sehun was fifteen when he stopped taking dance lessons.

jongin helped him make the decision.

they met in the dance studio at the rec center.  sehun had started with jazz and tap, then moved on to more intensive contemporary that pulled from personal interpretation that he had in abundance, but the technical ballet moves had caused him to fumble multiple times.  his teacher had paired him with jongin, a boy that he had only ever seen freestyling on the sidewalk for coins from tourists downtown.

at fifteen, a year older than a baby faced sehun, jongin had nine years of classical ballet training under his belt, the rec classes were just for fun once a week while he attended a prestigous academy of arts in uptown during the day.

sehun was awe struck.

they became fast friends.  sehun's mother cooing at him in korean until jongin whined and promised to give her his grandmother's spicy kimchi recipe if she would just stop pinching his cheeks all the time.  sehun would meet him early outside of his school on lesson nights and watched starry eyed from the audience at jongin's end of term recital as he took part in the final number with numerous graduating student looking to be picked up by visiting dance company agents.

jongin was chosen instead.

at sixteen he charmed the lead choreographer of a company based out of london.  the offer was presented that very night as sehun sat open mouthed beside jongin when he instantly declined.  the choreographer had been desperate to sweep him up before anyone else, had pleaded money and fame and stages across the world.  jongin shifted and yawned as he squeezed sehun's hand beneath the table they were seated at in the dressing room as everyone frantically shuffled around them.  he declined again.

after a year, sehun knew jongin.

'ask him what he wants instead of telling him just what you will give him,' he had told the man more than twice his age.

jongin wanted to dance, not wait in a practice studio or until he was older.  he wanted to push boundaries and set standards and be able to make decisions about his own choreography.

two weeks later sehun answered a collect call from england, jongin breathlessly reassuring him that everything was brilliant.

three months later sehun opened a small package post stamped london.  there were odd and end souvenirs tucked in with a hoodie marked with jongin's company name.  in an envelope with the sloppy block hangul of his name on the front jongin had included a crisp ticket for a ballet in some foreign language and a short note.

i know you can't come but this is the first ticket they gave me for my debut performance.  i wouldn't want anyone else to have it.

sehun sat bundled in the hoodie jongin had sent him, even though it was early september, at the computer bank of the local library to watch a gritty live stream of a jongin shaped blur dance a phantom solo with an intricate set up of mirrors on stage.  at curtain call, a tiny mrs. kim handed her son a bouquet at the edge of the stage along with what looked like a huge picture frame.  jongin brought the frame to his face, sehun squinting with his nose to the computer screen, and walked to join his troupe in the final bows where he turned the frame to reveal a pixelized picture that sehun instantly remembered from months before.  jongin was the last to exit into the stage wings, just before he disappeared his face turned toward the camera providing the stream.  he tossed the flowers out of view and grasped the frame tight as he plied deep.  sehun laughed, holding his body fluidly in a replication of the picture and shook his head as jongin finally disappeared.

mrs. kim brought him a section of newspaper when she returned home days later.  the headline was a bold 'young heart, fulfilled dream'.  the article told the story of london's young rising ballet star, kai.  a photographer had captured candid shots of jongin at rehearsal and backstage and hugging his mother.  sehun smiled as he read how the reporter detailed his best friend as a shy teenager that transformed into a shockingly confident dancer on the stage.

the last picture in the article was of jongin seated before a makeup mirror as he posed next to the photo frame from the debut night that he had propped up next to his performance shoes.  the photo description read simple, 'young kai stays humble despite his quickly mounting fame.'  sehun stared at himself in the photo inside the photo, posed with jongin as they laughed their way through a routine.

he calls jongin from his house phone with the international minute card his mother used to call relatives once a month.  they talk about the article between gasping laughter.  jongin talks about the few friends he has made and how he got drunk off champagne his debut night and his plans to come visit once the show has ran it's ten week schedule.  sehun thanks him for the souvenirs and tells him how he almost got thrown out watching the live stream at the library and promises to give his mother a hug from jongin.

they stay on the line in silence for a while, just breathing quietly and counting the seconds between the white noise crackling ever so often.  he thinks jongin has fallen asleep until he coughs to clear his throat in that familiar way before he speaks again.

'i miss you,' comes over the line in a whisper.

sehun echoes the sentiment.

after they finally hang up, sehun has a panic attack right there on the kitchen floor because he can't feel this way.  not about jongin, not about a boy at all.  his parent's have expectations, the sterotypical traditions so often paired with asian households.  his mother would understand, she is soft hearted and understanding like that, but his father is unyielding in his ways.  sehun is expected to graduate in the top of his class and become a doctor so he can carry the oh name out of the shadows of lower middle class.  he is to work in a hospital or set up his own practice and then wed a good korean girl who will provide an heir to continue the family line.  there is nowhere in his destined plans to love jongin, he barely got away with tuesday night dance class.

sehun washes his face, brushes his teeth, and pretends to sleep that night.  his other comments on the reddened puffiness of his eyes over the breakfast table the next morning and his father shushes her by explaining that sehun had probably just studied with only the dim lamp on again.

tuesday night he fumbles through choreography he had known by heart the week before.  each time he looked into the wall of mirrors he remembered flashes of jongin beside him.  jongin pouting as he lead the smallest kids through exercises at the barre.  jongin grainy on a stage half a world away.  jongin daring sehun to dance as they waited for the bus to arrive.  jongin dancing until he was sobbing for breath and telling sehun 'again' and 'again' until his toes bled and he looked up after collapsing in a puddle of his own sweat with an expression that revealed all the insecurities behind the usual confident facade.

the next week was even worse, the teacher pulling him aside with whispered concern. the next week he knocked over a girl a couple years his senior and had fled after she had dragged his down with her as he repeatedly apologized to his hair so tenderly that tears had burned hot behind his eyelids.  he skipped the next week altogether, made up an excuse of a project due.

jongin called him twice, his mother confusedly making vague excuses for him when he wide eyed shook his head at her as she beckoned him to the kitchen receiver.

mrs. kim was over for tea one day when he came home from school and he had dutifully poured the steaming liquid into his mother's antique bone china like the polite son he was expected to be.  she asked him to sit and was oblivious to his flinch when she showed them pictures of her trip to london.  jongin was in every other print.  he politely excused himself to complete homework that he didn't have.

sehun was realistic with himself.  he knew he wasn't in love with jongin, but the possibility that raced his spine scared him.  he was nipping the chance of blooming affection in his chest before it became just that little bit more.  he was saving himself the pain and jongin from the awkward impending crush.

it was the thought of jongin becoming kai to an awe struck world of glittering lights with just obtained dreams and the future jongin was making for himself, that helped sehun seal away his feelings.

he answered jongin's next call and wrote back to every letter he received.  it was easy, sehun just talking to his best friend.  it was them living different lives across oceans and continents.  it was all simple again.

when he danced the next week and felt nauseous still, sehun did the easy and simple thing.  he withdrew his name from the class roster and informed his pleased father that night that his monthly dues would no longer be needed since he planned to stop all his dancing foolishness to prep for exams.

sehun was fifteen when he stopped taking dance lessons.  even though he didn't know, jongin helped him make the decision.

jongin flew in for just a day, more of just an extended lay over on his way to russia for a training clinic as an advertised special guest, and looked ethereal even under layers of jet lag.  they chatted animatedly under the watch of mrs. kim as she stuffed them with all of jongin's favorite dishes.  sehun said goodbye to them at the sidewalk with jongin gripping him in a bear hug that showed off the slender bulk of muscle that continuous months of ballet had added to his best friend.  he watched them drive away toward the airport, not looking away until he could no longer hear the shouts of jongin as he hung out the passenger window like a dog.

when his mother collapses in the spring, sehun wants to call jongin first but he knows that he is busy with rehearsals for his next show.  the next time they talk, the day of sehun's sixteenth, the topic isn't brought up.

it is the last time they talk.

mrs. kim helps vigilantly through the treatments and quietly tells him news of jongin in the sterile hospital waiting rooms as she holds his hand.  she tells him that she had only told jongin that his mother is ill and nothing more.  he asks her to correspond with his regard and to relay the message that he will be unable to answer any letters or calls with the excuse that he had taken up a part time job that drains any remaining time he has after studying.

his mother passes then his father and he moves into a small apartment across town.  he doesn't tell mrs. kim.  he doesn't tell jongin.  

he sees a segment during the local 6 o'clock news through a store front window as he waits for his bus home from school.  jongin is clear in technicolor as he smiles for the camera zooming in on his face.  sehun pretends that he doesn't notice dark circles under the dull shine of his best friend's eyes or the lines holding his mouth tight as he elegantly tiptoes around personal questions from the reporter.  he misses the deep pleading stare that jongin throws through the screen at the mention of family and friends that have been pushes aside to acheive success because his bus shows up two minutes earlier than usual.

sehun doesn't like jongin, he doesn't like boys.  he likes soft curves and floral perfume and lengthy science lab classes.  if he wakes up with the taste of sweat on his tongue like a memory half forgotten, he ignores it.  he pretends his mother is waiting at home when he is tired and his father is working late but will praise him for the high score he studies his way to when he gets home.  he lives outside of the truth, reality bitter in his lungs.

he doesn't tell jongin and definitely not himself.