“One-two-three-four-“

With a twist of her hips, flick of her hand, she moves as gracefully as she can. Her body contorts in such way that wouldn’t be possible without years and years of practice. Sweat drips down her arm, her forehead, as she moves, dances. The studio blurs, into colours of blue, grey and white as she turns and turns, the rhythm moving down her spine and up her leg. She can feel her hair, tied up with a tight scrunchie, hit the back of her neck at a particularly violent move but it is brushed off quickly.

Her arm goes to the opposite side of her head, fingers splaying just the way Hoseok taught her. She hears him murmur approvingly behind her and a small smile graces her face. With a final twist, head bent, she ends the dance just as the music trails off.

She looks up with a large grin she doesn’t even bother to hide, “How was that?”

Her teacher meets her eyes, his expression not too different from hers. Its easy to see how proud he is, of both of them.

Jimin stands beside her, panting ever so slightly with an equally large smile. He brushes his hair away from his face to reveal a bead of sweat travelling down his forehead.

“It was great, you two.” Hoseok walks towards them, his face as warm as ever, hand outstretched and Lisa closes her eyes, ready for a pat on the head.

Instead, a sharp pain stabs her neck as her teacher neatly chops it. Her eyes jolt open and she can just catch him do the same to the boy next to her. Jimin has his face contorted in pain as he rubs the back of her neck in an exaggerated motion that has her close to laughing.

“However, you are still not listening to me!” The man walks away from them, rolling up his sleeves. “Lisa!”

She stands up straight, out of habit more than anything.

“You’re too clumsy still! Each movement has to be precise, but not look as if its tightly controlled.” A snicker from Jimin. “And you, Jimin! You’re thinking too much - not everything has to be so contrived, lose yourself for once!”

They both groan as Hoseok starts the music again, despite both seemingly expressing their discontent, a determined look has taken ownership of their faces.

At the end of the session, Lisa sits against the wall, water bottle at her thigh and towel hastily thrown over her head. Her limbs are sore and shirt ruined with sweat like they are at the end of every lesson. She watches Jimin continue to dance, despite the fact that he can barely see through his bangs and feels like laughing. Yet she can’t deny that his hardworking nature had always been endearing. She can tell Hoseok feels the same, his eyes are soft like warm coffee as he watches the boy’s movements.

Lisa closes her eyes as she presses the top of her water bottle to her lips.

jichu lisa im bored

lalice okay

lalice what do u want me to do about it unnie

jichu youre done with dance right??? lets go eat

rosie theres this really nice Italian place near campus, like real nice

jichu yeah yeah lets go!!!

lalice cantttt

lalice gotta study :’)

jichu >:(

The phone falls from her hands, landing softly on top of a bed of paper. It sits there, almost sadly, as faint beams of light can be seen escaping from underneath.

Her head rolls back and forth on the desk lazily. She can feel the crispness of her book underneath her, its pages and pages of text staring almost mockingly at her. The light of the laptop shines onto her head, blue illuminating blonde in a way that would be poetic if it weren’t the most monotonous thing one could think of in the twenty-first century. She has to finish this essay soon so she can concentrate on her dancing and job but the urge to procrastinate is overwhelming.

The university’s library is mostly silent, save for a few murmured voices every now and then, and she would have appreciated it if she were a model student.

Her pen balances precariously on the edge of a tall stack of books in front of her.

It is embarrassingly hard to concentrate, it always is, after one of Hoseok’s lessons. All she wants to do is return to the dance studio, as much as her tired, aching limbs abhor the idea of doing so. She feels as if she’s wasting time by being in the library, by being still. Why is she not dancing, her heart doesn’t seem to understand?

But her mind does.

Lisa groans, burying her head further into the musty smelling pages of the textbook.  

“Hey, you okay?”

When she brings her head up, reluctantly of course, she’s met with a familiar face. His usual tanned skin seems a little lighter under the dim lights of the library and his shaggy bangs seem to be wrestling with his eyes for dominance, but she knows. Despite his words, Taehyung’s expression is one of amusement and she very much wants to smack it out of him. Instead, she settles for a pout, deciding that it was far too early to get kicked out of the library.

“Doing fine,” she isn’t. “Doing great, even.”

“Your book is upside-down.”

Her eye twitches. The blonde sits up abruptly, snapping her book shut.

“Alright, if you’ve come here to bother me, congrats! You’ve succeeded!”

She’s about to continue but Taehyung interrupts her, he really can be so insufferable. Its only through Jisoo that she knows him, and even then, she wouldn’t exactly call them close. But, being the lovely, sweet, nice Lisa she is, she decides to let him speak anyway.  

“I was actually looking for you because – “ his usual boxy smile appears, but its slightly off and she’s immediately on edge. Her brown eyes narrow and she braces herself for whatever is coming next, certain that it can’t be any good. “I need a favour.”

Lisa begins to pack her things into her bag, shoving books and pens in haphazardly.

“Hey, come on Lisa, I’m desperate! You haven’t even heard me out yet!” The man’s hands are latching onto her books like claws and she’s so close to hitting him.

“The last time I ‘heard you out’, I had a black eye for a week! I’ve had a really long day oppa,” She retorts in a hushed whisper while attempting to ply his hands off her belongings.

“In my defence, I didn’t know bottlecaps would hurt that much and anyway, didn’t I take care of you afterwards?”

“You laughed at me!”

She recalls the memory clearly and with large amounts of hatred and regret. They’d call it an accident, she would refer to it as attempted murder.

“And in my defence, it was very funny – “

“I’m this close, this close oppa.”

A loud ‘shhh’ resounds from behind them and Lisa flushes slightly in response. Her company doesn’t seem to care, currently occupied with giving her the biggest puppy dog eyes he can muster as he clings to her bag. If he had a tail it would be wagging unbearably right now. She pinches the bridge of her nose.

“Alright, fine, what is it?”

His face lights up at her words, mouth stretching into such a wide grin that she’s almost blinded. Almost immediately though, the beam disappears and is quickly replaced by an uncharacteristically serious expression.

“You’re the only one I can ask, Lisa,” he whispers intensely, causing her to involuntarily take a step back. “I’m serious.”

“Um, yeah – okay – “  

His eyes almost seem to harden. Then, he takes a deep breath. She’s only just now aware that several students around them are watching curiously. The girl shifts on her feet.

“So I have this friend who has a huge crush on Jisoo right?” Taehyung begins, eyebrows furrowed ever so slightly. “I’m pretty sure you’ve met him before, Jungkookie?”

She pauses for a second, sifting through faces from her past week in an attempt to match it to the name. Her part time job means she sees hundreds of different faces a day (and hears around the same amount of names), so perhaps it was a fruitless endeavour. The twenty-year-old is about to shake her head when Taehyung speaks up.

“Jeon Jungkook?”

A familiar face slowly fades into existence, brown hair, large eyes –

“Ah! Him, yeah he came in while I was working.” She would always hear Jimin talk about him while they were stretching on the floor of the dance studio. ‘Jungkook is great at bowling did you know? Apparently, he’s even been taking lessons!’ ‘He’s got a great body too, even though he does stupid like eat six cups of ramen in one sitting.’

“Jungkookie’s a really good kid, like really good. But – “ an exasperated sigh. “He’s terrible with girls.”

“Mm, really,” she sits back down on her chair, opening her bag and taking her study materials out one by one. Taehyung plunks himself down across from her, much to the chagrin of the student he was now sitting next to.

“Yeah, so I, his wonderful, selfless hyung, would of course want to help him, you know?”

“Mhm, sure,” she has her book open again (this time, right way up) and a pen in between her long fingers. He doesn’t seem to notice.

“And that’s where you come in!” He points at her triumphantly.

She doesn’t quite comprehend, doesn’t really want to, truthfully. So she tilts her head and squints. His smile falters a little.

“So why do you need me?”

Taehyung’s face can’t help but darken and she wants to laugh because it looks so out of place on his handsome face. To her, it’s almost like looking at a petulant child.

“To, obviously, go on a double date with me, Jisoo and Jungkook,” he says while frowning. “If it seems like a group thing, he’ll feel less nervous.”

The blonde girl leans back on her chair, crossing her legs in the process. Her arms are folded in front of her.

“You want me to set unnie up with this Jungkook?”

She remembers his flushed face (from the cold, probably) at work. He had been polite, if a little shy – someone like that with a loud, outgoing person like Jisoo probably wouldn’t be bad. They’d balance each other out, she’s sure. Not to mention, her unnie has mentioned wanting to date for some time, ever since the months after the end of her previous relationship.

“I’ll ask her, no promises though,” Lisa finds herself saying.

Immediately, she’s attacked by a heavy weight across the table and it takes her a second to realize that Taehyung has captured her in a hug.

“Thanks Lisa, I owe you one!” He muffles this into her shoulder as she sits stiffly on the hard library chair.

Another loud ‘shh’ snaps him away from her and he at least has the sense to look somewhat sheepish this time. The blonde slumps back into her chair and feels as if she’s developed a migraine.