The music starts up, something lively and energetic and Eunji prances and pirouettes across the dance studio floor in perfect synchronisation with her reflection. She’s good, very good, Hoseok’s seen her wandering the halls of the Big Hit building with her hood pulled low over her eyes and assumed that she was one of so many trainees who were good enough to get into the training program, but not confident enough to stick with it. He’s delighted to find himself proven wrong.

The bass kicks in, the beat of the music thrums louder than ever around the room and Eunji’s smile grows wider by the second. She looks more than confident enough in this light, and more than competent enough to pull off far more complex routines than the average trainee. 

She’s Jinhee’s pet project. Hoseok supposes that alone should have been enough information to deduce that she was a fantastic dancer but he can’t believe that Jinhee would hide so much talent from him for so long. Eunji’s name has been floating around between Jiyeon and Miso for months now, whispers of admiration and exasperation in equal measure - Hoseok never imagined that those fleeting snippets of conversation and a request from Jinhee to help out with some trainee quality control would amount to something like this.

The track comes to a more abrupt halt than Hoseok was expecting, Eunji holding her final pose until he starts up a tentative applause. It sounds weak and unenthusiastic in the all too empty room. He hopes it’s not discouraging. 

"You’re very good," Hoseok grins at Eunji in the mirror, flashing her a double thumbs up. When she’s not dancing her face falls into a familiar stony indifference that he recognises from every trainee he’s ever met - the expression of someone who can’t ever let themselves be too happy with the praise they receive because the pressure to improve will always be too great. 

She nods, once, a sharp and and down jerk of the head, “Jinhee said I should show you this other thing I'm working on.”

"Well then we better do as Jinhee nuna commands."

Eunji’s expression is unmoving as she goes to flick through her mp3 player, her shoulders hunching forward to block Hoseok out as much as possible even though he’s sitting right on the other side of the room. For a moment he starts to wonder if the confident girl he’s sure he saw dancing in the mirror not five minutes ago was merely the product of his imagination and unshakeable faith in Jinhee’s taste in dancers, but then the music starts.

The track is slower, much slower, a female singer crooning in English over the drawn out syncopation of a sultry jazz track. Hoseok can’t understand much of what she’s singing beyond ‘love you’ and ‘baby’, but he doesn’t need to. Eunji’s body makes it more than clear what the song is supposed to be about.

She starts with her hips, swaying them slowly so that the ripples they cause flow up through her body before snapping to attention and running her hands down her sides to her waist before letting them carry her down low. Her hands on her knees and her legs opening wide as she rolls her body forward to take her back to a standing position. 

Hoseok feels his face begin to colour and he has to work hard to keep his eyes on Eunji’s face. Her smile is back but the character is different this time, accompanied by hooded eyes and a cocked eyebrow. She looks altogether unlike the pretty girl dancing in the mirror not five minutes ago and a whole lot more…y.

Eunji’s hand runs itself over her and down across her stomach. Try as he might Hoseok’s curiosity gets the better of him and his eyes follow it. Down, down, stopping just above the waist line of her leggings.

Hoseok’s holds his breath, desperate for her to make the next move, but it never comes. Eunji stands stock still staring at her reflection in the mirror and it takes Hoseok a good few seconds to realise that the music has stopped

It’s over.

He tries to clap but the moment has gone and Eunji falls back into her hunched shoulders and unreadable expression before he can begin. She’s still pretty, but not as captivating as she had been mere minutes before.

"That was…um…it was good." he stutters out.

Eunji shrugs, “it’s cheap. We only have to practise that because it’s an easy sell,”

“Don’t put yourself down, there’s a lot of control needed to pull off some of those moves.”

Hoseok sees Eunji’s lips purse for the briefest of seconds in the mirror, but then her face is hidden as she shuffles off to collect her ipod. 

"Jinhee says you boys don’t understand anything."

"Yeah, I know. She’s probably right. "

"She says you don’t know how easy you’ve got it. I’m not so sure about that, these ‘y’ concepts they have us working on right now seem easy enough to me."

"Well I liked it," Hoseok tries not to choke on his tongue. 

Eunji shoulders her rucksack and fixes him with a long, blank stare, 

"Of course you did."

By the time Hoseok’s worked out how to reply, Eunji is long gone.