⇢ hannah’s frustrations with hoverboards and chenle the supportive dongsaeng 💖 short but fluffy-ish
𝚛𝚎𝚖𝚒𝚗𝚍𝚎𝚛𝚜
⇢ conversations written in bold are spoken in a language that is not english or korean. in this case, it’s chinese. conversations written in italics are spoken in english
“It’s easy, just balance your weight evenly, and you won’t rush forward or spin or something.”
“I’m trying! I took gymnastics, this should be easy to me.”
But that’s where she was wrong. Hannah had been spending the last half hour trying to figure out how to balance herself on the hoverboard for their music video, and she heard that they would possibly be doing a dance video on the hoverboards. That’s why their dance instructor left them three days to grow accustomed to the hoverboards until they got comfortable with shifting speeds, directions, and just generally being in control.
Which Hannah wasn’t.
“I can’t believe I’m saying this,” she muttered to herself before turning to Jaemin. “Can you hold my hands?”
Jaemin was quick to do so to help her keep her balance. Hannah was thankful that he didn’t tease her for initiating skinship like he normally would.
“Just think of how it felt when you worked it properly, the. try to do the same thing you did back then.” Jaemin lightly pulled her forward, so she instinctively leaned her torso forward. He was quick to place a hand on her shoulder to stop her from falling. “Your feet, Hannah. Tilt your feet.”
“Right, my feet.” She straightened herself out and shifted her toes forward. She was moving slowly and not falling over.
“Yeah, stay just like that for a bit,” Jaeming instructed her while he walked backwards with her. “Tilt one foot further to change directions.”
After a minute without struggle, Jaemin removed his hand from her shoulder. He moved to walk next to her while holding on to one of her hands. She nearly lost her balance, but she caught herself. She imagined she was on the beam in her old gym. Eventually Jaemin let go of her other hand as well, and she was moving around the practice room on her own. The proud smile on Jaemin’s face made her excited.
“I just have to lean forward a little bit more to try and move faster, right?” She didn’t wait for an answer and just went ahead and did that.
“No, wait,” Jaemin called out to her, “don’t lean forward too far!”
It was too late. in an effort to get off of the hoverboard that was moving too fast for her, she tried to step off, but she tripped and would have landed on the ground if it weren’t for Chenle.
“Jiejie, are you alright?” Chenle kept his hands on Hannah while she straightened herself up. He was surprised he was able to stop her from crashing to the ground, but he didn’t want the first friend he made at the company to get hurt.
“I’m good,” Hannah reassured him. “Thanks, Lele. Now I just have to fight this stupid board. Why are you here, by the way?”
“Why are you here, Jie? It’s almost time for your Mandarin class.”
Hannah internally did a facepalm. How could she forget? Thank god Chenle had been keeping her company during those classes, or she would have missed that day’s session. She turned to Jaemin with an apologetic look.
“Sorry, Nana, but I have Chinese class,” she told him. Jaemin waved his hand with a smile.
“It’s okay. You go and head to class, I’ll clean up here.”
Jaemin gave her a quick hug and did the same to Chenle before the latter boy pulled her out of the room and to the little classroom in the building. When she looked at the clock, it was exactly time for class, but her instructor wasn’t there yet. She sighed and sat on her usual table then proceeded to rest her head on her arms. Chenle sat next to her and poked her cheek.
“What’s wrong?”
“I can’t use the board properly,” she sighed in frustration. “All of you got it down this morning, even Mark and Hyuck got it before they left for 127 practice.”
Chenle frowned on hearing this. His jiejie was being hard on herself. He didn’t expect her as the type when they first met because she always seemed so carefree and a little hyperactive. He even saw her during their practice. Sure, she stumbled more often than the boys, but she was able to move the way she wanted more often than she probably thought she did.
“I think you’re doing well.” The sincerity in his voice made Hannah smile.
“I have to do better,” she told him while ruffling his hair. She laughed when Chenle shook his head and adjusted his bangs. “I can’t let the rest of 00 line become better than me at this.”
“Give it some time, Jiejie, and I’m sure you’ll be doing cool tricks. Oh! Maybe you can do a handstand!”
“Wait, what’s a handstand?”
Chenle stood up then pointed to his feet. “Like this but with your hands.”
“Ah, handstand,” Hannah repeated, “I’ll try it on the board, then you’ll be the first person I’ll show when I can do it.”
Chenle excitedly cheered as he sat back down. That’s when her teacher came and sat in front of her.
“You’re improving quickly,” the mentor told her. “I heard your whole conversation, and your accent is perfect now. You’ll be as native as Chenle is soon.”
“I mean, you have been teaching me since last year,” Hannah bowed her head at the mentor, “so thank you for helping me.”
With that, they began the lesson. Chenle would chime in every now and then to help Hannah comprehend things a little bit better. She learned new vocabulary, and she practiced writing. Though she couldn’t read that quickly yet, she could identify written characters. Chenle did the little tasks she had as well so that she had someone to compare them to. By the end, her mentor was smiling.
“Another productive class. Good job, Hannah. Also, please do me a favor and talk to Chenle in Korean. I know you want to talk in Chinese because of your ethnic routes and Chenle being used to it, but you’re about to debut. Chenle’s going to have to improve on his Korean a little bit faster.”
After the mentor left, Chenle looked at Hannah who nodded as if confirming Chenle’s thoughts.
“I guess I’ll call you noona now?” He tilted his head a little when he tried out the term. It rolled off of his tongue well, and he grinned at her. “Hannah noona. Noona. I like that.”
Hannah felt her insides melting. Why was Chenle so cute? And she thought Jisung calling her noona was cute, but here was Chenle in his soft glory being adorable while trying out the Korean term.
“I like that, too. Now, because we have all the textbooks here anyway, let’s work on your Korean.”
