Chapter Text
Chapter 5
They party in the dorms that night.
Not too big and not for too long—more of an extended dinner really. Miyeon and Soyeon are going to be gone for the night. Their parents are coming in to take them away for proper celebrations. Soojin’s parents are on their way too, but they won’t get here till tomorrow. So she’s staying at the dorm for the night. With the foreign members—Minnie, Yuqi and Shuhua.
Normally such a combination would fill Soojin with dread, but not tonight. Their disaster of a dance lesson seems to have caused some kind of shift in the universe. That and the news that had followed—they were officially going to debut!—had changed things.
Gone are the snide looks and constant animosity.
It feels better. Like… a new beginning.
“Let’s make each other a promise,” Soyeon says over their dinner that night. Her cheeks are red from their surprisingly honest and earnest conversations. And the bottles of soju they’d managed to sneak in. “We’re very different… and I know that can make it hard to see eye-to-eye…” Soojin keeps her gaze firmly on her own glass. “But I want us to give it our best. Like, let’s really give it all we can. No regrets.”
“No regrets,” Yuqi agrees with a nod. Soojin notices how the girl is clenching her jaw. How they are all treating this moment like the most important moment ever. Because it is.
“Agreed,” Minnie echoes.
“Let’s give it two years, maybe—or three?” Soyeon continues. And then she lets out a soft chuckle. “And if we still hate each other after that, then… at least we can say we tried?”
There are self-conscious smiles that follow her request. And a sad, but resigned frown from Shuhua. Sure, they don’t have to be friends, but… Soojin suddenly feels like it doesn’t have to be like this. They can be better than this.
“I don’t hate you guys,” Soojin suddenly says. Shocking all of them no doubt. She bites her lip and forces herself to continue. Feels Hyunjin’s incessant rhythm still flowing through her—still pushing her. “I hate failing… and not…” She struggles to find the words she needs to convey everything. But she tries anyway. “I just don’t want to fail again. But… I’m not alone anymore. We’re a team now—we’ve been a team for a while… I need to trust my team.” She nods her head as she lets her own words wash over her. “I need to trust you guys.”
Nobody quite knows how to react until Miyeon lets out a meek, “… That would be nice.”
It’s not particularly funny, but Soojin laughs all the same. And that breaks the tense atmosphere enough to get a few chuckles out of the others too.
“Anything else?” Soyeon asks after they all settle down.
“Yes,” Shuhua unexpectedly speaks up. They all turn to their youngest. Wary of the intense look on her face. And then she speaks, “Our group name sounds stupid.”
Yuqi snorts into her drink and that sets them all off. Bursting into unrestrained laughter. Wild and free and… healing.
It’s nice.
--
When Soojin thinks back on the day they became a team. Really, truly, officially. There are no words to describe it.
It’s everything she’d ever hoped for…
… and everything she’d ever feared.
And the only words that come to mind are Hyunjin’s. That unanswered question. A reminder in her best and worst days to come.
Win what?
--
Because her actions were bound to catch up with her anyways.
Consequences.
--
That night.
After Soyeon and Miyeon leave. After Yuqi and Minnie take the rest of the soju back to their room. After the highs and lows of their day fade off into the night.
Soojin and Shuhua retreat to their room.
“Oh wow—can you believe it?” Shuhua is happy. And that happiness is more contagious than ever. “We did it! Unnie, come—jump! Jump with me!” And Soojin obliges her without fail. Joins her on their bed. Jumps like a lunatic on top of the mattress. Laughs through it all. “We did it! Look, look—we’re going to debut! This is—crazy—it’s crazy! Unnie, I’m going—”
“Don’t be so loud.” That’s Soojin’s only rebuke of the night. And she says it through her wide smile and aching cheeks.
“I’m going—crazy! Crazy!” Shuhua jumps a few more times. And then abruptly stops. She drops her body down onto the bed with a grunt, splaying out everywhere. Soojin narrowly avoids stepping on her arm as she stops jumping too. “Seriously… I’m so happy, unnie…”
Soojin sees it then. That light that she’d been missing. Reawakened and reinvigorated.
And so, so bright.
She crawls over to the young girl. Slowly. Like she’s in a trance.
Shuhua watches her approach. Watches her.
“I love you, unnie.”
Soojin stops. Shuhua’s words don’t shock her so much as they… reaffirm everything she’d already known. A light that bright could only be love, after all. Nothing else could have trapped her like this. Nothing else could have infected her own heart so completely.
It should scare her.
But it doesn’t.
She feels…
“I think I feel it too,” Soojin whispers. Carefully, like it could suddenly leave her if she didn’t take her time. She’d been grabbing at it so forcefully before—stealing it where she could—but now she treats it with a kind of reverence. “It feels like love,” she says. “What I feel for you… I think it’s love.”
Shuhua’s answering smile is blinding.
So Soojin is left with no choice but to try to kiss it right off her face. She’s very unsuccessful. But she doesn’t stop kissing her. She doesn’t stop.
And they fall into a familiar dance. But it’s different this time too.
They’re a mess of lips and tongue and increasingly desperate fingers. Soojin grabs at Shuhua’s face and tries to set a pace, but it’s already too slow for what they really want. Their frenzied kissing is already not enough. So they move faster.
Over their still clothed bodies.
They squeeze and press and touch.
They touch places they’d never touched before.
Soojin has to pull her lips away when she feels hands brushing up her sides. Closer than they’ve ever been. Tentative, but insistent. They want to touch her. So Soojin nods. She dips her head back down to let out a breathless whisper—right against those swollen lips. “Touch me.”
And Shuhua answers without words.
Her hands move up to the swell of Soojin’s chest. Covering her in full. Soojin gasps and suddenly presses forward into another bruising kiss. Her body starts moving all on its own, rocking back and forth as Shuhua finds her own rhythm. Moving with her.
It’s too much and not enough.
Soojin brings a hand up to join Shuhua’s on her breast. Encourages her into bolder and firmer squeezes. She gasps out her approval into the younger girl’s mouth. As Shuhua does what she does best. She works hard. She learns fast. She makes Soojin feel—better than anything else in this world.
It’s hot. The air in between them is a sweltering furnace. But they don’t stop touching.
And too soon and not soon enough, they need more.
So Soojin grabs one of Shuhua’s hands. And she pulls it down to a new place. She crosses that final line. And she shoves Shuhua’s hand in her shorts.
“Here,” she breathes.
“Okay,” Shuhua shakily whispers.
“Touch me—touch me here. I’ll show you.”
“Okay.”
She teaches Shuhua something new. And, of course, the girl takes to it like a moth to a flame.
Soojin buries her face in her neck. Groans out a litany of curses. Shuhua’s good. Shuhua’s fucking good. Why hadn’t they been doing this ages ago? Their fingers tangle and slide against Soojin’s slick skin. And a particular rub elicits a very, very loud moan from the dancer.
Shuhua stills, but Soojin is having none of that.
“No, no, keep going,” she begs. She’s begging now. That’s how far gone she is in all this. She can’t stop now.
“They might… Yuqi and Minnie…”
Soojin cuts her off with a hungry kiss. She doesn’t know what Shuhua wants to say, but she doesn’t want to hear it. Not now. Not now. But they can’t kiss forever. So eventually, they part. And Shuhua gets to say it.
“Unnie, they might hear.”
Soojin looks into the clouded eyes of the girl underneath her. Tries to look past her own shadow. But it’s hard, because it feels like looking in a mirror now. Shuhua’s eagerness and hunger—that’s Soojin’s too. But Soojin manages to focus enough to see the worry mixed in as well. Shuhua’s worried. So Soojin settles her hips and forces her brain to fix this.
“We can… we can turn on some music,” she offers. She prays that that will be enough because she doesn’t think she can think anymore. Please, let this be enough—
“… Okay.”
Soojin smiles and pecks the girl in gratitude. Which quickly transitions into a passionate kiss. Shuhua’s hand—the one that isn’t still in her shorts—tugs insistently at her neck and Soojin takes the hint. She sits up. With much reluctance. And she reaches over to their bedside table. But her phone’s just out of her reach. Soojin groans out loud in barely-restrained anger.
“It’s okay, unnie,” Shuhua chuckles when the dancer finally removes herself from her lap. Face flushed and breaths coming out in pants. Shuhua sits up and rubs her hand—the one that’s still wet from its previous activity—in soothing circles on the dancer’s back. “I’m not going anywhere.”
Maybe it’s the soju. Maybe it’s the lingering excitement from their debut announcement. Maybe it’s the heat from their current intimacy. Maybe it’s just the sight of Shuhua’s bright, bright, bright smile. Whatever it is—Soojin feels absolutely overwhelmed.
Soojin puts on a random song. A love song. She turns their speaker up very, very loud.
“You promise?” She asks.
But of course Shuhua hears her. And nods. “Yeah… I love you, remember?”
Soojin drops her phone somewhere. And she crawls back to that bright light. She kisses Shuhua with an intensity that should scare her. But it doesn’t. She welcomes it. She sinks into it. “You promise?”
“Yeah…”
--
The music blares in their room for hours. Loud and unrelenting.
But it can’t hide everything.
Like trying to stop a fire with a glass of water.
Just stupid.
--
Soojin wakes up to sunshine.
All around her. From the corners of the curtains on the windows. From the memories of the night before, playing on repeat in her head. From Shuhua.
Shuhua’s still fast asleep beside her. So Soojin takes her time to enjoy the sunshine. It feels… new. Everything feels new. Lighter. She likes it.
Her phone suddenly buzzes from the bedside table. She sits up and eyes it for a moment. Contemplating whether or not to let it disturb her current peace. But it could be important, she decides. Her parents should be arriving soon—it could be them. So she carefully reaches over Shuhua to pick up the device.
It’s not her parents. It’s Hyunjin. And somehow she’s not surprised.
But it is about her parents—they’d contacted the company and asked to talk with her instructors. Like a PTA meeting at school. They want to discuss her strengths, her weaknesses, things she might need to work on even after debuting. Hyunjin tells her to prepare a performance—one they’d worked on outside of classes. She wants to impress them.
Soojin sends off an affirmative text before she even realizes it.
“Why… are you awake…?”
Soojin looks up from her phone. Sees Shuhua curling deeper into the bedsheets beside her. Pouting in apparent displeasure. And Soojin’s face lights up into a smile before she realizes it. “It’s morning.”
“So?”
“So…” Soojin drops her phone on the bed. Moves so that she’s hovering over the younger girl now. Lifts a hand up to play with the hair that had fallen into her face. “Why are you so cute?” The question comes almost involuntarily.
“Nghh…” Shuhua grumbles. She shakes her head to try and dislodge Soojin’s playful hand. But not before Soojin is able to grab onto her cheek. And squeeze it. “Not cute,” Shuhua huffs, rolling over completely to hide from the dancer’s assault. “Not cute,” she petulantly repeats into the sheets.
“Okay.” Soojin doesn’t mind losing this round. She doesn’t mind at all. “What do you want to eat?”
“Hmm?”
“Breakfast.” Soojin settles back down on her pillow. Nuzzles into the back of Shuhua’s neck. She really… likes this. “What should I make?”
Shuhua shrugs. Soojin waits patiently for the girl to suggest something—or to compliment her cooking skills or something. But no answer comes in the end. Soojin lifts up her head to see that Shuhua had fallen right back to sleep.
“Seriously,” Soojin scoffs, shaking her head. But when she does finally leave their bed, she takes extra care not to jostle the other girl too much. She dresses in silence, runs a hand through her unruly bedhead, and quietly slips out of the room.
After a quick trip to the bathroom, Soojin finds herself in the kitchen.
She props her phone up on the counter as she works. She’s playing the choreography video she’d shot with Hyunjin. She watches it a few times first—focusing intently on each step. Then she lets it play on a loop, dancing around the kitchen as she gets breakfast ready. Eggs, she thinks. Maybe an omelette. Maybe some rice. Maybe some soup. And before she knows it, she’s making everything.
She’s on autopilot for the next few minutes. Which is why she doesn’t hear when one of the bedroom doors opens. It’s only when she looks up and sees Minnie standing by the dining table that she realizes she has company.
“Oh,” Soojin gasps in surprise. She freezes for a moment. Caught off guard and still very unsure of how to act around the other girls. Especially Minnie. But before the silence can stretch on for too long, the video loops back to the start. And like a Pavlovian response, Soojin feels compelled to act. To keep moving. “Morning,” she greets.
Minnie doesn’t immediately respond. She has a curious look on her face—she’s got something on her mind. Struggling to put her thoughts to words. But she finally settles on a curt nod and a reserved, “… Morning.”
It’s awkward, of course. But not altogether unexpected. And Soojin decides that she can fix this—but not just that. She should fix this. She should try… and make this better. Because she’d definitely played a part in making it worse. This is her team now—her responsibility.
“I’m making breakfast for everyone.” Soojin moves back to the stove as she speaks. But she turns her body in a way that Minnie knows she still has her attention. “There’s a lot of eggs… But let me know if you want something else.”
“No. That’s fine.”
Soojin nods. Minnie goes quiet after that, but Soojin can’t help but notice how tense she is. How she’s gripping the chair tightly with both hands. How she refuses to sit down or come any closer to the kitchen. Soojin isn’t quite sure what to make of the girl’s behavior, to be honest.
They aren’t screaming at each other, so it’s hard to tell what’s going on.
By the time breakfast is ready, Shuhua has joined them. The younger girl slumps down into a chair at almost the exact same time that Soojin is putting the food on the table. And that seems to be the push that Minnie needs. The Thai girl sits down across from Shuhua. And Soojin sits in between them.
It’s painfully awkward now. But at least they have food to stuff their faces with.
Except Minnie isn’t really eating. She’d taken a bite of her omelette, then spent the next five minutes chewing it. If Soojin didn’t know any better, she’d think that the food was bad. That’s the kind of look that Minnie has on her face as she stares down at her plate. But Shuhua is scarfing down her own meal without fail. So that isn’t it. There’s something else going on.
“I’m sorry to bring this up,” Minnie suddenly broaches. Her sentence grabs both Soojin’s and Shuhua’s attention. And they pause in their meals to stare at her. “It’s just… Miyeon said something before… when we were fighting.”
Soojin slowly puts down her chopsticks. Swallows her food. So it’s going be that kind of a conversation, huh? She glances at Shuhua and sees the girl tense in her seat. Probably anticipating another blowout fight. And Soojin wants to reassure her. Tell her that things are going to be different now—
“She made it sound like you and Shuhua were…” Minnie scrunches her eyes closed. Rubs at her forehead as she tries to come up with the right words to say. So she doesn’t see Soojin’s terrified expression. “I don’t know—maybe she was just… I don’t know.”
Minnie shakes her head. And Soojin manages to school her features back into some semblance of calm by the time the Thai girl reopens her eyes. Minnie’s looking at her now. Asking her a question that Soojin doesn’t know if she can answer. Then she says the quiet part out loud.
“Are you guys dating?”
Shuhua sucks in a sharp breath. But Minnie’s eyes doesn’t falter from their almost laser-like focus on Soojin. Because whatever crime had been committed, it was obviously her fault right? Nobody’s fault but her own.
“… No.”
“You’re not?”
“We’re friends,” Soojin says. She doesn’t want Shuhua to have to lie again. So she’ll do it for her. This is her responsibility now. “I don’t know what Miyeon was talking about.”
Minnie glances at Shuhua for the first time, but then she’s back to looking at Soojin soon after. And then she nods slowly—as if she’s convincing herself. “We were all pretty angry. Saying a lot of stuff.”
“Right.”
“And you wouldn’t do that, right?”
Soojin opens her mouth to agree—to give the right answer—but nothing comes out. There was a certain implication in Minnie’s words that was starting to make her skin crawl. So instead, she asks a question of her own. She just needs to know for sure. “Wouldn’t do what?”
“Oh, you know…” Minnie’s eyes suddenly fall to her plate.
And Soojin foolishly keeps pressing. “No. I don’t know.”
“With a girl,” Minnie whispers.
The confirmation is chilling. Soojin feels like she’s having an out-of-body experience. What should she say here? What should she do? She doesn’t know. She glances at Shuhua—reflexively—cowardly—looking for a way out. But Shuhua is just as baffled as she is, if not more. This is… bad.
Nobody says anything for a long, uncomfortable moment. And Soojin finds herself staring down at her bowl of soup, off to the side. Gone absolutely cold by now.
Minnie sighs. “Again, I’m… I’m sorry for bringing it up.”
“Then why did you?” Soojin’s voice is not kind as she asks the question. She should tread lightly, she thinks. She should be careful not to blow this out of proportion, she thinks. But her brain seems to be several steps behind her actions at the moment.
Minnie looks surprised at her question. But then she sits back in her seat—settles herself into where this conversation might be going. “Me and Yuqi were talking last night. After you guys… after dinner.”
“And that’s what you guys like to talk about?” Soojin raises an eyebrow. “Whether or not your teammates are fucking?”
Minnie’s brows furrow. She’s doing a much better job of thinking before she speaks. Better than Soojin. “No,” she eventually says. But she looks agitated, like she’s just managed to stop herself from losing her composure. “No, we don’t.”
“Then why—”
“Let’s talk about something else,” Shuhua suddenly butts in. Her voice is shaky, but surprisingly firm. She’s not looking at either of them. “I want to talk about something else.”
Minnie bites her lip, but relents with a nod. “Yeah. Fine.”
Soojin wants to agree. Wants to brush this all under the rug and forget about it. But she’s finding it very difficult to do so. Her chest just feels so… tight. So she almost jumps out of her seat when she feels a hand touch her knee. It’s Shuhua. She grabs the proffered hand and squeezes until she starts to feel a little better. And Shuhua lets her.
But their morning doesn’t get any better after that. It gets worse.
Because Yuqi walks in next.
The girl is her regular, chipper self. She sits down at the table, amidst the frosty atmosphere, and doesn’t comment on the obvious tension in the air. And that’s when Soojin knows that something’s wrong. Yuqi wouldn’t not say anything.
Her first words are in Mandarin. To Shuhua. It sounds like a greeting—at least, that’s what Soojin can gather from her beginner’s language lessons. After that, she’s completely lost as to what the girl is saying.
After some back and forth—Shuhua rubbing her thumb over Soojin’s knuckles all the while—Shuhua tries to open up the conversation. Tries to bring the rest of them in too. She switches to Korean. “Soojin made it,” the girl says with some pride. “To celebrate, I think. Right?”
“What?” Soojin blinks at the sudden attention.
“You made it—all this food. Because we’re debuting, right?”
“… Right.”
“Oh,” Yuqi responds. But then continues on in Mandarin with her next sentence.
Soojin feels Shuhua’s hand tighten under the table. And she sees the displeased frown that finds its way to her face. “Don’t do that.”
“Hmm?” Yuqi’s pretending not to know.
“Use Korean,” Shuhua insists. Soojin knows it’s mostly for her own benefit why the girl says it too. Because Minnie could understand them just fine. It was only Soojin that was being left out.
Yuqi fires back a short response. And from the shrug, Soojin can imagine her asking, ‘Why?’
“Because…” But she can’t use Yuqi’s usual answer against her. Because Yuqi doesn’t need to practice Korean—only Shuhua does. “Because… it’s not nice.”
Yuqi doesn’t respond at first. But when she does, her tone and face are unreadable. “Oh. I’m sorry.”
Shuhua smiles gratefully at the switch to Korean. Opens her mouth to say something else. But Yuqi cuts her off.
“How nice do you want me to be?”
Soojin wants to leave. She doesn’t know what’s happening—she just knows that it’s bad. And history would suggest that whatever had gone wrong was connected to her. Maybe it was her fault, maybe it wasn’t. But Yuqi had already made up her mind.
“How nice…?” Shuhua’s lost. And Soojin squeezes her hand—trying to signal for her to not engage. But it doesn’t work.
“I can’t be as nice as Soojin, right? No matter what I do. So… why even try?”
“That’s not—” Shuhua looks from Yuqi to Soojin and back again. But whatever she’s hoping to see, she doesn’t find it. “It’s not—it’s not a competition. It’s not.”
And Soojin can’t bear it any longer. She has to stop this. “Shuhua—”
“No!” Shuhua rips her hand out of Soojin’s grasp. And pushes her seat away from the table. She glares heatedly at them all—even Soojin. “Why—why are you guys being like this? Why?” When nobody responds, she presses on. She sounds tired. Tired of having to go through the same disaster again and again. “We’re supposed to be a team. Why… We’re friends.” She shakes her head. “We’re supposed to be friends.”
Soojin sighs. Her heart feels impossibly heavy in her chest. How can she fix this? What should she say...? “We are friends.”
But it sounds like such an obvious lie that it almost makes Soojin wince. And apparently that’s the last straw for Yuqi.
“Friends don’t take advantage of you,” Yuqi suddenly spits out. With more anger than Soojin’s ever seen on her face. And before she knows it, Yuqi’s on her feet. It all happens too fast for anyone to react. For anyone to stop it. One second Yuqi’s glaring down at the table, then the next—
She reaches across Minnie, forcing the Thai girl to almost fall over in surprise—
Yuqi grabs the bowl of soup—Soojin’s untouched bowl of cold soup—
And she throws it right at Soojin’s face.
“Yuqi!”
Soojin hears Shuhua’s screech above the sound of falling chairs and her own gasp of surprise. Her eyes are screwed shut in pain—and she can feel liquid seeping into her clothes, down into her pants. Somehow she’s on her feet and she feels a pair of hands grab her to try and stop her from keeling over.
“She’s seventeen!” Yuqi roars from somewhere in front of her. Soojin stumbles back reflexively. She needs to get away, but she doesn’t know where’s safe anymore. “She’s a fucking minor! She’s seventeen and you’re supposed to be her friend!”
“Yuqi stop!” Shuhua’s voice comes from the same direction as Yuqi’s. A burst of Korean followed by a flood of angry Mandarin. But that doesn’t make sense. If Shuhua’s all the way over there, then who’s holding her up…
Soojin forces her eyes open and just manages to catch a glimpse of Minnie beside her—
Before her eyes start burning again. She tries to throw off Minnie’s hands, but the girl has a good grip on her. And she can see, unlike Soojin.
“I’m fine, I’m fine,” the dancer sputters out. There’s soup dripping into her mouth too.
“Why’d you lie to me?” Minnie rasps out. Too close for the others to hear her. “I gave you a chance to tell the truth. I asked you—”
“Let me go—”
“What? You don’t trust me to keep your secret?”
Soojin suddenly stops fighting. She hears Yuqi’s and Shuhua’s raised voices in the background. But it’s Minnie that has her attention now. “… This isn’t the same thing.”
“Of course not,” the girl responds. “Mine was just rumors. But this… this one’s real, isn’t it?”
Soojin tries to force herself to calm down, but she can’t. Minnie’s words and unrelenting grip are sending a chill down her spine. This can’t be happening. “You won’t tell anyone.”
It’s not a question, it’s a plea.
Soojin stands in front of her teammate—drenched in the poison of her own making. And she begs.
“Minnie. You can’t. Please.”
A light scoff. And then Minnie finally lets her go. “I wish you could see… just how pathetic you look right now.”
And just like that the sunshine fades. It was wrong to think it would stay anyway.
This is their team now.
--
“Your daughter is the best student I’ve ever had.”
“Really?”
“You’re not just saying that because we’re visiting, right?”
A well-placed chuckle.
“No, I’m being honest. Soojin is… well, sometimes I think she’s even better than me.”
“Oh wow, what high praise!”
“And it’s the truth, I swear it.” The door opens. And they’re in the practice room now. “But don’t just take my word for it.” A cleared throat. “Soojin, why don’t you show your parents what you’ve been working on?”
The room goes quiet.
But Soojin doesn’t move. She knows she should, but she doesn’t. She can’t.
“Honey, are you okay?”
God.
She thinks she might actually cry.
“Actually, Mr. and Mrs. Seo, why don’t you give us a few minutes to go over the routine. This was all so last minute so—”
“Oh, of course. We’ll just step outside then.”
The second Soojin’s parents leave the practice room, an uncomfortable heat fills her. She hears Hyunjin walking over to where she’s standing. The dance teacher doesn’t say anything. Just looks at her.
Soojin stares right back. And she’s helpless to stop the tears as they roll down her face.
She cries.
Hyunjin raises a curious eyebrow. “Huh… I think this is the first time I’ve ever seen you cry,” she comments. “I’ve tried. For three years, I’ve tried to break you. But you always held it in.” She folds her arms across her chest. “Who do I have to thank for this rare sight?”
Soojin sniffles and tries to wipe away her tears, but to no avail. She answers anyway. “I made a mistake.”
“A mistake.”
Soojin nods.
“A mistake worth crying over?”
Soojin nods again.
“A mistake that stops you from dancing?”
And Soojin feels the tears come even harder now. The reminder of how much she’s screwed up her future is fucking painful. How is she going to face her parents? What is she going to tell them?
“Stop crying,” Hyujin’s sharp voice suddenly commands her. She doesn’t look angry, but she’s serious. “Tell me what you did.”
“I… I can’t.”
“It’s either you tell me now, or you tell me and your parents and the CEO later. Your choice.”
Soojin bites her lip. Screws her eyes shut to try and shut out everything. But she knows it’s futile. She knows she’ll have to tell everyone what happened anyways, but she nods. Maybe it’ll be easier if she tries it with just Hyunjin now.
“I messed up…”
“Soojin—”
“I had sex with Shuhua.”
The bombshell doesn’t cause the world to explode like she’d expected. Hyunjin actually takes it better than any of Soojin’s dance mistakes in the past. At least she isn’t screaming at her yet. In fact, Hyunjin’s just… looking at her.
And then her teacher speaks. “There’s more.”
Soojin’s brow furrows in confusion. “What?”
“That’s not all that happened. What else?”
Soojin isn’t sure what to make of Hyunjin’s question. So she keeps her eyes trained on her beat-up sneakers. And she dutifully answers her. “Yuqi and Minnie found out. I think they’re going to tell the company.”
Hyunjin scoffs. “Let them.”
Now that just… completely throws Soojin for a loop. Hyunjin’s reaction isn’t making any sense. Why isn’t she angry? Why isn’t she glaring at Soojin in disappointment? What in the world is happening?
“Stop crying, I said.” Hyunjin gestures lazily in her direction. “Wipe your face before your parents get back in here. They want to see their kid dance, not have a meltdown. Can you dance? Did you look over the choreo like I told you?”
“I don’t understand…”
“Can you dance?” Hyunjin repeats the question.
“Yes, but—”
“Then get ready to dance, Soojin. You can cry later if you want.”
Finally, Soojin has had enough. “They’re going to kick me out,” she whisper-yells. She isn’t stupid enough to risk her parents overhearing it from outside. “After what they did to Minnie, I don’t stand a chance.”
Hyunjin moves aimlessly in front of her, rocking from foot to foot. “And what did they do to Minnie?” She asks lightly.
“They kicked her out of the dorm.”
“Because she was seen talking to a male trainee, right?” Hyunjin acts like she doesn’t know what happened. But the way she dismisses Soojin’s claims so easily… It sounds like she knows a lot more than even Soojin does. “Being a bit too friendly. But ultimately nothing happened—with the guy or with the company. And where’s Minnie now, I wonder? Oh, that’s right. She’s going to debut.”
“That’s different—”
“Except it’s not,” Hyunjin cuts her off. Points her finger right at Soojin’s bewildered face. “Minnie was never not going to debut. She’s got a voice that other trainees would kill for—that other companies would kill for. So what does our company gain from tossing her out? Nothing but bad press.” Hyunjin lets her hand fall to the side. And she walks up until she’s standing almost toe-to-toe with Soojin. “Now ask yourself this… What does our company gain from tossing out the best dancer they’ve had in years? And over something that nobody can prove ever happened?”
Soojin doesn’t know how to answer that. Or if she even should. Because it was starting to sound like… like…
“How did the company find out about Minnie?” Soojin shakily asks.
“We always knew,” Hyujin admits with a shrug. Like it should’ve been obvious all this time. “The real problem… was that the evidence was starting to rack up. The skating rink, the convenience store, in the stairwell, in the practice room. It got to a point where other people were starting to notice—so that’s why we had to step in.”
Soojin stumbles back in shock. “You knew?”
“Just like we’ve known about you and Shuhua since practically day one,” Hyunjin continues, unfazed. “But you two… you’re smart. Whatever it is you do, you do it where no one else can see it.” She smiles now. A strange sight in an even stranger conversation. “You’re smart, Soojin, because there’s no evidence.”
Hyunjin leaves her standing there and walks over to the mirrors. She turns to face Soojin and leans back against the cold surface. “But we have to be fair, right? Minnie got her knock on the wrist, so you need one too. So…”
“Are you serious?” Soojin can’t believe this is happening. Can’t believe what Hyunjin is saying. But her teacher just looks back at her with that same strange smile. “My teammates hate me right now. They can barely even look at me.” But no matter what Soojin says, Hyunjin’s expression remains the same. “And you—you’re saying that none of that matters? How? How do we… How do we do anything like this?”
“Can you dance?”
“… What?”
“I don’t like repeating myself, Soojin,” Hyunjin warns her. “Listen to me. Listen to my question. Can you still dance?”
Soojin opens and closes her mouth. Tries to find some other protest—she needs to make Hyunjin understand. She needs to fix this. She needs to…
No.
She wants to.
She wants to fix this, but here Hyunjin’s telling her that she doesn’t have to. That she doesn’t need to. Because that’s not why she was chosen. That’s not why she’s been pushed as far as she has—to be as perfect as she could be—to get as far as she has.
She’s here to dance. And that’s it.
And honestly… how had she managed to forget that so easily? She’d gotten distracted, that’s why. She’d gotten a glimpse of a better team—a team that helped each other—a team that trusted each other—a team of friends. And she’d thought that that was the standard, instead of the exception. She’d been recklessly daydreaming and then gotten heartbroken when reality had come knocking. No one’s fault but her own.
Time to wake up.
So Soojin nods. And gives the right answer. “I can dance.”
“Good.”
Hyunjin glances over at the door. To where Soojin’s parents are still waiting. She nods. “We haven’t chosen a leader for the team yet,” she says after some time. Soojin barely hears her. But she forces herself to listen. “They asked me about you. I told them that you’re selfish. That you’re not very team-oriented. That you’d make a terrible leader—of course, all that hasn’t changed. But…” Hyunjin takes a deep breath in. “I’m going to convince them to give you a chance.”
Soojin furrows her brows in confusion. “Why?”
“Because I know you’ll fail.”
Hyunjin’s voice rings through the empty room. With a certainty and a finality that Soojin doesn’t even question.
“If your teammates hate you as much as you say… then they’ll try to report you. When they do, we’ll strip your leadership.”
“… And what if they don’t?”
“Then nature will take its course and you’ll buckle under the pressure soon enough. That’s fine. We’ll make Soyeon the leader, like we initially planned.” Hyunjin’s holds up her hand. And then slaps her own wrist for Soojin to see. “There you go. Are you happy?”
Soojin hangs her head. She feels conflicted. She feels confused. She feels… what on Earth is this feeling? It’s a bitter, heavy thing—settling deep in her chest—trying to find its own space—pushing out everything else she’d been holding onto before. But at least she doesn’t feel the pressure anymore. It’s gone.
And Shuhua’s precious words are gone now too. But she can’t even remember what they were.
“Thank you,” Soojin finds herself saying.
“Thank me by cleaning up your face.” Hyunjin pushes herself off the mirror. Starts walking towards the door. But she stops halfway there and stares at Soojin for a moment. Soojin feels her gaze and forces her eyes up to meet her. Hyunjin raises an eyebrow. “Are you ready to dance now?”
“Yes.”
Because what other answer could she give.