November 2014

With their comeback approaching, Subin was worried out of her mind. True, she wasn't the leader of POLARIS, as Jimin kept on reminding her, but she was still the oldest in the group and that meant that she carried some responsibilities. It was well known that she sometimes took on some of Eunjung's job without meaning to, such as bossing the younger members around or telling the leader herself what to do; it was something that she couldn't turn off, as she had meant to be the group's leader before Eunjung was chosen. 

After seeing how things had been going in the kpop world lately, Subin was terrified that something would go wrong, only adding to the growing list of scandals that were accumalating for SM Entertainment. To be honest, she was still surprised at the fact that their debut had been so well-recieved, considering everything that had been against them at the time. And as far as the public knew, POLARIS were as close as sisters, though they had all witnessed many heated conversations and full-out screaming fits (usually between Jimin and Chaerin, who seemed to grate on each others nerves quite a lot). The incident that stood out in particular to Subin was the one that mild, quiet Gayoon had initiated with Eunjung, who was a real sweetheart. The lead rapper couldn't quite believe what she had seen, even months later. The two had agreed silently to not talk about it, yet there had been no apologies. It made for an awkward moment whenever they got annoyed with each other.

Most days, though, they were very close, though not like sisters - more like a bunch of friends, and not necessarily close friends at that. They often stayed as a group to do things like eating and watching TV, but it wasn't uncommon for Jimin to take off without so much as a word to meet up with her boyfriend (Jimin, Eunjung and Seohyeon, who had overheard the conversation, had refused to tell the others who he was). Even Chaerin, who seemed the type to want to stay with the group, had gone out a few times, presumably to visit old friends or family. Eunjung had a habit of staying at the studio for extended hours, determined to get her vocals right and Seohyeon barely left the practice room, being lead dance. Gayoon had taken to locking herself in her and Eunjung's shared room at the dorm (effectively locking Eunjung out, which always caused a ten minute struggle before bed for the leader to be able to get into her room to sleep) to practice her vocals. The biggest surprise, however, was Jimin. The visual was usually the biggest perfectionist out of the six of them, but she had skipped a few practices that week, which was odd. 

Subin, therefore, was left trying to find somewhere to improve her vocal and rap parts for the new songs. She had enlisted the help of SHINee's Minho a few times, as she had trouble focusing on learning her lines anywhere other than the practice room (which was always occupied by Seohyeon when Subin needed it). She had even desperately accepted Suho's offer to use the EXO dorm when they were away in China for their concerts to practice. 

So now, barely two months away from their comeback, Subin had kicked the maknae out of the practice room, as she had thoughtlessly neglected her dance practice in order to perfect her rap. She was still struggling with one of the more complicated steps. 

Frustated, she restarted the track and walked to the centre of the room, focusing on her reflection in the mirror in front of her. She had to get this right, otherwise she would be the only member who hadn't got it, which was embarassing when you considered the fact that Eunjung was the worst dancer in the group and she had learned it pretty much the day it had been shown to them. Subin didn't know what it was about the sequence that she couldn't quite get right, but there it was, right when the second half of the chorus began. She stumbled to the side and glared at her reflection.

"Oh! Sorry, I didn't know anybody was in here!"

The rapper's head snapped up to the voice and stared uncomprehendingly at the figure standing in the doorway awkwardly. 

"Lay?" she asked, blinking to clear her head. 

"Sorry, Subin-ah," he repeated. "I couldn't see anybody in here through the glass in the door, so I assumed that it was empty," 

"Ah" Subin responded, embarrassed. "I'm just trying to get this step right for the comeback and I fell."

Lay shifted the bag that was on his shoulder slightly. "Do you need any help? I can help!"

Subin considered it - she knew that Seohyeon was more comfortable when dancing with Jongin, but in all truthfullness, he kind of intimidated her. Lay was nicer, in a way, less intense, and he was a brilliant dancer.

"If you could, I'd be in your debt forever," she finally answered with a small smile. "It's just the one step, but it completely throws me off, which is embarrassing. Even Jungie learned it, but I can't get the hang of it."

Yixing smiled and shut the door behind him, dumping his bag in the corner and approached the rapper. "Do you have the choreography so I could take a look?"

"Sure, it's on my phone."

*

It turned out that it took EXO's dancer literally thirty minutes to learn the choreography until the end of the first chorus, and he stood with his back to the mirror as he restarted the track.

"Okay, you're going to dance and I'm going to find out where it is you're going wrong. You ready?"

Subin squared her shoulders and nodded. The intro of the song suddenly filled the room and Subin began to perform. Sure enough, she faltered at the troublesome sequence and huffed as she brushed her hair out of her face.

"Right," Yixing commented as he paused the music. "I know what it is."

"Yeah, so do I. I ," the rapper tacked on. "I'm so annoyed with myself!"

"You do not ," Lay reprimanded. "You're just spinning on the wrong foot."

Subin blinked at him for a few seconds. "What?"

"That's all it is - in the video, the teacher spins clockwise on her left foot, but you're going on your right. After that, you're meant to step forward and around Gayoon for the next line on your right foot, but you can't, because it's now in the wrong place."

"You have to be kidding me. That's it? That's what's making me mess up?" Subin double checked. "You're sure?"

He nodded. "Positive. Here, I'll restart the song and be Gayoon and this time, spin on your left, step with your right. Get your arms into the right position as you're stepping, not when you're already in your place."

This time, when the chorus started, Subin exectuted the steps perfectly, stepping around Lay and in front of him, ready to dance the rest of the chorus.

"See, you did it!" he called above the music as he jogged towards the stereo in the corner of the room. "That's all you need to remember! When's your nect group practice?"

Subin, so happy that she almost felt like crying, grinned at his back. "Tomorrow at nine,"

"You'll have it down by then, for sure," he reassured her. "Let's go again, just a few more times, to see whether you can remember it. Ready?"

*

In the car on the way back to the dorm that night with Eunjung sat next to her, Subin was full of happiness that she had finally learned the dance to their title track. 

"Someone looks happy," the leader noted as she smirked at her twitter feed. "Did Chanyeol buy you ramyun again?"

"Shut up," Subin responded without any real heat. "And for the record, I was only happy that day because I learned my rap part for 'Skin'."

"Then what's put you in such a good mood this time?" Eunjung questioned, switching to Instagram and frowning when she saw a post by Jimin, who had once again not turned up to practice that morning. 

"Oh, nothing, you know. We've had good weather today. I ate kalguksu. I finally mastered the dance for the title track..." she tacked on airily. Eunjung's head snapped up.

"You got it? The chorus step? Ah unnie, I'm happy! Now Seohyeon can stop being a stuck up when you mess it up!" Eunjung congratulated the older girl, patting her shoulder.

"Seo will never stop being a ," Subin pointed out. "And yeah, I finally got it. Lay helped a bit - he accidentally came into the practice room because he thought it was empty and then offered to teach it to me. You know what it was I was doing wrong?"

"Forgetting your training in dance?" Eunjung asked playfully.

"Shut up," the rapper said, feeling like that was going to be her line of the night. The leader seemed to be in an abnormally good mood, which meant that she was going to play everybody up. "I was spinning on the wrong foot. How stupid is that? He picked it up straight away and when he said it, I just thought 'Oh yeah. Well. That's dumb.'."

"Ah," the redhead nodded slightly. "There you go, then. You're ready for the group practice in the morning? You can pretend to be all nervous and annoyed about not having learned the sequence and then wipe the smile off everybody's faces when you ace it!"

Subin frowned at the younger singer. "You're kind of scary sometimes, you know that, Choi Eunjung? That's cruel."

"Maknae extraordinaire deserves to be proven wrong every once in a while," she finally responded, turning back to her phone. "That's why I'm here."

THIS CHAPTER OMG IT DIDN'T TURN OUT HOW I IMAGINED IT TO TURN OUT AT ALL! SUBIN! EUNJUNG! WHAT?! I just had to include Yixing because hello, EXO-M bias and one of my favourite munchkins. ALSO, HAPPY NANOWRIMO SEASON! This is my first chapter of the month, which is pretty awesome, because I can already feel that this is going to go well.

ALSO I'm writing my new chapters for NaNoWriMo, so expect updates a LOT more frequently! I apologise profusely if you see any typos or mistakes in these, because it's a rule of NaNo to not edit your stuff, so yeah. Sorry. I'll get around to it at some point!

-Xenexian