""Alright girls, great job today," the booming voice of the dance instructor called out.

Minzy shook her head in acknowledgement as she wiped off the sweat that had begun to drip down her face. She lifted up her cropped Adidas jersey to allow more cool air to  hit her body.

"Minri, maybe you and Hyoyeon should stay behind and review some of the newer moves you seemed a bit lost." he added before making his way out of the studio.

"Sure," Hyoyeon responded with a smile up until she saw the instructor walk out. Her smile quickly turned into a scowl.

"Whatever." she muttered.

Minzy rolled her eyes at Hyoyeon's behavior not in the mood for another one of her mood swings. At first, Minzy was pretty excited for the survival show type dance competition, partially because she thought she'd be able to see Taemin more, but they had separated the girl contestants and the guy contestants for the first week. There was a introduction battle approaching in a few days to establish the top girls and guys in the competition. And so far Minzy's group seemed pretty lost and Hyoyeon's attitude didn't help. Minzy remembered their first meeting..

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"Group number three, SM's Hyoyeon, YG's Minzy , and Cube trainee Minri," a staff had called out in the dance practice room that seemed like it was about to burst with the sheer number of contestants in it.

Minzy had struggled to break through the front of the crowd and meet her new team members. She spotted a young girl that looked to be about her age with long inky blood red hair. It was twisted into two long ponytails starting from the base of her neck and reaching all the way down to her waist. She wore a simple black sports bra and baggy cargo pants. She barely glanced at Minzy as she approached.

"Um hey" Minzy offered. After a long slightly uncomfortable silence she followed up with, "So...I wonder what kind of routine we'll be given."

Before Minri could actually look at Minzy and answer Hyoyeon entered and set the tone for the duration of the week the group had together.

"Listen up girls. I don't give a damn about what you want. All I know is that I want to win, and I'm not going to let anybody stand in the way of that. Got it?" Hyoyeon had asked.

"Uh..." Minzy was in a state of shock, "Maybe that's not the best approach... we should work as a team-

"Like hell!" Minri finally exploded. "I'm not here to make friends. I'm here to be recognized as the number one girl dancer and get that final partner stage with the best guy dancer.. I mean I think Korea is tired of seeing all these second generation idol has beens." she finished with a smirk . 

"Who do you think you are-" Hyoyeon began before she was cut off by an overly friendly photographer who needed a picture of them for an article.

"Smile girls!" the petite photographer called out.

Minzy was forced to grab the two bickering girls in a faux friendly embrace and put on a huge smile for the camera. The other girls followed suit with equally fake smiles until the photographer was long gone...

Ever since then the whole team had been a disaster. Minzy was originally excited because they got a fierce choreography to match the song 'Lose My Breath' by Destiny's Child. It was an upbeat track that required a lot of precision since the dance had many militaristic elements to it, but the group had been falling behind due to Hyoyeon and Minri's daily power struggle. Some days Hyoyeon would complain about Minri not being in the right position. Other days Minri would seethe about Hyoyeon seemingly getting the most attention since she was a sunbae in the industry. However, most days the two would fight about who should get the center position for the final pose at the end of the dance. Both were convinced that whoever won that spot was guaranteed popularity and attention by netizens and viewers alike. Minzy wasn't concerned about that and was  just hoping that  there was a group with worse team work than them. As Minzy grabbed the last of her stuff she took out her phone to reply to a text Taemin had sent 

From: Tae ~

"I miss you~" 4:32 PM

Minzy smiled to herself and thought for a second before typing her answer

To: Tae~

" I miss you too ^.^ I hope your practice is better than mine. These girls only care about the spotlight and the guys."

from: Minzy 5:44 PM

From: Tae~

"Unfortunately things aren't much better on my end...I'll tell you about it later tonight?" 5:47 PM

To: Tae~

"It's a date :) " 

from: Minzy 

Minzy smiled at the last message and closed her phone before walking out. Unknown to her Hyoyeon was observing from a distant corner with a curious look on her face...

"I wonder what's so funny....? " Hyoyeon wondered to herself before eventually leaving as well.

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"Look at the fairy go!"

"He kind of looks like a girl to me. Are you sure he's on the right team?"

"Can he even dance to hip hop?"

Taemin closed his eyes and tried to block out all the insults that were thrown at him. His initial excitement at being able to show off his dance abilities was now dashed by reality. His teammates consisted of a timid trainee from JYP who looked at least 5 years younger than Taemin even though they were actually the same age, his friend Kai from EXO, a guy named Seunghyun from some unknown rookie group, and YG's Junhoe. At first glance it seemed like a decent combination, but soon peoples' true colors began to show. . Junhoe and Seunghyun had teamed  up to make fun of how Taemin was more feminine than the rest of the guys. Kai tried to be the middle man and stand up for Taemin but he couldn't be there all the time. Plus the other guys seemed to admire Kai, so he had no real reason to be too harsh on them despite their rude behavior towards Taemin. Meanwhile, the shy trainee from JYP whose name ended up being Rin just followed the crowd and laughed along with the others when necessary. Taemin tried not to let it bother him  and focus on their routine. They had to dance to a dubstep mashup of some old 2000 song. The style was a bit out of Taemin's element and the other guys on the team  took every opportunity to point it out. They said he wasn't tough enough for the dance, and as much as Taemin tried to hide it , it really got to him sometimes. But more than anything it was their Ranking game that irritated Taemin the most. Seunghyun and Junhoe would sit together and pick the 'hottest' girls in the competition who they wanted to partner with later on. It took everything in Taemin to not charge Seunghyun one day when he declared that he had a thing for Minzy and  was thinking about getting closer to her. Luckily Junhoe warned Seunghyun about YG's legendary strict rules about dating and the crisis was adverted for now.

"Hey Taemin are you up for a drink with the guys tonight?" Kai had asked snapping Taemin out of his thoughts.

"No that's fine." Taemin quickly answered.

"Look," Kai sighed. "I know they can be jerks sometimes but things will be better if we all try and get to know each other."

"Yeah I know, but I already have plans with a friend from another group so maybe next time..." Taemin finished.

He watched Kai reluctantly walk away with the rest of the guys. Taemin did feel a tinge of sadness about how quickly it seemed Kai had abandoned him, but he remembered his plans for the night and quickly was able to smile again. 

He gathered his stuff in his gym bag and ran at a light jogging pace outside of the dance studio and in the opposite direction that Kai and the guys had gone. After a lengthy 20 minute jog he had arrived at his destination.

"Yeobo.."

*Sorry this update took so long. I was in the middle of exams and college stuff so I wasn't able to devote time to this. So sorry if the character development seems a bit rushed. I'll try to slow things down in later chapters. P.S. ignore the age differences between certain Kpop idols and just assume they are all around the same age unless stated otherwise.  just didn't take the time to be totally accurate about ages and just added in names that I knew xD Anyway keep commenting and tell me what you think so far~ Gosh sorry about the weird fonts too. I tried to fix it but i still dont know what happened :/