honestly. he hadn’t been all that surprised when it turned out they had won the trip to busan after the may evaluations. it’s not that he had been overly confident about it considering his apprehensions about performing well during the harmonies during the bridge, but he thought they had worked pretty well as a cohesive unit, and the song and arrangement in itself were really good.
ever since the night before, the beach had been calling out to him, reminding him of where he’d grown up, in and around the beautiful beaches of california. but because they had arrived so late since they’d left right after training, he has to leave it to the next day. after lunch feels like a perfectly good time to hit the sandy shores, so he throws on his swim trunks, slathers on some sunblock, and grabs a beach towel and a small cooler, calling out into their living space for the weekend. “i’m going to the beach!” he exclaims, legs spread shoulder-width apart, hands on his waist. “whoever wants to come with, get your ass over here!”
despite making it sound as if he’d be fine going alone, he actually wanders off to find someone to drag along, spotting jongsuk shortly after. “hey, wanna hit the beach?”
『 Distraction 』
⇢ KT Evals June 2k20 | +3 S ; +2 DB ; +1 Wk Harmonizing
⇢ Jeon Jeongguk keeping himself and his mind busy performing [ Delicious & Yesterday ]
“ Keeping his mind busy worked until things weren’t busy anymore. ”
So there it was: debut month for the first batch of his pals. Debut month for Jimin. Jeongguk of course was aware that things were going anything but peachy during debut preparations and hearing how his friends were treated, it gives him one more reason to rip his contract to shreds and cuss out KT on his way out.
Instead he remains where he is and he holds on. He does his best to hold Jimin and calm him down, supporting him where he can. He tries to put a smile on Namjoon’s lips with his silly antics, tries to make Johnny smile- he just tries to be there for them no matter how it makes him feel. None of this is their fault and they don’t deserve him being a party pooper, no matter how hurt he was about being left behind.
At the end of the day however they all go back to their dorm and Jeongguk is left in his bed, alone, a puppy sleeping on his chest because it can sense his loneliness. It keeps him awake at night. Are they crying together? Are they laughing together? Are they sitting down, trying to talk things out together?
He finds himself sleepless for several nights, working himself to the bone to hope that the exhaustion would eventually make him pass out instead. Signing up for not one but two projects for the eval helps. Both songs having strong performances and different vibes helps too. He has to focus his brain on jumping from one concept to the next, from rap to singing and from a duo to a group.
This time he gives input where he’s allowed to, not minding the senior trainees, who got him roped into their projects. He’s grown fond of Jongsuk as much as the elder male seemed to have grown fond of him. While he liked performing Yesterday with Sungyeol and the others, it was definitely Delicious which would be his highlight for this month. The cheery vibe helped him ignore his own tilt and dark thoughts for a while.
With people talking and speculating about what happened about the debut of NSG U and Jeongguk knowing what went on behind the scenes but never being part of it left him torn and helpless. When he performed like this however, at least he could forget for just a few minutes the mess he’d have to go back to tomorrow. He’d be just right back to figuring out what the next eval would bring that could help him distract his restless brain from resigning and getting out of this god forsaken company.
Maybe if he picked up 3 projects next month he’d get a few more hours of sleep.
even tho hyuna was going to debut sooner than she thought she would, she still always made time to get to know the trainees. trc was probably the only company that she didn’t really have a lot of people she knew. at one point, she had one of her closest friends bobby there, but that was long ago. she still had yeeun there, and she knew doyeon but that was about it. so the fact that she still had time during their breaks to sit with the trainees made her feel happy.
today’s victim was jongsuk, which, hyuna had seen around seocho maybe. she’s not exactly sure, she wasn’t really that talkative when in nova, considering they threw her in a survival show almost as soon as she joined. but she shakes that thought away.
“have you gotten used to the trc schedule? sometimes the day’s seem to never end.” she asks, taking a sip from her water. in reality, hyuna never had issues with how long the days were, her sleeping schedule was already bad, and staying till late in trc always seemed like a blessing to her.
he mustered the tall instructor assistant from afar, while he waited for his turn to be given a few tips. gray was aware, that he wasn't the best singer, although he had the chance to earn some experience on that expertise before. but who would let the opportunity slip to see wendy, his favorite female singer in the world, when she was so busy these days? it made him happy to see his friend being so passionate about teaching others about what she was definitely top at. and it was always great to meet up with her, even if it was just for a short workshop and even if he had to share her with others.
but for now, while wendy was away and distracted by questions of workshop participants, he looked at the assistants, wondering if the male one remembered him. gray, for his part, still remembered jongsuk who had left quite the impression on him, years ago. and it still bugged him how the other had basically disappeared from the surface, just like him. when the other approached him in order to give out tips, he shot the other a smile and offered his hand. "hello, jongsuk. i don't know if you remember me, but we've participated at the third season of the mgas back then... it's great to see you again. i hope to learn a lot from you today!"
he’s not the biggest fan of snacks during training. at least, not unless it’s a fruit, but there’s just some days. some days where he feels the need overwhelm him, beating out logic, and somehow he ends up finding himself with a packet of some random snack in hand, offering it to the closest trainee once there’s no staff or coaches in sight. today, it happens to be jongsuk and the snack happens to be one of his latest obsessions. it’s a childhood favorite that’s found its way back into the pantry at home, a small packet taken out and stolen away from the secret stash whenever he craves chocolate.
at first, he’d been laying on his stomach on the practice room floor, bag next to him before he rolls over, onto his back, packet held up high to reach jongsuk as he grins, “want some? if you’re not a fan of chocolate, i’ll take note of it for next time but i can tell ya that even people who don’t like chocolate seem to like pocky. so what do ya say?” though if the answer is no, hey, more for him.
Chaeryeong didn't drink coffee every day, but every now and then was nice... if only the lines weren't always this long. The person in front of her looked oddly familiar, but she couldn't recognise someone only by the back of their head. When her drink was finally done, she lifted it to her lips, but it smelled off, not like her usual order. She smelled it again, just to make sure and it was definitely wrong.
The girl started walking through the café, looking at everyone present, to see if she could recognise the person from earlier. She thought she'd gotten the right person, so she walked around them, hoping it really was the person from earlier.
“Excuse me,” she said and bowed, “I think we confused our orders,” she continued and held up her mug. He looked still familiar and it took her a surprisingly long moment to realise that he was a fellow trc trainee and her neutral expression turned into a politer smile.
If there were anyone in the world that Sungmin could choose to be his first, well, everything, he would still choose Lee Jongsuk. No matter how much time passed, whenever he was with the older male, he was a teenager again who had fallen in love for the first time. While their breakup had been mutual, part of him still missed Jongsuk.
Of course, working with him on their latest evaluation had only stirred up feelings he had thought he’d buried. It had been hard to work with Jongsuk and not show any emotion when all he had wanted to do was... what would he have done anyway? There wasn’t much that he could have done since they were never alone.
Until now.
Staring at Jongsuk brought him back to when he was a teenager. He had secretly followed Jongsuk from afar. The older male had somehow captivated him and before he knew it he was in love. Jongsuk had been his first boyfriend, his first kiss, his first time. He had even been his first break up.
❝ Hi.. H-Hyung, ❞ was all he could seem to manage to say. There were so many things he wanted to say but he just couldn’t. He tried to smile as he rubbed the back of his head awkwardly. He had always been an awkward mess around Jongsuk, even now.
once again, jordan had managed to find himself in taeyang’s group and once again it was a pretty choreography heavy song. not that he was finding himself struggling so much with his dancing compared to how he did a couple of months ago after weeks of hard work on his dace. now while he felt it was at a pretty acceptable level, he still found himself struggling just a little with this evaluation. but luckily for him he was surrounded by familiar faces, with the exception of one of the nova girls he had never met before.
he found it a rather good thing he knew the song off by heart lyrics wise, however, so when learning the dance he found it easy to keep it in his head as he hummed the lyrics under his breath. not that it wasn’t hard to learn, but it was easier than having to dance to a song you had never heard before in your life. though he still couldn’t do it without some help, laughing as he straightened up, pushing sweaty hair out of his face as he looked towards jongsuk, a grin on his lips. “ah, this much dancing is really making me regret ever signing that contract,” he said the words though it was mostly a joke.
