"Sehun-Hyung look!" Changjo excitedly pointed at the television screen. "See, I can do that too!" He started imitating the dance the idol group on television was performing.

"Wahh!" Sehun clapped with a huge grin on his face, "You're gonna be even better than them when you grow up!"

"Hyung, I also want to be an idol when I grow up!" Changjo said happily, "But I don't know if mama and papa will let me."

Sehun smiled and ruffled his brother's hair affectionately, "Of course they'll let you."

"Really?" Changjo looked up at him with hopeful eyes. 

"Really." 

"Then will you also be an idol when you grow up? Oh, we can be like a duo! Just you and me. We'll be the best dancers in the whole world!"

"Of course, Changoo-yah~ We'll be the best dancers ever."

Back then when they were just children imitating dance moves on TV, life was like a canvas. They could paint their dreams and imagine a perfect life. A life filled with happiness and everything they ever wanted. Their dreams coming true.

But unfortunately that was all it would ever be. 

A painting.

* * *

Sehun stared ahead and pretended he didn't notice Jongin who was walking next to him. He didn't have to look to the side to know the latter was smirking. 

"I saw you yesterday." 

Sehun didn't reply and kept walking ahead, ignoring the looks weird people were giving them. 

"So..... Did you change your mind?" 

Honestly, Sehun thought about it all night, but he still wasn't too sure about accepting Jongin's offer. He still hated the guy and not to mention, he really knew how to throw a punch.

"What will you give me in return?" Sehun asked suddenly without sparing Jongin a glance. He could tell the latter was quite taken aback with the question.

"Uh... What do you want?"

Sehun smirked. 

"I haven't decided yet."

"Wait, so you actually agree?" Jongin blinked. 

"I do." Sehun sighed, finally looking at the brunette, "But I still I haven't forgiven you for punching me that day. So you're gonna have to give me something in return."

Jongin narrowed his eyes, "You're taking advantage of the situation, aren't you? Well played. Alright, what do you want?"

"I still haven't decided yet so for now I'll agree to be your partner... as long as you promise you'll do whatever I ask of you when I decide what I want."

"How do I know you're not gonna ask me to do something I can't do?" 

"You don't," Sehun shrugged, "That's just a risk you're gonna have to take." He held out his hand, "If you agree, then let's shake on it. I'll keep my end of the bargain, but you must also keep yours. If you don't, well, unfortunately I don't care as much about you or the competition."

Jongin narrowed his eyes, "You're not gonna ask me to make out with another guy or something, right?"

Sehun scrunched his nose up, "Why the would I even do that? That's not something I want to see."

"In that case." Jongin sighed, shaking Sehun's outstretched hand, "It's a deal."

"Great." 

"We'll have to go to Mr. Lee to sign you up for dance class."

"Then I'll wait for you by the main entrance after class." 

"Sounds like a plan." Jongin smiled, mentally doing a victory dance. After Sehun nodded and proceeded to walk away, Jongin called after him.

"Yah, Oh Sehun." The brunetter smiled, "Welcome aboard."

"I hope I don't regret this later." Sehun muttered under his breath before making his way to the cafeteria. 

* * *

"Hey," Luhan beamed once he saw Sehun taking a seat at their booth.

"Hi," The blonde smiled.

"I saw you talking to Jongin in the hallway earlier. I take it you made up your mind?"

"Yeah, I agreed." 

Luhan grinned, "That's great."

"Thanks, Hyung. For... yesterday."

"Don't mention it," He waved his hand in the air dismissively.

"Though right now I don't know if I made the right decision by agreeing to partner with him. He really gets on my nerves sometimes."

Luhan chuckled, "That's Jongin for you. You'll learn to get used to it soon enough."

There it was again- the curiosity. It was obvious Luhan knew a lot about Jongin. But then again, this was none of Sehun's business. The two began to eat their lunch when a question popped in Sehun's mind.

"Hyung, what do you plan to study in the future? If you don't mind me asking."

"No I don't and please stop with the formalities," Luhan laughed softly (Sehun found it to be quite pleasant-sounding), "And as of now I plan to study medicine. It's been a lifelong dream for me to become a doctor."

Sehun smiled, "And you plan to study in China?"

"Yeah. Though my Chinese is a little rusty now since I've been living here for a really long time. What about you? Do you plan to go abroad?"

"No I'll probably just study here."

For the rest of lunch, none of them opened a book, but they engaged in conversation instead. It was just normal everyday conversation, about school, studies, their teachers, or maybe a new book or a movie. It was a lot better than the usual silence between them. After lunch break was over, they walked to class together. Luhan was a nice guy, Sehun thought. They had quite a lot in common and they seemed to get along almost seamlessly. Sehun knew he wasn't very good with socializing but strangely enough, it wasn't so bad with Luhan. The doe-eyed male was just so friendly and approachable, easy-going and not to mention wise and mature. Sehun was starting to think they could actually be good friends.

After classes, Sehun waited by the main entrance as promised and kept glancing at his watch. Jongin is exactly 17 minutes late, he thought to himself, rolling his eyes. It seemed so typical of someone like him to be late.

A few minutes later, a flustered-looking Jongin emerged from the school doors, hair a little disheveled and a slight smirk on his face. A girl walked out right after him, gently tugging at her skirt, and he winked at her before making his way over to Sehun. The latter looked at him in disgust, trying hard not to think about what he had just been doing with that girl.

"What?" Jongin's eyebrow rose. 

"Nothing," Sehun was already regretting this decision, "Let's just get this over with." 

"Oh Sehun?" Mr. Lee looked quite shocked. "He's the one?" He asked Jongin for confirmation.

"Yup." Jongin grinned.

"What a pleasant surprise," He said, looking quite impressed, "From what Jongin told me, you're a pretty good dancer."

Sehun eyed the brunette who just shrugged. "I think so?"

Eunhyuk chuckled, "Alright then. Here's the application," He said, digging out a paper from his desk and handing it to Sehun, "Just fill it in, submit it to me tomorrow and you're in the club! Although since you're a little behind on the group rehearsal for the showcase, I'll have to give you some extra training."

"There's gonna be a group performance?" Sehun asked.

"Yes, and it's compulsory for all the club members to participate in it. As for your routine with Jongin, you guys will have to choreograph it yourselves."

"Oh..." Sehun nodded understandingly. "Okay. I'll fill this in today. Thanks, Mr. Lee." He bowed at the teacher. 

"Okay, you two get going now." He smiled as he watched the boys bow and leave his office.

"Wanna go to a cafe or something? We need to discuss some stuff about the routine." Jongin said. 

"Now?"

The brunette stared at him blankly, "We have less than a month left to choreograph a full routine, Sehun. So yes, now."

"Alright." The blonde sighed. 

"Okay so first we'll have to pick a concept. Should we go for a ballad?"

Sehun shook his head, "I think ballad would go nicely if it was a solo performance."

"True. Or if it was a duo with a romance theme which... ew no way."

Sehun rolled his eyes, "Then why didn't you get a girl to be your partner?"

"Girls get really annoying during practice. I wasn't planning on doing it with a girl anyway." 

"Well a ballad's not gonna work for an all-male duo so how about metal?"

Jongin scrunched up his nose, "No ing way."

"Dubstep?"

"I literally do that like every time. I'll have to change tactics."

"Well then do you have any better ideas?"

Jongin thought about it for a minute, "How about R&B? We could go for something y."

"Really now..." Sehun sighed.

"No seriously! All it's gonna take is a few hip gyrations here and some pelvic s there, maybe a wink and lip bite, and that win is as good as ours. As the old saying goes, make those ovaries explode, and you can have anything in life." Jongin grinned. "Plus I think that style would suit you. And I'm basically the king of y around here. It all works!"

"That's not an actual saying." Sehun pointed out, amused, as he took a sip of bubble tea.

"Who cares?" 

Sehun rolled his eyes, "Alright. R&B is fine. What's next?"

"Now we'll have to pick a song."

The two began to look through Jongin's playlist, each wearing one earphone. Sehun noticed a few... questionable songs on his playlist but decided not to ask about it.

"I think this one's good." Sehun stated, slightly nodding his head along with the beat of the song. It had a nice beat with sultry vocals and the lyrics were quite fitting with what they were going for.

"Yeah? I think it's good too."

"What's it called?" Sehun was actually really enjoying the song.

"Playboy by some idol group called EXO. I think it's perfect. We could go for a more gentleman kind of y. Suit and tie and all."

Sehun imagined it and it actually went well in his head. He was actually starting to get a little excited for this, "Are we doing the whole song?" 

"I think the audience would get too bored if we do the entire thing. Maybe two minutes of it. We have to leave the crowd wanting more," Jongin pointed out, and Sehun nodded his head in agreement. "It's settled then! I'll work on t the song today and we can start practice tomorrow. I'll ask Mr. Lee to let us use the school's dance studio after school. If he doesn't let us then we can always practice at my place. Or yours."

"Your place is fine," After all, Sehun's parents didn't know he was doing this.

"Alright," Jongin shrugged. 

"Well... are we done now?"

"Yeah. Oh, we should exchange numbers."

Sehun handed Jongin his phone and the latter did the same. They saved their phone numbers on each other's phones and not long after, they parted ways. Sehun decided to walk home since the weather was kinda nice. Once he got home, he saw his father sitting on the sofa in the living room, looking through a newspaper.

"Where have you been?" His father asked without even looking up.

"Out."

"Out where?"

"Does it matter?"

"You're my son, of course it matters." Sehun almost rolled his eyes at his father's words.

"I was out with a friend. I'll probably be returning late from school everyday since we're having an after-school study group," He lied.

His father's eyebrow rose, "You don't need to join a study group. You're just fine on your own." 

"Well it's better than being cooped up at home all day."

"Alright then. Suit yourself. All I want is good grades by the end of the year. You know the requirements for medical school are high."

"I know."

"Good," He went back to the newspaper in his hands and Sehun made his way up to his room, sighing softly. Frankly, he was glad he'd be out of the house some more since he hated being at home. But right now he was just hoping practice would move along peacefully.

* * *

Practice was not peaceful at all. It's only just been a week and things were not going smoothly. Sehun and Jongin disagreed on a lot of things and spent most of the time bickering rather than coming up with something useful.

"We're supposed to swing our left arms during this part." 

"No it was the right!"

"I precisely remember it being the left."

"Don't you think this move is kinda off?"

"I think it's good."

"I think you're stupid."

"No no no. We should do it like this instead."

"Are you ing kidding me? That looks ridiculous."

"How many hip gyrations are we gonna have in the first damn minute? This was supposed to be classy."

"For 's sake you need to stop looking like a ing rod."

Their insults only got sourer everyday and things were moving along slowly. 

"This is so not gonna work," Jongin had his face in his palms as he shook his head.

"There, there Jonginnie." Baekhyun patted his back comfortingly. 

"He's so ing annoying! He keeps disagreeing to everything I say! I'm the pro here, he's supposed to listen to me."

"Maybe you should listen to whatever he has to say." Kris suggested, "You guys are equal partners. You should come up with ideas together and agree on them."

"I think Kris is right. You guys hate each other too much is all," Minseok spoke up, "If you want this to work you're gonna have to learn to agree with each other." 

"I tried being nice with him. He's the ing ."

"Well you did punch the out of him a few weeks ago. If I were in his place I'd want to punch you in the face 24/7." Baekhyun stated matter-of-factly, making Jongin shoot him a death glare. "Just saying." He shrugged.

Meanwhile, on the other side of the cafeteria, Luhan was giving Sehun a knowing look. "I take it practice isn't going very well."

Sehun chuckled, picking at his food, "Understatement of the century."

Over the past week, the two have gotten somewhat close. They actually talked during lunch and walked to class together whenever they had the same class. Safe to say Luhan was basically the only person in the entire school Sehun felt comfortable with. 

"I think you should really try and get along with him. I know you despise him and all but if you guys want things to go smoothly, you'll have to let go of your grudges." 

"I can't. He's one of those people that I simply can't stand. Irritable, short-tempered and unbelievably stubborn. And he always just wants things to go his way." Sehun sighed. He really didn't need all this extra stress in his life.

"And yet. At least give it a try. Treat him to lunch some day and try to sort out your differences. Trust me when I say things are never gonna move along if you don't get along."

"Treat him to lunch..." Sehun snorted.

"Well, it's gonna keep going this way if you don't do something about it. When it comes to Kim Jongin, you're just gonna have to be patient and be the bigger person."

Sehun sighed. It didn't look like there was another choice anyway. "Fine."

"Good," Luhan smiled at him, "It'll work out, I'm sure."

"I hope you're right," Sehun slightly tilted his head to the side, "Hyung, just out of curiosity, do you also dance?"

"I used to. I wasn't really that passionate about it but it was something I generally enjoyed doing." 

"Really? So why don't you dance anymore?"

Luhan stayed quiet for a second, "It's just something of the past now, I guess. Plus I can focus on my studies better now."

"Ah, I see." Sehun nodded understandingly, but he couldn't help but feel that it wasn't the whole story.

Sehun walked into the dance studio after school and he saw Jongin sitting on the floor, back slumped against the full-length mirror. He heard Sehun come in but didn't bother to look at him. Practice with Jongin was increasingly becoming the most dreadful time of his day.

"Well? Aren't we gonna practice today?"

"We're never gonna win if it keeps going like this," Jongin muttered, "We're losing precious time and we haven't even choreographed the first half of the song. And I'm not even happy with whatever we choreographed together so far."

Sehun sighed. Honestly, neither was he. He looked at Jongin and thought for a minute. He did promise to keep his end of the bargain. And that included helping Jongin win. As much as he hated the guy, he remembered Luhan's words earlier that day and decided to listen to him. What's the point of holding this stupid grudge, anyway? 

"Do you wanna take a break today?" He finally said. Jongin looked up at him in disbelief. 

"Take a break? People are supposed to take breaks when they've actually accomplished something."

"We're never gonna accomplish anything if we keep going like this." Sehun stated, "And as much as dislike I you, I also want this to work. So I'll try to forget about what you did even though my pride begs me not to."

The brunette just stared at Sehun blankly and the latter just rolled his eyes. He walked over to Jongin and lightly kicked the side of his leg, "Come on. I'll treat you to some bubble tea. Then we can talk like normal, civilized human beings." 

Sorry I had to end it there. I didn't want too much happening in one chapter. Thanks for the upvotes and all the subscribers! I really want this story to progress hence I'm updating pretty fast, even though I have exams coming up T_T. Wish me luck, guys!