Strength. He was the embodiment of strength, with the delicacy of a cat, dancing in the almost full ballet room: people were watching him with bemused looks on their faces, as though they couldn’t believe Jongin was the same kid they knew from class, and, in a sense, he wasn't. He was the artist now, his mission was to make them believe he could do anything, to pass on to them the uncontrollable wave of feelings inside him, flying above the pavement. He finished with a pirouette, collapsing theatrically on to the floor . Every sound was muffled by the rhythm of his heart pounding so fast he had to take a few moments to calm himself down.

Many people went to congratulate to him, along with a few of the talent scouts. He accepted a few cards, not even bothering to hide his huge smile. Sehun came and hugged him tightly, patting hum hard on the back.

“You were amazing man! You made everybody drool for you”

The two burst out laughing, exiting the room, grinning at each other when something, or rather someone, made Jongin stop on his feet: Kyungsoo was looking at them with his usual dreamy look in his eyes, a little smile spread across his lips, earphones tightly clenched in his right fist.

“I wanted to watch the performance but I only managed to get a glimpse of the end, I’m sorry”

Jongin turned his head to see Chanyeol and Baekhyun who were talking to a professor back in the ballet room, them met his gaze again with the short boy.

“Sehun I…”

The young man didn’t need to be asked twice and excused himself with a sly grin, giving Jongin two discrete thumbs up.

“Congratulation. You seem to have aced this performance” said the boy with a neutral tone, glancing sideways at Jongin.

He was covered with sweat from head to toe and a particular ray of sun had decided to land on his body, making him sparkle like a crystal, enhancing the power of his smile to conquer: many girls were looking at him and giggling from the distance, some of them even taking pictures and suddenly Kyungsoo felt extremely out of place.

“If… if you can wait for me to get changed we can go grab something to eat” said Jongin in a whisper, but Kyungsoo’s head was now filled with hundreds of alarm bells.

All that attention, all those eyes, all that white noise… he hated it. He felt something growing in his lungs, blocking the air from getting in or out, so he did the only thing he could think of: he ran away.

It was Chanyeol who found him, sitting on the floor of the music room, with his earphones pushed into his ears and his hands over them, to block all the outside silence. The tall boy collapsed next to him and carefully removed the earphones and pulled his friend in a bear hug.

“Are you ok?” he asked with his low voice.

“Yeah, I think. I got a little scared back there, but it’s ok now”

“I don’t understand; there wasn’t silence, actually there was a ton of noise a voices. What happened?”

Kyungsoo bit his lip and scratched his neck.

-I have no idea. One moment I was talking to Jongin and the other I thought I was suffocating on my own breath. Maybe it was the environment: I felt totally out of place, like I didn’t belong there. Do you understand or am I being delirious?-

Chanyeol flashed him with one of his famous smiles.

-Of course I understand, I’m your best friend. Next time we will figure it out together, ok?-

Kyungsoo couldn’t do anything else but mirror the friend’s happiness: how could he have been so selfish? He had many wonderful friends ready to help him. He accepted the hand Chanyeol was offering and got up.

-Thank you-

-Found him. he is with me and Baekhyun now, he’s ok-

Jongin sighted in relief: he had seen Kyungsoo get pale as a ghost and suddenly sprinting down the hallway, disappearing from his sight. Without even thinking about what he was doing he grabbed Baekhyun’s arm and mumbled something about what had happened. Fortunately, the two didn’t seemed new to the situation and quickly assigned each other school areas to search.

He was in the library when he got Chanyeol text and felt like a weight had been lifted from his shoulders. He was drenched in sweat, still in his dancing clothes, so he decided to head to the changing room to have a shower.

He closed his eyes under the water jet leaving to the soothing sensation to wash his thoughts away, but it didn’t work: was it his fault that Kyungsoo had a panic attack? Something he had said, something he had done? He had to talk to him as soon as possible, but he knew he probably needed at least a night of deep sleep, so, when he got out of the shower, he called his father to come pick him up.

His father was a well-built man just like him, bust a little less tall and with short grey hair. He was a strict dad, but also knew how to be kind to his family and always sensed if something was wrong with his son.

-Do you want to talk now or do I have to wait for you to come startle me this night?- chuckled his Mr. Kim, knowing the son’s habit to wake him in the middle of the night to talk about his problems, calling from his cell phone and murmuring not to wake Yixing, if he was home.

-No, I… am very confused. I’ve made some new friends at the summer lectures and today one of them had a panic attack while he was talking to me. I had just asked him out to eat something when he went pale and started running-

Mr. Kim fell deep in thought for a moment, his eyebrows furrowed and his index finger tapping on the steering wheel.

-How is this kid? Describe him to me-

Jongin mouthed something, without emitting sounds. He didn’t know where to begin…

-He is a very reserved person, he rarely talks if not to his close friends. Every time I see him he is listening to music or dreaming the reality away, always looking at the sky. I can never predict what he wills ay next; he is a mystery to me-

His dad smiled.

-Very interesting. Maybe he found himself in a stressful situation while he was talking to you. If he is your friends, it is very unlikely that you are the cause of his panic attack, or he would have avoided you from the start-

Jongin looked at his dad in disbelief: how could someone who collected stuffed toys in his free time be so wise? Then again, he was the one watching Pororo with his mother when he went back home, so he couldn’t judge.

______________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Cute Jongin is my week point, maybe even more than y Jongin. And we see Kyungsoo slowly coming undone, so who knows what my disturbed mind will create next ^__^