In Mingyu’s eyes at least; this is the same Minghao from ten years ago.

          Each step is fresh and a little carefree. He has a tendency to get to his place a little too fast or miss his mark by a hair, but he slows it down before he actually reaches the key pose. This whole start-stop method to his dancing is and was something that translates directly from his experience in martial arts. There’s a different aura to him compared to the others. Even compared to Soonyoung, to which he’s the most similar, he’s not as concerned with perfection as he is with performance; expressions, delivery, and the reactions of the crowd. But because they aren’t facing the crowd and just watching themselves in the mirror, Minghao’s eyes are trained on himself and the other members, their backs facing the onlookers.

          As they watch, a new song queues up and the dancers take their places after Minghao and Soonyoung dispute something.

          It’s a little muffled through the Plexiglas, but Mingyu can tell there’s a lot of synth and heavy beats in the undertone. He doesn’t know that much about music. Out of the corner of his eye, he can already tell that Wonwoo’s attention in pinned on the blonde, but his arms are crossed, his eyebrows are furrowed, and his eyes narrowed.

          “What’s wrong?”

          “They’re rehearsing the song they used for the semi-finals.” He doesn’t even look at Mingyu.

          His lips are in a tight line, “So?”

          “Soonyoung and Minghao have a tradition of throwing out choreos after they’ve won with them.” Mingyu understands that much, “This is thatchoreo, by the way.” It’s almost like he’s reminding Mingyu to watch and behind the crowd of people and masked by the focus of the dance team on themselves, he doubts that he and Wonwoo are visible.

          The choreography revolves around giving each member a moment in the spotlight leading the rest. They watch as the energy seems to oscillate in the crowd as they rotate. Off to the side, he hears a group of girls coo over Jihoon’s provoking steps and how they wish he came around the studio more often. Another group of people adjacent to them mumble something about how Vernon is a surprisingly good dancer despite not hitting the floor that often. There’s also something else muttered about how they wish he was single. The group of kids in front of Wonwoo and Mingyu are especially excited about Chan. They think he’s the cooliest and they all want to dance like him. He even hears some of the older kids declare Chan as their rival and how they’ll ‘definitely beat him by this time next year’ followed by an instructor reminding them that their studio doesn’t have a ranking system and that ‘your only competition should be yourself, Alex’.

          Mingyu’s watching, but not for details. His eyes are glazed over, eavesdropping on all the conversations. The most outstanding ones are of course those about the three instructors, Soonyoung taking up most of the chatter because he’s the most popular—and most intimidating—one. Jun occupies a good portion, too. Jun’s popular because he’s the nicest and most soft-spoken instructor at the studio. He’s apparently only ever full of compliments and constructive criticism. Minghao’s students don’t really seem to be around. The only ones talking about him have also spoken on the other two instructors. It’s not uncommon for students to enroll in more than one class if they have the time. Dancers are rarely exclusive as it’s important to be able to memorize more than one set; it’s just more work-realistic.

          The only comments he hears about Minghao are about how he has a ludicrous amount of stamina and how he makes his students run through sets over and over again despite them already nailing the moves. They don’t hate it because they end up toe-to-toe with Soonyoung’s students during studio showcases and they don’t have to deal with the senior instructor’s wrath—he’s supposedly only serious when it comes to dance. It’s curious how Soonyoung’s personality can flip like a switch once he’s on the floor, but Mingyu supposes that most performers are like that. Minghao is like that, too.

           Wonwoo nudges him with his elbow, interrupting his observations and nods towards the window. The beat rises in speed, as if a drop was going to happen. Almost if on cue, the older students and instructors shuffle the children and their parents away from A3 casually; making the excuse that they’re closing up for the night or something along those lines.

          Instead of a bass drop as he’d predicted, it falls silent and a distorted voice cues the transition into a slow song. Does he hear violin? Cello? Probably cello, there’s something low and earthy about it. The dancers have partnered up, but retain their formation, one couple taking the center position. The first leads are Jun and Jihoon. Their size difference makes their dynamic look interesting since Jihoon’s clearly the dominant one in the roles they’re assigned. If anything, it looks a bit like a slow-motion fight scene; a lot of punches into the air and sliding past each other. The two pairs on the side alter their moves slightly. They aren’t as close as the couple in the center and their moves aren’t as intimate. At the end of the round, the side pairs end back to back, but the centers’ turn ends with Jihoon holding Jun to the floor by his collar, straddling him over his chest.

          Okay.

          So this is the direction the dance is moving in.

          Mingyu gets flustered and looks away for a second as the people around them mutter and clap, commenting on the smart pairings. He even misses their cool transition move to rotate to the next pair. Wonwoo hasn’t stopped burning holes into the glass with his laser vision, but Soonyoung and Minghao haven’t even done anything out of the norm. Their moves are sharp and crisp and strong. Nothing unusual for them.

          Vernon and Chan take the floor next; Vernon jumping over Chan who crouches on the floor. He slides onto his knees in front of the black-haired man. The fight scene continues with Vernon occasionally sweeping his legs in low kicks that Chan has to dodge and jump over. It looks strenuous and the pseudo-fight scenes match fascinatingly with the slow, bedroom-worthy music. There’s a drum snare or a sharp jab on the violin every time they try to strike each other. Those key notes slightly change up the pace of the music in the background. Chan and Vernon match up well. Mingyu doesn’t know anything about them, but Chan moves with intention and his extremely controlled power plays well off of Vernon’s skittishness on the dancefloor. Their round ends with Chan locking Vernon’s right arm behind is back, putting him in a bowed-down and vulnerable position.

          The other pairs end in a handshake.

          Maybe he missed the different endings of the last round because he was too rattled by the boldness of Jihoon and Jun’s dancefloor chemistry.

          Wonwoo speaks during the transition after clicking his tongue. He already sounds a little impatient, “You know, this is supposed to be a dance about an unhealthy relationship. The pairs on the side represent how healthy relationships deal with fights and the centers represent a couple that can’t resolve the conflict.” He sighs, “The idea is that from the outside, it’s hard to tell which couple is in trouble since they seem to be going through the same motions. It’s only at the end do you realize the main couple keeps hurting each other.”

          “Where do they get their ideas for this stuff?” Wonwoo shrugs, brushing off the question. Again, he’s a little thankful for Wonwoo’s explanations, filling him in on pockets of information that give context to whatever is happening. Mingyu wants to cheer Wonwoo up. He looks too serious right now, “Last I checked, you and Soonyoung were the ideal relationship.”

          The chord strikes up for the last couple to start, “Up until here, it’s a narrative written about their parents.”

          Mingyu shuts his mouth. He’s not sure who the ‘their’ is.

          And for this moment he doesn’t care because Minghao’s throwing a spinning kick to Soonyoung’s face. His heart stops for a minute because it looks like he actually hit him, but of course it’s all method acting. Soonyoung falls forward and comes back to him with a one-handed cartwheel, swinging a punch that Minghao blocks. They do a bit of a tango around each other before locking arms, catching fists, and giving each other a hard stare. Soonyoung pushes Minghao prone and takes a big step forward to slide under his legs with a scissor sweep, effectively standing behind him at the end of the complicated move.

          He keeps trying to touch Minghao and Minghao keeps pushing his hands off, acting annoyed. The charade goes on for a few more beats until Minghao takes a seat on the floor, sliding backwards against Soonyoung’s legs. Soonyoung hooks a leg over Minghao’s shoulder and twists them around, forcing the brown-haired dancer down onto his back. One knee is on Minghao’s chest, holding him down, while the other is on the floor, holding most of his weight. His orange jacket has fallen off his shoulders and to his elbows. He has a hand at Minghao’s throat and their exaggerated breaths are in sync with the low hums in the song. The disc scratches and cranks out a few strong beats to which Soonyoung stomps his hands into the floor on either side of Minghao’s head with each jab. The latter dodges and pushes Soonyoung off so he can sit up, grabbing his hand to stand as Soonyoung starts to walk off.

          When he pulls Soonyoung back into his chest, the two are getting a little too close for Mingyu to avoid being red in the cheeks. Soonyoung roughly pulls down Minghao’s jacket, leaving it just hanging by his wrists. He runs a hand up into Minghao’s hair and forces him down on his knees. The impact makes Mingyu wince for him. That had to hurt so badly. Minghao shifts his weight to his right side slightly, but it isn’t long-lived since Soonyoung pushes him to the left and back so that he’s bowing forward on his knees. Minghao looks up at the blonde, biting his lip, looking equal parts and ready to fight, but Mingyu’s convinced he’s biting his lip in pain.

          Soonyoung starts a brief striptease. He’s really just resuming the choreography as it were, clearly this short spot was for a solo. When the section ends, Minghao shrugs his jacket back on and stands up with a deep breath held, Mingyu can see his chest hold the air and his jaw tighten. He exhales only once he’s right behind Soonyoung. They roll their hips together a couple times before Minghao’s hands are pulling up Soonyoung’s shirt, running over his toned stomach up to his collarbones, offering the entire hallway a gratuitous look at the instructor—well, his reflection—and slipping a hand to the waistband of his sweatpants. Soonyoung looks back at him when the music stops and they slow down to the point where Minghao’s just holding him, pulling him in for a kiss, but before their lips meet Soonyoung has one hand behind Minghao’s neck and the other grabbing the back of his shirt and he flips the taller dancer over his shoulder.

          The move isn’t executed by the other four due to obvious reasons and it would probably look comedic if Minghao wasn’t so graceful. Minghao’s got the best acrobatic ability and he can do a perfect handsfree front flip easily, making it look like Soonyoung’s slammed him into the floor when the beat drops. He follows it up with his own solo stage. Luckily, it’s mostly leg-free spins. This particular one—as Mingyu has overheard—is called a one-handed air flare. It’s apparently extremely hard.

          Even though they resume a rather normal and non-romantic performance, the dance is difficult not just to Mingyu’s untrained eyes but to the other dancers around them that coo and mumble amongst themselves when particular moves are executed. It’s plain to see that at least a few of the six are above and beyond the rest. Mingyu’s money is with the three dance instructors, all of which are center stage for a tricky move. Before he knows it, Minghao is being tossed into a flip. He stumbles on the landing, but the others don’t seem to mind since it’s not front and center, but Mingyu catches it; the brief break in concentrated expression. That had to hurt, too.

          In fact, instead of focusing on how hot or how charismatic Minghao and the rest of the dancers are, Mingyu’s just worried about his insane pain tolerance. Watching his patient endure the stressful choreography is the only thing he’s seriously immersed in, not the context of his lithe and nimble dance moves. Sure, he understands why Wonwoo was upset and he knows that half the people around him are a little hot and bothered by the performance, but he just can’t be right now.

          Minghao’s in pain.

          Minghao is hurt.

          He’s torturing himself.

          And no one is doing anything.