#rkoct17eval

[rkmason]

worthwhile

The confusion hasn’t settled in after a week and Rome still looks at Yixing like he needs him to explain what the fuck is going on. It’s a trip. He went from no longer being a trainee to trainee status and debut status to leader status. Isn’t this a dream? The biggest holdup in his mind is that Jihyun isn’t there beside him for it and he thinks his confusion has a lot to do with that, with missing her, with not being able to rely on her the same way he could a few months ago. They’re independent of each other but to say he doesn’t want her support is a full-out lie. Giving her the Hongdae Talent show trophy when he meant made that feel real but nothing that happened afterwards felt like that. Yixing knows how it feels, right? For things to not feel real when someone’s not around? Living in a haze, he calls it, in a state of flux. The cast is gone from Yixing’s arm and Rome complains about not being able to sign it in time because he signed later on, signed after Yixing got it taken off. “Did you keep it? How’s the hand feeling?” Isn’t it his dominant hand? They’re waiting to do the hand grip test and he worries that Yixing will feel weird about it. The injury to Rome’s shoulder was a while ago but it took him too long to let it heal properly. He hopes his friend and their group leader doesn’t do the same. Neither Yien or him could convince Yixing not to join in on some of the tests already but they’re near the end. Almost home-free. 

@rkzyx

[soljirk]

✨ go go go

( a starter for @rkxminah )

suji feels like she’s barely become a trainee when she’s told that they’ll be undergoing the october evaluations. while she believes she’s fit, she’s not so sure anymore when she hears of some of the things that they have to do in the evaluation. it reminds her of the physical exams that they had to take in high school ( but somehow much worse since it had been so long since she had actually done some of these things ). 

she’s standing in line awaiting her turn when she recognizes a face that she had seen at the talent show. quickly, she walks towards the other, smile on her face as she feels more relaxed now that she’s someone she recognizes. “minah unnie!” she exclaims as she bows her head once she reaches her. “i didn’t know you were here too.” she had thought the talent show had casted for nova, and she hadn’t seen the other at the company. “i’m really nervous,” she admits, watching some of the others go before them.

[rkbyunbaek]

;; run faster

@rkxiao

physical education has neither been his favorite nor his best subject back when he was still in school, sports has never been one of his strong suits. it doesn’t matter if it’s about playing basketball or scoring a goal at soccer, if it’s about sprinting across a field or doing tons of push ups -- baekhyun’s pretty much always sucked at all of it.

which is pretty much the reason why he’s been wishing for the dreaded dance routines to return, why he’s been praying for the evaluations about dance to just go on like they’ve been over these past months ever since exam began.

everything’s better than doing sports for almost three hours straight.

it’s not like baekhyun has much of a choice, can’t just say no to it. he still slips onto the ground next to a familiar girl with a groan, though, showing off his exhaustion carelessly as he rests his over exhausted limbs for a moment. “i can’t do this anymore,” he whines, purposefully in mandarin so first, no one else would be able to understand his complaining and second, so xiao would know that he’s talking to her. “how can you even stretch now? aren’t you tired?” baekhyun’s eyes flicker away from her in something close to disgust -- or is it distress? --  as she gets ready for the sprint they’re supposed to do. “i feel like dying. seriously, i can’t get up anymore.”

[rkhyeri]

                       ` oct. eval `17

                               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.

[rkkangjoon]

.lengths  |  october ‘17 eval

since he did sports on a daily level, he knew too well how important it was to stretch and warm up before starting the work out. one of his closest friends tend to hurt himself quite often during his work outs, and the results were pain, scars and a higher possibilty of more injuries. that was why Kang Joon was extra careful to these kind of things, he didn't needed a fractured bone breaking through the superficial layers of his skin after all. his group had gathered at the seocho complex, making it a bunch of visually strong people. but the upcoming fitnesstest would show who wasn't just looks but true strength and flexibility and agility.

the tall male looked around as they were told to warm up. who was roughly the same height or like he jokingly said length as him? spotting a head rising above everyone else, he shuffled over and placed his hand on the shoulder. felt pretty well built, broad and strong. "hey dude, could you lend me your length to warm up a little?" growing a feisty grin, he took away his hand in anticipation of an epic answer. of course he wanted to show his serious side once in a while, but he couldn't hold back the clearly ambiguous comment.

@rkohsehun

[rkxeve]

work out!

@seungcheolrk

the eval hasn’t started yet, and they’re all just standing around -- the trainers had only just finished talking, so everyone was trying to figure out what group they were in, where they needed to go, where their friends ended up. it’s times like these that make jinri thankful for having the last name that she does -- it makes things like this much easier. 

she finds herself moving out of the way as people exit the room, and she ends up next to seungcheol. “hey,” she says, but is interrupted when a trainer calls for group a to follow her to the yoga studio. she sticks close to seungcheol as they make their way after her, and once they leave the crowded gym behind, jinri turns back to him. she isn’t really sure how to start what she wants to say, so she just jumps right in. 

“congratulations, by the way,” she says. “i haven’t had a chance to tell you yet. it’s really exciting, you know?” she doesn’t elaborate more than that, knowing that they are in the seocho complex and are surrounded by non-sphere trainees. she doesn’t want to be the one to cause the news to leak, not when she knows how important it is to baek jiyoung that it stays a secret for now. 

[jaehyunrk]

OCTOBER EVALUATIONS ; AREA 1 –––– PUSH UPS.

jaehyun isn’t unfit. if anything he’s actually quite far from that. back in highschool he’d been in the basketball team and while he wasn’t the captain by any means, he was a pretty good player ( one of the best, if he could say so himself ). now in college, despite having no time for sports activities or clubs he does his fair share of work outs by dancing and running a few miles at the gym.

so physical tests aren’t dreaded by him –– if anything he’s a little glad that this was the evaluation for the month and not something scary like having to dance again. 

it’s almost the end of the evaluations and while jaehyun’s just a little tired he doesn’t feel completely worn out yet. for some reason he feels a need to impress himself.

standing in the yoga studio, he waits for his turn as he stretches his arms. “jung jaehyun,” he hears his name called out and the boy looks up, “you’re up next.”

push-ups. he nodded as he readied his hands and got onto the floor. “coach,” he says, a sudden surge of confidence overwhelming him, “how much would be considered good?”

“about 47-56.”

“and anything above 56 is considered...?”

“excellent,” the older man replies and jaehyun nods, eyebrows furrowing as he tilted his neck only slightly. if anything –– jaehyun’s always been a competitive guy. he never liked doing below average and if he thought he could do well –– really well –– he’d push himself for the best result.

he moves quickly, doesn’t stop as he uses the force in his arm to push himself up over and over again. he wants to win –– win what he doesn’t know but he just wants to do well. 

when the time is up jaehyun lets out a loud huff before turning to face the coach, anticipation in his eyes. he thinks he’s done well enough.

“62,” the older man says and he gives jaehyun a firm nod. “good job out there.”

grinning, jaehyun pumps his hand in the air, just slightly, happy with his result (though he tells himself to aim for 70 next time).

[rkmason]

                           SPHERE ENTERTAINMENT OCTOBER EVAL: #RKOCT17EVAL                                       FLOAT LIKE A BUTTERFLY, STING LIKE A BEE

It would’ve been easy for him to slack off once he left Nova. For a few weeks, he did. 

Stayed recording and editing instead of going to the gym. He gave his body some much needed rest. When he woke up in the mornings, his shoulder didn’t ache. It wasn’t constantly sore, wasn’t nagging him to stop. Something felt off about his body though. His shoulder settled but he couldn’t. As if too much energy pooled in his body from going inactive, he was restless, unable to sleep and he went back to working out. What changed was he could actually go outside for it, take runs the way he used to before he was a trainee and it reminds him more of home. Running along the Han River wasn’t the same as being in Sydney but he felt nostalgic anyway. All he needed was the sound of his feet pounding the pavement with music lightly streaming in his earbuds. 

Area 4 becomes his favorite, more than Area 2 that reminds him too much of suicide drills when he played basketball. They’re running outside and he feels comfortable when running, sprinting, and his record isn’t its peak from when he played sports but it’s better than he expected. A hobby picked up when he started boxing, he didn’t know when it became about him running away from his problems as a teenager. Now, he feels as if he’s running towards something. He has a goal, a dream to fulfill. He’s not just running, he’s spiraling towards it.