The cracks begin to show

On baited breath, Taemin watches Jongin from behind a pane glass window. Watches as the handsome dancer swoops down onto one knee, his black tights stretching taut over defined leg muscles and his broad back arching almost painfully as his hands extend beautifully towards his partner. And there’s a light there, a bright light shining from stark overhead bulbs that seem to shadow their features and transform the two dancers into mere silhouettes. It looks perfect. They look perfect. He looks perfect, so perfect.

Taemin lets out an airy breath as he looks away in disbelief. His eyes focusing on his shoes as his hand steadies his weight against the wall-like window on the outside of the practice room. He shakes his head. It just doesn’t seem real. The past week. The week before that. Everything that has happened since he met Jongin, just doesn’t seem real.

Taemin’s brows furrow slightly. Is this what they call the butterfly effect? A moment in time where your life literally and figuratively forks? Where one decision, one meeting, one person could change the course of your life forever?

Taemin snorts, his hand coming up to cover his mouth. He shakes his head again as his eyes crinkle. How silly.

“What’s so funny?”

Taemin stills, his eyes widening. Oops. He forgot that he wasn’t alone. He straightens and side eyes the boy standing next to him. The boy from earlier who reminded Jongin he had been missing practice. The boy called D.O.

Taemin his lips nervously, as he’s not good with strangers. “Sorry.” He says sheepishly. “And about earlier as well. I thought you were Jongin’s roommate.”

D.O. peels his eyes away from a dancing Jongin to look at the boy to his right. He raises an eyebrow in question. “I thought you were his roommate.”

Taemin tilts his head, pointing to himself. “Me? Oh! No, no, no.” He says putting his hands up in reassurance. “I’m . . .” Taemin looks up, trying to find the right word.

D.O. raises both brows and turns his body towards the other. “You’re?”

Taemin shakes his head quickly. “I’m just . . . Taemin. I help Jongin with his dancing sometimes.”

D.O.’s eyes squint. “Really? Then why did he miss practice?”

“Uh . . .” Taemin frowns and looks away from D.O.’s dark, accusing eyes and back to the window. He stares at Jongin who is now moving to the bed for that particular scene in the routine. “I wonder.” Taemin says offhandedly. Because in all honesty, he has no idea. “Maybe he was tired?” Taemin offers with a hint of hopefulness.

D.O. continues to stare at Taemin. Watches the way the pretty boy’s eyes blink a little too quickly and a little too often. Watches the way his stubby fingers never seem to still, always anxiously picking at the opposite arm, or nervously scratching his skin. Even his feet seem to constantly shift their weight from foot to foot.  It’s awkward, it’s compulsive and it’s painfully obvious. “So how long have you known Jongin?”

Taemin’s eyes don’t leave the dancing figure beyond the glass, but D.O. can see the change in them. From dazzled to almost dazed.

 Taemin smiles. “Just a couple of weeks, but . . . it seems like longer somehow.” He turns towards D.O. with a bright expression, almost blinding the other boy with its purity. “What about you?”

“Friend of the family.”

Taemin raises a surprised brow. “Oh? Wow, so you’ve known Jongin for a long time then, huh?”

“In a sense.”

Taemin nods and purses his lips together, feeling his excitement dim slightly. Why does it feel like there’s somehow been an invisible line drawn in the sand? A line he’ll never be able to cross. A line that reveals a side of Jongin that he’ll never get to see. Taemin looks down at his shoes again as he tries to think of something else to say. But it’s sort of like the way his dirty sneakers look against the polished floor. It’s strange. As if he’s not meant to be there. And in a way he supposes he’s not.

His gaze wanders back up to take in his surroundings. To gaze longingly at the empty halls of the school that Jongin goes to. And then back to the window, where Jongin sweats underneath the lights. Taemin’s hand comes back up to the glass and presses against its hard, smooth surface. The dark, beautiful dancer is slowly consuming Taemin’s heart and he’s right there in front of him, yet somehow so far away. But then again, maybe Taemin’s being too greedy. After all, he’s already been given so much.

Jongin’s chest heaves and his neck glistens as he waits, counting the beats, remembering the steps. And then on a quick turn, Jongin’s body rigidly stops as he pauses, poised and practiced as Hyoyeon dances around him, her fingers trailing along his shoulder, her legs bending in between his. But for just a moment, almost as if by surprise, almost as if he forgot something.

Jongin looks up.

Under the bright lights, Jongin’s dark eyes meet Taemin’s across the room, through the glass. And there’s a flicker, a change, a . . . difference in expression. Like a transfer of energy, Taemin’s eyes light up, a small smile spreads across his face and a single eyebrow lifts lightly, unsurely, yet sweetly as his hand presses harder against the glass.

And it’s right then and there that D.O. takes in a surprised breath. Because of the way Jongin looks as he stares at Taemin from across the room. The way his cheeks dimple. The way his top teeth sink into his pouty lower lip. The way his eyes darken yet smile, as if there’s some sort of unspoken challenge or shared secret between the two. And then Jongin’s moving again, his body dipping lower than before, his arms holding Hyoyeon’s waist tighter as his eyes close and his mouth drops open . . . the expression . . . passionate, sultry and definitely y. And the two dancers start moving in a newfound rhythm as if they’ve been intimate lovers in not only this life but the one before. Their bodies dig into one another as their hands skim purposefully over clothed flesh. And then Jongin’s eyes open slightly, lidded and lusty as he dangerously smirks through dark lashes, his eyes holding Taemin’s from across the room. And then something impromptu, something unrehearsed happens.

Jongin crooks a finger towards the pretty boy. Begging. Tempting. It says wa