“Bull.”

“I swear!” Baekhyun pointed at Lu, dropping the lock of hair he was weaving into the elaborate French braid that was slowly forming across Minseok’s head. “My brother told me, he said this guy’s the next Bruce Lee!”

“Bull,” Lu repeated. “That’s blasphemy. No-one’s ever gonna beat Bruce Lee. Get your hands off my man.”

Minseok blew a raspberry at him from the floor. “Until you can tie a ponytail without getting it three different kinds of wrong, I’ll have whoever’s hands on me I please.”

Lu stuck his tongue out at him, and Minseok wrinkled his nose right back.

“Who is this mystery action man, anyway?” J.D. asked from the back of the couch, where he was watching Zhixiang fry vegetables in a wok on the kitchenette stove.

“My brother said he’s called Jackie Chan.”

“Jackie Chan?” Sehun said. “Yeah, he sounds like a Bruce Lee rip-off.”

“Sit on it, Sehun.”

“I heard of him!” Zhixiang yelled over the hiss of the wok. “I saw him in a movie year before last.”

“Yeah?” Sehun turned and hooked his chin over the back of the couch, leaning his head against J.D.’s hip. “He any good?”

Zhixiang nodded. “Good fights. I like him.” He banged his spatula against the side of the wok to unstick the carrots from it, then nodded towards the fridge. -- Comrade Zhang, will you grab the soy sauce for me?

Yixing nodded and bent down to pull the door open, jingling all the bottles in the door compartments.

-- You know you don’t have to call me comrade, right?

-- Isn’t that how you’re used to being addressed back home?

Well, yes, but-

-- It feels like you’re making fun of me.

-- I would never.

Yixing straightened up and set the bottle of soy sauce down on the counter, squinting at Zhixiang over the top of it.

-- Here in America, no-one calls me comrade.

Zhixiang glanced up at him, then took the bottle with a nod of thanks and uncapped it. He didn’t speak for another moment as the wok hissed at the slosh of sauce, and it wasn’t until Yixing had taken the bottle from him and slotted it back into the fridge that he seemed to gather his thoughts.

-- Would you rather I call you friend?

Yixing eyed him for a moment. The teasing light was still in his eyes, but Yixing was starting to see that as a standard state of being for Zhixiang.

-- We would not be friends, back home, he pointed out.

-- No, Zhixiang agreed. -- But we’re not back home, are we?

-- No, Yixing laughed. -- No, we’re not.

Zhixiang grinned at him. -- As they say here in America, “We’re not in Kansas anymore.”

“Are you guys talking about the Wizard of ing Oz in Chinese?” Baekhyun piped up. “How did we get from Bruce Lee Version Two to the Wizard of Oz?”

“Gonna drop a house on you,” Zhixiang shot back. “Steal your shoes. Click click, send me back to Keelung.”

“Yeah, good riddance,” Baekhyun retorted. “C’mon, when’s dinner gonna be ready?”

“Never, if I hear any more this disrespect from your mouth.”

“For all of us?” Minseok asked, “or just Baekhyun?”

“Just Baekhyun. He can sit ’n watch us eat. Rest of you are nice. Baek don’t get to eat my Mama’s fried carrot rice. Too loud, not polite enough.”

-- That’s what I said!

Zhixiang laughed and nudged Yixing in the ribs with one elbow.

-- And you thought we had nothing in common.

-

The lights were too bright. Yixing closed his eyes and leaned his chin on the palm of one hand, his sigh lost in the pulsing music.

He couldn’t understand how anybody could enjoy this song. Every so often it would turn into just shouting, “Ah, ah, ah, ah,” and Yixing would cringe into his hand until the singers had finished screaming and the pulsing beat resumed. Baekhyun and the others seemed to be enjoying themselves, though, bouncing and shaking to the music as Yixing’s head throbbed with each beat.

“You look like you’re bored out of your skull.”

Yixing jumped. He hadn’t noticed Baekhyun appear at his elbow, too focused on the way Sehun was bobbing to the thrum of the bass with his hands in J.D.’s hair, both of them laughing as Sehun pulled him side to side.

“Bored,” Yixing agreed. “Music too loud. Too many light. All just noise.”

He felt more than heard Baekhyun’s hum of sympathy against his arm.

“Sit tight,” he yelled over the music. “I’ll be right back!”

With that, he scampered off through the crowd.

Sit tight? Yixing pulled his knees together and took his elbow off the table to tuck it into his side, pulling himself up into the best posture he could manage. Satisfied that this was suitably tight, he watched for Baekhyun’s return through the throng of moving bodies.

“Alright!”

Yixing jumped again as Baekhyun appeared on his other side, spinning his keyring around his finger.

“Oh! You scare me.”

Baekhyun grinned. “C’mon, jumpy. Let’s blow this popsicle stand.”

“Let’s-” what?

Yixing hopped off his barstool and hurried after Baekhyun past the bouncers, out of the club and onto the street.

“Where are we going?”

“That’s a very good question.” Baekhyun led the way along the street and around the corner to the alleyway where his car was parked. He unlocked the passenger door and held it open for Yixing, then rounded the car and slid into the driver’s seat.

“You not have to leave-”

“Where would you go?” Baekhyun interrupted him.

“I-?”

“On a night out,” Baekhyun said. “Where would you go, what would you do? If you were going out to have fun.”

“I…” Yixing tilted his head, thinking. “I would see a movie,” he decided. “And eat dinner.”

“Alright.” Baekhyun turned the key in the ignition. “Let’s do that, then.”

They found a little theatre on the edge of Chinatown, and Baekhyun bought them two tickets to the next movie.

“I have no idea what we’re about to see, but I’m sure it’ll be an experience.”

“China make very good movie,” Yixing told him.

“Well, if their films are anything like the rest of their exports…” Baekhyun smirked at him, his amusement sailing over Yixing’s head and halfway out to sea. When Yixing just stared at him, head tilted almost to his shoulder, Baekhyun laughed and linked his arm through Yixing’s to drag him to their seats.

Thirty seconds into the opening scene, Baekhyun leaned over to whisper into Yixing’s ear.

“I didn’t think this through, did I?”

Yixing glanced at him. Baekhyun nodded at the screen.

“No subtitles.”

“Subtitles?”

Baekhyun pointed at his own ear, then shrugged.

Ohhh. Duh.

Yixing dropped his head forward to gently smack himself in the forehead, and Baekhyun smothered a laugh into his shoulder.

“It’s okay,” he chuckled. “I’ll still enjoy the action scenes.”

“No, no,” Yixing said. “I can help.”

So they spent the movie leaning on the armrest, their heads together so that Yixing could whisper translations into Baekhyun’s ear. Occasionally his faltering English would stumble to a halt, or he would come across a gap in his Cantonese comprehension, and he would find himself just breathing against the side of Baekhyun’s head, lingering there while he waited for the next piece of dialogue. Initially it felt a little strange, but as the film went on the awkwardness dissipated and he relaxed into Baekhyun’s side.

There was something comfortable about resting there like that, he realised. Occasionally, when Baekhyun shifted in his seat, a tendril of his hair would tickle Yixing’s face; after the first three or four times, Yixing found it was easier just to nudge it out of the way with his nose than try to maneuver his hand up between their shoulders to push it back into place.

When the credits began to roll, Yixing shifted back into his own seat and arched his back to ease out the ache that had begun to form up his side. Baekhyun stretched his arms over his head, then turned to grin at Yixing with a yawn between his teeth.

“Well, I don’t know about you, Zhang,” he said, “but I think my brother was right about this Jackie Chan guy.”

Yixing nodded. “Very good. I like him.”

“I’ll have to see more of his movies,” Baekhyun agreed. “Maybe with English subtitles next time.”

“Ah, sorry!” Yixing cringed, but Baekhyun just laughed.

“You were a very good interpreter,” he assured him, throwing him a grin over his shoulder as he led the way out of the theatre with his hands in his pockets. “I think I almost enjoyed it more than the original dialogue.”

“Original dialogue not that bad,” Yixing insisted.

Baekhyun ducked his head to giggle into the collar of his shirt, then reached back and took hold of Yixing’s wrist to pull him to his side.

“Maybe I should learn Chinese,” he said, as Yixing fell into step beside him.

“Chinese very easy,” Yixing said. “Chinese you say, I go, he go, you go, go yesterday, go tomorrow, all go together. English you say goes, going, went. Went? Why went? I’m went crazy!”

Baekhyun stopped walking and doubled over, smacking a hand against Yixing’s arm to stop him as he laughed himself breathless.

“I’m gonna cry,” he wheezed. He stumbled a step forward, his grip on Yixing’s arm apparently all that was keeping him upright. “Oh god, you’re too hilarious.”

Did I say something funny? Yixing wondered. Spending time with Baekhyun was an exercise in bemusement.

They wandered along the street until one particular shop front jumped out from the rest and drew them in. An elderly Chinese lady led them through the restaurant to a courtyard at the back, where she ushered them to a table in the corner and brought them cups of tea.

“Oh, this place is cute,” Baekhyun whispered, as she disappeared back into the kitchen. “I need to come to Chinatown more often.”

“You have trouble if you come here on your own,” Yixing replied. “I think she don’t speaks English.” He paused, then shook his head. “Don’t think she speak English. Speaks English. Ah.” He pressed a hand to his forehead. “Do I speak English?”

“You got there in the end,” Baekhyun said. “You’re right, I don’t think I’d last a minute on my own here. I’ll just have to bring you, won’t I?”

“It’s possible.”

Baekhyun’s smile spread into that rectangular grin, two full rows of teeth and his eyes crinkled up by the apples of his cheeks.

When the food arrived, Baekhyun examined it eagerly.

“What is all this?”

Yixing pointed at each dish with his chopsticks. “Chicken fried rice. Tofu. Zhajiangmian - uh, noodle with bean sauce.”

“Looks good. What’s- um. What’s that?”

“This one is from my home,” Yixing said, patting his chest. “From Hunan. Steamed fish head and chilli.”

“F-” Baekhyun’s lips twitched. “This, uh. This was what you ate back home, huh?”

“My mama make the best fish,” Yixing said.

“Fish heads,” Baekhyun muttered. “Definitely what I think of when I think comfort food.”

“Exactly!” Yixing picked up a piece with his chopsticks and held it out to Baekhyun. “Here - you try.”

“Oh, jeez. Okay.”

Baekhyun opened his mouth and let Yixing maneuver the fish past his lips. For a moment he just chewed, looking at Yixing with his eyebrows drawn slightly together.

“M’m’god,” he mumbled, one hand coming up to cover his mouth. “That’s- it’s good.”

“It’s good?”

“It’s really good!”

Yixing smiled. “I told you! Here. Try the eye.”

“Oh, Jesus-”

-

Baekhyun pulled up next to the curb and idled for a moment before cutting the engine.

“Well,” he said, “this is you.”

“No,” Yixing corrected him, “this is Mr. Peterson house.”

Baekhyun grinned. “Yeah, I know. I mean, this is your destination.”

“Oh,” Yixing pulled a face. “I know that.”

Baekhyun just laughed.

“I had a really nice night,” he said, when they had been staring at each other for about a minute.

“Me too.”

“I’m glad we left the club.”

“Yes,” Yixing agreed, “very glad.”

It didn't quite feel like goodnight. Yixing hesitated, waiting for Baekhyun to say something, do something, that would tell him he should get out of the car.

Baekhyun shifted in his seat and reached out to touch Yixing’s cheek. It was only the lightest pressure, but to Yixing it felt as natural and comfortable as leaning into Baekhyun’s side, brushing his hair out of the way to whisper translations into his ear. It sent a sparkle of joy across Yixing’s skin, and when Baekhyun’s fingers traced down the side of his face and began to fall away, he found himself chasing their departure. No, don’t go, keep touching me like that-

When Baekhyun’s hand returned to Yixing’s face, it was accompanied by his mouth on Yixing’s lips.

The sparkle became a fizz, a skitter of bubbles at the back of Yixing’s neck and behind the bolt of his jaw. He didn’t quite know what to do, had never kissed anyone like this and had only seen it done in movies or across the crowded dance floor at the club, but Baekhyun’s hand was back across his cheek to cup behind his neck, and so Yixing copied him.

As his fingers slid into Baekhyun’s hair, pushed it back from his face and felt the fall of it around his ear, Yixing realised he felt no shame in this - only that bubble of delight, and a warmth in his chest that he couldn’t quite explain.

Baekhyun’s fingers tightened on the back of his head, and he seemed to part from Yixing’s lips very deliberately.

“I should let you go inside,” he murmured, drawing back only far enough to come into focus. “I don’t want to keep you out all night.”

Yixing suddenly felt that he wouldn’t really mind. Unwilling to be released, he couldn’t help but catch Baekhyun’s hand on its way down.

“I’ll see you tomorrow,” Baekhyun said, and Yixing heard it as both a question and a promise.

“Yes.”

Baekhyun squeezed his fingers and then, after an agonising second in which it almost seemed like he was going to pull him back in, let go.

“Go on.”

Yixing opened the car door, then turned back to give Baekhyun one last smile.

“Goodbye.”

Baekhyun just blew him a kiss. Yixing hid his flushed grin in the sleeve of his shirt as he slid out of the car and slammed the door shut.

He didn’t hear the engine start until the front door was safely closed behind him.

“Oh, hello!”

Mr. Peterson, sitting in the living room, slid his headphones off his ears and set down the record sleeve in his hands.

“Hello!” Yixing tried to pull his expression back from lovestruck to friendly.

“Did you have a good evening?” Mr. Peterson smiled.

“Yes,” Yixing said. “Watched movie. Ate dinner.”

“Oh, lovely!” Mr. Peterson beamed at him, his headphones already halfway back to his ears to continue choreographing in the air in front of him.

“Yes. Nice night.” Yixing turned to begin up the stairs.

“Goodnight.”

“Hm?” He glanced back to find Mr. Peterson still smiling at him.

“Goodnight,” he repeated.

“Oh. Yes,” Yixing agreed, his lips twitching back into that giddy grin. “Good night. Very good.”

-

Yixing groaned and stumbled to a halt. Face in his hands, he flopped into the splits and leaned forward to rest his forehead on the cool floor.

He’d repeated these steps so many times, they’d lost their meaning. Even with the music, he was losing the feeling, losing the emotional line of the dance that took it from first sight to true love. The flower girl was just another body, more feet and skirt than a real person - and it didn’t help that he was having to imagine her right now. How could he fall in love when the very architecture of the dance bored him to tears?

He sat up, then rolled backwards over his shoulder to stand. There must be something, anything else he could do to take a break from this choreography. Why on Earth had Mr. Peterson given it to them so far in advance? He must know that it barely took an afternoon to learn a dance, and less than a week to master it. What had possessed him to bore them all for six weeks straight with practices of the same dances over and over when they wouldn’t even be performing them until near the end of the summer?

At a loss, he slouched over to the stereo in the corner and yanked open the top drawer of the cabinet. He’d seen Baekhyun rooting around in here for music more than a handful of times, so it must be okay for him to have a look…

He pulled out a cassette and scrutinised the back for any words he understood. Finding none, he decided to take his chances and shoved it into the machine anyway.

A second later he was ejecting it again as discordant noise blasted from the speakers. More of Mr. Peterson’s modern avant-garde - it wasn’t what Yixing needed right now.

A second tape was more of the same, a third was the kind of torture he heard on the radio every morning in Mr. Peterson’s car, a fourth-

Yixing sighed. Finally. Classical piano.

He skipped slowly through the tape, pausing long enough to gauge the feel of each song before moving onto the next. When one caught him, hesitated his hand above the fast-forward button just long enough to hook him in, he stopped and rewound to the start of that track.

At first it was hard to find the rhythm of the piece. It was only after a few bars of listening that Yixing realised the pianist was feeling rather than counting the beat, moving the tempo to the emotion of the tune. As this thought fell into place, Yixing closed his eyes and took a step back towards the centre of the room, trying to let the song fill his bones and direct them without interference from his metronomic brain.

It wasn’t much of a dance. He never really got a good enough handle on the pianist’s unpredictable variations of pace to incorporate any particularly complicated chains of steps, but by the time the music faded into a final solitary note Yixing felt much more connected to the room and less trapped inside his head.

“What’s this?”

Yixing whipped around to see Baekhyun standing in the doorway, voice soft and face softer.

“I- nothing, I- I was just-”

“Just moving?”

“Just moving,” Yixing admitted.

Baekhyun took another step into the room and pushed the door closed behind him.

“It was beautiful,” he said. “Breathtaking.”

“Breathtaking, what does this mean?”

“It means…” Baekhyun spread his hands. “Wow. Amazing.”

Yixing couldn’t restrain the smile that crept up into his cheeks. He ducked his chin towards the floor, feeling suddenly shy - this was the first glimpse he’d had of Baekhyun since they had said goodbye last night, and he was sure he still looked as bashful as he had when he’d gotten out of the car.

As he stared at his wriggling toes, the hiss of the tape gave way to the beginning of the next track.

“Chopin, huh?” Baekhyun asked.

Yixing looked up, inquisitive.

“What is this, Shou-pang?”

Baekhyun laughed. “Chopin,” he said. “He’s the composer.”

“Ah. Composer-”

“He wrote this music,” Baekhyun clarified, nodding towards the stereo.

“Oh. Yes.”

They stared at each other for a second while the piano whispered from the speakers. Yixing blinked and tilted his head to the side, not quite sure whether he was supposed to say something. After a few bars, Baekhyun dropped his bag and sat down to yank off his sneakers. When he stood up again, sweatshirt off and ballet shoes on, the music had built from a drip to a cheerful trickle.

Baekhyun stepped forward and turned in what Yixing by now recognised as his introductory demi-pirouette - a slow spin, left foot wrapped around his ankle cou-de-pied, hands demi seconde and shoulders turned in a graceful épaulement.

-- What?

Baekhyun looked up at him. His lip tugged down into the bottom half of his rectangular grin, and he took another step to reach out and lean forward onto Yixing in an arabesque.

“What are you doing?”

Baekhyun didn’t respond for a moment, too busy pushing his arabesque to its farthest stretch.

“If I can do just moving,” he said, straightening up and bringing his working leg through to developpé forward across Yixing’s body, “and you can do just moving,” pivoting, sweeping that leg through into a chassé, hand still on Yixing’s shoulder and not showing any sign of removing itself, “then let’s just move together.”

“Oh.”

Yixing stood, frozen in a moment of petrified indecision. It was one thing to do this on his own, to let go and give his bones to the music without interference from his brain or any outside eyes, but to try and match it to another person- to do this with another human being not only watching his improvisations, but depending on them for their own ability to dance-

Baekhyun’s hand slid off his shoulder, down his arm, under his wrist and across his palm until he could gently lift Yixing’s fingers to his lips. He traced the softest touch of a kiss to Yixing’s knuckles, then lifted their joined hands and unfolded through that archway to developpé across in front of him again, this time with Yixing’s arm along the back of his shoulders.

Like that, it was so instinctive for Yixing’s hand to slide under Baekhyun’s calf and scoop him up into a relevé, tilting him backwards onto that arm and taking his weight as he walked a slow circle around the axle of Baekhyun’s supporting leg.

As the music began to build into a stream, intensity gathering in the bass and the tune blooming with colour, Baekhyun pushed himself off Yixing’s arm and spun to face him. Following the momentum of his turn, Yixing skipped backwards, taking Baekhyun’s tombé and running with him across to the other side of the room. The touch of Baekhyun’s hands to his shoulders was signal enough for Yixing to catch him by the waist for whatever he was about to do - temps levé, boosted to shoulder height. Yixing decided to turn with it, taking Baekhyun to the other side of his body so that he was now the one gliding backwards in a quick pas de bourrée.

The music slowed again, softened back to an iteration of its original theme. Yixing pulled Baekhyun into a waltz hold and for a bar or two all they did was revolve in a gentle circle. Then the piano began to strengthen again, bringing Baekhyun in, past, pulling him to the length of Yixing’s arm so that he could throw himself into a coupé jeté en tournant and a further string of piqués - turns, then steps, then pas de bourrée piqué until he eased to a perfectly poised sus-sous in time with the softening music.

Yixing barely had a breath in which to appreciate the effortless composure of that stillness before the last lingering note fell into a cascade of - oh, the piece had a second movement, this one more agitated, almost frantic, and before Baekhyun could even turn soutenu to face him Yixing was crossing the floor at a run, meeting him as he fell from that pinhead balance and catching his hands to anchor himself as he jumped, kicking both legs up behind himself and then holding as he landed so Baekhyun could mirror him.

The music swelled and ebbed, surged again and died away, built in rumbling crescendos and eased into suspense as they leapt and spun together. Yixing finished a triple pirouette only to find Baekhyun darting in to catch his leg and pull it from retiré into a high développé, bending him cambréto the side and then snapping him back upright. Guiding Yixing’s ankle onto his shoulder, he reached down and took a better grip on him.

Yixing felt his balance shift, felt Baekhyun pulling his weight off that supporting foot; in a split second of realisation, he realised what this hold was. He let his foot point, let Baekhyun take his weight, and as they began to glide across the floor - Baekhyun pulling and Yixing trailing on the top of his foot - a lightning bolt of clarity hit.

This was a pas de deux unlike any Yixing had ever danced before. It wasn’t the kind you would normally see between two men, like the merchants or the battling soldiers - there was too much close contact, too many lifts and holds and steps like these where the very essence of the movement depended on them depending on each other. Neither, though, was it a pas de deux as would be danced by a man and a woman - and this was the critical thing. Yixing had been trying up until now to dance as he had always danced, playing the male role and dancing a man’s steps, but suddenly it became clear to him that in doing so he was forcing Baekhyun to play the woman.

Baekhyun was no woman.

It occured to Yixing that he had spent so long in charge of leading and supporting that he had never considered what it might feel like to be led and supported. Somehow Baekhyun was able to do all of it simultaneously and effortlessly.

Perhaps that was the core of this kind of pas de deux, he thought. Not a dance of separate equals, nor an intimate balance of opposites, but something close, profound, intricately intertwined in all that made them alike. The ability to be all things, to change in a breath, to guide and be guided without distinctions of identity.

Yixing had the entirety of this epiphany in the space between his ankle hitting Baekhyun’s shoulder and leaving it again, pushed off by Baekhyun’s hand as his other raked up Yixing’s back, drawing him in until they were almost nose-to-nose. They stepped, Yixing pushing Baekhyun ahead of him, one, two, and then Yixing ducked, spun under Baekhyun’s arm and came up behind him. Baekhyun followed that movement to fall backwards into Yixing’s arms and let himself be swung, thrown, spinning in a cross between a tour en l’air and a cannonball before landing on his knees, rolling, standing, drawing himself up into an arabesque à terre with just that degree of épaulement to make his leading hand into an extension of his back.

He turned. Yixing had no idea how much of the song was left, but as far as he was concerned, this was it. This was the crescendo that brought his heart with it, the roar of the music between the notes and the blood between his ears, and when he held out his hands Baekhyun needed no further encouragement. He ran the width of the room, that leading hand sweeping through to align his path, and threw himself into Yixing’s arms.

It was a temps levé, nominally, but once Yixing had Baekhyun lifted to the farthest reach of his arms he held him there, bringing himself in underneath so that he was supporting Baekhyun’s full weight. Baekhyun’s legs assembled back underneath him, his foot falling from retiré to sus-sous before relaxing into an open first position. He stared down at Yixing, lips parted and eyes wide, his hands resting on Yixing’s shoulders and his waist heaving in Yixing’s grip from the force of his breath.

As Yixing held him on that delicate balance, Baekhyun’s legs shifted. Yixing did not look down, but he felt the gentle slide of Baekhyun’s feet around his ribcage, his legs wrapping carefully around his torso. When Baekhyun began to descend from the peak of that flight, it was only so far as to settle atop Yixing’s hips, his thighs secure around Yixing’s waist and arms around his neck.

Yixing gripped at Baekhyun’s back, palms pressed to his spine. He was suddenly scared of dropping him, not due to any lack of strength on his own part but because his hands seemed to have forgotten how to be hands.

“Many hearts,” Yixing murmured, searching Baekhyun’s eyes for any hint of the sweetness, the cheekiness, the determination he had seen in his previous dances.

“You can have them all,” Baekhyun responded, and kissed him.

Yixing’s brain stopped working somewhere between Baekhyun’s bottom lip and the tip of his tongue. All intelligent thought ceased, drowned out by the sudden, imperative litany of, “oh my god oh my god he’s kissing me he’s kissing me.”

Whereas their first kiss had been traumatic and their second hurried, this one by contrast was delightfully sweet, careful and deliberate. There was something comfortable and sure about the pressure of Baekhyun’s mouth, like he knew this was okay now, he knew Yixing wouldn’t mind. Like this was a thing they could do all the time.

Baekhyun was kissing him, and Yixing’s lip was between both of his, and the music was still playing - another crescendo, another flood of suspense, there was still more, the best was yet to come-

All of a sudden Yixing’s stomach pulled tight in the strangest squeeze he’d ever felt in his life. He gave a little squeak, which was answered by a yelp as his arms loosened around Baekhyun.

“Ah! Sorry!”

Baekhyun giggled into Yixing’s chest, clinging to his shoulders with his legs clamped around Yixing’s thighs to prevent himself falling. “It’s okay.” He hoisted himself up enough to swing his legs underneath himself and land upright. “We should probably stop. Boners in tights are a bad idea.” He leaned in to peck another kiss to Yixing’s lips, then sniggered. “Boners in tights. Title of my autobiography right there.”

Baekhyun was saying a whole bunch of words, and Yixing was less concerned with picking them apart for some meaning than he was with that electric clench in his gut. Holding Baekhyun in his arms, kissing him like that - it had sent a shock of delight through his stomach. Yixing had never felt anything like it before.

“You alright?” Baekhyun asked. His thumb brushed over Yixing’s chin, fingers tickling underneath until Yixing squirmed back from him.

“Yes. Fine. Good.”

“So what have you been doing today? Got any new dances you’re working on?”

Yixing shook his head. “Just flower pas de deux. It’s so bored. I danced it too many times, but I have to keep practising.”

Baekhyun tilted his head to look up at Yixing out the corner of his eye. “Do you want to practise it with me?”

The false shyness in his grin made Yixing laugh. “Yes. I do.”

-

If he stopped to think about it, it was amazing how quickly Yixing had come to feel at home in America. Seattle no longer scared him - in fact, he’d grown quite familiar with parts of it. After almost two months here, he had an easy route around all his favourite spots: Mr. Peterson’s house, the Seattle Ballet’s studios, the Pike Place Market with its bakeries and street musicians, Baekhyun’s apartment on the outskirts of the city, and, one by one, the houses of all his friends.

It hit him one afternoon while he was lying on Sehun and J.D.’s couch, his head resting on Minseok’s thigh and his bare toes wiggling in the afternoon sun, just how well he knew them all. He was by now well-versed in the tales of how they had all met - how Baekhyun and Sehun’s families had been friends since before they were born, how J.D., Minseok and Baekhyun had all learned ballet at the same studio as children and had remained friends after Baekhyun and Minseok went off to join the Seattle Ballet while J.D. stayed on at the studio to become a teacher. Minseok had met Lu in a nightclub and instantly drawn him in to be a part of their group; Sehun and Zhixiang had been introduced at a department mixer at the university back when Sehun was a freshman and Zhixiang was a Masters student newly arrived from Taiwan. These were all stories that Yixing knew as if he had lived them himself.

“Hey, Beijing boy.” Sehun slid onto the arm of the couch and lifted Yixing’s legs. “Taking up the whole couch, huh?”

“Oh- sorry-” Yixing made to pull his knees in and sit up, but Sehun kept ahold of him, pushing his feet from side to side.

“Can you put your ankles behind your head?”

“What’s ankles?”

“This bit.” Sehun tapped the joint of Yixing’s foot.

“Oh. Put it… on my head?”

“Behind your head. Lemme see.” Sehun lifted Yixing’s legs off the couch and pushed them down towards his body.

“I’m trying to read,” Minseok muttered, as Yixing’s feet landed on top of his book.

“Sorry-” Yixing grimaced up at him.

“Not you,” Minseok assured him, petting his head. “You’re okay. It’s Trouble who can’t keep his hands to himself.”

“This is for science,” Sehun said, attempting to slot Yixing’s foot behind his head without lifting him off Minseok’s lap.

“What science,” Minseok scoffed. “You’re a lawyer.”

“Not yet,” Sehun said. “I’ve still got a couple years to around before I have to be serious. Move your book.”

Minseok sighed and marked his page, then set the book down on the end table and turned to hold Yixing’s shoulders while Sehun tucked first one, then the other ankle behind his head.

“Hoohoo!” Sehun crowed. “Awesome!”

“What are you idiots doing in there?” J.D. called from the kitchen.

“Zhang’s getting all Jane Fonda,” Sehun replied.

There was a clatter from the other room, and a second later Baekhyun barrelled into the living room.

“Holy ,” he whispered, staring at Yixing’s face peeking out from between his calves. “Incredible.”

“Do you not see this literally every day at work?” Lu asked, appearing behind him with a can of soda in each hand.

“You may be interested to know we do things other than contort ourselves into weird positions,” Minseok pointed out.

“Could have fooled me,” Lu responded, both eyebrows wiggling up and down.

Yixing couldn’t quite work out why Minseok suddenly flushed bright red and buried his face in his book again.

“My kids are obsessed with doing that,” J.D. commented as he wandered out of the kitchen and took one of the cans from Lu. “There was one girl in grade three last year who could do it and now everyone’s gone nuts trying to copy her.”

“What’s the carnage been like?” Baekhyun grabbed the can as soon as J.D. opened it and took a gulp.

“Hey!” J.D. snatched it back and wiped the rim. “A couple of pulled hamstrings, no broken necks or anything. At least they’re stretching, right?”

“There is that.”

Baekhyun was still staring at Yixing, eyeing the curve of his knees against his chest. Yixing was starting to feel self-conscious with Baekhyun’s eyes on him like that, so he unhooked his feet from behind his neck and sat up, shuffling into Minseok’s side to make room for Sehun to sit down next to him.

Before Sehun could slide off the arm of the couch, though, Baekhyun had stolen the soda back from J.D. and darted across the room to plop down into that empty space.

“Hey!” J.D. cried. “You come into my house, you eat my food, you steal my Coke-”

“I supply the drinks, I bring the party, I play good music-”

“Shut up, I’m trying to read!” Minseok reached over Yixing to smack his book against the top of Baekhyun’s head.

“Ah! Ah! I’m wounded. You’ve concussed me. I won’t be able to dance, the performance is cancelled.”

Minseok snorted. “I’m pretty sure a literal beating couldn’t stop you stealing the show.”

Baekhyun stretched back against the couch, his arm sliding across Yixing’s shoulders and his eyes falling closed in the sun. “You’re so right.” He toasted the room with his can, then raised it to his lips and took a long drink, his eyes sparkling with mirth and his arm tight and warm around Yixing’s back.