A man, now twenty, is sitting in a back corner of the dance studio. His hair is bleached blonde and plastered to his forehead with sweat. Under that his face meets in a collision of sharp slanted eyes, generous lips, and heavy v-shaped jawline. It looks roughly hewn, each element a little too big, a little too pronounced for all of them to fit on that face, but whenever his lips part in an easy toothy smile, the features seems to open and resolve themselves perfectly. It’s a face that is meant to be moved, made for expression, not static school portraits or lifeless photoshoots.

He bounces a patica back and forth, alternating pulling and releasing the string between his slender fingers as he glances at the clock. It’s been twenty hours.

“Give it a rest, Hoya.”  A man with a square jaw and thick eyebrows, those features thickly framing his face like a box, is standing nose to nose with his reflection. His expression is set, lips thinly drawn and eyebrows furrowed. He’s slightly taller than the other and more heavily built, with broad shoulders and thicker arms and legs which are moving in precise repetitive motions.  

He doesn’t respond.

Sighing, the older man leans back against the wall, halfheartedly returning to the patica. Up down up down…

“Dongwoo, you should be practicing.”

Hoya says it without stopping. Dongwoo laughs.

“The other members left four hours ago. You’re going to hurt yourself again and end up in the hospital again.”

He smiles expectantly at Hoya for a couple seconds, but Hoya doesn’t look over, just keeps dancing. Sighing, his smile now fondly resigned, Dongwoo stands up and moves next to Hoya, easily sliding into synchronization as he continues to bounce his patica back and forth in one hand, syncing it to the tick of the second hand of the clock on the wall. He slides his feet in a quick experimental flourish and sees the reflection of Hoya’s yielded smile and easy imitation in the mirror.

Dongwoo closes his eyes. He hears the irregular squeaks of Hoya’s sneakers against the floor, growing louder and more insistent with each step. And he hears the constant ticking of the patica. TMP tmp TMP tmp TMP tmp.