After Sehun had bid farewell to his new maybe-friends with promises of going to the first “Breakfast Club” the following day, he walked home alone. It wasn’t as if he hadn’t done so before, but doing so because people had a legitimate reason for not talking to him was a whole new experience.  Around him students were milling about; in twos under the trees in the courtyard, in groups of three in the warm afternoon sun—some people friends since kindergarten, some friends of less than three years. They clambered into each other cars or to school buses or cars of relatives or family friends.  Sehun was forced to watch all of this, his surroundings unfamiliar and strange. He couldn’t afford to look down.

                A tentative finger tapped hesitantly on Sehun’s shoulder and he looked behind him. Jongin was smiling at him shyly, a hand rubbing the side of his neck, then up and down his arm. He held his head high, the only part of his head lowered were his eyes, and even then it was only down to Sehun’s chest.

                “Hey,” Jongin mumbled.

                “What’s up?”

                “Are you going home?” Sehun hummed in affirmation.

                “Oh okay.” Jongin nodded his head and raised his eyes slightly to peek at Sehun through his bangs. They brushed the tips of his eyelashes, shading them from the sun’s rays. “Well… my home is this way too and… yeah…”

                Sehun shifted Jongin’s shyness and general awkwardness highly contagious. “Well… do you want to walk with me?”

                Jongin’s tense shoulders relaxed, dropping back down to normal height as he nodded eagerly. He glided over to Sehun, his footsteps light and quick despite the three textbooks he held in his arms. Sehun eyed his feet with slight jealously. Sehun always tended to drag his feet as he walked, his backpack straps digging into this shoulders, its contents weighting him down. He had his arms shoved into his pockets to keep this occupied since all of his books were crammed together in his backpack.

                As the two walked in silence, Sehun could feel the waves of awkwardness that Jongin was emitting even without looking at him. He kept shifting his books in his arms or pulling in the straps of his backpack like silence was too much for him to handle.

“So,” Sehun tried, “where did you come from?”

Jongin immediately stopped fidgeting. “Like my ethnicity?”

“No, like where you moved from.”

“Oh,” Jongin flushed. “Somewhere out of the city, you’ve probably never heard of it.”

“Same.” There was another break in the silence and Sehun rushed to fill it. “Do you like living here so far?”

Jongin shrugged. “It’s pretty alright so far.”

“Yeah.” Jongin wasn’t much of a conversationalist despite his apparent distaste of silence.

“So... how long have you been dancing for?”

Jongin looked over at Sehun for the first time since that morning, his bangs making way for his eye like the sun peeking out at dawn. Somehow his dark eyes seemed warmer, lightening into the colour of hot chocolate on a cold winter’s day. Sehun immediately felt like there wasn’t enough air in the atmosphere. Jongin smiled brightly as they walked down an almost empty street.

“Since I was five.”

“Wow,” Sehun flinched as his voice cracked. Thankfully Jongin didn’t notice.

“Wow,” he tried again. “That’s ten years give or take. You’ve been dancing for awhile now.”

“Yeah. I hated dancing at first, but I learned to love it as I spent more time at the studio, you know?” Sehun didn’t really, but he nodded anyway. “Even though a lot of people don’t approve of my dancing, I don’t think I’ll ever give it up.”

Sehun felt a bitter taste at the back of his tongue, like coffee that was just a few tablespoons of sugar away from being sweet. He watched Jongin’s purposeful feet glide next to his.

“That’s amazing,” he managed to choke out. “So, where do you live?”

“Glaçe Crescent, what about you?”

Sehun tripped on a crack in the ground, stumbling. He hoped it came off as a gesture of surprise. “Really? I live on that street too.”

Jongin’s eyes widened and he cocked his head to the side. Sehun tripped again on the uneven ground, almost falling. Damn broken roads. “What number? I live on 146.”

“143,” Sehun said in awe, carefully navigating his feet along the uneven sidewalk.  “We live right across from each other. This is amazing.”

“Yeah!” Shocked at his own excitement Jongin immediately withdrew himself, collapsing back into silence. Sehun sighed and glanced up. Somehow they were already in front of his house.

“I guess this is where we part.” He internally winced. He sounded like a teenage girl talking to her love interest.

“Yeah...” Jongin tugged on the straps of his backpack awkwardly.

“Well—” Sehun started.”

“I’ll see you tomorrow Sehun! Have a good night!” Jongin said quickly before taking off toward his house.

Sehun watched him disappear down the street into his little brown, cottage style home before going into his own large, white, cold modern style house. Sehun could already hear the loud voices from the inside even as he dug his house keys out of his backpack. But as he heaved a great and exhausted sigh, his new, maybe- friends faces floated toward his conscious; Baekhyun, Jongdae, Jongin.

His lips quirked up into an almost smile even as his parents voices rumbled in the background. It was going to be a long night, but a bit more bearable one.

***

The next day saw Sehun sitting in a room full of people that didn’t know. Everyone was chatting amiable with each other, cracking inside jokes, singing together loudly in a corner. Even with Jongin sitting beside him in the same predicament, Sehun could strongly feel that he was the outsider. It was like he was invading a tightly knit family reunion (not that he had any experience with those), one where all of the people, blood related or not, were laughing and playing together. At these parties Sehun was always the one child out of all of the children running around free that he sat and watched them as his Dad was off having fun with the other party guests, leaving Sehun to fend for himself in his little isolated cage of insecurity.

He had no place here.

Sehun discreetly shook his head focused on doing something else.  He started skimming his eyes fleetingly over everyone’s faces, never lingering too long. Everyone looked similar in some way: bright, but sleep weary eyes, slouched shoulders and fidgety limbs. There were various degrees of messy hair and a whole gradient of colours in the clothes that they were wearing. It was like everyone was trying to look as conspicuous as possible because if they didn’t, they would probably disappear in the midst of the more popular monochrome shades.

Sehun momentarily broke his “no lingering rule” when he almost overlooked the boy sitting across from him. Right before his eyes was the pretty jock boy from before.

Pretty-Jock was sitting extremely low in his chair; back almost flat against the seat, his legs spread wide. He had his phone out, scrolling through it aimlessly with one thumb. He didn’t look like he wanted to be there, his face pulled into a frown and his eyes cold and thunderous. He looked like he’d rather be with his jock buddies than be in a room filled with the school’s losers.

Luckily, before Sehun was caught staring at him like a creep, a man barged into the theatre carrying what appeared to be a stack of folders while simultaneously pushing up his wire rimmed glasses with his index finger. His cheeks were flushed and his hair sweaty and mussed like he had just run a marathon.

“Wow,” he wheezed. “Sorry I’m late kiddos, only the first day and I already got held up at the office.”

“Mr. Kim! We missed you!” someone called out.

Many of the people in the circle called out to Mr. Kim in greeting as he scrambled to one side of the circle in a rush, his papers fluttering dangerously in his frail arms. He looked like a weary businessman after a long busy day at the office, yet a bright smile lit up his weary features, never faltering. The lines of exhaustion seemed to melt off of his face as he looked at all of the kids in the circle.

“Welcome back everyone to the Musical Theatre Crew!” the man cheered. Everyone cheered and chattered excitedly in response.

The room gradually grew quiet as Mr. Kim tapped his fingers on the chair he stood behind and hummed in surprise. “We have quite a few new students this year,” his warm eyes skirting over Sehun for a moment. He flinched and quickly looked away. “If you’re new please raise your hands.”

Sehun meekly raised his hand up to his face as the three others- Jongin and Pretty-Jock included. The third was one boy Sehun hadn’t noticed before. He sat slouched, staring at the floor, like the weight of the world was on his shoulders and he was ashamed of it.

“Wow, four people! That’s more people than the past two years combined!” Sehun heard Jongin cough in shock as Mr. Kim clasped his hands together, an action which made him feel a sense of foreboding. “Now, I want each of you kids, one by one, to come up here, introduce yourself and show what gift you have to offer to the club. Singing, dancing, acting, you name it!”

Sehun’s heart started to beat rapidly as he broke out in cold sweat. Thankfully he didn’t seem to be the only one.

“Do we have to?” the boy that Sehun didn’t know said, voice wavering measly.

“Do you have to? Of course you have to! Don’t worry, everyone in this room had to do it when they first joined, heck even I did it.” Mr. Kim stepped into the circle and pulled the boy out of his chair by the arm. “Here, how about you start us off?”

He started to protest, but Mr. Kim was stronger than his frail frame suggested. He was also very persistent. The boy heaved a great sigh and let himself be dragged to the middle of the circle. His eyes nervously darted over the eager faces of the Crew.

“Hello everyone, my name is Kyungsoo Do and I’m in the grade eleven honours class.” Kyungsoo’s voice was like the kids’ voices in the debate club at Sehun’s old school –strong, confident and very authorative. You couldn’t ignore him even if you tried. Even so, his voice shook slightly like a reed in a howling storm.

Kyungsoo had wide, imploring round eyes that peered at the world through thick glasses. They were similar to Baekhyun’s, although this guy’s glasses reminded Sehun of Clark Kent. And there was a permanent stiffness to his face that seemed to be deep set in lines that made him look older than sixteen. His full lips seemed to be permanently etched into a frown even when he smiled at everyone nervously.

He glanced at Mr. Kim who was smiling encouragingly. “I, uh... sing amongst other things.”

“That’s excellent! Do you have anything to sing?”

Kyungsoo shuffled his feet and mumbled, “It’s not... in English.”

“Well that’s fine; just sing whatever is comfortable for you.” Kyungsoo nodded and closed his eyes and opened his mouth to sing.

Sehun knew this song; it was pretty popular from what he could remember from his childhood watching Korean TV shows from his position peering over his mother’s shoulder as she sat alone on the couch. Insooni’s “A Goose’s Dream” flowed through the air of the theatre. Kyungsoo’s voice was amazing to say the very least, but something was really lacking beneath it all. Every time Kyungsoo sang “I have a dream,” it left a lingering coldness in the wake of his warm, honey voice. His words were like an empty promise, hollow and baseless. When he finished, everyone clapped warmly as he bowed, but Sehun could only bring himself to half-heartedly bring his palms together. Kyungsoo’s voice kept ringing in his head as he sat down, sending a cold feeling down the base of his spine.

“Wow that was amazing! Your voice is beautiful Kyungsoo, thank you,” Mr. Kim said sincerely, something fleetingly gleaming in his eyes. Kyungsoo quickly bowed, red faced, before shakily wobbling back to his chair. Mr. Kim spent a moment observing the other boys in the room before pointing his finger at his next victim.

 “Your turn,” he said beckoning Jongin over with a finger and a smile. Jongin looked alarmed, but came to the middle without protest.

After his mumbled introduction Jongin stood for a few moments staring at the ceiling and scratching his finger under his jaw. “I guess... I’ll show you a pirouette?”

Mr. Kim nodded encouragingly and waved his hand at Jongin to indicate his start. Jongin stepped into position: right foot in front of him, left foot behind. Sehun cringed at the position that his right foot was facing in, toes facing perfectly to the side, his calf muscle bulging out prominently. His left foot was stretched behind him, perfectly straight and taut. His arms appeared to be in an L shape, graceful, yet straight.

Jongin took a deep breath before releasing all of the energy in his body as he began to spin on the tip of his right toe, his left foot pointed in front of his knee. His arms started out rounded in front of his body, but lifted into the position Sehun knew well. He was brought back to his childhood when would stare the little pink ballerina on the inside of his mother’s jewellery box, listening to the tinkling music in an attempt to block out the other roaring sounds behind him. Sehun held his breath as he watched Jongin spin. As he turned, he would whip his head around; he seemed to be staring at a point in the air, far, far away. 

He finished gracefully, foot and arms slowly lowering into the position he started in and the room filled with loud and amazed applause. Jongin blushed and bowed, skittering over to his seat beside Sehun. Sehun gave him a wide smile and thumbs up that was returned bashfully.

“It’s so great to finally have a dancer in our midst,” Mr. Kim gushed happily as Jongin fiercely blushed. “And a ballet dancer! Even better! Thank you Jongin.”

Jongin nodded shallowly, face so red that Sehun felt like he would soon burst into flames.

“Now, who’s next...?” Mr. Kim murmured tapping his finger to his chin.

Sehun’s heart starting beating in his ears as Mr. Kim’s eyes darted back and forth from himself to Pretty-Jock. Pretty-Jock didn’t seem fazed which was totally unfair. He probably did this kind of thing a lot-- not the musical theatre performance thing, but the talking and presenting himself in front a mass of people thing. Meanwhile, Sehun was trying to find a way to unclamp his hands from his seat. Jongin sent him a reassuring lopsided smile that said “it’s okay, it wasn’t that bad.” It did very little to ease his anxiety, although he did feel a really weird tingly feeling down his chest and stomach.

Sehun was so distracted by Jongin, that he almost missed Mr. Kim’s eyes finally settling on one of them, his finger pointing like a limb of doom.

“Ah, You.” 

___________________________________

A/N: WHOOOA IT'S BEEN SO LONG. Sorry for the long wait ><;; I didn't anticipate how work heavy this school year would be. But luckily it's break now I can update finally. But as you can see, it's not completely done, but I wanted to post at least something, so here y'all go. I'll post the next part introducing Pretty-Jock and Sehun's introduction performance in the next chapter. Hopefully it'll be up before January 5 ><;;

Well, until then. Bai! ><

p.s. please excuse the extremely messed up formatting. idk how to fix it.