“Three sets of that caliber has to be insane.”

         The song wraps up quietly, praise in whispers surrounding them, and the next song starts without break, “That was the easy one. The three new sets are harder.” he crosses his arms over his chest again, “Minghao and Soonyoung have been piecing it together for weeks, maybe months. I lose track sometimes since the choreos evolve a lot from start to finish.” Mingyu looks over at Wonwoo studying the dancers behind his metal-rimmed glasses. He looks concerned, a little mad maybe, but mostly concerned. The taller coughs to get his attention and they meet eyes and share a little laugh about how serious Wonwoo is getting over this.

         His attention is still pinned on Soonyoung for obvious reasons.

         “You know, you live with the guy.”

         “I know.” Wonwoo snorts, “But that doesn’t mean we’re romantic all the time. Most nights, we just eat dinner and pass out after showering.” Of course they do, again, they’re practically retired and married, “What’d you think about the dance?”

         “It looks,” Mingyu has to think of the right word because it doesn’t come to him right away, “troublesome.”

         As if on cue, the music cuts off with Chan hitting pause because Minghao has slipped and officially messed up the choreography. He’s down for enough beat that they’ll need to start over. The six look frustrated. Clearly, this isn’t the first time they’ve had to restart tonight. They’re probably hungry and tired since, according to Wonwoo, they have been working all day. Soonyoung had to lead three adult classes in the morning and two student classes in the afternoon. Mingyu can safely assume that Jun and Minghao share a similar course load.

         “Can you take this seriously?” he hears Soonyoung’s voice cut through the glass, pointed at Minghao who is taking an unsteady knee, rubbing sweat off his face with the collar of his shirt. Mingyu worries his lip. Soonyoung’s drastic change in persona catches him off guard.

         Minghao gets up to stand at eyelevel, if not a little above that of the blonde dancer. He rolls his shoulders and shakes it off, shifting all his weight to his right leg, “I am taking it seriously. Cool it. Let’s just start again-”

         “No, you keep botching the moves, Hao.” Soonyoung gets up in his face. Wow, tonight was not a good night to come. Some of the students avert their eyes from the room and make way to leave. Looks like Soonyoung is known to have a temper. This feels like a complete 180 from their interactions during the first dance. The pain makes people prickly and if Soonyoung’s the type to fan a fire, then this might be an equation for a fight.  

         “Are you trying to tell me something?” Minghao looks upset as well. Mingyu would be too if someone started yelling at him if it was just one little mistake that set them off. The other four dancers stand back and occupy themselves doing other things like checking their phones and toweling off sweat. These two must fight seriously. They still look uncomfortable not being able to do anything about the argument that’s rapidly unfolding before them on the floor. Jihoon and Vernon pass glances at each other and the small crowd gathered behind the glass, probably debating if they should tell people to move on or not.

         Soonyoung grabs Minghao by the collar and not in the y way he did it earlier. Mingyu looks at Wonwoo unsure of what to do in this situation. Aren’t these two supposed to be friends?

         “Just maybe try to not throw the competition for the rest of us.” If it wasn’t evident thirty seconds ago, it’s pretty evident now that the two are itching to start a scuffle.

         It’s Jun that steps in to break it up, or at least try to.

         He pulls them apart at least, separating them physically is probably the best precaution to take, “Should we- should we do something?” Mingyu shoots over to Wonwoo.

         “They’re grown-ups, they can work it out.” Mingyu almost misses the quiet ‘I hope’ at the end.

         Jun gets a firm shove to the chest from Soonyoung before he and Minghao are back at each other’s throats. “If you have a problem with me, say it directly and clearly.”

         “My problem with you is that you keep switching things last minute and then you can’t even complete a full set without ing up. It’s almost like you’re trying to up at this point.” He shoves Minghao who stumbles backwards, catching himself on his right leg and takes a lunge to shove Soonyoung back. There are several shouts from the other members, trying to tell them to stop, but the warnings fall on deaf ears and Soonyoung has his fists balled up into Minghao’s collar again.

         Wonwoo already has the door open.

         Those actions probably warranted a punch to the face that Wonwoo likely wants to save Soonyoung from. Mingyu is tailing after him without a second thought, shutting the door behind them. He’s not sure when it happens, but he has his arm around Minghao’s midsection, pulling him back a few feet. He didn’t want to go for a wrist in case it was still hurting and he can’t remember which wrist had the sprain. Mingyu feels him struggle for a minute, expecting the hostility to be redirected towards him, but no fists come flying into his face and Minghao stops flailing almost immediately. Wonwoo stands in front of Soonyoung, arms outspread to fence him off, trusting that he won’t be the one getting hit; trying to keep the blonde’s eyes on him and not on the object of his fury.

         “What are you doing here?” Those honestly aren’t the words he expected to hear from Minghao, in such a tiny manner at that. They still have an angry undertone, no doubt about that, but they don’t bite into his ears.

         Mingyu lets him go and takes a step back, “Obviously here to stop you from doing something you’ll regret in, like,” he pretends to look at his watch, “five minutes?” Minghao rolls his eyes, but that’s okay because it seems like thirty seconds is long enough to get Soonyoung to calm down and unfold his fists.

         He can barely hear Wonwoo mutter to him, “Really? Two guys in their late twenties about to throw fists over something as small as a dance move?”

         Soonyoung isn’t shy about his counter and speaks loud enough for Mingyu and Minghao to hear him clearly, “To be fair, this is the move that Minghao wanted to change last minute, but he hasn’t been able to get it right for the last five rounds!” Wonwoo puts a hand on his shoulder, pushing him back another few feet just in case he wants to go ballistic. Sweat is dripping from his hair, flying when he barks at Minghao.

         Minghao just shakes his head and lets out an exasperated sigh, “I agreed to move this move over from the other set because we turned that one more sensual. It’s not like I pulled a new move out of my -”

         “Then act like it!”

         “That’s enough, Soonyoung.” Wonwoo keeps trying to get his attention and also trying to keep his own cool.

         “You wanted three clear sets! I gave you three clear sets!” Minghao strips off his jacket and tosses it to the side. Most of the people in the hallway have cleared out, not wanting to bear witness to their favorite instructors get down and dirty in a brawl. Mingyu is surprised how much respect these two have in the studio.

         “Then show me you can do three sets, Hao!”

         “Hey, look,” Jun tries to wager again, “what we have now is enough for finals.” His voice seems to stop the two momentarily, “As long as we can nail them, I think it’ll be perfectly okay.”

         “Yeah as long as we can nail them, Minghao.”

         “Oh,  off. I’m not the only one making mistakes-”

         “You’re right, you’re not, but Vernon has a bad cold and Jihoon just worked a three-day gig in the city. You don’t have an excuse-”

         “Jesus- Wonwoo, can you just, like, take Soonyoung home and the fight out of him and bring him back in an hour?” Jun’s bold request almost makes Mingyu choke. Children dance in this room. However, he understands the desperation in Jun’s voice. He looks extremely tired as well. They all look tired, having worked all day and come to an unpaid practice in their free time. This is something they’re all pouring extra energy into and it’s definitely more of a passion project than anything else, but it seems like nothing can get these two to calm down. Not even Mingyu’s cookies.

         Wonwoo still has his hands holding Soonyoung to his place, “I mean, I could, but I don’t think I’m very welcomed to do that right now-”

         “Damn right, you’re not welcome to do that right now.”

         Minghao takes a step forward and winces with just the slightest movement of his eye. That slip did it. Even still, he looks ready to fight. He isready to fight. It’s as if high school ingrained this instinct into him and Minghao was never one to back down from the start. He’s already flexing his fingers, curling them experimentally before taking a deep breath and looking up at Mingyu who hasn’t let go.

         Mingyu holds him in place, hands on his biceps, telling him to stop and drop his hostilities. Something about the way Minghao looks equal parts like he wants to fight and wants to die makes his heart hurt as much as his head.

         What’s so worth the pain? A fifteen-minute high from being on stage? Is that all it takes?

         Minghao is being stupid and childish. He’s thinking about fighting and then dancing some more. He should understand that being reckless like this has consequences that are sometimes irreversible.

         Mingyu can’t let him do that; throw away his future for another fifteen minutes of glory.

         “Minghao.” His eyes snap up to Mingyu’s face, “I think you need to tell Soonyoung.”

         Mingyu’s attention is so focused on how mortified Minghao looks that he doesn’t realize another set of eyes click over to him. He opens his mouth to continue, but before he can even breathe into his next sentence, there’s a hand on the collar of his shirt, dragging him out the door, slamming it roughly behind them. He didn’t know Jun was this strong. He certainly didn’t look the part.

         The last thing he hears from the room is Soonyoung’s bitter voice mutter, “Tell me what?”