Jiae groaned. “I don’t know what to do!”

“Me neither.”

Sungkyung took a chip out of the bag Vernon was holding out for her. “It’s not my fault you two at knowing how little normal people know about official dance terms.”

We were all in a practice room in Pledis, trying desperately to figure out how to teach someone with zero dance background how to dance as practice for our final project. Considering Jiae and I were lying on the ground, breathless and out of hope, we weren't doing so well.

Vernon chuckled. “Girls, girls, girls. You guys aren’t going about this the right way. Sungkyung won’t know what to do if you keep throwing around terms like pas-de-bourrée or land in fourth position.” Sungkyung nodded. “So, do you think your test subjects will know those terms?”

“Ms Yoo won’t give any hints further than ‘prepare for the worst case scenario’,” Jiae said with a roll of her eyes. “I think that’s not fair.”

I nodded. “Of course it isn’t fair. We don’t know what we have to work with.”

Sungkyung ate another chip, uncrossed her legs, and stood up. “What do you think the purpose of this project is?” she asked.

I shrugged. “To make our lives hell and jeopardize my graduation?”

Sungkyung laughed. “Yep. Exclusively for that reason.” Then she turned stone-faced. “Absolutely not. When I was studying in a conservatory, one of my vocal teachers did a grade-wide thing. Every single person in my grade had a single piece of an instrument. Some had something as small as the peg of a guitar while others had the entire body of a violin, missing the strings and the pegs. The goal was for everyone to get together, work together, and put the instrument together. You want to know what I got?”

Jiae nodded.

“A blank sheet of A4 paper.”

I frowned. “How does that even relate? What, did they just run out of instrument pieces?”

Sungkyun shook her head. “I wasn’t the only one to get paper. A few of us did. And those few of us got together and brainstormed for days about what it meant. And then we realized that while we paper people were busy talking to each other, there was another group who’d just gotten pencils. On the very last day of the project. What we did is we found the sheet music to some top 40 songs of the month and copied them down as fast as we could.”

“But y’all still weren’t given an instrument.”

Sungkyung sighed. “I didn’t get the lesson at first either. We solved the problem, but didn’t understand the solution we’d found. The teacher explained that while it is important to have a means to play, as in the instrument, it’s also important to have something to play, as in the sheet music.”

I stared at her and blinked. “Cool story, but how does it relate to our problem right now? What, do you want us to write down the moves?”

Jiae sat up. “I think I get it. We’ve been in this game so long we don't remember not knowing the terms pas-de-bourrée or land in fourth position. Sure, it’s important to have the knowledge and skill, but it’s also important to realize not everyone does.”

Sungkyung leaned towards Vernon. “Was that my message?”

He nodded. “I think so?”

“Then wonderful! You understand!”

Jiae looked at me. “Try to think of how we learned these terms.”

Vernon piped in from his seat, “Sometimes when the performance unit is trying to teach us a dance, they use animal comparisons. You could try that.”

Rejuvenated, I jumped back up on my feet. “I think I’m ready to try this again.”

***

When I woke up on my third morning back in the dorm, there was a feast waiting for me in the eating area. I stared at it for a good minute before Jeonghan came out of his room and stared at me. “We figure since you’re suspended, you’re not on a diet. So we can all feast.”

“Yeah, I’m not on a diet,” I said, mouth watering. “Who made all of this?”

“The manager and his wife,” he answered. “They brought it all over really early.”

I smiled at the thought. “I’ll make sure to thank him.”

Everyone else slowly came out of their rooms as they heard our voices. Soon we were all seated around the table, talking and laughing as if I hadn’t been forced out for weeks and would eventually have to go back to my exile.

“How’s Jinhee?” Jeonghan asked. “You’ve seen her, right?”

“Of course,” I replied with a nod. “She’s doing well. She’s in school so we could really only hang out around her and her friends’ schedules.”

“So, did you finally get to confess to her?” Vernon asked, wiggling his eyebrows. I bunched up a napkin and threw it at him.

“Idiot. I confessed to her long ago. We even dated way back when.”

Chan dropped his jaw. “You dated that noona that took care of you in the hospital?”

I nodded. “I did, back in high school.”

“And did you get into her pants any more recently?” Junhui asked with a nudge of his elbow.

“Disgusting,” I spat at him and laughed. “No. She has a boyfriend.”

The rest of the table laughed at me. “Damn. ed.”

Seungcheol swatted at the members, saying, “You guys, leave Jesus Hong alone. Poor guy’s gonna have to abstain his way into heaven with all you sinners around him.”

I blew him a raspberry. “I’m not abstaining. I’ve probably had more than you have.”

Wonwoo nodded. “It’s not hard to beat zero.”

The table laughed again, this time to Seungcheol’s defeat.

Vernon was the first to speak up in Seungcheol’s defense. “Oh come on. You still haven’t bedded Alice.” I took Junhui’s napkin and threw that at him too.

“And I don’t plan to. Alice is a friend. Do you have any of those or do you just go from ‘she beat me up with her purse so now I am in love with her’?”

“I’m not in love with Sungkyung. We’re casual,” he replied.

“Casually waking up at her house at 6 AM, right?”

The table went up in riots.

I’m pretty sure I won that one.

***

I sat down for breakfast with my family for once on the occasion that both my parents weren’t working today.

“Ariel, your food goes in your mouth, not on your lap,” my mother explained camly. Ariel just laughed.

Dad gave a chuckled. “I guess Ariel definitely has a favourite chef in this family,” he said with a wink at me.

I hid my face in my hands to giggle. “I never claimed I was good, I just offered to cook and you guys said yes.”

My mother smiled. “Your cooking is fine,” she said. She asked my dad to pass her the tomatoes, and then asked both of us what our plan for today would be.

I shrugged. “I’m free until this evening,” I told them. “Do we want to go out and do something as a family?”

“The bookstore is having a sale,” my father announced.

Mom scoffed with a playful grin. “Okay, well, that’s an option,” she teased. She turned to me and asked, “What time do you have to go?”

“I think we agreed on 6?” I said.

Mom nodded. “Alright, then we have plenty of time before Alice’s date.”

I rolled my eyes. “It’s not a date. It’s expressly not a date.”

That only made her gush. My father laughed as well.

“Well, is he cute?” he asked.

“Cute!” screamed Ariel, very familiar with being called so.

“Yes, Ari,” I said. “You’re cute.”

“You’re cute!” she yelled back, pointing a wet finger at me.

“Thank you, Ari. I love you.”

“I love you,” she told me. “Alice pass kimbap?”

“What’s the magic word?” asked my mother.

“Abracadabra!”

Everyone at the table laughed.

“I’ll take it,” I said, putting a few slices of kimbap on her plate.

“So where should we go?” asked Mom.

Dad shrugged. “Where is there to go?”

“If Alice has to be at the ice cream shop by 6, we can’t really go far. How about we go to the movies?”

Ariel made a face. “No. I don’t like movies.”

Mom nodded. “That’s right. How about… are there any concerts going on?” She looked at me as though I would know the answer immediately.

I shrugged. “How can I know off the top of my head?”

She shrugged right back. “You’re an idol group choreographer. You’re in the industry.”

“Mom, there are literally only two groups that I follow enough to know their schedules off the top of my head. One of them is on hiatus while one member recovers, and the other hasn’t even debuted yet.”

Dad looked up from his phone. “There’s a CoreA fanmeet at noon.” He looked to me. “Are they good? Are they interesting?”

I chuckled. “You would like them. They’re such a multinational group. But it’s probably either sold out or really expensive. They’re hella popular.”

He scrolled a bit more. “What about EXO? Are they popular?”

Mom gawked. “What rock do you live under?”

“He lives with his nose in a book, Mom, he’s hopeless,” I said.

Ariel