My Greatest Award (나의 제일 좋은 상)

Impulsiveness

Ever since that time we met at her place almost 2 weeks ago, things between Lisa and I have become a little more casual. Jason practically freaked out when I told him last week about everything that happened with Lisa. Of course, I did leave out some of the more personal parts of our conversation; Lisa trusts me enough to tell me all that, so I'm not about to break that trust right away.

"Okay, stop, stop," Lisa calls out in her mentor tone and pauses the backing track of Mmmh by Kai which I'll been using as my Choreography song for the evaluation tomorrow. She gets up from her spot on the vinyl floor and walks over to where I'd been practising the choreography.

"You have to make sure you swing, more like this." Lisa swings her arms in time with her instructions. "And the part where you take off your jacket needs to be smoother. The way you do it is a bit jerky, you know. Give me your jacket, I'll show you."

"Are you sure?" I pick up my worn blue jean jacket off of the floor. I'd chosen this old jacket for this part of the choreography since I'd be okay with it getting scuffed or dirty from being thrown on the floor during practice. "You really wanna wear my old, dirty, sweaty jacket?"

"I'm serious, Y/N." Lisa doesn't react to just another one of my sorry attempts at a joke. "You can joke once training is over, but for now I need you to focus. One more time, please."

"Tough crowd..." I mutter under my breath as Lisa turns to walk back to her spot in the middle of the floor. In any normal situation I'd expect her to roll her eyes or pout or something, but I guess training isn't a normal situation. Especially with the evaluation tomorrow. Lisa's told me over and over again not to let my track record of straight As get to my head and start slacking off.

"What was that?" Lisa turns her head back at me. I just raise both my hands sheepishly in false surrender. Lisa cocks an eyebrow at me before grabbing the remote for the sound system of the training room and rewinding the backing track.

I still try to keep things formal during training while she's my mentor, but most of the time we end up speaking pretty casually to each other. Well, she started it, and I was pretty unsure of it at first, since she is still three years my senior and one of the top idols in the industry. Not to mention my mentor; she never lets me forget that during training. Today, though, she isn't as casual, and for good reason considering what tomorrow is.

After we wrap up our session with a few more runs through of my Choreography and Performance songs, I head over to the corner of the room where I'd left my stuff.

"Y/N, do you wanna go get lunch together?" Lisa invites as she stretches to cool down after the session. I find it pretty weird that she still warms up and cools down although she barely has to do anything other than watch me and show me a few steps, but I guess it's pretty much wired in professional dancers. Especially since any injury could be hell for an idol like her.

This is my chance at redemption. "I'm serious, Lisa," I start with a straight face. "You can joke once your stretching is over, but for now you need to focus. One more time, please." I stretch out my arms, exaggerating the stretch that Lisa is doing right now.

Lisa rolls her eyes at me, but starts laughing to the point where she needs to pause her stretching routine for a moment. Success this time.

"Fine," she says as her laughter finally dies down. "I'll just go myself."

"I was kidding," I say with a smile plastered on my face from my own laughter. "But why do you wanna have lunch with me? You don't have any bad news to give me, do you?"

"I just enjoy your company." Lisa's warm smile returns. Before I can respond, she gets up from her spot and begins to head towards the door. "You coming?"