Jealousy, it's an ugly thing.
I was too blind to see it in him.
I was too ignorant to see how beautifully that shade of green matched against his skin.

There’s that saying that goes, sometimes, you just got to live a little. It doesn’t mean that you weren’t already living. Everyone lives in one sense or another. It means, at least the way I interpret it, that sometimes, you have to step back from it all and do something outside the norm. Experience something new. Experience something old in a new light. A new situation. A new context. But what happens when you live too much? When you let the flashing lights blur by, mixing into ambiguous shadows all the colors of the rainbow that surround you until you can’t breath. Until you’re suffocating, choking on all of it.

That’s how I feel right now.

Like I can’t breath.

Like I’m living a little.

And I love it.

I love being drunk off of the atmosphere that surrounds me. Being completely immersed in everything while being fully disconnected from it at the same time – it’s a unique feeling. It’s a feeling I’m adoring more and more by the second.

And I can spot him, through all the moving bodies in this large space we occupy. I can spot his pitch black shadow amidst the rainbow hues, the strobe lights that blind me from above, above all the sound, above all else. He’s walking towards me with a purpose. And as though I can hear his footsteps over the pounding of the music around me, a low thump, thump, thump drums against my head.

He reaches me and I forget how to breathe momentarily. I forget that I'm not actually suffocating. I'm trapped in the heat of the moment, of the situation.  I must be to talk to him the way I do then, "Someone is in a sour mood," my eyes darted to the dance floor where the path he had taken was quickly being filled in by close moving bodies once more, "it's almost as though you parted the Red Sea."

And he laughed at that, his body leaning against the bar I was currently sitting at, his hand raising up to cover up curved lips and white teeth.

He wasn’t in the best of moods earlier, so it was a nice change to witness. The most obvious question regarding that is what are his moods? What are the moods Lee Taemin goes through on a daily basis? I’ve seen a few of them. There’s distant Lee Taemin; how he gets when he’s so deep in thought about something, about seemingly everything, that getting his attention is all but impossible. There’s discontented Lee Taemin; how he gets when something isn’t going according to how he’d like it to and he thus he begins to over analyze things with a giant magnifying glass while pulling into the mix all of his conclusions from his previous distant mood. Then, there’s content Lee Taemin; the one who smiles and laughs and jokes. The one I like the most. The one that, perhaps, I wouldn’t have gotten to know.

Which reminds me, there’s one more mood. One more mood I can’t describe properly. The one he had when I first met him. A combination of distant Lee Taemin and something else. Something else that, because it has no name, because like I am of an unknown enemy hiding in the dark while I sleep, I’m scared of it. Will it come back? Will it scare me more? I don’t want to think about it.

So I won’t.

I’ll just focus on the here and now. On the fact that we’re together at the bar of a nonalcoholic dance club downtown. Because while alcohol may be good for the soul, it’s bad for the body – as Jongin always likes to put it. Speaking of which, he’s here. Somewhere amidst the swaying hips, the waving hands, and the moving bodies, he’s here. He’s here along with Baekhyun, Sehun, and Chanyeol. They’re the reason why Taemin wasn’t laughing and smiling earlier. Because somewhere on the other side of the club, somewhere I couldn’t see, the four of them were creating a fuss. He went in order to bring them down from their high, to calm them down, before they got too out of hand.

I can’t even begin to understand what goes on in the mind of the average male. I can try, I can fail, I can succeed at times, but overall, it’s impossible. It’s impossible to understand why Jongin was so set on drawing the attention of the entire club to himself. As though he hadn’t gotten enough of it. As though he were craving for it. As soon as we stepped inside around two hours ago, he left my side with a determined stride. He had come here with a set, predetermined mission in mind.

And, like I said, I can’t even begin to attempt, to fail, to succeed, in figuring out what it was.

Or rather, I didn’t want to.

Baekhyun had gone trailing after him, dragging Chanyeol and Sehun along with him. And the three had blended into the crowd not long after, leaving Taemin and I to discuss pleasantries for a long while. We talked about the impending spring semester that was nipping at our heels. We talked about the weather that refused to stop nipping at our noses. We joked and made quips about recent television shows. We talked about everything really. And then, we just stopped.

And we sat there.

And everything felt right.

I just sat there at the bar next to him, a smile on my face as I no longer attempted to yell over the music that pounded in the background. As I, no matter how much I, admittedly, liked it, no longer felt the whisper of his voice into my ear, his breath brushing against my exposed skin, because he never was one for yelling.

Unfortunately, that’s when he had to leave my side as Jongin had earlier, his destination being that same best friend of mine. Because he could hear the whoops and the hollers and the clear, piercing cheer of Jongin’s name over and over somewhere across the rainbow of colors. I figured he calmed down whatever hype Jongin was building as I no longer heard Sehun – the person who was cheering – any longer.

So he was back now. I was happy he was. I was more than content that he was. But it seemed he wanted more. If I asked him why he posed to me the next question he did, he’d most likely supply me with a logical, understandable explanation.

“Do you want to dance?”

I’m his girlfriend, he wants to be close to me. We’re in a club, not dancing would be a crime in and of itself. I’m a dancer, it’d be a shame if I passed up this opportunity to live a little.

To suffocate on my surroundings.

To succumb to the hand that hovered over my back, the expression on my face giving him the answer I failed to verbally supply. He guided me away from the safe haven I was previously sitting at, parting the Red Sea once more. Moving me forward through the bodies that continued to swing this way and that, electronic house music with no lyrics, with no rhyme or reason, fueling their impulsive actions.

That was his mistake. That was my mistake. He backed me up from behind, his grip on me loose, all but nonexistent. And, somewhere along the way, we were separated. Somewhere beneath the strobe lights, on the black tiled floor, we lost each other. I couldn’t feel him. I couldn’t see him. And in that moment, I wished I also had the ability to part the Red Sea. To find him quickly because having him pulled away from me so abruptly left me feeling anxious. Nervous. And ultimately, scared.

Scared of the person who found me instead, as though I was psychic and I knew. As though I wanted to continue playing ignorant even though I knew.

Jongin, I’m sorry. I’m sorry for what happens next. I’m sorry for what didn’t happen next. I’m sorry for all of it. You might think “sorry” is a selfish word. All it does is make me feel better about what I did to you. About what I did to us. You still have to live with it while I can feel as though, with that one word, everything is okay.

When everything isn’t. When nothing is.

It all started off with you calling my name, your hand pulling on my arm to keep me from moving farther away from you, “You okay?” You asked me, because you saw the disoriented look on my face. If I had said no, we could have avoided it all, couldn’t we? If I had said no, you would have guided me through it all. You would have taken me back to my safe haven. That hand of yours wouldn’t have had to dig any longer.

But I didn’t say no. I said, “Yeah. I’m fine.”

Fine.

What a subjective word. What an open ended word. What an insinuating word. As if to say, “I’m fine and what?” I’m fine and what now?

You answered that question with a smile and a question of your own. A question I heard for the second time tonight. “Do you want to dance?” And your eyes looked at me. Looked through me. I stood there in trepidation, staring into them. Those burnt brown eyes that shown maroon beneath the lights above us.

There’s a saying that goes, “You had me at hello.”

Jongin, you had me at, “Do you want to dance?”

“Yeah.” Was my answer to him.

A verbal one.

An impulsive one.

I think I was living a bit too much. I drowned in the entire spectrum of pinks and reds and blues and greens and I couldn’t be found anymore. Even if he parted the sea, right here, right now, Taemin couldn’t find me. Because Jongin had me. As though we had practiced it together before. As though we had performed it on that stage together so many times it had become second nature. As though I knew nothing else, the music ceased its pounding against my ears. Only low, soft vibrations hummed against my spine. Only low, soft vibrations tickled at the nape of my neck as his fingers went tracing down my spine instead.

Pulling me close. Writing out the melody of the song I had heard so many times now, the same song I had practiced dancing to during many mornings of my Winter break, I had lost count. The tight, warm air filled my lungs, driven on by the warmth of his fingertips that seared through the sleeveless shirt I wore. By the warmth of his eyes that I could feel boring through me, looking at nothing else. Black irises focusing on nothing else as my nerves were set aflame by our contact.

He spun me on my heel, my body moving in sync with his to the music no one else could hear. And I had so many things to ask him. So many things I wanted to say but I didn’t want to ruin it. I didn’t want to ruin it all by asking him if he’d never stop dancing with me. If he succeeded in what he set out to do this Winter break. But, then, he didn’t give me a chance to. He didn’t even give me a chance to ruin it all as his palm skimmed across my exposed arm, his fingers skimming past my own before his hips went swaying, leading me.

Leading me into the slight dip I knew was coming. Leading my hand to his neck, the small hairs gathered there whispering the lyrics of our silent song against my skin. His nose brushed against mine as his hand continued to write out every note of the score along the curve of my back. As his other hand reached out, brushing past my jaw before it fell to his side once more, seemingly touching yet, if technicalities were to be taken into account, not touching at all.

Effortless motion. Natural movement. Instinctual responses.

Like a glove, he always seemed to fit. Molding, melting, against me.

We had danced together so many times before. Countless times before. And I knew what to expect from him – though I will never try to hide the fact that even if I was expecting it, it still, as it always did and always would,  left me breathless, wordless, and thoughtless.

Once more, I knew what was coming next. Next, he would leave the jacket behind. He’d have no need for its companionship any longer. And that thought left me as empty as it had when I first witnessed it. As freezing cold in the depths of his deep blue sea as it had the first time I had watched him do it. I expected him to do it again. To let his hands drift away from me, taking all of his heat along with him, in order to sashay across the black tiled floor by himself. In order to insight the whoops and the cheers of his name I had only heard from a distance before.

I expected him to. And a large part of me wanted him to.

And a small part of me didn’t want him to.

So then, what did he do?

That small part of me sang out in praise of him as he remained there, as though he were glued to me with no hopes of escaping. As though I was glued back with no way and no will to get away. His hands engulfed me, hovering mere centimeters from either side of my face. His fringe bristled against my forehead, our closeness never seeming so fragile.

So easy to break.

To snap with a single breath.

So I held my breath. I held my gaze on him.

And the song came to an end. The thumping of reality’s music grew louder and louder as though it knew exactly what I didn’t want.

As though it knew I didn’t want to hear it. I didn’t want to hear the words his lips whispered as we were pushed closer and closer by the bodies that surrounded us, by the waves I put myself in the middle of. By the situation that I created for myself. Due to myself. Due to my own actions. No one else’s. It was no one else’s fault but mine that his words were the ones I didn’t want to hear.

“I need to talk to you.”

Because I had a feeling I knew exactly what he wanted to talk about. And I didn’t want to talk about it. Because it wasn’t just a feeling. And I didn’t want to deal with it.

I didn’t want to deal with what he obviously noticed. With what I so obviously told him through the way we moved in tandem just earlier. Just seconds before now. When everything was quiet and nothing else seemed to matter. When it felt like that spectacular winter all over again except I was up there, on that stage, with him. I was there, in that moment. In that moment I thought I had missed out a chance on doing over again. And yet I did it over. Just now.

And as soon as it ended, the last thing I wanted to do was talk about it.

To talk about how natural, how normal, how right it felt.

Jongin, I’m sorry.

I’m sorry for selfishly being unable to manage anything else towards you and that look on your face now. Now, as I feel that star exploding in the palm of my hand again. Now, as he found me.

As Taemin finally found me. As he pulled me away as though the strength of super glue meant nothing. As though it were nothing. And with ease, with that usual calm manner of his, he said, in a voice I heard ring above any and all music, “Let’s go.”

Let’s go.

Go where, Taemin? Anywhere? Everywhere? As long as it’s not here? For some reason, that’s what it sounded like. To my blinded, hopeful ears, that’s exactly what it sounded like. That’s exactly what it was as he parted the sea, as he pulled me up from the bottom of the deep blue depths. As he saved me from drowning in it all.

And as I followed him all the way out, all the way out of the building, all the way to the entrance, his skin was stained green by the strobe lights above. I couldn’t help but ask. I couldn’t help but wonder then.

“Where are we going?” Was my question to him as the dance club’s walls, as the flashing lights and the loud music, were disappearing amidst the life of the city that flashed behind us.

That hand of his still held mine, tightly, securely, as he pivoted on his heel. What was that expression on his face? Confliction? Uncertainty? Whatever it was, it wasn’t there long. Whatever it was, I wasn’t given the opportunity to ponder it for much longer as soon after, his features blurred. His coffee brown eyes came closer, that head of clouds never seemed so attainable, that warm hand was already in mine.

Soft lips pressed down against my own. Chastely, fleetingly. As though he set out to lay his mark on me. As though he had no idea that I still felt like I was in that dance club, lights exploding across my eyes. Red. Green. Yellow. Pink. Orange. Blue.

No black. No white.

He had saved me from drowning just so that he could end me himself. He’s as selfish as I am. He’s as wanting as I am. And I believed him more. I believed that short and sweet confession. It was no longer a speculation. It was the truth.

A gray truth that I could see dancing across his eyes as he pulled away, his hand tugging mine closer. As though even this wasn’t enough. Innocence wasn’t even close to the look in his eyes. To the way those pink tinted lips curved just then. Ignorance wasn’t necessary when everything seemed so clear.

So real.

So mind-blowingly real.

And he spoke then, smiling, “Next time, we’ll dance together, okay?”

He was in one of his moods again. The funny thing is, the confusing, frustrating in its own right, beautiful thing about it is, he seemed to be all three at once. Distant. Discontent. Content. The color green matched him well. Or perhaps, it’s my favoritism towards what he does when that color flashes across his skin that makes me think such things.

Perhaps.

Perhaps not. 

A/N: This is the chapter I told you guys I was excited to write. Do you understand why now? I hoped you liked it. Also, in case you didn't understand (though I dropped as many hints as I could), Jongin and the narrator danced the routine he prepared for the Winter Spectacular. She replaced the hat and the jacket this time, just like she had practiced doing as Chanyeol watched her for many mornings durng their Winter Break. I'll see you all next update!