#a r

[leakypipes]

Art request for: @foodielovethealicorn

[ask-thespookymom]

MOD HOLY FUCK

🥀

[rkmeiqi]

[ NOTIFICATION ] VLIVE JUNE 5TH, 2020 @ 11:03PM

Surprise LIVE! AND*ROMA : 춤추자! lets dance! 💎💃

the live starts with a view of one of nova’s practice rooms. meiqi shows up on screen shortly afterwards, waving for the fans and smiling brightly despite the bags under her eyes that show her obvious exhaustion. “hello, everyone!”

she keeps waving as she waits for more people to arrive. the numbers slowly go up and more comments start to fill up the chat, before she finally starts talking. “it’s me, meiqi! this is the first time i’m talking to you guys through vapp, right?” 

“where are the other members? i think they should be back at the dorms by now.” meiqi glances at the door that everyone disappeared through a while earlier. “i decided to stay back to talk to you guys and impress you with some dancing! i’ll wait a little longer though, so more of you can join.”

she answers random questions for a few minutes, things like what’s your favourite starbucks drink? (cotton candy frappuccino) and dogs or cats? (both). then, there’s a fan requesting drama recommendations, and meiqi can’t help but promote one of her best friends.

“have you guys watched revenge note 1? isn’t the actress for ho goohee so cool?” meiqi, herself, has been keeping up with the episodes as they come out, watching them before she falls asleep. “everyone, please support eclipse’s anna and watch the webdrama! i promise it’s good!”

meiqi leans in closer, squinting to read the comments. “are you and anna close? yes! me and yerim-ie went to school together and we still talk a lot.” as she speaks, meiqi unlocks her phone and scrolls through her photo album. finding a cute selfie of them, she turns the phone around to show it to the viewers. “this is from the time i went to visit her at a photoshoot for a chicken cf. security almost kicked me out because they thought i was a crazy fan!” 

she shows a few other pictures of her and yeri, some from high school and others from the rare times they were able to meet up. she also shows pictures of the food truck she had sent yeri on set of her webdrama, and the selfies with gourmet ice cream that she had received in turn.

after rambling about how much she loves her friend (and probably boring most of the viewers), meiqi remembers what she had initially promised she would do and quickly stands. “right! i said i was gonna dance for you guys. why didn’t you remind me?! you guys just let me go on and on about yeri!”

her laughter rings out as she disappears off camera to plug her phone into the speakers. meiqi presses play and then runs backwards as the first few notes begin to filter through the practice room’s speakers. she takes a few steps back to make sure her entire body is in the frame, and then she’s doing the infamous point dance of up and down.

she’s seen some idols get shy after attempting the dance, but meiqi doesn’t falter once. she’s in her element with this song, this concept. she knows the dance considerably well for someone who hasn’t formally practiced it. that’s not to say meiqi wasn’t blasting it around the dorms for a good week, singing into her toothbrush and dancing in her bed. 

she performs it up until the end of the first chorus, before approaching the camera once again with a proud grin. “what do you think?” she asks the viewers as she settles onto the floor again, tilting her head inquisitively. meiqi reads the comments as they come: as expected of meiqi! and jfkdjsjkdg QUEEN. she laughs loudly, basking in the compliments that come in every language. “ah, wait, what did you say? dance meiqi-ne? i like that!”

“are you an olympia? yes, i love luxe! i’ve been following them since they debuted!” meiqi clasps her hands in front of her chest dreamily as she thinks about her favourite group, and now her seniors in the industry. “they have really good music and i think they’re all so pretty! one time, i met ella—i think it was last year during the halloween party. we both dressed up as royalty and she approached me first! it was kind of embarrassing though because i was still technically a trainee and i kept stuttering… but she didn’t make fun of it even once. still, i hope she doesn’t remember that.” 

meiqi presses a hand to her forehead, embarrassed that she’s shared one of her weak moments. she’s still smiling, though, giggling even, because she holds the memory dear. 

she remembers that she’s doing a vlive and removes her hand so that the fans can get a proper look at her rosy cheeks, and so that she can keep reading the comments.

“what other groups do you like?” meiqi strokes her chin, pretending to think. “and*roma?” she chuckles at her own (poor) joke. truthfully, she doesn’t know if there are other groups that she’s really a fan of; she might like their music or know the members, but no one can compete with luxe. might as well promote herself—though it’s stupid, considering 99.9% of the people watching this live must be fans of the group already.

“show us more dance covers!!! wow, so you guys don’t wanna talk to me, huh?” she purses her lips to hide the teasing smile, but it doesn’t quite work when she reads the onslaught of incoming messages that protest and promise that they enjoy talking to her. 

to appease the fans, she pushes herself off the floor and dusts off her shorts. meiqi reaches for her phone and presses shuffle on the playlist she had prepared beforehand. it’s filled with the latest songs that she’s learned and a few older tracks that she likes.

she starts with she’z. to anyone who knows her personally, it might come as a surprise because meiqi has never been a fan of the group. their concept was always too cute for her liking, but their recent releases were right up her alley. unfortunately, she only knows the chorus for dumhdurum, so she fast-forwards the song until then, and starts dancing.

dolls by k.arma is next, another group that meiqi likes. the sophisticated sexiness of the song caught her attention almost immediately upon release. to a lesser extent than luxe’s songs, meiqi has replayed it many times, and after only a handful of times watching the dance, she had picked up on most of it. so, she performs from the beginning until the end of the chorus just as she had done with up and down.

she lets the rest of the song play at a lower volume as she returns to read comments. compliments, compliments, compliments. god, she really loves this. “so cool~ do you know any convex songs? yeah! one sec!”

meiqi searches through her music library and clicks on boom boom. she doesn’t know the choreography as well as the other songs she’s performed, but she thinks she can make it work anyways. besides, she knows the point dance exceptionally well, so she exaggerates that part with a laugh.

she’s having fun. after practicing high heels all of last month, a part of meiqi dreaded being in the practice room. she just associates it with a bad time now, but being able to dance freely to songs she actually likes is oddly liberating. and maybe she just enjoys being praised by faceless strangers who love her.

“oh! there’s also this new group,” meiqi starts once she’s completed the chorus. she taps on gorilla, and raises her voice to be heard over the music. “do you guys know de:code? i went to meet them backstage during promotions because i’ve known seonho since…” meiqi counts on her fingers, but it’s useless. “i actually don’t know. but it’s been a long time! he’s like a little brother to me, so i was shocked when he debuted with such a cool concept!”

cupping her hands around her mouth, meiqi shouts out, “a.c., i’m your biggest fan!” before launching into the chorus’s choreography. 

she’s been dancing so energetically for the past half an hour or so, that she’s finally broken a sweat. her breathing is irregular and heavy now, so she rushes to turn off the music. meiqi plops down in front of the camera, making an x with her arms. “no more dancing, guys! i’m so tired!”

catching her breath, she reads through more comments. “what about per_se? i’ll learn their dances properly and show you guys next time, okay? sorry everyone, and sorry to my seniors.” she presses her hands together and bows her head in an apology.

it’s getting late now, and meiqi really needs to return to the dorms. as much as she doesn’t want to leave, wants to continue talking to fans and dancing to her heart's content, she wasn’t lying about being tired.

“i think it’s time to go, everyone. no, don’t leave? what? you guys have to sleep too, you know! not just me!” she runs a hand through her hair, all oily from the sweat of a long day spent practicing. ugh, is it obvious to the fans that she really needs a shower? she sure hopes not.

“i promise we’ll see each other again soon,” she says earnestly. even if she doesn’t plan on going live again for a while (they’re far too busy right now), and*roma is preparing for a comeback. the fans may not know it, but she can assure them that it won’t be long until they’ll see her again. 

“goodnight, everyone!” just like she’d started the live, meiqi ends it with a wave and a smile. the manager confirms that it’s over before meiqi falls back onto the floor, letting the day’s exhaustion take over her body. “that was fun,” she says aloud, not listening to whatever the manager responds with. probably something about getting ready to go back to the dorms, or maybe scolding her for talking so much (has it really been over an hour since she went live?).

she hadn’t noticed so much time had passed, a stark difference to recent practices where all meiqi did was count down the hours, minutes, and seconds until they could leave.

it’s true, what they say. fans really do give you motivation.

[yournaughtyangel]

This is how we do Valentines Day 💋💋💋

[rkmeiqi]

—may 3rd, 2020. sbs inkigayo waiting room.

on the days where the group are to appear on music shows, meiqi finds that there’s a surplus amount of free time where they’re expected to do nothing but sit around and wait for their turns on the stage. it’s quite boring most of the time, so she goes around bothering her members or the staff. occasionally, she would leave the waiting room to explore the building, only to get lost and having to call one of the members or their manager to bring her back, and now she’s banned from doing that too (it only happened four times, sheesh! get over it!). 

at least, today is their last day having to suffer in waiting rooms. the promotion cycle is ending already (it feels like it’s gone by so fast!) and since there’s not much left for her to do in their final wait, she opens up youtube to find a video that can entertain her.

curious, she types the group’s name into the search bar and waits for the results to load. there are their official videos like music videos and dance practices, a few special stages from festivals, and surprisingly, there's a variety of fan-made contents.

meiqi skips over a compilation of wendy’s singing (she saves it for later though), and a video that claims to introduce the newest maknae of and*roma, landing on a peculiar title, only uploaded a few hours ago: learn the alphabet with and*roma: sunmi's birthday vlive edition!

the video starts.

a is for — “aaaAAAAHHHHH” (the members scrambling around, everyone is screaming, rip headphone users) b is for — birthday girl (a picture of sunmi holding a cake, taken from juhee’s instagram post, there are hearts drawn around her and a caption that says “happy birthday gf <3”) c is for — candles (zoomed into the couch aflame in the corner, courtesy of the candles on the fallen cake right beside it) d is for — “don’t eat cake off the floor!!” (sunmi yelling at meiqi) e is for — “expensive cake" (a screencap of the cake before it was dropped, sparkle emojis and money bag emojis are edited around it) f is for — “floork” (seulgi saying the word she’s just created while crouched over the fallen cake) g is for — G7 (wendy’s scream as the cake falls, the caption says “she just naturally hits a g7 note??? the g in kpop stands for gyeoul,” rip headphone users part 2) h is for — "happy—" (everyone starting to sing happy birthday, but it’s cut off after the first word as the cake starts to slip) i is for — “i’m going to make tiramisu!” (sunmi starting the baking process at the beginning of the vlive) j is for — juhee falling (juhee tripping over air and dropping the cake, the caption says “PROTECT THE MAKNAE”) k is for — kaeun is a firefighter (kaeun throwing a cup of water to put out the fire) l is for — like the office (sunmi looking into the camera like in the office) m is for — meiqi soap opera queen (meiqi falling to the floor dramatically with a loud wail as the cake also falls) n is for — “new york” (sunmi saying she’s from new york, the caption says “mrs. worldwide” with the earth emoji and pitbull superimposed beside her) o is for — “of course i know how to speak english” (sunmi talking to the camera in english) p is for — per_se (sunmi talking about how and*roma and per_se were together for her birthday last year, the caption says “we love brother-sister groups supporting each other”) q is for — queens (a clip of the cushion mv, the caption says “stream cushion btw”) r is for — really fucking loud (a montage of the loudest moments from the vlive plays, rip headphone users part 3) s is for — sunmeow (meiqi telling sunmi to say meow and calling her “sunmeow”) t is for — talented sisters (sunmi saying luxe’s ashe is her sister, images of the two keep piling on top of each other until sunmi is completely covered, the caption says “stan luxe”) u is for — unbelievable (a montage of the girls trying to salvage the cake, the caption says “does nova not feed their artists??? SAVE AND*ROMA!!!!”) v is for — video silently (sunmi saying they’ll do the vlive quietly to not disturb the other members’ sleep, followed by the clip of them yelling, the caption says “so quiet!” rip headphone users part 4) w is for — “we are clean women!” (meiqi trying to argue with seulgi and sunmi about eating the cake from the floor) x is for — xcited (the group cheering when the clock hits 12am) y is for — younggi really wants to eat cake off the floor (seulgi’s initial recommendation to eat the part of the cake that didn’t touch the floor, followed by her final words of the vlive again talking about eating the floork) z is for — zfamily (everyone happily making the tiramisu together, the caption says “they really do love each other so much T____T they’re so cute”)

meiqi is laughing herself to tears by the end of the video. when they had planned to surprise sunmi on her birthday, she had no idea that the night would have gone the way it did. the memory itself is enough to reduce her to a hiccuping laughter, but the way the fan had edited the clips together and added commentary, it’s just... it’s pure gold.

“guys!” she manages to yell out between cackles. meiqi wipes a tear from her right eye as she flings herself off the couch, rushing towards the closest member to her. she rewinds the video to the beginning before shoving her phone screen in front of their faces. “you have to watch this!”

[rkmeiqi]

cry baby.

@rkkaeun

it takes half a listen of and*roma's new title track for meiqi to decide she absolutely hates it. she doesn't even try to hide this fact—her face screws up in disgust when the song is first played for the group, her voice is flat when she tries out her lines for the first time (there are quite a few, and for once, she finds herself wishing she had less). the biggest giveaway, if anyone were too oblivious to notice the previous signs, is when the dance teacher shows them the choreography a week later, and meiqi simply storms out of practice.

she had been holding onto a thread of hope until then. maybe the dance would contradict the overall vibe of the song, maybe it would be more difficult than she presumed, maybe it’s not as cute as it seems, maybe it would—no. her hope comes crashing down on her, and she can no longer ignore this aching feeling in her chest.

meiqi holds it in until she's in the dorms, and then, she's screaming. like a glass that's overflowed, hot and angry tears trek down her cheeks as she stomps towards her room. like a rubber band has been stretched too far back that it's snapped, she's winding her arm and throwing her pillow, her blankets, the closest clothes she can find, all across the room. like a building that's had all its support beams snapped in half, meiqi crumbles to the floor in a heap, surrounded by the remnants of her own destruction.

over the roar of adrenaline and frustration in her ears, she barely hears her group mate approaching. but somehow she does hear it, the light footsteps, and she glances up from her spot. "kaeun..." and then, her voice turns angry again, knowing why the other girl must be here. she reaches for another article of clothing—her favourite shoes—and chucks them at the closest wall. "it's not fair! it's not fair! i don't want to do this!"

[rkmeiqi]

protégé.

@rkwendy​

meiqi’s grateful for the opportunities coming her way. admittedly, she’s not on the others’ level yet; she doesn’t have endorsements or osts or variety show appearances (the latter is her next goal). but these performances, the special stages that they get to do as a group or with other groups, make up for it all. however, that doesn’t mean meiqi isn’t nervous when she’s told of her upcoming collaboration. it’s different from her previous stages. she’s always been accompanied by at least one other group member, and there has always been quite a few other idols on the stage with her. this time, it’s just meiqi and per_se’s nori. a duet, where the choreography isn’t exactly tiring or complicated, and meiqi’s expected to sing all of her parts without falling out of tune, without someone to cover for her mistakes, without—

she finds herself hunting down one of her group members almost immediately. everyone is busy, whether it’s getting ready for the comeback or practicing for the other special stage, but meiqi knows that wendy, their ever-dependable main vocal, would always be willing to lend a helping hand.

lyric sheet clenched in one fist, meiqi raises the other to knock on the door of the practice room she saw wendy disappear into. she opens it right after, lifting the paper up to her chin and putting on the most pitiful expression she could muster. “wendy… i need your help. again.” meiqi leaves the door open behind her as she steps forward, thrusting the paper outwards as if she’s a bashful high school student trying to gift her crush a bag of homemade chocolates. “you know that stage i have with hosung… i just realized it’s not a dancing stage…”