The next three days were intense for ZoNE. The sudden restart of their idol activities caught them by surprise and stole their time as they prepared for their Saturday performance – just under a week away. They were confident they would be able to perform well. But their safety was questionable.
“Taeyeon, will you stop pacing back and fourth?” Tiffany asked. “You’ll make a hole in the ground if you keep doing that. You’re still injured, too!”
Taeyeon tried to sit and relax. “I’m worried though! What if the last boss lady tries to kill them? No, I’m sure that she’s going to try.”
Sunny grabbed Taeyeon and forced her to stay seated. “Panicking is not helping anyone. If you get injured again, Jessica is going to worry about you more.”
“I know…but…” Taeyeon breathed deeply.
“Just do as you promised. Be her bodyguard and protect her.” Sunny said.
Hyoyeon was also with the girls. “Boss lady hasn’t contacted me yet. As far as I know, boss lady doesn’t know I’m helping you now, but she could have eyes all over the place. I can try and get information from her. No guarantees, though.”
Sunny nodded. “Get what you can, please? If it gets dangerous, just get out of there. We’ll understand.”
Hyoyeon stood and bid farewell to her allies. “Take care of Eunhyuk for me, will you?”
The three nodded. Eunhyuk was healing well, but his arm was limp. He struggled to use it. As soon as the wound was better and the doctor cleared him, Eunhyuk was going into physical therapy. For the time being, he was living in a guestroom at Taeyeon’s house, along with Hyoyeon.
“What should I do…the performance is in five days!” Taeyeon was panicking again. Sunny cringed and was about to hit her.
“Stop that! What happened to the confident Taeyeon who always appeared whenever danger was near?” Sunny exclaimed. “Stop moping around. ZoNE is training for their performance, so you should train to protect them.”
“Sunny’s right!” Tiffany said in excitement. “You’ll be like their knight in shining armor!”
Taeyeon couldn’t help but laugh at Tiffany’s childish logic. “Fine…I just don’t know how or where to train. I can’t exactly go to my old training center, and its not like I can just randomly walk into a gun range.”
“Just train at home. No one will think its weird if you exercise and stuff here, or even in the park. Just stay on top of your game!” Sunny posed with a fighting stance. “You’ll be so cool, and Jessica will be all over you.”
“Okay, your turn to stop that.” Taeyeon sighed, but at heart she knew her friends were right – she couldn’t just sit there and worry. She needed to stay on her game incase boss lady decided to play.
Taeyeon spent the next days training. She ran across the town and did push-ups in her living room to keep her endurance up. Taeyeon transformed her living room into a training hall, using couches and pillows as target practice. “Intense” did not do her regiment justice.
~~~~
“We haven’t worked this much in so long…” Yoona fell to the floor with a light thud. “I wanna go home!”
“You always say that.” Sooyoung sat next to Yoona with two bottles of water.
The dance room was large. Mirrors lined the walls, bouncing the bright lights to every corner of the dance floor. Jessica stood in the middle, dripping with sweat. It was totally out of character. Jessica? Sweating? It was difficult enough to get her to work, but now Yoona and Sooyoung couldn’t even get her to sit and drink some water.
