I woke up the next morning oddly refreshed. I would need the energy, today it was my specialized class schedule. I wore my more comfortable uniform, consisting of a t-shirt with our school’s logo emblazoned on the right pocket and breathable shorts. I had to make breakfast for Channie and me, since my dad left even earlier for work than us. Waking up Channie wasn’t that hard thankfully, so I was able to cook something by the time he was ready for school. We ate leisurely, but my mind was distracted. My thoughts floated back to the phone call I had with Jisoo that night…

Hello?” I heard Jisoo’s melodic voice answer and I grinned on the other side of the line.

“Hi, Jisoo,” I greeted.

“You don’t sound huffy or anything, so I take it your first day of work went smoothly?” I felt my face heat up when I remembered what exactly took place.

“Yup, for the most part. There’s something that really surprised me, though,” I led on.

“And what could that be?” Jisoo’s intonation reflected his honest curiosity on the subject.

            I explained to him how my boss turned out to be Mingyu’s mother and that he worked there at the café too. I told him he was the one who helped train me for handling the cash register and stuff, and that he didn’t seem that bad or anything anymore.

“Wow, well that was an extremely fortunate coincidence playing out in your favor. I told you Mingyu isn’t a bad person. You just needed to get to know him a bit more,” Jisoo lectured. I sighed, and it was audible enough to carry through the phone. Jisoo could get intricate with his advice and lecturing but that just made him who he was.

“I know, I’m sorry for that, I even apologized to him. He understood for the most part, because he noticed how I acted too. And, I took him up on his offer to tutor me.”

“As you should’ve,” Jisoo quickly added. I snorted this time, and he responded with a complacent chuckle.

“But when are you going to meet up with him then? Not this Saturday, right?”  It was my turn to laugh. Jisoo was fretting about our plan for everyone to hang at my house this weekend with Channie, and Mingyu possibly diverting that plan.

“No, not this Saturday. To make it easier I told him I’d just go with him after math class on Wednesday, so I won’t have lunch with you guys. Sorry,” my ‘apology’ was humorously halfhearted.

“Oh, good luck with that. I trust you’ll break the news to the guys tomorrow at lunch then?” I agreed. I was dreading how Soonyoung would react to all this, but luckily telling Jisoo first relieved me of most of my worries.

“It seems like you and Mingyu are going to become familiar with each other rather quickly,” Jisoo mused.

“Yeah…”

“I have an idea for you.”

“Spill it then, gentleman.”

“Since he’s helping you out in more ways than one, and you’ll probably become closer with him quickly because you’re going to be tutored by him and also work with him, you should start to think of a way to repay him somehow. It’s only fair since he’s doing you a favor.” My eyebrows furrowed at Jisoo’s curious suggestion.

“Seriously? You want me to think of a way to repay him already?”

“Yes. One good turn deserves another, Jinnie. He’ll definitely forget whatever you thought of him before you met him if you do something good.”

“Yeah, fair enough. I’ll think of something. Thanks so much, hyung,” I gushed. As expected of Jisoo the gentleman.

“Anytime. Ah, my uncle needs me, so I’ll talk to you later. See you tomorrow.”

“All right, thanks again, bye.”

            Channie and I finished our breakfast and now I had to walk him to school. I told him about the plan for Saturday and, as expected, he was caught off guard by knowing that all of my friends would be coming over, not just Minghao and Soonyoung.

“If they all come, they can’t distract us, I want to learn from Soonyoung and Minghao,” Channie said stubbornly. I giggled at his seriousness.

“No worries. They won’t bother, if anything, they’ll watch,” I assured.

“Hmm, okay.”

            We reached Channie’s school. To my surprise, Channie darted off right away when we were close to the entrance. As I caught up to him, I saw that he ran up to a girl around his age; she was smiling brightly at my brother as they greeted each other. I stood there, smirking as Channie turned around and seeing me.

“And who might this be?” I asked, smiling at the little girl who seems to be my brother’s acquaintance. My brother opened his mouth to talk, but the girl was quicker.

“My name is Kim Umji, I’m the same class as Chan-oppa. Are you his bigger oppa?” She asked politely, tilting her head. I chuckled at her cuteness, nodding along.

“Yes, yes I am.” My brother was silent, staring at the ground. He looked a bit nervous.

“Nice to meet you then, Umji. I hope you watch over my brother in class. He can get distracted sometimes,” I told her slyly, and my brother cried out in protest.

“N-No I don’t!” Umji giggled, clapping her hands.

“He does, actually. But okay, I will! We should walk to class together, Chan-oppa.” She offered. I almost squealed in glee as Channie nodded and offered his hand to her.  Awwwww!

“Have fun at school, you two. But Channie! No dating yet!” I nagged. Channie tried to deny things but Umji started dragging him along. She waved and I bid them goodbye. That was adorable. He better not date somebody before me.

I got to school, and I headed for the studio rooms because I had dance class first. What a way to start school, huh? I had the same class with Minghao, that’s another way we get to see each other at school. Once I entered the room, he waved wildly at me.

“Morning,” I greeted.

“G’morning, Jinnie.”

            I put my bag down on the side and decided to do my stretches to limber up before class began, since Minghao was doing the same. Our school was a fine arts school, so it offered a lot of classes that could sharpen and refine our talents. We finished stretching by the time our teacher arrived. Our dance teacher was a woman but she could pull off any style of dancing, even intense hip hop, which made me awestruck. And speaking of which, hip hop happened to be the style we were tackling this time.

“Good morning class,” Our teacher gathered us.

“Good morning Ms. Kahi,” we replied.

“I trust you’ve all stretched already. To get us warmed up, we’ll start with simple choreography points. Watch and follow me. Then, we’ll break up into groups. We’re going to start working on the group performances today,” She announced. I gulped. Group presentations were when groups of three were chosen randomly (more like specified by our teacher) and then each team gets to create their own choreography, in addition to incorporating some elements we’ve learned in class. Then at the end of the given week, we would perform it in front of the class and Ms. Kahi would grade us on it. I became anxious again because hip hop was actually really difficult for me. Our teacher a hip hop song with no words, just beats. She started warming up and doing simple movements, to which we followed.

My worries vexed me throughout the whole warmup; even something this simple made me feel awkward. I don’t know, personally when I danced hip hop I didn’t feel confident and I don’t think I portrayed it well. Maybe it wasn’t my style, I don’t know. After we worked up a reasonable sweat, Ms. Kahi stopped us and turned off the music. Now she would begin picking the groups. Uh oh… She started naming teams of three, and my ears awaited my name to spring up.

“Lee Jinhyun, Xu Minghao, and Lee Seungcheol,” my ears picked up on it off the bat. On the plus side, Minghao was on my team; actually, we’ve never been on the same team despite us being in the same class. The possible downside, however, was that we were paired with Seungcheol. I’ve never really talked to him, but he’s really popular in our class and our grade level in general. Girls swoon over him all the time. So by him being on our team, a lot of unnecessary attention is going to be gravitated towards us.

“Go ahead and become acquainted with your group, and try to find some middle ground in terms of dancing style,” our teacher instructed, so our class started dispersing and regrouping. I sighed softly to myself, but I told Minghao at least we were in a group together finally, and by the look of his sunny face, he was quite pleased too. We spotted Seungcheol already chatting with some girls in our class. With slight hesitance we approached the popular guy. He looked over at us with a curious expression.

“Oh, are you two my groupmates?” We nodded. He gave us a friendly smile and introduced himself personally. We did the same, and naturally the group of girls dispersed. Finally, now I could breathe. When we got acquainted with each other, Ms. Kahi started announcing something else.

“Don’t forget to choose a team captain! Choose someone that will lead the team well, and be able to coordinate most of the things between the three of you. This is really important.” Oh, right. We had to choose a leader, pretty much. The three of us glanced at each other. Well, at least personally I knew I couldn’t be the leader. I’ve seen Seungcheol dance and he’s actually better than me too. Maybe not as skilled as Minghao, but it was clear enough that I wasn’t skilled. To save everyone time, I pretty much told the other two that I wasn’t skilled enough to be leader. Seungcheol turned to Minghao.

“Hey, I’ve seen you dance during free time, your main style isn’t hip hop, right?” Minghao nodded.

“Yes, I’m actually more versed in b-boying and breakdancing.” He looks really cool when he breakdances, it’s kind of hot, I thought feverishly. Seungcheol smiled really widely.

“That’s amazing. Actually, I think you should be leader. Your fo