Kyungsoo is never anything less than extraordinary: That’s what he is brought up to believe. At the age of 6 he is able to play Chopin, at age 12 he is renowned across Korea and by the time he turns 20 he is a household name.

“Did you see Do Kyungsoo’s concert last night?”

His parents adore him, the public adores him, even the people who hate him have to pretend they adore him. In a sense, Kyungsoo has grown up with praise and adoration handed to him on a plate. The constant furor of people around him grows excruciatingly boring. But by the time he is old enough to make his own choices, he’s already caught up in the system.

     He decides to make the best of the situations that are laid before him. Some would call it manipulation- Kyungsoo calls it adaptating.

So when his manager tells him that he has been asked to perform at the Red Star New Years celebration, hosted by the ever so wealthy and ever so famous Bang Jibin, he decides to have a little fun with it. “I want a dancer to accompany my music,” He tells her out of the blue as he sits at his desk, supposedly composing, when in reality he is listening to the wind whistle outside his apartment window. Would it feel good to feel the wind over his wings?

However he isn’t prepared for the thousands of people who show up at the audition and Kyungsoo curses how things that start from mere amusement always have to turn into something giant when it involves him.  

For each person it takes less than 30 seconds before Kyungsoo is halting the preformance.

“Next.”

    One hundred and seventy three people later, Kyungsoo counts, he is just about at the end of his ropes. He doesn’t like being around people much, especially not these official mucky-mucks who couldn’t give a rats about what he wants but yet are easier to bend to his will than those plastic, pliable toys. The ones that he would see other children playing with when he was young; The ones that he was never allowed to even so much as pick up or he would be scolded and put back to work. They need him and Kyungsoo knows it. All of their type are the same, spineless; The type of people who are willing to claw their way up the social ladder just  to have a measly slip of someone else's good fortune. But at least they will not dare challenge him each time he casts away an auditionee.
    

Kyungsoo especially doesn’t like people who waste his time and yet these dancers, if they even can be called that, are all managing to do it very well. There are some of the city’s finest present, but each time he asks them to interpret how his music feels, each and every one of them look at him in utter confusion.

“Feel. How it makes your body feel?” Eventually he just gives up on speaking altogether.

The next contestant comes, a young woman who seems completely out of her element. Her voice is soft and hesitant and carries an airy like timbre to it.

“H-hello my name is Kim Sooya and I'm here to au-audition for the position of c-choreographer..."

To be honest by this time Kuungsoo has stopped paying attention. Needless to say she’s just the same as the 173 people before her.

Kyungsoo casts her away with obvious tears in her eyes. Part of him feels terrible, he has made more than 50 people cry that day and there is still another day of auditions to be had. But he figures they would all have to, in one way or another, find out that life doesn't always hand them things on a silver platter.

He sighs deeply and drops his head into his hand, trying to figure out how he ever got himself into a mess like this. He hardly even notices that the next contestant is being walked on stage aside from the man's footsteps echoing throughout the auditorium. Once they stop, Kyungsoo hears another sound, a voice replacing where the footsteps had left off.

"Can you tell me the dimensions of the stage?"

Its enough to make Kyungsoo look up. The voice is calm, deep and each syllable he speaks rasps out across the phrases in a mellifluous timbre. It’s barely a whisper but it rings out through the auditorium like a shout.

There is a man standing at almost-center-stage, a little to the left, facing forward like the rest of them had been as he speaks to the stage manager, answering his questions. Yet he seems different. He is staring straight forward, directly at Kyungsoo, and though Kyungsoo knows that he isn’t really looking at him (no one really ever looks at him without seeing their idealized version of him) he feels like the man is staring straight through him.

"And the piano is placed...?"

He wears black stretch pants that are probably so tight they can deflect bullets (not that Kyungsoo is looking) and a pale blue V neck matched with a grey plaid flannel thrown over it carelessly. His hair is black, the bangs styled and curled in a sort of minimal-effort chic ness that Kyungsoo can't place. He stands with a slight slouch, his right shoulder slightly higher than his left, but it gives an aura of confidence to him that not a lot of the other auditionees had. And to the impressionless Kyungsoo, it is impressive.

"And am I facing upstage or downstage right now?” It rings out again.

With that Kyungsoo furrows his brows in confusion. He is clearly facing forward. Does he not know basic stage directions and yet still dares to show his face at an audition? Insolent-

"Is he the one?"

Kyungsoo hears the whisper from two rows down.

So this guy is special or at least the others have heard of him. Kyungsoo is duly intrigued now.

"Yeah. Can't you tell? Look at his eyes"

Kyungsoo follows the man’s gaze to the beautiful eyes that stare straight through him. He leans forward to get another look and is shocked at what he sees there. He hadn’t realized it before but a closer look and he can see frosted over irises. Yet despite the fact they are still as alluring as before.

"But how can he dance if he can't see?" The man inquires. Such a lot of questions coming from that one’s mouth and it annoys Kyungsoo to no end. Yet, he is also wondering the same thing.

"Hell if I know," The other jeers, “He’ll probably know nothing about dance technique. I don’t even know why he showed up for this audition.”

While in most cases Kyungsoo would mentally jeer along with them, he refrains. His curiosity has been stirred, it’s the first interesting thing that has happened all day. He wants to play it by ear, see what unfold.

"Should we send him away? He probably won’t be much.”

“No. Shut up,” Kyungsoo sighs, “Let him audition like the rest of them.” The men freeze and their eyes turn to Kyungsoo as he glances calmly back at them, like a fox staring into a hen box.

"But Mr Do Kyungsoo…”

He begins to feel his fingers twitch, the nervous habit that he constantly finds himself suppressing when people try his patience.

Stop fidgeting! Clear as recording the words from his past pop into his mind and he quickly tucks his hand into his suit pocket.  

“He waited like all the others. He has a right to audition,” Kyungsoo deadpans. As he thinks about it he quickly adds, “Or would you rather I tell people that you sent him away before he even had a chance? Just because he was blind. Surely that wouldn’t be good for a businessman's image.”

Oh yes, the influence card. A power play that Kyungsoo has grown up with in the palm of his hand. As a child, it is merely used to get the cookies off the shelf when he’s away from his parents’ prying eyes, but as he grows older he soon comes to realize that he can bring down entire corporations with just a single word. He doesn’t hesitate to use this power when he needs to. Now is no exception.

The man’s mouth pulls into a tight lipped frown at Kyungsoo’s words but is quickly replaced by a falsified smile. “Y-yes of course. Right. Then shall we start the audition?” Kyungsoo nods slowly as he slips back into silence, his eyes trailing back to the man standing now directly center stage. Kyungsoo hasn’t noticed any movement from the man but is surprised how he is able to pinpoint himself so precisely even with a lack of eyesight.

"Hello my name is Kim Jongin," He mumbles and it’s shy but there is a certain ease, a certain familiarity with the way he speaks. "And, uh, I'll be dancing to White Fireflies.” A crooked grin creeps onto his face as he ends his sentence.

Kyungsoo nods slowly and awaits for the familiar sound of his music being played out to reach his ears. It’s the most horrible bastardization of his works to have someone else play. Kyungsoo hates that he can’t be the one up there, playing the music as it should truly be played. But the head director told him that he couldn’t be part of the casting if he were playing. He was, Kyungsoo begrudgingly admitted, correct.

The dancer takes his place, feet together and one slightly turned to the side, his head hangs down and his arms wrap around him before the first note hits. Kyungsoo’s ears immediately hone in on on every note, every rhythm he had written. This particular piece is fairly old, and Kyungsoo is surprised the man even knows it exists, but he can still vaguely recall when he had written it. He thinks that it was a snowy day.

Then, it begins. The dancer starts, unfolding in small circles, letting his limbs revolve around him like a spinning top, and they are small movements but Kyungsoo is being pulled in with every twist of his hand and every twirl. His movements are gentle and floating like feathers and Kyungsoo wonders if his movements are indicative to how he moves when he is not dancing. He hasn’t yet realized that the dancer has not moved from his point of origin until he does so and suddenly there is an explosion.  

    Because somewhere, somewhere inside of him he can hear it. Hear every move the dancer’s body makes, hear every step, every time he lands on his dainty feet, hitting inside him like a hammer swinging down to hit and bounce off a string, a reverberating sound, a glorious clamoring chaos. His heart thuds with the beat of the music and he can’t remember the last time his heart has beat this loudly in his ears.

    The man’s delicacy and intimacy does not go unnoticed. The way he moves, Kyungsoo observes, is like he is against some invisible field, in which his body connects to with each movement, gently flirting with and teasing it. As he watches the dance unfold, every turn, swish of his hips, every step, a scene begins to spin from his mind like a story.

It was a snowy day.

The flakes fall like little fairies outside Kyungsoo’s windows and float steadily to the ground. But Kyungsoo pays no notice as he marches down the hallway, a flurry of things he can’t control, of things he never has been able to control and he hates it. He makes sure to grab a vase, something old and ornate and probably very expensive, something that his parents probably treasured more than anything, anything. With one quick swipe he lets it spiral to the ground and shatter like the snow outside the windows.

He doesn’t hesitate even after he can hear the desperate screeching of his mother as he quickly rounds the corner to the room with the plaque that says “studio”. The place he abhors the most it and yet it’s the only place in the house with a sufficient lock on the door. He grabs the gold handle and flings the door open before slamming it behind him, the sound reverberating down the hall. He slams the door, but not because he thinks it will keep him safe, shut in longer. No. It’s a viper’s hiss, a wolf’s growl. It’s a warning.

He drops his bag and quickly locks the door, all five latches before he slides onto his piano bench and just like always, he is alone. He opens the fallboard because despite his pure hatred towards the thing, this monster, the beast that opened up his horrible gullet to devour his life with it, it’s the only thing he has, the only thing he has ever known. He slams down his hand onto the keys, the twisted, broken, lack of harmony in the notes causes him to cringe.

As a drop slowly makes its way down his face he wipes it on the sleeve of his school uniform. He really doesn’t want to play and so he does the only other thing that will make the dissonance ringing in his head stop. He looks out the window.

He names the piece he writes that day, “White Fireflies”

In a second the story ends and Kyungsoo’s eyes snap back to the man dancing. The memory had only lasted a few seconds but Kyungsoo had felt like he had been pulled away for hours.

He watches the dancer for a few moments more, just to be sure, but he knows that there will be no one else who can do what this Kim Jongin has just done. Through his dance he can tell there is some mutual understanding, something, something more, because this dancer knows, despite his lack of sight, he understands everything. In only a few seconds Kyungsoo decides that he’s the one.

“Stop!” He quickly and desperately shouts and the pianist’s hands freeze on the keys. But Kim Jongin had stopped before he had even shouted the word, as if he had heard the intake of breath and the first syllable of the word as it came out of Kyungsoo’s mouth. Kim Jongin stands frozen in place, his face twists a little in confusion, but he holds his pose, mid dance and arms spread wide as if in an open gesture, as he waits for further instructions.  

Kyungsoo doesn’t say another word but instead stands and no one in the room dares to even breathe as he makes his way down the stairs of the auditorium. It’s six steps up until his feet touch the stage, the clack of the soles against the surface is completely blocked out and all that Kyungsoo can hear is silence: Silence as he walks across the stage towards Kim Jongin; silence as Kyungsoo stops, directly in front of him and stares; silence as he slowly walks around the man, eyes grazing up and down him and inspecting every inch of him.

There is silence too as Kyungsoo lifts his hand and lets it graze the man’s shoulder. Kim Jongin doesn’t make an attempt to stop him or even change his breathing so Kyungsoo takes it as permission. He runs his hand down the man’s arm, tracing the ripples of his muscles until he reaches his finger tips. He lets his hand linger there for a few seconds before he lifts off, and to his shock he can still feel the heat from Kim Jongin’s hand radiate off him even after they are a foot apart.

He walks to face the front of the dancer before he speaks to him. Despite the fact that he knows it won’t matter, he likes talking to people’s faces. “Mr. Kim Jongin. That’s your name right?” he asks him and Kim Jongin nods slowly. “That’s enough. Thank you for your audition,” he tells him and doesn’t miss the twinge of disappointment on the man’s face. Not bothering to look back, Kyungsoo makes his way back to his seat as staff come to lead him out of the room.

Kim Jongin is gone from the room by the time he sits down and before anyone has a chance start start speaking again Kyungsoo does. “Send the rest of the applicants home. Were done here.” Where there was silence is now replaced with an uproar of the mucky-mucks in protest.

“But he’s blind!”

“You can’t be serious!”

“What about all the people you haven’t seen yet!”

But Kyungsoo tunes out their protests because he knows that he has made the right decision. This Kim Jongin is someone special and Kyungsoo is not prepared to let him slip between the cracks of his fingers.