⭐️ — sn project: month one, week three — ⭐️ now playing: shut up and dance by jason derulo, lay (exo), & nct 127
week three should be easy for her—“should” being the key word. and it is. it’s far easier than the week designated for singing, and it’s miles better than the second week that she will, from here on out, never acknowledge ever again. but at the same time, there’s something missing in her. meiqi feels oddly… empty, as if everything she’s ever known was a lie.
she’s never been truly embarrassed, not since the second she was born and, for the longest time, she truly believed she would never feel embarrassed. meiqi doesn’t do embarrassed. she never has anything to be ashamed of. she’s kissed a girl in public for free food; she’s danced in the middle of a coffee shop to break her friend out of his shell; she’s thrown up on someone’s lawn after an intense night of drinking and dancing, and not once has she shied away from the fact that she’s done all of these things.
there’s this weight on her shoulders, pressing down on her and forcing meiqi to feel smaller than she really is. it’s there when she showers and she no longer sings into the shampoo bottle, and it’s there when she’s in a practice room staring at herself in the mirror as she tries to work out how to transition from one move to another. it’s just… always there, always reminding her that she’s a failure and that the worst moment of her life has probably been broadcasted for the millions of people on YouTube who follow or don’t follow nova. anyone can see it.
why does she care so much anyways? meiqi has never minded about what others think of her, so why has she suddenly developed this fear of the public’s perception on her skill set in a position which she knows she will never be in? she’s a dancer. she can sing. she’s pretty. that’s all that should matter.
that word again. “should.” she’s about ready to crack her knuckles against the wall, before realizing that it would not be taken lightly by netizens.
get your mind in a better place, meiqi scolds herself internally, pairing her words of encouragement with a few knocks to her skull. she needs to focus less on what has already happened, and more on what she wants to happen in the future.
originally, meiqi was going to perform a song that she had worked on for a while prior to the sn project announcement. she figured she would just tweak it a little and, since she had never posted videos about it online, that it would work out fine. now, a part of her wonders if she should do something completely new to prove, to herself and the coaches, that she’s worthy of a spot in their future group, that sure, she can’t rap, but they’d be making a huge mistake by overlooking her proficiency in dancing.
her performance on sunday was karma for taking the easy way out. if she doesn’t challenge herself this week, especially as this is her forte, then she’s gone.
finding a new song is the easy part. there are so many songs with funky or experimental beats. meiqi listens to a few on a recommended playlist to let her body get a feel for the vibe that the song exudes, until she settles on a fresh track.
there’s no time to waste, and so meiqi begins her choreography process.
* * *
while she works hard to perfect her choreography, meiqi doesn’t forget to engage the camera. during one of her few self-allowed breaks, she chugs half a bottle of water before approaching one of the cameras. meiqi tilts her head to one side, and then the other, before screwing her face in different ways to produce silly expressions. finally, she settles for pointing at the camera teasingly. “you... are you challenging me to a dance battle?!”
she pretends to beat box as she mimics some b-boying moves with half the energy that’s expected of one. meiqi finishes with a spin that lands her on her tippy toes, laughing to herself before bowing at the camera. she offers it a round of applause. “i think you won, cam.” that sounds cute. maybe that’ll be her nickname for the technology from now on. “let’s get back to practicing!”
* * *
this time, when she steps into the room to face all three coaches, the feeling is different. she’s not scared of messing up, but maybe that’s because she’s been sleeping on the floor in the practice room for the past three days and she wakes up every hour to run through the choreography at least twice to make sure that she has it all down.
it’s fine. meiqi has downed three and a half cans of redbull. she can last for a couple more hours.
she starts with her back towards the coaches, turning slowly with the music before going all out. meiqi can dance this in her sleep (which she has quite literally done, thank you very much). her movements are powerful and precise, and she doesn’t hold back. she’s in her element when it comes to dancing, especially because she’s going for a sexier, more fierce feeling. and this is who she is: not a rapper who forgets the next beat, nor an embarrassed little bitch. she has nothing to be embarrassed about, not today.
well, at least until she’s finished the performance and she can go back to worrying over last week. ah, none of it makes sense.