Kill me softly - Minsung

Chapter 14

Sweat was dripping from his temple and his shirt stuck to his back. Jisung was hot, annoyed and frustrated. 
For an hour he tried getting the steps to the new song they were learning right, but he couldn't. Everything worked fine when he practised the steps without music, slowly counting during dancing. But as soon as he played the music, even at 0.75 speed, nothing worked, he stumbled over his feet or just left out some steps. It was frustrating. 

Of course, Jisung wasn't as good of a dancer Lee Felix was for instance, but he sure as heck wasn't that bad at it either. Especially picking up choreos rather quickly, was one of Jisung's proud traits. 
Today you couldn't tell that trait at all. 

Jisung tried it with music again. Left, right, left, arms, shoulders hip and body wave. It wasn't even the hardest part of the lot but he failed. Again. And again. He scuffled his hair and groaned. 

Chan had watched Jisung. They were all practising on their own, but whereas the others were plenty of steps ahead, Jisung was still struggling with the same sequence. He tried over and over again but he couldn't get it right. Chan went up to him. 

"Jisung, take a break. If you get all angry at yourself and try so hard to get it right, it will never work. You'll get the hang of it eventually, you always do.", Chan squeezed Jisungs shoulder and gave him an exhilarant smile. Jisung didn't look pleased with taking a break but he obeyed nevertheless. 

Jisung stood on the side of their dance room. There were about 20 people in it, they all practised the choreo they learned a few hours ago. Jisung watched them and didn't really see anybody struggling with the steps that caused him such problems. That annoyed him even more. He took an angry gulp of water, eyebrows knitted together. 

"You don't exactly look happy now, do you?", a strangers' voice interrupted his pouting, he swirled around. A young man, dark brown hair, stood beside him, casually leaning on the table, arms crossed. He also looked sweaty but not as soaked as Jisung. 
Jisung knew this guy, he realized. Now and then they had dancing classes together. Jisung must have seen this guy a total of about 6 times, at most. What was he called again? Something with Hyun-? All Jisung knew, was that he was quite good at dancing and he always mastered his choreos really fast, hence the few classes together, this guy was at a better dance level than Jisung. 

"Not really, I just can't get the hang of this one freaking sequence.", Jisung figured that there was no point in pretending that everything was fine because they'd probably all seen him trying and failing anyway. 
"Which exactly?", the taller guy next to him asked. Jisung sighed. 
"The one where they sing about love and how it hurts to fall for someone you shouldn't, you know the step, step, step, hip, arm thing.", he tiredly demonstrated the moves he struggled with. 
"Oh, that's what you've got problems with? I can help you if you want", he must have seen Jisung's doubting face because quickly he added "I teach the younger students some beginner moves sometimes, so don't worry I know what I'm doing.", Jisung sighed yet again and looked over to his friends who were all busy practising the actual hard parts of the choreo. He shouldn't stay behind and drag down the whole performance, just because he couldn't get some stupid steps right. 
"Okay yeah, whatever. Let's do it.", Jisung placed his water bottle back down on the table and the other guy pushed himself up from it, clapping his hands together. 
"Perfect, let's get dancing then, I'm Hyunjin by the way.", he cheerfully added skipping to a free spot in the room. This guy really was motivated to dance, dear god. 
"I'm Jisung.", he murmured. Hyunjin's eyes narrowed for a second his head tilting to the left, but as soon as this expression appeared it vanished again and Jisung thought he must have imagined it. 

Half an hour later Jisung actually had the sequence down. At least to the point that he could dance to the music at 0.8-time speed. Hyunjin figured Jisung's problem out quite fast, he put his weight on the wrong foot. While dancing the choreo slowly, it didn't really matter but when he danced it faster to the music, it caused a problem. Hyunjin actually wasn't that bad of a teacher at all, it was probably just Jisung's anger and pride that prejudiced him.  

Jisung was panting but actually quite contented that he finally figured that sequence out. He wasn't overly happy, because it took him way too long and he still had all the other steps to learn, but at least he had one problem less. 

Chan, Felix and Changbin came over to where he and Hyunjin were dancing, Jisung got up from the floor he was sitting on and greeted them. 

"Got it now?", Felix asked, smiling. Jisung shrugged lightly. 
"I guess.", but Hyunjin was quick to react. 
"He has it down now. He just needs to practise it a bit more to get it at the right speed.", he smiled and gathered his jacket, phone and water bottle together. "I'm Hyunjin by the way."
Chan, Felix and Changbin introduced themselves too. 
"Do you guys know each other?", Changbin asked. 
"No, I don't think so. I just saw him struggling and figured I'd help out.", Hyunjin smiled, holding his gathering in front of him, suddenly something in his face shifted.
"Wait, aren't you guys 3racha?", Jisung smiled. 
"Live and in colour my friend.", Changbin stretched out his arms as if to show that they really were live and in colour. 
"That's so cool! I know some of your songs, I even danced to one once.", Hyunjin looked really excited again, Jisung figured the brown-haired guy must really like dancing.

"I've seen you dance, you're really good at it.", Jeongin, who joined them as well, added. He hid his body behind Chan and only his head snuck out between Chan and Changbin. Later moved aside so that Jeongin would've space in their small circle but he kinda stuck glued to Chan. Jisung bit down his lips, preventing him from smiling. 

Hyunjin laughed and rubbed his neck looking up at the ceiling. " Ah, thank you. I put a lot of effort into it. It's great when it gets acknowledged.", Hyunjin was looking down at them again. Chan smirked over his shoulder and nudged Jeongin with it. Jisung didn't really understand what exactly was going on but at least he wasn't as oblivious as Felix, who now stepped between them and got into an exciting conversation about dancing with the taller guy. It was clear that Jeongin wanted to talk to Hyunjin but oh well, it was Felix, he was very oblivious to those things. 

Eventually, they all called it an end and got out of the dance studio. Jisung and all of his friends, who jokingly called themselves 'stray kids', decided to still go to a coffee but Hyunjin nicely declined, saying he'd still have things to do but they agreed on maybe getting a coffee together at another time. 

Surrounded by his friends, laughing and chatting, drinking warm cappuccino and exhausted by the dance class, Jisung found himself smiling. Happily, brightly smiling. He swirled the coffee in his mug, the warmth it left while travelling down his throat reminding him of Lee Know. How great would it be, he thought, if he sat here with them, chatting and bickering with them. 

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Hola beautiful people. 

As I already said. I'm back and I'll finish this book trust me. Even if it takes a while. 

I really hope y'all are doing good. Please stay home, save and healthy. 

Then - as always - take care and I'm out.