@LGCENT Just Posted A Photo!

“christ,” lili curses under her breath, fingers running through her hair as she steps back. she was thankful — no, relieved — when she sees the other open her eyes to a blurry haze. she was alive — there was no need for cpr that lili did not know heads or tails of or 119. shit, should she still call them just in case? the girl did look like she needed some type of medical attention. “are you sure, you looked like … kinda two steps to heaven?”

watching the other nearly stumble, lili sighs; hands on her hips, brows furrowed before shaking her head. a hand raised to stop the other, if not extend a hand to stabilize her. “no, no — it’s okay. i was going to use it but you don’t look so good, you should stay. rest, maybe go to the infirmary? does this happen often?” 

One moment, she was studying her form in the mirror, checking the angle of her leg as she pointed it towards ceiling. The next moment, she was looking into the eyes of a girl she recognized but was not overly familiar with and completely soaked.

Junyi was not alarmed - this was, unfortunately, a common enough occurrence.

"I am alright," she whispered reassuringly, bringing a hand up to sweep across her wet bangs. People did not typically use water to wake her up; they most often opted for shaking and shouting. Junyi wasn't sure if she preferred this method more.

Regardless.

"Thank you for your help. Apologies if I alarmed you." She smiled despite the circumstances and sat herself up slowly. "I must have overheated. Or something." Her doctors in China informed her that she had a problem with her qi, and that was why she experienced these moments of weakness. It's been improving, but not quickly enough.

"Are you here for the practice room?" Junyi glanced at the clock. "Sorry. I'll get going now." She reached for her towel in the corner to wipe her face. Must have moved too fast, because she nearly fell over again.

@LGCENT just posted a photo!

they say that for every cherry blossom petal that you catch in your hand, you get a wish. were you able to make any wishes? i know what i would wish for 💝

#lgctrainees #lgcent #xulili

@LGCENT just posted a photo!

i'll be your chocolate, if you'll be my valentine?

#lgctrainees #lgcent #xulili

two girls, one chicken coop  —  @lgcjaekyung

lili is no countryside girl.

she doesn’t even remember a time where she had voluntarily stepped out of the city — let alone, wanted to do so. pray tell, why would she want to leave the comforts and efficiency of a concrete jungle for the — pardon her ick — hovel that was the rural village they had currently been dropped in.

even though she was grinning and trying to bear it — the feigned laughs and smiles were starting to create an ache in her cheeks and make her voice hoarse — the smell was atrocious and lili was in dire need of an evian spritz or a d-air diffuser, stat.

was she starting to feel faint — she could feel herself waning.

then she stumbles, barely catching herself before she almost falls face-first into the dirt that she isn’t sure is just dirt or a mix of the compost and chicken poop that littered the area. fuck, even the rubber boats they had given her were falling apart from the smell — or so she thinks. 

she groans, immediately falling to a crouch beside a girl — was it jae … something … jane? june? jake? — all but a heap of defeat as she tries to muster a grin despite the stench strangling her nose out of her senses. “how are you able to do this — isn’t the smell killing you?” she whispers, honestly in awe at the other. lili may be in the worst mood ever but she had to give her appreciation where it was due. she sniffs, once — twice, trying to find a way to rid herself of the stink. 

lili had always been an only child. 

( and she definitely acted like one, too )

fortunate for her as she never wanted siblings and she had always wanted more attention than any of her respective legal guardians could ever give. but a sibling arises in the form of one parker su. it was funny, really. how quick they clicked, how odd that despite being from the same state — sure, california was big but it wasn’t that big — that despite it all, she found his presence to be not as annoying as she would have expected. is this what a sibling relationship was like for others?

( she wonders if her grandma would adopt parker, too )

rather than seeing him, lili hears him and can only guess to what is causing his burst of concern. and while it wasn’t unwarranted, lili — sincerely — couldn’t find what was wrong with her outfit.

did he find it offensive that she was wearing a dress from last season? 

she snorts, toe of her heel meeting with his ankle gently as a jab for his nagging. “lilian?” an amused brow rises, “who’s that?”

then she frowns at his fussing — hands making no move to do as he says because this ensemble was not meant for a coat to cover ( the coat was but a mere accessory to withstand the chill but other than that, lili was bound by the inherent belief that she’d rather die pretty than badly dressed ) — her hand running through her hair as she lets his words go from one ear to the other before lips purse and she groans, “you said i was going to be meeting your friends, of course i had to make a good impression. don't i look like someone you'd want to meet your friends?”

sure, her personality was rough around the edges but lili assumed that a pretty dress and smile would at least soften those jagged parts — kind of a trojan horse a la miu miu sort of thing?

yes, that shall be her optimal reasoning for wearing the sheerest dress possible on what could be the coldest day of february. tugging on his arm, she pulls him along, amidst his english woes, “okay, okay — i hear you. i’ll make sure to stay close to the radiator at the restaurant. let’s go — like you said, it’s freezing.” at least her gloves could fight off the frostbite, she thinks. 

little red packet

@lgclili and parker spend some "sibling" time together

At this point, it was pretty par for the course for Parker not to go home during any breaks, even when he had them. For as long as the flight was back to California, the time that was typically allotted seemed way too short, but as a trainee, it had seemed more doable just based on how much he missed his family; however, that had been simply out of the question this year. Even more so when the Seollal break was only four days, but this year Lunar New Year seems a little less lonely. For one, he had Hyuk to spend time with, but more than that, somewhere along the line, he managed to sort a dinner together with some of his favorite people: Yichen, Yuxi, and Lili. 

It was about a quarter to six when Parker’s cab pulled up not too far from Daerim-dong. Even when a good deal of Koreans were taking the time with their own families, he could still see a few people making their way here in there. Thanking the driver, Parker adjusted his scarf and looked around, hoping to spot a Lili. She hadn’t met either Yichen or Yuxi before and had insisted on meeting up with him beforehand, a request that Parker couldn’t refuse. Even if they weren’t related, all three held a special familial place in Parker’s heart, but especially Lili. 

“Ah! Are you crazy!” he called out when he called her. Parker’s furrowed his bows and switched to English to sound more like his own mother.  “Lillian, you’re going to catch a cold! Yes, your dess is cute. Button up your coat!”

໒꒱ . MODELING GIG # 003 _ AURORA REVIEW 、

one would think that lili’s first thought of being selected for a model for a brand would be of course it would be me — but you could not be anymore wrong.

she is surprised, so much so that she doesn’t believe it at first. 

being selected as a brand model is an honor — not a right — truly a privilege bestowed upon her by some higher power — was it jisoo? or had it been pure luck? — that lili had no hand in. and this is what stumps her — the go-getter in her is baffled that such a prestige just lands in her hands. 

( because lili knows —

seen it,

lived it,

had the deepest of traumas to prove it,

nothing is really that easy )

putting her feelings into words had never been easy. even now, she has yet to exclusively apologize to jisoo for things she knows she’s done, and if she were being honest, she probably will never really give him the apology he deserves. so, asking to put her feelings on the matter into words as so under the guise of reviewing the video of the brand’s overall concept as done through the eyes of its creator, lili may be a little less obliged to speak.

but — since it is lili — she has things to say, even if she doesn’t truly wish for them to be said.

“i like it.” she says at first, as if testing out how the compliment tastes on the tongue. it’s not bad — maybe because it’s not ingenuine. “it has an understated elegance that you would usually feel with an older standing brand.” a remark that flatters the brand for understanding its roots and not straying from it. 

“han jisoo-씨 has quite the eye.” would she have utter it to his face? would he hear these words from others? would lili have preferred it if he did? “i’m glad i was given the chance to be a part of this, i don’t know what other brand i could identify more with. i might even buy something for my grandmother.” another keepsake her grandmother would say she cherishes only to be thrown to the back of her wardrobe with the rest of lili’s unnecessary gifts to the matriarch. 

“or maybe i’ll buy one for myself.” a testament to a triumph she'd like to remember for later.

BY GOOD WILL OR GOOD LUCK? is this lili being nice or is it just luck? — @lgckyoka

one would think — if you’ve been through one thing, something similar to it would be a breeze?

well, to lili, she’d say you were dead wrong. 

( because no two things could be the same, there was always something different )

thankfully, this was not one of those times — these were one of the times she’s able to bless her lucky stars for being so god-damned, four-leaf clover lucky. but perhaps luck had nothing to do with it — because, again, if you’ve been through one thing, you’ve been through it all. 

and since lili had painstakingly gone through grueling work to learn japanese just for some mock hosting gig that never saw the light of day — to do it again, but in korean — a language she would say she was a little more than familiar with, well — lili would tell you she just won the lottery.

that is how lucky she thinks such a task is.

a breeze, it would be — despite her initial belief ( read above ) — because wasn’t hosting all about self confidence? and apparently, lili had that in spades.

and by her good fortune — maybe she was feeling nice or maybe she felt bad for kyoka — she saddles up next to the other after an afternoon lesson, glancing over at the other’s notes before pointing at a phrase she notices with her sparkly pink pen. 

“is this what you wrote for the exercise earlier? the one about improvising a music show scene?”

there were many things lili should be right now:

encouraging, sympathetic — even more, empathetic — a good pillar of support to a friend who was going through something that lili could only understand at surface level.

what lili should not be right now is bitter.

but her little green friend sits high on her shoulder, on a pedestal of envy that could not be toppled with something as heartfelt as ‘being a good friend’. no, lili had never been a good friend — even when she tried her hardest, at her core, she was a selfish friend who was also ambitious to a fault. so, when she sees someone else who had something that she wanted and could never get — well, something had to give.

unfortunately, lili was not a giving person.

( at least not in that way )

yujin was only being honest. and any good, trustworthy friend should be considerate to the other’s feelings. but was there anything lili could say to remedy the situation that didn’t sound so … volatile? nothing seemed to come to mind, everything that nearly dripped from her lips felt like a slap to the face waiting to happen. 

so, instead, she sighs when yujin regresses and instantly she feels a pang of guilt shoot right into her gut at how she had nearly bit the other's head off, but before she could stop herself and lessen the blow; her ugly head reared itself again, “so, you got everything you could have ever wanted, yujin, the pressure should have been expected as a trade off to debuting, right?”

there was always a give and take with these things — fame wasn’t given to the weak. "wasn’t this why we spent all this time training so that we wouldn’t break under this type of pressure?"

yujin knew how lucky she was to be in this position after failing future dreams. the doom she felt in her chest the following week was unsettling, and she started to prepare what she would do if she couldn't debut. she had trained for so many years that not debuting on that show had felt like all her hard work was starting to slip through her fingers.

to debut into crystallis, there was a new set of pressure on her shoulders, and yujin felt it from the managers and the fans, who probably weren't so pleased with the latest additions to the group. for the rest of her career, she will play catch-up with the other girls and constantly prove her worth, that she has every right to be there on that stage.

these words shamelessly slipped from the blonde's mouth to her friend, lili. she didn't want to complain or seem ungrateful, but there was something still so unsettling about her placement now. it would take time for her to get used to everything, to being an idol and in a group that was already so well established. there was always going to be some sort of struggle in this journey, but as long as she was able to get this off her chest, yujin would feel better.

well, she thought she would feel better if the tone shift didn't make yujin fidget in her seat. there was a small smile that tightened on her lip. maybe she was thinking way too much into this.

"ah, nothing... i think it was just something i needed to share with someone i trust. you work so hard to get to this point, and you never realize the amount of pressure set on you to be perfect."

it’s an act, she tells herself.

it’s all an act and all the world’s a stage — lili knows this.

it’s easier to remember when she knows minkyu is doing it on purpose because as much as she knows him, he knows her all too well and it would be a little too easy to reveal her cracked charade to the nation.

“let’s hope you’ll say the same after the lesson.”

her smile stays soft — the grind in her teeth hidden behind a gentle curve of fulls lips and a flutter of eyelashes, a bat here; another there. the picture of enthrallment, as if minkyu’s charm had truly had her smitten until her insides fluttered — or churned, whatever best describes the millisecond of queasiness she feels as he finishes off her laces. 

( is this how it felt to be the eye of someone’s unparalleled attention? )

“hold on, minkyu-ssi!” she laughs, the fingers that had slyly wrapped his pull him back; reaching for the helmets they had left by their feet at the bench — “don’t forget your helmet,” by first instinct, lili would have held the helmet to minkyu for him to take — but through helpful pressured guidance of the cameras all around him, she, instead, steps towards him and carefully places the helmet on his head; toying with the straps to secure it firmly beneath his chin, “let’s not get hurt today, okay?”

Oh, he knows. He knows all too well that Lili is quietly fuming over his decision to choose skiing. He knows her well enough to be certain that, under normal circumstances, she would be scolding him right now, perhaps even nagging just a little.

But that’s precisely what makes this so amusing. Watching her tuck away that sharp tongue of hers, replacing it with the angelic, patient, and ever-so-loving demeanor she wants the cameras to capture; it’s a performance in itself. A carefully crafted image, all in favor of being adored by viewers.

“I am in luck indeed,” he finally responds when she mentions that she knows how to ski. His eyes crinkle at the corners, and he grins up at her with a sweetness so genuine it could melt the iciest of hearts. That look; the one he knows makes fans weak, the one he always has when he’s with those he cherishes. Complete attention, unwavering devotion, as if nothing else in the world exists but the person in front of him.

In this moment, the cameras fade into the background. His focus is solely on easing Lili into her ski boots, hands grazing her legs only when necessary, careful and respectful, like the kind gentleman he is. “I couldn’t imagine a better teacher than you.”

This may be a show, but to Minkyu, it’s something more. It’s a challenge they set for each other: a playful game of who could outdo the other in delivering the most heart-fluttering, drama-worthy moments. Yet, as the minutes pass, he finds himself forgetting the game entirely, instead surrendering to his natural instinct to romanticize every fleeting moment.

He doesn’t miss the subtle squeeze on his shoulder. If anything, it makes his smile soften, a flicker of something almost bashful in his expression.

Shifting to sit beside her, he quickly secures his own boots, giving them a firm pat before meeting her gaze again. “I’m all good, thank you.” And then, he rises, extending his hand to her, fingers curling just slightly in invitation.

“Shall we?” He nods toward the slope. “I can’t wait to see the skiing princess in action with my very own eyes.”

BLANK SPACES. lili hates to bother (she doesn't, in reality, she is the bother) but desperate times call for desperate measures — @lgcrua

her head is blank. a struggle lili has never once encountered before. then again, not once had she ever thought she would be attempting to choreograph something for herself again. it’s been years since ballet school and the recitals and the long nights of endless, frustrated grueling over steps and motions that lili had thought she had put behind her.

and yet —

she stands, with her hands on her hips as she lets the song play again through her airpods; repeating the motion as languidly as possible so that she doesn’t tire herself out like all those years ago when she would just run full-throttle into every move. 

it still didn’t look right — didn’t feel right either — as she does the move thrice over. because of this — she could feel the vein in her forehead ready to pop, frustration bubbling to the surface. lili hated being wrong, but she also hated wasting her time. 

from the side she spots — rua, was it? — plucking a pod from her ear, she waves with as much finesse as she can muster despite herself, “hey — rua, right?” 

“can i get your opinion on something? i keep doing this move but i feel like it doesn’t look right.”