Jinki squinted, staring intently at the fair-haired boy sitting at the Gryffindor table. Jinki was feeling on edge, a few minutes ago he definitely saw something but the rational part of his brain kept telling him he was being delusional and had just imagined everything. So he stared, waiting for the thing to happen again to prove the stupid rational part of his brain wrong.

"Jinki stop it, you're embarrassing yourself." Kibum said, taking a sip of his tea.

"Shut up, you're distracting me."

"You're going to burn a hole in his skull, give it a rest mate. Why are you even staring at him like that?"

"You'll see." Jinki said and then his eyes widened. He clenched his hand on Kibum's arm and shook it violently. "Did you see that?! He smiled at me! I'm not crazy, he really did smile at me! Twice!"

Taemin looked at his brother with fake sadness. "Look what love can do to a person. Jinki finally went insane." he put his hand on Jinki's arm and squeezed it in comfort. "I promise I'll remember the non-pathetic version of you."

Jinki shook off his brother's hand and stood up with a big grin on his lips. "Say what you want. He smiled at me." he sing-songed and grabbed his bag. 

Kibum looked up at him, eyebrows raised. "Are you leaving already? You didn't eat anything."

"I didn't need to. I fed on happiness." Jinki laughed and then skipped to the exit.

"I want my brother back." Taemin cried out, wiping an invisible tear off his cheek.

"I don't think I can go, I'm not feeling so well." Jinki said and sat down on his bed, his legs shaky. He was all dressed up for the ball but suddenly going there didn't seem like such a great idea.

"What happened to the Jinki who fed on happiness? Anyway, you have no choice. You have to at least go to ask Jonghyun to dance." Kibum looked at himself in the mirror and smiled satisfied. "And you're just panicking, I'm not going to let you weasel out of this."

The word 'panic' seemed like such an understatement for what Jinki felt. He was horrified. He was very well aware that this was his last chance to make things between him and Jonghyun work and it made him scared less because if Jonghyun said no it would mean that everything was pretty much over.

"I think I'm gonna be sick." Jinki choked out, breathing deeply.

Kibum sighed and approached his friend, putting his hand on the boy's back and beginning to rub circles. "This is so not like you. You really care about him, don't you?" He squatted at Jinki's feet and beamed reassuringly. "He's going to say yes, I promise. He smiled at you yesterday, remember? Just don't do anything stupid and you'll be fine, Jonghyun wants this as much as you do."

Jinki nodded, rubbing his thighs nervously.

"Ready to go?"

"Yeah." Jinki said. 'No.' Jinki thought.

The Great Hall was thumping with upbeat music, people talking and dancing everywhere but Jonghyun was far from the mood to celebrate. He let out a shaky breath and crossed his arms over his chest, nervously tapping his foot to the music. "Do you think he's gonna do it? He keeps glancing at me."

"I think he wants to." Minho grinned and looked at his friend. "Excited?"

"Nervous. Oh god I'm so nervous. I actually feel like running away this is unbearable."

"Don't you dare. This is your chance you hear me? Let him come to you."

Jonghyun looked up at Minho with worried eyes. "What if he doesn't come?"

"He will. Be friendly, try smiling at him."

Jonghyun forced himself to smile, the corners of his lips stiffly moving upwards, his chin trembling in effort. "Like this? Is this okay?"

Minho had words of agreement ready in his head but when he actually looked at Jonghyun they died in his throat. "No. Definitely not." He said with a frown and patted his friend on shoulder. "You look like you're constipated, relax a little, hm?"

Jonghyun deflated, his shoulders sagging. "I can't. This is stressing me out and the waiting just makes everything worse. Why is getting asked to dance so difficult?"

"Want to provoke him a bit then?"

"Provoke him how?"

"Dance with me. Maybe it'll give him the kick he needs to ask you."

Jinki blinked. "They're dancing. Why are they dancing."

Kibum rolled his eyes. "Did you expect Jonghyun to sit through the whole ball on his waiting for you to kindly get your together and ask him to dance? Speaking of which, can you hurry the up? I don't like the perspective of spending the whole ball counseling you either, I want to have some fun too you know?"

"Well I can't ask him now can I? He's busy." Jinki said irritated.

"Of course you can. Ever heard of cutting in on someone? Just tap Minho on the shoulder and politely ask him if you can borrow Jonghyun for a sec."

"What if he says no?"

Kibum groaned exasperatedly. For someone with so much experience Jinki was really acting like a total novice. "Fine. I'm gonna be nice and make it easy for you. I'll go and drag Minho away." He said and then grabbed Jinki's chin making their eyes meet. "Don't mess up this chance because I'm not going to give you another one."

"Okay." Jinki nodded in understanding, wiping his clammy hands on his dress pants. "Okay. Let's make a plan. When-"

Kibum gave Jinki a single pat of encouragement and walked in the direction of the dancing couple.

Now?! Jinki's eyes widened in horror. He quickly turned around, his gaze following his friend. "Kibum!" he hissed, trying to be loud enough to be heard over the music but not enough to be heard by Jonghyun, voice squeaky from panic. "Wait! Not yet, I'm not ready! Come back dammit!"

But Kibum had no intention of stopping. So Jinki watched with his heart pounding in his chest as his friend walked over to Jonghyun, placed a hand on his arm to get his attention and whispered something in his ear. Jonghyun then glanced at Jinki, making his heart jump to his throat, before looking at Kibum again and nodding his head. Kibum smiled, linked arms with Minho and pulled him toward the buffet, leaving Jonghyun alone on the dance floor.
That was Jinki's cue to make a move. So he did, albeit a bit ungracefully. Jonghyun was looking at him and it made him extremely self-conscious, his limbs awkward and incompatible. But he did his best to not look like a toddler who was just learning how to walk. His brain was working on overdrive, repeating over and over again what he was going to say when he stood in front of Jonghyun. Unfortunately, the nervousness took over and somewhere on the way his mind went completely blank. Jinki still moved forward though, trying to remember at least a few words he learned in his lifetime to prepare a sentence.

It all turned out to be unnecessary because the moment Jinki reached Jonghyun the boy relieved him of speaking first. "Kibum said you were scared of Minho and if he kept hanging around me you'd never gather up the courage to come to me."

Thanks, Kibum Jinki thought, barely holding himself back from turning around and sending his friend a glare. "I'm not scared of him. It's just inconvenient when he's around okay? All this is stressful enough as it is, I don't need him to make it worse by acting all protective and boyfriendy with you." Jinki didn't mean for it to come out as annoyed and jealous sounding as it did but the words just rolled off his tongue before he could think about it. He mentally cursed himself, this kind of attitude definitely wasn't going to help him appease Jonghyun. He sighed and lowered his head. "I'm sorry." he muttered dejectedly. "I didn't mean for it to sound like that."

"Well, um. Do you want to dance with me?"

Jinki's head snapped up and to his surprise Jonghyun didn't look upset at all. If anything he looked shy, eyeing Jinki from under his fringe, his cheeks slightly pink. "Yeah. I mean, if you want to-." Jinki sputtered, completely having not expected Jonghyun's proposal. "I came here to-. Yeah. I'd like that."

Jonghyun smiled brightly, offering his hand and Jinki almost died right there, right then.
But he didn't. Because that would be a waste. So he took Jonghyun's hand and pulled him closer before wrapping his arms around the boy's waist and resting his chin on his shoulder.

Jonghyun giggled as they swayed on their feet in the crowd of jumping and twirling bodies. "This isn't really a song made for slow dancing you know?"

"It doesn't matter." Jinki mumbled, hugging the other boy a bit tighter while his heart pounded away in his chest. It still felt weird, being this close to Jonghyun. Dancing and talking as if the past 7 years didn't happen, as if the last few months were already forgotten. But they weren't. Not to Jinki. Because no matter how okay things seemed right now he could still feel it. That horrible guilt and responsibility for what he had done to the boy he was holding in his arms. 

"Are you okay?" Jonghyun asked, pulling away slightly to look at Jinki. "You're shaking."

Jinki bit his bottom lip and drew back, his head hanging low. "No, I'm-..." he lifted his gaze, eyes locking with Jonghyun's. "I-I'm sorry, I can't do this." Jonghyun's face fell and Jinki quickly grabbed his hand before the boy could misunderstand. "I just-... Can we talk first?"

Jonghyun stared at him with unsure eyes before nodding. "Okay. Want to take it somewhere more quiet?"

"Yeah." Jinki replied and started walking towards the exit, ignoring Kibum's questioning eyes. "I know a place where no one will disturb us." Jinki said once they were out of the Great Hall. "I'm not sure what that room was used for but I don't think anyone comes around there anymore."

Jonghyun nodded and let himself be led by Jinki. It wasn't long before he understood why no one would know about that room, it was in a part of the castle where even he had never been in despite having roamed around it for 7 years now.

"We're here." Jinki announced and pointed at the door at the end of the corridor. They walked up to it and Jinki grabbed the door handle before pulling it. He then stilled, processing the scene playing out in the room. "What the ?!"

Jonghyun jumped, not expecting Jinki's sudden yell and then quickly peeked around his shoulder to see what caused that reaction. In the room, leaning against a bookshelf stood a beautiful girl in a long, flowing dress.
No wait. Wait, wasn't that-?

"Isn't that your brother?" Jonghyun whispered and then his eyes went wide and ears reddened once he noticed that the dress was bulging weirdly in the front and instead of two, there were four feet sticking out of the dress's frills.

"Hi guys." Taemin grinned shyly, waving his hand at the couple standing in the doorway. "Um, as you can see this room is taken so..."

There was some movement under Taemin's dress and Jinki closed his eyes, his face scrunched up in discomfort. "Jongin don't you dare com