~<*>~ Music in me: seventeen fan-fiction ~<*>~

Chapter 4

Dino is walking through the shop, searching for some good sweatpants. If he's going to dance in the evening, he will need to have better pants. Sighing, he picks up some sweatpants, but none of them seem to fit Dino.
"Struggling?" someone asks behind him. Annoyed, Dino answers shortly.
"I'm fine." the person behind him chuckles slightly and Dino wonders what's so funny.
"You're in a good mood." then it hits Dino. He recognizes the voice from behind. With red cheeks, he turns around and spots the purple-haired boy. He's laughing now, which makes Dino feel even more awkward.
"Hi, Minho." he says quietly. His neighbor finally stops laughing and his face gets a bit more serious.
"What are you doing here?" he asks curiously.
"I can ask you the same thing." Dino answers. Minho chuckles again and looks Dino in the eye.
"I work here. What's your excuse?" Dino feels his cheeks turning red again, but he decides to ignore it.
"I am looking for sweatpants. I need them for this evening." Minho changes his expression to a curious one.
"Why?" he tilts his head slightly in confusion.
"I have my first dance practice in that dance room." Dino answers proudly. He is pretty excited, but nervous at the same time.
"Woah! So you got in already? Impressive!" Minho aplauses shortly and Dino laughs.
"No need to get all excited, it's no big deal." Dino says shyly, but his expression says otherwise.
"Allright," Minho changes the subject, "let's find you some sweatpants." he walks away.
"Yes please." Dino says while following him.

Dino tries to eat something before dancing, but he's too nervous. He decides to skip diner and immediately leave to the dance room. He reminds himself he needs a licence as soon as possible, because walking everywhere is starting to get annoying and tiring. But the good thing is that Dino is finally able to recognize the city. He hopes he doesn't get lost again. Dino still feels embarrassed to know that Scoups saw him like that. What would he think of Dino now? Would he be mad at Dino for breaking in? Dino sighs, he needs to stop over thinking. If Scoups was mad at him, he wouldn't have brought Dino home. I still have to thank him for that. He reminds himself while entering the dance room. Soon enough he sees Scoups walking across the room. No, he isn't walking, he's dancing. And he's really good. Scoups' body seems to be one with the music, although Dino notices the concentrating look on Scoups' face. For Dino, it all just goes naturally. He doesn't really need to think about what move he needs to do next, his body just follows the lead of the melodies. It looks like Scoups isn't that natural, but Dino doesn't care, Scoups is doing amazing.

"Yo, good to see you here! You're Dino, right?" a blond boy walks over to Dino and both Dino and Scoups stop and look at him. Did the guy notice Dino staring at Scoups? Sudden anxiety rushes through Dino's veins, what does he say?
"Uhh, yea. I'm Dino." he's able to get out of his mouth. The male shakes Dino's hand while smiling.
"Hoshi. I'm a good friend of Scoups. He already told me that you would come." Dino glances at Scoups before focusing on Hoshi again.
"R- Really?" Dino stutters. Hoshi laughs shortly and looks over at Scoups before continuing.
"Yea, we are one group. If someone wants a new person to join us, we all need to agree. So you get where I'm going to?" Dino nods, it's pretty obvious now that he thinks about it. He finds himself a bit stupid, but he just waves it off.
"Sorry." Dino says quickly.
"No sorry here! Do you need to get changed or are you ready?" Hoshi adds. Dino looks at his clothes and back at Hoshi.
"I'm not planning to dance in jeans." Dino laughs and Hoshi puts his hand on Dino's shoulder.
"I like you, the changing room is over there." Hoshi points to a door and Dino walks to the room. He believes he did make a good first impression, didn't he? Anyways, Hoshi likes him, so that's a good thing.

~<*>~

"That new boy of yours, he's allright." Hoshi tells Scoups while sitting on the ground. The two males let their back rest against the mirror, they are still a bit tired from the dancing they just did.
"I'm glad you like him." Scoups laughs, "For a second, I was afraid you wouldn't." he admits after. Hoshi looks at him with confusion.
"Me? How dare you! I wouldn't hurt a fly." he jokes. Scoups laughs, almost falling.
"Yeah right." he chuckles.
"Well, a tiger has to eat someone." Hoshi defends himself while doing his tiger-move, which makes Scoups laugh even more.
"But seriously, Dino looks like someone who knows something about dancing." Hoshi adds in a more serious tone. Scoups nodds in agreement.
"I saw him dancing yesterday, and he sure is good. You'll see it yourself." as if that was a clue, Dino enters the room. Scoups stands up and Hoshi follows while Dino is walking towards them.
"Are we ready?" Dino asks nervously.
"Almost." Scoups says while walking over to another door. He knocks on it with his fist, but not a normal knock, a real knock, if you know what I mean.
"ALLRIGHT GUYS, WE'RE STARTING!" Scoups yells while he keeps banging the door. A few seconds later, ten boys come out of the door and hurry to the dance floor. Scoups chuckles while looking at Dino's flabbergasted face, he totally forgot this is all new to the poor guy.
"So, Dino is joining us from now on." Scoups tells everyone,"I hope we can work together smoothly and we will see how it goes." Dino nods and some guys are looking over at him.
"To start, let's look at what you've got." Scoups looks at Dino, who gives him a surprised look in exchange. Scoups feels sorry for him, but he wants to see him dance again, which he is absolutely not going to admit, and Dino can't know that this is not a real dance room. Everyone places themselves against the mirror, except for Dino, who's looking vulnerable standing alone.
"Any suggestions to dance on?" Hoshi asks him. Dino shrugs shortly.
"Doesn't matter. Play whatever you want." Dino answers and Hoshi looks at him surprised. It's not easy to surprise Hoshi and Dino already did it twice today, Scoups can only feel proud.
"Sure." Hoshi says while putting on some music. Ofcourse he chooses a tricky one, where the choreo is pretty hard to do. Scoups fixes his eyes on Dino while following his body with every movement he makes. First, Dino is a bit shy and is still searching for the right rythm. His movements are small and messy, but it soon changes to a choreo where Dino's body is one with music. Scoups follows the smooth movements of Dino's arms with his eyes, while trying to see the fast and steady footwork Dino is also doing. Impressed, Scoups' members look at him. The only look Scoups can give back, is a proud one. Dino is showing them he's worth it and Scoups is happy he does. While looking at his expression, Scoups notices it's blank. Not like his, concentrated, but just blank, with a feeling sometimes flashing in. It hits Scoups that Dino isn't thinking, or he doesn't let it seem like he is. It's impressing Scoups even more, to the point where he's just staring at Dino. Suddenly, the music stops and so does Dino. It stays quiet for a while, when everyone starts applauding. Dino's cheeks turn red as he's getting all the compliments.
"You did great!" Scoups hears Hoshi yell at Dino.
"Perfection!" Joshua adds. Scoups claps his hands to get their attention. They all look at him.
"I believe Dino showed us why he is worthy of training with us." Scoups says. Everyone nods in agreement.
"Dino, we train every weekday. In the weekends, we are closed." Scoups adds, noticing Dino turning red again. Probably he's thinking about yesterday evening. Scoups chuckles underneath his breath thinking back to that day.
"Let's dance!" Hoshi yells and soon music echoes through the room. Everyone is dancing with passion, concentration or choreo's. Everyone is enjoying it, because it's been a while since they've danced again. All the problems they have with that other group is really stressing them out. Scoups knows that they aren't the same anymore, and they have to change back again quickly. But it's in times like this that Scoups realizes they're still the same. They just aren't able to show it because of all the danger. And Scoups hates it. He hates it more than anything. It's so frustrating to know that there are people hunting on you, that you are prey, without knowing who the hunters are or how to protect your own group. Every night Scoups is researching until he falls asleep at his laptop, because he can't live a normal life until that damn group is gone. His own members told him more than once to stop and take a rest, but they don't understand the danger they're in. Scoups is angry, mad, frustrated, furious. But most of all, scared. Scoups is scared to lose someone to that group. That one day, the hunters will find their prey and that they will all be doomed. That's why Scoups needs to stay strong. He needs to protect his group until his very last breath. And if that group is an amount of twelve people and Scoups is slowly closing himself off, then that's how it goes.

~<*>~

Jeonghan ruffles Joshua's hair before sitting down. Normally, Joshua would take revenge, but all of them are tired from dancing. Dino is already gone, which gives the group the opportunity to do a meeting again. Scoups looks tired, Jeonghan knows it's not just from dancing. It concerns Jeonghan to see his leader like this, he knows Scoups isn't getting any rest and it scares Jeonghan. Without their leader, the group won't be the same, the group won't probably exist at all.
"That was fun." Mingyu states. The tall boy is still sweating, but all of them are. But everyone can agree that Mingyu's right, they really needed this.
"Dino was good." Hoshi adds.
"We know, you told us about one thousand times already." Woozi sighs.
"It's the truth." Hoshi defends himself.
"Let's shut up please." Minghao says. Scoups nods at him thankfully and starts speaking.
"Hoshi is right, Dino is indeed a natural. I think that we will dance with him a lot." he smiles shortly, but his smile fades away seconds later.
"But he can't know about this." Scoups tells them seriously, "I don't want to lose someone." the room falls silent and everyone looks at each other.
"I think that other group already left. We haven't heard from them for two months." Seungkwan states. DK, who's sitting next to him, slaps him at the back of his head.
"You stupid, foolish child." he says, as if he's a wise, old man, "you really believe that they're gone? They're probably planning something big and we should start worrying." Seungkwan stares at him worried and Scoups sighs.

"DK, we do not hit our friends." Scoups states, "but he's right. I don't believe that group has given up already. They're too clever to do so. This means we all have to pay extra attention and stay safe. No danger, you understand?" all of them nod. It's very important that they all stay safe. Jeonghan can't imagine loosing someone.
"But what are they planning?" Wonwoo asks confused. The black-haired boy with glasses is only a little bit younger than Jeonghan himself, but he looks at him like Wonwoo is his kid. They are both very clever and do most of the research. But this time, cleverness won't help. Jeonghan sighs and tells Wonwoo the words everyone knows, but is scared to say out loud.
"We have no idea. We will just have to wait."