Yixing watched his body move to the tempo of the music through his reflection in the mirror. The mirror was something he hadn’t wanted to use; not wanting to see his pathetic worn down self. In the beginning he refused to; allowing himself to come up with different choreographies and perfect it without the help of a mirror. He was quite confident with his end result but also still wary; considering the fact that he was going to perform in front of judgers. Yes, he is going to audition for SM Entertainment who will be holding auditions in the next week.

“Next week.” Yixing groaned out loud and scrunched up his nose when he caught his face in the reflection again. “Maybe the company won’t even consider you with how you look.”

“I doubt it,” Yixing stumbled over his steps at the voice, catching Sehun and Jongin walking through the entrance in the mirror. “Stop saying you look horrible, it’s starting to frustrate me.” Yixing groaned again at Sehun’s honesty.

“I think you’re looking better hyung.” Jongin said with a gentle smile. Yixing didn’t disagree. He didn’t look so pale anymore and he had put his weight back on – courtesy to Sehun shoving food in his face at any time he could – and that resulted in his face not to look so swollen and ill sunken. But the dark circles under his eyes hadn’t disappeared due to not being able to sleep and his whole body felt like it was slowly falling to the pits of hell.

“Thanks Jongin-ah.”

Jongin would also be auditioning for dancing in SM. The two had practiced together in the beginning but Jongin did prefer having a mirror.

“You’re dancing too, I’m sure they wouldn’t think twice about having you in their company.” Yixing smiled; Jongin had been praising Yixing ever since he first saw him dance. He was thankful; it definitely reduced the weight on his shoulders.

“You too.” They smiled at each other as Yixing passed him and sat down by Sehun at the far wall. Immediately he reached for his water bottle and nearly drank the whole thing in one go. He noticed Sehun staring at him with his mouth agape and Yixing had to hold back a sigh. To say it simple, Sehun was ually frustrated. He didn’t even have to mention it for Yixing to know. It was a natural thing, of course, but Yixing felt useless when he couldn’t bring himself to help in some way. Anything related made him either want to crawl out of his body or scratch his body until he couldn’t fathom such thoughts due to pain. Sehun never tried anything and Yixing didn’t expect he would. He was a sweetheart after all. Yixing pouted. Although he wouldn’t be lying if he said he had had some ual thoughts about Sehun lately and to his surprise it didn’t scare him as much; but bringing himself to do it in real life did.

“Imagine Jongin-ah right now.” Yixing held back a giggle when Sehun let out a disgusted sound. “I’m only doing what you told me to do.” Which was saying whoever else was in the room to imagine to drive Sehun’s ual thoughts about Yixing away.

“Well it does help.” Yixing nodded and watched Jongin begin to dance; getting lost in his careful but powerful movements until Sehun putting his head on his shoulder broke his gaze. “I’m sorry Yixing... I’m trying not to think that sort of stuff about you. I feel bad about it but know I will never hurt you hyung I promise.” The boy frowned, “I’m not some boy so... so don’t think that!” Yixing made a confused expression before Sehun added, “More so I um... I want to make love to you AND DON’T LAUGH THAT TOOK ALL OF MY COURAGE TO SAY.”

Yixing giggled, “Are you blushing?” He received a groan in reply and that was all he needed to know he was. “You’re cute Sehun.” Yixing smiled slowly and rested his head on Sehun’s. “I actually want that too...” Yixing whispered, “But I-I’m nervous–“

“It’s okay,” Sehun reached for Yixing’s hand hesitantly before the older decided to take the lead, and clasped them together. “I know. We don’t have to rush anything, we can wait okay.”

Yixing rubbed his thumb against Sehun’s hand; an unspoken thank you, “Okay Sehun.“ There was a moment of silence before Yixing frowned, “What is a... an f boy?”

Sehun laughed. Yixing was still so pure and innocent.

---

Yixing watched Sehun and Chanyeol (loudly) play Super Smash Bros. with glossy eyes. Somehow a week had passed and tomorrow he would be auditioning for SM. The passing week had been spent mostly in the dance room, practice after practice. Now he didn’t know if his stomach hurt because of achy muscles or because of the nerves that had started to build as the night progressed. He was thankful that his friends had at least let him keep his weed because he didn’t know what else he would be doing during this moment. Jongin wasn’t any better. The boy was sitting at the kitchen table speaking all of his worries about tomorrow to Kyungsoo, who was content to listen.

Yixing took another drag from the joint that was almost at its ending point and sighed. Sleep would definitely be hard to come tonight, isn’t it always? Yixing mused to himself.

“YES! YEESSS! IN YOUR FACE OH SEHUN!” Chanyeol threw the controler in his excited daze, only missing the television by a few inches. “I BEAT YOU AGAIN. IT.”

Sehun rolled his eyes with a tsk. “I rather not. Go again; I’m not letting you beat me this time.”

Yixing pouted and pushed himself off the sofa. What he wanted was someone to reassure him that everything would be alright; to somewhat encourage him but all day he hadn’t received a single comment of the sort. Yixing found himself on the balcony, not really registering the walk there but the fresh air was welcomed. He leaned himself on the rail and let the night breeze cool his warm body down. The weather was getting warmer everyday and usually Yixing would be wearing something more breathable but due to his cuts on his arms he couldn’t do that, or he didn’t want to. People stared and some even asked why he was wearing long sleeves. Yixing leaned his head on his arm and closed his eyes. It was either get stared at for wearing long sleeves or get stared at for having cuts on his arms, and he preferred the first option.

“You know you shouldn’t lean over the edge like that, you may fall.”

Yixing opened his eyes and raised his head slowly at Yifan’s voice; he sprawled his arms out in front of him over the railing and waved them exaggeratedly, “Let me fall please.”

Yifan chuckled lightly before pulling the youngers arms back, “you know I wouldn’t let that happen.” He then frowned when Yixing scrunched up his face in what looked to be pain, “are you okay Xing?”

Yixing seemed to snap out of it; taking a deep breath, “Y-yeah... I just think the smoking is giving me a panic attack or something.” Yifan frowned harder.

“You know you shouldn’t be smoking pot,” Yifan scoffed, “I tried to convince Luhan to chuck that too.”

Yixing shook his head, “It usually calms my nerves.” Except it wasn’t, for some reason it was making his heart beat incredibly fast. He closed his eyes again to try and focus on his breathing when he felt Yifan’s hand on his back.

Yifan felt Yixing tense under his palm so he began to rub the boys back soothingly. “You’re just worried. You’re going to do great tomorrow but you should know that already... but you’re not telling yourself that are you?” The older shook his head when Yixing agreed he wasn’t. “Remember when we were kids and Luhan, Tao and I would watch you dance because you were always so excited to show us a new move you had learnt?” He chuckled, “You were a lot more confident then.”

Yixing puffed out his cheeks, he did remember. Back then it seemed so much simpler. Every Friday night he would stay up late in his room and learn a new dance move to show to his friends at school on Monday. He had always wanted to show to his parents but they were never fond of the idea of him dancing. Yixing smiled a little, “I remember... you guys were always so happy for me – but sometimes I thought it may have been annoying for you guys to watch every week.”

“Are you kidding? It was the only thing to look forward to at school.” Yifan laughed but stopped when he remembered. “Then that Monday came where you didn’t come to school. We all thought you had fallen sick but – god – when the school nurse told us you had passed away... we couldn’t believe it. Everything turned bad.”

Yixing frowned, “I missed you guys so much... I guess I should agree my life has improved in some way,” he turned to Yifan with a faint smile, “My friends are back and I’ve made new ones... I’ve left that– that place and I’m about to do what I’ve always wanted.”

Yifan returned the smile. “And you’re going to be excellent. Everything will get better,” He accepted the sudden embrace from Yixing and continued with a sadder tone, “What you’ve been through... those memories, I’m sorry but I’m not sure they will go but there will be good times and then there will be the harder times but then there will be good again.” Yifan held Yixing tighter when he heard him sniff.

“I-I know, I need to accept that... I will, I’m trying.”

“You’re doing good Yixing.”

When Yixing crawled into bed later it was to find Sehun already there curled up under a pile of pillows. Yixing had to dig through the pile before he reached the younger that apparently wasn’t asleep once he was able to reveal his face. Yixing smiled at the boy’s messy hair and sleepy expression. “Hello.”

Sehun yawned, “Hello little bunny.” Yixing’s smile widened, remembering when he found out about that nickname.

“Hello,”

“Hello – why are we saying hello again?” The younger snuffled a laugh when Yixing shrugged his shoulders. “Do you think you will sleep?”

“I may be lucky to get half an hour.” Yixing sighed and joined the other in the bed; he reached for Sehun’s hand and held it tightly.

Sehun squeezed his hand, “try not to think about it too much because you’re going to be perfect, I know you are. One hundred percent positive! Fighting!”

Yixing laughed into the pillow, “Thank you Sehun-ah. I hope so.” Sehun gave a quick kiss to the olders nose, mumbling an apology afterwards for the close contact but Yixing pulled Sehun back by the shirt and kissed his lips briefly. “Thank you – again,” Yixing giggled shyly, “for everything.”

---

Sehun thanked Luhan when he placed the chocolate milk tea on the table. Junmyeon had just closed the cafe for the day but Sehun was able to convince Luhan to make him bubble tea. Sehun snickered to himself when Zitao gave him a role of his eyes.

“Do you drink anything else?”

“Do you wear anything else?” Sehun spat back because he swears Tao has been wearing the same Gucci jacket everyday for over a month now. Tao just rolled his eyes again and Sehun smiled happily while taking a sip from the sweet drink.

“So did Yixing get any sleep last night?” Luhan called from behind the counter where he was counting the shops money with Junmyeon.

“Not much but he was feeling more confident this morning for some reason, not that I’m complaining.” The boys eyes all widened and Sehun tsked, “No, he didn’t take anything... I um asked him.”

“Yeah but it’s not like he hasn’t lied about that before.”

“Told him that too, he got mad...” Sehun sighed and stared off into the distance, “He is hot when he is mad.”

Tao scoffed, “You’re hornier than a teenage boy.”

Baekhyun laughed out loud and finally joined the conversation, “He is basically still a teenager, little nineteen year old.” He ruffled Sehun’s hair making him scowl.

“They’ll be here soon,” Junmyeon said after glancing at his watch, “The auditions ended about thirty minutes ago.”

Yixing and Jongin did arrive ten minutes later, both with worried expressions. “The most nerve wracking thing I’ve ever done.” Jongin sighed, immediately going to where Kyungsoo was. Yixing on the other hand didn’t say a word; he sat at one of the booths, back against the wall and his legs sprawled out in front of him and pulled a joint and a lighter out of his jeans pocket and lit it, inhaling the smoke into his lungs.

“But do you think you did well?” Luhan asked after glancing worriedly at Yixing.

Jongin sighed again, “I did everything I learned, I was a little shaky but I hope it wasn’t too noticeable. I am kind of confident I did okay.”

“Stop, you were perfect.” Kyungsoo interrupted, hugging Jongin tightly around his middle.

“Yixing?”

They all turned to Yixing who was breathing out the smoke, humming afterwards, “I think I did okay.”

“We will hear from them next week. Either it’s going to be a letter of good news or bad news.”

“Whatever it is, at least you did it, you both auditioned and that’s something in itself to be proud of.” Junmyeon concluded with a smile. “Now come and eat all the leftover food we have here.” They all perked up at the word food, not knowing that Junmyeon had been preparing it all on a table whilst they were talking.

When Sehun noticed Yixing not grabbing anything to eat he brought his food over, offering it to the older who refused it with a shake of his head. Sehun frowned, “You’re not happy with how you did?”

Yixing in his bottom lip, biting it a little too hard. “I don’t know – I think I was okay but I got distracted...”

Sehun lifted Yixing’s legs and sat down, resting them now over his lap, “By what?”

Yixing took another drag from the cigarette before speaking again, “I’m not sure if I was imagining it or not but I saw my mu– my mum,” Sehun made an ‘ah’ sound in which the older continued, “She was watching by the exit.” Yixing breathed out through his nose and laughed, “But maybe I’m just seeing things.”

---

A/N - So maybe the next chapter won't be the last anymore haha. I am stuck between not wanting to end it because I have enjoyed writing this story even if it hurts me to write some parts ;_;

Thank you always for all who have read, left comments and subscribed. You all really encouraged me throughout this time ~ xo  |This wasn't edited, I apologise for any mistakes|