Jongin dances.

  He loves dancing. He could dance and dance and dance. Dance till the sun goes down and the stars slowly blink into existence. Dance till the autumn leaves cascade down and the first snow falls. Dance till Junmyeon, the first of the members slowly awakens from his slumber.

  Jongin loves dancing.

  Despite the injured waist, he dances. Despite the sprained ankle, he dances. Despite the broken toe, he dances.

  And one day, Jongin removes his shoes.

  It was a form of honing his dancing, he thinks. That way, he can feel more in touch with the surface he creates Art on, the same way a painter does with hand painting.

  And then the blisters come on.

  With each passing day, they start appearing one by one. Jongin ignored the first, the second and the third. But as the fourth one comes on, he starts shuddering from the pain. Still, he pushes on. Plasters are slapped onto reddish-skin and the dancing continues.

  But then he comes in.

  He takes one look at Jongin's pain-filled face and stops the music. He makes Jongin sit down immediately on the studio floor, and slowly reaches out a hand. He uncovers angry sore after angry sore, and Jongin gets a shock when tears fall onto the raw skin.

  "Don't ever do this again," Kyungsoo sobs, facing Jongin with glistening eyes. "When you're injured, stop dancing. At least do it for me, if not for yourself."

  Numbly, Jongin nods his head, and leans over to kiss away the tears running down Kyungsoo's face.

  Jongin lives for dancing, but he would stop anything in the blink of an eye if it means not breaking Kyungsoo's heart.

  Author's Corner:

  This idea actually came to me ages ago, when I watched EXO in MAMA 2014 and saw Jongin dancing his solo stage with bare feet. I was thinking "doesn't it hurt?" because I practice dancing on the ceramic (?) floor at home and sometimes my feet would hurt from long dance practices cause of all the friction. And bada bing, bada boom (Little Mermaid 2 anyone?) my Kaisoo brain envisioned this. But I don't know what my fatigued brain was doing that night when I wrote this out cause when I reread it the next day it felt so cheesy. But YOLO