Jonghyun laid his head on a bar counter, with half-closed eyes watching colorless chaos of a smoky, sultry room. People were dancing, ran amok, as if tomorrow would never come, letting their greed to break the bonds of their willpower and take control over their sweaty bodies, flowing along the music. Jonghyun felt horrible. Jonghyun felt horrible and even the glass that was standing in front of him could not work miracles about it. In its transparent surface the lights of the past reflected, decorating this whole dizzy party with an overtone of grotesque. For a brief moment Kim considered if it wouldn’t be better for him to just imperceptibly vanish from the bar stool, fade in the shadows of the night, lonelily bearing his sudden sadness. But he didn’t manage to make any move. From the tumult of carelessly bouncing people emerged a familiar boy, who immediately headed into his direction.

‘Hyung, you look terrible,’ Taemin said, at the same time comfortably placing himself on a stool next to Jonghyun. The boy’s body was heated from dancing, his eyes sparkling happily, informing the whole world that he was having a great time. He looked around carefully and leaned to Jonghyun. ‘Do I look the same?’ he asked, concerned. Kim glanced at him, studying his long hair, partly ruffled, partly wet from sweat. Notwithstanding, Taemin looked good. He always looked good. Jonghyun shook his head deniably, receiving a suspicious gaze of crinkled eyes. Eventually, Taemin tied his hair, forming a tiny, cute pony tail, intensifying his natural sweetness which he would always try to hide by coming to places like this.

‘Where have you lost Minho?’ Jonghyun asked, automatically trying to fill in the conversation. Honestly, he didn’t really care where this frog-eyed guy was wandering, because he always finally ended up right next to Taemin.

‘I’m here,’ said a deep, almost fading in the welter of sounds voice, confirming Jonghyun’s thoughts. Minho pulled up a stool for himself, placing it right behind Taemin, closely enough to embrace the boy’s waist with his hands and lay his chin on his shoulder. The younger one smiled to this tender gesture, placing his fingers in his lover’s hair and ruffling it caressingly. Observing this lovely picture of theirs didn’t make Jonghyun’s situation any better. It made it even worse. Now he was quite sure that if he don’t escape quickly, this evening won’t end well to anyone.

‘You know… maybe I’ll just…’ he mumbled, but the two pairs of eyes gave him such a sharp gaze that he wasn’t quite sure how to finish his sentence. He didn’t want his friends to think about him as some churl. If he accepted their invitation, they probably expected him to have fun, just like they did. Unfortunately, such scenario was doomed to failure.

‘Hyung, what’s wrong?’ asked Minho, studying friend with his careful dark eyes. ‘I hoped you’ll chill out a bit, but you look like something the cat dragged in…’

‘It’s not like… it’s just… just the place…’ mumbled Jonghyun, not quite sure if he’s willing to explain the reason for his miserableness to anyone.

‘Hyung, you said you used to go to discotheques in the past!’ interrupted Taemin, clearly concerned with the situation. ‘I thought… we thought that if you come here, it will help you to bring back the better days of yours…’

His words hurt Jonghyun more than he would ever expect. Better days? They might look like this in a perspective of memories. But they weren’t good at all. And even so, his heart still missed them, fondly, stupidly.

‘I’m just…’ he stopped as he had no idea what he should say. When he watched this lovely couple, oozing with happiness that they were constantly giving each other, he felt his own mind slowly drowning in hopelessness of the past that haunted him even now. Especially now. He wasn’t even sure if he really wants to escape from anticipating gazes of his friends anymore. He was afraid of another day of hiding in the cave of his sadness, because he knew how tragic effect might it bring. For the very first time he felt a strange urge to speak, to get these memories that kept hiding in words and pictures off his chest, as they always waylaid in his mind, waiting for a good moment to attack him again.

‘Will you tell us, hyung?’ Taemin was looking at him with this big eyes full of sympathy. He wanted to help Jonghyun. But was helping even possible? It was all over. The past was covered with cigarette ash, buried under a pile of gray, everyday matters, from time to time starting to subtly glow again. Nevertheless, under the power of this two awaiting gazes, Jonghyun unintentionally reached to the depth of his memory, segregating chaotic recalls, wondering where he should start, if he should start.

‘I don’t know…’ he said, escaping from looking at his friends, locating his eyes on his own hands. ‘It’s rather hopeless story…’ His statement met with a silence full of patience. He loudly breathed in, getting ready to embody shapes of thoughts that up to this day were closed in his mind and his heart, trammeled with bonds of solitude.

‘It was…’ he started, suddenly feeling so irrational. Did he really plan to finally share this ballast with someone else? Moreover, did he really plan to do it in such place? Place that marked his words with an ironic overtone. ‘It was a long time ago, before I met you,’ he finished his sentence, but in a moment new words escaped from his mouth. ‘If I knew you then, maybe I would have a different conception of love…’ he claimed, surprised with himself.

‘I knew it’s all about love,’ said Taemin, smiling cutely into Minho’s direction. Suddenly Jonghyun realized that these two probably made a bet about the reason of the state of his mind. But he gave up on asking, because those pictures stored in his memory took control over his words.

‘Was it love…?’ Kim threw a question mark in a space, being aware of the fact that he’s the only person able to answer.

‘What was his name?’ Taemin was watching his friend with a growing curiosity, probably demanding more details about a romantic love story, that he created in his head. Jonghyun felt a bitter aftertaste in his mouth, as he imagined his friend’s face when he’ll finish his story. If he finish his story.

‘Kibum,’ he answered, saying this word out loud for the first time in ages; thousands days soaked with desperate attempts to forget. The name sounded weirdly when not said tenderly, nor furiously, nor even with despair. As if the colorless tone of his voice stole the original meaning of this word. The meaning that was forgotten by everyone, buried, left alone. ‘Kim Kibum,’ he said, aware of the fact that that was the point of no return. That the story once started had to meet its end.

~*~

I was sitting with my chin resting on a bar counter, watching shards of fun that fell to a glass and stuck in there, swirling between its transparent edges. I wasn’t quite sure how did I get there, was it someone’s suggestion or just my own manifest of solitude. But I didn’t feel well between all of those people with their bodies controlled by the waves of music. As I watched them, I came to a conclusion that that was the actual reason for me coming there. To observe. To try to understand what pleasure do those people find in unmeasured chaos and madness of partying. However, my effort didn’t bring any understanding and all I could see was red lights blinking in my mind, informing me that my ears won’t survive another wave of loud music. I taped my own knee with my fingers, emptying my glass. I was about to leave, but something, maybe my tragic instinct, ordered me to glance at the crowd of people once again.

Someone caught my eyes, as he emerged from the faceless mass of bodies. Not only was it his extravagant looks and outstanding hair. The whole figure seemed to emanate with some unexplainable confidence, partly hidden in a crooked smile, partly waylaying in a pair of dark eyes. Even the way of moving was extraordinary, catching many eyes. For a brief moment I was sitting frozen, letting myself to do the exact thing that I came here for – to observe. A few seconds later a delicate fragrance of perfumes mixed with a smell of sweat and alcohol, scattered the atmosphere around me.

‘Hi, doggie.’ The voice, quiet and yet outstanding from the unvarying musical mosaic in the background, sneaked into my ears, demanding me to turn around. This weird stranger destroyed my imaginary anonymity, guaranteed by the mass of indifferent people. I didn’t came here to make new acquaintances, I came to watch them from the distance, without a necessity to interfere. ‘Would you dance with me?’ he asked, with a lazy gesture leaning on the counter and reaching for one of full glasses. A black, elegant scarf, once probably entangling his neck, now hanged loose on his bare arms. A tank top exposed his sharp collarbones, and pink fringe emphasized flush on pale cheeks. I was wandering what this bathing in lights and shadows figure reminds me of. There was something catlike in this boy and I certainly meant the belligerent side of this word. Music seemed to pulsate in those dark eyes that looked at me hurryingly, not to say – hungrily.

‘I don’t…’ I started, but my excuse didn’t manage to be told, because in this very moment I felt the content of a full glass landing on my face, wetting my hair and clothes.

‘You’re on a discotheque. Don’t talk that you don’t dance,’ the stranger said, with a calm tone of voice. As calm as a purring of a cat; the sound foretelling the attack.

‘Are you screwed up?’ I shouted, looking at my own self in disbelief, feeling the smell of alcohol soaking in me, stigmatizing me with the same party curse as all the rest of people in the club. And in between this amok, the catlike stranger seemed to be the only master of his fate, adoringly bathing in the colorful chaos.

‘Not yet…’ he said and before I realized what his words meant, I felt a surprisingly cold hand on my wrist. Some unmeasured power was pulling me straight into the animal-like crowd and I unwittingly surrendered to it. I wasn’t quite sure how did it happen. I could search for the reason in my disorientation caused by this stranger and his unpredictable behavior. There was also a possibility that I became a victim of the omnipresent blindness, floating in the smoky air along with alcohol and music. But the truth was ridiculous and banal.

~*~

‘You fell in love!’ cut in Taemin, watching his friend with sparkles in his eyes. Sometimes he really acted like a teenage girl.

‘No, it’s not like…’

‘What do you mean no? It fits perfectly!’

‘Minnie… you cannot fall in love so easily…’ Jonghyun said, but he stopped, seeing the telling glances of his friends. ‘Okay, maybe you can, but it doesn’t always work like that! Not everyone meets a prince from a fairytale…’

‘And you? Who did you meet?’ asked Taemin with unchangeable enthusiasm. Jonghyun fell silent for a moment, deeply thinking about the answer. Describe Kibum in a few mere sentences was a task just impossible to do. But if Jonghyun was to choose one only word, it would certainly be…

‘Mayhem,’ he answered confidently, tasting the sound of this long forgotten word; word that brought too many colorful memories to function in a language of everyday life. Taemin and Minho stayed silent for a moment, unsure how to react. Finally, Taemin spoke again.

‘You danced, didn’t you?’ he asked, waking Jonghyun up from this numbness that fell on him, caused by too many pictured, suddenly flooding his mind. Kim felt as if elaborately built dam unexpectedly broke, letting the river of memories cover his eyes. He shook his head and glanced at Taemin unconsciously.

‘What?’ he said, making his longhaired friend sigh dramatically.

‘Did you two dance on that evening in the club?’ he repeated slowly, this time assuring himself that Jonghyun is listening to him.

‘Oh…’ The older was still deep in his thoughts. ‘Yeah, I think you could say that…’

‘And how was it?’ Taemin became enthusiastic again and Jonghyun, for the first time this evening, took a liberty of smiling.

‘It was… a mayhem.’

~*~

As soon as my feet met the dancefloor, I was almost sure it’s a dream, not reality. I felt lost in the vortex of bodies, surrounded by incomprehensive madness painted on faces, materializing in wild moves. I did not know who was this part of me that let this situation happened. I’ve always avoided parties, convincing myself that it’s all about a little bit of stupidity, mixed with an urge to waste time in companion of similar people. But this evening was different. Real entangled with unreal, disorientating my senses, making it impossible to find once lost rationality. Thoughts were interpenetrating in the air, charming with their misshapen contours, forbidding me to catch them in their true form. And in the middle of this mess was him, the wellspring of my sudden madness.

The catlike stranger seemed to be the unwritten king of this wilderness that surrounded us. With a proud face he studied each shadow, flowing around us. The pulsating in those shaped eyes seemed to get more intense with every musical tone, attuning to the beat or – what in this moment was quite probable to me – being the wellspring of the music itself. The stranger leaned back and started to drown in the bacchanalian current, with each movement building the new definition of his perfection. His hands wandered on his own body, as he unlocked another level of sensuality, just to destroy my composure, to ruin my world view.

That night this stranger showed to me what the freedom was. At least that’s what I thought. His sparkling eyes chained up my own, turning me into a prisoner in a golden cage, the only watcher of the ecstasy hiding under the cover of shadows. It was the boy’s eyes that encased the whole scale of colorful experiences, as his body met the music, which suddenly seemed to be one of the elements that ruled this world. In those incredible eyes I saw life. The life that I’ve been stubbornly and helplessly searching for on the bar stool and in the depth of my glass. The life that allured me with the sweet oblivion, enslaved me with irrationality of a moment, that flowed around me along with the cigarette smoke. Never before had I thought that the gist of life may be hidden in such simple thing. However, watching the stranger, chaotically and yet gracefully moving to the rhythm, I came to a conclusion that there are no simple things in this world. When he danced, dancing stopped being an obvious way of passing the time. This boy lifted the dance to the rank of mystery, something rationally unexplainable, something getting straight to my heart, that missed an impossibility.

It was a freedom in chaos. Liberation in madness. That night I became a part of this never before discovered world.

~*~

‘You’ve never mentioned you like to dance so much,’ spoke Taemin, observing his friend with eyes wide open as if he wasn’t quite sure if the told story was true. It was hard for him to imagine Jonghyun drowning in the magic of sounds, it just did not fit him.

‘You’ve got me wrong,’ answered the elder, shaking his head deeply in thoughts. ‘I didn’t mean my dancing…’ he mumbled, wandering how to put his thoughts in words. ‘Minho, what do you feel while watching Taemin dancing?’ he asked, turning to the silent male, who until this very moment seemed to be concentrated on playing with his boyfriend’s long hair. Hearing Jonghyun’s question, he cleared his throat nervously, not sure how to react.

‘I… I mean… he’s…’ he stuttered, flustered. This sudden nervous behavior contrasted with his typical stoic expression. Taemin smiled brightly, perfectly understanding Minho’s chaotic statement. He turned around just to gift the speechless boy with a tender kiss. Then he concentrated on the story once again.

‘Exactly…’ spoke Jonghyun, nodding his head. ‘I felt exactly the same. The fact that observing a complete stranger drives me crazy didn’t make my situation any better. I felt like a ert, at the same time justifying my own self with those beautiful words about life and freedom. So, as you can see, I didn’t mean my dancing, but his. The dance of this particular, one of a kind person.

‘And what happened next? After the dance was finished?’ asked Taemin, unable to bear his curiosity.

‘Nothing…’

‘What do you mean nothing?! Didn’t you two talk to each other?’ The youngest male frowned, surprised. Jonghyun sighed heavily, but allowed himself to smile with a dose of nostalgia.

‘I’ve lost him… He disappeared somewhere in this mayhem,’ he said, trying hard not to taste this bitter disappointment once again. He was stupid, building the whole myth of uniqueness around this one, ordinary dance. He knew it well.

 ‘I got it,’ unexpectedly spoke Minho. ‘He gave you his number,’ he claimed with confidence, pointing at his friend with his finger.

‘How did you know?’ Jonghyun was surprised, but Minho only shrugged, avoiding answering. Unsuccessfully.

‘Yeah, how? Are you possibly a specialist in the art of hitting on handsome guys?’ spoke Taemin with a suspicious tone of voice. He glanced at his boyfriend, pouting accusingly and unintentionally getting ten times cuter than he usually was.

‘Of course I am. Otherwise, I wouldn’t manage to hold such a perfect boy in my arms right now,’ said Choi, giving a proper answer as always. Taemin rolled his eyes, this time avoiding Minho’s lips.

‘Did you call?’ he asked and Jonghyun’s expression changed into unpleasant grimace.

‘I realized the next morning, as soon as I found a little piece of paper inside of the pocket of my trousers. I have no idea how did he manage to place it there. But there it was again. The chaos inside of my head. I wasn’t quite sure if I really want to have this kind of relationship. I was afraid what would I hear on the other side of the phone, how naughty and impropriate propositions would I receive from the king of the dancefloor, who in the light of the day seemed to be only a distant memory, too much unreal to be a part of reality. I did not want to be a one night stand and I was aware of the fact that this might have been the exact thing the stranger wanted from me. However, my body didn’t want to cooperate with my mind. I was dying to drown in this pulsing melody of his catlike eyes once again.

‘Called him or not?!’ said Taemin, impatiently.

‘Yes, of course I did…’ Jonghyun gave his friends a crooked smile.

‘And? You fixed a date?’

‘Not exactly…’

‘What? He blew you off?’ Taemin asked with dangerous sparkle in his eyes. Jonghyun shook his head.

‘No, it’s not…’

‘So what did he say?’ The long-haired boy’s curiosity was endless. Kim sighed, recalling those incomprehensible and alarming words that he could repeat even abruptly awaken in the middle of the night.

“You’re looking for the king of the dancefloor? Unavailingly. This Key is dead and he won’t rise again. I’ll strew his miserable ashes by Han River. Maybe the wind will sweep his existence off the earth.”

~*~

The same dirty place, the same air, lacking of oxygen, the same shapeless wave of people. I was here again, sentencing another evening to uselessness. But this time, I had an aim. I was deluding myself that the catlike stranger will appear in the club. I unintentionally hoped that I’ll experience a déjà vu, that I’ll drown in the mist that surrounded this unreal person once again.

His husky voice still rang in my ears.

‘Key is dead…’ he said about himself and I racked my brain to understand what did he actually mean.

Maybe it’s stupid, maybe naïve, but I wanted to get to know him. That’s all. I wanted to find the answers, I wanted to plumb the mystery of those two dark eyes that were able to pin me down to the dancefloor.

Or maybe I just didn’t know what to do with my free time? A lonely man, existing in an imitation of life. A moth that follows the lights of unreachable fun, looking for a fulfillment. In my eyes the catlike stranger was the personification of those fantasies and desires that lived inside of me. When he ruled the dancefloor he seemed to hold the fullness of life in his hands, to diffuse it around him, to welter in it with a shameless, for me unreachable pleasure, that possessed the depth of his eyes.

I craved for this levity, I wanted to experience it, I wanted to learn living in such a way that each moment would be full of the real colors of life. Colors that until now were too far, too bright, too dangerous for me to reach.

‘You’re stubborn, aren’t you?’ I shivered, feeling a warm breath on my nape. I turned around and met widely smiling lips and bright with playfulness eyes. ‘Are you so enchanted by me?’ asked Key, winking in such professional way, as if he was doing it few times a day.

I cleared my throat, suddenly unsure if me waiting for him was such a great idea. What is more, my eyes didn’t want to listen to my brain, continuously sneaking up on bare skin of boy’s arms and travelling along his jawline. Everything that I’ve concluded, all these sophisticated theories about life and happiness, suddenly disappeared, faded in the darkness of the club, dissolved in the scent of perfume. I drowned in an emptiness of my own mind.

‘Will you dance with me?’ I heard a quiet question again and the whisper was peremptory. Or it was just me who didn’t want to oppose. I stood up, heading to the dancefloor. I thought that Key would follow, but I felt his hand on my arm instead. I stopped, feeling that my nape is becoming a victim of this warm breath once again.

‘We won’t be dancing in here…’ he whispered and took my hand, pulling in doors direction.

And that was the moment I should have backed off, leave the memory of a smoky club and equally misty eyes behind and go back to reality. But I was too weak to resist this boy that was pulling me through the darkness of a corridor. He seemed to know the labyrinth of private rooms by heart, leading me confidently in unknown direction. I knew that he had pace this distance million times before, holding hands of different lucky blind men, fished out from the crowd. I wasn’t any better than them, letting him to pull me to one of plain bedrooms, existing only in one purpose.

‘Make yourself comfortable,’ said Key lightly, pointing at a small fridge, full of beer. I obediently followed his suggestion, trying hard not to think and not to analyze the situation. I took to bottles of beer. I searched for an opener and froze. Music filled the air of small room, insidiously seeping from a radio placed in the corner. I slowly turned my head and unwittingly inhaled.

Key smirked, satisfied with my reaction. He was lying on a bed in a seductive pose. He didn’t even have to do much to be a professional seducer, to be honest. He was just born this way. Duskiness of the room was outlining his sharp facial lines and this specific kind of lazy iness, that I couldn’t resist. Key touched his body slowly, closing his eyes and biting his lip. I don’t remember how did it happen that few seconds later I was sitting on a bed next to him, feeding my eyes with every fragment of pale skin.

‘Let’s dance, doggie,’ Key purred, locking me with his insidious, nasty gaze again.

‘It’s stupid…’ I said, surprising not only my companion, but also myself. He gave me a long stare, apparently not used to such unreasonable attitude. I came here with him voluntarily, after all. Why would I suddenly start to judge him?

‘Pardon?’ he spoke. I could hear a warning in his voice, as if he was giving me a last chance to reconsider my dumb behavior.

‘So this is what you do?’ I asked, spreading my arms and with eyebrows raised, searching for at least little sign of shame on his face. I haven’t found it. Key gave me a pert smirk.

‘This is the essence of life, don’t you think? I do whatever I want to do, not thinking about yesterday, not worrying about tomorrow. It’s my key to freedom,’ he answered confidently. His words surprised me so much, that I haven’t noticed the moment he approached me, his knees drowning in the sea of sheets. ‘Am I not attractive enough?’ he purred to my ear with a low, husky voice, waking up the most wild instincts inside of me.

And that was the moment I wanted to run away. I wanted to leave him alone in his licentiousness. I wanted to reject this imposed role of one-night stand. But I failed on the battlefield of morality.

‘You don’t even know my name…’ I spoke weakly, trying to defend the last fortress of reasonableness in my overheated mind.

‘Not important…’ he whispered, leaning on me, his lips almost touching mine.

‘Jonghyun,’ I introduced myself quickly. I didn’t want to be remembered as an anonymous that once got lost in the bed of the cat king.

Key stayed still for a moment, looking deep into my eyes, casting an unknown spell on me. The space around as was stubbornly quiet and even the music wasn’t loud enough to disturb the sound of our beating hearts.

‘Jonghyun,’ he repeated quietly.

And then the dance that was hanging in the air started. The composition of tongues and lips, embodying the desires of hearts. Key attacked me, each movement confident, each touch graceful, each stare full of lust, that was burning inside of depths of his orbs. But his domination didn’t last long. I felt him getting weaker, surrendering to me, expecting me to lead this strange dance to the end.

That was the moment I started to hesitate. I had control over the situation. I could part from his sinful lips and just leave. For him it was just another night, the same as yesterday’s or tomorrow’s. For me it was a battle of honor and my own good. I knew he won’t even remember my name. And I will be thinking about him for days and weeks, devastating myself with the memory of those too charming lips and of the scent of his perfume. I should have backed off when I had a chance.

But I gone forward instead.

Betraying my own self and crossing out all of exclamation marks that appeared in my mind, I attacked Key’s lips with double strength, giving vent to desire that I could not control anymore.

And then something unexpected happened. My wild kisses pushed Key on the edge of the bed and he fell from it. However, what was the most shocking was his further behavior.

‘Are you okay?’ I asked, slowly getting back to my senses. I leaned on the edge of the bed to check if nothing serious happened.

Key was lying on his back, half entangled in sheets. Lying and staring at the ceiling. The silence that possessed the room was much heavier this time, as the radio stopped playing a long time ago. Something strange was hanging in the air, something strange was hiding in Key’s eyes. And then he started laughing. He was laughing and staring blankly at the ceiling. He was laughing and all the mysteriousness, all this seductiveness disappeared from his face, making place for a bitter, broken smile and a dim light of eyes.

‘Key?’

‘What the hell are you waiting for, huh? Take me! Take me on the floor, if I’m not good to do this in a bed!’ he shouted with despair, still shaking from this insane laugh that coldly stung my ears. ‘I’m the king of a party, take me when you can! You won’t get a second chance,’ he spoke, drowning in his own hopelessness, losing the value of his own existence. Suddenly I remember the words that I heard when I called him many days ago. And there he was laying, my catlike seducer, the one that broke my containment and woke up nasty desires. There he was lying, trying not to fall apart into tiny pieces. Not to get lost in the labyrinth of his own life.

‘Key to freedom, huh?’ I muttered bitterly and left the bed, finding my place on the uncomfortable floor, next to Key. He lied still for a while, waiting for further kisses and touches. When I didn’t do anything, he slowly turned his head in my direction. His stare was so complicated, so chaotic. How many contrary thoughts and emotions must have been hiding behind those dark orbs?

‘Do I repel you?’ he asked quietly, almost desperately. ‘I must look terrible.’ He rubbed his hand across his face. His words surprised me. Even in this particular moment he was beautiful, drowning in the shadows of his complicated existence, with his sensitivity.

‘Everyone sometimes looks terrible,’ I answered and covered his shaking in the stuffiness of the room arms with a fabric of sheet. He kept on staring at me, his eyes mixing hesitation and forced taunt.

‘You’re an idiot,’ he eventually spoke. ‘You should take a chance, not…’

He haven’t finished his sentence, because I firmly pulled him into embrace of my arms. He stiffened as if he wasn’t used to this simple type of tenderness. Tenderness that didn’t demand anything in return. Finally he surrendered to the rhythm of my breathing, closing his eyes and hiding in my embrace.

We were lying like this for a long time. My thoughts were flying across the room, bouncing from the walls and getting back to my head. I wasn’t sure what have I just entangled myself into and how stupid was my behavior. All I knew is that this lost boy in my arms was in a desperate need for help and I won’t rest until his life will be repaired.

‘Jonghyun?’ The quiet voice spoke, pulling me out of my deep thoughts. I glanced at the boy that was snuggled into my chest. He was so fragile and vulnerable that he seemed to be a different person than the cat king that I’ve met a while ago.

‘Hm?’ I mumbled, not sure what to expect. He was as changeable as a spring afternoon.

‘I think Key is dying again…’ he whispered, his words quiet and yet remarkable. ‘I wish he won’t come back…’ he added, barely audibly, and closed his eyes again, this time falling asleep.
 

~*~

‘This is so romantic!’ claimed Taemin, chaotically gesticulating with his hands.

‘Not exactly…’ spoke Jonghyun, but he didn’t manage to change his friend’s opinion.

‘Of course it is! You found the real, sensitive Kibum, under the mask of pretenses, and became his safe hiding place!’

‘No… Actually…’

‘What was next, hyung? You’ve became a couple?’ asked Taemin, stubborn as always. Jonghyun sighed loudly, already a bit tired with his own story. For his young friend everything seemed so simple, as if he still haven’t got rid of a childish innocence. But the reality was completely different, painfully hard.

 ‘Our relationship was quite… complicated,’ he finally spoke, not sure how to explain it, how to properly show image of those stormy days of the past.

‘But everything was alright already!’ The youngest boy couldn’t notice a mistake in his way of thinking. ‘You should have just…’

‘Taemin,’ cut in Minho, warningly. Taemin glared at him accusingly, but blew over, giving the story back to its owner.

‘It was complicated… He was complicated…’ said Jonghyun, having hard time explaining his own thoughts. ‘He was a contradiction. Surprising in the variety of its contrasts.’ He closed his eyes, catching timid memories. ‘After that silent, spent in the melody of our breathes night, we parted, each one going his own way. I thought that he will call, or maybe at least send a message. I was deluding myself that those dark, but soothing hours was special to him, as much as they were to me. But the only thing I had were long moments of silence, disturbed by ticking of a clock. It took me a long time to make a first step. And even when I gained enough courage to call him, I received barely few words of excuses. During a day Key was unreachable, avoiding me as much as he could. But during a night… Once I decided to call him at evening. Not only did he answered, but also enthusiastically agreed to set up a meeting.

‘I don’t understand,’ claimed Taemin, frowning as he tried to keep up with his friend’s story.

‘And I didn’t understand, neither.’ Jonghyun slowly nodded. ‘I needed many days and nights to fathom out the essence of Kim Kibum. Every smile, every flash of eyes gave me a new light on his figure. Kibum was terribly lost, entangled in the life that he built up himself. Ensnared by his own illusion of happiness. He was a king of each party, in fact. He could dance for the whole night, drowning in swirl of colors and sounds, getting lost in sensuality of a moment, at the same time searching for himself, the same as he wanted to be – strong, confident, life and people-proof. Weeks were passing and I could see all of these flaws, at night hidden in darkness, but exposed by the light of a day. Sometimes it felt like dealing with two different people. Kibum was silent and calm, hiding in shadows and greys of sunrise, trying to handle numerous complexes and drastically low self-esteem. Kibum was perpetually fighting with Key, who wanted craziness, who desired chaos in which he felt freely and safe, as it seemed to be, ironically, his hiding place. In time, I finally got to understand the meaning of those words that I once heard through the speaker of my phone. ‘Key is dead’ meant the same as ‘I’m abandoning this kind of life, I want to be normal again’. The problem was that he never really managed to break up with the night side of his personality. He was always losing the fight, leaving house again, in the mist of perfume, with catlike stare and ironical smirk.’ Jonghyun stopped speaking, once again lost in his own words.

‘And what about you, hyung?’ spoke Minho. ‘What was your duty in all of this?’

‘Just… being,’ he said without hesitation. ‘My presence was subtle as I tried to be his waypoint, a permanent support in the mess of his life.’

‘Did you do well?’ asked youngest friend and Jonghyun sighed heavily.

‘Averagely… sometimes he treated me like air. I still don’t know how did I manage to deal with all of his moodiness, really. Maybe my determination was provided by those special, little moments in which I could notice changes in Kibum’s behavior. He was trying, he was trying harder and harder to set free from this madness, to come back to normal life, to leave dissipation behind him.’

‘It’s thanks to you, hyung,’ claimed Taemin, nodding his head in excitement. Jonghyun replied with a smile.

‘Maybe… I won’t deny, sometimes I was extremely proud of myself, whenever I managed to keep him at home or go for a pizza with him at evening. Cut him off this addicting world of parties. And even though Kibum would never admit it himself, I felt that he became somehow attached to me. He grew more and more casual around me. I wouldn’t call it a full trust, something like that probably was impossible in his case. But he knew I want the best for him and let me be around, sometimes even secretly enjoying our meetings, hiding delight behind malicious words.’

‘He just fell in love with you,’ commented Taemin, but quickly closed his mouth, shot by two impatient glares.

‘It’s not exactly like this…’ Jonghyun frowned. ‘We wasn’t a couple, and since the night spent on the floor, I haven’t even touched him once…’

‘What?’ The youngest eyes widened in surprise.

‘I didn’t want him to feel with me the same as he felt with all those guys that ended up in his bed, and I knew well that men of this kind still existed around him. That was not what I intended to get. I was afraid that if I make such step, Kibum will completely clam up. He could destroy our delicate relation with just one slam of the door. Kibum needed a friend. Someone who will understand his problems and subtly turn him back to proper way of life if necessary, not expecting anything in repay, maybe apart from a few hours spent together on cooking or watching movies.’

‘So how did it happen that you became a couple eventually? You lost your patience?’ asked Minho. Jonghyun shook his head, one corner of his lips lifting up in a smirk.

‘He did.’

~*~

I abruptly put an emptied glass on the bar counter, a loud sound boldly tearing a musty silence of a club. I wasn’t quite sure what Kibum had in his mind, inviting me to such place. It was surprisingly and completely empty, what made a strange contrast with clubs that we usually visited.

‘What are you doing, hm?’ I asked, watching Kibum as he hang a sign “Closed” on the front door and turned around, heading to the dancefloor.

‘I decided that it’s about time for a little training session,’ he claimed, glancing at me briefly.

‘Training?’ I was confused. Kibum smiled at me sneakily.

‘Sometimes you go with me for parties and discos, but you can’t even dance!’ He shook his head on my miserableness.

‘No. Don’t you even think about it…’ I spoke with a warning in my voice. But my harsh words were useless against stubbornness in Kim Kibum’s eyes. A strange expression wandered around his face. Something that appeared sometimes near his eyes or mouth, and faded as soon as I managed to notice it. His smile was bothering me, annoying me, teasing me, causing unreasonable squeeze inside of my chest.

‘Hyung, turn on the music,’ he asked, and I gave him a surprised look. Nearby shadows enveloped his strangely shiny eyes and for a brief moment I really wanted to fulfill his request. Luckily, my common sense was still there to help me in resisting my friend’s charm. I shook my hand dismissively.

‘Skip those antics…’ I mumbled in a reluctant way, monitoring his reaction.

As you could expect of Key, he didn’t pay much attention to my attitude. Without a word he headed to the dancefloor that flashed dangerously in the dim light of a room. Something alarming was springing from the air around us, something was murmuring among the shadows, something was demanding attention in the inside of my body and my mind. Something rattled in my chest, as I watched Kibum placing himself in the center of the dancefloor and paralyzing me with his strong stare. I knew him for a couple of weeks, but he still was a mystery to me, with his dark eyes that invited shadows and his full lips, always charmed with inscrutable expression. I didn’t know if it was for the impatience in case of our weird relationship, or if it was just for the alcohol that I drank, but for a brief moment I let myself think that Kibum is extremely y in this creased shirt and ripped jeans. The moment was short but crazy enough to make my heart beat in a new rhythm.

‘Hyung, turn on the music,’ Key asked again, his voice strangely low and sensual. It gave me a shiver.

‘Please…’ I whispered, trying to part my eyes from his face. It seemed like all of these shadows eddying in Kibum’s eyes, suddenly crawled out of two dark circles, disengaged in the moment when the boy abruptly raised his hands above his head.

‘Kibum?’ I tried to warn him, to make him stop, didn’t even know why. I felt that one more moment of watching this boy bathing in the shadows, and I will lose control. Something will boil inside of me, something will erupt and build a crazy feeling that I did not want to witness.

Key, indifferent to the fever that possessed me, moved one of his legs, drawing an invisible circle on the floor, his body stretched in some kind of dance figure.

‘Key, what the hell are you doing?’ My voice was trembling.

Lamps died down or it were just my eyes that lost ability to see full intensity of colors. View became dim when Key moved his hips for the first time. I wanted to look away, I wanted to forget. Forget this expression on his face, torrid and alarming. Or rather forget that I decided to resist my desires. I wanted to surrender to this rhythm, to this melody that possessed Kibum’s body in a strange seductive spectacle, created with dedication to my eyes only.

The boy closed his eyes, his head leaned back, as he was drowning in the current of his own movements, lazily attuning to the whispers of dust and growling of electricity  inside of lamps. Kibum was dancing. Dancing without a music and without control. And I wasn’t quite sure if there was really silence around us, or if the song boldly played by my heated heart was floating in the air, mixing with the scent of alcohol and nicotine, and reaching Key, to become a background to his movements. Cigarette smoke was slowly paining the air, drawing crazy shapes, flawlessly framing the fragile silhouette that took control over the room. Never before had the dancefloor seem so appealing.

The blood was rushing inside of me, persuading, exhorting, disturbing any logical thoughts that came to its way. The blood was leading me to the dancefloor, to the dancing Kibum, demanding a little bit of madness, a dose of oblivion.

I don’t know what spell this boy casted on me, and why.

I don’t know where did this madness inside of me came from, now set free by him.

I don’t know, I really don’t, when and how did it happen, that I found myself in this area of shadows. The only thing I know is that I was approaching him slowly, with every step leaving a reasonableness behind me. Common senses left me along with the cigarette smoke, and stuck somewhere in the subtle drifts that painted the air.

Finally, I stood right before Key, shamelessly enjoying his slim body, my gaze sneaking onto the pale skin of his arms and neck. The boy was dancing with lights and shadows, and I couldn’t get enough of the shape of his legs, the curve of his spine. I wanted to touch him so badly. I wanted to drown in the same rhythm that guided his movements. Even so, I stood still, stuck somewhere in between reasonableness of mind and madness of body. And I was just about to defeat my instincts, when Kibum looked straight into my eyes.

The burning stare of his dark orbs seemed to shout and whisper, beg and provoke, drown in shadows and charm with lights. My willpower broke, fell apart and faded, disappearing without a trace, defeated by my body. I clung to Kibum, embracing his waist tightly, as he was still dancing, letting me to attune to his sensual movements. It was driving me crazy, all of it. His legs moving in sequence of steps, his hips swinging against mine with a hypnotizing rhythm. Every single gesture was setting a fire inside of me. Key’s moves was more and more careless, as if unfinished, tamed by my embrace. We were staying in this imitation of dance for some time, finally having a pretext to be this close. Stuck between desire and common sense.

I completely drown in those eyes, decorated with maturity of black. Those eyes that were so familiar and yet so different, not matching with the vulnerability I used to notice in the softness of lips and flush of cheeks. A crazy change appeared in the boy dancing in my arms, and I couldn’t even judge if it was Kibum or Key anymore. There always have been something incredible in the shadow of his eyelashes. Something hiding, waiting for the moment to find its way to eyes and soul. Now Kibum let this secret side of personality possess him, he let the two embodiment of his meet and mix in the depth of his stare, creating the only real image of Kim Kibum, the boy that expressed his emotion in this strange music-less dance.

Finally, lips had enough of the tension, broke free from the chains of willpower, and crushed against each other, thirsty for this strident closeness. I gone insane. I gone insane and my body did the same. I gone insane over this boy, trembling in my arms. The boy that became a master in mixing and matching contrasts, and donning them with greyness of life as a background.

And that was the day I let myself to experience this sweet freedom, that Key offered me a long time ago. In the murmur of dust and flash of lamps, we fully gave ourselves over this one of a kind dance, that changed emotions and thoughts into movements and figures, elaborately building up an unique mosaic of sighs and whispers, sporadically decorated with less subtle noises. Was it love or just a lust? I did not know. Such questions are barely important against the sensuality of bodies. Dance doesn’t need reflexions, dance is a mystery of feelings. That’s what I learned during those nights spent on watching my catlike companion. It was the very first time when, step by step, breath by breath, I surrendered to the magic of chaos, that for Key was a whole different, better world.

~*~

Taemin listened to his words with burning cheeks, making Jonghyun incredibly embarrassed. He should have skip such details of the story, but he didn’t have control over it anymore. He felt a huge relief, setting those heavy words free, sharing with the world his affection to this miracle that Kim Kibum was, inscrutable and mysterious even to him. To the end.

‘No,’ he spoke, before Taemin managed to ask any question. ‘It wasn’t as colorful as you probably imagine, Minnie.’ His voice was tough. ‘Those days, I was very naïve, tired of the distance, willing for some stability. That’s why I believed so easily that I worked for this stability hard enough, that now Kibum will be free from his party addiction, because why would he go to clubs, if he could stay at home, with me? That’s what I thought. And it was the most stupid attitude ever.’

‘Kibum did not love you?’ whispered Taemin, covering mouth with his hand, but Jonghyun laughed shortly in a bittersweet tone.

‘He did love me. He loved me strangely and in his own way. He loved me in the morning and left me when the sun gone down. He loved me for a minute and ignored me during the rest of the day,’ explained Kim, letting a tender, nostalgic smile to form on his face.

‘And you dealt with it?’ asked Minho jokingly, but his friend only nodded his head, strange seriousness in his eyes.

‘What else could I do? He charmed me, enchanted me. I couldn’t give up. Key and Kibum, they both were so different and yet made me equally addicted to their presence…’

‘You fell head over heels in love, hyung!’ spoke Taemin, this time confident with his statement.

‘I can’t deny… If you only knew him, you would understand…’ After this words he shook his head, getting rid of this mist of memories that tried to possess him once again. ‘Well, bucolic tale never existed in between us. The time spent with Key was the most stormy in my whole life. Original illusion of happiness was quickly disturbed by urgent feeling that there is something going on, something way worse than before. Key totally lost himself in addictions. At first, I pretended that I didn’t notice the seriousness of situation. Everyone sometimes get drunk, right? However, everything very quickly gone way too far, and each day became a complete annihilation for Kibum.’

‘What did you do?’ Taemin was watching his friend with eyes wide open.

‘I tried… talking…’ Kim lowered his head, eyes on his own hands. ‘But honestly, would someone like Key ever listen to someone like me? He didn’t listen to anyone and did whatever he wanted to. He knew it destroys him, he was perfectly aware of it. That’s why I couldn’t understand why he’s giving up in this fight. Until one evening. We fought with each other on that day. After all harsh words we exchanged, I thought he will leave the flat, slam the door and I won’t see him in a week. But he surprised me. He came to my room, messy and silent. I remember glaring at him harshly, but there were tears in his eyes, hardly restrained from falling. Before I managed to react, Kibum fell on his knees, snuggling his face in my legs and embracing me with his arms.

‘You know, Jonghyun…’ he whispered and I became speechless, because he called me by my name so rarely. ‘I think I love the mayhem more than the love…’ he confessed, and I swear that in this one sentence his whole haywire soul reflected.

‘And what was next, hyung?’ whispered Taemin, barely heard in the noise of party that surrounded them. Jonghyun combed his hair with his fingers and abruptly reached for the forgotten glass of alcohol to empty it.

‘Nothing…’ he stated with a colorless tone of voice. The relief turned to a paralyzing emptiness, a black hole left in his heart by the story that he set free; the story reaching its end.

‘But what about Kibum?’ Taemin was frightened with the expressionless stare of his friend. Jonghyun slowly shook his head, as if he was bringing his thoughts together.

‘Kibum… burned down,’ he said, his glassy eyes fixed on the dancing crowd. ‘He burned down in the flash of his own mayhem…’ he finished, noticing the hopelessness in his own voice.

Minho and Taemin fell silent, because there weren’t proper words to comment the ending of this story. They watched their friend, as his eyes were drowning in the flares and shadows of this delightful mess that doesn’t ask for name, that doesn’t obligate, that allows the magic of anonymity. Jonghyun was stubbornly fixing his eyes on the party space, as if he was hoping for a miracle, as if he was wishing that the shadow of the past will appear among entangled bodies and charm him again, asking for a meaningless dance. The dance that in the mirror of bygone days became a manifest of freedom in chaos. Of life in death.

********

I was watching the boy that snuggled into me, his tears wetting my clothes. His words were incredibly accurate, I had no doubt about it. It was the mayhem that Kibum always followed and searched for, because in this mayhem he tried to find himself. This mess was were the Key was born. However, the boy crying on my lap wasn’t any close to similar to the king of parties and fun, the one that heated senses, destroyed purity and woke up nasty fantasies. Gently his tangled hair, I came to conclusion, that there was a tragic mistake in Kibum’s statement. A contradiction impossible to exist.

‘You say you love the mayhem more than the love?’ I asked quietly, receiving only a shiver as a reply. ‘But what this whole mayhem of yours would be, without love?’

I didn’t expect any specific reaction to this words, because even though we both knew they were accurate, I was the only one courageous enough to admit it. Instead of replying, Kibum stood up from his knees and moved to the back of my chair, leaning on my arm. The scent of his was now soaked with a sad dose of salt. The boy embraced me tightly and placed his chin on my arm.

‘Maybe, Jjongie… maybe…’ he whispered sweetly, making me shiver. ‘I’m better now, you see? Everything will be better now, trust me… It will be better…’ he purred into my ear.

And this one time I decided to believe him.

~*~

A/N

Finally! I'm sorry you had to wait for this one-shot for so long, I feel bad about it >.<" It's just quite long and not so easy to translate (I build too long and too complicated sentences in Polish and now I have to struggle xDD). Anyway, I hope the translation isn't as bad as I think it is... This story is important to me, I hope you guys enjoyed it!

Thank you~<3