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“Are you excited to be on dance team finally?” Nina asked as she put on her leotard.  She was getting ready for her gymnastics tonight.

Mina rolled her eyes. “It’s going to be a lot of work and you know that.”

“I know, but you’ve always wanted to join the dance team, haven’t you?”

“…yes…” Mina responded quietly.

“Are you ready to go?  Jin said we need to be ready at 5 because we’re going out to dinner.”

“I think so.  Haejin didn’t say we need much.  She just said to bring lots of water.”

Nina smiled. “Of course.  You can’t dance for hours without water.”

Mina sighed.  She knew Nina was referring to the time she’d gone without drinking for twelve hours in a row and had danced for half of that.  She’d passed out and woken up very dehydrated.

“Can’t we forget that happened?”

“No.  You know how bad you are at taking care of yourself.  I’m going to keep reminding you so you make sure it doesn’t happen again.”

Mina sighed again.  Sometimes it sucked being the youngest.

——————–

Jin had been a dutiful older brother and taken the twins to their favorite restaurant for dinner.  Then he had dropped them off at the activity center where they both took their classes.

“I’ll pick you two up at seven thirty!” Jin hollered after them as they rushed into the building.  He needn’t tell them that; he picked them up at seven thirty on the dot every night they had classes.  But he was always sure to remind them.

The girls split up the second they got into the building.

“Don’t forget to drink your water!” Nina yelled.

“Don’t worry!  Haejin won’t let me forget!”

——————–

Nina walked down to the vending machine.  Even after her gently berating her sister and reminding her to bring water, she had somehow forgotten her own.  She was exhausted after her nearly two-hour gymnastics class.  She just wanted to sit down.  But the water fountain would never quench her thirst, and besides that, she’d have to stand for even longer to get a drink from it.  Bottled water from the vending machine was the way to go.

She quickly bought her water and a bag of chips and headed to the bench by the front doors.  She knew it would probably be a few minutes until Mina got out.

Nina snacked on her chips and chugged her water as she considered today.  She wondered why she hadn’t met Jimin until the end of the day.  She was pretty sure he was also a senior, so why wasn’t he in any of her classes?

“Hi, there!  You’re Nina, right?”

Nina looked up.  Jimin was standing right in front of her!  And he wasn’t wearing his glasses tonight.  She smiled at him.

“Yep, that’s me!  Jimin, right?”

Jimin nodded. “What class are you in?”

“I take gymnastics.”

“Oh.  I do ballet.”

“Ballet?  That’s cool.”

Jimin nodded again. “Um…I’ll see you at school tomorrow?  My brother is…very on time again.”

Nina giggled. “It’s all right.  Mine is too.  I’ll see you tomorrow!”

Jimin waved to her as he ran out the door.

Nina sat on the bench for a few more minute before Mina showed up.

“Yikes!  I didn’t expect the first day to be so hard!” Mina exclaimed as she plopped down on the bench next to Nina.

“You didn’t expect them to go easy on you just because it’s your first day, did you?”

“No!  But I didn’t expect it to be that hard!”

Nina laughed.  Mina shook her head at her.

“Is Jin here yet?”

Nina pulled out her phone and looked at the time. “He should be here in two minutes.”

Mina nodded.  She pulled a water bottle out of her bag and started chugging it.  Nina just watched her.  Mina set the water bottle down a minute later after screwing on the cap.

“I think I should pack more water tomorrow.”

Nina laughed.  She should too.  Definitely.