“Taemin.. you don't have to do this every time.. it's fine.” Yixing's voice echoed in the small room. “I know.”

And it starts all over again. Yixing helps Taemin with his dancing, Taemin never has enough of anything to compensate him, (Yixing's dance studio and his lessons cost, even though he says it doesn't.) and Taemin is frustrated that Yixing won't accept. Manual labor, at least, just enough to keep Taemin's conscience at ease. Yixing denies him, Taemin openly argues. No one is quite satisfied.

Taemin's attempt this time was to clean the whole building, from the dance room that reflected him on its walls, to the dirty apartment that housed the twenty-four year old.

“Taemin.. I care for you a lot, and whatever mess you lived through before.. you don't need to do that with me.” The older tried, numerous times, to get it through his head, but it never worked. The aspiring dancer thinks he'll never know the extent of this person's generosity, from their first meeting, to the nights they spend up late — it was hard to guess.

Taemin gives up, knowing he was a thousand years too early to try and argue with his hyung, but decides with a firm heart, he'll make it up to him someday. He'll make everything up to him someday.

It had been a few weeks since the two had their first encounter. There was Yixing, walking the streets of Seoul after meeting with a friend, and Taemin, who was trying to figure out who would be best to steal from. He, fortunately, picked Yixing and failed.
 

Yixing was too kind. That chance meeting was the start of their friendship. Yixing, even though he almost always looked in a daze, was very observant. He saw the eighteen year old trying to steal from his bag, and he stopped him; he talked to him, and he befriended him. It wasn't the most conventional way to have a new friend, but it happened. (Yixing now thinks that what he did was stupid, because; what if Taemin was armed that time, and tried to injure him because he stopped him? But, the Taemin at that time, even if he was armed, wouldn't have even bothered — he was too busy dealing with the embarrassing fact that he was noticed so easily.)

In the few weeks they've known each other, there were changes. Taemin stopped pickpocketing — he denied it was from the humiliation that someone caught him — and Yixing got him a better job as a server in a dog cafe (so much better than selling street food in Hapjeong).

Less than a week ago, when Yixing went to visit Taemin during his shift, he saw the younger moving to the beat of the song the cafe was playing. Yixing saw so much potential in the kid, he tricked him into trying to dance with him. The result made Yixing think that maybe, their meeting wasn't just a chance encounter.

Since then, they danced. Taemin would do some reading he missed for school before the summer break (or just sleep, really), do whatever entertained him, then he'd be do