Chapter 5

Ji-yeon led her friend to the dance room.

"Wah, your house is so big and it even has a practice room?" Soon-young looked around the room, impressed by the fact that his old dance buddy had her own practice room in her house. It was clearly smaller than Seventeen's practice room, but that room was, unlike this one, shared with twelve other members.

"Your parents must be rich..." he said, still amazed. The room had a mirror on one side and two speakers in the upper corners on the other side. There was a comfortable-looking couch and a camera tripod as well. He also saw something that looked like a laptop, but he couldn't see it well from where he was standing.

Pointing at the tripod, he asked: "Do you film yourself?" Ji-yeon nodded. "To see what I do wrong."

"What you're doing wrong?" Soon-young frowned. "Not what you can improve?" He was surprised by the nuance of her words.

"Isn't that the same thing?" Ji-yeon didn't really understand what he was getting at.

Soon-young was taken aback. It sounded quite negative to him, but maybe it would be best not to argue about that.

"So... can I see your dance?"

Ji-yeon shook her head.

"You took me here. Doesn't that mean that you thought about showing me a dance?"

That disappointed expression again, Ji-yeon thought as she saw Soon-young's expression. She wished she could just say yes, she wished she could just show him her choreographies. No, he'll just think my dance looks stupid. Right? "Sorry, I'm not good enough..." She sighed.

"Yah, Hong Ji-yeon. I'm not here to judge you. I just want to see if you're still dancing with the same enthusiasm as back then." A gentle smile was plastered on his face.

"Eh?" Enthusiasm?

"You said you wanted to make people happy when they look at you while you dance. Then making your audience happy is #1, being good at dancing is #2. To make #2 possible, you can spend as much time in this room as you want, but for #1 you'll really need someone else. Have you ever danced in front of someone in the past ten years?"

"Not yet." Ji-yeon admitted shyly.

"What about WITH someone?" Soon-young looked at Ji-yeon's face and realised that he guessed correctly.

Ji-yeon looked at him. Is he trying to say-

"You remember the promise we made, right?"

Ji-yeon thought back to the day that she moved. Soon-young had told her that he liked hanging out with her and that she should definitely continue dancing. "You too," she had answered. "I think you can become a really good dancer one day." "Okay then!" He made her pinky-promise that they'd both continue dancing and dance together again in the future.

"Of course I remember." Ji-yeon replied. That promise was the reason why she had never given up before.

Soon-young looked around the room again. "I guess we both kept our promise." He showed her a gentle smile. "Do you do freestyle as well?"

Before she could answer, Soon-young walked towards the laptop in the corner of the room. "I can choose a song with this, right?"

Ji-yeon nodded slowly. "Yeah, but..." Before she could finish her sentence, Soon-young had already found the song he was looking for and the speakers produced the first notes of a familiar song. "This song..."

Soon-young smiled brightly. "You remember." he remarked before he ushered her to the middle of the practice room.

The song that he had chosen was an upbeat song that they had heard more than ten years ago when they watched a dance performance with their parents. Soon-young had remarked that the dance was similar to taekwondo, a martial arts that he practiced, and he thought it looked fun. He had given Ji-yeon a meaningful look, as if to ask "Can we try that?" and that's how they started to dance. The song from the performance, so also the song that came through the speakers that filled the practice room on this day in July 2015, was the first song they had used to try to create their own choreography.

Back in the present, Soon-young started to move to the beat of the music. After a few dance moves, he gestured at Ji-yeon that it was her turn.

Ji-yeon started carefully by showing some easy moves. She didn't know why, but it almost felt as if she just had to dance, she couldn't help it. Even if she would mess up, she just wanted to try and dance again with the guy in front of her. The boy with whom she had danced for the first time. The childhood friend that she hadn't seen in ten years.

And somehow... it didn't feel bad. Slowly, the thoughts of failure disappeared and she started to enjoy it to the fullest.

At first they danced alone, one at a time. But later they adjusted their moves to each other, thereby creating a stylish, upbeat dance.

Everybody interested in dancing would have been able to see that their different styles complemented each other perfectly. It was amazing how two people who hadn't seen each other in a really long time were able to work so well together on the dance floor that they looked like they had been dance partners for many years. And that without any previous practice.

Ji-yeon finished the dance with a move she came up with on the spot.

Soon-young looked impressed. "Hey, can you do that again?" He asked.

Ji-yeon looked up. "What?"

"The move that you just did." He said, eagerly waiting for her to show it again.

Ji-yeon repeated the dance move and looked curiously at Soon-young, who just looked like a child who sees snow for the first time in his life.

"Wah..." he exclaimed, completely in awe. "When did you come up with that?"

"Just now..." Ji-yeon answered shyly before she realised what had happened the past few minutes. "I danced... in front of someone..." she murmured aloud. Or was it WITH someone?

"Yes, you did." Soon-young laughed. "And you were amazing.''

Ji-yeon reddened, but before she could say anything, she saw Soon-young walking towards the door. "Jamkkanman*" he told her. "I'm just going to get something."

Ji-yeon watched as he left the room and closed the door behind him. "Thank you" she whispered.


*wait a second, minute, while


 

Seventeen's comeback was yesterday~~ hurray! (pun intended)
ysc0129 and Nerd-and-Fangirl, thank you for subscribing!! And thanks for the upvote :D