“ The best and most beautiful things in the world can’t be seen or even touched. They must be felt with the heart.” – Hellen Keller.

Minho doesn’t really notice this, but when Taemin returns home with sweaty skin and short breaths, he knows that Taemin has gotten pretty tired with all dance practices pent up on the his and Kai’s first day. He was in the midst of munching sandwich with a slice of smoked beef between the breads and watching Running Man a bit motionlessly when he heard small steps entering his house with a quite loud but sounded pretty exhausted voice of ‘I’m home.’ Minho replied with a terse, one-word reply quickly as his eyes gaze up to where the source of noises is coming from. There, Taemin can be seen dragging his feet, half-limping because his legs seem wobbly and Taemin looks uncomfortable with them, so when he joins Minho sitting in the fluffy couch and his body spasms at the bouncy feeling, sighing contentedly. Minho glances at the young boy, mumbling, “ Is it quite hard?”

“ I hate Yunho Hyung for making up such difficult dance for two of us,” Taemin complained, “ Thank God I could follow his instruction along with Kai. That god damn Kim Kai should learn this lesson not to ignorantly pick a partner without his approval from now on.”

Minho quietly chews the bread when Kai’s name slips out from Taemin’s mouth.

“ I wonder how difficult it looks like.”

“ Oh, you can figure it out later,” Taemin bitterly replies, “ My feet slipped off multiple times and Kai almost knocked his head on my forehead countless times too. I really had urge to kill Yunho Hyung earlier but since I’ve found dancing is quite amusing, I have nothing to complain, though.”

Between those words, suddenly Minho notices something.

They are talking comfortably now.

Yesterday when they had a quite hard time to start a conversation, Minho thought that they had a long way to go before they could start as friends.

Isn’t that what he wants? From the beginning, he doesn’t hate Taemin or anything like that, so he still wants to have a proper conversation with him – but because of yesterday, he assumed that since they are completely the opposite of each other, it’d be awkward.

But now, it surprises him that he can see Taemin’s eyes beam up slightly and he can hear Taemin’s voice filled with excitement.

Minho begins to think that if Taemin in front of him doesn’t show most of his true self, either if it’s because he’s too timid or he’s being just the way Lee Taemin Minho knows.

If it’s in Minho’s case, he is already quite cold and expressionless, but it’s because he can’t express his feelings properly, so he doesn’t need to try anything to show what he thinks or what he feels except he’ll stare at them, or say everything briefly.

But how about Taemin?

Since that night, when Taemin said that he could not get out a proper conversation with Minho of his head and the worse it winded up going, Minho can’t help but think if Taemin is actually strained because of something, maybe he is really that timid so he can’t talk everything at ease.

It’s not like he is really ignorant person like everyone always assumes him as their first impression about Minho – but how can’t people feel bothered when the other person looks extremely nervous, sometimes steals glances, as if he is hoping to be able to talk with them? It’s exactly like in Minho and Taemin ‘s case, so Minho at least wants to know him further, because they’ve promised to start from being friends first because Minho still finds this engagement is ridiculous – even though he, at the end, never hates Taemin.

So it won’t be a pain in the if he tries to know Taemin better, right?

“ Hyung,” Taemin’s head suddenly pops out of the opened door, “ Is it fine if I’m going to school first?”

It snaps Minho’s thought back to reality in which he’s still grabbing his toast, really hasn’t been prepared to go. “ Uh. I think it’s ok?”

“ Really?” Taemin’s left brow raises, “ But I thought you have a soccer practice start from this morning for next month’s soccer match because the practice was cancelled three days ago? Our homeroom teacher has given the coach a green light for today’s practice, right?”

“ Oh.. right,” Minho blinks once, twice, then followed by him taking a glass of mineral water and blinking again. “ How do you know?”

Taemin laughs softly, the grin reaching his beautifully slanted eyes.

“ We live together, of course I can’t help but know and pay attention to every single thing about you.”

That, actually, makes Minho realize something.

Even if Taemin doesn’t know how to have a comfortable conversation with Minho, he knows the simple facts about him bits by bits, and it doesn’t even need to be included in their talk.

“ Well then if it’s really okay with you, I’m going first. I just don’t want you happen to be late later since we can’t walk together to school,” Taemin smiles, “ See you later, Hyung.”

“ Yeah, be careful.”

Then Taemin walks out as the door finally flings closed, leaving Minho struck in a deep thought while staring absentmindedly at the door.

So how much does he know about me.. I wonder?

As soon as the homeroom teacher starts his class and checks any absence, Taemin is left struck by drowsiness, sitting on his seat flabbily. In order that he can keep his eyes wide-awake, he shifts a little to look down through the window. His gaze meets instantly with the view of soccer team having their morning practice by running around the field one lap, and Taemin soon catches a view of certain broad back without fail. He twitches a smile, carefully observing each action that guy takes with a longing stare.

Minho Hyung is really good-looking.

From the corner of his right eye, he notices that some girls are apparently doing the similar thing to him, except drools and whispers are added into their activities, totally mesmerized into the jock’s charm. Taemin giggles quietly, as usual the popular prince, he thinks. At this point Taemin even can admit that it’s like the fact, everyday’s life in his school about Minho receiving stares of love or confessions either in letters or directly spoken. Most of girls adore him, and even the majority of boys respect him too.

And I’m one of them.

Taemin smiles bitterly, but he still feels happy though, being able to live with Minho even though it doesn’t make him anything special more than them – his fans and admirers – so Taemin decides to take everything slowly, no need to rush, because it already makes him grateful that he’s, at least, one step ahead further than everyone, like, cooking him the breakfast today.

Yeah. It’s all good..

Taemin’s smile fades out little by little, slowly, then changes into a contemplation absentmindedly.

“ Lee Taemin, if you’re still spacing out then you should not be in my class.”

The homeroom teacher snaps him, making the boy’s back jerk in surprise and he hurriedly sends an apologetic smile, drooping his head in guilt. “ Umm. I’m sorry, Sir.” The homeroom teacher sighs and whips around to continue writing on the blackboard. Taemin takes a long breath quietly and his eyes are glued on the surface of his desk, as soon as he is snapped (again) by a tiny paper folded messily thrown onto his desk. Taemin frowns and reads the content, smiling slightly and glancing over his shoulder at the sender. Kai bashfully grins, making an ‘ok’ gesture to ask Taemin’s approval, and the latter only nods, giving in to Kai’s begging sheepish smile.

‘In the break time and after the class ends, let’s go to the practice room together 8]’

“ I.. really hate you, Minho,” Luhan huffs between the quick pants which is replied by Minho rolling his eyes. “ What did I do?”

“ You should not.. be that competitive around your own teammate, damn it,” Luhan groans, feeling extremely tired and his legs are ready to give away anytime soon. “ Thank God Chanyeol helped me earlier. You always take everything seriously, ,” Luhan complained, “ Look, even Jonghyun is now about to die because he could not catch up your running even though he was in your group.”

The soccer team earlier was divided into two groups and had a match for the practice but being an idiot, self-proclaimed competitive guy he is, Minho lost his cool again and tried his very best to win in both the first and second half. The result is, being the ace, he has knocked some opponents because they could not keep up with him, even Jonghyun, the one who’s supposed to be his partner, is seemingly in coma.

“ Whatever,” A nonchalant hiss escapes from Minho’s lips and he gets up, walking away from the field and his sprawling teammates. He wonders if he should look for Taemin and tell him to see the park later so they can work on their project again, but maybe he needs to check the young boy first. When he happens to pass his and Taemin’s classroom, Ren tells him that Taemin is already out with Kai; probably they’re having some dance practice now (because they are the representatives of their class for the talent show event). A frown springs up then Minho swears it happens when he hears Kai’s name along with Taemin, but he doesn’t bother to ask himself any further and later, his feet are dragging him towards the gymnastic hall, which is one floor below their classroom. He can hear a faint music being played from afar, so the closer steps he takes and he becomes certain that the two boys are inside the room.

If I recall correctly from their conversation through phone, Minho thinks, today is their second practice, which means one more left.

He pushes the door open slightly, carefully, but wide enough to give him a space so he can peek through the crack – and he protrudes his head a little.

Later, he finds himself widening his eyes and a gasp halts his breaths in the throat, when Taemin does a perfect 360° flip by putting his hands onto Kai’s thighs then the latter’s palms support his slim body on the bony waist.

“ Oh God, Kai!” Taemin shrieks in happiness, clearly looking satisfied, “ We did it! Finally, after all pains I have gone through like bumping my face onto the floor or we stumbled and fell together – this ridiculous part is finally-“

“ Yeah,” Kai laughs and his face seems amused, “ You’re awesome, T. I told you, you could do it!”

 A grin follows after. “ But you’re strong enough to lift me too – my goodness, I feel so hyped up right now. The talent show is on the day after tomorrow, right?”

Kai nods, tugging at Taemin’s arm, and winks at the smiling boy. “ We can do this perfectly fine.” Then laughs are resonated throughout the gymnastic hall, not aware that someone has been watching them quietly.

What’s that?

Minho walks off from the hall even though he doesn’t really know why, but earlier when he saw Taemin laughing so happily and easily, he clenched his fist then the next thing he remembers, he already left that place.

He’s not as timid as what I thought.

Minho grits his teeth.

Or the Lee Taemin I usually see is not his true self.

He quickens his pace – he isn’t aware that his expression stiffens, and he walks a bit too fast compared to normal walking.

It’s not that he’s irritated because of that.

His feet trudge quickly, not caring if some students are staring at him in awe.

And so, he doesn’t bother to see Taemin in midst of his practice on the next day and calls off their project until the talent show event finishes.

Taemin has no idea since when his body has been trembling in nervousness like this, but what he knows is he hasn’t been into any events and shown off his dancing skill. Today is also his first time to dance with a partner even though he has taken up three-days practices.

So when he’s sitting in the waiting room with Kai, his fingers clasp altogether. His gaze is locked on his shoes pointing at each other. The air of tension due to the competition suffocates him, and he grips his pants’ fabric stiffly. Kai, of course, notices this just by looking at the shaky limbs like a lost puppy. He approaches the young boy and rubs the back of Taemin’s head. “ It’s okay,” Kai soothes, “ It’s not like we’re gonna ruin whole performance. You, and me. It’s fine. We will captivate their attention.”

Taemin nods in doubt.

When Minho sees the crowd in front of him lining up, or maybe making a cluster of audiences to get the seats in the school hall, Minho remembers again how popular the talent show event held every year is. He is never a person who regularly attends such school events, but since he has promised Taemin so he finally makes time for watching him dance. He quietly tries to sneak into the crowd and feels grateful inwardly because of his tall height that helps him to move easier and gets a good seat. Somehow he notices a couple of surprised gasps and stares coming from students who sees witnesses that actually the most popular guy in the school is attending the event, but Minho just cares less.

Three contestants make an appearance in the first fifteen minutes, so Minho assumes that each contestant gets at least five minutes to perform, more or less. But being the cold guy who doesn’t show any interest much, he just stares there blankly, half-sleepily. He waits for Taemin and scolds himself mentally that he forgot to ask the young boy’s turn.

Oh well.

And that’s how he repeatedly sighs, until the next twenty minutes.

“ The eight contestant, please come in!” when the MC hails the next participant, the entire hall lets out a gasp when a slim, delicate figure approaches a piano which has been placed there at the corner of the stage, and followed by the taller boy with raven hair. Minho’s eyes bulge out, Taemin? Why piano?

Taemin wears a broken white satin suit and carefully sits in front of the piano, flexing his fingers while Kai stands about two meters away from him, looking down at his feet and taking a deep breath. Taemin’s eyes sweep all over the hall, and stops at where Minho is. He looks stupefied when Minho’s deep gaze is staring at him intently. From the way Taemin interprets it, Minho is anticipating something from him.

I will never let your anticipation down.

Then, his fingers begin to dance on the ivories, and from the comments Minho hears around him, the classical music Taemin playing now is Beethoven Virus. In the same time, following the slow, yet suddenly increasing tempo, Kai moves along with the music, dancing to it. His movements are fluid and beautiful yet so sharp, perfectly fitting the classical tone.

Suddenly, Taemin stops playing and rises up, making his way towards Kai. His steps are audible enough because whole students are astonished in anticipating tension – because it can be seen that Taemin’s long fingers are working open his top, revealing his milky white arms and slender body in a white sleeveless shirt worn under the pants, then he throws away the blazer. He looks at Kai extending his hand towards him and he reaches it in a tantalizing pace. They exchange stares for a moment, something that adds the tension into a higher peak, and suddenly Kai flicks his fingers.

The music has started.

It causes a huge gasp (again) from the audience and they both rhythmically move together – and Minho soon grasps that it is salsa dance. Kai holds Taemin’s hand proudly, yet doesn’t vanish his own charisma as the one who leads his partner, and Taemin beautifully returns back the leading by doing some movements as if he’s trying to lure his partner so Kai follows him, and Kai seems like he happily obliges it. Taemin attracts the audience with his confidence smile, and Kai complements him with a smirk.

Then Taemin slids down, spinning around couple times helped by holding Kai’s hand above his head as the fulcrum, then Kai lifts him up. Taemin steps back a bit further now, and suddenly, having his hands support on Kai’s thighs, Taemin flips perfectly 360°, just like what Minho accidently saw on that day.

Minho, on the other hand, almost forgets how to breathe. The rest of the movements are unbearably – it’s full of teases, seductive swaying hips, and at the end of the dance, Kai helps Taemin to slide past between his legs, and Taemin maintains a confident posture with a lovely smile, satisfaction and overflowing gleams glistening in his round eyes, to mark the end of their magnificent performance.

This time, Minho’s brain isn’t functioning properly. He sits there, watching his fiancée in amazement, his mind swept away.

“What did Changmin Sungsaenim mean when he said to find beautiful objects in our opinion?”

Under the state of his consciousness, Minho takes out his phone, and snaps a picture of Taemin’s final pose.

“ You may find something beautiful when it does help to calm one part in your heart gently.”

So what am i feeling now?

Kai then bows politely, and helps Taemin to get up. The young boy hurriedly follows Kai’s action and once again, sends a wide smile as he clearly enjoys the standing ovation people are giving to them.

Soon, Taemin and Minho make an eye contact, which is continued with an awkward but shy smile from the pale beauty.

That time, Minho doesn’t remember what has driven him to do this, but he replies with a small, but contented smile too.

Of course, Taemin is really surprised and he finds him looking back at the taller man dumbly, but soon a clear blush disperses across his apple cheeks.

Then for that event, Taemin and Kai eventually come out as the winner, welcomed with loud claps from the audience reverberating throughout the entire hall.

Minho doesn’t know what he’s thinking now, but his feet bring him to where the waiting room for the participants is. His mind is still enchanted by how fluid Taemin’s movements were, and he can capture the images of Taemin swaying his delicate figure smoothly in his brain.

“ Thank you for your hardwork, Kai!”

Minho is now looking at the door flinging open and Taemin steps out of it, surprised when he sees Minho standing there. He continuously blinks, before he blushes and glances at the fiancée timidly, pushing the door close. “ Hi, Hyung.”

“ Oh, Taemin,” and just now again, Minho’s mind becomes blank, as white as a piece of untouched paper, can’t snap out of it right away. “ It was awesome,” is all Minho can compliment, the only words that manage to slip out of his lips, but Taemin still bashfully smiles nonetheless.

“ I also saw you in your practice two days ago,” Taemin mumbles softly, a smile never fading out from his well-shaped face, “ I can’t even explain how good you are at soccer.”

“ Ah..” Now it’s Minho’s turn to blink, “ Thanks.. anyway, we should start working again on our project.. tomorrow before we run out of time."

Taemin nods, then they both fall into a silence with only their eyes looking at each other intentionally.

As if they’re seeking for a truth of each other’s feelings behind the pools in their brown orbs.

Why can’t we get out a proper conversation, but you can smile heartily at other people except me?

Why is it always like this, when it comes to us?

“The heart has its reasons that even reason doesn’t know” – Pascal

Incheon International Airport, 5.12 PM.

“ The flight from Ninoy Aquino International Airport has just landed –“

Fifteen minutes later.

A tall girl walks out of the main gate with her luggage, scanning the whole view she sees through her shades in Incheon International Airport.

Nothing changes even it’s been two years already.

Her eyes squint at the big digital clock attached on the wall, in which she actually isn’t looking for the time, but she’s staring at the date intently.

Just a couple of days I have to get back my own happiness.

Two years ago, she abandoned it, hoping that she could find the true happiness when she moved away.

She begins walking again to get a cab and once a cab pulls up in front of her, the driver helps her carrying her luggage into the trunk of the car. She gets in and lays her back against the seat, brooding over with her gaze staring through the window.

Her breaths are stilling as she collects her old memories, recalling them one by one, like a fast-forwarded video, and she regrets what she had said that time.

“ I wonder once I arrive later, can I find any place that will be able to give me a happiness, more than when I am with you?”

… and that happiness she’s been looking for never comes true, at the end.

a/n: .... suddenly feel this chapter is the most horrible i've ever written for Totally Captivated. Btw, the salsa dance is taken from After School's Jung-Ah with her partner (idk about his name also the show's name otl).

btw i'm still cmh910, it's just i've changed my username 8))

what Taemin wears for the dance~