“1…2… 1, 2, 3… 1, 2, 3… 1, 2, wait, no. That’s not right.” You let out yet another frustrated sigh before adjusting the position of your feet and beginning the count over again. The hallway is obviously too narrow a place to be practicing the waltz, but you’d rather suffocate in an enclosed space than die of embarrassment practicing the silly ballroom dance out in the open. You never asked your cousin to get married and put you in his court and force you to learn how to dance. You would have gladly played the piano or proclaim the readings instead. But no. He is insists that you attend the ballroom lessons he has signed you up for and simply adamant that you master the steps in a week. You wouldn’t be able to master them in a month if you had it.

You walk back to the furthest end of the hallway, hoping to have a little bit more space to practice in. You lift your arms and position them as though you are dancing with a partner. At present, you are actually in a deserted corridor by yourself and with no one to practice with. But you prefer it this way. This way, no one will be around to see you should you trip on your own feet. You begin counting again.

“1…2… 1, 2, 3… 1, 2, 3…,” you chant to yourself as you spin yourself around, feeling foolish and awkward running through dance steps with your arms raised and rested on an invisible partner. But your father is working, producing music upstairs and your own younger brother is too short for you. Your father has already warned you not to disturb any of his clients. There is no one else to recruit into your dance lesson.

“What are you doing?” says a voice from the other end of the hallway. The person is still to far away for you to properly identify, but judging by the deep-set voice, it is obviously a boy. You immediately drop your arms and bring your body into a closed position. You crane your neck a little to properly face him.

“Who is it?’ you ask. The boy takes a few steps into your hallway, and once he is in the light, you recognize Lee Taemin of SHINee, one of your father’s clients. You have seen him at these recording studios many times, and he is a former classmate of yours. He was well-known in school and you were acquainted with him a few times; you were lab partners for a project once, but after the two of you successfully completed that project, there was no more reason for the two of you to talk. When he was working with his team and your father, one of their many producers, you only treated him with the same courtesy you extended to nearly all your father’s clients.

“It’s me,” Taemin says, smiling brightly as he gets closer to you. “Uh… so what are you doing… here, all by yourself? It looked like you were doing something.”

“Me?” you say. “I was just… taking a walk.” Taemin’s smile goes away for a little bit. He takes a deep breath and lifts his arms up, mimicking the position you were in just a few moments ago.

“You had your arms out like this,” he said, smiling again, amusedly. “Are you… waltzing by yourself?”

You laugh nervously and open up your mouth to disprove his statement, but then you decide against it. What’s the use? He saw you quite clearly; trying to hide now would just result in even more embarrassment on your part. You let out an exasperated sigh.

“Well… yeah,” you say, and Taemin chuckles a little bit. And you smile in turn because he just looks so handsome when he smiles. Like many of the girls in the school you attended with Taemin, you had a small crush on him. Who wouldn’t? He’s talented, passionate, kind, and hardworking. His being handsome, of course, was definitely a bonus.

Taemin nods and drops the mimicry of your position. “Well, you were doing it wrong,” he says.

You throw him a look of mock hurt before scoffing at yourself. You begin to explain the situation with your cousin’s wedding and how awful of a ballroom dancer you are. Taemin nods and listens attentively, but the longer you spend in his presence the fast your heart beats. Being a girl, handsome boys always had a similar effect on you: the flushing cheeks, the blundering speech, the nervous stomach, the weak knees. But with Taemin, this is the first time your heart is involved. It is interesting and unsettling at the same time, though you aren’t quite sure because Taemin seems like a nice enough boy.

“I see,” he says, in a little air. He appears to be deliberating something as he inspects the walls of the corridor, the linoleum floors that have to be washed several times a day to get it to a sparkling clean. Then, he sighs and you know that he was obviously found something that is not to his liking. “Well, if you want to learn the waltz, the first thing I’d do if I were you is to find a better environment.”

“Like where?” you say, just to humor him. You know what type of environment he means: bigger and more spacious. But before he even answers your question, he suddenly reaches out and takes your hands and begins pulling you along.

“Taemin, wait,” you protest. But he doesn’t answer or stop, he just keeps pulling you along besides him, past other hallways and doors and past the lobby. He only stops once he reaches the door that leads to the outside parking lot.

“Better environment,” he says proudly. He lets go of your hand, opens the door, and allows you to step outside first. It is quite cloudy outside. Barely any sunshine can pass through the thick fog up in the air, barely any warmth greets the two of you. It smells fresh outside.

Already, you know what is planning to do, but you are in the awkward position of finding yourself disinclined to accept his offer of a free dance lesson. Taemin is considered the dancing machine of SHINee. Showing him your amateurish moves would embarrass you to no end, especially if he ended up laughing at you. No. You didn’t want it.

“Taemin,” you whine a little. “I know what you’re up to and… you don’t have to feel obligated to teach me anything. You don’t owe me anything and--,”

“You need to learn how to waltz, don’t you?” Taemin says taking off his jacket and approaching you. “To tell you the truth, __-ah, you’re a terrible dancer.”

You purse your lips, actually slightly offended. “And I suppose you think you can make me a better dancer?” you say, crossing your arms. Taemin smirks, and in response he walks directly toward you and takes both your hands and spreads out your arms along the length of his own. The suddenness of his movements causes you to be pulled against him. Taemin’s face is merely a breath away from yours, though his expression is calmer than yours. If your heartbeat was racing before, it was completely out of control now. You wonder if Taemin can hear it now.

“First off,” Taemin says, taking the tone of an instructor. “You can’t have your arms hanging limp over your partner like a dead goose. You’re a girl, so your male partner will have his right arm at 90 degrees and behind your left shoulder.” Taemin demonstrates with his own arm and you pay close attention. “Now rest your arm on mine,” he tells you. At first you are nervous about this and you look to him, as though asking for permission. He just holds your gaze and patiently waits for you to follow and after some time, you finally give in.

As he says, you rest your left arm on his right and place your hand as gently as you can on his shoulder.

“Tighten up that grip,” he says, and you obey, gently squeezing his shoulder. “You have to hold onto me so I can lead you better.” He turns and looks at your hand on his shoulder and then turns to you again. Your noses are almost touching and to correct this, he leans back a little. Your knees are still a little weak and you find yourself struggling slightly to stay upright. But Taemin’s grip on you is strong. He knows what he is doing, in terms of dancing. Though in terms of what he is doing to you and your feelings, you can’t be sure. He smiles reassuringly.

“Left arm,” he says, lifting it up. “Your partner’s left arm. Raised at eye level and just far enough for you to reach it comfortably.”

He moves his fingers around a bit and adjusts his hand to mold perfectly against yours, and then he holds onto it tighter. “Don’t let your arm go limp,” he says again. “And now put your feet together.”

You follow his instructions as carefully as you can without trying to get too overwhelmed by his proximity. His nearness has caused your cheeks to turn pink beyond belief, and the temperature has kicked up several degrees. You feel warm despite the cold weather. And to make matters worse, Taemin pulls you in some more, muttering about balance and how your bodies are not close enough for a proper waltz dance. You are now so close to him that it is almost obscene, the position he has put the two of you in.

“Now the steps,” he says, but before he can even move his foot into the first step, you protest.

“Wait wait wait!” you says, letting go of his hand for a second. “We don’t have music.”

Taemin frowns a bit before taking your hand back and putting the two of you back into position. “We don’t need it,” he says and you scoff.

“Of course we do,” you say. “We need music to dance.”

“We can dance to the sound of traffic and police sirens in the distance,” he says jokingly, and you step on his foot lightly. He sighs. “__-ah, you don’t need music to dance; you need a heartbeat.”

Before another word passes, Taemin is already dancing. You try your best to keep up with him, you stay in step. Your feet try their best to mindlessly and awkwardly follow along with his steps, each one carefully planned and flawlessly executed. For a long time, it really feels like he is just dragging you along as he dances by himself. It must feel, to him, like dancing with a very heavy life-sized doll that has no idea how to follow him. On more than one occasion you accidentally bring your foot down on his, and you hurriedly gasp apology after apology. Taemin’s face only twists up in pain for a split second before he swallows it and chooses not to say anything.

“Sorry,” you whisper gently. But in response, he let’s go of one of your hands and suddenly spins you around. The entire world turns into a beautiful color blur for one magical moment, and in the next, Taemin catches your hand and you are in his arms again. You’re never seen his eyes up close before, but now that you are seeing them clearly for the first time, you can see what is really special about Taemin.

After a few more turns, spins, steps, and dips, you are (finally) dancing with him. You are really dancing with him. Taemin forgets that he has schedules to fulfill and you forget that the purpose of this lesson was to prepare you for your cousin’s wedding. For the next few minutes, you were simply a boy and a girl dancing. You fell into step with him harmoniously in the silence of the parking lot. It was like making music or painting but with your own body.

“Tilt your head back a little,” he says and you follow. Taemin weighs more than you, allowing you to lean back as much as you want. He holds onto your hands a little tighter, and when the two of you spin, it seems to go much faster.

With the synchronization that the two of you dance with, you suddenly wonder if your heartbeats are beating together, too. You concentrate on the contact between your hands, trying to get a feel for his heartbeat but are disappointed that you can’t find his. It is only after a little while that you realize that yours has become his own, that yours has become the music that you both danced to. You don’t need music to dance; you need a heartbeat.

In the middle of the beautiful waltz, you feel a sudden drop of water fall on your cheek. Taemin looks up at the sky at the same time that you do. You had heard somewhere on TV the forecast for rain, but you had forgotten it until now. You tried to stop dancing, but Taemin was in the lead, and he wouldn’t let you go.

“Taemin, it’s raining,” you state quite plainly, and the rain just gets stronger, dropping more water on the both of you. His hair is beginning to get soaked, and so are both your clothes. You have to blink a lot more to get the raindrops out of your eyes. But Taemin is still calm, and the dance must go on. You wonder if the two of you have faded into the rain, two figures waltzing in a colorless world that everyone seems to take for granted, spinning into the grey, and holding each other close.

And yet almost as suddenly as Taemin initiated the dance, he suddenly stops. He drops his arms but keeps your hands and holds your eyes just as tightly. He seems to be looking for something again, searching your face. You think about saying something, but the crystalline moment is too delicate for sounds. You feel like you are trapped in a snow globe with him. Slowly, he begins to close the gap between your faces, and you know that he is about to kiss you.

You are unsure what events in the day could have possibly led up to a as this. What had you done so good that God was rewarding you with this one charming prize, a kiss from Taemin? He slides his hands up to cradle your head, his lips not yet on yours. But you get goosebumps from where his hands touched the delicate skin on your neck, you can smell his sweet breath, and it is driving you mad.

He closes his eyes, and you follow his lead. Even kissing is like dancing to him. Anticipation was building up in your chest and it takes all your willpower to prevent you from lunging for it. The very tip of his upper lip just barely grazes your own and already there is electricity coursing through your whole body.

“What are you doing?!” bellows a monstrous voice and in your panic, the two of you push yourselves away from each other, just before the kiss has the chance to be born. Standing in the doorway where the two of you exited is one of SHINee’s senior coordinators. She carries an umbrella and her jaw is dropped and her eyes are wider than you have ever seen them.

“THAT SHIRT IS ALMOST A MILLION WON, LEE TAEMIN!” she screams.

“N-Noona,” Taemin says weakly, releasing a breath.

She steps out in the rain and grabs the both of you and drags you back inside the building where other coordinators are waiting with towels. The cordinoona, turns Taemin around and inspects every inch of his expensive shirt and reprimands him for exposing it to heavy rain like that. Only one of the coordinators tends to drying your hair a little, but once that chore is done she joins the other in berating Taemin for not taking better care of his clothes and mourning over the damage done to his hair.

But you only look after Taemin, and watch as he puts his hands up in surrender and apologizes to the cordinoonas with low ninety-degree bows. You hug the towel closer around yourself and bring a finger up to touch your lips. To think just moments ago you were less than a centimeter close to kissing him. The coordinoonas took a hold of his shirt and began dragging him back to the lobby and you follow closely behind. You thought he had forgotten you for a minute.

But as they dragged him, Taemin turned and looked at you and held your gaze before giving you a comforting smile. “You’re a wonderful dancer,” he says as he extends his hand out to you. Laughing, you run up to him and take his hand. There’s no need to rush into kissing. You don’t need to kiss to be in love.

You need to dance.