1O1 | an advanced rp discussion

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Despite all his ballet training, Rowan was still a sixteen year-old child, lanky limbs and all, and absolutely did not have enough strength to lug that beast of a suitcase into the dorms. He'd insisted to his mom that he didn't need so much — "I'll be eliminated soon, anyway," — but here he was anyway, the suitcase clunking along behind him as he dragged it down the hallway.

Finally, he found the correct room he'd been assigned to — hopefully he'd remembered the number right — and nudged the door open with one touch of a toe. (His hands were preoccupied and he did not kick, thank you very much.) The suitcase clunked again merrily over the threshold, with Rowan wincing at the sound, before he finally set it down on the area right next to the door. "Uh... if there's anyone who's already here, sorry about the noise."

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You know when you see someone you kind of expected to see but are still surprised to see, and your heart sputters like a dying car engine? Yeah, Rowan was having that kind of moment.

See, when your entrance to a reality tv show hinges on the rumour that your celebrity crush is joining, you generally try not to get your hopes up with the whole "seeing them" aspect, because you were bound to be disappointed somehow. Still, it didn't stop Rowan from being that hairstyle from the back kinda looks like Andrew's and oh gosh I wonder what would happen if I actually met him, haha. Except Rowan was very much retracting that statement right now, because the horror.

Andrew Choi was in Produce 101, and they were in the same room. Rapidly, Rowan went through the five stages of — grief? fanboying? fanboying. — denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance. Denial, because this is not happening; anger, because if only I knew! I would have prepared better; bargaining, because please God or my ancestors or anyone out there, just don't make us share the same room I won't ever blame the missing cookies on the cat again; depression, because now Andrew is going to see super uncool me, and last but not least, acceptance, which... Rowan was working on that.

By croaking out an answer. "Um," he started, voice cracking a little and sounding a little like he was wheezing. "Maybe?"

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Rowan finally understood what people meant when they said "don't meet your heroes", because he was sure that this whole feeling like he was either 120% ready to die or 120% ready to cry thing was unhealthy. Actual, real life Andrew Choi — or maybe Andrew Choi lookalike? there were six to seven doppelgängers of any given person on earth and maybe if Rowan were lucky, that would be one of them — was asking him for food.

He fought the urge to stress bake because one, it wouldn't make a good impression on anyone, regardless of celebrity crush, and two, he did not have any of his baking utensils or materials on him. Which was exceedingly unfortunate, because Rowan was itching to do anything that could stop him from overthinking the situation. But he did think that he might have some snack or such tucked away in his suitcase — after all, if his mom had packed him something that weighed a tonne and didn't put any food in it, then it was time for him to leave the Chae family.

"Uh — should I unlock it?" he offered feebly and congratulated himself silently on not sounding like a dying whale this time.

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"It's natural," Rowan croaked. His celebrity crush was interested in his hair? Not that Andrew had any idea who he was — or maybe Andrew knew about andrewfan200, but certainly not one Rowan Chae Changjun. "My mom says she doesn't know what happened there but at least it stands out." Before he could go on and on, Rowan promptly shut up and knelt down to put in the right combination.

And god could he be any less slow? His celebrity crush could be dying of starvation any moment and here Rowan was, shaky fingers and all, trying to put in 1020 into the lock. It wasn't even that hard. "Almost got it," he said before the lock finally sprang open. "And um, I'm uh — Rowan." He could just feel himself winning awards for worst first introductions ever.

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Did Andrew Choi Jinho just call him cute and unforgettable? Okay, so maybe he was twisting his words a little, but the idea was the same: Andrew Choi called him cute and unforgettable.

This was even better than he'd hoped for. Rowan could die happy now.

"Um..." he started just to fill the silence, and also to practice talking around Andrew without stuttering or sounding like a dying whale or both, because it would just be super awkward if they had to share a dorm room for the next however long Rowan would last. "I'm — a dancer?" He didn't quite know what to say in response to that. He wasn't really sure if ballet really counted in a competition like this, though it did get him in; besides, would Andrew Choi judge him for doing ballet? He hoped not — otherwise he would actually die this time.

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"I — do ballet." There it was, now let Andrew's judgement descend upon him. Okay, so maybe Andrew might be fine with that, but who knows? Rowan had to be prepared for all kinds of situations, and he hadn't been prepared for the Andrew Choi is actually on Produce 101 one. So at the very least he could prepare for the heart-breaking and soul-crushing revelation that Andrew Choi did not like ballet.

"And I'm not very good at singing, like, at all —" Especially compared to Andrew, but he didn't need to know — "but I guess I can, you know, dance a little." Why was he so awkward? Curse his homeschooled upbringing. "That's probably why I'm here anyway." Minus the fact that he auditioned based on "Andrew Choi might be going" rumours.

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Scratch everything he'd thought earlier, Rowan was so ready to die on the spot. Three seconds into meeting his idol and he'd already been thrown a pop culture reference he didn't get. How embarrassing was that? The day was just getting better but also worse, because on one hand, Andrew Choi, but on the other hand, Andrew Choi. Armed with references Rowan didn't understand. And Rowan thought he knew everything about Andrew, but now it seemed he knew everything about Andrew but the part about Billy Elliot.

"Who's Billy Elliot?" The question slipped past his lips with no filter. He would have rephrased it into something slightly less blunt, but he was nervous and oh my god it's Andrew Choi, plus he had the tendency to blurt out everything in his brain when he got stressed, so. "I mean — there's not much else I can do other than ballet, really. It'd be great if someone could teach me stuff out of our scheduled times."

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Rowan blinked precisely twice. "No, I haven't," he said at last. He racked his brains for the two words, but he just couldn't think of any Billy Elliot that he knew of. Great, now that he could stop worrying about being judged for being a ballerino, he could start being judged for not knowing Billy Elliot. (But seriously, who was Billy Elliot?) Either way, he would totally watch something that Andrew Choi himself recommended. "I'll watch it when I have time?"

"And —" Suddenly, Rowan felt rather shy — "I mean — if that's not too much of a bother — teaching me, I mean. I'm sure you could find a better pupil." Yep, a better pupil who would definitely not be internally crying the whole time he looked at his teacher.

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"Say yes," hissed the fanboy side of Rowan. "What's wrong with you!" shouted the rational side of him. There was really no better option for Rowan to take here — either say no and look rude plus regret it afterwards, or say yes and do something exceedingly embarrassing exposing himself as a diehard fan of Andrew's plus regret it afterwards.

So he could only pick the lesser of two evils.

"I mean — I'd love that," he blurted out. "If — you know. You don't mind. But I'm sure your technique is good —" it's amazing and I would know because I'm your fan — "if you were able to make it in. You know, to Produce 101."

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"I'm sixteen," Rowan protested weakly. "Wait, Taemin?" His eyes lit up. Now that was someone he knew. "Of course I know him; who doesn't?" Never mind the fact that Rowan himself didn't know who Taemin was until literally a week before the audition. "I learnt Pretty Boy in one day and I almost did it for my auditions."

Taemin couldn't beat Andrew in senpai-ness, but he came close. When Rowan had discovered him, all thoughts of his ballet routine that he'd worked on for a month flew out of the window; he just had to do something of his. His favourite was still Pretty Boy, but he decided Danger would make a better solo choreography, so that was what he stuck with. "I mean — not to sound like a nerd or anything," he added hurriedly, afraid that Andrew would start judging him.

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"You mean like this?" Maybe the one thing that could stop Rowan from utterly embarrassing himself in front of his celebrity crush, Andrew, was gushing about his other celebrity senpai, Taemin. He couldn't resist talking about or dancing to Taemin — one of the side effects of being in the early stages of fandom. Without even doing it on purpose, Danger.mp3 flooded his brain, and Rowan started to do the part of the dance from the chorus with the spinning around and the fancy footwork.

It was funny how dancing could drive all thoughts out of his brain — even thoughts about Andrew Choi. There was something so exhilarating about losing himself in music, albeit it being imaginary music, and letting his movements take over him. It had always been so comfortable for him to just dance without anything on his mind, and it was the same case now as it was always.

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The thing with Rowan was once he stopped dancing, he stopped being confident Rowan and went back to being shy Rowan. And while confident Rowan could handle being in front of Andrew Choi (though most of that was because he was dancing and not actually focusing on Andrew himself), shy Rowan was not at all well-equipped to deal with this situation. As his feet came to a halt, the reality of what was going on hit him like a brick all over again.

"It's — it's nothing special, really," he started, suddenly feeling awkward all over again. It really wasn't, in his book — he had a couple self-choreographed things up his sleeve, but like his reasoning for ultimately going with Danger, the choreography was a little more recognisable, making it a little easier for people to understand what he was doing. "I mean — give me a couple more days and I could come up with something more — I think."

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If there was anything worse than being acknowledged by someone you admire, it was being acknowledged for being good at something by someone you admire. So Rowan just stood there gaping like a goldfish for a bit before he could find something to say. It was incredibly unfair how Andrew Choi had that effect on people, and Rowan sort of wished that one day, he would have that effect on someone else, too.

But he wouldn't wish the same awkwardness on anyone else.

"I'm sure you have family members who can dance," he began. "You — probably just don't know." Did he just insult Andrew's intelligence? He was so going to die, or at least exile himself from this planet. Maybe Mars would be a nice place to go to. Or maybe Jupiter? It was further away from Andrew and maybe if it was that far away, Rowan wouldn't be able to embarrass himself anymore. "I'm really not that good. There's a lot I still can't do."

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Rowan let out a short peal of laughter. God, Andrew really was the funniest person alive too. "No," he said, shaking his head and suppressing the bubble of laughter threatening to escape his lips again. "It's okay." He hated motivational speeches, but it was okay if Andrew gave them. Anything was okay when it came to Andrew. "I mean — I get told that sometimes so it's not — too bad."

It was true, though. Other than dancing, Rowan really wasn't too great at anything else. Considering he was homeschooled, he wasn't all that great with attention either, and honestly he had no idea what he even did to be confident enough to make it. "I can dance a bit," he said cautiously, trying to appease Andrew.

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Rowan blinked. This was something he did not know about his most esteemed idol, Andrew Choi. (He filed that away to the "things only Rowan would know about Andrew" corner of the brain, and mentally promised himself to cherish the image forever.) "I didn't realise even you could fuck up," he blurted out. Maybe saying something vaguely incriminating like that was a bad idea? Then Rowan realised that he'd just sworn at his crush. "Um — shit, sorry."

It was still weird, having a normal conversation with Andrew Choi. People said not to meet your heroes because they'd end up disappointing you, but meeting Andrew was a dream come true and a reaffirmation of his human-ness. Maybe Andrew wasn't so different from Rowan after all, but he knew that whatever Andrew did, he'd still have a sort of god-like status in his mind.

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"No — of course not!" Rowan answered, affronted. "To both, I mean." Andrew really was something else — he sort of gave off this mom vibe that Rowan hadn't expected. It was something that just didn't come across in his videos, and probably a real-live-person kind of thing.

But with the mom territory came the temptation to talk back, which is what Rowan couldn't help but do. Years of living with his mom only had sort of hardened himself against being told off, but then again, Rowan had never been a rowdy child, so his mom had never had to yell at him much at all. "Also, I was quoting you."

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Rowan bit his lip. Control yourself, control yourself... though it was hard, considering that Andrew Choi just called him a little shit and he felt honoured. Andrew Choi could call him the worst dancer in the world and he'd still be honoured. "I could give you food, but then I'd starve and I wouldn't get through puberty," he retorted. Did biology even work like that? Would Andrew Choi call him out on his bad biology knowledge? Maybe he would, but then that would mean calling Rowan bad at biology — but it was Andrew who would be saying that, so he guessed it would be okay.

"But — I mean. I guess you can have some. I don't actually know what's in the bag," he said, shrugging. "I'm pretty sure there's food in it, but I don't know how much and what exactly."