barre - horizontal bar opposite mirrors and along a wall in studio for class exercises - where every class begins exercises

-Hakyeon’s POV-

"You WHAT?!" I half yelled at Taekwoon, nearly choking on the sip of warm honey milk I’d just taken. There were questioning stares from the other few customers around us but I ignored them.

It was the first day of the new term but it felt like last year never ended and summer break never happened, like we were picking up exactly where we left off. During our previous year Taekwoon and I ran into a couple of freshmen at the same cafe the two of us visited every Monday morning before class. Friendships were formed fast and meeting at the cafe become the routine, helping each of us kick-start our weeks.

"I wrote his name down on the performance sheet. Trust me, I was doing him him a big favor. Those kids looked like they were about to eat him alive." Taekwoon calmly attempted to explain his intentions but I was too caught up in recounting last night when I caught the boy watching me dance. Though I didn’t realize who it was, I had known for a long while that someone had been watching me practice. I caught the reflection of their silhouette in the mirror, but it wasn’t until I stopped dancing that I actually looked at his face. I’d called out to him without even knowing what I was going to say had he stuck around, but the boy took off once he realized that my eyes were on him.

"Wait, so it was you?” Jaehwan’s worried voice interrupted my thoughts. “Omo... Poor thing. He probably thinks it was me or Wonshikkie. We'll have to clear that up before he starts to think we hate him, I feel so bad. I mean, I was just as curious as everyone else, but not to that extent. Damn." He said with a sigh as he stirred the straw around in his iced coffee.

"Kid has talent, though. And so does his friend. First year's usually aren't that polished. Must be something in the water where they're from." Wonshik spoke up for the first time since having his coffee. He was much like Taekwoon in that he didn’t speak much unless it was really necessary, but it was near impossible to shut him up when he was excited about something. Jaehwan on the other hand was like a carbon copy of myself; constantly talking, a bit annoying sometimes but undeniably adorable at all times.

"Mmm, I'm definitely interested in seeing more from this Hongbin guy as well.” Taekwoon added with an impish grin. I rolled my eyes and tried to tune the rest of their conversation out as much as possible seeing as I’d already sat through Woonie gushing about Hongbin’s dimples for about fifteen minutes straight last night.

“Aish! We better get going, class starts in thirty minutes.” Jaehwan insisted, standing up to throw away the wrapper his -now eaten- bagel came in. Wonshik, Taekwoon and I did the same with our trash before making our way to the exit together.

“Woonie… you know that what you did was wrong on so many levels. You should have at least filmed it so that I could see.” I whined with a weak slap to his arm as we walked out of the cafe together, the other two walking ahead of us hand-in-hand.

“You’ll just have to go see it for yourself.”

“Do you think he’ll be okay? Even after your attempt to help him out?” From the way Jaehwan had described his short encounters with Sanghyuk, the kid sounded like a toss up. I could understand his situation all too well and if it’s anything like how I imagine, things aren’t going to be necessarily easy for him. Of course I didn’t know the whole story, just that students did research on him right after the opening ceremony and found out that his dad was some rich doctor and his mom a high-end lawyer. But I wasn’t one to judge someone until I really got to know them.

“Honestly? I have no idea. He seems like he can handle his own just fine, but I definitely think he could use a friend like you.”

“Mmm,” I hummed my response around my straw as we continued the rest of the walk to school in a comfortable silence.

-Hyuk's POV-

I glanced at my class schedule and back at the numbers on the door a couple of times to make sure I was at the right studio before slowly turning the door handle. There’s still at least thirty minutes until classes are scheduled to start, but I woke up nearly an hour before my alarm was set to go off and couldn’t go back to sleep. I’d contemplated actually waking Hongbin up and seeing if he would want to get breakfast with me, but ultimately decided to let him sleep when I remembered just how late he stayed out last night.

There were few students walking around the halls and even fewer seated at various tables in the cafeteria silently eating their breakfast with their faces glued to the screens of their phones. If anything I was thankful that they were all too engrossed in food and social media to bother glancing up at me as I made my way to the where the buffet-style breakfast bar was located. I didn’t need any unwanted attention this early in the morning, especially after last night. More and more students started to file in as I finished eating so I decided to leave before it got too crowded.

I even scouted out where the rest of my classes would take place before even coming to this one to try and kill time. As fate would have it, my first class was to be held in the exact same studio Hakyeon had chosen to practice in last night. I couldn’t help but wonder if this studio was some place he came often and if we would meet again sometime in the near future.

“Oh!” I was startled by another person already sitting by the mirrors in the middle of a stretch. “I didn’t expect anyone else to be here this early.” I admitted with a chuckle. I didn’t miss the way the stranger’s eyebrows shot up once he actually took a look at me.

“Been here for about twenty minutes already,” he said shortly, standing up to begin another type of stretching exercise. “Good thing you showed up before anyone else, though. It’d be a shame if I were to outshine our dear Scholarship on the first day of term.” He smirked while batting his eyelashes at me.

“Right.” I muttered, walking towards the back of the spacious room to set down my bag. I should have known people would still be like this, even after last night. So much for making new friends, I thought to myself as I heard light footsteps approaching me from behind and turned around to meet him with expectant eyes.

“I’m just kidding! I woke up too early and couldn’t go back to sleep,” He laughed, offering out one of his hands for me to shake. “My name’s Sungjae.”

“Same, actually,” I began once I’d reluctantly settled my own hand into his grasp. I could physically feel my entire body relax with relief at the gesture and even cracked a smile of my own. “About not being able to sleep, I mean! My name isn’t Sungjae too, it’s Sa-”

“Sanghyuk. Yes, I know. There’s probably very few people at this school who don’t already know your name since the whole opening ceremony scholarship recognition thing. Not gonna lie, I was a bit miffed as well when I found out that they gave the full-ride scholarship to someone as well off as you, but after last night it’s painfully obvious why you were chosen. Sadly, I don’t think everyone will have the same positive outlook as me so I’m sure class is going to be.. interesting." He said with a faltering smile. So I wasn't too far off in thinking it was going to be difficult making new friends. That's fine, I didn't come here for that anyway.

Sungjae and I continued our conversation while setting up the barres around the room for the rest of the class. I learned that he was from Suwon and came here because it would look good on his resume when he applied for the Royal Ballet. He seemed ambitious, but not totally unrealistic. We talked a lot about our competition days and compared medal and trophy counts. Sungjae won when it came to the medals, but I surpassed him with my national titles and learned that he held a few of them as well.

I told him a bit about Hongbin and how we came here together and I learned that Sungjae met his roommate for the first time the other day and that he would also be taking this class with us. I also learned that this roommate of his is the main reason behind his earlier comment about class being ‘interesting’. Apparently Kai was the name he chose to go by and he also applied for the very same scholarship that I received.

“He should have gone to the party last night. Maybe then he wouldn’t be so bitter towards you, but he stayed here and practiced.” Glad I didn’t run into him when I came to the studios, then. “He’s a ing overachiever if you ask me. I thought he’d be the type that would want to show his skills off to everyone. But aside from all the he’s talked about you -even though he’s never even met you- he’s a pretty chill guy. Who knows, maybe you two will become the best of buds!” Sungjae said with a sarcastic grin.

“Yeah, sure we will.” I replied with an equally sarcastic tone. Other students were starting to slowly fill in the room, one-by-one until the clock on the back wall read exactly 7:30AM. There was a smaller amount of students than I imagined, but then I remembered that it was an advanced class, so about ten students was probably a normal amount. What struck me as strange is that there was an uneven ratio of boys to girls; five girls to six boys?

Maybe someone is just late, I thought to myself as woman who looked to be in her late forties walked in and closed the door behind her. She was carrying a small stack of papers that she set down on a podium that stood in the front left corner of the studio.

I quickly followed Sungjae to the nearest barre and joined in with the chorus of “annyeong-haseyo’s” around the room with a bow.

“Good morning to you all!” I was slightly caught off guard with her cheery greeting. Hopefully she isn’t this happy every morning or else it’s going to be a very long semester. “I hope you all had a good night’s rest and that you’re fresh and ready for all the new experiences this year has to bring you! Since it’s the first day we will just be going over the syllabus and classroom procedures and then I have a fun partner exercise that we’ll close with.” She said with an enthusiastic finalizing clap before looking around the room for some sort of response from the rest of us before grabbing the stack of papers from earlier.

“Oh, I’ll take attendance first to get that out of the way. I still need to put names to faces, so bear with me for a little bit.” I tried to do the same as the first few names were called. Even if no one in the class had any intentions of being friendly, I figure I should still at least get to know their names. I was caught off guard when my name was called sooner than I expected, all heads turning straight toward me before I could even answer the teacher.

“H-here!” I called out with a raised hand so that she could pick me out amongst the class. Though I probably didn’t have to say anything, with all the attention already on me she could have just used context clues to figure out who I was.

“Glad to have you here, Mr. Han. Okay, next is.. Kim Jongin?” She questioned and looked around the class. The boy at the barre directly to the left of me spoke up

“Here,” he answered with a polite smile. “But I would rather go by Kai if that’s alright.” I stared at him for a moment too long, causing him to glance towards me with a haughty grin plastered across his face. I rolled my eyes and scoffed, Sungjae had pretty much described him to a T.

Going through the syllabus was painless for the most part. Aside from learning that there would be online assignments along with a semester-long pas de deux project, the class didn’t seem like it would be too daunting. I was curious as to how we were supposed to each have a partner for the pas de deux project if there was an uneven amount of students. Maybe there would be a stand-in student from another class, possibly even an upperclassman.

We were just about to be split into pairs when there was a short knock on the door. I instantly recognized the bronzed skin and bright red hair as Hakyeon peeked his head into the studio before stepping all the way in and closing the door behind him.

“Ah, Hakyeon! It’s so nice to see you again, did you have something to ask or..?” The teacher trailed off letting the question hang in the air.

“Actually I have free time in the mornings and wondered if you might need an extra body for demonstrations or whatever really. I can help out with whatever you need.” The short boy explained as he walked up to the podium.

“Of course, that’s great! You’re just in time, we were just about to finish up with a partner exercise but it seems as though we have an uneven amount of girls to boys. I was just going to fill in but would you mind partnering with one of the boys?”

“I’d love to!” He exclaimed with bright eyes before glancing around the room at each of us guys, no doubt sizing us up. I avoided making eye contact with him, hoping to discourage any thought he might of had of us pairing up together.

“Is there anyone who would like to volunteer to be Hakyeon’s partner for the exercise?” Our teacher asked, addressing just the boys of the class.

“Sanghyuk said he would love to!” My eyes grew impossibly wide as Sungjae’s voice rang out beside me in the otherwise silent classroom.

“Traitor!” I whispered harshly at him with a glare as applause broke out amongst the rest of the students, no doubt amused that I was called out. A sense of deja vu washed over me as I thought of the similarities between now and when my name was called at the party, there was no getting out of this one either.

---------

-Sungjae

-Kai

A/N: whoops this took way longer than i wanted *shrugs* but it's Chasang's birthday week! 
thoughts are appreciated~ how are you all enjoying it so far? I was torn between Sungjae and Kai but decided to add them both into the story bc wth not. 
-I'm already working on the next chapter so please look forward to it<3 -gifs aren't mine, credit to their owners!-