Chapter Text
A single bead of sweat is making its way down her forehead. Sooyoung tries to ignore it, but it’s getting closer to her eyes. She keeps her gaze vaguely on the area around Bae Joohyun’s calves. They’re slender but she’s seen the wrapped steel underneath, the muscles that lie dormant until each dance routine. It’s a good metaphor for the rest of Joohyun herself, steel adorned with a pretty surface.
Joohyun who is in fact, talking to her. “-can’t have you dragging the rest of the group down in two days. I need to see you’re putting in the work to improve your weaknesses, in this case, getting the routines down. By tomorrow.”
The sweat falls into her eyes. It strings. Sooyoung wipes at it furiously with the back of her hand. Joohyun makes a tsking sound. Sooyoung glances up briefly to see what looks like frustration in Joohyun’s pretty eyes. “I- I wasn’t crying! It’s just sweat,” Sooyoung says quickly.
“Whatever,” Joohyun turns away, “Just make sure you can do the routine tomorrow.”
She waits until the sound of the door opening and closing to look up. The practice room is empty by now. The three other girls in their potential group, Joohyun, Seulgi, and Wendy, are gone. Home, or maybe even a restaurant together, she thinks.
She looks at herself in the mirror, or rather, she looks at the many reflections of herself against the four mirrored walls of the practice room. She practices confidence in the mirror every day. But it’s hard. It’s hard being a trainee at SM entertainment and it’s hard being the odd one out of a group where the other three have been friends for years before she even arrived.
She’s lost in thought that when the door opens again she doesn’t notice. It’s not until Seulgi is standing next to her that she jerks.
Seulgi laughs. Seulgi always laughs like this: her eyes crinkle into little half moons, her bangs wobble back and forth and her hand shoots up just in time to cover an open mouth. “Sorry Sooyoung, I didn’t mean to scare you. I didn’t think anybody else spaced out like that other than me!” She chuckles a bit more, “Anyway, Joohyun-unnie told me you’re staying behind to practice and I was wondering if you wanted some help. I’m pretty good at the choreo.”
“Oh,” Sooyoung’s mouth hangs open for a little longer than is pretty. She flushes, “I can practice on my own, Seulgi-unnie. There’s no need.”
Seulgi smiles at her, but shakes her head. “It’s okay to accept help, Sooyoung. You’re our baby maknae, we’re supposed to help you. C’mon.” She moves to the music player and the familiar sound of the track starts playing.
They go for hours. Sooyoung is breathing erratically, and misses so many steps, motions, gestures, but each time Seulgi turns to her with a smile and corrects it gently. Never even a frown. Seulgi herself moves effortlessly, and Sooyoung is lost in the lines and curves of her body, and the soft half moons of her smiling eyes.
“Okay!” Seulgi says suddenly. “That was pretty good. I think you’ve got it.” She beams at her. Sooyoung feels like a rollercoaster of feelings. Relief, gratitude, tiredness, admiration, she might also need to hurl. Instead she launches herself forward and throws her arms around Seulgi’s waist.
Seulgi stiffens, and then hesitantly pats Sooyoung’s head. After a moment, she asks, “Would you like to see something?”
Sooyoung nods into Seulgi’s collarbone.
Seulgi leads her out of the practice room, out of the floor, to a part of the complex that Sooyoung has never been. She takes out a key and opens a door. It’s another practice room, but this one looks older. There’s a couch in the corner, and the music player is just an old boom box.
“No one uses this room anymore,” Seulgi says, “but I kept the keys because I like it. Sometimes I work on stuff in here.” She walks over to the boom box and pushes a button. A strong, but somehow wistful R&B song plays. And Seulgi begins to dance.
Seulgi dances like art, Sooyoung thinks. She dances with something more than skill, more than simple storytelling. Here she’s strong, fluid, powerful, but a moment later it’s almost like fragility. Sooyoung feels a feeling rise up in her chest, but she can’t name it. Seulgi continues to dance. Her arms flutter across her body and she leaps.
Their eyes meet in the mirror the moment before Seulgi lands. There’s something in her eyes that Sooyoung’s never seen before, anywhere. It’s too complicated yet beautiful that Sooyoung gasps and clutches her heart. When she looks up, Seulgi is already in a new maneuver.
Sooyoung tastes iron in her mouth. She’s bitten her lip. It’s good. She wants to remember this. The taste of blood in her mouth, Seulgi dancing with something unknowable in her eyes, her heart beat in her chest. Together they feel something like courage.
The music ends and Seulgi turns off the boom box. Then she turns around.
“What do you think?” Seulgi asks. It’s asked so seriously, so softly. Sooyoung feels impossibly young looking at Seulgi now, she can’t understand the layers of emotion shifting over her features.
“It’s good,” Sooyoung says quickly, then pauses, gambles, “it’s brave.”
A flicker of something more passes through before Seulgi’s face clears. “What does that mean, silly?” She ruffles Sooyoung’s hair again. “Let’s keep working hard, okay? And if you get stuck, your unnie is here for you.” She ends with a little bit of singsong.
“Okay, Unnie,” Sooyoung replies. Seulgi is back to normal: the patient, dependable unnie who people often make fun of for being simple. She wants to ask more about the other things she saw, but Seulgi is back to babying her.
Seulgi opens the door again for her, and she smiles in the way she knows is cute. Seulgi grins back at her and coos. Someday, Sooyoung thinks to herself, someday she’ll be more mature, and she’ll work hard so she can meet Seulgi at her level, and Seulgi can see her too.