---

It all starts one day at dance practice.

Jongin's just walking inside the practice room, tired as after getting woken up at 3 a.m., and barely registers anything as he automatically waves at some acquaintances who excitedly greet him. He's kinda popular among the trainees for his dancing skills and look so at this point, a lot of people seem to know his name. (To him though, he feels like it's more because he's best friends with SHINee's own Taemin; one of the best male K-pop dancers out there now and also when he was training alongside him, and one of the goofiest people that he's ever had the pleasure of knowing.)

Anyways, as he's walking into said room and he looks to his right, his eyes widen as he spots someone glaring hard at him. It's someone that he's never seen before who looks like he's Korean too but honestly Jongin's learned not to assume when there's so many other people here of different nationalities and different cultures.

To Jongin, it's been pretty cool meeting people from different countries since he's always just been here in South Korea. And he's made some awesome friends who aren't only Korean, but Chinese as well. Like this one Chinese trainee named Yixing, and another named Zitao.

Yixing's an amazing- dancer and older than him by three years and has a dry sense of humor that gets him laughing everytime. The two of them also have a healthy competition thing going on where they dance as hard as they can and even more so around each other. (Basically they bring out the try-hard in each other.)

And as for Zitao, well he's a year older than him but acts like he's a few years younger with the way that he whines like a little kid sometimes. It's funny because with Zitao, there's a dissonance between his initial impression and his actual personality. If you're just seeing him for the first time, you may think that he's a mad-at-the-world emo kinda guy with his dark eyeliner, (natural) heavy eye-bags, and all black fashion. But then once he speaks, you can't help but want to baby him with the actual adorable way that he acts and how he speaks Korean.

And all that to say, Jongin knows that sometimes first impressions can be wrong. But with this guy who he's currently sitting next to (there were no other spots available against this wall), his gut is telling him that the guy's probably weird as .

---

The dance practice goes on like it usually does, with Jongin, Yixing, their friend Sehun, and an older guy named Minseok being called out as the top dancers amongst every current trainee.

Jongin immediately begs to differ though since there are so many amazing trainees (who aren't just boys) who dance just as well but just never seem to get the spotlight. Either way, Jongin and the others just grin and stay mum during the praise, although it's when they're back sitting against the wall with their respective friends that Sehun and Jongin call out the ism of it all.

Their close friend Seulgi grins as she watches them rant, and tells them that they seem even more mad about what just happened than she does. And out of the corner of his eye, Jongin notices that same guy looking in their direction with a small smile before he quickly looks away once Jongin looks over.

Okay then... Jongin thinks.

---

The next day, during break-time at dance practice again, Jongin bounds into the class in the search for his good friend, Chanyeol. They've been longtime trainees together (along with Sehun), and Jongin's excited to see the taller boy dance again with his lanky, bowlegged self. Chanyeol had sprained his hip bone from who knows how or what but now he's back and is currently sitting across the room near the glass mirrors.

"Yo, Chanyeol!" Jongin greets with a grin before his smile falters as he sees that weird guy sitting next to him too.

Chanyeol turns and grins ear to ear before he gets up and dramatically clasps his hand to do a bro handshake once he's near them, and as he talks his ear off, Jongin takes a cautious glance at the weird guy whose eyes widen at the eye contact before he looks away.

"Hey, have you met Kyungsoo yet?" Chanyeol suddenly asks, and Jongin turns back to him as they naturally sit down next to the weird guy.

"No, who's that?" Jongin replies with a lifted eyebrow.

There tends to be new trainees like every other day, teens like him just coming and going. So, Jongin's pretty much out of the loop when it comes to who's new and such until he's told by his friends/other trainees.

But then, surprisingly he hears a soft Um...that's me from his left and looks past Chanyeol's head to see the weird guy with his hand shyly raised.

His facial expression actually seems fairly normal now and if Jongin hadn't seen his glare yesterday, he'd almost think that this Kyungsoo guy's kinda...well, cute.

"Ha, don't just sit there starin' at each other--introduce yourselves!" Chanyeol then says before laughing as he slaps their backs.

He then pushes them towards each other in a swift motion and Jongin's eyes widen as he finds himself literally face to face with Kyungsoo now. Kyungsoo's eyes are wide too, and Jongin tries to pretend like he doesn't hear the other trainees who are dramatically going Ooh and Ahh right now. (They're only like a pepero stick's length away from bumping heads after all.)

Jongin absentmindedly takes in all of Kyungsoo's features at this proximity; his wide eyes, cute nose, plump pink lips parted a little, his squishable cheeks...gosh how did SM find someone that looks just so ing adorable?

He then notices as Kyungsoo's cheeks turn red and just as Jongin leans back and is about to properly introduce himself, Kyungsoo furrows his eyebrows and turns to punch Chanyeol's right arm. Hard. Chanyeol lets out a loud Ow! at the punch, and Jongin just watches in awe as Kyungsoo berates Chanyeol, telling him not to push them like that again. (And how he just went from a cutie pie to like Star Platinum, Jongin just doesn't know.)

"Also, I swear I in' heard my back crack just then--like why are you so dramatic?" Kyungsoo sternly asks, though somehow Jongin can tell that he's not actually like pissed off or anything.

"I'm dramatic? You're like the king of drama!" Chanyeol cries back before he turns to a still surprised Jongin and says, "Okay, scratch that--Baek's still the reigning king for that haha."

"Yeah, I still dunno who that is, bro," Jongin finally responds before he relaxes as the other trainees nearby stop paying attention to them and turn back to continue their own conversations.

"Really? I thought you met already!" Chanyeol replies.

Jongin shakes his head. "Nope."

Chanyeol then shoots up to stand and says, 'Kay, lemme find him real quick--he's like right next door before he jogs away--leaving Jongin and Kyungsoo together.

And so, they sit there in an unfortunately awkward silence as Jongin tries to find the courage to introduce himself (or just say Hi, dammit) but finds himself unable to. Thankfully, Chanyeol comes back less than a minute later with a shorter guy in tow and says Ta-da.

"Hey," the guy says, giving a lopsided smirk. "Name's Byun Baekhyun. Nice to meet you."

Jongin slightly bows his head and smiles back as he says, "Uh, hi nice to meet you too. I'm Kim Jongin and I'm 18 years old."

"Oh, you don't even have to tell me--I've heard a lot about you hahaha."

Jongin continues smiling though with slightly furrowed eyebrows now. "Oh...Cool hehe."

Baekhyun just gives an amused look before he turns to greet Kyungsoo, and Jongin lowkey wants to dig himself a hole to jump in 'cause of how awkward he just sounded. But he can't help his awkwardness, like everytime he's speaking to a stranger (or an older trainee in this case), he feels so dang shy and awkward that he kinda needs loud- extroverts like Chanyeol to bring him out of his shell.

And Baekhyun must be like that to Kyungsoo (or vice versa, who knows), seeing as the two of them are already laughing and chatting about some vocal lessons that they took together. And Jongin marvels at how Kyungsoo's laugh is actually pretty cute too; it's a kinda stilted laugh with snorts in between, and at certain points, he pinches his nose to try and stop snorting but just ends up doing so even more.

And so, all that Jongin can even think of as he talks with Chanyeol and then inevitably the other two is: He's so ing cute.

So...maybe his first impression of Kyungsoo was wrong. Like he seems like a pretty normal guy now. Yeah, maybe those glares he gave him the other day was because he was thinking about something else and just happened to look in his direction.

So, safe to say, Jongin ends up thinking about Kyungsoo a lot more now.

---

Ya know what, maybe first impressions are always correct, Jongin thinks as he's dancing with some other trainees a few days later.

Kyungsoo and a few other trainees are standing against the wall, drinking some water and catching their breath, and as Jongin automatically follows the choreographed steps, he glances at Kyungsoo through the mirrors only to jump and miss multiple steps as he sees the latter glaring at him again!

The dance instructor immediately notices and barks at Jongin to focus, to which Jongin apologizes and glances at the other dancers as he tries to remember where he can come in for the choreo again. It only takes a second before he's back in the groove (all thanks to how much he obsessively practices the choreo that they all learn outside of the lessons), and the instructor nods their head in approval at him before they give tips to some of the other trainees.

Jongin tries not to look into the mirror again until the dance practice is over, and once it is, he turns his body around to 'look at the clock' when really he wants to see Kyungsoo's face. The latter's already looking away though, chatting with Chanyeol about something or another, and Jongin pouts as he turns back to look at his instructor as they begin talking to all of them.

---

And this is when Jongin thinks that his fascination with the enigma that is Kyungsoo started.

Every lesson that he's in, he looks for the latter, and in the large hallways of the training building, he finds himself searching for his face amongst the numerous other trainees that he passes by. He just can't tell if Kyungsoo wa