Richelle left dance early. She never leaves dance early, especially not because of some stupid argument between her and Noah. It's been a theme lately, they keep getting into petty arguments about something and then the next day they act as if it's fine when it's not. They don't want to mess up regionals or have their arguments become a distraction for the team, but they are.
Everyone has noticed something off between them, they just act so different around each other. They barely talk to each other, and Noah seems scared to give her corrections during rehersals. He is scared, he doesn't want to annoy her, or upset her, or frustrate her her because that's when an argument starts. They've gone from messing around with each other, hugging and the occasional kiss on the cheek, to acting like complete strangers.
Neither of them like arguing, but they can't seem to help it. The stress of regionals is getting to both of them and then they take it out on each other, especially Noah. He's dance captain and last night found out that he has to rechoreograph the whole regionals dance because one person left. It was too much for him so he asked Richelle for help, but she didn't give it to him and that's how this particular argument started.
He asked her to choreograph two, just two, counts of eight for him. She can choreograph and he knows it, he was under her rules and captaincy not long ago, and he knows she can whip out some good choreo in a matter of minutes, but this time she wouldn't do it. All she said was no.
~~~
Flashback
"Rich can I have your help with something?" Noah asks, walking up to her in studio A.
"Yeah, what's up?" They haven't spoken all day, so her response was slightly dry, making him hesitate before responding.
"Can you choreograph the next two counts of eight for me, please? I've tried but it's just not coming to me." He looks down into her eyes, but she immediately moves her head to look away and goes into a lunch to make it look like she's stretching.
"No, you're the dance captain so you can do it." Her response makes him slightly agitated, he isn't asking for much at all.
"But Richelle I seriously can't think of anything, it's the last two counts and it needs to end on something good. I'm sure you can do that, you're choreo is better than mine anyway."
"Oh shut up Noah, you're choreo is good enough for us to win and you're the dance captain so you'll have to live with it. Whatever I do, you'll hate. You hated what Jacquie did for the qualifier and you said you had 'nothing' but then you went and changed it, so I'm sure there's something in that non-existent brain of yours." She sounds mad, she is mad. He can't ask this from her now, she's trying to learn the choreo and perfect it, he can ask literally anyone else.
"If you're be that way then I'm gonna find someone else." He mumbles, but before he can go Richelle grabs his wrist.
"I'm not being like anything, you're just being a jerk." Her voice rasises at him, deeply upsetting him. He's sick of hearing her mad, it hurts him every time but it also makes him so sad because he knows he's done something wrong and it's upset her.. he doesn't like upsetting her. While he's lost in thought about how hurt she could be feeling, she walks right out of the studio.
~~~
So that brings us to now. Now, when she's lying hopelessly on her bed and trying to go over the choreo he set. She looks over at the time, rolling her eyes when she sees it. It's an hour after dance ended and she doesn't even have an apology text from Noah. Like she expected one though, she doesn't even think he knows what an apology is. Her thoughts are soon out to an end, however, when she sees a notification pop up on the top of her screen.
