month or anything, he had no idea if he’d be running into any of the idols in the cafeteria. He didn’t have anything against them, it just felt like they were living two separate lives and that the trainees shouldn’t meddle in things that are above them.
initially, he’d thought that he would have spent his lunch hour in the practice rooms, practicing but then remembering that his boyfriend would tell him off for not eating properly, so he had decided to make his way down to the cafeteria, and take a break from all the practice. he still had some pages to finish for his webcomic, so he was sure that would be fine while he ate. he adjusted his tablet as he settled at a table with his snacks, so he could draw and eat comfortably.
he kind of zoned out into his own world, as he drew not even noticing that he was approached by someone.
ever since she had begun at nova, her life had been a fast track train going 100 miles per minute. even the small ‘break’ ( if she could really call it that ) nova had given them before pushing them right into new prep for a comeback hardly allowed her time to properly get to know her new company and the people who were employed by them. outside of her group, juhee knew barely a handful of people ( and juhee wasn’t sure if that counted if most of that handful were people she had already known ( or at least, in some of those persons cases knew of ) prior to her employment here ) ; so it was safe to say, she felt awkward when she had ventured outside of the scope of her familiar bubble.
it was a place juhee didn’t like seeing herself in often.
especially now, having gotten used to picking up something from the nearest convenience store on the way to the company building ; she was nearly lost when she was left to her own devices as for a meal since they hadn’t had time to stop by the mart on the way over this morning. equipped with her tray of food ( far more than she was used to gulping down ) , she looks about the cafeteria. it was a much different atmosphere than it was at kt -- at least at kt she had someone she could sit with ( namely being jaehyun and hyunjin, at times even haseul unni ) but now ... she was at a lost.
finding an empty table without chairs, she looks to the table beside it that held a lone individual. would it be weird if she suddenly sat down next to someone she didn’t know? would it be even weirder if she sat in the next table without asking permission for taking a chair from the other table? what were the rules here at the cafeteria? she didn’t remember seeing any sign on the door when she had come in.
alas, here she was fretting ; fingers tapping against the tray’s edges as she fidgets in place. her mouth clears, trying to let her voice rise about the others’ chatter from the neighboring tables. “um -- can i take this chair?”
Yoona doesn’t always show it but she is a major AND*ROMA fan. She still remembers the day when she met Gyeoul by chance on her first day at Nova. She had gotten lost and somehow ended up in the wrong area. Gyeoul was also kind enough to comfort her when she was down and Yoona would be forever thankful to the idol. It also made her wonder what the rest of the AND*ROMA members were like.
That was something she’d have to wonder about later. She was running a little late for lunch and so she was rushing towards the exit. She only had a short amount of time for lunch and Yoona was hungry. She had almost ran into someone but stopped herself in time. She then noticed someone accidentally dropped something and she rushed to pick it up before tapping them on the shoulder, unsure of who it was.
❝ Excuse me? You dropped this. ❞ Yoona smiled as she held out the item for the owner.
she’s in such a hurry that she doesn’t realize she had jumped out of the van with her backpack unzipped, several unmentionables jostling about in her bag fairly go amiss -- not once taking her attention as she pushes past the large revolving nova star at the front of the building to get into the company headquarters. while they were more lenient on attending practice during promotions, it didn’t mean that juhee couldn’t attend -- not when she still believed she had so much catching up to do with the rest of the other girls. -- which explains her haste as she nearly collides into someone. her head bows, vision blurred as she notices the time on the clock on the far side of the lobby and she blanches.
ahh -- she really shouldn’t have squeezed in that movie this morning if it meant her missing her lesson today.
her eyes barely registers the person she had almost stampeded on her way through the place before she’s bowing at them and back to hurrying only to hear the words that stop her and suddenly gravity appears and she’s wondering. why does my backpack feel lighter? her hands immediately move to jostle the bag -- feeling it to figure out just what was missing until she notices the lucky item in the hands of someone else. “ah! my hydroflask, thank you!” she feels the flush turn warm as it is brought from her ears to her cheeks and down her neck ; embarrassment suddenly a thick note in her tone. “i’m sorry -- were you also the one i almost ran into? i’m so sorry. i’m kind of in a hurry.”
a part of her wonders if this is dumb or cute. she faintly remembers when changmin had done it -- the notion had gone right over her head and down into her stomach ( how she hadn’t noticed that a note was actually in the sandwich until mid-bite was beyond her ; and unfortunately had given her an upset stomach the evening after ) so she hopes, doing this doesn’t give jaehyun the same fate as she discreetly scribbles onto the note and slides it underneath the wrapping of the sandwich she had picked up in the cafeteria under the guise of retrieving her own order.
the discreet operation led her through the hallways, several doors down from and﹡roma’s dressing room and to the one of a well-known sunbae. she knows there are plenty of eyes around, so -- as she excuses a nod towards her own manager who had been eyeing her from down the hall -- she manages a knock on their door, hoping it’s a manager who answers so that the current blush on her cheek isn’t privy to witnesses. but to her surprise, rather than a manager, someone else comes to the door -- dressed in obvious stage garb coupled with a handsome face, juhee felt herself stupefied as she tried to place a name to the face ( she thinks his name was hyun? he remembers seeing his face on those drama posters a few months back ) before reality drops upon her.
“oh!” she bows immediately, “hi -- um, i accidentally took a sandwich i think was meant to haru?” juhee blinks, before passing it over to the male. “if you could just give it to him for me, that’d be really neat. thank you.” she feels herself internally flushing at her words before she’s once more bowing, respectfully, and scurrying off -- her hands patting at her cheeks as she makes it safely through the threshold of and﹡roma’s dressing room.
rather than a text, she hopes the note makes it to him safely.
j,
meet by the swings @ 9pm?
- j.
━━━━━━━━━━━
it’s been a long day by the time night falls ; having been at the broadcast station since early morning, it was a given that juhee was beyond exhausted. having to perform in heels for weeks straight have begun to take their toll on her soles but these aches are the furthest from her mind as she grabs a mask and one of her big hoodies ( the ones that were enough to shroud her frame and make her look even more like an ambiguous blob ) -- she had mentioned it earlier to their manager that she would be making a quick drop-off to a friend , something about a special birthday and that she couldn’t possibly miss it. luckily for her -- despite the reluctant side glances -- he relented and she was off into the night.
a part of her thinks she should have brought her computer with her -- to better show off his birthday gift, but lugging it around with her would have slowed her down and juhee would rather be without the extra weight. especially, as she makes it towards the park out of breath from the bus stop -- hands on her knees as she spots the entryway by the corner and the lush overgrowth of trees and bushes that cloud the sight to beloved swingset she and jaehyun always met at.
The bell for the end of the class rang and that made Dongyoung jump up from his seat and quickly leave the classroom. Earlier that day he got a message from his grandmother, telling him that someone we’ll be waiting for him outside of his school at the end of the day. He was already at the gate, scanning the crowd of leaving students carefully, before his eyes recognising, someone that’s not particularly attending SOPA.
He approached the shorter girl and smiled brightly at her, waving his hand in a greeting matter.
“Juhee.”
His eyes falls upon her hands, before returning back to hears, tilting his head a bit. If that’s what he thought it’ll be, the boy would be very happy. “To what do I owe the pleasure?”
⭑ ━━━━━━━━━━━ ∙∙∙ ×
akin to a fish out of water, juhee is hard to blend in with the tacky mustard-coated students. her own bland school blues distort and pop as she tries her hardest to not collide with the onslaught of students who have been dismissed from their academic constraints. yet, here she was -- from her school ( which was coincidentally just a couple blocks away ) to his ; juhee waits by the gates.
obscured by the plentiful array of neon-colored heads, juhee doesn’t quite see him at first until her name is called and her eyes narrow as she tries to focus in on his face. making sure, despite the distance between them that it truly was dongyoung rather than some weirdo who had just so happened to know her name ( though it wasn’t like her name wasn’t too uncommon ) -- her hand immediately rises at his question, thrusting the container covered with a blue sheet into his arms. “your grandma told my mom that you were out of kimchi already so she wanted you to have this.” she blinks, a small smile tugging onto her lips.
“it’s kimchi.” she says, for emphasis ( as if it wasn’t obvious enough by her earlier description ). her feet dig into the ground as she looks on by at the school from behind his shoulder, “do you have any after school clubs today?”
Starring Lee Jaehyun @rkharu and Kang Juhee @rksora .
What happens when one girl wishes on a shooting star? A boy falls from the sky! Struck with a case of amnesia, Sora must help Haru recover his memories and help him find his way back home. The problem is – didn’t he come from the sky?!
she exhales shoddily through her lips, feeling the anxiety build again. if it had a physical manifestation, juhee was sure it would be as tall as the tallest mountain in the world – was that still mount everest? she feels her mind drift, a momentary bliss in escapism as she sits here – unsure of how to take the atmosphere. it was getting thick, too thick for juhee’s liking. only a few weeks prior they had been like this, and here there are, again thrown into the odds of fate’s whimsical whims.
how had it turned out this way?
juhee is surprised, yes. rightfully so – that she was beginning to pull out all the stops to avoid giving a concrete answer to her never-ending confusion. as soon as the words had left her lips she regrets them. she had been there for him through it all – had seen, first-hand, how jaehyun had shifted from his love of heejin to acceptance of their inevitable breakup. but that doesn’t stop the doubts from festering within her.
it was because she knew jaehyun that she was acting like this.
while she was sure he had been absolutely smitten with heejin, what would be the difference between the girls prior and juhee? sure, she was his best friend – but did that make her any different than them? in the deepest part of her, juhee couldn’t help but compare. because at the end of the day, juhee couldn’t compare to those girls. not when she was so unlike them.
her eyes squeeze shut ; fingers tightening around the metal of the swings. she hears his apologies – they’re so out of place. was this really how confessions were supposed to be like? juhee wouldn’t know, she was never really one to be on the receiving end of them. if anything, could she think of this as her first real confession from someone?
( maybe she could if juhee believed it to be as real as it wanted to seem )
she exhales again before planting her feet on the ground and standing up, suddenly feeling the stammer in her voice. “i think i should go.” she says, quickly – quietly. her fingers unravel from the metal of the swings as she steps away ; eyes quick to avoid his gaze. “it’s getting late.”
juhee couldn’t take it – her throat tightening up at her words.
jaehyun couldn’t even blame juhee for thinking over things like this, how could he? his past relationships weren’t exactly anything to brag about. his track record with girls wasn’t great and in the past juhee had gotten a front-row seat to how he had treated girls as disposable. the only girl that hadn’t been, was heejin– though that relationship was over it had changed him. not altered his core but he was different after that, juhee knew this maybe that was why it hurt a little when she had brought it up.
either she didn’t want to see his change, or she ignored it.
( he couldn’t blame her )
the silence between them was killing him, though he knew that he had just complicated things between them so much. just like january all over again, it was his fault again but he wasn’t one that could keep these things to himself ( although sensing her reaction he figured he should have, for her sake ). it’s difficult for him to lift his head to look towards her while waiting for her answer, or for her to say anything at all but it felt like forever.
when jaehyun hears the sound of gravel he lifts his head and looks over at juhee’s direction, noticing immediately how she was avoiding his eyes.
selfishly he had asked her to come out, selfishly he had told her his feelings– “you are right,” he replies to her, his voice breathy, “you should head back.”
he looks at her, brows furrowed as he exhales, hesitantly he opens his mouth again to speak, “get back safely,” he wants to ask her to text him when she’s back but he doesn’t say it ( he didn’t really have the right to that information ). it was clear to him that juhee was burdened by his confession. jaehyun wasn’t sure what he had expected to happen, he didn’t think she would come running into his arms because he knew how much it took for him to tell her in the first place. it was so much to wrap a head around, he didn’t regret it but he had wished that juhee at least rejected him in one way. maybe they would go back to normal, “goodnight juhee ah.”
maybe he was a little bold, believing and hoping that they would leave together that day and not like the last time. where he had been left outside in the cold– even if he had successfully acted as normal as he could around her since then, he remembered the cold night and how empty he had felt when he had gotten back to the dorm. though he had successfully avoided interacting with the rest of the members and just gone to bed, it had been a struggle and he was thankful that he could just throw his body into practicing for his debut and their comeback. sitting here again now brought that feeling back– though this time felt different and jaehyun couldn’t put his finger on what it was as he looks over at juhee, smiling to herself and allowing himself to enjoy the pleasant air that had sprung up between them.
“no, hyung didn’t really ask too many questions– he just wanted me to be careful,” he nods and looks straight ahead again while slowly digging his shoes into the sand, “did your manager give you a hard time?”
again a heavy but not unpleasant silence is in the air but then suddenly his body freezes at her next question, he wasn’t sure what to reply to her– because he did remember what had happened in this very four months prior. thankfully, for him juhee starts talking again but his heart drops a little when he listens to her. a natural response he thought when your friend confesses to you and you don’t have feelings for them.
jaehyun hears movement and the sound of metal next to him. he’s admittedly a little startled when he realizes that juhee is looking straight at him, his eyes widening a little because it’s so different from the last time they were here.
his brows lift up curiously as he listens to her in silence, she had finally realized– his thoughts start running ahead of him. juhee was here to tell him it wouldn’t work ( he had been waiting for this honestly ). while he is sitting there in his own thoughts that are slowly spiraling out of control what grabs him back into reality is her words.
⭑ ━━━━━━━━━━━ ∙∙∙ ×
she inhales, once -- exhales longer. she repeats this three more times. her gaze shakes before it drops to the floor. she tries to calm the frenzied rhythm her heartbeat takes on as it tries to compensate for the adrenaline coursing through her veins. her brain continues to run -- as if the panicked state she had forgotten had suddenly been reminded of and came to the forefront of her mind now that the importance of her confession was out of the way. now, would be where the regret sets in -- but juhee realizes it, a beat later, that it doesn’t.
her lips are sealed. her rambling was unprecedented ; something juhee hadn’t meant to do until it had finally evolved within her and had suddenly unleashed on jaehyun, she thinks she deserves the muteness that suddenly takes over her. juhee had always been known to have her mind always working -- running a mile a minute, but her mouth was a different story. very rarely did she ever say that much that was on her mind ( at least not if it wasn’t accompanied with a sarcastic comment ) -- yet, here they were. no sarcastic remark in sight.
he asks those words juhee had dreaded ever since she had come to the realization of her feelings. she sucks in a breath -- blinks -- and exhales. but somehow, this time -- as she mulls over the decision, juhee thinks it feels a lot easier than she had expected it to be ; to agree, without repress, as she nods and her gaze softens. the small smile is obscured by the mask on her face -- but she feels the tips tug, brought upwards as she answers, the verbal agreement a much needed solidification of their words. a part of her is scared -- but the other, wants to follow through with wherever this would take them.
everything would change. and for a girl like juhee, who hated change -- somehow couldn’t help but want to go all in.
