“Ugh,” Kai sighs, tossing the book he’s been trying to read for the past half an hour onto his bed.

            He looks outside the window on the wall his bed is pushed up against, staring at the street outside, watching as people push their way through to wherever they’re going. The city is a constant ebb of pushing and pulling, a fight for space.

            That’s why Kai likes sitting here, on his bed, watching the world outside from his own personal white space. It’s a place to think, where the noises from outside are muted.

            And right now, all Kai can think about is the look on Sehun’s face when he had snapped Kai’s photo yesterday.

            Sehun’s eye had been pressed against the viewfinder, the other eye squeezed shut, his mouth set in a determined line. His brow had been furrowed in concentration. And when the flash had gone off and Sehun had pulled away from the camera, there had been that priceless look of shock on his face. Eyebrows raised, eyes wide, Kai’s black helmet still on his head. Kai hadn’t known what to say at first, but he had been about to ask Sehun if he could see the picture before Sehun had taken off across the campus grounds like a madman, rainbow hair no match for the rain that had been sheeting down.

            Kai frowns, wondering if Sehun is going to uphold his promise and come to order another green tea frappuccino sometime. There’s still something about Sehun that makes him want to know more about the boy. Especially after what happened yesterday. At the moment, Kai doesn’t know much about Sehun. He runs through what he does know in his head.

            His name is Sehun, of course.

            He has rainbow colored hair and is a photographer.

            He goes to NYU, he likes green tea frappuccinos, and he takes pictures of strangers before running away.

            Kai groans, pushing his face into his pillow. It smells like the laundry soap he buys at the convenience store on the corner of his street. Familiar, comforting, safe.

            The buzzing of Kai’s phone on the bed next to him startles him from his deep, intellectual thoughts on laundry detergent.

            Yixing: Are you coming?

     Kai squints at the time on his phone. He still has an hour before his scheduled dance practice. It’s a Saturday, one of the days Kai has off from work, and he’s been enjoying lying in bed until noon.

            Kai: I have an hour you idiot. What are you texting me for now?

            Kai waits for a second after he hits send, shaking his head in exasperation. Zhang Yixing is one of Kai’s close friends in New York City. He’s from China, just like Kris, but Yixing hadn’t moved here until a few months after Kai did. He had been sent to attend a prestigious dance school by his parents on a scholarship.

            But even though Yixing attended classes regularly, he still liked to dance in the street competitions that you could find taking place in parks and in alleyways, even when the sun had long gone down and the lights of the buildings shone through the darkness.

            That was how Kai had met him. There had been a scheduled street dance competition in a small area of Chinatown one night in the middle of the summer. Kai had heard of it through some other friends, had decided to check it out for himself. He had only been seventeen then, Yixing nineteen.

            Kai can still remember standing with the rest of the crowd that had circled around the young dancers, watching them move and spin and jerk in the lights from the small, family-owned shops and restaurants that lined the street.

Yixing had been one of the last to perform, one of the few solo artists there. Kai had watched him dance in the sticky summer air, had watched as Yixing had pulled off move after impressive move, making everything look effortless, easy, as simple as breathing.

            Kai can still smell the mouth-watering scent of food that had been drifting out of one of the restaurants nearby when he had dared to approach the Chinese dancer that had just finished his routine to the disappointment of the crowd, who had been making enough noise to wake up all of Chinatown.

            Kai had been nervous to talk to him, especially since he seemed older, but the other had smiled at him, and Kai had had a sudden burst of courage that had pushed his feet forward over the cracks in the street.

            He had talked to the other boy for a quite a while that night, both of them deciding to catch a meal in the restaurant with the delicious smells, sitting at a table in the corner since everywhere else was taken. Kai can remember the sticky linoleum floor and the bowl of fried rice he had devoured in minutes. He can remember Yixing eating twice the amount he did, and he can remember wondering how Yixing managed to stay so thin, even after he had shoved three eggrolls and one bowl of noodles into his mouth.

            He can remember the feeling of overwhelming relief he had felt when he had realized that Yixing could speak Korean as well as Mandarin, the feeling of having a little piece of home with him in the strange, terrifying, exciting world that was his home now. He hadn’t realized how heavy the weight of homesickness had been on his shoulders until that moment, sitting with Yixing under fluorescent lights, talking about dancing and Korea and where they could find the closest bubble tea shop.

            Since then, Yixing and Kai have grown to be very close friends, helping the other out whenever they can.

            Yixing had bought an apartment when he was twenty with his parents’ help, and it had been big enough that Yixing had been able to convert an area of it into a dance studio, complete with a wall of glass mirrors. Since then, the two had formed their own dance team, taking part in various street competitions around the city.

            Yixing: You slept in last time, remember? Who’s the idiot now?

            Kai sighs, throwing himself back down onto his bed. He had been late last time. But that had been because Kris had made him work an extra shift that Friday night, and he had been completely exhausted after having to pick up some dinner on the way home and getting stuck in a ridiculously long line full of other late-night workers. In the end, he had made it out of the small pizzeria with a slice of mozzarella cheese pizza that burnt the roof of his mouth and his tongue when he tried to eat it walking home.

            Kai: Smartass

            Yixing: \(^0^)/

            Kai: Sometimes I wonder why we’re friends…

            Yixing: (-_-)

            Kai: Just kidding, I love you! (>^_^)> <(^_^<)

            Yixing: I know *^.^*

             Kai: …

             Yixing: I love you too I guess…

             Kai: (^0^)

“Hey! Oh Sehun!”

            The voice that shouts out down the hallway makes Sehun flinch and curl his hands into fists.

            He keeps walking, clutching the strap of his camera bag tighter in his hand.

            He’s just come from one of the dark rooms in one of the buildings that belongs to Tisch School of the Arts. Even though it’s a Saturday, Sehun had wanted to develop some of his film.

            Especially the picture he ha