“Zhang!”

Yixing turned and brought himself back to neutral. Baekhyun was pushing open the door of the practice room, gym bag slung over his shoulder and a beaming smile on his face.

“Zhang, buddy, I’ve been looking everywhere for you!”

“You have?” Yixing adjusted the strap of his leotard. “Why?”

“To practise with you, doofus.”

Yixing blinked at him. Maybe he was misunderstanding. He and Baekhyun had no dances in common - why would they need to practise together?

“I wanna absorb some of that sweet Chinese training,” Baekhyun continued. “I’ve decided if I practise with you, it’s almost as good as going to Chairman Mao’s academy myself!”

Madame Mao’s academy, Yixing thought, but did not correct him. “What is your dance?”

“I’ve got a pas de deux,” Baekhyun said. “The two merchants, eyeing up their ladies in the town square.”

Yixing nodded. He was familiar with the ballet the company was staging this summer - except that when he had performed it at the Academy the merchants had been soldiers, and instead of waiting until they were rich to propose to the women, they had been waiting until they returned from war having secured the safety of all the Chinese people.

“I wanna see your solo,” Baekhyun said. “I’ve been thinking about those jetés.”

Yixing nodded and returned to his beginning position. As Baekhyun gave a little hiss of approval and scuttled over to the front of the room to watch, he closed his eyes and drew a centering breath.

Baekhyun was a responsive audience. Every fouetté was met with a whispered cheer, every tour en l’air softly applauded.

“Nice,” Baekhyun confirmed when Yixing stepped out of his final pose. “I like it. Teach me to be like you.”

Instead of waiting for Yixing to respond, he got up and stretched his legs.

“Alright, it’s my turn. Stand over there and be my lady, Zhang.”

Yixing frowned. “You don’t want me to dance the other merchant?”

“Nah,” Baekhyun shook his head. “The partner work is minimal. I just need to have a fixed point to make eyes at.”

Yixing nodded and went to stand where Baekhyun indicated. He wasn’t sure what Baekhyun meant by “make eyes,” but he tried to keep eye contact as much as possible, standing still and captivated as Baekhyun danced.

This was a different sort of dance from the one he had seen the other day. Baekhyun’s steps were cheeky, almost comical, every attitude saturated with attitude. He seemed reckless, spinning with careless abandon, and yet his footwork was so precise, so light, that even to Yixing it looked like he barely touched the ground between pas de chat and cabriole.

Baekhyun danced with his heart, Yixing realised. His body was simply the instrument through which he gave it the stage.

When Baekhyun turned to him, grinning despite the slight heave of his shoulders, he tried to voice this as best he could.

“This dance… very different. Is very different from yesterday.”

“From yesterday?” Baekhyun cocked his head.

No, it wasn’t yesterday. “Two yesterdays.” That wasn’t how you said it in English. It wasn’t even how you said it in Chinese. Yixing’s words were escaping him.

“The day before yesterday,” Baekhyun supplied.

“The day before yesterday,” Yixing confirmed. Sure, let’s go with that. “You danced… more slow. More… sensitive heart.”

“Oh!” Baekhyun looked away, then glanced back at Yixing with a bashful little grin. “Yeah, I was… that was just me messing around.”

“I like that dance.”

“It wasn’t really a dance,” Baekhyun said. “I was just. I was just moving.”

“I like it,” Yixing insisted. “I did jeté for you. You do just moving for me.”

Baekhyun laughed. “Fair enough. You win.”

He turned and ducked to pull a cassette out of his bag, then crossed to the far corner and slotted it into the stereo.

The sound of trumpets filled the practice room. Baekhyun stepped back from the stereo and paused, stepped back again, then turned and spun in a slow circle, left foot cou-de-pied. He looked up from his leading hand and caught Yixing’s eye. Yixing wasn’t sure what his own face was doing, but whatever it was, it made Baekhyun smile at him as he scooped his arms through a low bras bas and into a développé.

He really was different this way, Yixing thought. The cheeky humour was gone, and his steps, though still precise, were slower and softer, seeming more to sweep than to shoot into position.

As the chorus of silver-voiced women faded into the hiss of the tape, Baekhyun turned in a final attitude and stepped into an arabesque penché. His fingers swept towards the floor, almost grazing the boards before rising to bring him back, until he was almost upright and could open his eyes to look straight at Yixing.

“There you go,” he said, too soft to be casual. “Just moving.”

“You have many different hearts,” Yixing breathed. “One heart funny. One heart beautiful. And you change like-” he snapped his fingers.

Baekhyun grinned down at his feet. “Just different music.”

“I like this music,” Yixing said. “Beautiful women. Who are they?”

Baekhyun laughed, eyes sparkling as he looked up at Yixing. “These women?” He jerked his head over his shoulder at the stereo. “The Bee Gees.”

“Lovely ladies,” Yixing nodded. “Pretty voices.”

“I’m sure they’d be flattered to hear that,” Baekhyun grinned.

“Do you have more of this music?”

Baekhyun shook his head. “Just this one song. I recorded it off the radio. But I know where we can hear more.”

-

When Baekhyun had mentioned a club, Yixing had thought about the activity groups the students used to take part in at school. He had imagined a music club, where they would sit and listen to more cassettes of the Bee Gees, the ladies with voices spun of silver. He had imagined how they might discuss the music, and thought how he could learn some English words to describe the way the song made him feel.

He had not expected this.

They were in a room that was simultaneously dark and blinding - coloured lights shot out from the ceiling and walls, catching Yixing right in the eyes and making him squint at the drink J.D. set in front of him.

“What is this?” he asked. He could barely even hear his own voice, the music was so loud.

“Coca Cola!” J.D. yelled back. “Try it, it’s good!”

Yixing eyed the glass. He couldn’t tell if it was just the light or if the drink was actually black. He brought the straw to his lips and took a tiny sip.

Oh-

J.D. laughed. “Not a fan?”

Yixing pushed the glass away with barely concealed disgust. “I don’t like it.”

“That’s okay.” J.D. took the straw out of the glass and raised the whole thing to his lips. “We’ll get you an orange juice or something.”

Yixing followed J.D.’s eyes over his shoulder towards the dance floor. Minseok was dancing with Lu, arms around his neck and a giddy smile on his face half-concealed by the sweep of his hair. He must really love dancing, Yixing thought, even though he and Lu were really only swaying back and forth. Sehun and Zhixiang were next to them, doing something that looked simultaneously highly choreographed and completely improvised, with lots of wiggling and waving arms.

“You wanna dance?” J.D. asked.

Yixing shook his head. He had no idea how to do this kind of dancing, all hands and hips and no real steps. No control. He was worried about the others hurting themselves.

“Yo!” Baekhyun barrelled into the table with two more drinks in his hands. “What do you think of the Coke, Zhang? It’s good right?”

“No,” Yixing said, glaring at the now-empty glass in front of J.D., “it hurts.”

Baekhyun just chuckled. “Gets up your nose, huh? Wait till you try whiskey.”

“We’re not giving him whiskey,” J.D. said. “Stop corrupting the foreign nationals, Baek.”

“Ah, relax. Zhang’s a big boy.” Baekhyun raised his glass and shot Yixing a wink over the rim.

As J.D. gave a long-suffering sigh, the lights all spun in a colourful whirl and a new song began to play.

“Ooh!” Baekhyun set his glass down on the table and held out his hand to Yixing. “Zhang, c’mon, let’s dance!”

Yixing shook his head. “I don’t-”

“You wanted more of the beautiful women, right? This is them!”

He grabbed Yixing by the wrist and dragged him away from the table and towards Sehun and Zhixiang, who were doing another highly synchronised improvisation.

“Yeah, Zhang!” Sehun called, turning slightly to open their duo up into a pas de quatre. He started doing his weird hand movements at Baekhyun, who returned them with gusto.

Watching from this close, Yixing realised that the dance was mostly just pointing in different directions: up to the right, down to the left, up to the right, down to the left - then change, left hand now - up to the left, down to the right, up to the left, down to the right. He started copying them, trying and failing to imitate the easy swing of Baekhyun’s hips.

“Yes!” Baekhyun turned towards him and began spinning his arms together, twisting them over and over like a motor driving the rolls of his body. “You’re getting the hang of it!”

Yixing found himself smiling, laughing even, as Baekhyun swung his hips in circles.

“Night fever, night fever!” Baekhyun sang.

“We know how to do it!” Sehun responded.

Zhixiang sidled up beside Yixing and nudged him in the shoulder with one jiving arm.

-- It’s funny, isn’t it?

Yixing nodded.

-- I’ll never get used to the music they listen to in this country.

Zhixiang laughed.

-- Yes you will. It takes you awhile, but one morning you wake up with this beat stuck in your head, and there’s no going back from there.

Yixing pulled a face, and Zhixiang laughed at him again.

The song changed again, and Baekhyun grabbed Yixing by the wrist again.

“Oh , this one’s my song.”

“Ah-!” Yixing found himself pulled off-balance, falling towards Baekhyun, who took both of his hands and began pulling him side-to-side.

“Jive talkin- c’mon, Zhang, shake it out- Jive talkin-”

Yixing tried to match Baekhyun’s feet, following his lead in stepping forwards, sideways, little diagonal hops with their arms pushing and pulling back and forth.

“Nice!” Baekhyun laughed, “You’re a natural!”

Yixing knew he was lying. He could feel the stiffness of his own hips, the careful control of a decade spent at the Academy that was impossible to shake. But Baekhyun was smiling regardless, pulling Yixing by the hands to move him the way he wanted him, and Yixing found himself grinning back as they twisted and hopped together.

When the song finished, Yixing stepped back and let go of Baekhyun’s hands. “Too much! Too much of this dance.”

Baekhyun chuckled and linked his arm through Yixing’s elbow to steer him back to the table where J.D. was sitting with Minseok and Lu.

“Did you have fun?” Minseok asked.

“This dancing is hard,” Yixing said. “No control. No line. Just move, wobble, shake.”

“Move, wobble, shake,” Baekhyun laughed. “See, what did I tell you guys? Special and funny.” He patted Yixing on the back, then shoved him onto a barstool and selected a glass from the collection in the middle to slide towards him. “Here, buddy. I think this is just juice.” He gave it a sniff and nodded. “Apple juice. This won’t hurt your face as much.”

Yixing took a cautious sip of the drink, then nodded gratefully and took a huge gulp. “Yes. Thank you.”

“No worries.” Baekhyun patted his shoulder again. “Man, they’re playing all my favourite songs tonight! The DJ knows Baekkie’s in the house.”

Lu rolled his eyes. “Baekhyun’s a huge Bee Gees fanboy,” he explained to Yixing.

“The things I would let Robin do to me,” Baekhyun sighed, staring off into the distance with a half-lidded smile.

“You’re disgusting,” Minseok said. “We’re in public.”

“Doesn’t seem to stop you two,” Baekhyun pointed out.

J.D. hushed him with a glare. “Keep it down.”

“Sit on it, J.D.,” Baekhyun said. “It’s so loud in here, you think anyone’s gonna hear me?”

Yixing could have sworn he saw J.D.’s eyes dart in his direction, but maybe it was just the light.

“Not everyone is as recklessly liberated as you,” J.D. said.

“Recklessly liberated,” Baekhyun smirked, lifting his glass and toasting J.D. with it. “Two words to describe me. What was it you called me the other day, Zhang? Loud and rude, or something like that. Loud, rude, and recklessly liberated. The title of my autobiography right there.”

“God forbid you ever become infamous enough to have an autobiography,” Minseok said. “I’ll change my name and move to Texas.”

“I’m not moving to Texas,” Lu protested.

“Neither of you would survive a day in Texas,” Baekhyun said. “You’d be better off in Canada.”

“Eh,” Lu said, which for some reason made everyone at the table burst into gales of laughter. Yixing joined in under his breath, matching his smile to the general level of amusement even though he had no idea what the joke was.

Baekhyun smacked him between the shoulder blades with a hoot of glee. It was as if there were too much amusement in him to just laugh through his mouth - it had to come out through every part of his body. Yixing felt a momentary spark of envy in Lu’s direction, that he could elicit this reaction from Baekhyun.

He wondered how it felt to be the source of that mirth. Perhaps he should start keeping track of the things that made Baekhyun scream with laughter like this.

-

From behind him, the familiar click of the door. Yixing allowed himself the thought of a smile as he completed his rond de jambe and dipped the resulting arabesque into a penché, his focus on that back foot, which still wasn’t elegantly pointed enough to satisfy him.

“This is new,” Baekhyun said. “What’s this, another solo?”

Yixing straightened up. Bring that line back, don’t lose that string between finger and toe-

“I have pas de deux,” he said, letting his foot touch the floor again and turning around. “In the garden. With the- the v- vine? And petals-”

“Oh!” Baekhyun’s eyes lit up. “Is that the one with the flower girl? I love that one!”

“You dance this too?”

“Nah,” Baekhyun shook his head. “But the summer students do it every year for their end-of-term. Thomas always gives it to his favourite pair. I guess this year that’s you and your lady!”

Yixing grinned. In spite of the instant urge he felt to negate that praise, there was a sparkle of joy in his chest at the idea of himself and his dance partner being Mr. Peterson’s favourite.

“Who are you dancing with?” Baekhyun asked.

Yixing shrugged “I don’t know. No, I- I know, but I don’t know.” He had met the girl, obviously, practised with her this morning and danced in the same class as her every other day besides, but her name had refused to make sense in his brain the first three times she had said it, and at this point he was embarrassed to ask her to repeat it again. “Small. Spots on face. Head on fire.”

“Head-!” Baekhyun doubled over laughing.

“What?” Yixing glared at him. Surely the girl’s appearance was not so ridiculous as to provoke that kind of reaction.

Baekhyun giggled into his own knees for a good minute while Yixing stood there frowning, then pushed himself upright and wiped his eyes.

“Freckles,” he said, still choking on a last chuckle. “Not spots, spots are-” he mimed popping a pimple. “And red hair.” He pressed the back of his hand to his eye again as another guffaw bubbled out of his chest. “Yes, I know the girl you mean. No, I’m not sure what her name is either.” He crossed to the front of the room and sat down on the floor, folding his legs up in front of him. “Alright, then. Let’s see it.”

Yixing gestured to the room. “You don’t want to dance?”

Baekhyun shook his head. “I’ve just come from practising with Minseok. I’m good.”

“Where is he?”

“He’s gone to see Lu,” Baekhyun said, “so I’ve come to see you!”

“Oh.” Yixing shifted from foot to foot for a second, then shrugged and took a step back to his starting position in the centre of the room.

Sissonne, pas de bourrée, glissade jeté- Yixing tried to picture the girl in the room with him, because this was a romance, they were falling in love here, and so he focused on having someone to fall in love with, remembering her steps and trying to bring himself to where she would be with that pas de chat, that jeté…

Meeting in the middle of the room, coming together with the edge of the idea of a kiss, spin, pull, and then parting with a trailing hand, step step jeté entrelacé, tour piqué, tour piqué, running back to meet her with another spin, then holding her for fouetté, fouetté, then catch her under the leg and carry her backwards, spin her out towards the far side of the room, pas de chat, jeté entrelacé, pas de bourrée, jeté, bourrée, and now she should be turning to meet him as he descended upon her to catch her up in his arms and spin, holding her close, no such thing as spotting with her face so near, hold her, hold her, let her feet drift to the floor and slow to a finish as the music fades…

Baekhyun’s applause was startling in the stillness of the room.

“That was good!” he exclaimed, planting his feet and arching his back to push himself off the floor until he was standing. “What’s the bit in there where you’re picking her up? There’s some pirouettes or something and then you carry her back-”

“Ah, fouetté-” Yixing demonstrated with one hand the two spins, then the action of scooping his partner up under her raised leg.

“Right, right.” Baekhyun tilted his head as if thinking. “I might have just been miscounting your internal metronome, but it looks like you’re coming in just a fraction late for that lift.”

Yixing blinked at him for a second, filtering out the words he didn’t understand.

“Ah. Late-”

“I think,” Baekhyun said. “I might be wrong. What’s the beat, is it five, six-” he stepped through the moves leading up to it - he really must have seen this dance a few times, to have an idea of the female steps - and motioned to Yixing to join in.

Yixing placed a hand on Baekhyun’s hip and spun with him for two counts, then caught him by the waist for one fouetté, two, and then-

He smacked Baekhyun in the knee.

“Yeah, there.” Baekhyun turned and grabbed his hand to pull it back into that catching position. “You’re coming in just a quarter of a count too late, you gotta already be there by the time she arrives. Try it again, five, six-”

This time Yixing was too early and caught him on an angle, wobbling him almost off balance as he tried to pick him up.

“Ah, almost,” Baekhyun said. “This would be so much easier with the music.”

Yixing shrugged. “Music comes after steps. First practise. Then music.”

“Is that how you do it at the Academy?” Baekhyun asked. “Cause I dunno, man, that just seems like you’re making things unnecessarily hard on yourself.”

He turned and strode over to the stereo in the corner, pulled open the top drawer of the cabinet and started rummaging around in it.

“What…” Yixing trailed off as Baekhyun pulled out a cassette.

“I’m assuming Thomas has got you using the same music as always,” he said, slotting the cassette into place and pressing a button. He fiddled with the stereo, blaring snippets of music with every other click, until he found the start of the song. “Is it this one?” he called over the opening bars. When Yixing nodded, Baekhyun gave him a thumbs-up and rewound one more time to take it back to silence.

“You in that corner,” Yixing said, pointing upstage. “Me here.”

“Cool.” Baekhyun skipped into his starting position. “Let’s see if I’ve been paying close enough attention.”

The music bubbled up through the speakers, and Yixing unfolded into the dance.

Cabriole, pas de bourrée, cabriole- Yixing followed Baekhyun with his eyes as he glided down the length of the stage in a smooth bourrée. There should have been other steps in there, chassés and petit développés, but it seemed Baekhyun was focusing on the partnerwork and improvising the rest. He looked up and caught Yixing’s eyes to spot his pirouette, and as his foot swept through to bring it into an attitude his smile widened and flattened, becoming almost rectangular.

He was the strangest flower girl Yixing had ever seen.

Cabriole - Baekhyun had abandoned the ballerina’s choreography of glissades and développés and was in the middle of some kind of rond de jambe en l'air that turned into a quick fouetté and then an arabesque penché.

Yixing had no idea how Baekhyun managed to stray so far from the prescribed steps and still be there when Yixing needed him - pas de chat, jeté - catching him by the hands, coming together with the edge of a kiss, spin, pull, parting with that trailing hand, lingering right to the very end of Yixing’s fingertips, and then they were off to the opposite sides of the stage - step step jeté entrelacé, tour piqué, tour piqué - that grand jeté was the most majestic thing Yixing had ever seen, and then they were meeting again, hands on each other’s hips to spin for two counts.

Yixing caught his flower girl by the waist. Fouetté, fouetté, hand under the leg and scooped into his arms, carried backwards with their cheeks pressed together, one delicate hand pressed over his. Parting now, spinning out towards the far side of the room - pas de chat, jeté entrelacé, pas de bourrée, jeté, bourrée - Yixing turned and flew back to the centre of the room, arms ready to catch, to spin, no such thing as spotting, only these eyes so close to his. Holding, embracing, cradling that cheek in his palm, letting those feet drift to the floor, turning, holding, kissing, eyes closed and heart open…

A soft sigh of breath on his lips. Yixing drew it into his mouth as his hand slid from that warm cheek back into short, glossy hair-

Short hair?

Oh god-

“Ah!” Yixing snapped away. Oh my god, oh no, oh no-

This was no flower girl. This was Baekhyun, soft and warm and male, and now he was standing there with wide eyes, his hand pressed to his mouth as if Yixing had burned him.

“I’m sorry!” Yixing fell to his knees, bowing to the floor as the heat in his chest washed up through his face. “I’m so sorry, please forgive me, please-”

“Zhang!” Baekhyun’s hands pulled at his shoulders, trying to pry him off the ground. “Zhang, it’s okay, you don’t have to apologise-”

“I’m so sorry, I not mean to, so sorry-”

It was the music, it was dancing with the music, it made you into this beautiful creature, this person I could love, and I swear this has never happened to me before, I don’t kiss all the girls I dance with, I’ve never kissed anyone before- Yixing didn’t have the words for this in English, nor any in any other language that would make it past the choking grip of shame in his throat.

“Zhang, please-” Baekhyun dragged him up to his knees. “Please, Zhang, don’t- it’s not wrong, it’s not as shameful as everyone says it is, pleasedon’t be sorry, I-” he looked distraught now, betrayed, and of course Yixing had done this to him, of course he had hurt the one person in this awful, frightening country that he genuinely considered a friend.

“I didn’t mean to,” Yixing pleaded.

“Okay.” Somehow this made Baekhyun look even more distressed. “Don’t be ashamed of it, Zhang. Please. It’s really okay. It’s okay to do that, it’s okay to feel that-” he prised apart Yixing’s twisting hands and clasped one between both of his own. “It’s not shameful, I promise you.”

Then why are you whispering?

“We can forget about it if you want,” Baekhyun suggested. “We can pretend it didn’t happen. Would that be better? Let’s just say we finished the dance, we kept practising, I showed you what I worked on this morning with Minseok. That’s what happened. Nothing else.”

Yixing searched Baekhyun’s face for the undercurrent of hatred or disgust that he knew he deserved to see there. Somehow he couldn’t quite find it under all the concern and open-hearted distress.

“Okay,” he whispered. “Nothing happen. Just dance.”

“Just dance,” Baekhyun agreed. He patted Yixing’s cheek, his hand cool against the flush there. “Let’s just dance.”