christmas time is a treasure trove of memories for her: reminders of when she’d first joined kt and the cast of dream high to deliver shoeboxes to charity, and then the previous year when they’d all decorated the large company tree together as a show of seasonal solidarity. would this year be any less magical...? no, not with ktrookies under her belt and the realization that this christmas might be the most special one of all. that’s why, when she hands over a present to a waiting child, the smile on hyeri’s face is the brightest and most sincere she’s ever felt. it feels so good to give when she’s been given so much.
later, with now-empty hands, hyeri approaches the lunch table and pilfers one of the neatly-decorated cupcakes from a plate. she peels off the green and red decorated wrapper and sidles over to kris who’s nearby. “have you ever had a mint-flavored cupcake?” she asks curiously, and examines the pale green-colored cake beneath the red frosting. “i wonder if the kids made it.”
could this be it-- one of her final holiday performances as just a trainee? hyeri wishes she was so optimistic to believe it undoubtedly, and yet, already this year wasn’t like the rest. already, their rookie videos were online and, already, the plans behind the scenes were moving forward. taking time out to record and film for special music videos-- didn’t that mean something was going to happen?
( she could only hope so. )
there are so many questions she desires to ask but so few answers given to those brave enough to ask them. as hyeri attires herself in the first ‘party’ costume and looks around the dressing room at the other company girls, she wonders if they will be the ones she’ll absolutely debut with. what if there are last minute changes to the lineup-- like yulhee, who had gone when hyeri believed she’d always be their maknae-- or the addition of someone new, like the pretty jennie she’d only come recently to meet? admittedly, it makes hyeri anxious to be faced with so many unguessable questions. what if it was her who eventually didn’t make the cut?
all the more reason to do her best, she supposes. hyeri hypes herself up for the first performance with a double pinch to her cheeks and a quiet ‘hwaiting!!’ to her reflection. above all the intrusive doubts and insecurities is her assurance that being an idol and being on stage is what she loves most in the world. these holiday shows couldn’t be waved away as being unnecessary or not important; to her, every opportunity to be up there meant a chance that someone would see her and like her. she had to do her best to shine. hyeri owed it not only to herself but to those who believed in her -- her dad, joohee, her friends.
she wouldn’t waste these three years for nothing.
as a trainee of kt, it turns out that aegyo performances are really nothing to her. it’s easy enough with their constant practicing in the company to produce fanservice practically on cue. the fans eat it up, pay money for it, and hyeri doesn’t mind giving these people what they want if they ask for it. even if her singing is substandard in a number, people seem to enjoy it regardless when she blows kisses at them -- both boys and girls alike -- and makes cute faces in their direction. rather than concentrating on perfecting her lines, hyeri experiments with these reactions whenever it’s their turn to re-enter the stage. for ‘i love you,’ she turns up her personal charm a dozen-fold, winking and dazzling the freezing audience with warm smiles and sweet expressions to make them believe in happiness if she were to embrace them in her slender arms.
proud? excited? hyeri was grasping at thin air, simply unable to find the right words these days to express this bubbly, effervescent feeling of happiness that filled her at the sight of yeri. “baby! or should i try calling you ‘anna’ now?” the dancer still wasn’t over it; this realization that the time had come for them to be revealed to the public now, to be on their way as idols debuting under the kt name. she and ye--anna were even released on the same weekend -- a fated match-up if she’d ever experienced one. hyeri practically skips over to yeri’s side, her slim arm looping through the other’s as she presses a playful smooch to the side of yeri’s cheek. the rehearsal studio is filling up with the fellow girls now, in preparation of their dance practice yet to occur, and hyeri takes full advantage of this quiet time to monopolize all of yeri’s attention to herself. “how did your filming go? were they hard on you?” concern lilts hyeri’s voice as well as a bristling defense (anyone who made yeri upset was doomed to punishment by her!) and the older hums quietly. “y’know, this’ll be our first stage after our video, too. i’m kinda nervous.”
if the advice had actually been uttered in the lecture hall, it would have been funnier. straight and to the point-- reporters would take this approach with their questions sometimes, hyeri knew, and the instructor told them all to be prepared for it. the art of extracting gossip had as many complex ebb and flows as any well-written song: like an in-your-face chorus, designed to shock out the truth from startled lips, and then, at times, an elegant bridge and refrain to lull an unsuspecting idol into a false sense of security. when feeling safe, sometimes the best secrets were teased out with just a reporter’s coaxing smile.
essentially: avoid the traps.
hyeri straightens her back in the seat and gives the camera a cursory glance. she’s aware she looks pretty, thanks to the stylists’ expert touches, but the state of her nerves is hardly in a similar state of control. she’ll be fine though. unlike in a performance that drags out her inferior singing skills, this is an act of merely talking to someone else; hyeri knows she can handle it without a real problem. ( besides dancing, this might be her only skill worth being prideful about. ) she plays with the buttons of her collared shirt and nods when her coach asks her if she’s ready. the camera’s red recording light flicks on in reply.
“what’s your position in the group?”
“personal confidant, sometimes dishwasher,” hyeri jokes. her red lips part into a bright smile. “but on stage, i’m the main dancer. when you see someone pop up for a few seconds during dance breaks-- that’s me!”
“aside from your position, what special talents do you think you have?”
she pauses, inwardly sorting through some possible answers here: modeling? boring. can’t sing or rap, either. whistle on cue, maybe? “one time i lifted a producer off the ground,” hyeri recalls enthusiastically. she eyes each one of the coaches in turn. “if one of you wants to try--” the reply is an immediate ‘no’ and hyeri pouts, drawing her lips together and widening her eyes in an expression of pleading. ‘no,’ is heard again and she relents, visibly disappointed.
“rank your group members according to visual ranking.”
“this is super subjective, right?” she raises a single finger to her mouth and presses a quick, teasing kiss to it. “then i’ll be first. after that… well, we’re all really pretty, aren’t we?” hyeri’s features twist thoughtfully, a gradual realization dawning on her as she pictures each trainee’s face in her mind. “we really are. we’re going to have so many fans, wow!” the coach clears his throat, reminding the dancer of the original question and hyeri exhales with a knowing smile. “there’s sunyoung, tiffany, and taeyeon as the next after me, for sure. sooyoung is extremely attractive, i mean those legs, please, even those make me weak. and yeri’s still got her baby charm-- she’s my baby, by the way-- so she’s not allowed to be attractive until she’s 30.”
“you were a trainee for three years. was it difficult?”
a previously-amused expression fades into one more complicated. it wasn’t the training that had bothered hyeri so much all these years but the personal losses. heartbreak and the friendships lost-- those hurt more than the skinned knees and bruised bones. “wondering if debut was going to happen was the hardest part,” she admits in a gentler tone. “I’m doing what i love and that’s easy enough to justify why i’m doing what i’m doing, but sometimes… you meet a lot of good people along the way who aren’t with you in the end.” she thinks of woohyun then, who’d left to make his dreams happen somewhere else. was he happy, too? she hopes so. “that’s the difficult part to me: all the goodbyes that happen in between the other days.”
the questions that follow are answered on autopilot; her lips moving in reply, but hyeri is still thinking of this one question after much time has passed. she recalls the faint images of those who have left the company in these long three years of training: seungmi, soyeon, hyejeong. hyeri has conditioned herself over time not to miss those who are long gone now, for succumbing to nostalgia proved never to be a mentally healthy path for her. hyeri remembers all too well those almost friendships that petered out into nothing in the end. the encouraging smiles and telling each other that ‘all would be well!’ when they finally reached that stage together.
so many goodbyes just for one chance to say ‘hello’ to the entire world; it’s the kind of heartbreak she doesn’t think anyone can easily get over.
tread with caution ⇾ tw: depression, mental instability, insecurity
pushing one’s body to the limit did a lot more than serve up numbers on a coach’s typed-in ipad. to hyeri, it’s an escape-- a release that lets her mind flutter free as her physical body takes over with straining muscles and flexed limbs. in this one minute of punishment, she’s encouraged to push all other thoughts out of her head; these overwhelming pillars of stress and the heavy hooks of insecurity that keep her from doing her best each and every day. she focuses only on the silent whisper of counted numbers in her mind as she propels herself repeatedly up above the ground.
one, two, three…
once upon a time, all hyeri could think about was improving upon her dancing. late night rehearsals until the early morning, and constantly dogging the choreographers about how to best stretch her muscles and use her body for the art. when piper was still around, she motivated the younger’s competitive spirit to do better, to be better until hyeri could count herself as the top dancer in the company. the problem is... now she is.
nobody had ever told her what to do next once her goal had been reached.
‘protect it’ is the obvious answer, but being at the top is a lonely place and loneliness, more than ambition, and more than personal pride, proves to be the ghost taunting hyeri’s tentative happiness. because she isn’t happy-- that much she knows. waking up in the mornings is getting harder, and hyeri finds herself gravitating to the gym after lessons much more often than the dance studio where she should be. losing herself to the meditation of yoga, and working her body out punishingly hard like she does now for a test is the only way to release all these pent-up emotions.
she wants to talk to yura. wants to find out who keeps her roommate’s thoughts preoccupied when hyeri’s not there. she wants to hug tiffany. tell her she’s sorry for overreacting about royal survival. how she wishes both of them had gone. she wants to figure out love. why she doesn’t want it. why thoughts of myungsoo still hurt her even after he’s been gone for so, so long. and why couldn’t she just start over? woohyun is gone. and how she misses her friend and sometimes wishes she could go with him.
she wants to cry. she wants to laugh and be as happy and optimistic as hyeri knew she used to be. ‘kt’s laugh grenade’ in charge of making everyone happy but herself. she wants to disappear; wonders what it’s like to be a normal girl again. she wants more.
instead, she only exists. day to day. night after night. she pushes herself only to keep existing. hyeri hears the ticking of the timer as she pumps her upper body upwards and already she’s counted twenty-seven push-ups in half the time that’s left. she’s in great shape because what else does she have? not a great singing voice, not a single creative thought in her head. only her body that’s the company’s to use as they want, whenever they want.
existing or waiting for the unknown to come-- she doesn’t know what’s worse.
♥ bootcamp week: september evaluation `17
it’s not easy for hyeri to ignore the air of despondency currently clouding up the practice studio’s four walls. just one curious glance around is enough for her to spot the miserable faces that surround her. yet, there are some who, like her, have entered into this boot camp with their bodies stiff with determination to improve. hyeri is fully aware that singing is a failing of hers -- how many group evals did she need before figuring that out -- but it’s equally as obvious that it’ll be an unavoidable task she’ll need to reconcile with if she ever wants to break free of this trainee dungeon.
( not that she hadn’t tried for that disguised approach; except the last time hyeri suggested to her vocal coach that she planned on staying in the back while mouthing along with the main singers’ parts, she’d suffered her ears burning from his scolding for several painful hours afterwards. )
in the end, hyeri knew they were telling her to improve for her own sake as well as for the company’s. how many idols were crucified by netizens for being ‘untalented’ during their short vocal lines? that kind of criticism was damaging -- a label stuck onto someone and unable to be shed for years unless they managed to show some kind of development much later on. hyeri didn’t want that label, she didn’t want to be thought of the ‘worst’ one, the weakest link, when she was surrounded by beautiful girls who all offered something amazing for a future group. she wanted to stand out but never for that reason; never because of her incompetency in doing a necessary thing.
“what’s your pitch?” the vocal coach demands of her once hyeri approaches him after the day’s long practice session is over. most of the trainees are already leaving and hyeri stares after them with a wistfulness that betrays her desire to be one of them. the trainer scoffs loudly and hyeri promptly holds out the lyric sheet to “bubble pop” for him to inspect. it’s a decent song, well within her meager capabilities to attempt anyway, and the trainer nods slowly, handing it back to her along with his agreement. “i was convinced you were gonna show me “gashina” there for a second,” he drawls and hyeri smiles tightly back. she tucks the paper back into her bag and answers in an overly-dry tone: “i was going to, sir.”
when yixing had originally presented her with his song choice for the evaluation, admittedly, hyeri hadn’t hesitated a second before agreeing to it. she trusted her partner well enough to make a suitable choice for them without her input and he had. however, on second thought, the dancer thinks the song might have been a little too suitable for them.
it’s not until hyeri’s alone at home, earbuds plugged in and foot lazily tapping out the rhythm to the beat that she notices it: the utter familiarity of the lyrics compared to her and yixing’s current relationship. she could have pegged it down to coincidence ( after all, most people liked the biebs’ music even if they couldn’t stand the artist himself ) but, once hyeri had gotten the idea in her head -- that these lyrics hit way too close to home -- she simply couldn’t abandon it afterwards. only two months had passed since yixing asked her out to the restaurant to talk and hyeri still remembered the deadened look in his eyes as they spoke about those personal things. love troubles, where they’d been, where they’d been going; above all, hyeri remembered the tone of yixing’s voice and how well it’d matched her own depressing one once myungsoo had left her ( again. )
they really had been each other’s company. ‘just wanna have a conversation/forget about the obligations.’ biebs’ voice crooned through the studio’s speakers and hyeri couldn’t shake away the similarity, even during a rehearsal when she should be focusing on the choreography instead. yixing teaches it to her himself, improvising moves from his own imagination and asking for her opinion every now and then during the partnered movements. hyeri does her best during all of that, forcing a smile and then smiling for real whenever the male catches her fake act in a moment of attention. she’s not immune to his worried glances every now and then but hyeri’s too much of a liar to let him know the thoughts that continually plague her.
sometimes ‘just friends’ is complicated, too.
“what do you think of--”
“no, raise your leg more there--”
“are you sure about--?”
“spin out here--”
“you take my hand and, no, wait, let’s do this--”
it takes trial and error, bumps and bruises, lots of laughs and painful nights before hyeri feels like she’s ready for the performance. yixing’s choreography is fun, playful, and the dancer can’t believe how utterly a contrast it is to the very real problems that keep her up awake at night. she still worries about yixing, hopes that his troubles have lessened in the last four weeks, but there’s guilt, too, that hyeri has only added on to his personal burdens with this dance. And afterwards… when this performance is done and over, they’ll have to go back to friends with no obligations. ones who talk only when an ear and a shoulder is needed for the other to cry on. it’s an unsettling, bittersweet reality.
“kt’s laugh grenade, lee hyeri, here to dance!” the girl announces cheerfully on the day of the performance. she salutes the judges with a wave of her hand and her dancer coach rolls his eyes dramatically-- a bit too used to this particular trainee’s antics. “just get on with it,” the male coach growls and hyeri grins in response, afterwards tugging at yixing’s arm excitedly.
“he’s a fan of us already, i know it,” she whispers in her partner’s ear. hyeri reaches up to adjust the collar of the flannel shirt yixing wears, smoothing it out with the palms of her hands and glancing up at him with a warm smile. “i’m your fan, too, you know? let’s do this, chicken-lover zhang yixing,” she teases. her own costume is just as casual as his: ragged denim shorts and an oversized flannel shirt to cover a simple graphic tee underneath. the couple’s fashion is subtle but unmistakable, designating her and yixing as a unit as they take their starting positions on the floor.
yixing had been adamant about giving hyeri enough parts in the choreography to show off her own skills and she agreed to take advantage of every single one of them, starting at the very beginning. when the music starts, she’s already in character, gifting her dance partner with a flirty smile as she struts forward to the center. she’s the flame and yixing is her willing moth, coming towards hyeri and complimenting her movements with his graceful ease. once the choreography had been nailed down, fostering the chemistry between the two dancers had come next. that, of course, had been the easy part.
You ain't gotta be my lover
For you to call me baby
Never been about no pressure
Ain't that serious
they separate and dance together, limbs extending and feet moving in sync with one another. it is rare that hyeri gets to dance with a male on par to her skill ( taemin being the only one for a long time ) and she still feels the headiness on stage of getting to dance freely, without having to be too thoughtful of making her companion look weaker in comparison. yixing could hold his own against her, so well as to make her worry about what she’d look like beside him-- a novel sensation. that kind of challenge drives her -- inspires her to work harder and to dance even better than before.
Can we, we keep
Keep each other company?
Maybe we, can be
Be each other's company
Oh company
every touch of yixing’s hand feels like fire against her skin and clothing. this man represents comfort to her, a reliable partner whose very touch lets her know that he’s there, ready to catch her. hyeri trusts him to do just that, relaxing her slim frame and letting him twist and drop her in the elegant flow of the routine. his grip around her waist is strong and supportive, and her answering smile is all too real as hyeri looks up at yixing once more. he drifts away to dance his solo part and she can’t look away from him even if she wanted to. yixing’s charisma is magnetic, too attractive for someone like her to want to run away from.
( she’d be outright lying to say her heart didn’t flutter at moments like this. )
she rises with the tips of his fingers beneath her chin. hyeri’s lips part around quickened breaths and she effortlessly transitions back into their couple’s dance. together, apart, his hands on her hips and her eyes on the audience, dancing feels like a dream when it’s this easy with one another. it also lets hyeri forgets all her thoughts except those that matter in the moment: where to put what foot where, at what beat. where the hands go.
hyeri squats down on her heels, slim fingers reaching down to tie her shoelaces neatly back into place while, at the same time, glancing up at her partner. “oppa, did you come up with this choreography?” she asks yixing with obvious interest. choreography is like a dream to her -- an elusive and out of reach talent for someone like hyeri who lacks the necessary vision to design it on her own without help. she’s always been so envious of the trainers, youtube artists, and even the fellow dance trainees surrounding her who could do it so easily. the girl heaves an audibly low sigh to admit to this limitation in herself; yixing is so much better at this than her, this dancing art that connects them but simultaneously is the reason for the distance hyeri feels is growing between them inside her head. she might be the senior trainee but yixing’s natural talent is undeniable and it fosters insecurity within; how could she hope to look good next to someone so graceful and handsome when they were together? hyeri is cute at best, and tall, but even she -- a learned swan and not a natural one -- begins to feel like this might be a mistake to pair them up together.
