#renewal.

[roseategales]

so. ‘dysia doesn’t wear anything with floral or leaf patterns in my gifs after her clan dies and solas ends things

it’s about the symbolism.jpeg

[rkmiya]

181211 ;

First thing in the morning after arriving at NOVA entertainment, you receive a message to go to the main office right away. You make your way over and, upon arrival, are called into the room before you even have a chance to sit down. Hyun Bin awaits behind his desk and nods toward the empty chair across from him with what might be the smallest hint of a smile. The seat next to yours is already occupied by a contract lawyer that might be familiar to you now, after previous time spent in this room over contract papers. She smiles a bit and nods by way of a greeting as you take your seat.

“I know four years is a long time to train,” Hyun Bin acknowledges, folding his hands in front of himself and looking directly at you. “You’ve worked incredibly hard in that time, and I don’t want you to think that effort has gone unnoticed. Everyone here at NOVA, myself included, is grateful for your dedication to the company.” Despite the nature of the words, they lack warmth– as formal as always.

“There’s no need to drag this out,” he says. “There’s no need to waste four years of everyone’s time by parting ways now. I’d like to offer you another two-year contract with NOVA entertainment, and more chances for success under our company.” With that, he doesn’t say another word. He simply slides the papers of your new contract toward you, along with a NOVA Entertainment branded pen, and waits expectantly.

four goddamn years.

that’s how many years she’s spent in these halls. that’s 8,760 hours -- 8,784 hours if you include the leap year of 2016, which adds another day. that’s 527,040 minutes which is over 31 million seconds. in all, it’s a long fucking time. and in those 31 million seconds plus that she’s spent in nova’s hallways, she’s felt herself slowly dissolve away bit by bit. she’s nothing but dust floating aimlessly in nova’s hallways, put together in small clumps in stolen moments only to be eventually blown away again by the overwhelming sense of failure and regret. 31 million (plus) seconds and what are her crowning achievements in nova other than being the longest female trainee?

it’s laughable in the most pathetic of ways.

hyun bin’s face isn’t a familiar one. she only sees his face on this day, every two years. which means this is the second occasion she’s meeting with him. it’s technically the third, since two years ago he briefly called her in to suspend her but she doesn’t really count that. when she enters, she almost expected to give hyun bin a scowl. she truly didn’t care for him. instead, sunmi greets with him a small bow and a stoic face. resolved. anhedonic. almost....eerily calm for her. she hums in acknowledgement. it could also be taken as affirmation. four years is a long time. that’s enough time for someone to graduate high school, enough time for a new born to grow to walk, talk, dress themselves and feed themselves. it’s a fuck ton of time. she doesn’t like to think about it.

it takes every fibre in sunmi’s being not to scoff in her ceo’s face. i don’t want you to think your effort has gone unnoticed. it has. she has four years of nothing to show that it has. she hasn’t gotten so much of a nod in her direction from the man. even now he’s in his stoic professional persona. even now she can’t even get something that’s more personal and not regurgitated to every trainee that steps into this office to resign a contract. it’s the disconnect that she hates. he doesn’t care how well she does. he doesn’t care if she broke her arm. he wouldn’t care if she slipped or fallen down the stairs because she’s sure that within the hour hyun bin would have a replacement for her. that’s the kind of man he is.

“four years have already been wasted,” she points out as he slides over the contract. it’s the first she’s said the entire time. she didn’t even interrupt him which is a surprise coming from her. “four years in this company and there is nothing that i am proud of coming out of here. i have spent hours and hours in these halls making myself better, trying to show that the ‘nova brand’ is of high calibre by making myself so and instead i lost myself. i lost my passion. i started to hate coming here. i started to hate that this is all i do. it’s been four years and i won’t even be able to see my siblings grow up. i’ve missed their birthdays already. i have never wanted to give up on being an idol so badly until i came to nova. not even sphere was so hard to overcome.”

she grinds her teeth, exhaling hotly through her nose. tears brim her eyes but they aren’t of sadness. they’re of frustration. “i grew up....wanting so badly to be where i am now. i grew up watching idols on stage. when i was little and when my mother was still alive, i would beg her to put on mbc and sbs to let me watch idols dance. i loved jewelry and i always thought that nova idols were of a different level. so diverse. of all companies, i grew up wanting to be here the most.” and now she hates it here. these walls became a prison. this building became symbolic to feeling her fade away.

“in the first mgas, when you thought i wasn’t good enough for nova, i was in sphere and i hated it so much. for a long time i thought something was wrong with me because i was rejected from the company that i wanted to most. but in sphere i found my passion. i was trying new things. i started to find myself there and i never even considered a company like that. and here?” she shakes her head. she sniffles before continuing, ignoring the box of tissues on the desk. “you’d think that i would flourish here. instead i feel my spirit draining and my heart growing heavy with contempt. i don’t know if nova is my path anymore. i just....don’t feel anything when i come here. and if i do feel something, it’s hot bubbling anger and resentment.” and it just builds and builds.

there’s no separation of older (or talented) trainees from the rest. they’re all doing the same routine and doing the same exact evaluations. there’s no hint or bone thrown their way. four years of the same routine, the same recycled evaluations. sunmi grew tired. it was often that she got through her days on autopilot. it was a heavy strain on her mentally and emotionally.

“there are too many moments where i think i should have never come here and not enough that make me understand why you even bought my sphere contract to keep me here. what use am i if i do nothing but waste away in your practise rooms? i know you don’t see it like that because you’re the ceo, you’re busy with running the company, you have no spare time to think about the trainees that jeopardise their health to be good enough in your eyes. and you’re professional, sajangnim, you are. you don’t let any of us see how you truly feel about any of us. but that’s why i don’t find any pull to stay. if i leave i don’t think i would care how you would feel ultimately. that’s what’s lacking. i don’t feel like i need to make you proud or prove myself to you. not anymore.”

she slid the contract back to him. “hold this. i’m still not sure if i’m signing this. i need more time to think if being in nova is worth it. if spending six years in a company that’s actively done nothing with anyone in the last two is even worth it.” it was then that sunmi paused to wipe her tears. “i will only take a day or two at most, sajangnim but when i come back with my decision, if i choose to stay, i would like only a one-year contract if possible. it may be a lot to ask but staying for two years seems to be too much. i don’t think spending six years at a company is fair to me when i’ve already spent one year elsewhere. five years as a trainee is a long time but seven is even more brutal. please take it into consideration.”

she bowed her head in acknowledgment to the lawyer. she rose, straightening herself and bowing now to hyun bin. “thank you for your time. have a nice day.”

[rkmiya]

181212 ;

Hyun Bin listens as you speak, expression unreadable as always, and he only gives a small shake of his head to indicate any displeasure. “Training is never a waste in my eyes. It’s a shame you feel otherwise,” he states. “I think about the trainees under this company more than you know, but you wouldn’t know the time and discretion it takes to put projects together that are worth investing the time of my trainees into. Many of you are not ready for something like that, either, and here in NOVA teamwork is important. It’s not about a single person being ready for opportunities, especially when it comes to debut.”

He looks down at the contract, still on his desk, and then back up at you, purposefully. “I’m not going to waste my time trying to win you over, Sunmi-ssi, and if you are no longer dedicated to NOVA, you should not waste mine either. You may take the time you need to think over this decision, but I am willing to invest another two years of my time and resources into your growth here. If you aren’t willing to give me the same, then I am not willing to give you another year here.”

“Even though I don’t like to hear it, training can be how you explained. That’s the case for many trainees, so what about that makes you feel like you’re a special case, especially since I took you off of Jiyoung’s hands and gave you the chance here?“ It’s clearly a rhetorical question, but one he poses anyway.

“Good day, Sunmi-ssi. I look forward to hearing your decision.”

hyun bin is a heartless man. sunmi knows this and she doesn’t know why she expected an actual response from him. he’s a robot in human skin. he’s incapable of showing emotion. she actively has to repress the urge to let her face twist into a scowl. instead she sits there with her arms crossed, the corners of her lips curved into a slight frown.

hidden, her nails dig into her palms a bit to repress the dismissal and emotional negligence she felt. it’s just like a higher-up to spoon feed this idea that they care too and they’re trying their best to make it smooth for them but god damn she wasn’t even talking about herself. she quite plainly said for anyone in nova but of course he would see it as nothing more than her being selfishly impatient.

(although sunmi feels she’s completely justified in being impatient at this point. especially after seeing all of her friends debut one by one. she knew she should have left for royal survival. she’s an idiot for being too checked out mentally to do it.)

she doesn’t feel like a special case. that’s the problem. nothing that’s happened in her time in nova made her feel as though it matters whether she stays or goes. the only ones who truly matter are the others and her pure refusal to outright abandon them. she’s seen the pain in hugo’s eyes at the mere tease of it, the resignation in wendy’s, the panic in jungwoo’s — the only people who seemed to care if sunmi stayed weren’t the board or their ceo. it was the trainees, the only people who would be directly effected.

he wouldn’t even grant her the year she asked. because it was always his way or the high way, right? she wouldn’t be allowed the freedom to just be given a year because lord knows she’s tired. he didn’t even give it a thought. why would she want to spend another two years in this god forsaken prison? everyone was miserable here. including herself. why would she even stay? but then she thinks back to everyone’s reactions to her contract renewal coming up and she feels the tug in her heart. the pull to stay.

sunmi should be used to be putting others before herself at this point, right? that’s what a leader is supposed to do.

right?

she comes back the next day. she lets his assistant know in the beginning of the day that she would be up later with her decision and to organise some time for them to meet. just enough so he could collect the lawyer that needed to be present. when she’s called up, she goes calmly.

she doesn’t have words to exchange when she sees him. she doesn’t have some grand speech of why she’s pulling the contract towards herself with a glare or the way she quickly signs it, pressing the pen down a little too hard at first. he doesn’t deserve an explanation. above all he sure as hell doesn’t deserve her talents anymore.

two more years she signs her life away. she slides the contract back over to him, jaw set. “if we find ourselves back here in this exact situation in two years: my frustration with nothing having happened for anyone —  not only myself —  then don’t even bother offering me a contract. i’ll be taking my leave. six years is more than enough time to do something.” she bowed her head. even if she was beyond annoyed, she knew she couldn’t be disrespectful.

“oh, and i’m taking four days of my vacation time to spend christmas with my family. i’ll be back the 27th.” she walked to the door, mindful not to forcefully swing it open or slam it shut when she exits. “happy holidays, sajangnim.”

[libearyn]

Innocent's Hue

Innocent’s Hue

When snow falls, nature listens.                                                           ~Antoinette van Kleeff   For God’s Word is solid to the core;     everything he makes is sound inside and out. He loves it when everything fits,     when his world is in plumb-line true. Earth is drenched     in God’s affectionate satisfaction.                                                             ~…

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