Tao pov

The performance is finished. I still can’t believe we made it.

Taemin didn’t let us stay to watch the others, he immediately took us back to the danceroom.

Everybody around me was celebrating, happy we made it. Happy we finished the dance. The dance even looked descend. We never thought it would.

We did it, everybody feels proud.

We enter the room and everybody is still laughing.

I look up and see Taemin glaring at us, slowly the smiles and noises fade. What did we do this time?

There is a tense silence in the room, nobody dares to brake it and Taemin is just looking at every one off us.

After what seems like forever his mouth opens and he starts speaking

“Do you think you have the right to celebrate?” he asks, his eyes cold as ice, his voice barely a whisper but even more threatening than when he would be yelling.

“Why not?” Zico dares to say. “We made it, we had a dance, we danced in front of the jury and we did a pretty good job if you ask me.” The smile on his face growing bigger and bigger as his courage grows.

Taemin just snorts.

“You call that a pretty good job?” He eyes everybody off us. As if daring us to say it was, but nobody moves.

“euhmm..y..Yes” Zico says his courage almost gone. I’m surprised he even dared to talk again.

Taemin starts laughing.

“If you think that was good, then you can turn around pack your bags and leave. There are kids out there who would do a much better job then you guys. I wonder how you even got in in the first place. You must be amazing singers and rappers. Because none of you got in here on their dance talent. Not if you are happy with that.” He spats, disgust written all over his face.

“We are sorry.” Kris steps forward and bows, everybody quickly follows his example and bows down.

Zico looks around, not planning to bow, until Xiumin’s hand pushes his head down and forces him to bow with us.

“If this was a part of the contest, your team would have lost. This means that one of you would have been kicked out. Do you understand?”

He looks at us again and everybody nods.

The rules where explained in the beginning when we entered the contest. You are assigned to a team. If your team loses one off the team members will be kicked out. The team chooses witch member has to go. It’s pretty cruel if you ask me. Then the coaches of the other teams can choose to take the member in, since there will probably be teams that kick out there rival instead of the worst member.

“Even if we lose and somebody is kicked out, it doesn’t mean that person has to leave the competition.” Zico says sounding proud at his own statement.

“Do you think any of the other coaches would have taken you in their team with that lousy dance?” Taemin looks surprised and maybe a bit disappointed.

Zico just nods.

“Good the ones who think they need it can stay for extra dance lessons, the ones who think they are amazing can turn around and leave…”

Before Taemin can finish what he is saying Zico is already grabbing his back.

“But if you leave you will never be allowed in here again. You will have to leave the show, I can assure you that the other coaches won’t accept you.” He continuous, nod even caring that Zico is already at the door.

Zico freezes with the handle in his hand.

“Everybody stand somewhere in the room. I think everybody of you stretched enough already. Follow after me.”

 He moves to the front never even looking at Zico who is still at the door, everybody else already took place in the room.

“I will start slow.” Taemin says before doing a dance combination while counting.

I wonder where the slow part is.

After the combination is over he does it again. After 5 times he starts walking around the room, adjusting everybody’s stands here and there.

I still don’t know what I’m doing and I’m not the only one. Chen is constantly looking at Xiumin trying to figure out what to do. Kris is faling over his own feed and the rest is all about the same, they can follow but you can still see the mistakes.

The only guys who are doing it perfectly are Xiumin and U-kwon, everybody else is just trying to follow them.

After a while music starts to play. I look up and see that Taemin put it on.

“Okay try to follow the music.” He says while standing up front again and doing the moves to the music. You can see that he’s doing it’s slower than a moment ago, as if the music is slowing him down.

He starts walking around again, less people are having trouble right now.

Taemin walks over to me and Chen and stands between us, telling us what to do step for step. We try to follow the best we can but he still has to correct us now and then.

*knock knock*

Taemin straightens up and puts off the music. He walks to the door, walking straight past Zico who is still standing by the door.

Taemin opens the door and we here a gasp from outside.

“Hello, you must be the new coaches.” he says.

He opens the door further and lets them in.

“Lu-ge” it’s out of my mouth before I even notice.

He really is here. He looks okay. I can see him look at me for a second, before he ignores me. But I can see that he recognized me, I can see it in his eyes.