I-Land's Angel - Park Sunghoon 박 성훈

𝐂𝐇𝐀𝐏𝐓𝐄𝐑 𝐒𝐄𝐕𝐄𝐍𝐓𝐄𝐄𝐍

On the third day of practice, we were practicing like normal.  And like our other run throughs, our dancing was pretty solid as me, Jay, and K monitored the video.  But then we noticed something, "Was it like this?  Wait..." K mumbled as he scrolled back to the beginning.  Niki did some sort of adlib at the start of the song that none of us noticed.

When Niki came back with Hanbin and the snacks K called him over, "Niki, what is this?" He asked, showing Niki the footage.

"Ah, I tried something that V sunbaenim did." Niki explained. "V sunbae did that, so I thought..."

"When you do something like this, you should tell me first." K said sternly.

K started scolding Niki and me and Jay both turned our bodies away, not knowing what to say.  Niki eventually wandered to the other side of the room and looked at the video of V again.

I heard K sigh next to me as he got up.  Jay and I looked at each other.  K was mad.  K called Niki over and they both went into the changing room that had no camera, but they could be heard.

"Should we step in?" I asked in English when I heard K and Niki talking in Japanese.

Jay shook his head, "I don't think that would be a good idea." We both looked at Hanbin who was wandering around the room, eating his snack.  What a day to be fluent in Japanese.

"Stop talking nonsense.  You only think about yourself." K said sharply to Niki. "Doing whatever you want, when the team is like this?  The team is doing what they can and you're doing whatever you want to do?  You think we can go up like this?"

I bit the inside of my cheek.  For one, I did agree that Niki should have maybe told us before doing it and it was kind of off putting to only find out now.  But perhaps scolding him so harshly wasn't the best idea.  It was just practice and part of me was worried about how Niki would handle this mentally.  He's only fifteen and he's been through a lot of stress because of I-Land.

"What are they talking about?" Hanbin asked, sitting down next to me.

"I'm not even sure." Jay mumbled as K and Niki were still in there, but I couldn't hear anything.

─── ･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ───

When K left the small room, Niki didn't follow, "Let's have a break." K announced before leaving abruptly, clearly still frustrated.

I sighed and looked at Jay, "I'll check on Niki, you go talk to K." I muttered to him before getting up and walking to the changing room.

I knocked on the open door, "Niki?" My heart broke slightly seeing Niki wiping his eyes, "You want to talk?"

Niki looked up at me, "Noona, don't sugar coat it.  I know I was being selfish."

I sat down in front of him, "I'm not mad at you, Niki.  I just want to make sure you're okay.  That's why I'm here."

"I'm fine." Niki said, "It's stupid anyways."

"No it's not." I argued, "Feelings got hurt, so we're going to fix it.  Jay's already going to talk with K.  So I'm here to talk to you... or do you just want a hug?" I said softly, worrying when I noticed that he hung his head low with his hood up.

"A hug would be nice." I heard him mumble.  I smiled and gave him the hug.  I didn't ask anything or say anything.  We both just sat there.

Eventually Hanbin came in, "Are we good in here?" He asked, looking at Niki with concern.

I patted Niki's head, "Yeah, is Jay talking with K?"

Hanbin nodded, "Yeah they are in the hallway."

"Niki, do you want to continue practicing?" I asked.