Walking back into the practice like room I see Jay, Alfie, Noah, and the other dancers all practicing, I glance at Minho who is smirking happily. “Your friends are really talented.”

“You should have seen them when we had to live off being street performers.” I say while shaking my head. It had been a few years ago, before we all decided to move our lives to Seoul. For a while I thought I’d be doing it for years, dancing and nothing else, but then something happened I suppose. Something very important changed and it didn’t feel the same anymore.

“They have the personality for it.” Minho says while leading us over to take a seat. “What about you, did you dance with them?”

I nod my head, it was fun dancing to make money like that, showing off a little, spending the day with Alfie and Noah like that, it was all about having a good time. “It’d been a lot of work, but it was fun.”

“Why don’t you dance again?” Minho asks curiously, I glance at him feeling a little wary of him. “For you I mean, to see if you still love it.”

“I’m not sure I want to try.” I say slowly, I’d stopped for a lot of reasons, most of them situational, but when I gave up dancing it felt permanent. “It was Alfie right?” I ask him while looking over at the boys, both focusing on the dance. “The one who told you I mean.”

“Yeah, he seems to really want you to dance again, something about you being a little less robotic.” Minho says with a chuckle in his voice. “They care about you a lot.”

Alfie is the more vocal one about me just giving dancing up, Noah takes a little bit more of a sneak approach, talking about hanging out, then taking us to some major places for dancing. “We’ve been friends for practically our whole lives; they’re the only people I can even attempt to understand. Dancing though isn’t something I can just pick back up.”

“I’m sure Jay, Alfie and Noah would all love to see you dance” He says while looking away from me and at the others. “If you’re half as good as them, you’re amazing.”

I chuckle again, I’d been somewhere on the same level once upon a time, but now, I’m not sure I could even do a simple movement. Standing up I smile at Minho. “Well I’m extremely tired, today was nice, but I’m going to go home and sleep.” I declare while rolling my shoulders.

“Don’t be a stranger, stop by sometime.” Minho says while waving to me, I nod my head, even if today was only supposed to be me apologizing.

I slip out after waving to the guys, Jay included, and stepping out of the hall and making my way back to the entrance of the building before I stop. The thought hadn’t really crossed my mind, seeing if I still felt like dancing wasn’t something I wanted to do. I’m not even sure I could say why exactly something had changed, why exactly I wanted to stop. All I do know is that whatever had changed me made me want to stop, and that it was part of a situation, something out of my control. It’s kind of like it’s on the edge of my mind and I know what it was, or I had, but now it’s like it won’t process.

Starting again I leave the building and do as I’d said, I head home. The walk back to the apartment is mostly the same, shuffling around people and trying not to get bumped into. Though I feel distracted by everything that had happened today, I’d been around people more today that I have all week. Honestly, I’d been more interactive the last twenty-four hours than I have in long, long time.

Being around people like today drains me, Noah says it’s because I’m so introverted and antisocial. He’s probably not wrong; it isn’t like I have another explanation just ready to explain it, so I just accept the theory before I head to my bed and fall asleep.

~~~

“Does Maude really sleep a lot?” Jay asks turning to Noah and me suddenly, I glance at Noah trying to figure out how we feel about this. Maude is like out little sister, she’s very important to us, but we both are worried about her, we have been for a long time now.

“It’s how she balances being around people” Noah answers after a while. “Maude has to recharge after stressful or extreme changes, a party, apologizing to a stranger, and you said that some guy came up to her while you both were having lunch, right?”

Jay nods his head and frowns. “She’ll decide if she likes coming here in a couple of days, if she does she’ll come back.”

“Will she?” Jay asks curiously. Noah and I exchange looks again. “Come on, I just want to know if she’ll come back and hang out.”

“It depends how she views this place.” I explain slowly. “Maude isn’t exactly a fan of dance studios anymore, so if she sees this place as that she’ll be more inclined to not come back.”

“But that all depends how Maude processed everything. She’s kind of a wild card with these kind of situations.” Noah says while shrugging his shoulders.

Jay nods his head slowly. “Well then I’ll see you guys tomorrow?”

We nod our heads, grabbing out bags we head out talking about grabbing some dinner. “So you think Jay will make a move out Maudie?” Noah asks curiously. “But it seems like he isn’t really sure himself what to make of her.”

“Like anyone can.” I point out while nudging him. “Wouldn’t it be weird though?” I say trying to picture Maude with Jay, or just a guy in general. I can’t really see it; Jay though seems to bring out genuine expressions. “I mean she isn’t exactly the type to date.”

“She was before.” Noah mutters, he glare off to the side. “You know it wouldn’t be so back, but Maude doesn’t even realize what happened, it’s like she just decided to block it out and ignore it. Like it never happened.”

“It’s how she handled it. You heard what her dad said, it’s her coping method.” I say while sighing. We haven’t talked about it in a while, but after Maude’s mother died she changed, her robotic ways sort of just magnified.

Noah rubs his face and lets out a weird groan. “If she doesn’t face it then she’ll always be like this.”

“Let’s just get back to the apartment.” I say quietly as we turn the corner to the street we live on. “When she’s ready she’ll accept it.”

“And if she decides to act like she never had a mother?” Noah asks seriously. “Alfie it’s been five years, she hasn’t mentioned her since the accident, she stopped dancing, she shut down and she hasn’t been herself since.”

“Noah it isn’t like we can make her face all that.” I say frowning. We’ve talked about this before, trying to get her to realize what had changed, get her to understand that she doesn’t like dancing because her mom had been so active in that part of her life. But it’s like Noah said, Maude doesn’t acknowledge her mother’s death, it’s like in her head it’s like she never had a mom to begin with.

The rest of the walk is silent. Saying anything more will just make us fight about something that we can’t change.

Some background on Maude...
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Sorry I haven't updated this in so long. - n -