wasted time.
@idjowi, guerilla concert ( prompt, +5 exp, +5 skill free-choice )
it’s at times like this where san feels a little bit like he’s underwater. drowning, caught in a current. he’s eight years into debut, olympus is standing above it all. have dragged themselves into infamy until their bones ache, until they’re past the point of running on fumes. everybody knows their name. and yet, here they are. at a guerilla popup concert just because they had a free slot in the day and midas wants to wring every last possible cent they can out of them. san’s swallowed down two caffeine pills and an energy drink to keep himself moving. had shoved on stage clothes in something robotic, let makeup artists magic his face into something ethereal. hair tousled and rearranged until he looks how midas wants him to look.
that person isn’t san. they share the same name, the same obsessive love of dance, of music. but that’s it.
san in reality is vicious. sharp teeth, a perfectionist, willing to rake people over the coals in an attempt to drag them up and into what he expects out of them. san in front of the camera is bubblegum-sweet smiles, hiding smiles behind the back of his hand, knocking against his group members and linking fingers together. backstage he shakes everyone off of him like the contact burns. resumes a scowl, sinks his attention into his phone. he’s sick of the schedule. he’s sick of constantly working, constantly working, constantly keeping himself stuck in place. stagnating despite the time he sank into dragging his vocals up to par with the rest of the group.
san shouldn’t be at the guerilla concert. the rest of the groups here are all freshly debuted. they’re the biggest name. he knows the screams will be deafening when they shove them all out onstage. but he also knows he’s still tired from the music show they’s performed at, had rolled out of bed at four in the morning to get there on schedule. knows he has a photoshoot the morning after. knows his hands are trembling, that he’ll have to ignore it on stage, step into the role of something powerful. he needs to stop worrying the fans. that’s what his manager had told him last month. san barely kept himself from laughing outright. if only he could tell his body to stop breaking apart.
at least cherry bomb!’s there though. he’s gotten along with jowi better than nearly anyone from the first time they’d met up at a music show. had fallen into something surprisingly comfortable. a connection that bubbled up. the sort of thing where you feel like you’ve known each other for a lifetime. it’s rare in the industry, or at least, it’s rare for san. a boy who grew up poised, perfect, and ready to trample anyone who stood in the way of his dream. well, his mother’s dream. he’s waiting with her backstage, dressed up for his groups stage, his mic clipped into place and turned off. can hear the pre-recorded songs of whatever newly debuted group is pretending to sing on stage.
“you have a schedule after?” he wonders aloud. his voice sounds thick to his own ears, and perhaps it’s for the best that olympus is using a pre-recorded track of their own. sometimes he wishes they don’t. but not today when his throat feels like fire. he shifts, lays his foreharm across her shoulder and leans himself sideways, lets jowi bear some of his weight. there’s a fifty percent chance she’ll shove him off, but it’s a gamble he’s willing to play out. “your weird hair grew out, nice,” he notes, flicks a finger into her bangs, something that had been lopped off just a bit too short a couple of weeks ago. not that san had been particularly sympathetic. granted, he’s never been a particularly sympathetic person.