“Grandma, why did he....It hurt...”

“You must have been a bad boy, or else Uncle wouldn’t have to punish you. Now go play somewhere else. I’m busy.”

“Grandma...”

“Didn’t you hear me say I was busy? Ungrateful child...”

Yixing woke with a cold sweat pouring down his face and sticking at his hair. He rolled over to blink, blinded, at the digital clock on the corner of his desk. Two o’ clock in the morning. He had only been asleep for an hour and a half. Closing his eyes, he conducted an internal examination, soon determining that he would be unable to fall back asleep. The cold floor stung at his bare feet as he plodded across the room to the door of his tiny bathroom. He flipped the light switch with two fingers and stepped across the tiled floor to twist the water on in his shower. As the steam began to fill the bathroom he quickly shed his clothes and stepped under the torrent. Wincing at the initial burn of the water, he let it melt away his nightmares, his thoughts soon drifting to more present concerns: school.

Any success Yixing had ever found through his schoolwork had been almost completely undue to talent. Everything he had gotten had been through hard work. He was far from being naturally interested in science or math, and he had only been able to manage his difficult classes in those fields out of sheer dedication and a natural tendency to insomnia. English and music had always been his passions but his grandmother always told him that they were useless pursuits and good boys went into fields that would make money. Knowing that he might finally make his grandmother proud of him still couldn’t make him like any of his classes.

Yixing turned the water off and, for a while, just stood in the tub as the steam dissipated, not quite ready to leave the warm space. It took him a while to notice that the room had gotten cold again, shivers of his body finally alerting him that he should probably get dressed. He stepped out onto the floor and quickly dried off, wrapping a towel around his waist as he walked out of the bathroom and over to the wall of shelves where his clothes lived in vaguely messy stacks. He yanked a sweater over his head and pulled on boxers and a pair of visibly clean pants. Halfway through dressing, he looked across the room at the clock. 2:23 in the morning.

Well, the less I sleep the more time I have to study, anyway. He sighed to himself. It took a minute of digging to find a pair of clean woolen socks.

“I need to do laundry.” He whispered out loud, pulling a beanie over his wet hair and shuffling over to the small kitchenette to start the kettle. A few minutes later he was staring dully at his Intro to Neuroscience textbook and idly stirring his cup of sweet black tea with a plain, vaguely tarnished spoon. Ten minutes more passed and he had yet to turn the page. He lifted his mug to his lips and drained it of the hot liquid, swallowing and heaving a sigh. He seemed to consider the words swimming on the page in front of him for a minute, but soon puffed out his cheeks in an expression of defeat. He was too tired to study, the boy soon decided. Too tired to study, but too broken to sleep. Pushing himself out of his desk chair, he unplugged his ipod from its charger and pressed the headphones over his ears. Scrolling through his music with his thumb, he hit shuffle. A mindless techno club song began pounding into his head. Yixing wouldn’t say he liked listening to dance music, but he really liked forgetting, really liked losing himself in the meaningless movement. He forced his tired muscles to stretch, compress, twitch, in the motions of dance.

Faster.

Sweat on his back.

Faster.

Spin and drop.

Faster.

Push harder, push further.

Faster.

A sharp pain radiated from just above his left hip. Crying out, he collapsed to the floor, shaking with pain. Desperate for relief, the boy curled into a ball and squeezed his knees into his chest as tears rolled down his face and music pounded in his ears.

Later that same morning, at around 9:00, he received a text from Jongin as his first class was starting.

Can you still go to the dance showcase this evening? I’d forgotten to ask you yesterday at work.

    -Jongin

Yixing quickly typed back a response.

Yes, I can still go. Thank you again for inviting me!

    -Zhang Yixing

He’d almost forgotten about that, he realized as he hit the send button. That was one of the many problems that came with constant sleepiness, he’d discovered over the years. His classes that morning didn’t feel as mind-numbing as usual and passed much faster than he had expected.

The walk to Spoons from his apartment that afternoon seemed more interesting than usual as Yixing was caught up in fall emerging all around him. Every person he passed seemed uniquely intriguing and every car chugging by made the world seem pleasantly busy. Chanyeol was waiting outside for him when he reached the cafe and Yixing instantly panicked. Was he late? Had Chanyeol been waiting long? He voiced these concerns as soon as he reached the tall boy. Chanyeol just laughed.

“No! You’re not late. I was studying with a few friends for my physics class. I love science, so people always ask me to help them study! Don’t worry so much!” The tall boy ordered mock-seriously, reaching down to ruffle Yixing’s hair with his large hand. Yixing stiffened and Chanyeol pulled his hand back instantly. “Gosh, I’m so sorry, I completely forgot that you don’t like that!”

“No...” Yixing said slowly, thinking it over. “That was okay. It was actually...nice.”

“Good! So I didn’t bother you?” The Chinese boy nodded in the affirmative. “Then...can I do that again?” His right eye squinted sometimes when he smiled, Yixing noticed.

“Sure, I guess.” Yixing smiled up at him, a little shyly and, together, they started off to the bus stop.

Du-Ho was having a bad day. One of the artists he was supposed to be recording had gotten a cold, and couldn’t sing, the coffee machine was out of order, and he had lost half of the sheet music for EAGLE’s comeback. As Yixing was on his hands and knees, half under the desk, searching the piles of paper on the floor for any sign of the songs, and as Du-Ho was nervously talking to himself, Yixing came to the realization that he had never enjoyed a job more. In the past he had worked at a convenience store, a restaurant and an herbal medicine shop, but he had never really liked them as much as he liked helping Du-Ho. His eyes alighted on the corner of a folder half buried under stacks of scrap paper. On a hunch, he pulled it out of the heap and opened it. Sure enough, it was EAGLE’s music.

“I found it Du-Ho-ssi!” He shouted in triumph and promptly sat up, whacking the back of his head with force on the underside of the desk. Tears sprang to his eyes and he groaned, backing out from under the piece of furniture as quickly as possible. Wordlessly, he handed his boss the folder as he rubbed the back of his head with his other hand.

“Good work Lay. I’m proud of you. Now, I think someone’s supposed to be coming in to record soon and...” There was a knock at the door. “Oh! There she is. Go bring her in.” Still in a significant amount of pain, Yixing walked to the door and opened it, revealing the prettiest girl he had ever seen. She was small, quite a bit shorter than him, and had dyed-brown hair that framed her face in waves.

“Hello! I’m here to record?” She asked pleasantly.

“Oh, yes, please come in.” Yixing gestured for her to enter and she walked immediately over to Du-Ho.

“Du-Ho-oppa, I really have to do well on this album, so please scold me if I don’t sound my best today, alright?” She said seriously, taking one of the strange man’s hands in both of her own. “It’s my first solo album in a year and I really want to be successful!”

“Of course, Taeyeon, we will work hard together so that you sound more beautiful than ever, okay? Now, we have a lot of work to do, so you can head into the booth and get set up.” The pretty girl, Taeyeon, entered the booth and immediately yanked her headphones on, staring into space and warming up her face by making strange expressions.

“Taeyeon’s a bit shy about people other than me hearing her sing songs before they’re finished, so if you could go organize my files in the other studio, that would work best.” Du-Ho told the young intern, shooing him out the door. “Give me five minute’s warning before my next appointment, okay?” he asked before firmly shutting it in Yixing’s face. Yixing sighed, turning around to head into the other recording room when a movement down the hall caught his attention. It was Baekhyun. The boy was walking quickly towards Yixing with a sort of forced nonchalance that made the Chinese boy rather curious. When Baekhyun reached him, he seemed distracted, looking about him as if expecting someone to jump out at him from someplace hidden.

“Hey Yixing, is, um, Taeyeon recording right now?” He asked in a loud whisper. It was obvious that he found the answer to this question very important, but he was trying to act as though it didn’t matter one way or the other.

“Yes, Baekhyun-ssi, she’s in there right now. Please excuse me.” Feeling awkward, Yixing quickly ducked into the smaller studio, still not comfortable spending more time than necessary in Baekhyun’s presence. His obvious interest in Taeyeon, though, made Yixing curious. Unable to resist the temptation, he peeked back out into the hallway to see what the young singer was doing. To his surprise and amusement, Baekhyun was half lying on the ground with his ear pressed against the crack at the bottom of the door, listening to what Yixing assumed was Taeyeon singing. After a minute, the boy stood up again and rushed off down the hallway, hands shoved in pockets to appear casual and a big, goofy smile plastered over his face.

I bet he likes her. They seem like they would make a good couple. Yixing decided, a small smile curling his own lips as he turned to deal with the endless files that seemed to be everywhere in the recording area.

At eight o’clock, Yixing was just finishing up a box of old files to be sent off to a warehouse somewhere by taping it closed. The sound of someone clearing their throat behind him made him jump, almost dropping the roll of packing tape. Turning around, he saw that it was Jongin, who was leaning confidently against the door frame. He was wearing another perfectly-tailored suit and Yixing worried, yet again, that he was staring.

“Jongin-ssi! Hello!”

“Hello, Zhang Yixing. Are you ready to go?”

“Oh, yes of course! Let me just put this box with the others.” Yixing stood up and wrapped his arms around the heavy box, lifting. His waist twinged painfully at the movement and he almost dropped the box in surprise. In an instant, Jongin was at his side, carefully taking the box out of his hands.

“Are you alright? What’s wrong?”

“It’s nothing. My waist just hurt for a minute, I can take that box back...”

“No, it’s fine.” Jongin replied dismissively, carrying the box over to the stack by the door that was to be removed by someone later that night.

“Thank you. I hate to make you do my work, though.” Yixing pouted a little, unhappy that he wasn’t able to finish up his job by himself.

“It’s not a problem. That’s my job, anyway. To help the other interns out.” Without another word, Jongin turned around and headed out the door, Yixing keeping pace behind him. The stiffness was back, Yixing noticed. He was beginning to wonder if Jongin only loosened up when he was talking about dance. They walked in silence, the Chinese boy blindly following Jongin through unfamiliar parts of the building until they reached an automatic sliding door that led to the parking garage. Jongin pulled a set of keys out of his pocket and clicked the unlock button. In front of them, a sleek black sports car beeped in response. Yixing’s mouth fell open. It was definitely the most expensive car he had ever seen in his whole life and it belonged to a boy who was only a year or two older than himself!

“Well, what are you waiting for? Get in.” Jongin ordered casually as he opened the driver’s side door and slid into the interior of the beautiful machine. Yixing obeyed, feeling awkward as he settled into the leather seat and closed his own door behind him. As Jongin started the car, he seemed to relax a little. “You know, I’m really glad I met you, Zhang Yixing. I’ve never had anyone else to go to events like this with before. No one else I know would even care about a dance showcase, so thanks.”

“Oh, no, don’t thank me. I’m the grateful one.”

More grateful than I could say.