https://x.com/waytoolix/status/1992673251885981854?s=20

maybe it’s for a show like monthly live connection where you get paired with someone from a different musical background to make music in a month, and he gets paired with this grungy sorta pretentious rocker guy who loudly and proudly disparages idols at every chance he can get for not being “real” artists or whatever. he’s super demeaning to flx both in the confessional footage and to flx’s face, and it’s obvious the producers are encouraging his behavior for the sake of building tension. and bc of this, flx initially gives him the benefit of the doubt, assuming he’s playing it up for the cameras, but he quickly realizes the guy is even worse off camera, commenting on his looks and taking cheap shots at the other members and just going out of his way to get under flx’s skin.

it’s both a blessing and a curse that the guy is, like, criminally hot. it’s a blessing bc it seems to be the only thing that saves him from being completely unbearable to be around; it’s a curse bc flx can already feel the others pulling away from him, so when they catch glimpses of him running around the company building with this guy without explanation, him being a super hot rockstar only seems to sour their moods even further. flx is under contract to keep the filming of this show as quiet as he possibly can, esp with them filming the pilot episode, and tho he’d still normally tell the other members these things, his managers have adamantly discouraged him from doing so. maybe it’s like, for the sake of preserving authenticity between the partners by eliminating any possible outside influence, or maybe it’s supposed to be a plot point later in the show to share what they make with their respective groups before it gets released to the world or something, but either way, flx only ambiguously mentions he’s “filming something” when pressed about this guy, but he’s never kept his schedules so secret before, so it’s not… not suspicious. it’s made even worse when chn asks to meet the guy and flx absolutely refuses to introduce them. none of them want to assume the worst, but as time goes on and flx seems less and less accessible, it’s easy for jealousy to fill in the blanks. and imagine if one of them actually does run into the guy sans flx at some point and tries to make nice and the guy, certified asshole and maybe not totally opposed to hooking up with flx, says something that makes everything look a million zillion times worse :(((

(also royalty au 5kz anon if ur out there pls say more)