Jongin sat with his head in his hands.

“Chill, you’ve been forgiven. See, you made your first friend here!”

He shot Taemin a pointed look.

“Yeah, after I spilled salad and ketchup all over him.”

“You’ll be fine, he’s harmless.”

“What do you know?”

“Do Kyungsoo, same grade as me. Everyone knows who he is, but no one talks to him. Or at least, he talks to no one.”

Taemin shrugs, picking at his sandwich and continuing on.

“He’s this really academically perfect guy. Top scores of the class and sometimes the school, beating the seniors. Seriously, he even looks the part. I have english with him, and he’s literally the epitome of smart. His handwriting is clear, his papers all have 100’s, his eyes are always on the board and the teacher. This guy is no joke.”

This time, he actually takes a bite of the neglected ham and cheese sandwich before resuming.

“Anyways, I’m really surprised he actually talked to us. Let alone, accepted your friend request. I mean, I’ve only ever seen this dude talk to another person when necessary. Even then, the conversations don’t last nearly as long as yours did today. He’s so shy, probably why he doesn’t have friends…”

The two sit in silence after that.

The quiet gives Jongin time to relax for the first time since the start of his hectic, anxiety-filled day. And to think it’s only halfway through. He takes a breath, inhaling on an eight count, exhaling on an eight count. To breathe was to meditate. To count was to focus. One learns that so well as Jongin through years of dance. Like Taemin, he is considered gifted in the art. The talent to gracefully and elegantly cut through air with his limbs. To so skillfully let himself be swept along with melodies lingering in his head. Dance, to Jongin, is more than a stress reliever. It is passion, it is love, it is life. Jongin breathes to dance.

It is how he had met his best friend. His parents enrolled him in Tae Kwon Do at 4 years old. Even at such a premature age, Jongin could tell it wasn’t his calling. Somehow, he’d already been entranced by something else. The world of ballet was introduced to him gradually. There was a dance studio beside the martial arts center that Jongin would pass every Tuesday and Thursday to get to his class. He’d fallen in love with the sophisticated positions the ballerinas could bend themselves into. It was much more preferable than the brash and precise stances he learned in Tae Kwon Do. There was one day where he absolutely refused to move from the window to mirrors and wooden bars to put on his dobak. He provided much protest, and his mother quickly lost her patience.

“What do you want? You’re going to be late! Hurry and move from that window, young man!” She whispered furiously, as to not attract attention to them.

“No! I don’t want to do that! I want to dance, Mama!” Jongin yelled back, finally putting his foot down.

“What are you talking about? You’ve been doing Tae Kwon Do since forever, you love it!”

“No, I want to dance! I want to be like him!” 

Jongin points at a man lifting his partner into the air, grace exuding from them.

“Now, your father wouldn’t like that!”

“I don’t care! I want to dance!”

By now, strangers are giving them looks. Mrs. Kim just gives in.

“You’re in a lot of trouble when we get home, you hear? You’ve got a lot to explain to your father.”

And that’s all she says before pulling him to the martial arts center and cancelling her payment for weekly classes. Not more than seven days later, Jongin is standing in the very room he’d looked into on several occasions. His mother signed him up in a beginner ballet class meant to introduce the basics. To his surprise - his father may or may not have discouraged males practicing such a “feminine” hobby - Jongin was not the only boy in the room. There was a boy who looked oddly similar to himself. He later found his name was Taemin. Through the years, they’d become the best of friends.

It wasn’t much of a surprise that the two didn’t attend the same schools. Taemin lived in one district, and Jongin the next one over. The dance school they went to was prestigious. Taemin had to drive half an hour just to get there. Despite the difference in schools and distance from each other, the two still made time away from dance for each other. When they were still young and having not yet reached that age of everything-about-my-family-is-embarrassing, they would have playdates and call it so. Upon reaching puberty (read as: corruption), things started to change.

Naturally, boys are prone to start thinking about girlsgirlsgirls and hooking up at that tender age. Taemin and Jongin however, did not. They were too occupied with dance and each other. There wasn’t room for anyone or anything else, and there wasn’t a need for it. They were satisfied and had everything as long as they were together. And that was always. Being so close to someone all the time can do things to you. You become dependent on that person. You find you can’t live without them in your life. You realise just how important their presence is to you, and you know it’d kill you if they left you alone. Sometimes, you fall in love with them. Maybe you don’t notice it at first, but soon every little thing they do is the most significant thing in the world. All they do is smile, and you’re seeing them from a new perspective. You're alone in the studio as a soon to be eighth grader and freshman simply staring at each other, and then you’re blushing red. Jongin and Taemin have captivated each other since that day.

Well, not quite. It wasn’t that simple.

“Why is it raining so hard?” Jongin complains.

They were supposed to walk to his house after class ended, but Mother Nature decided it was a good time to flood the Earth and all of its living inhabitants.

“Man, I was really anticipating kicking your in Halo.”

Jongin shoves him into the wall with a pout on his lips.

“Shut up, you’re so vulgar, Tae. Besides, we all know you're all bark and no bite. There’s no way you can beat me at gaming.”

“Need I remind you who actually got you into it?” Taemin scoffs mockingly at how incredulous his best friend is acting. How down right disrespectful it is to speak to someone with more gaming experience like that!

“Oh, whatever. Even if you’ve been playing longer, I’m still way better.”

“You honestly , Jongin.”

“I’d yours.”

It just slips out of his mouth before he even realises.

“What the actual ?” Taemin asks, so, so confused.

“Did I just say that? Oh, . I did not mean that. It’s just a joke.”

In any other situation with any other teenage guy, either one of them would have just brushed it off with a mere ‘no homo’ and a few laughs and maybe a slap on the . But because of the reality of it all, how much secret want has built up in the years, it bothers the both of them. And for the first time since who knows how long, the silence between them is real awkward.

“Jongin.”

“Taemin.”

They say at the same time.

“No, you go ahead.” The older offers, but the other politely declines, leaving them to sit inaudibly again.

They’re gazing into each other’s eyes from across the room, mirrors reflecting the image all around. There are clear flushes in their cheeks, but none give mention to it. In time, the tension wears off and it’s simply Jongin and Taemin again. Best friends with no complications.

But then Jongin starts crawling toward Taemin. 

And Taemin meets him halfway.

Then they're so close to each other.

They can feel the other’s light breath tickling their face.

It just happens after that.

They're leaning forward, encapturing lips with lips.

Time really stops.

Until Taemin abruptly shoves Jongin away.

“What are we doing?” He whispers with panic and uncertainty clear in his voice.

“I don’t know,” Jongin stutters after a minute of not answering.

“Why are we… What does this…” 

Taemin can’t seem to complete his sentences as a frown marrs his [angelic] face. Jongin’s features reflect the other’s as again they do nothing.

“Taemin, I think something’s changed.”

“What do you mean?” He asks, but knows fully well just what Jongin is talking about.

“I mean, I think that we’re not the same as before… It’s not necessarily bad, but it’s just different.”

“I see.

“Do you think the same?”

Taemin gazes at Jongin. Sweet, sweet Jongin. Pure white Jongin who’s never failed to blush at the slightest of vulgarity. His junior, innocent Jongin.

He’s not stupid, he’s seen the change. He understand what Jongin is saying.

Taemin loves him, but maybe he won’t let the other believe that.

Maybe he doesn’t want to take and grab at all the Jongin he can get, only to bask in it while ruining his loveliness with crude actions and much too intense feelings and words.

He swallows his real intentions, wishes, desires, and breathe out something else.

“Jongin, you know I’m not gay.”

And by the way the younger's softly shy smile simply sinks and crumbles, a small part of Taemin regrets ever saying that in the first place.

He continues, with the thought of being the “savior of Jongin’s grace”. It’s a sacrifice he’ll have to make one way or another.

“Is that what you’re talking about? How you feel?”

A nod.

Taemin can tell that dear Jongin is scared to say anything else, and possibly hates the fact that he brought it up initially.

“I didn’t realise it, but now I think I do….”

He scoots so that he’s sitting right beside the other and grasps his hand in his own delicate one.

“Taemin, I’m in love with you.”

Since then it’s been a constant struggle of pushing and pulling away and toward each other. Over time, Jongin can feel, he can just tell that Taemin does indeed love him like that. But it must be hard to think about being with another guy, he concludes. Society isn’t exactly accepting of the behavior, so he lets it go and lives with it.