Feel Better when I’m Dancing: Chapter 17 Picture
Feel Better When I am Dancing
Hey you. I'm writing a fan fiction. A Kpop fan fiction. A Black girl Kpop fan fiction. You will periodically see posts like this that show the picture collages that I have made. I'll also put the first chapter here.
Chapter 1
In the heart of downtown Indianapolis lies the Stutz building. An old car company was once headquartered there. Today, numerous businesses reside there, including EK Dance.
The E in EK, Elyse Jones has been going viral on YouTube for dance tutorials and dances she does to different styles of music. From Hip hop, interpretive, and even ballet, her follower count has been steadily rising over the years. She’s on speed dial for multiple artists to consult as a choreographer. At the age of 23 she has competed in several world wide competitions and has placed 1st in multiple categories. She just won ‘Best Dancer’ at the 2016 Shorty awards. That is how Monsta X has come to be in the Stutz building. Not much is known about her private life. For all that she lives in front of the camera, she has managed to keep her life a mystery. People knows she has a twin sister, but not much else. The more people try to pry into her life, the harder it is to get information. In her spare time, Elyse has a Twitch channel where she plays different styles of games and interacts with her followers. Earlier in the year, she signed a lucrative contract with Starship Entertainment to work with Monsta X on new choreography for their 2017 album. The group has never worked with a women choreographer. Shownu, the leader, usually takes point on their choreography, and is slightly perturbed that he will not be giving input on this particular album.
As they walk into the part of the building that holds her office. They are greeted by a receptionist with a perky ponytail.
“Good morning, welcome to EK studios. You must be Monsta X,” she glanced behind the 7 men and her eyes widened as she saw a whole crew of people. “Oh dear, I am not sure Elyse was expecting….an entourage.”
The young woman stood up and smiled. “You are a bit early and her afternoon class is just finishing up. You can sit out here or there is a door,” she pointed to a door off to the side of her desk, that houses a two way mirror. “You won’t really learn anything, it is her kinder class, but you can get a look at her and what she’s teaching.”
Wonho and Shownu got up to go see this mysterious teacher while the ones staying behind were offered refreshments.
As part of their coming to the US, Monsta X’s management team wanted to get a fresh perspective on choreography. While K-Pop groups have traveled to the states before, they wanted the very best for this group of boys. They were a gold mine, they just had to invest properly.
In the room sat a couch and a couple of chairs, all framing a floor to ceiling window. Wonho plopped on the couch while Shownu stood and stared through the glass. They saw a woman, lithe and short; her dark brown locs were piled into a messy bun on top of her head. Her sepia skin glowed with sweat as she walked through 12 small bodies, correcting their ballet forms when needed. All of a sudden classical music began to play. “1 and 2 and 3,” the woman counted down. All of a sudden the bodies started to move in sync, performing basic ballet moves.
Shownu snorted “What is she going to teach us that we haven’t already learned. She’s a child's instructor.”
“Eh, give her a chance,” said Wonho. “You’ve seen the girl for 30 seconds.”
Shownu sat on the couch with Wonho and watched as the pre-schoolers went through their poses.
“Alright, we are done for the day! We have time for one more silly dance! What is it going to be?” The girl looked at her students expectantly.
A shriek rang out across the room “BIEEBERRRRRR!!!!” one of the little girls came running up to her teacher. The teacher laughed as she put the song on. “Every week guys, we gotta try something different for next week, okay?
Everyone agreed as the song started up. “HIT YOUR POSES!” The woman hollered.
All of a sudden 12 little girls struck poses similar to the video and began to dance as best as they could. In the back of the classroom off to the side the teacher began to do the actual dances from the “Sorry” music video.
“Would you look at that ,” Wonho breathed. The woman hit every single beat drop as the little girls danced madly around her. As the song ended they all came together for a group hug.
“Who are we?!” the instructor shouted.
“The Dancing Lilies!” came the reply
“Why do we dance?”
“Because we love it!”
“Who do we dance for!?”
“Ourselves!”
“Alright guys. I will see you next week, okay? Class is dismissed and no running in the halls, other groups could be practicing.” The girls walked out to their waiting parents.
The teacher squinted in the corner and looked straight into the mirror. “I don’t know if there are parents in there, but I just dismissed class for the day, you can come out.” She called.
She sat down on the floor with a pair of slippers and began to remove her ballet shoes and the mass of padding wound around her toes. Wonho and Shownu looked at each other baffled.
“They told us she couldn’t see us through the mirror?” Shownu said. Wonho shrugged and headed to the door opposite of where they came in.
“Hello!” he said cheerfully. The girl turned around startled at hearing a male voice.
“Oh hey! You guys must be my new group! I am Elyse,” She stared behind Shownu. “I was told there were 7?”
“Oh the rest of them are up front waiting,” said Wonho. “I’ll go get them.”
Elyse smiled “Please take your time. I have to change.” Wonho smiled and left the room and left Shownu behind. “If you’ll excuse me, I won’t be but a second.” She said to him.
Shownu stared at her like he’d never seen another woman before. He’d seen some of her videos but hadn’t paid much attention. Elyse was incredibly short. She had dark brown almond shaped eyes and a tiny rose gold stud in her wide nose. She had a slight smile on her full lips and when she talked he could see a gap in her front teeth. Shownu nodded curtly and sat in a corner and began to stretch. Elyse shrugged and grabbed her bag.
Walking into the bathroom, she tied her hair up a bit tighter as she felt it falling during her kinder practice. Shedding her ballet shoes, leotard and tights, she donned black leggings and a black sports bra. Over the sports bra was a simple white oversized racerback tank. She tied it in the back, took a deep breath and stared into the mirror. She finally had her shot. Teach these boys, earn the check, and possibly get the recognition as a dancer. She’d no longer have to program. She could focus on the things she loved. At the rate she was going, she should have had people knocking down her door. Even though she had the accolades and awards, some still felt she didn’t fit. Too brown, too short, too much.
“Here goes nothing,” she breathed into the mirror.
She walked back to the room which was an absolute zoo. The 7 group members were going through simple dancer stretches. There were handlers and helpers for the handlers. There were cameramen and cords everywhere. The noise level was 100.
“AYYYY,” Elyse hollered. “If you are not a dancer and do not plan on working on choreography, there is a room off to the side of this one. Please go there.”
Protests in both English and Korean went up. Since she could not speak Korean she turned to the English protests first.
“I understand they have a camera in their face 24/7. I get that you want shots of them learning, and we can get that for you by and by, but we are just meeting. This room is small, and I don’t want the distractions. If I had known you were bringing everyone and their mama, I would have reserved the larger room. I’ll make it a point from now on.”
She then turned to the Korean protests. “Mia, can you come here please?”
A Korean woman came over and stood by Elyse. Though not much taller than Elyse, their height differential made it seem like she was towering over the young dancer. Mia answered the call Elyse put out for a Korean translator a few months ago. She quickly became friends with both Elyse and her sister. Another surprising benefit for the sisters was Mia’s mother, who was the sweetest woman any of them had met.
“Thank you sweets. Can you translate for me?”
The loudest man started going off at a rapid clip. Once he was done Mia turned to Elyse “You want the word for word, or the gist of what he’s saying?”
“Gist please, we ain’t got time for all that.” One of the boys snickered at what she said. She looked back and smiled. Mia went on.
“He said it isn’t proper for you to be in here with just them.”
“For the love of…” Elyse rolled her eyes. “Mia, translate exactly what I am going to say, I want to make it clear.”
Mia smirked. She had been hired roughly 3 months ago. Elyse thought it best that they get to know one another and that she fully understood her cadence, how she spoke, and her snark. Elyse looked at the balding man who was concerned for somebody’s virtue. Whose, she had no clue. She cleared her throat.
“This is a dance studio, not a prostitution ring. I signed a non-fraternization contract. The clause in that states that I have to give back all the money and I can and will be blacklisted in the K-Pop dance community if I am found acting in an inappropriate manner with anyone in the group. In this studio, while working with me, what I say goes. There’s not going to be a gangbang anytime soon.” At the term gangbang the man turned a sickly shade of puce. Elyse heard soft cackles from the 7 stretching.
“If you are concerned for...their virtue, my virtue, whoever’s virtue, that room I just sent everyone to? Is behind that mirror. You can see us, we can’t see you.” She then turned her back to him because she was done with him. Though he cut her check, she wasn’t there to cater to his whims.
She looked at the seven men she was supposed to be working with; they were stretching haphazardly and the one that had stared at her earlier was not doing his calf muscles justice with the stretch. He was also looking at her confused.
“Hi. I am Elyse. I don’t know what you know about me, so I will run down the basics that make me qualified to be here. Most people think I was chosen because of my viral videos and my awards, but that’s what made people take notice,” Elyse spoke at a quick clip. She knew Mia knew this speech and could translate it in her sleep. “The foundation of all of that? I hold a Masters degree in Dance Performance. I also hold a Bachelors in Computer Science. I’ll be your instructor.
Elyse looks to see if everyone is understanding. She glances back at the exec. He’s calmed down and listening carefully to the speech being given. Before we get your introductions out of the way, do you have any questions for me? I apologize, I do not speak Korean. I just have a smattering of French to get me by, but Mia here is my right hand woman. I know most of you speak or write some English. If it makes you uncomfortable, I have no qualms learning basic phrases in Korean.
Elyse started fidgeting with her hands. She wasn’t one for talking or giving speeches, so this was wearing on her slightly. This studio is mine. I own it outright with my sister Kristina, the ‘K’ in EK dance. I am the boss. I run a great studio. We work hard, and we have fun.” She smiled at Mia. “All of my employees are offered free dance classes. If we aren’t running something they want to see, I push them to create it for themselves.” Elyse paused for a moment and looked at the guys.
7 pairs of eyes were staring at her. She continued on “You gentlemen are a special case. You aren’t my employees, but your management is paying an assload of money. With that, you have open privileges to the studio. Any class you want to do a walk in on, feel free. There is a schedule out front with every class we offer. There are only two classes you aren’t allowed in,” Elyse cleared her throat “The pole dancing class, and my kids dance class that I taught before you guys came in. If you are interested in pole dancing, we can set up a class for you, but we typically don’t get a lot of men that are serious about it, so I stopped offering it to them.” She walked over and grabbed her tablet from her bag in the corner of the floor. “I know that is a lot of information in a short amount of time, but I have the information in file folders for each of you. It’s in English and Korean. Do you have any questions up front?”
The starer raised his hand “Go ahead,” Elyse said while smiling. He said something in Korean, which made Elyse turn to Mia. She was struggling not to laugh.The rest of the gentlemen had lost what sense they had and were dying laughing. Starer was looking around completely confused at everyone. Mia cleared her throat. “He asked, ‘what is a gangbang and why won’t we be doing one?’”
The only noise Elyse made was a slight snorting in her throat. “Um. I don’t need a translator for this one sweets.” Mia stepped back smirking. Ignoring everyone else in the room Elyse walked forward to Starer. She stood between his legs and looked down at him and smiled. She made a circle with one hand and moved her pointer finger in and out of it with her other. His eyes widened. She then proceeded to shove three more fingers in the circle rapidly.
“Mia, can you make sure he understands what I’m getting at?” Elyse stated, not taking her eyes off of him. Mia spoke to him and he nodded rapidly. The tips of his ears were bright red. Hyungwon stared at her
“She’s gonna be fun,” he muttered in Korean.
“I’d like to know each of your names, and how you would rate yourself at dancing. What do you recognize needing work?” Elyse said. She held a tablet in her hands, taking notes. Shownu went first.
“I am Shownu,” he stated in Korean. I am the primary choreographer for our group and I think I dance just fine.”
Once Mia translated, Elyse arched a brow. “Everyone has something they can work on. You find you are great at everything?”
“Yes” Shownu said defiantly.
“Okay, well, we will come back to that. Next?” They went down the list. Wonho, Jooheon, Hyungwon, Minhyuk, Kihyun, and Changkyun. Each of them had things they wanted to work on. Except Shownu. Time for her to explain some things.
“I am a big believer in always improving. I have been dancing since I was 14. I am a rare one in the fact that I have gotten so far so fast,” she hesitated for a second and looked at them.
“Black people have a saying; work twice as hard for half the reward,” she explained. “I don’t like half the reward, so I work 4 times as hard. I don’t expect anyone to keep up with me, but there is always something I can work on. My flexibility is my big thing.”
She glanced at Shownu. “I saw you stretching out earlier. Is that how you always do it?” Shownu nodded. Elyse pointed at his calf. “The second you try to use that muscle it is going to scream. You aren’t stretching it properly so that is where we are going to start today.” With that, Elyse sat on the ground and put everyone through their paces, stretching every single muscle.
“I put together a dvd of stretches you guys can practice when you have time.” Elyse attempted to hand the DVD to Shownu specifically. He refused to take it and was pouting. She rolled her eyes and handed it to Hyungwon.
“We are all new to each other and I thought tomorrow we’d take the time to analyze your dancing and see where we can add new things or enhance old ones. As part of my Masters project, I developed dance suits. You will see something similar used in video game making to enable them to CGI the movements. I also designed the program they are used in. I’m pretty proud of it,” she smiled again. “In order for you to wear them, I need you guys to make sure you wear boxer shorts tomorrow.” Elyse looked straight down at her tablet when she said this.
“That is all I have for today. I’m going to give you two hours of your time back today. It won’t always be like this, but you’ve just got here, I know you have to be jet lagged. In the DVD case is my contact information, so if you need anything I am a text away.”
“Does anyone have any questions, thoughts, or concerns?” One of the gentlemen raised his hand. “I haven’t learned names yet, so can you tell me your name before you ask your question?” Elyse nodded at the hand raiser. He spoke rapidly in Korean while looking at her. She smiled and turned to Mia.
“His name is Wonho and he just wanted to know if your sister will be working with you,” Mia translated.
“Ah, my sister is more of a namesake for the place,” Elyse explained. “She does teach some classes at a lower experience level, but it’s very infrequently and only when I am in a pinch. She is more focused on art. Watercolor painting mostly. If you look in that file folder I gave each one of you, the art gallery she frequently shows at is in there, and I believe she has some pieces there now if you’re interested.”
“Another thing I wanted to mention is meals,” Elyse said. “We’ll probably do an hour lunch and a couple of 15 minute breaks during the day. That is subject to change if more is needed. In that folder is a list of restaurants in the downtown area. I have listed a ton, but have also had a map drawn, so you can see what is in proximity to you and the studio.” She paused. “I know we live in the world of google maps, and things like that, but they make mistakes. UberEats also delivers to the building. The whole time Mia is translating for Elyse. Once she pauses in her translating, Elyse gives her arm a squeeze in thanks.
“Do you live around here as well? I’m Changkyun, or you can call me IM.” He said in English.
“Good question, and no I do not,” said Elyse, “though I live in Indianapolis, I wanted to try and be by some type of water if I could. So I live about 30 minutes northeast in a neighborhood called Geist. There is a reservoir there and the back of my house is on it.” Elyse paused a bit to allow both Mia to catch up as well as wait for any other questions.
“Nothing else?” she asked. Shownu mumbled something in Korean. Elyse glanced at Mia, and Mia shook her head.
“Alright then, I will see you tomorrow bright and early.” As Elyse started walking away she mumbled quickly to Mia, “Walk slower, he’s going to say some shit.”
If you didn’t watch carefully you wouldn’t have even seen Elyse pause to give the order. She continued to walk and pick up her belongings including a helmet. Once she exited the room Shownu let loose.
“WHAT KIND OF SHIT WAS THAT!? Stretching!? No wonder she’s teaching kids, that’s all she’s good for. Masters my ass. HOW DARE SHE!?”
The other boys of Monsta X were trying to calm him down. All of them were shocked, as Shownu doesn’t have a temper at all. He never reacts to anything unless food was involved and never in front of someone who could understand what he was saying. Mia crept out of the room before he could realize she was still there. She didn’t really care if he saw her, what would he do? It would just be less awkward to have a confrontation so early. She caught up to Elyse downstairs as she was carefully adjusting her equipment on her bike and gave her the abbreviated version of what she heard.
“I don’t know about that one Mia. I’m not used to bumping heads with people.” said Elyse.
Mia smiled “You’re a sweet girl, and he doesn’t seem like he’s used to taking orders from anyone, much less a girl. You’ll get this. I have confidence in you.” Elyse grinned back at her, her gap showing through.
“Thank you, you’re sweet. You want a ride home? I have an extra helmet I keep in the building.”
Mia shook her head “You won’t get me on that death trap!”
“Aww, you’ll hurt her feelings talking that way.” Elyse teased.
As she tied the rest of her stuff down and took her hair down to get her helmet on, the boys walked out of the studio. They watched her put her helmet on and gather her hair behind her.
“She’s cute,” Jooheon said in Korean. “I don’t think she’s going to take your shit Shownu. You might want to calm down before we see her tomorrow.”
“I’m not scared or concerned about her.” sneered Shownu. They all stared after her as she drove off.
So yes. This is the first chapter. I hope you enjoy. If you want to see the rest of the story (chapter 6 is being posted today), you can go to https://archiveofourown.org/works/26130949/chapters/63570670.
You will need an account to read as there is some explicit content.