On the tenth day of Christmas, my true love gave to me: Ten Lords-a-Leaping

Nine Ladies Dancing

Eight Maids-a-Milking

Seven Swans-a-Swimming

Six Geese-a-Laying

Five Golden Rings

Four Calling Birds

Three French Hens

Two Turtle Doves

And a Partridge in a Pear Tree

 

 

 

Hyukjae woke up well before the sun that morning, but when it did appear, it was as bright as ever. Of course, it would take a while before that ball of heat could melt the packed ice that covered the city. All it did for now was create a thin sheen of melted ice, a water-slick cube, threatening the fall of anyone who dared to walk without treaded shows.

 

Lucky for Hyukjae, he wouldn't have to walk too much today. Although the buses were back up and running, Jungsoo let him borrow the Explorer again, knowing that Hyukjae would need to get around. Waking up early didn't make it any easier for him to get breakfast though. The only reason he got that chicken biscuit at the CSW headquarters was because the local Chick-Bits had donated breakfast as a sponsor of the showcase. 

 

The first thing Hyukjae did when he finally made his way to the Galleria was to find Hyoyeon. She was in the auditorium with her legs splayed out in opposite directions, stretching her limbs as she listened to her half-bald manager babble on about something. The manager was running through Hyoyeon's extensive list of requests for future appearances. Apparently the news of her dancing in the showcase had sparked interest in her once again. Everyone was excited to see the ballerina step out of her boundaries into what was being called her post-ballet experimentation.

 

"I don't even know if I will be dancing on stage tonight or not." Hyoyeon hoisted herself up from the floor and pulled each arm over her head in the opposite direction, her long body forming lines that any dancer would envy. "We should wait to confirm anything until afterward. Why would anyone want a dancer who can't even keep her solo?"

 

As much as Hyukjae had tried to hid the information from Hyoyeon the day before about a possible cancellation, he wasn't surprised to hear that she had caught hold of the rumor. "You can go ahead and confirm as many schedules as you like." Hyukjae practically shouted with enthusiasm as he skipped down the carpeted aisle toward his star dancer and her manager. "Just don't forget little ol' me when you are back on the big stages with your new material." 

 

“You okay, Mr. Lee? Did you get enough sleep?” Hyoyeon’s hairline dropped down in confusion as her hands collapsed at her side when she turned her full attention to the man who had just approached her.

 

“Whatever rumors you have heard about the solos, they were premature. Everything’s as originally planned.”

 

Hyoyeon was more than ecstatic to find out that the solos had been saved. A PD had told her yesterday that Hyukjae was trying to save her solo without even caring about his own.  She made sure to tell Hyukjae just how she had reacted at the information. “I told the PD that I certainly would not be dancing on that state as the only soloist when my own teacher couldn't have his spotlight."

 

He laughed and said that she wouldn't have to worry about any of that anymore because it had all been taken care of, then he quickly excused himself when a stagehand he knew quite well interrupted to announce that Hyukjae had a phone call from a very angry Jungsoo.  The dancer took the phone behind handed to him and stepped away.

 

"I swear to high heaven, Hyukjae, I will ram that cellphone of yours right up your nostril and into your brain if you do not learn how to answer calls." Why did this sound so familiar?

 

"Ah, sorry, Hyung. I kind of misplaced my phone yesterday and still have no idea where it is." Hyukjae snuck out of the auditorium and into a back hallway so that Jungsoo's scolding through the phone couldn't be heard. 

 

"Aish, you are a handful sometimes. Hurry and find your phone, though." 

 

"Did you call a stagehand so that you could get a hold of me to tell me I should find my phone, Hyung?" Hyukjae was confused as to what the point of this conversation was. 

 

"Ah, no. I called you to ask if you would be coming home before the rehearsal. I wanted to talk to you about something. It has to do with Donghae and what happened yest--“ 

 

"Please don't, Hyung. I already know all about what happened." Hyukjae sighed, his voice getting quieter as he dipped into his dressing room so that no one could hear the private conversation. "I decided this morning that I just want to be more honest with myself. I don't want to hear about Donghae anymore until I can learn how to control my own feelings.”

 

"I understand that you feel hurt--" 

 

The door opened, and a manager of one of the girl groups poked his head inside. "Luna's just twisted her ankle." His voice was frantic, and Hyukjae completely missed the last part of what Jungsoo was saying.

 

"Hyung, I have to go. I'll see you tonight, okay? We can talk then."

 

He went to set the stagehand’s phone down on the vanity table and did a double take when he saw his own phone sitting there. No time to worry about it now. He would just have to remember where it was and come get it after dealing with Luna.

 

 

 

Luna's injury wasn't as bad as everyone first thought. She was ordered to wear an extra wrap around her ankle and to not exert too much stress on it until the performance. Crisis averted. 

 

The rest of the morning into the afternoon was a barrage of averting similar crises. Victoria, from the same group as Luna, had a major wardrobe malfunction when one of the shoes she was supposed to dance in got caught up in a game of monkey-in-the-middle and ended up soaked under four feet of colored water in a fountain. There was another wardrobe incident when Chanyeol, a member of the rookie group, thought it would be funny to try on his much shorter groupmate’s pants and ended up ripping  the seam. To top this all off, the company’s most notorious diva, Jung Jessica, had all of a sudden developed a severe case of athlete’s foot and refused to perform under such ‘conditions’. Hyukjae needed a break. 

 

 

 

Around 4 PM, Sungmin had dropped off a sandwich and handed it to an intern who made sure it got into Hyukjae's hands. "Your cousin said that if you don't eat this then I will be ‘out of a job and begging on every street corner for even a half a slice of bread’. Please, Mr. Lee." 

 

Hyukjae laughed and took the food. “My cousin doesn’t have the power to do that, you know?” He pulled back the waxy white paper and tore a large bite off in front of the intern to put the poor guy at rest. 

 

Just because he had food, it didn't mean he could sit around and do nothing. Glancing at the clock, Hyukjae realized he needed to get ahold of Hyoyeon for her last run-through before everyone got shipped off to hair and make-up.

 

The floors of the back hallway at the galleria had a strange echo due to how high the ceilings were. Hyukjae heard every step he took bouncing off that ceiling and coming right back to him. 

 

Hyoyeon, according to a manager who had just seen her, was in her dressing room. The manager's word was confirmed when Hyukjae heard her voice through the door, mixing with the reverberation of his steps. What she said though made him stop in his tracks. 

 

"Mm. I am so glad that we were able to make up after all this time."

 

He tried to move, to walk away, to get out of there.

 

"You have no idea how much I have missed you. I promise you that I missed you more."

 

He couldn't get that message to his feet. 

 

"I understand that you couldn't make it last night. Tonight is more important to me anyways. The only set of eyes I care about having on me tonight is yours."

 

He shouldn't be hearing this.

 

"I love you, too."

 

"Mr. Lee, they are ready for you in makeup." Hyukjae spun around to see a knobby young intern with crooked glasses and a bright blue clipboard who had appeared out of nowhere. 

 

 

 

 

All he could hear were screams and applause overshadowed by the music blaring through the speakers. Nothing really mattered in this moment but his feet, and his feet were pumping blood as if his heart had dropped down to their level. 

 

I wanna love you.

 

Then they moved. They moved across that shining surface, white beneath the stage lights. 

 

The spiked up hairdo with pounds of gel, temporary silver dye with painted in blue streaks meant nothing now. That may have been what the fangirls of the idol groups stared at when they watched this ‘random choreographer dude’ on stage. All Hyukjae cared about now was his feet. 

 

I wanna have you.

 

The screams rose louder and the people cheered him on as they were caught up in this feverish atmosphere of the night. Every act that took the stage promised something. He stood still, waiting.

 

The inch of powder, eyeliner, and even mascara didn't mean anything. It kept people from seeing his faults. Right now, he didn't care about those faults. He cared about his feet. If they made a mistake, nothing could cover that up.

 

Baby, to me, baby,

 

A knee popped to the left, and he dropped his head.

 

in my two eyes

 

When his head lifted again. He couldn't see anything. Those lights were so bright that he was blind. All that lay before him was a crowd of black, very loud darkness. A shadowy mob of screams. Even the lightsticks Hyukjae had witnessed the fans of idol groups holding up to cheer on the other acts couldn't be seen under those bright lights on the metal track overhead. 

 

You alone live and breathe

 

He had heard the words to the song so many times, that they didn't mean anything anymore. They were merely a trigger that set his feet shooting across the stage, his body following. 

 

Some people think that good dancers use their entire body. Hyukjae knew that wasn't the case. It's really that the body learns to follow the feet. A good dancer only knows how to use his feet.

 

Three minutes and forty-three seconds later, the man kneeled breathless in the center of the stage his back arched toward the ceiling and feet beneath him. His knees had hit the stage with such force and accuracy that the pain shooting up through his thighs was nothing compared to his satisfaction of having completed this stage with such perfection.

 

His hair held despite the sweat that drenched him from scalp down. His makeup was still intact, covering the flush from having exhausted his body and emptied his lungs. Only he could hear the heavy breathing over the applause as it drowned the sound from the inside out. 

 

Then the lights finally finished fading out and he scrambled off the stage, bowing to the PDs, interns, stagehands, random artists, and managers that applauded him backstage. He nodded toward Hyoyeon as she passed him in the opposite direction. 

 

Grateful for the towel handed to him, he wiped the sweat without caring if it did mess up his make-up and turned to peek out from the side entrance to see Hyoyeon dance. Hyukjae had been choreographing for years now and had danced on stages as a backup dancer. This was the first time he actually had performed a solo in front of this large of an audience. 

 

He thought things would change after such an accomplishment, that perhaps he would see other people differently when they danced. Nothing changed though. As he watched Hyoyeon dance, he still stood in awe of the talent. He still felt shocked by the art created by simply moving the feet. Hyoyeon’s abilities lost none of their wonder as if overshadowed by the fact that he had done this already.

 

From this angle, behind the curtain, he could make out the first four rows of the audience. There were 30 rows of seats for friends, family, artists, important funders. Then beyond the seating, there was a pit of fans. A few of the idols had actually emerged from a circular stage in the middle of the fans and then walked through the crowd to get to the stage. Donghae sat in the fourth row watching the stage. 

 

Is that how a man watches the person he loves?

 

Jungsoo sat in the second row. He was there as one of CSW's biggest financial investors. He was also there simply because he was Leeteuk, the most talented composer in South Korea. Hyukjae like to think the most important reason he was there was because Jungsoo was Hyukjae's family. 

 

The applause sounded so different from here than it did in the middle.

 

When Hyoyeon came back from the stage, Hyukjae congratulated her on a job very well done. 

 

 

 

The show had ended half an hour ago, but Hyukjae was still having his make-up taken off. Sungmin and Jungsoo had both snuck back to the dressing room already in order to congratulate Hyukjae. Hyukjae wasn't surprised when Sungmin announced his second favorite performance had been 10 Lords-a-Leaping: a very dance put on by ten of the best dancers under CSW, choreographed by Hyukjae himself. They both hugged the worn out dancer and told him they were heading back to Jungsoo's to get ready for the after party. 

 

The intern with the glasses and blue clipboard let Hyukjae know, "Mr. Lee Donghae will be waiting for you in the auditorium." A message sent as if a chauffeur wanted to make sure the star of the night knew his ride was ready. Or maybe it was like an emperor who was letting a courtesan know that they could come in now.

 

Hyukjae, at first, had no plans of going to talk to Donghae. He knew he would fall all over again despite all that he had found out in the past couple days. He would probably cry. He couldn't help but wonder if Donghae would say anything about suddenly getting back together with his ex-wife. Probably not. Donghae had never really talked with Hyukjae about Hyoyeon. 

 

The temporary dye had been scrubbed viciously from his hair, and Hyukjae made his way down the hall toward the room he had just danced in. His bag, hung over a shoulder, as usual. 

 

Those large metal doors on the side of the Galleria auditorium hung open, and as Hyukjae turned to walk through the doorway, he stopped just before crossing in from the hard flooring of the hallways to that red carpeted grand hall. 

 

Donghae stood ahead, as handsome as ever, with a bouquet of what must have been a couple dozen red roses in his hand, more beautiful than any that Hyukjae had already received from his friends backstage. He wore the most beautiful smile Hyukjae was yet to witness over the past 10 days. Those brown eyes, so deep like muddy oceans, shone bright under the lanterns placed at the edge of the stage. 

 

In front of Donghae, stood Hyoyeon. She laughed, or at least that's what it looked like. She looked incredibly happy. 

 

Hyukjae walked away, back toward his dressing room. He didn't make it the whole way though. When he sunk to the ground halfway there, he thought he would never be able to stop the tears. As most people had left already, he was able to cry there on his own. 

 

He came to the conclusion that in his life he really would be able to only have one type of love at a time. Now that he had the love of the audience, had his chances with Donghae completely diminished?

 

That's foolishness. He never did have Donghae's love. Not in that way at least. Donghae was a good friend, but Donghae was a straight man who probably had no idea how Hyukjae felt. 

 

 

 

"Mr. Lee?"

 

Hyukjae looked up through his wet eyelashes to see Hyoyeon standing before him on his way from the dressing room. He had finally stopped crying and went back to that room to try and wash his face a bit. However, he set to crying again shortly after and just gave up, wanting to get home and sleep. 

 

"W-what’s wrong?"

 

"Nothing's wrong." Even if Hyukjae had been a good liar and Hyoyeon a natural blond, she would never have believed that there wasn't anything wrong with the man whose face was streaked with dried tears and blurried eyes.

 

"Mr. Lee, I know that we are not too close personally, but I consider you someone I look up to. Someone I care about. Many people don't know this about me, but I am actually really good at keeping secrets. I'm also a pretty good listener." She stood there, refusing to take no for an answer or to let Hyukjae walk past for that matter. She refused to forget that she had noticed his pain, making it all the more real to him. 

 

"Hyoyeon," he looked down to see that she was still wearing the sneakers she had danced in. "Have you ever loved someone who couldn't possibly love you back simply because of who you are?"

 

"Honestly...no." Her voice was sweet and Hyukjae felt compelled to look up because of her earnest answer. She wore a smile that made look prettier than usual.

 

He blinked unconsciously, not sure of what was expected of him now. 

 

"I have never been the one to love someone who couldn't love me back. I have been very fortunate in that. However," she paused as she smiled again, "I have been the one unable to love someone how they needed me to love them."

 

Slowly, he nodded his head. Hearing this didn't make his pain any less. 

 

"You may think that would be easier, but that is painful as well. Mr. Lee, the reason that I was able to stand on that stage today was because of you." She bowed, interrupting herself. "Thank you so much for that."

 

"Aish, you do not need to thank me."

 

"I do. You showed me that even if I couldn't love a person how they needed me to love them, as long as I live my life full of honest hope, I can still be happy. I had stopped dancing because I didn't think I deserved it." 

 

Hyukjae was still completely confused but listened along. 

 

"You see," she took his nod as a signal to go on, both forgetting how late it was getting and that people were waiting on them with after-parties, drinks, and cheers. "When I married my former husband, he was my best friend. However, he thought of me more than I of him. I couldn't be what he needed me to be. I felt guilty. Now, though, I see that after the initial heartbreak he felt, he has found someone who," again she stopped to smile, "Can love him much more than I can."

 

"Wha-" Hyukjae was about to ask Hyoyeon what she meant when her phone interrupted. Had she been married twice?

 

She looked at the screen, "Ah, excuse me for just a second."

 

Hyoyeon stepped away and Hyukjae made sure not to be nosy and listen to what she was saying. He didn't want to hear it anyways. His mind was spinning. 

 

"Hey," Hyukjae tried to get Hyoyeon's attention after a couple minutes with a whisper. "Thank you so much but I have to run. Be safe getting home." 

 

The blonde pressed her hand over the microphone after saying excuse me to the person on the other line and looked Hyukjae in the eyes, "Mr. Lee, whoever it is that you don't think can love you back, please talk with them. You might not really know how that person feels. Let him speak for himself."

 

She then hurried down the corridor toward her dressing room. 

 

'Him?'

 

She had clearly said 'him'. Although there were probably rumors about Hyukjae's uality, this was just odd for her to say, right?

 

Hyukjae was outside before he knew it and waiting at a bus stop with no idea of where he was going. His mind was busy. Too busy. 

 

He told himself not to let his head get carried away with the fact that Hyoyeon had spoken of her previous marriage with no reference to its continuation. Maybe Hyukjae's mind was just muddled from the crying he had done. Maybe he really was hopelessly infatuated with Donghae to the point that he would delude himself despite every other sign pointing toward Donghae and Hyoyeon falling in love again.

 

The bus stopped at a spot right outside of a small coffee shop. It was the same little café that Hyukjae had been at just over a week ago with its fogged windows and low green awning. He got off the bus. 

 

When he opened the glass door, the little silver bell hanging overhead jingled to alert the room that another visitor had come or gone. It was only a bit busier than the night he had first come.

 

How he had ended up here again did not matter.

 

Skipping the wait in the small line of bundled up patrons, Hyukjae sunk into the corner at a two-person table with a little leaf carved in the corner, facing the window. He couldn't see through the translucent windows but knew that if he could, he would see the street. He would see cars he could never afford driven by people in clothes he could never afford. Or maybe he could. Maybe one day he would become so successful that he would be able to live in a place like this. Until then, he could just visit the coffee shop in a place like this. 

 

Tracing an index finger over the small decorative leaf on the table, he now decided it had been burned into the table and not carved. He looked over at the empty table beside him to see that  it too had a leaf and wondered if the name of this place had something to do with leaves. He looked over at the counter to see if maybe the shop had its name at the top of the chalkboard menu but his eyes met with that cheeky barista from the last time he had come here. 

 

Henry smiled widely, saying something to the other worker behind the counter before walking around into the dining area and heading straight for Hyukjae. 

 

Hyukjae didn't know he wasn't smiling until Henry took the seat across from him, back to the window, and asked, "Now how is it that you come in here with such face after being so incredibly bright just the other night?"

 

"Ah, I am sorry. I have had a lot on my mind today." 

 

The other barista in the shop brought two steaming cups to the table. Hyukjae's was a hot chocolate. 

 

"There's extra cream and sugar," Henry grinned. 

 

It wasn't until now that Hyukjae realized Henry had a bit of accent and stumbled over some of his words. Hyukjae couldn’t quite place the origin, but it definitely wasn’t Asian.

 

"You didn't have to do this just because I've been here before." Hyukjae lifted the cup to his lips anyways, the aroma of the warm chocolate too intoxicating to resist. 

 

"Even if you weren't a former patron or a friend of Donghae's, I would have still worried about why you were so upset." 

 

A long exhale full of everything came out at the mention of Donghae's name. 

 

"Ah, I think I see what has happened."

 

"Huh?" Hyukjae's eyes had drifted to the swirl of brown and and lighter browns in his cup but rose at this point. "What is it that you see?" Those eyebrows normally mounted so high gathered in the center and Hyukjae tilted his head. 

 

"I hope you don't think it rude of me, but I have to ask, why is it that you haven't directly told him how you feel?"

 

Hyukjae's throat turned into cement and there was no room for oxygen to move from his lungs to his mouth or vice versa. "I..." He could lie, or, Hyukjae realized, he could tell the truth. "Not everything is that easy, you know? He has a marriage."

 

Henry's eyes switched directions as one moved up and the other swung down to form a twist of confusion. "Sir, I think you have misunderstood something. That marriage is over long ago."

 

Hyukjae shook his head, assuming that Henry must not really be as close with Donghae as the barista had thought. "Even if it was really over--"

 

"It is."

 

"Even if it was really over, I am a man and he loves women. These things just don't disappear." Another sip of the sweet drink and Hyukjae felt the smallest of weights lift from his shoulders. 

 

"Not everyone is straight or gay, sir. Some people just fall in love."