Ateez - The Idol Fantasy

Dance Lesson

Two days had passed and MJ was lying on her bed, staring blankly at the ceiling. She was still trying to process this new information. The fact that Ateez were living in the same building, just one floor below her own apartment. "So that was the surprise Jenny mentioned...Avoiding them now is almost impossible," she said letting out a sigh. The truth is, she wanted to keep her distance from them after that crying incident in the restaurant, but now, bumping into them would be unavoidable.

The main reason was that she didn't want to bond with anyone, afraid of getting hurt time after time. After going through many toxic friendships and relationships, she had lost her trust in people, always assuming the worst about them. Her current life mottos were:

[ If you don't care about someone, then you'll never be upset by them ]

[ If you have no expectations, you can't be disappointed ]

[ If you expect the absolute worst from people, then when they act mean you won't be shocked. On the slight chance that they're decent people, you'll be pleasantly surprised ]

That eerie logic and pessimism in her thoughts were the ones responsible for her unfriendliness and deliberately poor social skills. She rarely invited anyone over to her house and rarely initiated a plan to go out with friends or coworkers. She sometimes naturally followed a group's plan to not seem awkward and distant. But with Ateez, there was also another reason. She had felt that their aura was different, gentle and friendly. But she didn't want to trust her feelings. Being their fan and looking up to them for so long, she was afraid that she would become too attached and end up developing feelings for one of them. And the sheer thought of being in another potentially disastrous relationship truly terrified her.

When they all came into her dorm the other day, she panicked and kept thinking of excuses to make them go away as quickly as possible. Eventually, they only helped her unpack some of her bigger boxes and then she quickly made an excuse to send them away.

As for today, she was getting ready to meet with a vocal coach and a dance coach at the company. She wore some comfy baggy clothes, all in black, grabbed her bag with extra clothes and all her stuff for dancing, and left the dorm. She wasn't in the mood to bump into anyone else today, two new acquaintances were more than enough for her for one day.

First, she met with the vocal coach and did some warm-ups. They sang and practiced together for an hour or so, and before dismissing her, the vocal coach gave MJ a song to study.

"Great...homework...on the very first day..." she thought to herself.

Reaching the corridor where all the practice rooms were located, she opened the door to dance room number 3. Her eyes fell on the back of a tall blond man in front of the computer. "That guy seems...", she thought as he turned around and smiled at her "Definitely not Korean", she finished her thought, but decided to greet him in Korean just to be sure. "Hello!", she greeted him politely.

( English dialogue )

"Hey girl! I'm David, nice to meet you!", the slender man responded, his accent similar to someone from Northern Europe. Connecting the dots, she guessed he was probably European, resembling the physique of a tall Scandinavian man. " Oh wow! Hi, nice to meet you, I'm MJ. Are you my dance coach?", she asked the most obvious thing that came to her. " I sure am. And also a new choreographer of KQ. I have been hired here by your lovely team only recently.", the man responded brightly. " Right! I would have asked you that because I didn't see you at the KQ party at all.", MJ noted as she wasn't introduced to him during the party. " Yeah, I started like a week ago. I came all the way from Sweden for this job, KQ's offer was exquisite! I was even more excited that I have the opportunity to work with a female idol on top of that.", the man said endearingly, clasping his hands together and looking at her with his sparkling blue eyes, like a child seeing his new toy. MJ was a bit taken aback by his bright personality, which was in stark contrast with hers when meeting new people. "And why is he excited...?" she made a quick thought before responding. " I look forward to working with you David! I'm so glad you're from Europe as well, I feel like I met someone from home ", she said, a shy laugh escaping her lips. " I know, right? We're gonna be good friends sweetie, I just have this feeling. So, let's talk about dancing for a bit. I have been informed that you know and mix a lot of dance genres?", David asked her, sitting on the floor and patting the space next to him.