HEARTBURST,, The Next Step

[2.19] sacrifice

"Selected studios can bring as many quartets as they want, so I'm also bringing a quartet from J-Troupe," Kate then informed the troupe once the clapping had worn off. The woman then turned to her new Dance Captain. "Alright, Amanda, why don't you get everyone warmed up?"

"All right, let's go." She nodded, her grin never failing to fall as she made her way to the front of the studio to prepare the dancers for another day of rehearsal.

After a few dynamic movements to properly stretch the dancer's limbs, the Dance Captain had them rolling their necks in an anti-clockwise motion just as Emily walked in with a face like thunder, late to yet another critical rehearsal in their road to Nationals.

"Emily," Giselle stated, her face cold and unforgiving, almost as if she couldn't recognise the blonde she used to call her best friend, her fellow E-Girl, "Late once again. Nationals is right around the corner and I don' understand what she doesn't get about that."

Maxie then couldn't help but notice how Hunter, subtle as ever, broke away from the group warming up to go greet the girl, the soft way he spoke to her giving away just how close the pair had grown over the past few weeks.

‧₊˚✩

Once rehearsal was done and dusted, Riley, James, West, Maxie and Eldon were hanging around in Studio A, the latter facing off against each other in some sort of heated flip competition. Maxie was winning, obviously.

After having a chat with James about the list she had put together, Riley bid the other three farewell before heading out of the studio, a small smile plastered on her face at the prospect of James wanting to actually get things done to be with her.

Eldon had just landed an impressive back tuck when Hunter jogged into the studio, clapping his hands together whilst calling out to them as if they had been best friends for years. "Yo, what's good, guys?"

Concrete thick tension seemed to flood into the studio like a vicious waterfall when Hunter announced his presence to the four of them. Eldon scratched his head awkwardly, West and Maxie pretended they had spotted something really interesting on the plain brick wall and James simply just avoided eye contact.

"What's up, man?" James responded absentmindedly, trying to give Hunter the hint that he wasn't wanted there after everything he had done, especially to Eldon.

As his face morphed into that of desperation, the boy bounced on the balls of his feet. "You guys, I wanna be boys with all of you. I feel like we can all get along."

"Well, first of all, I'm not a boy," Maxie pointed out, completely missing the point of Hunter's request whilst the other actual boys just looked around awkwardly, trying to contain a snicker at her words.

"Yeah, well, I know that," he fumbled with his words, trying to stick to the point of his plea, "What I'm trying to ask is what I can do to make it up to you guys, you know."

West then looked over to his blonde friend, just as reluctant to let Hunter off the hook.

"After what he did to Eldon, there's no way that we're going to forgive him," West outright told the camera, no hint in his words that he would ever second-guess the statement.

With a slight cringe, he told Hunter, "Yeah, I don't think... I don't think there's really any- Hold on! Yo, why don't you teach me that head slide move thing?"

"What?"

"Yo."

"Are you good?"

"Yeah!"