Amber P.O.V

“Yah, dino! This way!” Without thinking, I turned around, just in time to see Key and Jonghyun… wait, Key and Jonghyun? Why were they here? Didn’t they know that Taemin and I weren’t going to dance? I followed them to the hall and saw them sit down on some seats in one of the middle-row. I poked Key’s shoulder and he turned around.

“Amber!” he said surprised, “shouldn’t you be backstage now?” I lifted and eyebrow.

“Backstage? Key, I’m not going to dance?” I said, making both Key and Jonghyun stare at each other and then me.

“WHAT?!“ They both exclaimed at once, “what about Taemin then?!” 

“Taemin got injured yesterday. Taecyeon beat him up,” I said, “he should be home now, sleeping.” Key kept staring at me.

“He WHAT?! I talked to him this morning and he said he was going to dance. And… the bastard did WHAT?! Isn’t that the same guy I met the first time I visited here?!” I nodded.

“Yeah… wait, you talked to him this morning?! When?!”

“Around 9:30,” Jonghyun said as he laid an arm around Key’s waist, possibly sure that Key was going to go and find his ‘baby’.

“I… what?!”

“I’m going to find those two. Taecyeon and beat him up, Taemin to take him home!” Key said determined and tried to get out of Jonghyun’s grab – without luck.

“No you aren’t,” Jonghyun said, “you aren’t allowed to go backstage. Amber will find Taemin for you, and I will help you finding the bastard. Later. After the competition. Araso?!” He looked at both me and Key. I nodded while Key didn’t seem to like Jonghyun’s suggestion.

“I’ll find him,” I said, “see you guys later.” And without staying to hear Key scolding his boyfriend I ran backstage.

“Ouh Liu. Finally here,” the teacher smiled friendly to me, “Taemin is over there. Your clothes surprises me a lot,” I widened my eyes.

“W-where do you say Taemin is?” The teacher pointed again and I looked against him. In a dress. Waving at me with one hand, holding my clothes with another.

“Hyung, you made it!” he said happily, “I have your clothes ready!”

Lee Taemin. I’m going to kill you.

I have no idea about how Taemin got me in that clothes, the next thing I really remember is standing on stage, holding Taemin’s hand, bowing to the audience before the dance. I noticed Taemin smile against a spot in the audience and when I saw it, I saw Key sit with a… pretty angry face, while Jonghyun just send a dino-smile back to Taemin while holding his boyfriend down. I couldn’t help but smile, even though I felt just like Key at the moment. The music slowly started and Taemin pulled me to face him and he sent me a smile.

“We can do it,” he whispered as he placed his hands in the most feminine way ever in mine, ready to dance.

“You’re dead,” I whispered back.

I had no idea how good we actually were. Not a single mistake from any of us, and the way Taemin moved surprised me. He shouldn’t be able to move like that after a beating! No one should! When the final step came – the one where I held Taemin and bend him down like I was going to kiss him, I don’t think my heart ever had beaten faster as our eyes locked. The music ended and I don’t know how long we kept standing like that before Taemin smiled and pulled himself up.

“We did it,“ he said before he bowed to the audience. I bowed and afterwards followed him backstage where I received the harshest glare ever from Taecyeon and Yoona. I smiled back.

“You think you got me?” Taemin asked cutely, “try again. No one can stop the Lee Taemin from dancing. No one~” and with those words he pulled me against his stuff.

3^rd Person P.O.V

Amber couldn’t scold Taemin backstage since the other classes opponents kept coming to say how good their performance was, and the teachers who wanted to praise them for their ideas with the clothes and how they chose to make the dance. 

“I haven’t seen anything like that in my twenty-five years of teaching!” one teacher said, “it was fantastic! Such good ideas, and I must say Taemin, you look beautiful.” Taemin didn’t know if that was a positive or negative thing, but he thanked anyway. Anything else would be rude. When the last performers had been on stage, everybody got called out. Taecyeon tried to give Taemin an elbow in the ribs, but Amber pulled Taemin aside so Taecyeon ended up hitting a teacher. He wasn’t liked much after that.

As they stood on stage, hand in hand and shaking, both Amber’s and Taemin’s heart started beating faster, but both excused themselves, saying to themselves that it was nerves for the result.

“In the third place we have…” the judge held a dramatic break and looked at everybody, “Choi Minho and Krystal Jung!” The two of them stepped forward and bowed, smiling big. They seemed satisfied with their position and both Amber and Taemin clapped with the audience. They had both liked the performance. It was very powerful and charismatic.

“On a shared second and first place… we judges couldn’t agree, so we will hold a new competition for those two pairs. They will get an hour to prepare, and then come back and let us decide who wins and who gets second,” the judge smiled. “One of the pairs is… Lee Hyukjae and Kim Hyoyeon!” Taemin and Amber both widened their eyes. The two of them were so… they were really, really, great dancers and had showed a really special performance. “This couple showed a lot of individuality and professionalism, something we haven’t seen much of, but they still seemed to know exactly what the other part did all the time, and for that, they got some extra points. Congratulations,” the judge smiled and the two bowed. 

“On the shared first place we… we have a couple who did something no one on this school ever have done before. It was amazing choreographed and really impressing. Lee Taemin, Amber Liu, step forward!” Amber jumped up and hugged Taemin as their names were mentioned.

“Taemin we did it!” She whined, “we freaking did it!”

“He’s a girl?!” Yoona exclaimed disgusted, “how is that possible?!”

“You never asked,” Amber said and winked before she and Taemin went forward and bowed. Taemin was still wearing his dress and sending Taecyeon a gaze he made a y move and smirked. Taecyeon hadn’t even gotten the third place! Ha! Never in his life had Taemin been more proud of himself. The pain didn’t mean anything to him now and the past were pushed away. His only wish was that his mother had been there, even though he was wearing a dress. 

“How are we going to do this?!” Amber asked when she and Taemin had gotten a practice room, “we have no extra dance and I can’t come up with something right now!” Taemin just smiled and kicked the high heels off.

“I’ll dance, you follow,” he said, “I have something in mind.” He showed each step three times before he went of to a new, luckily Amber was a fast learner and followed pretty well. He tried to make some couple-moves too so it wouldn’t look too much like a individual dance, and with help from Amber they finished after forty-five minutes, just as the door opened and Key and Jonghyun entered, each with a bag. Key went right to Taemin and handed him the bag.

“What is-” SMACK. Key had hit Taemin’s cheek and stared at him.

“You never do that again, you hear me? You scared the hell out of me!” Then he kissed the younger boy’s forehead and went off with Jonghyun behind him - after he had handed Amber his bag.

“What is this?” Amber asked and looked in the bag, while Taemin just stood and touched his cheek and pouted.

“Tae, how did Key find this clothes that fast?” Amber pulled out a pair of baggy-pants and a fancy shirt. Taemin shrugged.

“He is Key,” he said and also opened his bag. Same kind of clothes for him.

“Arh… let’s try it on and dance?” Amber said. Taemin nodded and while Taemin went to the restroom to change, Amber stayed back. When he came back she luckily only needed to take her shoes on. Everything else would have been embarrassing.

“How does he know my shoesize?” she asked amused and he laughed.

“Again, he is Key!” Taemin said, “he can see those things, believe it or not!” Amber nodded and tied the shoes. She got up and looked at him.

“Shall we practice one last time? We have three minutes before they’ll come and get us,” Taemin smiled and went to the music. 

“…and the winner is,” the judge looked at the two couples. Amber and Taemin again stood hand in hand, shaking and sweating. Their dance went okay, but with lack of practice none of them were fully satisfied, even though they knew they couldn’t have done better. The other couple had performed something similar like in first round, without lacking, in Taemin’s eyes. 

“No… no matter what, we beat Taecyeon,” Taemin mumbled and Amber couldn’t help but smile and squeeze his hand as a respond. She wouldn’t be sad with a second-place, even though that meant that they wouldn’t make it to the big competition against other schools. She was sure of a second place and that was more she could wish for.

Among the audience, Key and Jonghyun sat with a woman who was just as excited as her son. Key had called her in the break, scolding her for not supporting her son in one of the biggest competitions in his life. No one ever scolded her, so when her son’s best friend did it, she suddenly felt really sorry for Taemin and gave up everything on work to be there and see her son dance. And she was proud. She didn’t know that he had become such a great dancer. From now on she promised herself to try to be there more for him.

“The winner is, Lee Taemin and Amber Liu! Congratulations you two!” The judge smiled to the two winners who were both frozen with a shocked expression plastered on their faces.

“You showed us that you were able to dance other styles of dances and that was what we had hoped for. Hyukjae and Hyoyeon, both of you are wonderful dancers, no doubt about that, but it was too much the same style as first round. We hope you understand that,” he smiled and the two of them nodded, also with a smile.