~Chapter 13

Paige sat down on one of the couches in the main room. At least there was an entire search party out for Amy now. She mindlessly began to wipe her eyes on the sleeve of her jacket. Luhan had picked up the discarded book and placed it back on one of the shelves. He retrieved a box of tissues and returned to sit next to Paige. He handed her a tissue and waited for her to wipe her face. She looked at him with swollen eyes and tried to manage a smile. “It’s going to be fine,” he whispered. He put his arm around her shoulder pulling her to lean on him and relax. She did so, gratefully.

They sat there in silence for a few minutes. Luhan was holding her left arm while she leaned on his. He ran his hand up and down her arm trying to comfort her. When he could feel her body start to relax he leaned his chin against her head and brought his hand up to rest on her hair near her cheek. He would do anything to keep her stress level down. From what he could see, she was prone to anxiety quickly. She had every reason to be worried about Amy, but he still wanted to be the one to keep her calm.

Paige felt slight pressure from Luhan’s hand on her head. “You’re thinking too much. You’ll give yourself a headache. Is there something I can do to keep you from worrying?” he asked her.

“Not until I hear that they’ve found her,” Paige stated. She felt Luhan exhale, his fingers began to work magic on her tired head. “They will find her, right?” she murmured.

“They won’t come home until they do,” Luhan confirmed. They sat there for what felt like a long time. She stared at Luhan’s cellphone, begging for it to ring.

“I’m sorry that we are disrupting everyone here,” she muttered.

“Hey,” he turned so that she would look up at him. “Not a single person in this group has mentioned being upset, annoyed, or disrupted by your presence here. Please, stop thinking that.” She smiled up at him, unable to have any other reaction. Even when attempting to be stern, his expression was as gentle as ever.

The phone rang. Paige jumped up off the couch and spun to watch him answer it. Luhan answered it after standing up. He put his hand on her shoulder to stop her from freaking out while he spoke. “Hey,” followed by a pause. “That’s good,” Luhan replied while looking at Paige and nodding his head.

“Oh thank God,” she whispered. She fell back onto the seat and let her bundled nerves unwind.

“Got it, bye.” Luhan hung up the phone. “Tao found her. She’s fine. They’re heading to the taxis now and will be home in a few more minutes." She nodded in response. Luhan sat back down on the couch next to her. He was probably about as relieved as Paige. The whole situation could have been a lot worse. They waited together, in silence, until Paige heard a car door close. She was on her feet and pulling open the door just as one of the guys were about to grab the door knob.

“AMY!” Paige screamed. She frantically wormed her way between a few of the guys to get to her friend.

“God damned! Do you have to scream?” Amy answered.

“Yes!” Paige hugged her best friend while everyone entered the house. Once she let go of Amy, she turned to the rest of them and bowed while thanking them.

Paige noticed that all of them looked exhausted and worn from the hectic excitement at the end of their otherwise low-key evening. Amy was tired and wanted nothing more than to curl up in some blankets and sleep. Paige excused her and Amy and they retreated to their room, leaving Exo to unwind by themselves.

Why was she still so cold? Amy was grasping onto something, trying to find warmth, but it seemed like she was surrounded by ice. She was in someplace dark and felt like she couldn’t get her eyes to focus on anything. Every once in a while an image would materialize in front of her. If she could just reach it, she would leave this cold space she was in. At first, the images were of people, but no one that she knew or could recognize. Then the images began to shift. Reaching forward she only needed to touch it. She started to panic that she’d never get to him. His face was so intense, but perfect at first. When she began to panic, his expression changed to one of worry, as if he couldn’t tell why she wasn’t able to reach him.

Suddenly, his face looked away from hers. No, no, don’t go! She watched his lips move, as if speaking, but she couldn’t hear anything. And then she recognized her name on his lips. He was saying her name. She struggled to move forward. Then she realized she could feel that each muscle throughout her body was tired and aching. Her arms were tired. Her legs were tired. She felt like she was becoming heavier. She watched the image of him shift. His face became clearer this time and she could swear she could hear her name this time. “I can’t reach,” she tried to tell him. She could see his lips move again, but still couldn’t understand what he was saying. Suddenly she felt like the entire space around her was shaking, as if by earthquake. She took one last look at his wavering image and tried to jump towards him.

“Amy!” She had definitely heard that this time. She opened her eyes and looked up at Tao. He was sitting on the edge of her bed with a grip on both of her arms. “Can you hear me?” he asked again. She blinked in confusion, and then nodded to answer.

“What’s going on?” she asked, weakly.

“You’re running a fever. Paige came down to get some ice for you when she heard you murmuring in your sleep. I came up with her to check on you. It has taken me a few times to get you to wake up,” he explained. There was a knock on the door and Tao went to open it. Kris was standing there with two extra blankets. “Thanks,” Tao said and grabbed them from Kris. He looked past Tao at Amy.

“How is she?” he asked.

“She’s awake now. The fever isn’t too bad, so it should go away soon,” Tao answered.

“That’s good.” To Amy, he said, “get better quickly.” She nodded at him before Tao closed the door and unfolded the blankets over her.

“That’s better, right?” Tao smiled. Amy felt relieved. She was unsettled and honestly didn’t know what to do about the awkwardness between Kris and her. She was glad that Tao was there. “It was really too cold for you to be out last night for as long as you were. That’s probably what caused this. You should take some of this before you fall back to sleep.” Tao helped her sit up so she could swallow some fever reducer. “There, now hopefully the next time you fall asleep, it won’t be quite as restless.” His midnight eyes sparkled when he smiled.

“Thank you.” Amy pulled herself deeper under the blankets and cuddled into the pocket of warmth that had begun to build there. She could feel Tao start to move to get up from the side of the bed. She quickly grabbed his wrist before he could go. She let her grip slide just until she was holding his hand. She closed her eyes and held on tight. He didn't move, and instead, waited until he could see her breathing becoming heavy and steady. Once she had fallen asleep, Tao let go of her hand and left the room.

It was 10 a.m. and the guys had all left for a promotional bit. They would be back in just a couple of hours and then they had another commitment later in the evening. Amy was still asleep, but as Tao had predicted, her fever had broken a few hours ago and she was simply recovering now. Paige had the entire dorm to herself. Hoping to not disturb Amy while she was recuperating, Paige went into the dance studio and turned some music on low.

At first she had every intention to only listen to the music. Kai, Lay and Sehun had been dancing to something without lyrics. She had enjoyed the tempo and the overall feeling of the song and wanted to absorb it. Thankfully, it was still the same music in the player. Paige sat down and listened to the rhythm. She could picture the dance in her head for the most part. There were definitely moves that she didn’t understand how to execute, but she could still remember a great amount of detail. It was quite easy to recall it all when she closed her eyes. She had truly been mesmerized.

Knowing that no one was home, other than Amy, Paige felt free to play along with the music. She slowly practiced a few moves in front of the wall length mirror. She was careful to keep weight off of her bad ankle, or omit steps altogether that involved putting more than half of her weight on her bad side. She definitely didn’t look as good doing it as the three boys had. She was awkward and untrained. After a little while practicing, she snuck into her and Amy’s room to grab a hair tie. Back in the studio, she pulled her hair into a messy bun, re-wrapped her ankle. Paige continued to practice the small set of moves until she felt like she could do them to the best of her memory. The music ended and Paige looked in the mirror. She smoothed the pieces of her hair back again into the bun. She definitely looked like she’d given herself a bit of a work out. She turned to walk back over to the stereo to find Kai leaning against the inside of the door to the studio.

“Oh my gosh!” she jumped back after holding her heart in her chest with her right hand. “You should have said something!”

“This was more fun,” Kai stated. He had a half smirk on his face and stood up straight to walk over to her. “It’s not half bad..” he started.

“I wasn’t trying for perfection. I can only remember a few things, anyway.”

“Your ankle?” he asked.

“It’s better, but I’m trying not to put pressure on it.”

“I can tell,” he said with a smirk. Kai walked to the stereo and turned the song back on. “Come here.” He held out his hand and led her to the middle of the room. “Like this.” He corrected her posture and showed her the correct heights that her arms should move from and how high her steps should be. As she completed the small series of steps, Kai was the shadow behind her doing them at the same time. She could keep both an eye on herself and on his perfect form during each step of the dance.

“Wait, try this,” Kai stopped her and changed some of the steps so that her bad ankle was never responsible for supporting all of her weight.

She followed along diligently, listening to every pointer and direction he gave. It didn’t take long for her to become completely entranced with not only each moment he took, but also each time his skin contacted hers during his instruction.  After a few runs through almost half of the song, she needed a moment to regain her composure. Being around him was already conflicting for her, but the close proximity and continuous dancing was just too much. Kai had professionally stuck to teaching her, despite the fact that she was practically drooling over him.

They had both walked away from each other while Paige caught her breath. She made the mistake of looking up at him as she panted. She couldn’t imagine anyone looking closer to an animal than he did right then. His eyes were completely fixed on her from across the room. He didn’t look like he was even breathing. Meanwhile, she couldn’t get enough oxygen. Electricity singed the air. She bit her bottom lip. She was tired of being intimidated by how he reacted and talked when around her. She was tired of thinking of him all the time and feeling more and more lost. She had lost any patience regarding him whatsoever. Determined, she stood up straight and walked to the middle of the room.

At her approach, Kai left his stance against the mirror, turning on the music, and walking to the middle of the room as well. He had taken her movement as an indicator that she was ready for more practice. He was looking at her, but not at her face. She knew, at that very instant, that if they went back to just dancing, she was going to go absolutely crazy. They stood a mere few feet apart from each other. She had made her decision. She took a few quick steps, enjoying the sudden change of his expression to surprise, before kissing him.

She had a split second moment of panic in thinking that he might shove her away. She grabbed and held onto each of his arms just below the elbow, as if she was strong enough to stop any protest he could possibly have. But, the protest never came. Instead, Kai took over. He grabbed her waist, with her hands still trying to hold onto his arms, and pulled her closer. She was no longer in any control of the kiss any longer. He kissed her hard, and as though he couldn’t get close enough, together they took steps back towards the wall. Her back came up against the wall until she was pressed flat against it from heel to head just from the weight of him. She was sure that if anyone had been outside the dance room, it would have sounded like something had just crashed into the wall, but she had no time to think about that.

Aggravated by the angle at which the wall prevented Paige from moving her head for the kiss, Kai pulled back his upper torso. His right hand came up behind her neck bringing her head forward so that he could kiss her the way he wanted to. When she gasped for breath, his lips left hers but kept a steady pace from the line of her jaw to the base of her neck. Her heart was beating so fast she could feel it throughout every inch of her body. It was too much. It was all too much.

“Kai,” she barely whispered. He stopped, lifting his head and locking his eyes with hers again. She was afraid. Of what, she had no idea. But then she stared at him. He was so beautiful. He was barely putting pressure at the back of her neck with his hand. The illicit sensations stemming from that touch were intoxicating. Instead of saying anything, she just stared into his eyes. He had the nerve to flash that half smile-smirk at her. All over again, she became aggravated. Despite knowing that she was playing with fire, she grabbed a handful of his shirt and pulled at him. He read the signal loud and clear and crushed her against the wall once again. Her mind was nothing but a whirlwind. It was all so fast, loud, fierce, deadly even.

After another minute, Kai released himself from the kiss and leaned his forehead against the wall just above her shoulder to catch his breath. He still had her pinned against the wall and she was powerless to do anything but stand, trying to catch her breath as well. Suddenly, she wanted nothing more than to be in her own space. She counted each breath she made while they were standing there. Finally, Kai stood up straight and backed away slightly. She looked up at him. The animal she’d seen in him earlier was gone. In its place was that look of confusion and frustration that he often wore when he spoke to her. She had been hoping that there would be something else there. If she'd merely detected the hint of intoxication, need, or desire, she would have been more reassured. Instead, she could feel herself start to step towards the door. It was a slow movement, but she made almost five steps before he looked up at her. She wanted to ask why he looked so conflicted. I am the one conflicted!

“I have to go,” she stated and turned around practically running from the room. She ran across the hall and locked herself into the restroom. She couldn’t deny the attraction she had for him, but something didn’t seem right. Instead of getting rid of all the reasons she’d already been confused, she had simply added one more, big thing, to the list.

A/N

Well, maybe this is just a Merry Christmas to myself...since Kai's my bias. :D

However, I hope everyone else is enjoying the holidays!

And here's some Kai spam, because...why not?!?!