you can stay|skz

|ten|

Song recommendation
L I A R by BIGONE

—————————————————

"There she is—we thought you backed out. You weren't here for our lessons." Hana groans as she gets to her feet.

"I wasn't feeling well this morning." I mumble as I stare down at my feet.

"You weren't at the dorm either last night either. Where were you?" Belle interrogates me as I begin to feel suffocated.

"Leave her alone." SiYeon steps up and does her best to silence them.

"It's not the first time she hasn't come home before. She probably fell asleep in one of the practice rooms again. Then went home to shower." MiYeon joins her sister in defending me. They stand on either side of me as Belle and Hana stare at me from a few feet away. They roll their eyes, but don't say another word.

"What do we want to practice? Should we catch Rain up on what we did for dance today?" Lizzy suggests as she makes her way toward the speakers.

"Do you honestly think she'll be able to keep up?" Hana groans as she turns her back toward me.

"Honestly—I feel like she'll do better than you." SiYeon mutters under her breath. MiYeon chuckles and nods in agreement.

"It can't hurt to try. I'm sure she'll catch on." Lizzy states reassuringly as she scrolls through her phone for the song they worked on.

"Stand over here." SiYeon guides me toward my position and takes her beside me.

"Ready?" Lizzy asks as she glances over to make sure everyone is in their place. She hits play and hurries to her spot.

The song starts over and I watch them go through the dance once on their own. I slowly start to pick up on the moves using everything MinHo taught me. It doesn't take me long to start anticipating what comes next. Within a few attempts, I have the just of the dance down. I just have to make sure my motions are clean and precise.

"She was probably with Stray Kids earlier. They probably taught it to her. She's clearly getting even more special treatment than we thought." Belle snaps as she falls down on the ground annoyed.

I try to ignore her and just focus on the dance, but it's hard. I want to tell her she's wrong. I want to argue and prove that I'm actually better at learning dances than they give me credit for—but I can't. My mouth won't let me speak up. All I can do is take the verbal abuse and shove it as far down as I can to avoid letting it get to me. If I can wait it out and then let it all hit me later when I'm in a safe place, then I'll avoid making a big fool of myself in front of them.

Time flies by slowly, but I manage to keep myself in check. I know that the moment I'm away from them and alone—or with one of the boys—I'll fall apart—but I'll deal with it when it happens. It's not like I haven't broken down in front of them a million times already. The moment the clock hits seven I grab my things and walk out without a word. I know that when I get home I'll be alone. Everyone is going home for the weekend—except me. That doesn't help me right now though.

I'm exhausted, hungry, and need to be alone. The only problem is there's no where for me to be alone here. The solo practice rooms are usually all occupied by now. If I go to one of the dance practice rooms, someone could walk in on me trying to keep myself held together. There's only one place I can be somewhat alone. My feet guide me there without me directing them to.

I'm standing in front of Chan's studio before I know it. I stare at the door, too afraid to knock. I don't know if he's working. I don't know who's all with him. I don't even know if he's doing a live or not. There's so many things I don't know that are holding me back from just knocking.