Gong Minzy’s favourite place in the YG headquarters is the dance studio. Though the janitors can never quite take away the smell of sweat from it despite all their efforts in mopping and cleaning, she loves the place. She loves how its floor squeaks against her rubber shoes when she tries a moonwalk and how its walls echo her voice when she sings her lungs out. She loves how she can just lie down in the middle of it after she’s been in there for hours, practicing her made up routines in front of its huge mirrors. So she goes there as much as she can. Sometimes, she doesn’t really do anything. Sometimes she just walks around to think of things that bother her.

When the company first moved to the new building, she was hesitant to use the room alone to practice. It’s too shiny, too tidy, too big and too new. It’s so unlike the smaller but more comfortable one they had in their old building that she was afraid to make a mess out of it. But then, the president tells them in that funny voice of his to use the room as much as they wanted to. He says all of them needed to practice because their comeback is coming soon and all eyes are on them. Then, she starts to go there regularly until it becomes a routine for her to visit the studio before she heads home.  

Usually, the crazy girls and hi-tech boys are still there when she comes and she either joins or watches them while they dance. Dony and Deuk frequently mess around when they show her a new choreography they learned from Jaewook and bets with her on how fast she can learn it. Then the ever elegant Jihye tells them to quit being clowns and practice instead.

She loves being with them. Maybe because they treat her normally – like how her classmates treated her before she became Minzy of 2NE1. They gossip with her. They tell her which idol they saw kissing or holding hands backstage; which idol asked for their numbers, the ones they asked, those they accepted or rejected. They tell her which idols they think at singing, dancing, acting or which ones they thought can’t do any of the above at all. They don’t censor themselves with her. They don’t treat her like a child. They don’t tell her how to behave or what to wear. But they don’t expect her to be totally mature either. They don’t expect her to understand what they mean immediately or to always think of others before herself.   With them, she is just Gong Minzy - age 16, likes to draw, loves to dance.

Tonight, there are no dancers in the studio when she drops by. It’s better that way, she supposes, because she isn’t there to just dance. Tonight, she has a purpose. She wants to come up with something for their new song. She wants to contribute something to her group’s comeback.

When she enters she’s surprised to see that someone else is already occupying the room. He‘s hooking up his ipod with the speakers at the corner of the room.

“Seungri oppa,” she calls out. And he turns around, surprised by her voice.

She hasn’t seen him in a while. He doesn’t hang out in YG, unlike the three older members of his group. He only comes on a need to go basis like when his group is promoting or doing a concert. He’s usually with his university friends or he's home in Gwangju. When he takes the time to talk to her group, it’s mostly the unnis he bothers. He likes his noonas.

“Minzy, what are you doing here? It’s late.” He frowns at her for a moment. But looking at her sweats and the ipod in her hand, he nods and says, “You’re here to practice.”

“Is it ok if I practice on the other side of the room?” she asks tentatively and he just says, “Ok.”

The two of them do a warm up. She stretches her arms and legs; he rotates his head and bends over to reach his feet. Neither mind what the other is doing. She plugs her ipod’s earphones in her ears and turns the volume up as he plays his music.

When the first song in her playlist comes up, she starts to get lost in the music and her body moves involuntarily. Then she glances at the mirror and checks her movements. She does all the ones that pop in her head. There’s no particular order in her moves. She experiments with hand movements and footwork, with her rarely used pops and locks. She goes on and on until she’s all pumped up and sweaty. But she’s unsatisfied so she stops. She shakes her head and takes the earphones out of her ears. She’s startled as she hears a clap and she sees Seungri sitting haphazardly at his end of the room. He’s just there, leaning against a mirror, wiping his sweat.

She looks down to hide her blush and says, “Yah, oppa. Why aren’t you practicing?”

He shrugs and tells her, “It was more fun watching you.”

She doesn’t know what to say to that.  So she decides to ask, “Was it ok?”

Her heart pounds while waiting for the answer.

 “It’s a bit messy,” he says.

Her heart drops down to her stomach.  

But then he continues, “But it’s better than ok. It’s good. And I don’t think you need to hear from me that you’re a great dancer. You’ve known that since you were thirteen.”

Surprised by his compliment, she says, “Thanks, oppa.”

“So, is this choreography for your new song?”

“If Jaewook oppa and the president approves, it might be.”

“They will. “

She gives him a small smile and they stay in companionable silence for sometime.

“Do you miss it?” she asks, breaking the silence.

“Miss what?” He looks at her quizzically.

“Not being famous. You know, being normal.”

And he grins, with that arrogant tilt of his chin. He replies cheekily, “But I’ve always been famous, Minzy. I’m the Prince of Gwangju.”

She rolls her eyes. She shouldn’t have asked. She faces the mirror to start her routine again.

Then he says quietly, “No, not really. I like being famous. The attention, the girls, the money, and everything that comes with it, I like it all. But sometimes - ”  

He stops and looks away. He looks like he’s uncertain if he should continue.

She sits down across him to listen.  It does the trick.

He clears his throat and says, “But sometimes I do miss it. Not being famous. When my parents read all these things in the internet, things I supposedly said or did that made people think I’m rude and my mother calls me to ask me if I’m okay. Those times I want to be just that kid my teacher scolded for ditching school to attend dance practice instead of Big Bang’s maknae.”

She nods almost imperceptibly. “It’s hard being the youngest.”

He stares at her for a moment then asks, “Are they giving you a hard time?”

“Not as hard a time as Jiyong oppa and Seunghyun oppa gives you," she replies pertly.

He laughs at that but his laughter sounds a little hollow to her ears. It sounds forced.  And she wonders what goes on between the members of their group.

“The hyungs are…difficult. But they’re just being themselves.” He says wryly. She thinks of how those two mercilessly and silently agrees. ” But we’re not talking about me. What gives, Minzy?”

She sighs. “Nothing it’s just that. You know how the unnis are. They don’t really…share stuff. “

“What do you mean?”

“Sometimes, when they talk about things they don’t include me. Like that time when Chaerin unni slipped and got injured. When we got home, it looked like she was going to cry. Dara unni went to her room and they talked about it by themselves. It happens a lot, me being excluded. When they talk about serious things, I’m never there.”

 “You have Bom noona.” he says.

“Bom unni - she’s crazy and she’s fun. But she has her own friends. People I don’t know. She just disappears from the dorm sometimes. And I just, I feel a bit alone.”

She’s never told anyone, not even the dancers about this. But somehow, when she starts telling her story to Seungri, she can’t stop. “It’s not like I don’t try to be close to them. I do things for them like cook and I never forget to message them when we all go on vacations. But it’s just hard to just talk to them at times. I always feel so…different from them. And sometimes even with other people here in YG, they all treat me like I’m still thirteen and don’t know anything. But there are days when everyone expects me to just automatically know things because I’ve been here for so long. It’s just that feeling, of being old and young and the same time. It gets to me.”

She waits for Seungri to tell her that what she feels is ridiculous.

But he just looks at her understandingly.

And he tells a story of his own.

“Once when I was still a trainee, I couldn’t sleep in the bus on the way back to Gwangju. You know how long the trip takes, right? It’s more than a three hour ride. So, I did what I can to try to sleep. I counted the white lines in the middle of the roads we passed. 1,2,3,4,5… The lines never seemed to end. My head hurt from counting but I still couldn’t sleep. So, I just continued until the bus stopped and I realized we were already in Gwangju.”

He stops for a moment to catch his breath. Then, he speaks some more, like the Seungri she knows that goes the extra mile. His words are wise and she listens.

“I guess that’s the way things are in life. Maybe, everything seems to just be a pointless process and they give you a headache. But at the end of it all, you arrive at your goal and then everything doesn’t seem so pointless anymore. Sometimes we’re just a little too focused on the lines that we forget that they’re leading to somewhere. Maybe these things bother you now but we’re all just here to make the best out of our talents. We run to the same direction. But maybe at different speeds so sometimes we don’t understand each other. Sometimes we collide.”

She tries to make the conversation light because he looks so serious and her chest feels a little tight. She interrupts jokingly, “So, which direction are you going oppa? To where the noonas go?”

But he doesn’t take the bait and he looks at her intensely. “Gwangju, Minzy. I always face that direction. Know what? Now when I travel and see those lines, they make me smile.  Because I know that all those lines mean that I’m going back to a place where there are no questions, reviews, or comparisons.  I’m going back home. And I remember why I’m doing this; I remember all the people counting on me. It’s not just me anymore, no matter how alone I feel at times. Our families and friends are always looking out for and looking up to us. Whatever other people do, it will always be them that matter.”

She nods and for the first time since she met him, she looks at Seungri as more than a person she knew from Gwangju. She looks at him as a friend. 

Then he grins and adds, “And remember what I’ve always told you. Chin up, we’re Gwangju’s pride. “

She laughs and the seriousness of the moment disappears.  

Suddenly he jumps up from his position and tells her, “Minzy, let’s dance.”

Puzzled, she asks “Dance?”

And he shuffles through his playlist. He presses play and a song comes in - a familiar tune.

It's a song that their crew in the Gwangju Dance Academy used to practice to.

Seungri starts to move and she follows his lead.

And she forgets all her troubles.

Maybe she’s worrying too much.

Maybe nothing else matters.

As long as they just dance.