I don't know what I was expecting. Honestly, I don't think I really had any expectations since my mind was still back at the book store. Still, this wasn't even something I probably would have expected if I had been in the right mind set for expectations.

"Why in the world are we at a dance studio?"

"You said the other day that you wanted to go to places I like to go, not just stuff for you," he said, looking at me nervously and a little crestfallen about my reaction. 

I hadn't meant to sound dissapointed because I honestly wasn't, I was just suprised by it. Neither Kai nor his friends had ever mentioned anything about dancing before in any way, shape, or form. I had no idea he had an interest in it. When I told him we should do something he liked, I just assumed it would be something along the lines of what my mind considered 'typical male stuff', like sports or video games or something like that. I didn't realize he was into something more artsy. 

It made me feel kind of bad that it took me until now to learn this. It just showed even more that I don't know him that well personally. While I figured I knew a fair few of his charater traits, they weren't the only thing to him. People were more complex than being nice or stubborn, but I didn't know much more about him than that.

While I needed to do a better job about talking to him about himself and asking those kind of questions, in a way I feel he diserved part of the blame. He didn't often talk about himself. More often then not out conversations were him asking about me or about what book I'm reading. He didn't usually offer anything up.

Then again, thinking back to our first date, he was probably just waiting for me to talk to him the way he talks to me. I remembered him getting a little overly excited when I started asking him questions, so I guess I should know better than to wait for him to tell me things. He already made it clear a while ago that he wanted me to take an interest in him.

"I just..." I trailed, trying to find the right words. I didn't want to say anything that would seem like I didn't like the dance studio or that he liked dancing or whatever it was that my inntial reaction had caused him to think. I banished the suprise from my face and let my curiosity slip in instead. What kind of dacing does he do? How long has he done it? How did he get into it? "I just never knew you liked dancing. You've never mentioned it before."

"I haven't really been talking much about it to anyone recently." He shrugs as he opens the front door and we walk in. 

"Why not?" I asked, but he didn't answer immediately. Just turned and held up a finger, signalling to hold on a second as he lead me to our destination.

I was more than a little suprised as we made our way through the building that a lot of the people there seemed to recognize him, especially the staff. All smiling and nodding to him as we walked past them, some greeting him. I felt like I was walking with a celebrity. I felt a bit intimidated. While everyone we passed was friendly, they were also respectful. Was he that good of a dancer? Is that why everyone treats him like this?

Soon he was leading me into an empty dance room and I asked;

"Is it okay for us to just walk in here?"

"Yeah," he answered as he shut the door. "No one's going to be using this room for another hour."

"So people are allowed to walk into empty rooms as long as no one's using them?"

"No, you have to reserve the room and there are a bunch of guidlines for that, but I have special privlages." He said this as he walked towards the stereo while taking off his jacket. "My mom owns and runs this place, I have a bit more freedom here than most people."

"Oh," I said, getting it. Why the staff had reacted the way they had when they saw him. They work for his mom.

He set his jacket down on the table with the stereo and turned back to me, and I realized he was probably expecting me to do the same.

"So why haven't you been talking about this recently?" I asked, waving my hands around to indicate the building after I set my jack on his.

"Because the building was owned by both of my parents," he began as he leaned against the table. "When my dad left, there was a huge argument over who would get it, but the end result was that they would have to share it because they were both legal owners even though it was my mom's business. When my dad found out, he dropped all arguments for it. He didn't want to be involved with us at all anymore."

He had crossed his arms and his face was unreadable. I wanted to ask why; why his dad left, why his dad didn't want to be involved anymore, but I was too scared that I would be prying, that he wouldn't want to talk about it. He had brought it up himself, but I didn't think that meant he necessarily wanted to go into all the little details about it. I felt it'd be better to wait until he wanted to tell me everything.

Instead I tried to think about why he would be telling me this, how it would be related to my question. I think I could roughly figure out where he was going with this, but I waited for him to continue anyway.

"When I found that out, among other things, It was hard to come here. I kept thinking about it. And then I started to get angry because I love this place, I love dancing, and I felt like he ruined it for me, like he stole it. Of course, then I started getting into fights with my mom, and that only made it harder to come back, because this is where she works." He paused here and thought. His face was focused, trying to concentrate. His mind was probably a hurricane of memories and emotions while he tried to sit in the eye of it. He was probably trying to hold onto that spot while also trying to reach into the storm and pull out coherent thoughts for the conversation, to tell me what he wanted to tell me. 

"My friends knew," he continued. "They stopped bringing it back up after a while, because they knew it'd just annoy me. But I started coming back again, recently." He looked up at me as he said this, giving me a small smile. "Right after I made up with my mom."

Oh, I thought. That's what that look was for.

"I haven't really been talking about it because for the past year it's been a pretty private thing for me. I hadn't given up dancing entirely, I couldn't, I just wasn't taking classes on it anymore because I couldn't come back here and I knew my mom wouldn't take me somewhere else."

I nodded, unsure how to react to this information drop. It had been a long time since I had gotten close enough to someone for them to start telling me things like this about them or their family that I didn't already know. I already knew virtually everything there was to know about Ga In's family. I wasn't sure how I was supposed to react. He didn't look like he needed any consoling words, but it was also obvious that just brushing it off would be a bad idea.

I was beginning to understand more why my parents wanted me to make friends; so I could learn how to deal better with situations like these and other situations when the bad things were actually happening and not already past, so I wasn't always at a loss as to what to say or do.

I was staring at the floor, chewing my lip while trying to come up with a response when I noticed Kai was moving to stand in front of me. I looked up to see him with his hands in his pockets, the small smile still there.

"Do you want me to show you something?" he asked, hopefully.

I nodded, both glad that he didn't seem to want me to answer and curious to see him dancing. I was glad he had trusted me with all of this. With telling me about his dad and the dancing. Knowing he was sharing something he hadn't even talked to his friends about made it feel special. Intimate, almost. It made me feel like we were getting closer, and that made me happy. My heart also ached for him, what he told me was sad, and I could tell it still, unsuprisingly, pained him. Still, I appreciated him sharing it with me.

His smile grew, and I couldn't help but smile back up at him. Lips stretched then parted, eyes crinkled; he was beautiful. How could I not smile back?

He suddenly leaned down and pulled me into a hug. He wrapped his arms securely around me as he buried his face into the nape of my neck. My arms lifted up on instinct, but I grabbed onto the sides of his shirt, the idea of putting my arms around him seeming strangely intimate even though he had already done it to me. Even though we had already kissed. It felt really weird to me, coming from a family that wasn't too big on hugs.

I had to take a few seconds to convince myself to hug him back, convince myself that was more than likely what he wanted me to do since he had done it to me. It was hard to do. When he had kissed me my brain had turned to mush and I was acting on instinct, but now my brain was hyper aware of everything. What it was like to be enclosed by him, in a space surrounded by him. I felt his hand that was gripping my should squeeze a little, and I inhaled the smell of his hair. I felt his lips on my shoulder through my shirt-not kissing, I probably wouldn't have been able to handle that-as he pulled me closer, my body bowing to fit his.

"Call me Jong In," he said after a few moments, pulling his face back a couple of centimeters.

"What?"

"Jong In. It's my real name. Kai's just a nickname I got a while ago."

I gripped onto his shirt as he put his face back where it was, feeling weird that I was about to call him by a different name. His real name. One no one at school, except maybe teachers, use. Something special. Something intimate.

"Jong In."

He pulled back, smiling at me, that affectionate look in his eyes, and I let my hold on his shirt go. He took hold of my hands and lead me to stand next to the mirror wall, off to the side a bit. When I was standing where he wanted me to, he let go of my hands and turned and walked back towards the stereo.

"Do you-" I began, feeling weirdly shy all of a sudden. "Do you want me to keep calling you that, or..." I felt silly asking the question, but if I didn't I wouldn't be sure what to call him and would probably go to great lengths just so I wouldn't have to say his name and make a decision and risk making the wrong one.

"Jong In." He turned back to me to answer.

"Okay."