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~Life is a Cabaret~
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lgcharu /
( ... )
haru slouches in defeat, knowing there’s no way he can keep pretending, and bows his head. “sorry, i just couldn’t tell who you were from far away,” he explains, equally as sheepish as morae was earlier. “i’ve been kind of caught up in everything happening lately so my head’s all over the place but i should still do better at remembering people’s names…” a sigh escapes and he shakes his head, trying to clear away the negativity before sitting up straighter and looking more determined. “i won’t forget after today though! i swear! especially since we’re talking now.”
and as if remembering why he was even here in the first place, haru bites on his lower lip, an unsure expression on his face. “if you still want my help, i’ve just been asking others how they’d answer the questions we were given to use as reference,” he adds on. “i don’t mind talking about my family or what i was like growing up, i just want to make sure i don’t overshare or say the wrong thing. is that what you’re worried about?”
she’d been on the brink of a full-on mental breakdown just moments prior, but haru is an unexpectedly welcome distraction. her expression doesn’t offer much insight into how she’s doing aside from very clearly intoning that she’s tired, but in an ideal world where she wasn’t hellbent on playing the role of prodigal human being, it might be obvious that she finds this entire situation frustrating as hell too.
the blank look on her face shifts into a faint smile, the faint smile stretching into a grin in spite of herself. “wah~ so you admit it?” morae asks, feigning hurt. “i was just testing you,” she says, clearly lying as she shakes her head. and she must be tired because she’s talking way more than she usually does around almost-strangers. “i’m just kidding,” she adds, before haru can take her too seriously. “i didn’t think you’d remember me. we’ve only spoken a couple of times... besides, of course i’d know your name. you’re going to be an idol soon!”
must be nice, she thinks to herself. it must be exciting, too, to finally see years of hard work culminate into bright shining lights. debut sounds like a pipe dream to her, if she’s honest, but she imagines it must be thrilling.
ah, but she’s way too green to be daydreaming like that.
“mm... that’s exactly it...” morae murmurs, propping her elbow on the table to rest her cheek against an open palm. she lets out a small sigh in spite of herself, gaze flickering from haru’s face to a spot on the wall behind him. “i’m not really used to talking... as myself?” did that sound weird? she purses her lips together. “i mean... cameras are fine. answering questions is fine... but i’m not sure how much of myself is supposed to be there... as opposed to... kim morae of legacy...?”
she’s definitely talking way too much. to a distant acquaintance, at that. it might be because she and haru barely know each other that this is easier, but that’s too paradoxical to make sense in the rigid world of kim morae.
she’ll blame it on fatigue for now and apologize tomorrow for rambling away. haru seems nice. he’ll understand if she slips him a vita-500, won’t he?
“i’m better at answering questions that aren’t... about me.”
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lgcyura /
( ... )
“oh,” yura responds, surprised morae had remembered her. it’s not like they had talked or interacted much before now, let alone the workshop, and with how many other people were also taking it, it would be easy to not notice everyone there. (at least, she couldn’t recall every single person who attended if she was asked.)
“uh, yeah, i was,” she finally answers with a nod, still surprised but now it was due to the other attempting to keep up a conversation when they both could’ve just been on their way by now. it’s not that she minds though, yura just wasn’t expecting it. “and yes, i was–am–also practicing,” she adds on once she realizes her previous response could’ve been used for both of the questions morae asked. “just taking a little break.” saying this, however, makes yura wonder; what was morae doing out at this time? “were you also practicing?” she asks, letting her curiosity get the better of her despite usually being the type to leave right away in these kinds of situations.
yura is intimidating for more reasons than one, but right now, in this precise moment, morae can’t even dwell on that fact. maybe it’s the hour, or maybe it’s the faint dark circles beneath the older girl’s eyes. caught in a quiet, less-than-foreboding liminal space, for a second, even morae lets her guard down.
it’s been more than a couple of years at legacy for morae. still, it doesn’t get any easier to navigate the social landscape. there are some things, however, that are impossible to miss—and yura’s notorious for being a talented dancer.
maybe in a few more years, morae can dream of being on the other’s level, or at least within a stone’s toss of it.
she half-expects yura to end the conversation after they’ve shared the simplest of pleasantries, and she’s just about ready to say her farewells when she’s met with another question. “oh,” morae murmurs, half to herself. her gaze falls on the script she’d been clutching with fervor just moments earlier. with a vague shake of her head, she clicks her tongue—and then clears her throat when she realizes she’s let her frustration show. “trying to,” she admits. “i signed up for the acting workshop on a whim and...” she trails off, looking at the coil of papers in her hand again. “it was interesting.”
she’s not complaining or anything (it really was interesting), but the more she tries new things, the less confident she feels in the things she thought she was good at.
this late into her training tenure, hours spent focusing on something else other than what she’s been building up slowly and steadily feels like wasting time. she knows it isn’t. knows, also, that dancing doesn’t have to be the only thing morae has to her name, but still—
“the workshops have all bene interesting,” morae amends, offering yura a faint smile. “i’m learning a lot, which feels good and scary at the same time...”
morae bites her lower lip, letting the hand clutching her script fall to her side. her attention is fixed on a spot on the ground as she mulls over her thoughts for a fleeting second before realizing, maybe too belatedly, that she’s holding yura up.
“oh! s-sorry, i didn’t mean to talk so much. i’m sorry for interrupting your break time, too...” she can only hope yura doesn’t mind humoring a younger trainee’s late-night rambles every once in a while.
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lgcsomin /
( ... )
it’s difficult to feel like she’s making any progress at all but she doesn’t even know what progress would look like. she’s just been looking at all the photos she’s taken and cringing at what she’s seen on her phone’s screen. she’s not even willing to show these terrible works to other people, not even to improve. they’re just so … cringe. how do models do it?
she’s so lost in thought that she barely hears the door open, soft footsteps following it but she lifts her head at the familiar voice and she glances up at the mirror to see morae standing there. she grimaces, not because of who it is but more of what she’s been caught doing, and nods. “i hate it here,” somin complains immediately, turning her gaze back onto herself.
she gets it.
seriously, she gets it. and by it, she means the absolute listlessness with which somin is facing the world in this present moment. she gets it. for real.
no perfectly talented person exists in the world, no matter how convincingly close some of the senior trainees get. this much, morae knows. this much is a given.
still, she can’t help but wonder why, of all things in the world, she had to suck in particular at posing for pictures and looking presentable and charming when ninety percent of her career (if it pans out, at least) is going to be devoted to just that. she wants the cameras to like her, but the relationship’s barely there. they’re not even exes or spurned lovers at this rate, but straight up strangers.
“yeah,” she says, in mild resignation. and she doesn’t say anything further for a brief moment, choosing instead to take a couple of cautious steps into the room, closer to where somin is questioning her life decisions (much like morae is). “same.”
instead of sitting beside somin, she opts to sit on the ground, cross-legged, across from her. the whole ‘i don’t want to be around people who know me’ thing really is a double-edged sword. it’s not like she’s letting her guard down like she would around her siblings, or anything; but there’s definitely less pressure to put up pretenses even around somin.
“i thought you did pretty well during the workshop?” morae posits, tilting her head to the side as her gaze drapes back to the unintelligible notes she’d taken during their class. written word isn’t going to help her now. what she really needs is a camera in her face forcing her to acclimate. her brother would call it survival instinct. “er... i guess... not that i would know anything,” she tacks on, for good measure. in her humble and unprofessional opinion, somin had seemed to be doing pretty well. “in my personal opinion,” she amends, though her words come out more like a half-hearted mumble as she tries, in vain, to process what she’s reading.
modeling is hard to practice. the workshop had made it seem challenging but intuitive. now that she’s here, it’s definitely challenging, but the opposite of intuitive.
“i tried practicing in the mirror earlier, but it ended up being more embarrassing than helpful,” morae admits, a tiny sigh trailing after her omission.
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♡ — better be
lgcyein /
( ... )
she blames it on legacy entertainment, on kim hyuncheol himself. they did her dirty.
she ignores the fact that it was her that didn’t read the signs clearly. she had been engrossed in a very important discussion of tomato pasta versus cream pasta ( cream pasta obviously wins ) and just followed someone in here without much thought. she breathes a sigh of relief when they finally take a break, looking around for a familiar face when she finally spots one.
“morae! hey!” she runs over, fixing her hair while she does so, trying to keep a smile on her face. “you looked great! anyways…do you happen to have extra sweatpants?” this is what her life has come to, begging people for sweatpants like an absolute fool, but at least she knows morae won’t judge her? probably? “or shorts? leggings? joggers???”
she’s feeling a little better about today’s workshop, and that might be because it’s dance. and while morae is no expert by any means, she knows for a fact that she’ll be more comfortable with this than she’ll ever feel with anything else.
(no one’s ever called her an optimist—this much should be obvious by now.)
being engrossed in the workshop offers another benefit: a sufficient lack of a need to socialize. it’s infinitely easier being alone by choice in this workshop. there’s constant movement, for one, and even during the breaks, it doesn’t seem entirely out of place for her to catch her breath by herself in the corner of the studio.
her solitude doesn’t last long, and she nearly chokes mid-sip of water when yein pops into her periphery.
“h-hey!” morae stammers out, wiping water from the corners of her mouth with the back of her hand. she straightens up from her hunched-over position, meeting yein’s gaze with a smile. they’re familiar enough for morae to know that yein’s interests lie outside of dance, but considering she’d dabbled in some foreign areas herself, it isn’t cause for inquiry so much as it is a point of curiosity. her gaze falls on yein’s attire, more notably the jeans. “you look great too. did you need—”
ah.
maybe it is cause of inquiry after all.
“i do,” she replies, squatting back down on the spot to rummage through her bag. the only spare article of clothing morae has on her person is a pair of shorts (in case it got really hot or something), but she proffers it to the other girl anyway. “here. they might be a little loose...” morae trails off, brows furrowing upon the realization. “i’d... trade you my sweatpants but... i did just sweat in these. let me know if they don’t work?”
with gusto, she straightens up again, hands coiled around her water bottle (like an anchor). it probably isn’t her place to ask, but she is curious why yein’s here and in jeans, in particular.
“how’s the workshop been for you?” she settles on instead, the smile on her lips lingering.
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BAD IDEA
maybe she should have done the performance workshop, after all. she’d been so gung ho about trying new things when the workshops had first been announced only to inevitably fall back on dancing and acting as two of her slots—and she isn’t sure why she didn’t commit to performance too while she was at it. trying new things is exciting and fun in some respects, but feeling comfortable and wading in familiar waters has always been morae’s second (or first?) nature. ah, but avoiding playing it safe isn’t the worst thing in the world.
modelling isn’t bad. and dancing and acting have been fun, too. it’s a healthy mix of the familiar and the unfamiliar, morae reasons. though she’s certainly been more withdrawn than she’d like (it’s always hard mingling with groups when it feels like there’s socializing and learning on the schedule), and though she’s constantly thinking about what other workshops she should have tried out—well, at the end of the day, morae is satisfied with what she’s learned.
(or that’s what she tells herself, at least.)
cold reading is always difficult in the wonderful realm of acting, but acting has always come as second nature for morae. however much time she’s put into it, however, she wants to improve (and maybe it’s because she’s getting used to clinging to false pretenses now that three, almost four, years of navigating legacy have passed) and improvement seems to involve individual practice even when it’s a prime hour for sleeping.
wielding a script that she’d received for cold reading earlier during the actual acting workshop, morae’s gaze is glued to the words on the sheets of paper in front of her as she drags her feet through the hallways of legacy, muttering the same line to herself in different inflections.
“why does it sound so stupidly weird...” she trails off, clicking her tongue in mild disapproval as she squints at the papers—
only to nearly collide with the owner of a set of shoes that just barely force morae to skid to a stop.
“i-i’m so sorry!” morae blurts out, lifting her head to meet @lgcyura‘s gaze before dipping into a ninety-degree bow. manners first! “i didn’t mean to startle you or anything,” she adds quickly. it’s dark in the halls, for one. only a few scattered lights seem to be on and she really hadn’t anticipated bumping into someone in this part of the building—all things considered, it’s kind of eerie. maybe she ought to be relieved she isn’t alone. “oh, um, you were at the modelling workshop too, weren’t you?” morae inquires, offering yura a sheepish smile. “are you... practicing?”
#lgc:traineemission#lgcyura#thr / bad idea#and when i run out of astro adjacent track titles#Im running on no sleep and 2 lazy to format but i WILL later
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Photo
@LGCENT just posted a photo!
sneaking a snack~
#lgctrainees #lgcent #kimmorae
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RAINY NIGHT
of course she’s concerned.
over three years devoting her blood, sweat, and tears to training for a distant pipe dream and she still isn’t really sure what she’s really passionate about beyond the realm of dancing (and even then, the relationship’s tenuous at best). of course she’s concerned. morae’s not used to chasing something she can barely distinguish in the horizon. for most of childhood, she knew taekwondo was somewhere in the future—and now that it isn’t, she isn’t positive what is.
she’s expanding her horizons. or, well, that’s what she’s telling herself. aside from a dance workshop that just felt like a given, she’ll try to branch out a little bit. there’s no way she’ll know what she wants to do without dipping her toes in the shallow waters, right?
modeling had always seemed a little simple from the outside looking in. actually partaking in the modeling workshop, however, has made morae realize that it’s truly anything but. it’s hard enough to practice modeling in a way that feels productive, but she feels restless knowing that she isn’t quite where she wants to be in terms of progress.
(though it’d be a stretch to say she knows where she wants to be.)
dragging her feet down a near-empty hallway, morae peeks her head into the first empty studio she spots—
only to find that it’s far from empty. though it’d looked dark from the outside, there’s only one dim light on in the corner of the room, and she doesn’t need to squint to discern that the occupant sitting near it is none other than SOMIN.
“oh,” morae murmurs, mostly to herself. “err... practicing?” she inquires. she remembers bumping into somin at the workshop, too, and while they aren’t awkward around each other anymore, morae’s always been more cautious than not around those who know her better than she lets on. she presses her thumb and index finger to the corners of her lips and pushes up. “facial expressions?” she posits.
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♡ — holiday
lgcnabi /
( ... )
“oh! it would be so fun for you to be a taekwondo athlete, because you look so cute, you know?” she smiles, but then quickly backtracks. “not that cute people can’t do taekwondo! but you just look pretty and girly, i think you would be so popular! girls who do sports are the trend these days, you could be a total girl crush. you can do the olympics too, and we’ll be like those friends who won the olympics together!” she gestures widely with her arms as she talks. “well, i mean i guess we wouldn’t be in the same olympics, since i would be in the winter, but maybe we can get a car commercial together!” it’s all wishful thinking, but nabi has always been the imaginative type, always in her own world that she constructs from her mind.
now that morae mentions it, being a pilot sounds pretty fun as well. it’s another thing that nabi wouldn’t have expected from her, but she thinks that makes morae even cooler. “being a pilot seems hard, but then you can fly places, and i bet the view is great!” she shrugs, because she doesn’t really remember when she decided that this would be the path for her. “i don’t know? i guess i always liked performing and being around people but honestly, i only came because i followed my sister here.”
some people are just born to shine, and son nabi is probably one of them.
even as the younger girl chatters away excitedly, morae can’t bring herself to look away. there’s a fond smile on her lips as she listens, bobbing her head every now and then, fully satisfied just listening. just listening often feels stifling when morae’s surrounded by people she’s trying to make a good impression on, but nabi makes it easy.
morae lets out a surprised laugh when nabi begins a full-on barrage of positive affirmation. this isn’t unlike nabi, who always seems to have something nice to say about everyone, but it’s endearing every time.
“should we quit legacy and try to score a car commercial?” morae muses aloud, feigning genuine consideration of the idea. as charming as the idea sounds, she figures it’s not something worth throwing years of training aside for. besides, morae knows that that nabi has a bright and sparkling future before her that may or may not include multiple car commercials. “maybe we can think about it after we debut,” she decides, the lilt in her tone just short of teasing.
as the conversation eases back into preparing for the interview workshop, morae rests her chin atop her knees and presses her lips together, pensive as she listens to nabi speak. she supposes it makes sense that even someone who genuinely seems as though they were born to be an idol might not have considered it. most trainees appear to have arrived by serendipitous means, after all; morae’s one of them—she would know.
“but it’s good you came here,” morae says, reaching out to brush a loose strand of nabi’s hair away from her face. she beams proudly, like she’s the one who brought nabi here herself. “whenever management talks about star quality and other abstract things like that, i always think of you~ so it’s good you found your way here.”
if she hadn’t stumbled into dancing—a residual effect of her friends at the time—morae figures she’d probably still be in busan, maybe chasing after her siblings’ coattails. but even her family’s started to branch away from the tried and true things their parents taught them; she’d tackled guilt for the first few years at legacy, wondering if she was abandoning the things she was raised for, but these days, it’s easier to forgive herself for chasing different dreams.
“plus, we wouldn’t have met!” morae concludes, hugging herself a little tighter. she grins. “i don’t really know if i saw legacy in my future either, but i’m glad i ended up here.”
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interview workshop (q3 2021) /
careful preparation has finally culminated in the real thing. she hardly ever feels prepared for workshops or classes where she has to talk about herself on the spot, but she's practiced—and maybe not enough to feel comfortable with what's about to ensue, but she's practiced, and she's not going into this without some security.
HOW WOULD YOU DESCRIBE YOUR FAMILY?
comically, morae lets out a long sigh in spite of herself. when she realizes what she's done, a nervous, almost sheepish laugh follows, her expression immediately shifting from one of mild exasperation to looking like she got caught with her hand in the cookie jar. "my family..." she trails off, her words still tinted with lingering laughter. "if i had to use one word, maybe 'eccentric'?"
she taps her chin in brief contemplation, like she's racking her mind for the best way to express her sentiment. when she was younger, morae once thought that every family was as wildly unpredictable as hers. born to parents who'd rather carpe diem and be one with nature than stick to the status quo, she'd figured everyone's parents were like that—and realizing that was the furthest thing from the truth was just one aspect of her growing pains.
"a gentle dad... a strong-willed mom..." morae starts putting down fingers from an outstretched palm as she lists her family members. "a carefree eldest brother... a mischievous big brother... and a serious big sister." morae closes her hand into a fist before setting it on her lap again. she beams. "and then there's... me!" she laughs again, though it's less nervous this time. "my family is really colorful, i think. everyone's wildly different from each other, but at the end of the day, i couldn't really imagine my family being my family if any single person was different or missing."
AS A CHILD, WHAT WERE YOU MOST LIKELY TO BE FOUND DOING?
"fighting with my big brothers," she says, quickly and decisively. her lips are set into a neutral line, but there's a twinkle in her eye that betrays her—and not even seconds later, morae bursts into another laugh. "my parents were very busy with work and travel so i spent a lot of my time with my older siblings. they all had their different methods of taking care of me, but with my brothers, it always seemed to involve some sort of teasing or wrestling and i was usually crying by the end of it. but it was okay, because i got a lot of bribery candy out of it!"
easing into a more sincere response, morae recollects her childhood and is met, largely, with memories of a familiar dojang, the feeling of the white dobok on her skin—the hours spent practicing the same move until sweat clouded her vision.
"every one of my siblings grew up with taekwondo," she explains. "including me. i think... honestly? it probably consumed a lot of my childhood. i don't regret it because i love the sport, to this day, but if i wasn't bickering with my brothers in front of the convenience store or begging my sister to let me use her lip gloss, i was probably practicing."
WHAT'S ONE PIECE OF ADVICE YOU WOULD GIVE TO YOUR YOUNGER SELF?
the questions up until the last one have been easy to wade her way through. she'd been worried, earlier, about how to balance her storytelling so as not to divulge too much about her personal life while sharing just enough to be interesting—but this question isn't so much a matter of discretion, as it is a matter of distinction.
she doesn't really know how to answer it. isn't she still young, after all? who knows if she's wiser or better today—if she's wise or good enough to give herself advice when it almost feels like she was much happier and much freer when she was younger and the only thing on her mind was breaking the wood block above her head instead of seeking to push through a glass ceiling turned bulletproof like she is now.
younger morae thought it was her birthright to feel confident and comfortable in her own skin, and she chased whatever sun she wanted without abandon. the morae today is a little different—the morae right now has to wonder if some colors, however bright and brilliant they might be, are meant to be muted.
she catches the blank expression on her face, replacing it with a smile almost instantaneously. the flicker of doubt she’d been wearing turns into something practiced. “maybe...” morae begins, pursing her lips as she tries to find the right words.
a generic answer would do just fine here. something like, you have time! or just do your best! she could make it funny too—maybe toss in something about a premonition of legacy down the road. but before she even realizes it, morae’s lips are moving on their own, and the unfiltered sentiment she’d been harboring is materializing before her:
“something like, ‘not everyone will love you, but the people who do are more than enough.’”
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lgcharu /
AFTER MIDNIGHT
( ... )
so he does his best to hold in the remaining chuckles but how successful he is at it is up for debate so instead, haru tries clearing his throat as if to detract from his previous slip up. “it’s okay,” he laughs lightly this time, hoping it’ll ease how nervous the other seems to be, before nodding at morae’s question. “i have, yeah, but i don’t think public speaking is really my strong point…” another laugh leaves his throat but it’s more dry, maybe even a little self deprecating too.
haru supposes this is what the workshops are for though, to help them improve and learn how to be better at them so while he doesn’t feel like he’s really qualified to help, since morae went out of her way to ask, he might as well give it a shot. “i might not be the best person to ask but i can try? what’s up?”
is he... laughing at her?
she’s at a loss for what to expect from the situation for a moment. really, maybe it was her mistake for calling out to someone she’s only barely acquainted with. if anything, it makes sense for morae to know haru (the upcoming debuts are hot news around the company; it’d be weirder if she didn’t recognize a face or three), but less so the other way around.
ah, she thinks, distantly. did i fuck this up?
thankfully, haru seems to be good-natured enough to humor her. she lets out a tiny little sigh of relief, intermingled with another faint laugh as he continues to speak. it’s comforting (though maybe in an ideal world, neither of them would be worried about this workshop) to know she isn’t the only one who feels a little bit (or a lot of bit) at a loss. then again, she’s almost positive that haru’s probably discounting himself more than he has to. she has more faith in his ability—however distant a stranger he may be—than in her own, as it stands.
morae closes her eyes for a second, pressing the heels of her hands to her eyelids in a muted gesture of fatigue. dropping her hands back to the tabletop and meeting haru’s gaze once more, she admits, with a sheepish smile: “no kidding—i’m not a fan of public speaking either.” she’s not sure how to word the questions she has; isn’t even sure if what she’s thinking, the conflicts and concerns brewing about in her mind, even constitute ‘questions.’ maybe she’d been too brash in beckoning haru over—especially when time seems to be precious these days.
with a tap of her fingers against the table surface, she tilts her head to the side, expression swathed in contemplation.
“how have you been practicing?” she finally decides to ask. that seems to be the best way to broach the subject. they’re probably not close enough to delve into the nitty gritty personal details of their familial histories, but morae wants a better idea of how to articulate her upbringing; how to present her story in a way that isn’t too negative, too positive, or too lukewarm.
in group settings or large crowds, she’s always fallen back on keeping her mouth shut—to avoid speaking out of line, or out of place. but one-on-one, even with someone she only just barely knows, it’s easier to hold a conversation without feeling like she’s forcing the words out of her mouth.
her focus drifts for a second and much too belatedly, she clasps her hands together, eyes widening ever so slightly like she’s experienced an epiphany: “oh! i’m glad you remembered my name, by the way.”
#lgcharu#lgc:iwq3#thr / after midnight#me trying to motivate u to reply to me with astro titles#also BRUH we're at war
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AFTER MIDNIGHT
'family and childhood’ doesn’t have to be a complicated topic by any means, but morae is nothing if not absolutely adept at making the simplest things just that—complicated.
interviews are hard and morae has never been good at talking about herself, let alone the things that defined her or shaped her—especially considering how much she’s stowed away. still, it’d be stupid to go into this workshop without some preparation, and she’s far too stubborn to half-ass anything this far down the road.
she buries her face into her hands, hunched over a table in the cafeteria by her lonesome. it’s a quiet, odd hour. the lunch ladies aren’t even around and she’s really just holing up here because she knows it’s empty.
or, well—was empty.
HARU is only a vaguely familiar face, much like the grand majority of legacy for morae. despite the years she’s spent in seoul and in the company, she’s kept too many people an arms-length away. maybe it’s not too late to try to reach out (especially when there may be mutual benefit to be reaped from the conversation). “haru!” she calls out, far too meekly for her own good. she stands from her seat to greet him before deciding that might be weird after all—and for a second (way too long) she’s suspended in a half-sitting half-standing position before forcing herself back into her chair. “hey, um... did you—oh, i mean, hi?”
talking comfortably when she’s in the building is hard as is, but being overly conscious of her words at the same time only makes it that much more difficult.
morae laughs (a clear nervous response), and then quickly shakes her head like she’s brushing her nerves off. “sorry—i meant to say hi, first. and... secondly... you don't have to answer if you don't want to, but have you been preparing for the workshop?” she pauses, the smile on her lips just barely noticeably nervous. “could i pick your brain about it?”
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lgcnabi /
♡ — holiday
( ... )
“when i was in first grade, i watched kim yuna in the olympics and i loved it. i mean, everyone did. but after that i really wanted to be a figure skater.” she gets up from her seated position, suddenly running around the practice room, spinning until she gets dizzy. “can you imagine it? son nabi, gold medalist!” she stops suddenly, realizing that maybe this wasn’t a great idea as she takes one stumbling step forward, long legs looking like a baby deer for a second before she regains her balance. good thing she worked on her core strength this week. deciding that she doesn’t want to fall down in front of morae today, she sits down immediately. “okay well. maybe not.”
she’s still a little lightheaded from practice, but just lucid enough to reflect on how much she hates interviews. it’s not like morae has a lot to hide—at least, not in the traditional sense—but she doesn’t trust herself to talk about herself and interviews are nothing but a test of her own mental stamina.
still, it’s nice being able to bounce ideas off of nabi. the younger girl has a sort of infectious energy to her, and morae highly doubts there’s even a single person in the company building who doesn’t find nabi endearing. she smiles, feeling the fatigue leave her body in tendrils. “when i was younger...?” morae echoes.
that’s a good question. and as she watches nabi spin around, morae has to stifle a laugh. when she was a kid, her thoughts were probably clouded with taekwondo. her parents made it seem like it was a given, and her siblings had already begun to pave a path before her, leaving behind all of the things they’d already learned through meticulous trial and error.
and somehow, morae ended up here—the dojang she grew up in replaced with a studio room far too big for two girls.
“i could see you as a gold medalist,” morae offers, and she means it. she scratches her cheek, the smile on her lips lingering. “hm... or i can picture you on the podium, at least.” she’s usually not too great about speaking more than a couple of words at a time around others when she’s playing her little game of pretend, but nabi makes things easy—as she often does. “i think i wanted to be a taekwondo athlete for a little while... and then i thought busan felt stuffy, so i wanted to get out somewhere—like travel far away, so maybe a pilot or something...?” morae hugs her knees to her chest and tilts her gaze toward nabi. “did you... dream of something like legacy in your future when you were younger?”
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TURN ON A DIME
— BACKDATED TO JULY 2019
she doesn’t mean to be obvious about it, but it’s instinct at this point. being in seoul has been brutal since the second morae stepped foot in the city. she misses busan for a thousand and one different reasons, but she’s here for a reason, too. and morae isn’t the type of person who can sit by and half-ass something she’s already committed to.
so, she commits. and she works hard. she tries her best to learn from her mistakes; and if some of those mistakes happen to require her playing the part of a person different than the one she once grew up proudly being—then, so be it. it’s not like she knows any better than the masses.
and that’s precisely why it’s hard to face SOMIN.
she knew coming into all of this—this stupid undertaking of hers—that it wouldn’t be seamless. inevitably, she’d let the façade slip; unfortunately, she’d probably bump into the ghosts of her past.
it’s going a little too far to call somin a ghost though, all things considered. their childhood shared together is only filled with happy memories, after all. and morae going out of her way to avoid any confrontation with somin isn’t a reflection of a bad relationship; it’s just plain old cowardice.
she wants to muster up the courage to say hello, but it’s hard to decide if she should be greeting somin like an old friend, or like a stilted, barely-familiar face from years ago. the former would necessarily imply morae act like herself—her real self; and latter, her carefully constructed defense mechanism of a personality.
in the end, it’s not going to be her decision to make. whatever happens will likely happen without much grace, in a panic, or as the result of inevitability.
and she knows this because that’s exactly what it’s coming down to right this second as the elevator doors close and the only other person beside her for the next sixty seconds is somin herself.
morae fidgets. and then, because she’s never been good at denying the things right in front of her: “are you getting used to everything in the company so far?”
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SOUR
for a city with a population of almost ten million, seoul is way too small.
that’s the loudest thought racing through morae’s mind right this second, among a hundred—no, a thousand—others all ranging from one degree of panicked to another. the hour’s late, and the streets are quiet. at no point in the short trek from the company building to the nearest convenience store did she anticipate being confronted with the worst reminder of adolescence.
face-to-face with the one and only person who broke her heart all of those years ago, morae is slammed with a series of internal questions. why did she even call out his name? in a stupor, maybe? because she was dumbfounded by how ridiculously fucked up fate could be? there's no way he would have recognized her otherwise, considering her get-up, so why did she bother? is he training? why is he here? and why does she care?
for a second, she forgets that she isn’t alone. that aside from her teenage demons, there’s another person beside her—and in a fit of extreme idiocy, morae reaches for NATHAN’s hand and squeezes. the act, however careless it is, actually does clear the fog in her mind; nathan may only be here to accompany her to the convenience store for a ‘congratulations on debuting!’ snack (and also because as much as she likes to posture, the backroads are always a little scarier at night), but right this second, he’s serving as her anchor in more ways than one.
“s-sorry!” she stammers out (god, why did she have to stutter?), feebly tugging nathan forward and away. even beneath the mask covering her face, she smiles like it’s rehearsed. “it was nice seeing you, but i have to go now...” morae trails off, willing herself to shut up, but there’s a voice at the back of her head urging her to drive a stake through the last of her regrets—so she adds, squeezing nathan’s hand again: “with my boyfriend!”
...
nice. way to drop the fucking ball on that one, kim morae!
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ORBITAL MOTION
training is hard.
(say something more obvious, morae!)
training is hard, but she knew it would be. and she knew even better that coming into it with half a heart would only bite her in the ass down the road. this isn’t to say morae isn’t committed to what she does, day in and day out, but—it’s hard. it’s tiring. and sometimes, all she wants to do when she’s curled up alone in a practice room at some odd hour is daydream about an alternate universe where she knows what she wants to do and it doesn’t feel like she’s chasing a pipe dream that never seems to come closer.
though, to be fair, the late nights have been manageable these days. she supposes her mystery guardian angel is to credit, always popping in on morae’s worst nights to provide her company without demanding anything much in return. she’s convinced that whoever-it-is is a figment of her imagination (in which case, she is definitely teetering toward being certified insane), but she doesn’t mind it much; rather, morae’s grateful. anything that gets her mind off of the mental and physical fatigue is welcome, fictitious or not.
she’s still a little bleary-eyed as she makes her way toward the company café. classes ended early for the day (a blessing!) but morae’s moral compass dragged her to the company earlier than scheduled (a curse!) to try to squeeze in some more practice. coffee is hardly her favorite drink, but the caffeine is a necessary evil today. she stifles a yawn (as if her body is going out of the way to prove her point).
bumbling about in the hallways, she shuffles her feet toward the entrance without even looking up from the ground. when a few footsteps seem to come dangerously close, she lifts her head in a feeble attempt at dodging what might have become a collision—only to lock eyes with none other than her MYSTERY GUARDIAN ANGEL!
she’s usually pretty good at maintaining her composure when she’s in trainee mode, always fighting herself to keep her personality under wraps, but the shock drags the sentiment off of her tongue before her brain-to-mouth filter can stifle it:
“huh?!” her eyes widen comically and she remembers, a little too belatedly, to shut her mouth. upon closer examination, the stranger who’s been keeping her company looks a lot more familiar than morae thought while delirious from training. come to think of it, hasn’t she seen her in hyejoo’s photos...? “ah! s-sorry, i, um, i didn’t mean to shout. i just—you’re real!”
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KNOCK (PLEASE)
she’s trying, with much futility, not to think about last night.
(PICTURE—it’s KIM MORAE against the WORLD. huddled in the bathroom of the illustrious dorm e at ass o’clock at night, a literal matter of life and death (and in retrospect, maybe something that could have been rescheduled for a more appropriate hour), morae had been in the middle of cursing and hexing every fiber of her older brother’s existence when she’d been interrupted mid-’i swear to god if you even lay a single finger on my stash of fried chicken coupons i’m going to make you wish you were never born’ by none other than HANNA.
needless to say, she’d dropped her phone (and the screen’s chipped to prove it). her brother asking, ‘what the fuck is going on’ in the background like a distant whisper, morae saw her life flash before her very eyes.
and it was then, in the bathroom of the illustrious dorm e at ass o’clock at night, that kim morae thought to herself: ah, (sotto voice) i’m screwed.)
it’s a strange stroke of luck, but morning passes without a hitch. she doesn’t bump into hanna when she slips out of the dorm for her morning jog, and by the time morae comes back to pick up her bag for practice, the older girl is nowhere to be seen. a relief, for sure, because morae still isn’t sure how to act or carry herself now that hanna’s stumbled upon her in a moment of bitterly honest, vulnerable, weakness. god. it’s settled. she’ll have to kill her own brother for ruining her life the next time she’s back in busan. (shout out to cain and abel or whatever.)
with high hopes that her luck will stay with her, morae tiptoes (like an intruder, in her own home) to the front door of dorm e and hesitates. maybe hanna won’t be home. with the way everyone seems to handle their free practices, there are evenings when no one’s ever home at the same time. maybe tonight will be one of those nights! or maybe the gap between fucking around and finding out will finally close for the ever tenacious kim morae.
it’s chill. it’s zen. she totally has this situation under control. it’s totally fine and (AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA) dandy.
with a deep breath, morae grabs the door handle after tapping in the passcode and shoves it open, bracing herself for impact—
only to be met with... fried chicken?
“huh?” morae blinks, staring at the boxes on the dining room table and then at hanna, seated beside them. “... um, haha... hi? what’s this?”
#lgchanna#i used an astro song for you pls respond <3#thr / knock (please)#sorry for the length im rusty
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