First Dance Lesson (5)
Jamie turned to look at Ari with a curious glance.
"What are ya doing after this? Heading to bed or going to try to use the shower before that football team of roommates starts using the bathroom?"
"Nah." Ari shook his head, "I'm going to find a free practice room and try to learn the choreography."
Remembering NOVA's surprise quest and how much he struggled in dance practice, Ari pointed toward the dance studio.
He planned on learning the warmup and the Warrior song steps the same way he had learnt Infant Shark, slowing it down to 0.25x speed and doing his best to replicate each move.
Except this time, he remembered all the advice that Jaywalk had given the other contestants and planned on trying to apply it to himself.
First, he would nail the basics in the warm-up, and then he would work on the Warrior choreography.
Hopefully, by the time he learned those two dances and received coaching from Jaywalk, his dance stat would naturally increase.
"Okay. I'll come with you. Let's just drop our phones off."
The two of them found a staff member to drop off their phones before heading to the dance studio building.
As they walked through the hallways and glanced through the doors, they could see some contestants already inside trying to dance while others were just lounging on the ground and chatting.
Ari noticed that many of the ones just lounging and chatting on the ground were his roommates and those who had F-grade dance badges like he did.
Shaking his head, He and Jamie found an empty practice room with three tablets lying to the side.
After Ari put on his new, slightly uncomfortable shoes, he first tested out the shoes.
Although they were a little tight on his toes, he could turn, jump, and partially slide without falling to his doom. Since he couldn't run, Ari first completed his Repeat missions doing the crunches, squats, and pushups with his shaking arms and legs.
Then, he grabbed one of the tablets and began stretching along to the warm-up video that Jaywalk had tried to teach his class with minimal success.
Jamie glanced at him confusedly before offering, "You know that warm video is really difficult, right? Just warm up for dancing with something else. And you should definitely do those types of exercises after you warm up your body."
"The only warm-ups I know are from high school gym class before we had to run the mile. I'd rather just listen to the dance professional so I don't hurt myself."
"Okay." Jamie shrugged before he continued his own warm-up and began dancing to the choreography.
- What's your aim….
Hearing the song playing lightly in the background, Ari turned to look at Jamie.
The tall boy had removed his cowboy hat and put his long hair into a loose ponytail to keep it out of his face and off his neck.
His blue eyes and usual smiling face were narrowed and focused as he stared at the tablet and himself in the mirror.
Dressed in loose athletic pants and his red and black B-class t-shirt, which had its sleeves rolled up to expose his muscular arms, Jamie was imitating the powerful moves of the song, which surprisingly fit him well.
Although he missed some steps because of the speed of the choreography, he seemed to have memorized it at the very least and was making it through the song at a good pace.
As the song ended, Ari gave Jamie a thumbs-up before continuing to try to get through the warm-up.
His goal was to make it through to the end at 1x speed before he went to sleep and hammer those dance basics into his body like Jaywalk said.
Once he had accomplished that, he would begin the choreography of the assigned song Warrior.
Setting the tablet against the mirror, he restarted the video before focusing on the sea green eyes that he could see through the eye holes of the snail mask.
-Bubble bubble pop pop!
As the cheery warm-up song began playing in slow motion, Ari kept his eyes on Jaywalk, trying to imitate his movement.
Pivot, look back, slide, pop, and lock.
Ari did his best to control his stiff, jerky body and imitate each position slowly.
He constantly restarted the warm-up choreography song from the beginning until he memorized one move before moving to the next one.
-Bubble bubble pop pop!
When he fell after tripping over his own feet, he would simply get up and restart the video, completely focused in trying to learn the basic steps he needed to be come proficient in dancing.
-Bubble bubble pop pop!
-Bubble bubble pop pop!
-Bubble bubble pop pop!
Long after the lights in the other practice rooms went out, Ari just stayed focused, forcing himself to memorize the warm-up and slowly increasing the speed from 0.25x to 0.5x and then to 0.75x.
And finally, past midnight, long after even Jamie had gone to bed, when he finally danced through the warm-up choreography at full speed without making a single mistake…
[Dance +1]
His Dance stat improved by itself.
[Ariel Matisse]
[Vocals: A]
[Dance: F+ (Currently E- with Otterly adorable tracksuit)]
[Visual: F+]
[Rap: F]
[Charm: A]
[Skills: Picky Listener (B), Pen Pal (C)]
[Current Rewards: 5 Stat Points & .25 Visual Stat Point ]
"Yes!" ari jumped into the air in excitement since he finally gained a stat point the natural way.
As the urge to do a cartwheel in the empty practice room surged through him, a cold wall of text dumped cold water on his excitement.
[Last time, you smashed your foot into the wall and fell over.]
[Are you planning on smashing the mirror this time?]
"You just shut up," Ari grumbled as he checked the time on the tablet.
It was currently 4 am, which meant he could get four hours of sleep and make it to breakfast by 8.
Swallowing a yawn that threatened to rip his mouth open, Ari trudged out of the practice rooms and towards the tunnel that led to the dorms.
As the automatic lights flickered on in the dark, creepy hallway, he speed walked as fast as he could, waving absentmindedly at the security guard before focusing on where he needed to go.
Arriving safely at the F1 room, Ari tried to twist the door knob.
Rattle, rattle-
But it refused to move.
The room had been locked.