Sometimes Jongin wished he lived in the city. His parents say he’s ungrateful, not many people have the option of living near the ocean, and even if they’re close by, not many people can have the luxury of such a view when they wake and sleep. Jongin knows it’s right, his house is only a few feet away from the beach, high on a hill where he can look over the ocean whenever he wanted. He spent most of his days on the beach and he wouldn’t give up those experiences for the world, but sometimes, sometimes when living in a small town that no one purposely comes to, the desire to live in a big city was overwhelming.

At one point in Jongin’s life he imagined walking the streets of Seoul and getting picked up by a representative for some big time idol company or something of that sort. Jongin’s feeling a little extra upset about not living in the city recently, because a week ago Seoul’s most elite dance team was having auditions and he had to miss it because of school and the fact that it took 3 hours to get from his hometown to Seoul.

His mother hadn’t been as compassionate about it as he wanted. She patted at his shoulders when he sat at the dinner table, said there’d be a next time, and mentioned the dance team he was already a part of.

”Doesn’t lessons or something start next week,” she asked him, sitting down and beginning to eat dinner. “You’ll forget all about that other dance team once you really start dancing.”

Jongin didn’t feel like talking about it any longer so he shrugged his shoulders, nodded his head and begun eating.

Jongin returns to his room earlier than he normally does. He stumbles around in the dark, letting the full moon be his guiding light as he heads to his window to look at the waves. He loved the beach, ever since he was a child him and the beach were inseparable, and tomorrow they would be reunited once again. Jongin couldn’t wait to feel the hot sand between his toes, and the cold waves brushing at his ankles. Jongin’s only had two loves in his life, dancing and the ocean, both could pacify him when nothing else could.

He sighs and lays his head on his windowsill, eyes roaming over the length of the beach as he tries to mentally fix his goals to reach his dreams. Sure he didn’t get into that dance team this year, and he’d have to wait another two years, but if their team, the one he was currently in, won the nationwide competition then it would still get him recognition.

 His eyes sweep along to the rocks along the shore, narrowing as he sees what seems like a figure moving about. He sits up and leans farther out of his window. The figure looks as if it’s dancing, the person, whomever it maybe, moving along as fluid as the ocean. He moves out of his window, eyes still on the figure outside of his window and hurries to grab a sweater.

 He exits his home and can still see the dancer amongst the waves and rocks, he’s even more interested now, who in their right mind would be dancing in middle of the night like that. “Hey,” he calls out, but the figure of course doesn’t hear him. He climbs down the stone steps that made it easy to go from his home to the beach and runs over to where the figure is. It’s harder to see the figure from the beach but he still runs over, calling out for the stranger as he nears the rocks.

He stops at the nearest rock and looks over the expansion of land, the figure isn’t there any longer and Jongin can’t help but wonder if it was just a hallucination, his thoughts of dance, making him imagine people that weren’t there. Even with the boy he thought he saw gone, Jongin stays out on the beach, he settles himself on one of the tall rocks and watches the waves crash just below his feet, dancing to the porcelain Moon’s lead.

Over the course of the next few days, Jongin finds himself spending more and more time, looking out of his window towards the rocks to the right of his house. When it’s late in the evening his eyes wander towards the area, envisioning the water dancer from last time moving skillfully over stone and sea.

He never sees the person, and eventually his sleep-induced dreams of inquired fame transforms into dreams of a faceless dancer who’s toes barely dip into the ocean. He’s heard of sirens, mermaids, and other mythical water creatures, but never had he heard of a mysterious figure that danced on the top of water. To anyone else he would probably seem crazy, obsessive, or anything else, but in a town where nothing really happened, Jongin’s imagination and dreams were the only things keeping him sane. A dancer he may or may not have seen, who may or may not have danced on water, was another thing helping him escape from his dull reality.

Eventually practice for the dance team he joined is close to starting and Jongin finds himself focusing more on preparing for that then people that dance in the moonlight. On the first day of practice Jongin finds himself waking up early and preparing for his morning jog, his mother is in the kitchen making breakfast and when she hears him coming down the stairs she steps out of the kitchen with a smile on her face.

“Hurry back okay,” she tells him. “Breakfast will be ready soon.” Jongin thinks her eagerness has little to do with breakfast, and a lot to do with the hope that this dance crew will subdue him from wanting to catch the next train to Seoul. Jongin will do his best, he’ll work hard and keep his dreams of Seoul at bay, he won’t slack and he won’t complain because he has to do his best to get where he wants to go even if his best consists of dancing in some second-rate team in a nowhere town.

“Kim Jongin,” he hears a shout of his name, as he’s walking to the middle of town where the dance studio is. He turns his head and sees a friend of his, Oh Sehun, walking towards him with a wave, duffle bag slung across his shoulders, and sleeveless shirt revealing his toned arms.

“You tore yourself away from your computer long enough to come to practice,” Jongin acknowledges, laughing when his friend punches him in the shoulder. “Please tell me you at least exercised a bit these past two weeks.”

“I have,” Sehun retorts. “I have a life besides my computer.”

“Keep telling yourself and that pen pal of yours that,” Jongin teases. “Everyone else can see through your lies.”

“Whatever,” Sehun huffs, “I’m surprised you’re here to be honest. I thought you would have been in Seoul by now.”

“I can’t leave until I’m out of school for good,” Jongin sighs. “My parents are clinging onto me because I’m the youngest and still there.”

“You say that like it’s a bad thing,” Sehun says. “I love that I’m the youngest.”

“Yeah well not everyone can just sit around talking to their Chinese girlfriend while their mother cooks them dinner and cleans their room. We’re not all as lucky as you”

“Kim Jongin-pabo, my pen pal is not a girl so therefore not my girlfriend.” Sehun says just as they reach the dance studio.

“You’re like that,” Jongin asks teasingly, widening his eyes for dramatic effect. “Wow I never knew. Don’t worry Sehun-ah, I’ll still be your best friend even if you like some 30-year old Chinese dude. Your secret’s safe with me.”

Sehun heaves an annoyed sigh, proclaiming Jongin to be and idiot while he heads inside the building, climbing the stairs to the second floor studio, the older of the two trailing behind him.

Most of the dancers are there from what Jongin can tell while looking over Sehun’s shoulders. Sehun has gotten taller than recently, he’d hit another growth spurt sometime in the middle of the school year, and Jongin had to crane his neck to now look over him. The dancers all vary in age, some are high school kids like Sehun and him, and others are in college or at least at the age where they should be in college. Most of them are in tiny groups waiting for Eunhyuk and Donghae, the team’s co-leaders, to come. He’s not surprised by the amount of people that know each other; in a town where everyone knows everyone it was to be expected. 

Jongin’s eyes wander around the room, counting off the people he somewhat knew, before settling on a boy with brunet hair, sitting in a corner of the room. He didn’t know him, and from a quick look around he could confirm that many people didn’t. He doesn’t have much time to linger on who the boy may or may not be because Eunhyuk is walking through the door alone, commanding everyone to get into three rows.

Jongin’s stuck in the back between Sehun and a kid that just graduated from his high school, as Eunhyuk speaks he turns back to the corner, eyes widen to see that the boy hadn’t stood at the command. Eunhyuk makes them go through a simple routine before starting the real dance practice, and as Jongin attempts to follow along and look at the boy in the corner, he notices how the boy sits with his knees drawn up to his chest, staring at all of them as they dance.

It distresses Jongin, he wants to know who the guy is, he’s sure Eunhyuk sees the boy, but the captain isn’t telling him to join the others, so that must mean that he’s got another reason to be there besides dancing and Jongin wonders if he’s a recruiter or something. He’s never seen a recruiter that looked so young and…fragile, but maybe that was just a ploy to keep the dancers from being nervous.

When practice is over, Jongin watches as Eunhyuk walks over to the boy that’s now standing while everyone starts to leave. He walks over beside Sehun to grab his bag, and watches as Eunhyuk and the boy exchange words while smiling.

“Jongin,” he hears and turns around to see Sehun throwing him a confused looked and glancing quickly pass him to look at the boy and Eunhyuk. “You want to go grab some food?”

“Sure,” He says, following Sehun towards the exit. He throws one last look to the two talking men before exiting the studio.

Jongin doesn’t expect the boy to be there the next day they have practice, he figures that one day of observance is enough for the stranger. He’s wrong. The moment he gets there, he sees the brunette sitting in the same corner, eyes trained on his cellphone as he types away on the touch screen.

The days go by and the boy never stands, and no one pays even a bit of attention to the boy in the corner. It isn’t till two more practices that he brings the boy up to Sehun. Sehun at first looks at him in confusion, when Jongin whines about the boy in the corner that never dances and then he laughs.

“No one cares,” Sehun says. “It was a bit unnerving for me on the first day but he’s just there, he doesn’t speak, doesn’t dance, and it’s fine. As long as he’s not going to be getting solos or dancing in the front when we perform then no one will probably ever care.”

Jongin thinks about Sehun’s words and thinks back to the dance studio filled with men all ignoring the boy in the corner and he realizes that it wasn’t that they had not noticed he was there, it was the opposite. They knew he was there and they chose to ignore him, treat him as if he was a ghost instead of one of them.

The very next day of practice when Donghae forces Eunhyuk to call five, Jongin doesn’t collapse to the floor at his spot like the rest of the room. Instead he moves over to where the boy in the corner is sitting, and sits beside him, making sure to keep a good distance so that his sweat doesn’t get on the other.

“Hi I’m Jongin,” he introduces. He watches as the boy turns towards him, brown eyes wide in curiosity, before he’s flashing a brilliant smile, a dimple appearing on his right cheek.

“I’m Yixing,” the boy introduces. Jongin finds himself blushing slightly as they meet eyes. Yixing is honestly really pretty even if he’s a guy, and being this close to such a pretty person turned Jongin back into the shy and reserved boy he usual was. “You’re a really good dancer,” Yixing compliments him. “You should be in the front.”

“How come you don’t dance,” Jongin asks him. He watches as the smile drops from Yixing’s lips and his eyes lower to gaze at the ground. He kind of wants to say never mind the question doesn’t matter, after seeing Yixing’s change of attitude, but the brunette is suddenly back to smiling, all though it’s a little less brilliant now.

“I’m not allowed to,” Yixing explains. Jongin really wants to ask why, but he doesn’t think it’s appropriate to. Yixing already seems upset about the first question and he doesn’t want to ask such questions when all they’ve really done was exchange names.

“Oh well I’m sure you’re actually a really good dancer,” Jongin compliments. “Are you close with Donghae-hyung and Eunhyuk-hyung?” Yixing’s grins brighter, it’s the one that he first graced Jongin with and he’s nodding his head, telling Jongin about how he met Eunhyuk and Donghae.

They continue talking till Eunhyuk tells the room that the break is over and Jongin stands promising to talk to Yixing later.

When practice ends, Jongin bides Yixing a goodbye and notices people staring at him as he exits the building with Sehun in tow.

“Why were the guys giving me such odd looks,” Jongin asks his friend.

“First you ask