Chapter 4

       I was both not looking forward for today and excited for it. I was finally going to be able to perform at Internationals and I loved performing a whole lot. And not just because I loved dancing more than anything.

       But because I loved being the centre of attention.

       The only downside was that I was going to be competing in two rounds today; the male solo and the duet. So I was going to have double the amount of pressure on me. If I passed the male solo, I wasn't going to feel the relief of helping my team move on because I was going to the duet round right after.

       I hated all the pressure and nerves I was feeling.

       Not to mention my sadness because I hadn't seen my soulmate very since her performance.

       My life was too complicated right now and I didn't like it.

       Right now, I was backstage preparing for my solo. And by preparing, I meant trying my hardest not to throw up. Why was I feeling nervous all of a sudden? I had never experienced this feeling before and I wasn't liking it.

       It got even worse when once of the backstage crew members told me that I was up next so I had to stand near the stage. I was tempted to just get Rhys to fill in for me, but I also didn't want to do that because it wasn't often where I could actually dance in front of the whole world.

       I wouldn't pass this up for anything.

       When the dancer before me finished, they were given their score since we were matched up and the higher score would move on. As soon as his score was announced, my confidence dropped.

       A lot.

       He scored a ninety-five.

       I had to get at least a ninety-six to move on to the next round and for some reason, I didn't think I could pull it off.

       "Hey," a voice suddenly said behind me. I turned around to see Rhys standing there. 

       "What are you doing here?" I asked.

       "I wanted to wish you luck," Rhys said. "I know you said you don't get nervous, but I can tell that you are."

       I sighed. "Internationals is a bigger deal than State and Nationals. I can't help but feel nervous."

       "You'll do great," Rhys said. "And are you really going to let your confidence go down right now? Out of all times? You're so confident and arrogant at times. Don't let that change now."

       "That's easy for you to say," I said. "You don't have to do the male solo and the duet."

       "Yeah, too bad," Rhys said. "Because we might actually have a chance to moving on this round."

       I raised an eyebrow. "Excuse me?"

       "I didn't say anything."

       "Are you implying that you're the better dance than me?"

       "What? No. No. Not at all."

       I glared at my twin brother right as I was called onto the stage. "You know what? I'm going to prove you wrong." I walked onto the stage and took my position in the centre, ready to dance my heart out and show everyone what I could do.

       I was smart enough to choose a song about heartbreak because apparently, that was all I ever experienced in my life.

       And now that I wanted to swear of relationships for ever, I just had to find my soulmate here at Internationals.

       I danced to my hearts content, not holding anything back. I didn't care how tired I was starting to get. Nothing was going to stop me from losing this round.

       I was completely out of breath when I finished my dance. The audience cheered loudly and I stayed on the stage as the male soloist I was up against came back on the stage so the team moving on could be announced.

       "And Zayden Prince from USA's team, D.A.N.C.E scored... Ninety-six percent!" the announcer said. "D.A.N.C.E will be moving on to the duet round!"

       I heard my team cheering loudly and I looked off stage to see my brother giving me a thumbs up. He totally said all of those things just so I could gain my confidence back.

       Unbelievable.

       When I got off stage, Rhys said, "See? I told you that you would do great."

       "Yeah, whatever," I said, still a bit out of breath. "I need to get water."

       I left the backstage area in search for a water fountain and since I really wasn't paying attention, I ended up bumping into someone. And when I saw who it was, my heart began beating faster.

       It was the dancer from Norway.

       She was even more beautiful up close.

       "S-sorry," I said. "I should have watched where I was going."

       "It's okay," she said with a thick accent. "I should have watched too. I liked your dance, by the way."

       "Thanks," I said. "I liked yours as well. It was very beautiful."

       She smiled slightly. "Thank you. What's your name?"

       "Zayden," I said.

       "Zayden," she repeated. "It's nice to meet you. But, just to know, if your team goes up against mine, you're going to lose."

       "Oh, competitive, are we?" I asked.

       "This is a dance competition," she said. "Competitive is in my blood. I just thought I'd warn you."

       "It's okay, I don't need a warning," I said. "You might, though because my team is only going to win in the end, so you might want to get your tissues ready."

       "I think you have to work on your smack talk," she said. "It's no good."

       "Ouch," I said. "And to think, my life's goal was to smack talk someone on an opposing team when I could be doing so much better."

       "Well, in that case, it was very nice meeting you, Zayden," she said. "But I should be going now. You know, got to rehearse so I have a better chance at beating your team."

       Oh, she was so going down.

       As she walked away, I realized something.

       "Hey!" I called after her and she turned around. "I never got your name."

       "That will remain a secret," she said.

       "Oh, come on, I told you mine," I said.

       She smiled slightly. "My name's Dagny."

       At least I knew her name now. Too bad she was the competition, so any flirting would have to do after either team got eliminated.

       I continued my search for a water fountain and after finding one, I met up with the rest of my team after receiving a text from Kingsley. The male solo round officially ended, and they were giving us an hour intermission before moving on to the duets.

       Rhys was already with the rest of the team and he looked at me curiously when he saw me. "Why do you look so happy?" he asked.

       "Do I?" I asked. "Must be winning the male solo round."

       "Uh huh," Rhys said and I could tell he didn't believe me.

       Oh well.

       I stayed with the team for a bit before my duet partner and I decided to rehearse our dance. The pressure got even a lot worse like I expected since there was now eight teams left in the competition.

       I just hoped we weren't going up against the Norwegian team since Dagny seemed really confident.

       And if I wanted to beat her team, I wanted it to either be in the semi-finals or, better yet, the finals.

       When there was only fifteen minutes left to the intermission, my duet partner and I had to get our costumes on, which was simply black pants, black shoes, and a grey shirt. We then headed back stage to do the rest of the preparations.

       I texted Dad, asking him if he could bring our prop backstage. He shortly arrive, carrying a long, wooden frame that resembled a stand up mirror, without the actual glass of course. He placed it down the vanity table we were at, and it thankfully stood up on its own perfectly fine.

       "You two are going to do amazing," Dad said. 

       "Yeah, that's if I can get the contacts in," Rhys said, sitting at the vanity table. "I've been trying to do this one eye for a good two minutes."

       "Why is it taking so long?" I asked. "You wear contacts all the time."

       "Only when I'm impersonating you, and I haven't done that in a while," Rhys said. "Speaking of, I don't appreciate you impersonating me a few days ago in an attempt to prank Echo. You're just lucky she can tell the difference."

       I shrugged in reply. In my defense, he impersonated me a few times without my permission.

       Okay, just once, and that was to show up to the dance studio in my place when I was trying to fake being sick so I didn't have to rehearse with Echo.

       Too bad that Rhys knew how to beat me at my own game.

       When Rhys finally got his contacts in, Dad pulled the both of us in a hug. "Good luck."

       "Thanks," I said. "Although, we don't need luck. We have pure talent."

       "And there's the confidences I was looking for," Dad said with a chuckled before leaving backstage to go sit in the audience.

       Rhys and I were third to perform and when it was our turn, the stage crew lowered the curtains so we could set up the stage for our dance. Not all dances wanted to use a set up or props, but I noticed that quite a few of the duets wanted to.

       We went onto the stage, carrying the wooden frame and placing it upstage centre. Rhys and I stood on opposite sides, him being on the further side and me being closer to the audience as we faced each other.

       We were really hoping some people would actually believe it was a mirror and that the second dancer was offstage waiting to come on.

       I heard the curtains rise and soon after, the music started. Rhys and I started our dance, doing identical movements to make the mirror illusion even more real. It took a lot of practice to get the movements just right, especially because at some points, we were facing away from each other so we couldn't see how the other was moving.

       At one point, I stayed completely still and Rhys kept judging and by the cheers in the audience, the illusion must have worked.

       They cheered even louder when Rhys stepped over the wooden frame, as if he was exiting the mirror. And the more the audience cheered, the more confident I got. I was really loving this dance.

       Rhys and I rehearsed this a lot to make sure all of our moves were clean and in sync. It took a lot of effort -all dances did- but I was really proud of this one, especially because of the story line we chose.  It was really hard being identical twins and a lot of people always saw us as the same person, so we wanted to show everyone that we're not, thus Rhys 'breaking out of the mirror'.

       When our dance finished, everyone applauded and we even got a standing ovation. We had to wait for a bit for the judges to tally up our score and once we got it, I was really happy.

       Ninety-eight.

       I wasn't going to lie, it probably had to do with Rhys. Every duet he was in got at least a ninety-eight. He even got a perfect score of one-hundred once.

       We took the frame off the stage the first thing Rhys did, after catching his breath, was to go to the vanity table and take the contacts out before putting his glasses back on.

       I set the frame down. "You think we did good?" Rhys asked.

       "Are you kidding?" I asked. "We killed it. We got a ninety-eight, Rhys. Ninety-eight!"

       "Yeah, but what if the other team gets a ninety-nine?" Rhys asked. "Or one-hundred?"

       "You overthink too much," I said.

       "And you're too over-confident at times."

       Hey. What's right is right.

       The team we were matched up against finished, and Rhys and I were told to go back on the stage. When their score was announced, I felt so relieved. They only got a ninety-four.

       We made it to the semi-finals.

       And we were going to destroy that round.

_______________

ooh zayden met his possibly love interest. so cute.

and yay rhys and zayden did a duet and won. woo.

and the song attached, aka my favourite song from the next step, is the song for their duet. it's also the song rhys dances to when he needs to relive stress AND it's the song he danced to when he took zayden's place in the very first chapter of his book.

good times, good times.

I CAN'T WAIT FOR SEASON 6 OF TNS NOW. The cast was posting pictures and at first I got worried because in all the pictures and videos, I couldn't see Ozzy's (rhys/zayden) actor and he's my absolute favourite on the show, but then they posted a picture with all of them and he was there. (standing beside alexandra aka piper's actress aka echo so my piper/ozzy hopes are up)(and in another picture he was standing beside myles aka noah aka ryder so i immediately thought of father and son)