School for the next few weeks went about as normal. Except, of course, for Samuel conspicuously leaving Daehwi and Jinyoung alone together rather frequently with increasingly ridiculous excuses. A forgotten dance practice here, a sudden previous arrangement there, and a few absurdly long bathroom breaks had Daehwi a bit concerned. Like, who takes a whole lunch period to go to the bathroom unless they're having internal issues? Unless, of course, he had asked him about his soulmate tattoo for a reason. But that was preposterous, right? If he had, he would've told him who his match was, right?

Nevermind that. It proved more difficult than he had originally thought to help Jinyoung overcome his stage fright. None of the normal tricks like imagining the audience in an embarrassing way or recording while you practice or having a small audience of people you were comfortable with worked, and Daehwi was running out of ideas here. So he turned to the only thing he had left that might snap Jinyoung out of his head and out of the rock hard shell he had built around himself: teaching him an almost embarrassingly cute girl group dance. He had been in a dance class with his best friend Somi for years, and in the process he had met and learned a little from her older friends. 'If this doesn't help, I don't think anything will.' He though to himself. He figured maybe, if he couldn't grow more confident in his own skin, that playing a character of sorts could help. After all, if you don't feel like yourself, you might be more able to do things you couldn't as yourself? Maybe? It was an idea, anyway.

So that's how Jinyoung found himself learning the choreography to one of Twice's most sickeningly sweet, embarrassingly adorable choreographies to date after school today. To be fair, Daehwi was being really encouraging even though Jinyoung could see that he wasn't all that comfortable with the whole thing in the mirror.

"You just have to put yourself into someone else's head. Imagine you're a character in your favorite show or something. Just put yourself in their head and let yourself get absorbed in the music and the dance." Daehwi had said that as if it was the easiest thing in the world, which it probably was to him.

"How exactly is this supposed to help me get over my stage fright? I just feel more awkward than I usually do." Jinyoung taken a "water break" to complain about his methods. They had been at this for an hour and they weren't exactly making much progress except for the fact that the choreography had probably been so thoroughly drilled into his head at this point that he could do it in his sleep.

"Well, if you can do this, which is a concept that you seem to have a really hard time with, and at least be able to record it, maybe things that you have an easier time fitting into will be easier to be confident in. And it's about changing your mindset. You think you look horrible, so you'll look like you're horrible even if you look amazing in practice. A different concept is like a different character to fit into. If you can put yourself into different characters, you can do pretty much anything, but you have to get out of your own head first. So we're doing a concept that's the exact opposite of what you seem like you'd normally go with." Daehwi explained between sips of water. "You're great as yourself, but yourself is your biggest obstacle when you're trying to perform, especially if you go out of your comfort zone. So if you can pretend to be not yourself, you can have more variety and you'll be less likely to be so nervous, at least until the song or whatever is over."

"I guess that makes sense. But how exactly am I supposed to do that? You might be able to do that naturally, but some of us don't know how to do that." Okay, so maybe being tired was impacting his mood a bit. He didn't mean for that to come out so harshly. It didn't seem to phase Daehwi all that much, though.

"I'm not sure how to explain it. Have you ever done any acting or gone out to like a convention in a costume or something? I guess it would be most easy to explain as having a character in mind and trying to think and respond to things the way that character would."

"I guess I can try. I don't know much about acting, but I guess I can give it a go." Maybe putting on a cuter persona or character would help here. 'I guess I just think the way Daehwi would. He doesn't seem to be having a problem with this and he seems pretty naturally cute. Objectively of course.'

After a couple more hours, it was at least easier to get through without stumbling or getting embarrassed to be doing this sort of thing on camera. "See, there you go! You got it!" Daehwi clapped for him after the last attempt, which turned out to be a pretty good thing because afterward Jinyoung kinda just collapsed onto the floor and refused to get up before he caught his breath. Also until after Daehwi tried and failed to pull him up off the floor. It was a valiant attempt, but it only ended up with Daehwi accidentally backward onto the floor across from him because he lost his grip on Jinyoung's arm.

"Oh my god, are you okay?" The thump of Daehwi's head on the floor made him sit up immediately to make sure he was okay. Daehwi laughed.

"Oh, so now you're willing to get up? Maybe I should've done that earlier. You sat up right away, it was kind of cute. Like a gopher or a meerkat." He kept giggling as Jinyoung laid back down next to him.

"See if I check on you next time. Now you're making fun of me." Jinyoung actually pouted a little bit. He started to think that maybe he had been acting cute for too long and it was starting to get to his head.

"No, no no. I'm not, you really were cute springing up like that to check on me. I don't think I've had this much fun doing this in ages. See, this lesson helped both of us. You're learning to break out of your shell, even just temporarily, and I'm learning why this is so fun to do again. I really enjoyed this, Jinyoung. Thank you."

"Why are you thanking me? I should be thanking you, I've been a pain to deal with and we've been at this for hours. I only really got what you meant like fifteen minutes ago." Jinyoung was a bit confused. He had been being a bit of a pain at the start of this whole thing.

"Because it didn't even feel like hours to me, spending this time with you. Sure you had a rough start, but I had fun learning with and teaching you. It didn't feel like a slog to get through for once. I guess it is true that time flies when you're having fun." Daehwi sighed happily and looked over at him. "I'd be more than happy to do this again any time you want. What did you imagine to finally get it, anyway, if you don't mind me asking."

Jinyoung hesitated a bit before replying, "You. You just seem naturally cute to me, and I'm not sure whether that's just my imagination or whether you actually do it, but it just made sense to me to think of you when I was trying to be cute."

Daehwi blushed a little bit. Sure, he'd been called cute a lot by a lot of different people, but this seemed to feel different somehow. It wasn't because he was his friend, because when Samuel or Somi said it, it didn't feel like this. Could it be that maybe, possibly, it was a crush? Not that he'd ever say it until he was sure, but the possibility of it stuck in the back of his mind as they walked home together, talking about what to try next, and until he fell asleep that night.

'Maybe, just maybe, I fancy you, Bae Jinyoung.'