Come on, you can do this. Seulgi grits through clenched teeth as she does a twirl along with the rest, ignoring the dull ache in her left ankle. She does a side step to the right, before going back to the left again to end up at the center of the stage again. While everyone was doing it so effortlessly, Seulgi was mentally screaming with every step her left leg takes. With a final chest pop, she strikes a pose, the music fading out, leaving only their pants of breath to be heard. Joohyun claps for a job well done and the three scramble for their bottles. Seulgi tries her best to make her way over without limping, trying to mask her pain and slow speed as fatigue. She tries her best to sit down, her ankle screaming profanities at her as she squats down to sit, finally completing the task. She just focuses on gulping down her water, trying her best to ignore the pain from her ankle that was getting harder and harder to ignore.

"Are you okay, Seulgi?" Joohyun asks, sharp eyes on her and Seulgi freezes. She has been hiding the injury for 1 week now and the dance competition is just another 2 weeks away, she can't fail now! Seulgi laughs sheepishly, waving her hands as if waving off Joohyun's worries. "Why wouldn't I be?"

"Your moves seem to lack their usual precision lately." Joohyun voices out, and she can feel Sooyoung and Yerim's wordless agreement with their leader as they just look at her, waiting for an explanation.

"I'm just tired. I promise I will do better tomorrow." Seulgi pledges while staring at the mouth of her bottle. She feels that if she looks at any of them, they are going to be able to tell the lies she's saying, so she keeps her gaze focused on the bottle.

"Hey," Joohyun softens considerably as she places a reassuring hand on Seulgi's arm, "I'm not blaming you, okay? I just want everyone to be absolutely focused now that we are just two weeks away from the dance competition."

Seulgi nods her agreement. She feels the same too, she wants to give her all, but it's impossible with the constant throbbing of her ankle with every step that she took, reminding her of her disability. She should have known when her ankle felt strange after the pivot she did during a dance routine one week ago, should have stopped and rest, but she had not. She had not, and now she's left with an ankle that hates her and that she hates, and a dance competition two weeks away. So she hides the injury from her groupmates, afraid of letting them down. She has hid it for one week, she's intending on doing so for the next two weeks. What doesn't kill you makes you stronger, right? It better darn well be cos this pain feels like it's really going to kill her.

--

Seulgi hates going to the doctor (mainly because she hates taking medicine), but her injury this time is so bad that she can’t leave it be anymore. She huffs as she sees the university's clinic in sight. Finally. Her ankle is killing her and the bus ride wasn't pleasant at all, the constant jerking and acceleration causing her to tumble a few times, putting unnecessary strain on her already injured ankle. She makes her way into the clinic, glad that it is still open at this hour and the only two people in the clinic turns to look at her when they heard the front door bell ring. Seulgi doesn’t know what to do now, with their attention on her so she limps her way closer to the front desk.

“Er, I’m here to see a doctor?” Seulgi asks hesitantly, not really knowing what to do because it’s her first time in a clinic since she was 10 (and even then her mom was with her).

The receptionist guffaws loudly, while the doctor (Seulgi presumed she is because of the white coat she’s wearing) just giggles softly. “Of course you are darling; please come and fill up your particulars for me here.”

She fills it up and the girl in the white coat gestures for her to follow her, entering a room labelled “Trainee Son Seungwan”. The room is smaller than the other doctors’ room she has been to, but it’s filled with the normal equipment that the other rooms have. The doctor sits down comfortably and Seulgi takes the patient seat at the foot of the table.

“So, what brings you here today?” The doctor looks at her and smiles a patient smile.

“I sprained my ankle.” Seulgi replies and the doctor’s eyebrows immediately scrunched up into a frown, lips jutting out in a pout.

“That’s not good. Please show me your leg.” The doctor pushes another chair before Seulgi for her to rest her leg, and she pulls up her sweatpants to reveal her red and swollen ankle. The doctor almost gasps after seeing it, proceeding to ask her to do certain exercises with her left leg to see the extent of injury. The doctor sits back in her chair and frowns as she begins to write her diagnosis.

“Well I cannot do much to help, but rest more and don’t exert unnecessary pressure on your leg, try not to walk too much too. Ice your ankle, compress it with a brace and elevate your leg while you sleep to reduce the swelling. I can prescribe some medicine to reduce the swelling and some painkillers if you need.”

Seulgi nods her head at the word 'painkillers'. She will really need them if she wants to get through the next 2 weeks.

--

Seulgi saunters out of her art history class lethargically and that’s when she spots Sooyoung, which isn’t and shouldn’t be surprising, but what’s surprising is that she has her arms around the doctor. It’s not any doctor, but the doctor that treated her that day, the doctor who is the only one who knows her secret. Seulgi tries her best to round the corner before Sooyoung spots her but damn her leg and she’s so close to the next bend of the building when…

“Seulgi-unnie!”

Damnit.

Seulgi turns around and waves at them, hoping it doesn’t come out very awkward and she sees the two of them coming nearer and then she sees a look of recognition flashing past the doctor’s face. Before the doctor could say anything, Sooyoung had already pounced on her, holding her in a headlock as she tries to hide her wince on the additional weight. Sooyoung would have released her anyway, but the doctor forces her off before she does. “You can’t do that to her!”

Sooyoung looks at her, dumbfounded. “Why?”

Seulgi’s blood runs cold as she realizes where this is leading and she immediately pounces on the doctor, hand covering to stop her from saying her sacred secret. She gives a ‘don’t-tell-her’ look to the doctor, hoping she understands as Seulgi tries to come up with a reason. “Errrrrrrr……”

“Wait, you guys know each other? How?” Sooyoung gets too impatient to wait for her answer and bombards them with even more questions that Seulgi cannot answer without compromising her secret. She feels the sweat running down her head and that’s when the doctor pulls her hands off.

“We have the same music mod, right Seulgi?” The doctor says and Seulgi starts to panic more, the doctor obviously knowing her name because of her particulars but she doesn’t know the doctor’s name because who would know their doctor’s name it’s not like they wore a name tag on their coats or something… Oh wait… The door! Son… what was it? Son…

“Seungwan! Yeah!” Seulgi shouts as she finally remembers the doctor’s name. Sooyoung guffaws loudly while the doctor, aka Seungwan is the one with her hands over Seulgi’s mouth now. She looks apologetically at Seungwan and the other girl removes her hands.

“I go by Wendy more often.”

“Oh. Right.” Seulgi says rigidly as she fears she has offended the doctor aka Seungwan aka Wendy because names are a pretty sensitive thing to certain people. Sooyoung hasn’t stopped laughing, still bent over in laughter, wheezing as she tries to get back her composure.

Wendy just rolls her eyes at her. “Let’s just go, Seulgi.”

“Where to?” Seulgi asks, confused.

“I don’t know, anywhere without Park Sooyoung?” Wendy replies and steps closer to Seulgi, linking their arms together as Seulgi shrugs as an agreement. Seulgi stiffens a little at the contact and contemplates on pulling away, but she knows Wendy is doing it to help her lessen the pressure on her ankle so even though she hates it, she pushes away the thought of pulling away and tries to relax into the hold. Maybe it’s because Wendy is a doctor or something, but she really knows how to support her so that minimum weight is placed on her left foot. It’s weird now that Seulgi thinks about it, Wendy just went from the doctor she visited to her human clutches. But Seulgi’s not going to complain because the doctor, Wendy, knows best. 

--

A/N: deng deng deng! sorry this took way too long and yes our main characters have finally met!

stay tuned for the next update!