After exam week, I went back to my regular schedule in practice and at the same time having rehearsals for the big YG Family showcase that is now pushed back to a month and two weeks from now. One thing I learned from Na Young during our training sessions: deadlines are something foreign to YG; they tend to push back events due to matters such as budget, sponsors and because they are perfectionists.

“Honestly it makes the choreographers and  crazy because they come up with routines that spend most of their time trying to catch the deadline, only to figure out in the end that the deadline’s pushed back a few days. Well, yes, they do have time to change the routines, but they could have been informed at least. And not to mention the effort!” Na Young told me.

So during today’s rehearsals, Mi Jung announced a new production: a dance battle featuring trainees, artists and choreographers. The practice room was immediately filled with whispers, mainly coming from the trainee side.

As I expected, Heejun had something to say. “Wow this is pretty new. Usually they only have choreographers and artists, but trainees? That’s kinda weird.”

“You interested?” I asked.

He smirked. “I don’t think I fit the standards for dance battles.”

“And that is why we’ll have a screening for today’s session, Mr. Park.” To our surprise, Mi Jung heard us. “There will be a routine provided and all you’ve got to do is to show us what you can do, and hopefully, fit our standards. Good luck!”

The routine was pretty challenging and despite Heejun saying that he isn’t that much of a good dancer, he dances well and might get in; let’s just say that he has the flow and the moves to be included. I think I was doing well myself until the door opened and some of the artists came in to observe us. My eyes immediately went to the Ji Yong who was wearing a bright pink beanie and when he noticed that I was looking at me, he smiled and turned away to talk with a staff.

There goes my concentration.

“Hey you’re a pretty good dancer there,” Heejun said during one of the breaks, giving my water bottle to me. I thanked him and said that he is a good one himself.

“Thanks, I really enjoy.” He said, leaning back on the walls. “As in, I like dancing.”

I was about to speak when a staff interrupted us and asked for our names. After she left, Heejun asked me what I was supposed to say.

“Have you joined dance crews and such?”

“I used to. Until I was scouted by a talent manager during one of my old crew’s performance and now here I am completely missing the feeling of performing in front of an audience.”

During the five-minute break, I learned that Heejun used to be a part of a dance crew in Daegu and he still stayed at the dance crew even after being scouted. Although YG Entertainment doesn’t entirely focus on dancing, he hopes that he’d be a choreographer or producer soon. Unlike him, I never considered dancing to be that important as compared to singing mainly because I was trained to be a singer and part-time dancer for The Grace. Like a broken aquarium, the nostalgic feeling overwhelmed me once again, thinking about those times I practice singing and dancing with stilettoes on.

Thankfully we are required to wear dancing shoes here. But a tiny voice in my head keeps saying that I miss it, and in fact, I do. I still do.

“Are you even listening to me?” Heejun’s voice woke me up from my little reverie. “I was asking if you wanted some snacks since they extended the break time.”

“Oh that—I mean, cool, let’s go.” We were on our way to the cafeteria when we came across Taeyang who was also on his way to the cafeteria. He and Heejun exchanged fist bumps and went with us and I had the impression that they are good friends judging from their conversation. They must have remembered that I was around and when they did, Taeyang stood between Heejun and I and placed his arm on both of our shoulders.

“I never knew our super trainee is friends with this idiot.” Taeyang said.

“Super trainee?” I asked.

“Idiot?” Heejun echoed.

Taeyang nodded, his eyes barely visible from his smile. “My new nicknames for you guys; super trainee because not only are you a good singer, but also a good dancer and idiot for this man because we’ve known each other for five years and he really is one.”

Then, I felt the weight on my shoulders drop and to our surprise, Ji Yong, Daesung, CL and Dara were behind us, Ji Yong with a stern look on his face.

“Lay off the arm, Youngbae.” He said.

Taeyang snickered, putting his arm back on our shoulders after Heejun and I greeted them. “Hey I’m friends with them, so what? Let’s all go to the cafeteria then!” Heejun looked over at me and gave me a “this-wasn’t-in-our-plan” look so I only shrugged and hoped that nothing goes wrong.

At the cafeteria, the boys sat on one side of the table while we girls sat on the other side. The boys had their own talk while we had our own and I noticed that Heejun blended well with them and they could pass off as a group of friends to ordinary people. I guess being a trainee for almost five years has its perks despite the gruelling time.

On our “side”, we mostly talked about the upcoming showcase and the performances including the dance battle.

“Minzy has been really excited about it and she couldn’t stop talking about it.” CL said, with a playful roll of her eyes.

“Well, she is maybe the best dancer I’ve seen here, so I can’t blame her for being that stoked and psyched up about it.” I replied, taking a sip from my drink.

“Stoked, psyched up” CL replied with a smile, “I like those. Well, you did grow up in the States.”

“You did?” Dara replied, her eyes gleaming with curiosity and excitement.

I nodded, taking a quick glance at the boys on the other side who were eagerly playing a game from Daesung’s smartphone. “I was born in Boston and grew up there until we moved here.”

CL and Dara both beckoned me to continue. “My Mom opened a clinic here but my Dad worked in Shenzhen and some of my cousins live there so we usually go there… It’s pretty complicated I know.” I said when I noticed that both of them were looking at me with an amused expression.

“You can speak Mandarin then?” CL asked and I nodded.

“So it’s like all of us know different languages!” Dara said. “CL here knows French and Japanese, I know Filipino, you know Chinese and all three of us know English; how multilingual!” She finished, pulling the three of us in a little group hug.

“Hey what’s going on there?” Heejun asked. Dara explained that we were talking about in Tagalog and laughed when she realized that nobody understood her. CL then mentioned that I can speak Mandarin.

“I never knew that!” Taeyang said, crossing his arms in a cute manner.

“So can you give us like a sample or something?” Ji Yong asked all of a sudden, surprising me. I looked at him as if he said something foreign when I realized that the others were anticipating my reply.

“Okay, let me see,” I murmured, recalling all those phrases that my cousins taught me.

“Zuò nǐ de zuì hǎo de. That means, ‘do your best’, some kind of word for encouragement. Then there’s Zhù nǐ hǎo yùn which means ‘good luck’. ” I explained further. After a short silence, Taeyang tried repeating the phrase and later on everyone was asking me how to say it correctly.

“Ah, it’s so difficult!” Daesung said after a couple of tries. After some minutes, we all decided to head back to each other’s respective practice rooms and on the way back, I couldn’t help but ask Heejun more about him and dancing.

“How come you didn’t leave your dance crew or something?” He looked back at me as if I sort of offended him. “I’m— I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to hit a wrong button…”

But instead of shooting back, he just smiled and said, “It’s pretty difficult to leave them since we’ve been together for almost a long time… and also because of my younger sister.”

“She dances, too?”

We arrive at the practice room and they were just about to start announcing the ones who get to be part of the dance battle. I sit on the floor and Heejun sits beside me. “Well, she used to.”

“Oh.” I mumble. “She doesn’t dance nowadays or something?”

He turns to look at me carefully, as if his dark eyes were searching for something, but he lets out a deep breath and looks down. A voice in the back of my mind tells me that something isn’t right, but as soon as I was going to take my words back, he opened his mouth and spoke.

“She died a few years ago, you see.”

Just then, I heard our names being called by a staff in the room, saying that we passed the screening and are now part of the dance battle. As much as I want to be happy for us, I couldn’t help but feel sorry and a lot guilty for opening up the topic about Heejun’s sister.

“Hey you heard that? We passed!” Heejun said, as if nothing happened. “Good job there!” He grins widely, giving me a thumbs-up and a high-five afterwards.

“Thanks,” I say, scratching the back of my neck. “And I’m sorry about what happened to you sister I shouldn’t have asked about that.”

“You know what? Don’t say sorry or anything.” He replied. “I know it’s really sad to lose my sister and all that but it’s done now. At least I know that as long as I can dance and express myself through it, I know she’s up there being proud of me.”

I haven’t felt the feeling of losing a close member of the family because my grandparents died before I was born, but as I look at Heejun, he seemed really sincere about it. I guess that his sister is one of his inspirations why he wants to pursue this career. No wonder he sounds so passionate about it.

“That’s… good. I hope you become a great dancer. She’d be really happy for you.” I said, smiling at him.

“Zhù…” He tried to remember the phrase I said over the break but he forgets it, gave up and I repeated it for him.

“Mandarin is difficult, but thanks anyway.” Practice resumed soon and after knowing about his sister, I started to take notice of Heejun’s dancing; just like how an orator delivers his speech and how a writer writes poetry, his moves tell a story apart from the main routine. Every step, every flick of the head was like a piece of moving art and I felt a pang in my heart knowing that our interests in dancing are completely different. Here I am, just following the routine because I had to while Heejun was doing something more than just dancing; he was expressing himself.

We stayed after practice ended for the dance battle and during the break I apologized again for being nosy and complimented Heejun on his dancing.

“Hey there’s no need to act all guilty about it, I get asked about it quite frequently so there’s nothing to feel bad about. Besides, you dance pretty well, too.” He replied, giving me a pat on the back. Taeyang and Minzy entered the room for the practice. We had a short chat with them before they were called by their coordis to fix up. Mi Jung and another choreographer then told us that practice was going to start so we better get ready.

I took a towel and my tumbler from my bag and Heejun pointed out that my phone’s was beeping. There was a message

From: Short Man
Message: Zuò nǐ de zuì hǎo de ^_^

I couldn’t help but smile at the message and I bit my bottom lip to hide it. Although practice was going to start, I took a risk and quickly replied.

To: Short Man
Message: Fēicháng gǎnxiè~~

When I put my phone back, Heejun was looking at me impishly. “Aww she’s inspired…”

My face started to heat up and I shook my head. “No, not really.” I replied, thinking of a way to change the topic. “Practice is gonna start now, let’s go.”

Heejun followed me, still having that impish look in his face. “So, who’s that mystery sender, huh?”

“No one in particular. Zhù zuǐ.” I replied, trying to hide my smile.

“What’s that? Or is that a name of a guys or someone?” He asked, completely clueless.

“It means ‘you’re handsome’ in Mandarin.”

Just then, Mi Jung clapped and said, “Everyone gather up! Practice will start soon!”

A/N: So, thanks to some online translating websites and a Chinese dictionary app, I managed to get a few useful phrases for this chapter! So here are the phrases and their respective translations.

Zuò nǐ de zuì hǎo de (做你的最好的) means “Do your best”

Zhù nǐ hǎo yùn (祝你好运) means “Good luck” or “I pray you good luck”

Fēicháng gǎnxiè (非常感谢) means “Thank you very much”

Zhù zuǐ (住) means shut up LOL