#wc: 2162 w lyrics

[rkxeve]

too deep a sadness ;

CHOI JINRI ; APRIL EVALUATIONS!               rose scent breeze ; red velvet |  song!

jinri has been thinking about rain a lot this month. 

it figures, right? april showers and all that. she’s always really enjoyed this month -- with her birthday right at the end of march, it’s always been easy to go into april happy, and to let that carry her through even the dreariest weather. 

but this year the rain has reflected her mood more often than she would like. she supposes that’s just what happens when the first week of a month involves surprising herself with her own ambition and nearly wrecking her relationship with her best friend because of it. 

one impulsive decision managed to turn her world upside down, though jinri’s at least thankful that she was able to withdraw her name from the show without any trouble. it didn’t take her long to realize what a mistake it felt like, and she hates that there’s still a part of her that whispers that she should have done it anyway, that she should take any opportunity she can get, no matter what. 

even if it means leaving luna behind. 

she’s spent a lot of time this month on her own, fighting away those thoughts and chewing on the guilt that festers in her chest. she and luna seemed to have come to some sort of silent agreement soon after what jinri has tentatively called ‘the fight’ in her head, even though it wasn’t, really. they mutually avoid each other as much as possible, what with them living together and being forced into close quarters for training for most of the day. 

rather than spending her meals and free time with jinwook or luna, jinri spends most of them in various practice rooms around the sphere or seocho facilities, practicing for the evaluation. 

in an ironic, self-deprecating sort of way, she thinks it’s hilarious that this month’s evaluation requirement is to perform a slow song. it’s right up her alley, in her element. she should have no issues with it whatsoever; after all, her team was the only one on the mgas to perform a slow song outside the ballad stage. 

her team also suffered an elimination after the ballad stage, that jinri was so confident going into. that’s part of where the irony comes in.

the rest of it comes from the fact that she hates how comfortable she is with it. she hates how she feels like she has nowhere to go, like she’s trapped inside a box that she built and locked herself. after pulling away from the chance to expand, to get back in the public eye, to maybe even debut, the last thing she wants to do is go back to what she’s comfortable with.

she wishes she had the confidence to dance. she wishes she could challenge herself, could push her limits and break out of the box she’s locked herself in. she and jinwook danced to a slow song, on the mgas. for about two seconds, she considers asking him to do something similar, but immediately shuts the idea down. this isn’t a reality show, it’s an evaluation, and their relationship as it is puts their contracts at stake. it would be nothing short of blatant hubris and stupidity to flaunt it in front of a panel of the people who could turn them out onto the streets for breaking those contracts. 

but jinri doesn’t want to dance alone, knows she can’t choreograph anything for herself and doesn’t want to approach anyone for help. normally she would ask luna, either to help her herself or if she knew anyone who could. but jinri doesn’t even consider that this time, and not only because of the rift she can feel between them. she wants to do this on her own. 

( maybe that’s a mistake, too. maybe she should reach out, work with another trainee or two. after all, it was her own impulsive decision, made without consulting luna or anyone else, that started this whole catastrophe of a month. )

jinri initially has four or five songs she’s considering, pulled instantly from her spotify library. she puts them in a playlist and plays them on a loop whenever she can during training over the next few days. she practices each a bit, and quickly rules out a couple. she decides one is too upbeat for the evaluation’s requirements, and performs it when she leaves one day to visit the festival. 

by the time she’s a week away from the eval, jinri still hasn’t decided which song to sing. she’s narrowed it down to two, and learned both, splitting her time between them equally and lying up at night, weighing the pros and cons of each song. 

it’s not like this is evan that big of a deal. the public won’t see her. this isn’t an audition. she’s not doing the show. it’s just another evaluation. and sure, there’s always the chance they’ll decide she hasn’t improved enough, that her contract needs to be terminated, but that hasn’t been a concern for her in a long time. 

the evaluation itself doesn’t feel important, not really. not like her performance at the festival did. but the song somehow feels important, like there’s some kind of symbolic decision she has to make here. 

one song, rose scent breeze by red velvet, is what jinri thinks of as her signature style -- powerful instrumentals, a strong and technically difficult vocal part, and moving lyrics. the other song, rain by nara, is what jinri thinks is a bit more out of the box -- at least for her. it’s more jazzy, still a slow song but in a different style. 

she’s actually starting to worry about it -- what if she can’t decide in time, what if she just ends up flipping a coin before she walks in? -- when she finally manages to decide. it comes easily, with a prayer. she lies in bed, praying that god will help her make the best decision, and that he’ll guide her down the right path, her full spotify library playing on shuffle quietly in her headphones. 

during her silent prayer, the red velvet song plays, the opening instrumental immediately recognizable after how many times jinri’s heard it this month. her heart skips in her chest -- out of her full library, what’s probably hundreds of songs, this one plays? she takes it as a sign, and decides then and there to perform rose scent breeze. 

she falls asleep with the song on repeat, and wakes up with her headphones out of her ears and tangled halfway under her pillow. 

jinri walks into the practice room bowing, the setup familiar to her. she’s done this before, so many times. how many more times will she do it before she gets to debut? how much longer has she resigned herself to trainee life by giving up the show? does it make her a bad person, to be this greedy? she ignores the questions that have plagued her all month, bowing again as she steps up to the center of the room. 

please start, one of the panel says, and jinri nods, immediately hearing the song start playing from the speakers around the room. 

the song is about missing someone, about being left behind and having to deal with that. jinri realizes that this is ironic, too -- that that’s what she nearly did to luna, what she decided to do without a second thought. she’s starting to really hate irony, and is really beginning to understand what people mean when they call it cruel. it makes her see her own cruelty, makes her not only see, but feel what she would have done. 

every song she was considering this month was the same -- breakup songs, or lonely i miss you songs, stories about being left behind by a loved one and having to pick up the pieces of your own heart. jinri remembers breaking down in tears on far too many occasions, the instrumental of whatever song she was trying to learn continuing on as she fell to her knees and cried, too overwhelmed to keep singing. 

but with repetition the emotions faded, until her eventual chosen song was just another song, just another evaluation, so as she sings now her voice is clear and strong, though emotion still seeps into every lyric. 

the song is a strongly emotional one, which is part of why it plays to jinri’s strengths -- she’s always been empathetic, or at least she likes to think so, and as a result she’s good at finding ways to relate to lyrics even if she has no personal experience with anything they discuss. this time, her empathy only adds more irony to the situation, because she’s singing about how luna probably would have felt had jinri left to do the show, and especially had jinri won and debuted without her. her empathy and her guilt at what she nearly did, at what she has done to their friendship, are what led to her crying so often as she learned the songs. 

as she sings, she’s silently glad god helped her choose this song in particular. the loud, powerful instrumental works well with her voice, and makes the whole thing feel like a song from the ost of a drama, something to be played over an emotional montage after a huge turning point in the characters’ lives. 

A rose scent flows in the breeze And my sorrowful sigh scatters in the air I can’t hold on to them. I can no longer hold on To you as you move farther away

the chorus is beautiful, jinri thinks. her favorite part is approaching fast -- the final bridge and chorus, which she sometimes finds herself describing as explosive in her mind. the whole song builds to it, sure, but she remembers the first few times she really listened to the song, truly considering it as an option for her to perform, she loved the way that while the song clearly spent a lot of time using the instrumental to build to the final, vocally challenging chorus, it still seemed like it came out of nowhere. like after all those emotions had already been poured into the rest of the song, it seemed like there would be nothing left to give, but then it just keeps getting stronger. 

as jinri finishes the chorus once more and the electric guitar takes off, giving her a chance to breathe before the powerful last section, she thinks, not for the first time, about how this reminds her of that day with luna, in a practice room so similar to this one. 

the emotion seemed to come out of nowhere, with jinri walking in feeling uncertain and strangely empty, and then suddenly being surprised by luna’s passionate reaction to the news. everything had skyrocketed so fast, both of their feelings kicked into overdrive and leaving them both overwhelmed and struggling, crying and shouting at each other because they just didn’t know what else to do. 

jinri’s voice doesn’t waver as she enters the chorus one final time, but her eyebrows are furrowed slightly and her eyes closed, her mind far from the evaluation as she sings. she isn’t in this practice room anymore -- she’s in one about two floors up, several weeks ago, sitting helplessly with tears running down her face as she watches her best friend pace, agitated, upset because of jinri. 

she’s in their apartment a week later, watching as luna moves through the kitchen late after training, her eyes not once going to jinri at the table as she prepares herself a snack and takes it back to her room. 

she’s standing on stage at her first mgas, accepting the contract from baek jiyoung and later signing it with luna. then she’s on stage at her second mgas, holding hands with baek jiyoung and luna, being told how well they represented sphere even if they didn’t make first. 

and then it’s all stopping. after the final high note, the song immediately drops in volume and power, as if it’s simply run out. she keeps her eyes closed as she sings the final line, and she remembers hugging luna after the fight, telling her she wouldn’t do the show. 

i can no longer hold on

hold on to what? jinri’s too emotionally exhausted to consider it, how it might apply to her, if it even does. she opens her eyes and blinks in surprise to find herself standing in front of people, but quickly recovers and hopefully doesn’t show any shock on her face. she can feel tears in her eyes, and bows quickly to hide them as she blinks them away. the panel dismisses her quickly, and she hurries out of the room, feeling simultaneously lighter and like she has more weight in her chest than she has all month. 

all she wants right now is to talk to luna.