We're having another joint practice but unlike before, we aren't practicing the collective routine. Today, we're allowed to practice for the Friday evaluation.
My group consists of Kai, Ryker and Rhea. They're all way better than my first group, and I feel sorry for the group which has Remi as a member. Even personality wise, our group is chill and isn't stressing out about the outcome. Putting it in Kai's words, we'll just get what we deserve and that there's no point in staying for extra hours to practice.
Rhea is a girl of about the same height as me, with rough and curly dark brown hair and sienna coloured skin. She seems like the kind of person who's sarcastic and acquaintances with everyone but has second to no close friends.
This is the first time we've met each other since Saturday, as Sunday was the day we decided that we didn't need to meet. Now, we're all in one corner of the main hall. I'm sitting against the mirrored wall, Kai's standing next to me, Ryker's drinking water while scrolling through his phone while Rhea is literally lying on the floor with her eyes closed.
"Hey," Ryker says, kicking Rhea, "Move it."
Rhea's eyes open and rest on Ryker. Her expression morphs into something like annoyance. "I'm resting my leg, jeez."
He rolls his eyes and kicks her again, making her roll away a bit. "You don't need to rest your leg anymore. It's alright."
"If you kick me again, I'll cut your leg off," she snaps at him. Ryker's lips tug upwards in a grin as he scoots forward and kicks her again and she attempts to get a hold on his foot but she couldn't and ends up pouting while he laughs. "Fuck off."
"You can't even light a fuckin' match and you're scared of knives. You're going to cut my legs off? Yeah, right."
"Shut up." She rolls her eyes.
Kai clears his throat and all of us look at him. "What was our topic again?"
"Skyline of Seoul," Rhea says with a yawn. "What kind of a topic is that?" She huffs, slowly sitting up and shifting backwards so that she can lean against the wall as well. Kai slumps down too, looking at everyone around the hall who's practicing.
"Isn't Seoul like the," Ryker pauses, his face showing that he's thinking about something, "Capital of Japan?"
I snort and so do the others and he looks at us. Looking at his expression makes me realise that he's actually not kidding. "Seoul is in South Korea," Kai laughs. "The Capital of Japan is Tokyo. You really that dumb?"
He rubs the back of his name and smiles sheepishly. "I was just kidding."
"Sure you were," Rhea says to him and he glares at her. In our whole group, Ryker and Rhea are the only people who've talked to each other before. Turns out, they had exchanged phone numbers the day of the first class where we did our entrance dances since they sat together. Though they only know each other for a little over a week, they act like they've been friends for a couple months now.
"I think you need geography classes," Kai comments and nudges me. "Hey, first ranker. Tutor this guy right here please."
"Me? Tutor a guy who doesn't know Korea's capital? Yeah, no, I'll pass."
Rhea laughs. "See that? You're unwanted."
"No, I'm not unwanted at all. You're the one who's unwanted. No one likes you. They like me," he snaps and Rhea scoffs.
"Do they, though?" she asks him. Ryker looks to Kai and me, who exchange looks and avoid looking at him, giving him the answer he needs. "See? They don't either. And I've heard if you impress Kai or Harley, then you can impress anyone. You've already made a terrible impression on them by not knowing basic geography."
"Shut up," he mutters. He turns to us again. "Can you guys see that I'm sad? Show me some sympathy, please, or I'll die. I want to be loved too."
Kai and I look at each other and he smiles, shifting his gaze to Ryker and leaning towards him and patting his head. "Good dog, don't worry. I love you."
Hearing this, Rhea and I burst into laughter. She high fives Kai and then puts her hands forward for me. It takes me a moment to catch on but I do respond to that. "God, I love you guys," Rhea mutters, her smile not fading. "To the point now. Who was the choreographer among us?"
I point towards Ryker at the same time as Kai says his name. Ryker blinks back to reality, finally realising that it was him who was supposed to come up with an initial idea.
Rhea gives him an unsure look. "Judging by the expression you just had, I'm going to assume that you're clueless and you'll end up forgetting that you're supposed to come up with something in the next fifteen minutes so, um, let's work."
Ryker sighs, running a hand through his light hair. "Skyline of Seoul." He picks up his phone and begins to type something in.
"What are you doing?" Kai asks him.
"Booking a flight to Seoul so that I can see it's skyline, obviously," he deadpans. Looking at our faces, he lets out a groan in frustration. "Come on, guys. I'm googling what that place looks like. Did you guys actually think that I'm booking a flight to that place? No. I'm not. Why would I even come up with an idea which is as ridiculous as that?"
"We thought of it that way because it's you're rich and you're dumb. It isn't impossible for you to do it, though I admit it's a little surprising." Kai's voice was flat and believable, making Ryker grumble something under his breath before turning his face towards us. It was the view from the infamous Seoul tower at twilight, the lighting of the city making the skyline look incredibly pretty. "This looks so cool."
Rhea hums in agreement.
"It's romantic, honestly," Kai comments. "Somewhere I'd propose to my girlfriend for marriage."
Ryker's eyes go wide. "Wait? Can that be the theme of our choreography? Because it would be so fucking cool that way."
"You want us to have romance as a theme?" Rhea asks with eyes wide.
"Come on, please. We have two hot guys and two pretty girls. What else do you need?"
"One hot boy," Kai interrupts immediately, "Know your place, fool."
Ryker punches Kai in his arm and he looks at him in annoyance but says nothing. Rhea sighs, leaning back. "What do you think about that, Harley?" she asks me.
I shrug. "I don't care as long as we all agree on something. I'm good with anything."
She gets up from her place, brushing her clothes and looking around at the other groups. Only half of them have started to actually practice, most of them being the seniors. "If you're all fine with romance, I'm good with it too. Besides, I don't have that much in my life so it will be cool to dance on a theme like that."
Kai rolls his eyes. "You sound like a thirty five year old divorced woman living in a one bedroom apartment."
"That's way too accurate," Ryler laughs. "Rhea, are you secretly an old woman who's done her makeup to look younger?"
Rhea smiles in a fake, sweet way and it's almost scary to look at her like that. She looks like a scary human sized doll straight out of a horror movie as she walks to Ryker and kicks him at the side of his stomach, making him groan in pain. "Ouch, I'm telling Val about this. This is violence. This is so unfair. You're taking advantage of me."
A small smile spreads across my lips seeing him like that.
"I'll hit you so hard that you lose your memory," Rhea says to him.
Ryker doesn't reply but avoids any kind of contact with Rhea for the next few minutes. After the idle chat, we begin to search for music. After about half an hour, we end up choosing the song Black Dress by CLC. It's a catchy song I think I've heard once before. I didn't know whether it was the right choice to choose it or not but with the majority agreement and Rhea's agreement of why this song would go well with the theme got to me.
The four of us are all in the top ten. We all somehow have the sense to adapt to each other's style. We're also in a small group this time, which meant that choreographing something for the four of us would probably go way better than how everything went last time.
We spend today's practice time just coming up with a basic concept and once everything's done, we leave the room. Rhea asks me to walk back to the dorms with them and I agree, going into one of the stalls of the changing room and taking a quick shower, after which I wear a white tank top with a plain black shirt and black pants.
When I'm out, I hear Rhea's voice asking me to wait for five more minutes outside. With a small sigh, I walk outside the changing room and lean against the wall while scrolling through my phone. I realise that I still haven't read Nate's message, so I decide to open it now.
Harley: Thank you for what?
He doesn't see the message. Of course he wouldn't. He'd probably be a bit busy at the moment. The moment I keep my phone back in my pocket, another notification comes up. I almost think that it's from Nate but it isn't. It's from Zack. Usually, I'd ignore his texts but this one caught me a little off guard.
Zack: She told me what you did with the video clip. What the hell is wrong with you????
I didn't expect her to go about and tell Zack, out of all people, about this when she's aware of the relationship between the two of us.
I leave him on seen, not wanting to reply but he just ends up sending me another text.
Zack: Lee if you don't reply to me right now, I'll come to you academy.
Now that gets to me. I quickly begin to type in a reply for him.
Harley: Don't.
Zack: Finally. What's wrong with you?
Harley: Nothing's wrong with me so please stop worrying about me for now. I'll meet you soon.
Zack: Lee, you know that's not how it works.
Harley: I've to go now. Bye.
I close my phone but the notifications don't stop coming. With a heavy sigh, I put my phone on airplane mode and dump it in my bag. Just then, Rhea comes out of the changing room.
"You ready to go?" she asks me, tying her hair in a pony.
"Yeah," I say to her.
She smiles and the two of us walk out of the area together to join Ryker and Kai, who immediately begin to talk about how it took us girls way too long to change and that they were wasting their time waiting for us. Ryker earns a punch from Rhea but it wasn't that bad since he knew it was coming. Kai was laughing at them the whole time, supporting Rhea as she attempted to hit him and insulting Ryker as he ran away from her, muttering something under his breath.
Coming to think of it, neither of them mentioned the rumour even once to me. I knew they knew of it - it would be impossible for them to avoid the news. And yet, they chose not to judge me because of it or ask me whether it's true or not. Most people I met since the beginning have already begun to look at me in a different way as if I'm someone they need to be aware of. But these people whom I've never met before choose to put that aside and create a new impression of me and not ask me how much I paid to get into this school.
These may have been the best few hours since I've arrived here at Redville.
I love this feeling so much that I don't want it to end.
Author's Note:
ahhh hi guys i'm so sorry for the late update i was having a terrible headache the entire day sjsjsj
a n y w a y s
i may do a double update today because i missed one yesterday so yeah
pls vote and comment and have a nice day besties