#* | threads.

[taeyongfmd]

@fmdmin | starter call

butter is an empty, pointless song. it weighs heavy to go from music that, even if at times hadn’t connected with him, had some kind of meaning, to singing about being as smooth as butter. he realizes any days he’d had where he’d come anything close to a smooth-talking charmer are behind him, but even with that considered, butter is more sickly yellow-green, artificially colored sugary drink commercial than reflection of anyone’s lived human experience. if he has to hear the empty drum beat that cues him in one more time, he might lose it.

lucky for everyone involved, they’re called to break from dance practice as their too-late lunch arrives. ash moves with a speed yet unseen the duration of practice to get in line for food, but it just ends with him being asked to pass along lunch boxes to his other members. he has an inkling it has more to do with him being the youngest than the first in line, but he’s learned not to fight the tasks that get handed down to him for daring to be born last.

he turns to offer two identical lunch boxes to minhee, pretending as if he’s presenting him with a choice. “chicken, or... chicken?”

it might be the most talk ash has initiated with minhee in months, if he’s honest. some time around the turn of the year, as award shows grew increasingly tiresome and the possibility of faking some extreme freak accident to get out of performing dynamite another time grew more and more appealing, it had occurred to ash that minhee just seemed a little... happier. he’d promptly made the decision to keep his distance and not ask. it was for minhee’s sake, he swore. there are certain energies ash vibes with and certain others he doesn’t. not in some metaphysical or pseudoscientific way. he won’t cast away company because they’re an aries or because of their aura, but he gets irritated when there’s a little too much pep in someone’s step. he doesn’t want to be a party-pooper or some kind of black hole of joy just because he’s miserable nine times out of ten, so avoidance becomes his coping mechanism. 

“you’d think they’d at least give you something better to make up for you having to listen to this song enough times to choreograph to it.” it’s half under his breath in hopes that none of the staff hear.

[miraefmd]

“so, tell me what you’ve been up to lately.”

mirae pulls her legs up onto the plush chair in the back of the cafe, swirling her straw around her cup of iced americano. this morning she has a rare gap in her filming schedule, leaving her with nothing to do until her call time that afternoon. she might have used the chance to see if her instructor could fit in an extra yoga class on short notice or read through scripts to get ahead on looking for a next project, but instead she’s decided to treat herself to a sit-down cup of coffee and whatever company she could find for herself.

“don’t get me wrong. i love being on set, but i feel like i only talk to my castmates lately and i have no idea what’s going on with everyone else i know.”

[fmdtaeyong]

@minjungfmd — no blueberries lyric & melody verification — probably around august(?)

it’s nighttime again. if he had the energy for it, he might read some sentimentality into that, but as it is, he cynically sees it as a given. he doesn’t have anything to do these days, as a consequence of bc finally giving in to his incessant requests for time off when it’d finally started to look like it would affect their bottom line, but other people are busy. they have lives. equinox is making a comeback soon, or they already have. he hasn’t been doing a good job of keeping up. or rather, he’s purposefully avoided news about the idol world. if he’s disconnecting, he has every intention of doing that fully.

he clicks around through the files on his computer, searching for what he’d named that track he’d been working on before. with a relaxation of the tension in his shoulder he hadn’t realized he was holding until it was gone, he pulls it up the track in his program and finally shifts his focus from his computer screen to minjung. “i have this track, but i’ve been having trouble putting words and a melody to it. care to give it a shot with me? it’s supposed to be for my next album, if that ever happens. i want to capture the feeling of the, i don’t know, the horror of... struggling to connect. people who don’t know you and you don’t know them, or even people you do know, but there’s that wall there and it kind of pisses you off but makes you wanna... run away from it basically at the same time. like distance... consuming you kind of. the little things about human connection that fuck you up in the head because it’s all just... fucked and eats you alive when you think about it, you get me?”

[taeyongfmd]

for @fmdrioh | early morning of september 1

four shots of “celebratory” hotel minibar tequila after the end of a long tour down and there’s music playing from somewhere across the room, a playlist of sad indie songs that all bleed into one. the dark sky outside the window of his fifty-first floor tokyo hotel room is flooded with the city lights, but he’s on his way into lapsing into a place where time doesn’t exist.

a few more and the music has become nothing but background noise in ash’s brain as he doomscrolls through his instagram explore page and falls down an ominous path to some half-legitimate news account and then, naturally, a post with a face from his past.

he’s lost count of the number of shots he’s had by the time booze-drowsy neurons fixating on fuck-ups of years gone by lead him to his head slung over the edge of his hotel bed, eyes staring at his phone screen through dizzy vision. he doesn’t even bother to check the time before he lets his finger land on one of the countless names in his phone.

(honestly, he’s not sure the numbers would stay still long enough for him to read them anyway. hell — he’s only about 35% sure he’s calling rioh at all.)

his breath stills in his mouth as the ring from his phone echoes into the air from his phone, put on speaker because he’s not so sure in his own ability to hold the phone to his ear when his neck is already starting to ache from his position.

you need to apologize, he repeats in his head to the rhythm of the ringing. maybe see how he’s doing lately. it’s the least you can do.

he waits, wondering if he’ll even get the chance.

[miraefmd]

@fmdmin // 2 + yellow           →   july 9, 2022  

“any hints as to what you guys are performing?” mirae asks when she crosses paths with minhee in the broadcast station cafeteria. it’s a long, long day of filming and selene and polaris are both near the end of the list thanks to their seniority. she can’t say she fully understands why they have to go last. it might be an honor at end of the year shows, but for something like this, she would have told them to let selene go out first if she’d been asked for her opinion on the order. they’d have to sit around on camera all day regardless since reactions by other groups is almost as critical as the performances themselves, but selene’s make-up team might not be hovering around her like mosquitos, advising her that maybe she should wait to eat until after selene performs so her make-up isn’t put at risk. she had politely informed them that if she were to do that, she would be starving and it would have a negative affect on the outcome of their performance.

having won her battle and now impatiently standing in line to get her food, she has nothing else to do to pass the time other than strike up a conversation. “wait, no, let me guess...” she considers the polaris songs that she knows off of the top of her head, but an answer isn’t immediately apparent to her what might ‘represent’ them. “idol? one of the more impressive stages i’ve seen by you guys was to that song. there’s a lot of room to do something big with that. i haven’t seen anyone traipsing around in yellow and red patterned suits, though, so tell me, am i right on the nose or way off?”

[miraefmd]

@gyujeongfmd​ | starter call april 23, inkigayo

mirae picks up her step to place her next to gyujeong when she sees him in the hallway of the broadcast station. quite contrary to her aversion to him in recent times, she’s decided to start construction on a bridge across troubled waters today. a birthday seems as good an excuse as any. if he brings up the family shit, she’ll still be more than happy blow it all up and not look back, but she can’t deny it’s become a bit tiring to force bile up her throat each time she sees him.

hwang mirae doesn’t forget the hatchets she’s forged, but she can bury the ones that have gone dull. 

“a little birdy told me yesterday was someone’s birthday.”

the little birdy in question had been her phone calendar, filled to the brim with the birthdays of labelmates and important industry people.

“no present, sorry,” she presents her empty hands, palm-up and she looks over at him to make sure he can see her face isn’t mocking. “classic ‘what do you get for the man who has everything plus a current hit song and his own clothing line’ dilemma, but feel free to drop some hints and something might show up at your door still.”

[taeyongfmd]

@minjungfmd | starter call

the second weekend of coachella settles in with more familiarity than the first. the palm springs rental bungalow he’s been holed up in for the week, ordering take-out and holing himself up in the makeshift studio he’d crafted, is almost comfortable now despite the entirely unused pool. but it always comes down to one thing in the end: a battle between his cocoon of introversion and the restless pull toward less quiet and, ultimately, of course, less sobriety.

it’s nights like these he’s grateful​ he knows a few people who always seem to be around events like this. most of them are attention-addicted social climbers who think ash’s group having a number one song and a grammy nomination for the shittiest song they’ve ever put out to their name will get them in the tabloids if they’re caught partying with him, sure, but god knows he’s had worse company. besides, dimensions has anything truly compromising on lockdown pretty well these days. and if something did leak through? well, maybe it could erase his association with dynamite from the public conscience.

so he ends up at some private coachella artist party with someone he’s met a few times in passing at private booths in la clubs and lets her introduce him to people whose names he forgets as quickly as he’s told them until he’s shaken off the weight of sobriety just enough to make and excuse and step out on his own.

“we’ve got to stop meeting like this.” accompanied by a self-humored half-grin, it’s what he dubs an acceptable greeting when he spots minjung amongst the crowd and joins her. the bar might be low, but he figures there’s a good chance she’ll be better company than the person he came with. luckily for the both of them, this time he’s neither shitfaced nor stone cold sober, but something more pleasantly in between. “then again, it’s probably my fault we only ever seem to run into each other when at least one of us has a drink in hand.” he’s hardly the most social without the incentive of mind-altering substances, after all. “i was thinking dropping by to watch your set might be the only time i’d see you this weekend.”