The sun was bright. It always was. The teachers were boring. They always were.  School was just alright. It always was. Kim Jongin was beautiful. He always was.

 

The twist in Sehun's life, the first chapter in his tragic high school manga, the pilot episode of his critically acclaimed drama, and the true beginning of his badly written fanfiction started as an excuse. It was only the first day of school, yet a criminally high pile of torturous assignments towered over Oh Sehun’s desk. He could have sworn he had worked on at least half of them during their lunch break, but the tower of paper seemed to say otherwise. Resolving to get to solving them as soon as he got home, Sehun laid his head down with a sigh.

 

“Baaaaaaaaaabe, will you burn these papers with me?” Luhan's tone was dead, the boy wasn't really joking.

 

“Your mom will kill me, Lu.” Sehun shifted in his seat, “She asked me to take care of you in school this year.”

 

“It's the first day of school! Will my Warden be so kind as to allow his inmate on death row a last wish?”

 

Sehun laughed. “Ask, Inmate 9488 and you shall receive.” Frankly, Sehun knew he never kept his resolutions and was seriously hoping for a distraction.

 

Luhan's eyes gleamed.

 

“LET'S MAKE A CLUB!”

 

“Did you smuggle drugs in here, inmate?”

 

“Ahh, drop it Sehun-ah, and listen to me. We'll get to stay back after school and chill! You know if we go home, my mother is going to make us study, right? This way we'll get a few hours free from nagging.”

 

“Just join one of the million clubs they were advertising then! Setting up a club is a pain!” Sehun whined.

 

“Nah, they'll force you to do stuff. Let's just make our own! We could even nap for hours! And hey, look at it this way. Someone hot could join, and you'd find loooooove, my boy!” Luhan ended his argument with a dramatic high note.

 

Forget love, Sehun didn't even expect  approval for the hastily formed club of two. Yet, the club advisor seemed just as bored with life as they were, and let them use a dingy old classroom, in return for their promise not to do drugs there.

 

It was SM High School's Dance Club. Sehun wanted dance. Luhan wanted flute. They weighed their skills. It was SM High School's Dance Club.

 

They didn't expect anyone. Sehun and Luhan had a habit of guessing what people's interests were and judging by what they had seen of their new class, none seemed to like dancing. Tao, who had come from their middle School would most probably run off to the martial arts club; Krystal, the pretty girl from the States would probably join the choir with her sister; class sweetheart Baekhyun would definitely join the choir; and instantly popular hot guy, Jongin, would probably join one of sports clubs.

 

They didn't expect anyone. And they couldn't be more wrong.

 

First was Tao.

 

“You guys beat me to the dance club? Damn it, I really wanted a place to sleep!” Tao swore as he plopped down beside Luhan. Luhan giggled.

 

Next came Krystal.

 

“Jessica, I told you if I didn't hurry someone would form a dance club! You go off and sing now, I'll just find a way to sleep here.”

 

The second victim of the misconception that the club had been formed by serious dance lovers who were passionate about it also was soon informed of the founders’ true intentions. Doubling over in laughter, she found her place among similar thinkers.

 

Third was Baekhyun.

 

With one look at Tao, he put this hands up in the air and let out a high pitched laugh, understanding just how serious everyone here was about the club. Within seconds, he was already asleep, leaving the four others awake only to receive any more possible entries.

 

Breaking the deafening silence that had now descended over the room, the sound of approaching footsteps grew louder, punctuated only by the sound of Baekhyun's soft breathing. Krystal’s face turned pale.

 

“Not you, please.” Was she praying? Sehun and Luhan were dumbfounded.

 

The door opened. Krystal sighed.

 

“Kim Jongin, I should have known.”

 

“I'd never leave you, babe.” Jongin winked at her before turning to the rest, suspiciously eyeing the now snoring Baekhyun.

 

“Is this the dance club?”

 

Sehun got up to face the latest recruit.

 

“Yes, it is. But no one here actually wants to dance, so you can just go to sleep, no one will care.”

 

Jongin's expression changed. His eyes went round and glassy and his jaw dropped. Later, Sehun would remember this as the first appearance of the legendary Kim Jongin Puppy Face.

 

“You guys can go to sleep and screw around all you want, but this guy won't. And when he dances, you all will wake up.” Krystal's previously tired eyes seemed wide open now as she leaned against a broken chair on the floor.

 

She tossed her phone to Jongin who caught it without looking, a move that seemed practiced for years. He seemed to skip through a carefully compiled playlist of songs, before stopping at one. He threw it back to Krystal who hooked it up to a speaker she had just taken it out of her bag.

 

She ushered the still confused Sehun down next to her and shook the now irate Baekhyun awake with a determined urgency.

 

She smiled, and as the music started, she whispered, “Watch him.”

 

It wasn't like you could do much else.

 

The way he moved could be be practiced, the way he smiled could never be rehearsed. It seemed like the air in the room stood still, yet the wind moved with him. The sunbeams of the late afternoon sun seemed to fall over one another to get a good look at him, and who could blame them? He danced with a love that Sehun never knew existed. When Kim Jongin moved, his soul did too.

 

When he stopped, no one knew what to do. They stared at him. And then they stared at him again. It was Krystal who broke the silence.

 

“Did you hurt your leg again, idiot? Your movements have gotten sluggish.”

 

“Oh great master, nothing gets past you. I sprained it in the morning, during practice.” Jongin blushed at being found out, and confessed in an apologetic tone.

 

“That was sluggish? That was the best thing I've ever seen in my life!” Luhan was the first to break out of the spell that he had put them under.

 

“How the hell do you move like that?” Tao still seemed to be in disbelief.

 

“If I wasn't dating Chanyeol, I'd ask you out in a heartbeat!” Baekhyun seemed in love, as he dreamily stared at him.

 

Sehun soon realised that he was the only one who hadn't spoken. It seemed impossible to put that feeling inside him into words. It was bubbly, and warm, and cozy and yet he didn't know what it was.

 

There was only one thing to say as Kim Jongin turned to him.

 

“Beautiful.”

 

He smiled. Sehun sighed.

 

“Truly beautiful.”

 

These memories ran through Sehun’s head, opening doors he had bolted shut and popping the cork on every bottled up emotion. Truth or Dare had always been a particularly dangerous game for people with secrets, and it was only worse to play it with two polygraph machines.

 

He didn't want to keep it to himself anymore. He wanted to scream it out loud. He wanted to hold Kim Jongin by the shoulders and scream, “I loved you since the moment I saw you! I've loved you for 15 years! I thought you loved me too. Where did it go wrong?”

 

But when Krystal poked him for the second time, with her, “Tell us your first impressions of us already! It's your turn!”, Sehun smiled and said nothing he wanted to.

 

“I thought you were a psycho, Krystal. The both of you were crazily coordinated, it was so weird.” Not really a lie.

 

“I thought you were alright. Not a great first impression, Jongin.”

 

Jongin laughed. Sehun's lies fooled nobody, including himself. Sehun sighed. Was worth a try.

 

“Truth or Dare, Jongin?” Sehun asked.

 

“Ah, I'm quite tired. Truth then, I guess.”

 

“Answer me.” Sehun moved closer, and Krystal did too.

 

“Are you hiding something from me?”

 

For the first time, Kim Jongin was speechless. A man of the most exquisite words was reduced to none. But of course, he found his composure in a second.

 

“There is nothing for me to hide, Sehun-ah.” He smiled.

 

But that second of disbelief, that one split second glance at his fiancee, and that fake smile confirmed it.

 

Kim Jongin had lied.