ty weird- prose stuff. it's absolutely abdominal.

she supposes she wanted to be a good singer because she's always thought if you had a good one, you would be allowed to have a voice at all. she always assumed being pretty was the same as being beautiful and those both implied self-worth. she supposes now that no path but that to an idol suited her so well, even if it only weighed her down.

her trainee schedule went something like this: 8 am dance practice, 9:30 break, 10 vocal lessons, 12 lunch, and so on and so forth but all she really remembers at this point is becoming accustomed to kimchi ramen in convenience stores and learning which drinks gave her hell in her afternoon vocal classes and how to drop water weight to keep the numbers ideal.

her arms had grown thinner and her mind had drifted higher and one day, the only difference was a meeting instead of her last vocal class, but she supposes that was the last normal day of her life.

somehow kimchi ramen tastes different, not worse, not better, when she east it alone in your dorm to have the first iotas of privacy all day. somehow, when she looks in the mirror, the criticisms of a country and a half do nothing to make her notice the depth of the crows eyes and the number of moles she covers with concealer. she doesn't need them.

it's odd to taste fame on your tongue, fresh and burning one second, a flame with no ash or smoke, and to have only the memory the next. she had transformed from going up, up, up like smoke or balloons, through hazy eyes believing that if she stretched a little more, she could brush the sun, to sinking, with leaden weights in her stomach. she's not sure if its how the fancafes drop faster than her fat weight ever did or if its how her mind cannot grasp the distinction between debut and retirement because they're both the start of something.

the first time she walks down the street and no one recognizes her, her breath catches in . but even if she can eat at the same convenience stores, living a normal life and having a normal life and she's always been a bit (more than a bit) of a drifter- through time, through space, through her own memories. somehow, eating kimchi ramen in a convenience store feels the same as the first time she shared a bowl with a senior after a successful show. somehow, she still feels more comfortable in eyeliner and overwhelming false lashes than in her sweats.

she hits the ground too late for her to do anything about it- being trapped in a company that does not know she exists and in a market where she is too old, too chinese, too unusual and not unusual enough to quite fit anywhere. 

the only pain she's ever felt is that niggling in her chest and not enough willpower to put the brakes on her life. somehow, she always thought that if only she could rip out her heart, make it numb, it wouldn't exist. it doesn't quite work like that

falling is hard. waking up is harder. she does it anyway

this ended up being a hidden rant on how sm treats some of their less successful, and often older, stars. sm the ballad pulled some of them out of the dungeon, but-