#( * ✦ ∙ 럭스 › l u x e . )

[rkcheri]

HAPPY TWO YEAR ANNIVERSARY, LUXE!

[qxri]

◆  KBS MUBANK   ━━━━ • • • ﹅ 럭스 ∙ COMEBACK ! EVERY NIGHT  ❪ ﹡* ❫

there’s a thin line between being overworked and being a workaholic. it’s a line mijoo finds gets blurred a lot these days. as they cycle from one promotion to another, especially as the year begins to fade from winter to spring and dozens of groups begin their own preparations for their comebacks, exhaustion makes her bones crack and her back ache; feeling the pressure weigh her and the girls down by the end of february. something’s coming, it tells her.

it’s why it comes to no surprise when they’re all called into a meeting and it happens.

not even a whole two weeks later and they’re returning to the stage once more. it’s a twist of fate when the call had come on march fourth that confused wouldn’t be the last the public would see of them, the addition of several more weeks into the promotional era for their latest album raised a flutter of anticipation in her heart.

she’s excited.

every night was among the songs that she had thought to be wasted on their album; finding its charm throughout recording for the album. every time the producer would play back her parts, she’d wonder why it wasn’t a contender as their title song. it had the appeal, and she knows with jaekyung’s magic touch, the choreography would be something that the public would latch onto in seconds.

they begin immediately, in the midst of their confused promotions and mijoo is left to pray minutes before each confused stage that she doesn’t confuse the choreography and unknowingly give way to what’s to come. singing her lines were never a problem, dancing them however -- took much more discipline than mijoo actually, professionally, was equipped with.

but she makes it through, to the last day of promotions: march sixteenth, and they’re home free for mijoo to go from one stressed round of choreographies to another. while other’s may deem their movements as simple and easy, mijoo, who was by far not a classically trained dancer, found them to be just right. anything more and she might fall into the depths of over-exhaustion, maybe, hopefully not.

like february had been, march is busy.

she’d said february felt like the busiest she’s ever been but march proves her wrong, once more. it’s filled with interviews and photoshoots and even more dance practices that overwhelm her. yet, at the end of the day, as she rests her head against seolhyun’s shoulder on the way home, something has her itching for the next day.

( even if her sleep-deprived self felt like absolute death once the actual day came )

it continues like this, a recurring routine of anticipation and aches in her bones that she ignores. she’s much too excited for the end of the month that when it finally comes, she can’t help but feel at a loss once they’re back on the stage and staring at each other in their circle once more.

new costumes donned, make-up unflawed yet by the sweat and nerves that were to come. it takes her back to february when they had first comeback and somehow, this one, like that -- feels different. a new type of anticipatory relief to come as their heels follow their movements and they’re rounding on one another, hyping themselves up for what’s to come.

and like a well-oiled machine, she recites their wishes in one; waiting for everyone to speak before their hands fall in line among each other’s at the center of their circle.

“luxe is love, luxe is life!”

and the curtain rises once more as march comes to a close.

[rkcheri]

◆  [ FROM.체리🎀 ]   HAPPYCHUSEOK🍂     ━━━━━━━━━━━━━   럭스 FANCAFE   ∙

are you having a good chuseok?? 😚 ~

my family and i went to a quiet place, breathed some nice air and had healing time together! after our time together, i've come back with a fresh mind 😌 😌 

the sunset was so beautiful yesterday so i took a picture ㅋㅋㅋ my photo-taking skills aren't that great ㅜㅜ i hope your sunsets look much prettier than mine 

olympias, who i love always, have a happy chuseok 💖

           🕘     15 DAYS SINCE LAST LOG IN     💬     79 COMMENTS     📄     NEW POST !

                           ━━      POSTED 2020.10.01 10:23:44   ❪ LUXE_CHERI ❫    ━━    

[rkcheri]

 ◆     체리 of LUXE(럭스) - ‘ GRAVITY by SARA BAREILLES ’ (COVER) .

it’s a song she knows like the back of her hand ( or her heart, if she wanted to be poetic about it ) -- she’s sung it more times than she can realistically count. 

and here she is again, begging her team to let her make an official cover for it -- despite their suggestions to do something a little more upbeat ; a little more happy ; ‘no ballads’ they had tried to pleaded with her ; naeun still went along with her preparations for the song.

no ballads? did royal really not know her at all?

even with so jisub’s criticisms about how her ballads were boring and repetitive -- naeun still loved them. knew her voice adapted well to them and if anything, at least she hoped her fans would enjoy them as much as she did. 

this time, rather than just sing, she had prepared the piano accompaniment as well. 

it wasn’t her fault that the set designers had pushed for the moody affect -- dimmed lighting, white dress, black piano -- if anything, naeun had just went along with it ( albeit, happily ). rather than the casual, less poised, filming that they had done with her late night cover ; this was much more refined, planned -- and while low-budget, it still was more than just gearing up th recording studio.

she hadn’t expected it at all, but liked it all the same.

while her piano skills aren’t exactly spectacular, she makes it through the first rehearsal without the occasional slips -- the usual blunders of mistaken keys and notes that had occurred when she had first practiced the song the week before. now, it seemed like it was almost second-nature. 

she’s sure the song has had over hundreds of covers already, but as she sings -- the camera whirring around her ; fingers on the keys , she feels herself get lost in the song once again. a difference -- once more -- to the songs she usually sings as luxe’s cheri. because, if she thought of it too deeply, songs like these were more the color of luxe’s son naeun rather than luxe’s charismatic leader. these were far too emotional, scratching below the surface than luxe has yet to do. not that their catchy and upbeat feminine anthems weren’t her taste, but this -- this feeling she got as she sung these words, they felt raw, far more real to her.

a contrast to what she usually did for them. and she liked it -- the difference. because for naeun, this felt more her than any of the songs she had been singing recently. she could only wish to do it more. feels this emotion more as she continues to sing, eyes half-closed as the camera ran around her ; capturing her in the low lighting.  

and as the final note runs out and she realizes, two years later, maybe royal still doesn’t quite get her at all.

[rkcheri]

   ◆     체리 of LUXE(럭스) - ‘ LATE NIGHT by NOEL ’ (COVER) .

it’s a nice break from normality, naeun thinks.

weirdly enough -- her normal was filled with wardrobe fittings, table readings and filming sites. and for the first couple of weeks naeun had ever intention of disliking it. she hadn’t been in an ‘actor’-esque headspace in years and to suddenly be thrown into it like this was beyond her. ( especially after her audition that had only confirmed her doubts of her acting ability -- somehow, someway the chance had come and much like her money-hungry company, she had taken it for the ride )

so, when she mentions it to management in passing ( like she seems to do a lot these days ), she’s overjoyed when they give her the permission to do a cover of noel’s song on their company channel. it was a opportunity she had wanted very much.

because she, a vocal, doing anything but singing was aghast to herself. 

even her fans had figured the surprise and commented on her social media as of late the moment rumors had fled the entertainment chains. so, naeun does what she thinks is best -- to quiet their fears with a song. because songs always made everything better, right?

naeun doesn’t think too much of her song choice, noel has always been a group she admired ever since she had come to korea. her sister had introduced them to her, vouching that their vocal harmonies would breath life into her ‘shallow’ world. and that much was true. the harmonic fluidity of the balladeers was commendable.

and while a younger, less mature naeun would have feared ruining the song ; she had grown from her vocal insecurities. after fights of years of waiting, she could do what she loved and do so happily ( even if her company wanted to try to steer her into a completely different direction ) ; naeun hoped that she’ll be able to still find the right path to what she solely believed she was destined to do.

she had rehearsed the song several times, accompanied by coach teo and coach choi on numerous occasions to fix any vocal mishaps that happened -- especially when she got too excited ( or ambitious ) with her runs -- but the day the recording comes is casual. opting out of the fancy sets, she comes to the recording studio in the bare minimum. ( still adequately dolled up in a ‘no-makeup-but-makeup’ fashion as deemed by their salon ) 

all she had to do was put the headphones on and sing.

[rkcheri]

           ◆     ‘ OH BOY ! ’ CHOREO    ━     럭스 !   ∙

learning choreography has always been a grueling process for naeun.

it wasn’t that she didn’t like dancing nor that she wasn’t good at it. ( she’d like to think that she’s gotten leagues better in comparison to how she started back in 2014 ) but while their choreography wasn’t the hardest in the world, having to do it in heels all the while looking as sensual as possible always seemed to stump her. ( it was always her trying her hardest not to look constipation, and hoping that the 1% who did think she looked such a way wouldn’t comment in under the videos on youtube )

after the first comment that had said so, naeun had forcibly stopped herself from searching up comments and reviews about herself. 

it was why, when they’re shown the choreography that would accompany their promotions for ‘ ah yeah ’, naeun just prayed that it wouldn’t be any harder to do in heels. and thankfully, it wasn’t. at least by naeun’s standards ( and she wasn’t an lead dancer, at that ) -- to say she was able to follow the cues fairly easy was saying a lot. considering, usually, she’d be dragging nayoung or seolhyun back to the practice rooms once the choreographer had left to go over the movements again.  this time, she was able to follow the movements -- and go home early too!

it was weird to think about, considering how fun the ‘ oh boy ’ song turned out -- she had been thinking they’d try for a more fun choreography but it paled in comparison to their ‘ ah yeah ’ choreography. which, naeun figured, was so that it wouldn’t outshine the promotional song. she shouldn’t be complaining, though ( not that she outrightly would ), if the choreography was any harder, it would mean she would be losing even more sleep than she intended. 

at least this way, ahead of promotions, at least she’d get the most out of sleep that she could. ( it was one less thing to worry about )

[rkcheri]

◆  THE PRODUCERS ! PHOTOSHOOT   ━━━━━━    럭스  ∙

just two days after her shoot with w korea, her manager whisks her off to another pictorial. this time being the official photos for the drama she had been casted in. they’ve slowly gotten progress with the drama filming and although it wasn’t as long as most dramas naeun was used to, she was still as exhausted.

she had thought she had grown used to going to sleep late and waking up at the dead of dawn, but now it was as if all her exhaustion in the past had been an ill-preparement for this. while her bags were minimal today, thankfully she had been able to knock out the moment she had gotten home this morning ; they were still there. and a tsk from the makeup artist couldn’t be helped as they dabbled concealer over them. 

what she did like about today was that she wasn’t alone. with the usual magazine photoshoots, it was usually just her, her manager and a horde of staff that were there to make sure everything went smoothly. today, unlike those days, wasn’t just naeun but her main co-stars whom she had grown close to over the last few days. at first, she had to admit that she had felt awkward being in their presence -- each of them were stars in their own right with a dozen dramas under their belts, while naeun was still such a baby in the industry -- but they had welcomed her as professionally and as politely as they could. each making her more and more comfortable with each passing time they filmed. 

maybe that was what made the shoot go by faster this time. not only was naeun comfortable with her costars being here, their small banters in between tasks made the mood lighter -- her smiles less forced, more genuine as the flashes went off from the other side of the background. 

even still, naeun had promised her to not grow shy being so close to her handsome costar -- promises of not being starstruck in kim soohyun’s presence was hard -- he was just so handsome. but try she did, because by the end of it -- despite the heart palpitations she got from his presence, they were able to finish the shoot with no mishaps, and an early finishing time than expected.

━━━━  “thank you so much for your hard work, everyone!”

[rkcheri]

              ◆    ‘ ALL MINE ’ GROUP M/V FILMING    ━     럭스 !   ∙

when they’re told that they’ll be featuring on a samsung station song, naeun is beyond elated. she’s been following the samsung station releases closely -- who wouldn’t, really, after the stellar release of nara sunbae’s ‘rain’, it’s been the talk of the town. each new release seemed to bring even more and more eyes to samsung, and even better opportunities for its artists. 

for naeun, she knew that luxe would be featured. it was never a matter of if, but of when they would do so. 

it’s only been several hours since they recorded the song -- and although, naeun thinks, it’s not really luxe’s color, she likes the edm / techno vibe that they apply to the song. it’s a new sound and she hopes their olympias don’t mind it too much. not that luxe really has a defined character of concept -- although, naeun supposes that ‘sexy’ could be their choice of concept if goaded. 

but the song is good -- the lyrics mean well and she knows the olympias would think so too.

it’s one of the days that she’s not filming on location for ‘the producers’ and one of the sole days she gets to spend with her members. unfortunately for her, most of it is filled with a camera crew following her around as they try to make their captures as candid as possible. following the luxe women around the royal building as they sing along to the song. the song plays in the background as naeun mouths the words as she walks, allowing the camera to follow her every move as if she was holding onto it herself. 

she’s chosen one of the hallways of the building, loitered with people and employees as she dances around them ; pulling several of the more known workers of royal into the frame as she sings to them as well as the camera. her smile, blindingly bright, as she sings her lines. in the midst of singing, a worker comes around to bring her a bouquet -- whispered praise for her appearance on ‘the producers’ being the reason and she all but bows in the middle of shooting, accidentally, as she blushes profusely. it’s among the many candid shots -- somehow making use of the bouquet, now as she sings. at times, utilizing the flower arrangement as a mic -- especially when she sings the high note.

the song lyrics, itself, are ones she thinks pairs well with her heart -- and as she sings, 

         ‘ your love brings magic ; fantasy has bloomed -- ’

a part of her really believes that. 

[rkcheri]

YIK YAK  ━━     ﹡ 𝚉𝙾𝙴 、

“nayoungie ~” her voice rings into the room before she makes her appearance in the doorway ; a hand knocking on the open door. her head pops in to check if the other was in. ( luckily, she was ) unlike the other girls, nayoung had the fortune of having the only solo room in the dorm. after all the other members had moved out, and the rest of the roommates situation had been sorted, it was left to nayoung’s capable hands. after having gone over the schedule, again, with the manager ( something about how naeun had to be more on top of her members or something like that -- as if naeun wasn’t already feeling guilty for not doing enough the past few months ) ; naeun had made to seek out nayoung. 

stepping into the other’s room, she immediately dives onto the other’s bed, seeking the warmth of the other girl. “your photoshoot with black yak is tomorrow,” she says into the other’s side as her arms wrap along the girl’s midsection. she hopes she hadn’t accidentally launched herself onto nayoung’s bed while she was taking a nap ( maybe she should have checked before doing so ) ; “are you excited?”

turning to lay on her back, she stares at the ceiling with a small sigh.

“you’ll get merch, right?” she asks lightly, glancing at the other from where she had laid down ; snuggling deeper into the other’s comforter. it wasn’t like naeun needed any new clothes -- but she had been looking at the black yak site earlier that day, and while naeun wasn’t an avid sports or outdoors person, the jackets had definitely caught her eye. not that she had come into her member’s room to ask for anything like that.

( not really )

[rkcheri]

US, TWO  ━━     ﹡ 𝚈𝙴𝙽𝙰 、

her shoes clatter in the entryway to announce her arrival. it’s odd to see it so empty -- most of their members had gone home for the chuseok holiday, after all -- leaving only naeun and seoyoung at the dorm. not that it was a bad thing, it left them time to spend with each other and as naeun had promised, she would never want to leave any of her members by themselves if she could help it. it was fortunate that naeun’s closest relatives were in seoul, anyways, so it saved on the crazy traffic it would take her to go back to busan and her penchant for unbroken promises. she makes it home by seven, having stopped by one of the rare restaurants that hadn’t closed down for the holiday to pick up some food for her and seoyoung ( a bundle of half and half chicken to go with the side dishes and songpyeon her grandmother had given her before she had left their picnic that afternoon ) .

“seoyoung-ah, are you here?” she tries to fix her shoes the best she can, not wanting their manager to come in and see the mess in the doorway in the morning, before making her way to the kitchen to set down the bags that were achingly weighing her arms down. ( she could already feel the spikes of numbness in her biceps ) she pats her hands clean on the dish towel by the sink before moving about to remove the containers from the bags. “have you eaten yet? i brought food like i promised!”

[rkcheri]

from one to another

days later, seungah was still quite frazzled. while more often than not, she thrived in the face of productivity. this was just too much all at once and she wasn’t sure where to begin. sure, she should have been more focused on their upcoming comeback preparations ( a reason as to why they were now recording the vocals for the upcoming album today ) but all she could think about was the script smashed at the bottom of her tote that she had brought to read over when the others were busy recording their lines. she knew, she wouldn’t be the quickest to leave the studio that day, with the adlibs and high notes and what not -- but with so much to do, seungah wanted to get today over as quickly as possible.

but where did that leave her?

( it left her with the time to review her lines and internally exasperate over how she wasn’t the acting type if there ever was one, if anything she thought seolhyun suited that role in the group much better than she )

it’s why, when she spots seolhyun the moment she leaves the booth ; she’s depositing herself right next to the girl with a heavy sigh and round puppy-dog eyes, “how did you do it?” it’s a vague question at best, with a million a many answers, but seungah couldn’t care to elaborate right now. she just wanted comfort from one of her favorite people.    ━━     ﹡ 𝙴𝙻𝙻𝙰 、 

[rkcheri]

chocolate love

TW: EATING MENTION, FOOD .

                                                 ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━      

so, perhaps she was craving something sweet. ( while it wasn’t an everyday thing ( no, how could it be when her coffee was already sickly sweet? ) there were days when her sweet tooth was just aching to be sated with sugar ) 

surely, her trainer would throw a fit if he knew mijoo was venturing out of her way for something like this but what he didn’t know wouldn’t hurt him, right? and it wasn’t like her shoot was tomorrow or anything  --  one bite ( or three ) of a delectable sweet wouldn’t do her any harm. and while she didn’t have anything in her aresenol ( she had more salty snacks, if anything ) ; she was sure someone else in the dorm had one ( at least those who didn’t get theirs confiscated by manager kyu ). they all had their own stashes, after all.

if she remembered correctly, they did have a choco pie earlier that month from the makeshift ‘cake’ they constructed for seolhyun for the younger girl’s birthday. mijoo wondered if there was any left, and if anyone would have it -- it would be seoyoung. she did have that shoot last month, anyways, and with it the goodies of the ad. with this in mind, she beelines from her room straight to seoyoung’s ; a hand at the door, pausing to knock before calling out to the other from behind the door. 

“hey, seo -- do you have any of those choco pies left?”       ━━     ﹡ 𝐘𝐄𝐍𝐀 、 

[rkcheri]

             ◆     HAIR SALON TRIP  _ 0822    ━     럭스 !   ∙

it’s been months since she’s properly had her hair dyed. after years of constant retouching -- the last year had been a rebreather for her severely damaged tendrils, it seemed. not that naeun had minded all that much. with filming for the producers -- she hadn’t needed any specific hairstyle or color that was consistent with the role so going from black and staying black seemed simpler for her as well as the stylists on the film team.

with the show coming to an end this month, naeun had thought she’d feel saddened. having gotten used to the routine of waking up to be lugged towards the day’s set was something she had welcomed in the last few months leading to the airing. but now, naeun was just excited to be moving onto the next phase of the year.

while she couldn’t enjoy the fruits of their last comeback promotions, naeun was all on board to stay focused on what new things royal was to offer them in terms of a comeback. while unsure of just when that new comeback would be -- she was more than sure it would be soon if the trip to the salon meant anything by it.

usually changes in hair color and style had a strict time restraint of when comebacks could be applied.

so, by the time she finds herself sliding into the usual chair at their salon, her fingers are wringing in anticipation. her first question to the stylist is --

“so what color am i in for this time?” 

she doesn’t have any outlandish expectations. the last time her hair had been extremely colored she had been a red head and that was fun. the stylist fixes her with an impish gaze before revealing the color board to her -- her hands immediately trail upon the writings of their team before landing on her name.

huh, brown. oddly enough, it was a color naeun hadn’t really expected. while ordinary ( which was probably the reason why she had never done it in the past ), it was still something new and naeun was fine with that.

[rkcheri]

◆  SPOP ‘AFTER MOM FALLS ASLEEP’ RECORDING   ━━━━    럭스  ∙  0316、

                                             ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━      

seungah finds it hard to stay quiet, usually.

she wasn’t the only one who knew this  --  her group, as well, were a highly rambunctious bunch who did not know a mute button for their own good. it was quite a thing around their dorm and their team, in general, the amount of times manager kyu had to silence the girls on a given basis because of this.

so, seeing the invite for a recording of ‘ after mom falls asleep ’, color seungah surprised.

not only were they going to fail  --  seungah was sure by the half of it, they would probably give up the basics of the show and go about it like any other. 

this is something she thinks, and is heartily unsurprised when it comes to be true when they turn up at the studio. there was just no way they were going to stay quiet. with euijin pinching butts, and the girls classically trying to get each one to make noise at any given moment  --  it was a failure from the beginning and seungah couldn’t help but enjoy every minute of it.

it was probably the most relaxed reality show they’ve been on since their debut and it was one she could sincerely feel their olympias would love. not only did it classically showcase their personalities, it did so in the most amusing and turbulent way possible.

she also couldn’t help but laugh at the way seolhyun continued to try to escape being quiet only to finally get that bell rung and for her to succumb to her own punishment. it was fun, and seungah didn’t want it to end. it wasn’t everyday they got a schedule that let them have as much fun, unabashedly, as this. 

while the others continue to do their tasks, she looks on from the side  --  already donning her punishments happily ( the oversized plastic sunglasses, red lipstick on her cheeks and forehead, and the cute sunflower headgear ) ; she’s munching along to the food she had just cut up, her smile shining through the bites as she watches each of the girls try to escape the sound limit only to mess up in their own ways.

it was adorable. 

she hoped they could always be like this, no longer hung up with the past of last year.

[rkcheri]

◆   ‘ROYAL SUPERSTAR’ CF FILMING   ━━━━━━    럭스  ∙  MAY 、

                                                       ◆  

between filming and comeback preparations, naeun is happy to have some sort of breather. for a moment, with how packed filming has been  --  with the changes to scripts and last minute location moves, she had feared that she might have to abstain from joining the group for royal’s commercial. it was something that would have probably dampened her spirits ( she had never really liked being left out of anything but she realizes that if she was it was probably for the best  --  time really wasn’t on her side this month, or really hasn’t been much on her side at all this year ) if it had ended up that way.

which was why, when the manager drives her to the set the first second her drama filming finishes, she’s more than happy as she sees her members’ faces once more. 

it really felt like ages since she’s last seen them. from waking up before dawn to coming home hours after midnight, she had missed each of them by slim hairs, coming home as they had just gone to bed only to leave right before they got up.

it was both annoying and distressing, as someone who craved attention and affection, naeun hated feeling like she was growing distant with her members despite living within close quarters with them. so, the moment she’s given  --  her arms envelope each of them in a hearty hug and a breathless laugh as they’re all given the time to reacquaint, and for naeun, to snuggle each of her members and become the annoying leader she always wished she could embody ( and only recently has finally grown comfortable to show ). 

unlike her drama filming, the commercial filming is one naeun likes to think is much more easygoing. it’s a much simpler concept than her endless lines and dozens of wardrobe changes, and it’s something she’s much more thankful of after spending hours on set and being yelled at for re-take after re-take. 

as someone who rarely played phone games, it was interesting seeing the game in play when they were glancing over seolhyun’s shoulder. cheering the other on wasn’t any hard thing to do, though, albeit awkward, considering the deaf quietness on set besides their screaming, it was rather amusing watching each other reenact familiar expressions they’ve gone through constantly back in the dorm but only now it was in front of the camera and far more refined than some of their sailor mouths usually were. 

and it was safe to say, after filming concluded, she had downloaded the game on the way home; but much like her feet, she had never had much of a knack for hand-eye coordination, and after playing the game for a few minutes, and growing tirelessly frustrated over her dozens of missed chances, naeun had declared that while fun, it was infuriating at best. 

and deleted the app, but surely, it was fun while it had lasted.

                                                      ◆  

[rkcheri]

◆  [ FROM.체리🎀 ]   HAPPYVDAY💘     ━━━━━━━━━━━━━   럭스 FANCAFE   ∙ 

happy valentine’s day ~ 올림피아 ~ lovely olympias ~ 💘💘💘 did you get lots of chocolates today? no matter, each one of you are as sweet as a choco latte in my heart ~ if you don’t have a valentine, why don’t you be mine today? 💘

              🕘     03 DAYS SINCE LAST LOG IN     💬     23 COMMENTS     📄     NEW POST !

                                                   ━━      POSTED 2020.02.14 11:06:37   ❪ LUXE_CHERI ❫    ━━