Third Person POV… (Monday)

 “Hey kid,” Himchan cooed to Zelo as he dabbed his forehead with a towel “take a break.”

Zelo scowled slightly, mostly because his throat was too dry to reply. He took a deep breath in and he could feel his ribs rub against his flesh. He rubbed his side and could make out the ridges of his bones through his shirt—recently eating hadn’t been one of his top priorities.

Yongguk got up from the ground and walked over to Zelo, waving at the other members as he dismissed them.

“Junhong,” Yongguk murmured in a tenderly low voice. He gripped on his shoulder and gave it a firm squeeze. “The competition is in two days, you’ve practiced enough for today,” he said, “take a break.”

Zelo shook his head stubbornly and held out a finger. “Let me go through it a few more times,” he pressed, “Just until I perfect this part.”  

Yongguk sighed, “Zel—”

“Just the flip,” Zelo pleaded, “please.” There was a desperate look in his weary eyes. Sweat trickled down his face, tracing the corners of his hollowed cheeks and jaw.

Yongguk gave in and heaved out another sigh as he pulled out the keys from his bag. “Don’t forget to lock up,” he instructed and threw Zelo the keys. “Don’t push yourself too much,” Yongguk hummed before closing the door behind him.

Zelo let out a rugged breath and took a glimpse at the clock. He frowned, remembering it had broken a while ago but, because it was old, it was no surprise. He crept over to his bag thrown in the corner and pulled out his phone—5:07pm. He felt guilty for having consistently insisted to practice certain parts of the choreography repeatedly to the point their practice dragged on over two hours instead of one.

Beep!

Zelo jumped as the little green light blinked in his hands.

You have 1 new message

He swiped past the lock screen and read the message.

The competition’s in two days. Good luck and don’t hurt yourself :P —Jisu [5:08pm]

Zelo rolled his eyes and, without bothering to send a reply, rolled over to turn on the music.

Zelo later found himself locking the practice room at seven o’clock and wandering around aimlessly in the streets for a few more hours.

His earpieces were drilled into his ears, breathing rap music into his mind. He let his body soak in the music as he passed through the city without a clue when he got there.

Suddenly something caught his eye—a familiar hairstyle within the flock of people surrounding him. Two twin plaits knotted to the back of a girl’s head, toppling in front of her in loose intertwined weaves. He found himself choking on a name but stopped as the girl turned around. He shook his head in embarrassment at the unfamiliar face and turned to walk away.

Zelo pulled out his music player and thumbed the buttons, scrolling down to a set of letters he had been avoiding for some time. To the song he had written for her. He gripped onto the device and shook it tightly before hesitantly pressing play.  He felt a little vain for listening to his own song but more embarrassed by the way his past voice cracked and jumped at least once in every line.

“…Once I prove myself…” Zelo muttered to himself. “I’ll win the competition and I’ll play you a song on the school radio—” His lips twisted in rejection to the cheesy lines and he struggled to continue making unacknowledged promises to her. “And I’ll finally tell you how I feel…” Zelo mumbled, but stopped when he noticed the weird stares from strangers as he burned red in the night.

Next Day (day before competition)…

“So you made up with Daehyun?” Sohee said through a mouthful of her sandwich.

Jisu nodded coyly. “He walked me home on Friday… I feel so embarrassed for crying all of a sudden in front of him.” She pouted and poked her lunch through the sealed plastic bag.

The cafeteria hummed with noise again as students let go of their need to study and began to worry about the latest gossip rather than what was to be of their results.

Sohee gave Jisu an acknowledging nod as she took a sip of juice to help swallow the bread. “But—” she swallowed, “weren’t you supposed to walk with Kai on Friday?”

Jisu looked up from her lunch. “What do you mean? We didn’t make any plans—”

“He was waiting outside the building for you?” Sohee furrowed her brows as she put down her sandwich to explain. “When I walked out he asked where you were and I told him you’d be awhile.”

Jisu shrugged then shook her head. “Maybe he left without me, I didn’t see him and there’s only one exit to that building.” She pressed her lips together as she thought it through again. “Yeah, he must have just left.”

“Is that so…” Sohee frowned. It didn’t sound like something Kai would do; he definitely wouldn’t ‘just leave’ especially after waiting that long already.

“Hey, say—” Jisu hummed, fiddling with the crusts of her sandwich she had just taken out.

“Hm?”

“Do you think I have a chance with Daehyun?” she muttered, feeling embarrassed for saying it out loud. “I mean, why else would he go to such lengths just to apologize to me??”

“Jisu…” Sohee sighed. Her pitying was interrupted by her phone ringtone. “Uh, one sec’” she said as she pulled out her phone.

“Who is it?” Jisu asked leaning forward to peak at the caller ID. It was her brother. She made a disappointed face with a hint of disgust as she slumped back in her seat.

“Jongup, what is it?”

“Lee Sohee! Can you come to the practice room again today? Bring Jisu too,” said the voice on the line. He sounded a bit out of breath—Sohee assumed they had already run through the dance a couple of times.

“Uh—” Sohee’s eyes moved towards her friend.

Jisu blinked. She then pulled herself over the table again to yell into the phone. “OPPA! What are you doing flirting with my friend?!”

Sohee’s eyes grew in embarrassment, shaking her head to the stares around the cafeteria. “I-it’s not like that,” she assured them all. She turned back to Jisu to ask whether or not she wanted to come see B.A.P’s rehearsal.

Jisu shrugged, “sure why not?”

She said it as if she couldn’t care less but Sohee could still make out the hint of excitement in her voice. She brought the phone back to her ear, “Yeah we’ll come over ri—Ah!” she exclaimed as her eyes caught on Kai, “Kai!” she called out beckoning him to their table.

Jisu gave her friend a confused kind of glare.

Kai flipped his head around, wondering for a moment if she was talking to him before making his way towards them. “Yeah, what?” He glimpsed down at Jisu, feeling slightly awkward he took another step towards Sohee.

“Is it okay if Kai comes alone too?” Sohee asked through the phone. She nodded then turned to Kai. “Do you want to come watch B.A.P’s rehearsal?” she beamed, to which he reluctantly agreed. Sohee brought the phone back to her ear. “Okay! We’ll come over now!”

It was slightly awkward during the short trip to the back of the school to the practice room, idle chit chat and comments about last week’s exams.

Once they got to the practice site they realised the door was already open. Chatter could be heard over the soft playing of music—the three betted that it was a discussion about their performance tactic rather than a social gossip. 

Even with the door open, Kai took to the courtesy of knocking on it to let their presence be known.

The six boys were huddled together, and as the three had imagined, discussing their performance tactics.

“Welcome,” Himchan greeted them and did a quick ‘thank you for coming to watch,’ speech that could have just been narrowed down to those six words.

Jisu started off by locking eyes with Daehyun momentarily than hastily nagging at her brother to cover up her nerves.  

“W-why did you call Sohee if you were going to invite me anyway?!” she whinged at Jongup.

Jongup looked from Jisu to Sohee then back to Jisu. “If I called you, you would have just hung up straight away,” he reasoned.

Jisu shook her head stubbornly. “No, I wouldn’t have!”

Daehyun chuckled and interrupted by agreeing with Jongup. “You would have seen he was calling you and not even pick up!” he laughed.

Jisu groaned and resorted to picking on her brother again, finding him an easier target. “How did you even know Sohee’s number?”

Sohee perked up, realising she didn’t know either.

“W-when we went grocery shopping I used your phone to send me the shopping list and then I saved it—” (refer to chapter 21) Jongup recalled hastily.

“You told me you got a new phone a week ago and asked for my number because you forgot to save them all,” Himchan interrupted. He frowned, “had you memorised hers and not mine?” he sulked.

Jongup gritted his teeth, wondering whether to go with that reason or the truth—both in their own way he found embarrassing. He was then saved when Yongguk interrupted.

“We can talk later, let’s just rehearse,” he bellowed.

Youngjae nodded, agreeing to the leader’s every word.

“It’s improved,” Sohee assured them after seeing their performance a second time. “I thought it couldn’t get better last time but it has,” she beamed, “It’s great!”

They all looked a bit more encouraged as their three-person audience showered them with praise.

“Good luck for tomorrow,” Kai nodded, adding a ‘fighting’ simultaneously with the two girls before taking their leave.

None of them had mentioned Zelo’s attempted flip where he ended up almost falling over. None of the member’s wanted to address it either since he looked stressed enough.

Youngjae grinned at Jongup, nudging him after the three had gone. “You’ve got such a nice girlfriend,” he teased.

Himchan then came from behind and slung an arm around the boy’s shoulders. “I’ll forgive you for remembering her mobile number and not mine only because she’s your girlfriend.”

Zelo anxiously began listening into the conversation.

Like usual, Youngjae agreed to everything anyone older than him said. “Ahh Sohee, Sohee…” Youngjae sung just to see the growing embarrassment in Jongup’s face.

Zelo hesitantly stepped in. “Are you two dating?” he asked Jongup. He bit his lip, noticing how much he feared hearing the answer after seeing how well they had gotten along recently. Knowing Sohee wasn’t the type to dish out her number to anyone—could it be true?

Jongup looked taken aback, “I-it’s not like that…” he insisted.

Youngjae and Himchan looked disappointed, shaking their heads in unison.

“We’re not dating…” Jongup repeated.

Yongguk rolled his eyes. “Okay, the competition is tomorrow. We’ll finish here for today,” he said clasping his hands together. “We’ll run through it once or twice on stage before the actual performance so we’ll meet at the assembly hall the same time as morning practice.” He clapped his hands together and, looking proudly at s, dismissed them.

Only Yongguk was left, packing up the bits of equipment and readying the music for tomorrow’s performance. Zelo hung latched by the door, the image of Sohee and Jongup together still knocking at his head. Persuading himself he couldn’t lose, he swung back around and approached Yongguk—he could hear the footsteps approach him and had already guessed it to be Zelo.

“You still want to practice?” Yongguk said with a slightly threatening tone, his back still to him.

“Yeah,” Zelo replied timidly.

“It was just a onetime mistake, don’t worry about it.” Yongguk insisted but sighed knowing the boy would be too stubborn to accept it. “What time did you finish yesterday?” he asked.

“Half past five.” Zelo lied.

Yongguk got up and looked Zelo in the eyes. “If it’ll boost up your confidence—” he swayed his head and reluctantly gave up the keys again, “Here. But don’t push yourself too much; even if your mind can take it, it doesn’t mean your body can.” He preached as he dropped the keys into the boy’s calloused hands. “Be ready tomorrow,” the leader said before taking his leave.

Zelo looked at the keys, chucked them by his bag and begun to practice the flip he still had yet to master.

Meanwhile…

Sohee rummaged through her bag then her pockets. “Where could have I put it?” she whispered to herself. She patted her body as if her missing phone could have sunk into her skin.

Jisu tilted her head. “Maybe you left it at the practice room?”

The three of them, Sohee, Jisu and Kai, had just made their way back to the cafeteria for the remaining of lunch.

Kai pulled out a chair and took a seat. “We’ll wait here,” He said, insisting she go back and check—something in his nodding gesture had told Sohee he had something he wished to discuss with Jisu, so she quickly jumped back out of the cafeteria and made her way back to the practice room.  

Sohee hastily walked to the back of the school, hoping the door would still be open as her eyes scavenged the ground along the way. She grinned as she noticed the door a slit of yellow light underneath the doorframe, she exhaled and just hoped her phone would be in there. She put a hand to the knob. Suddenly—

CRASH!

She jolted back at the sound of something heavy hitting the wooden floor—the sound of a body hitting the floor, and hitting it hard. Sohee swung open the door and found Zelo sprawled out on the floor, in a way that shouldn’t be possible. Sohee skidded to her knees and began nervously tapping at his shoulder. She breathed rapidly as everything came to her mind at once.

Is he breathing?

               What do I do?

                               H-hey Junhong?!

Everything was screaming all at once in her head. It was too much and had disconnected with her brain. All she could manage was to croak and cry as she one-sidedly mumbled his name over and over again.

As requested-- a fast update for once ahaha ;;; I managed to write this in a day then editted a day later... I would do this more often if I had the time and inspiration (usually I just don't feel like it and the chapter takes forever)

Has school started for you guys? Mine started today but Hero still has a week left > <

Please Read

Jongup having Sohee's number-- I admit to forgetting Jongup had already gotten it in Chapter 21 ahaha... So! Jongup has bought a new phone and hadn't moved the contacts from his old one so he had to check Jisu's address book to call Sohee. 

I'm sorry for forgetting my own story orz Hero has already bothered me about rereading my chapters but I'm a really slow reader...