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ACT I THE ROLE

Truthfully, it’s claustrophobic out in the hallways. Despite it being well-ventilated and well-lit, there’s a stuffy feeling of being cramped into a space that crawls up onto your skin, pricking up goosebumps along with it. You prop one leg up on the barre that lines every inch of every wall within this building, bending your torso at your hip and pushing towards your knee in a straight line. The other dancers around you do the same. The energy in this corridor is unspoken, but there’s a shared feeling of anxiousness. It’s been at least 20 minutes since the last dancer was called into the audition room; no audition needs to take 20 minutes. Unless, they’re so spectacular to the point where the directors have forgotten they were still auditioning people for the roles. 

Not just any role though. The role. The role of Odette, and by the same token, the role of Odile. The lead female role for the Swan Lake Ballet. It’s been regarded as one of the most difficult roles to play because of how stark the contrast is between these two characters that are supposed to look the same, so naturally, logic suggests that the same ballerina must dance these two, so very different characters.

You set your back upright again, feeling an adequate enough stretch in your hamstrings. The dancers amongst you are all individually in their own worlds. Last year, you didn’t even sign up to audition for the lead. Though, not many people did. It was pretty much guaranteed that the prima ballerina would get it. This year, however, she opted out of auditioning and suddenly, there was an influx in interest for the part. Your whole life, you’ve been training for such an occasion—you can’t let it slip past you now.

“Y/N!”

A voice calls out. You turn your head in the direction of the voice. A pretty ballerina slips by the woman with a clipboard in her hand. The dancer’s light brown hair is pulled back perfectly, a full bun sitting in the back of her head. She waves a quick goodbye to the people inside the room before she steps out into the hallway.

“Yes, that’s me.” You say before bending down to pick up your dance bag, swinging it onto your right shoulder.

The woman doesn’t say anything else, she simply rotates her body sideways to allow some space for you to step in through to the room.

As soon as you’re inside the audition room, you see a seated panel of four people, two of whom you recognise: the company’s director and the choreographer. Both the pride and joy of the Paris House of Ballet. There’s an air of iciness that surrounds them. You set down your bag by the edge of the wall and saunter towards the spot marked with masking tape in the middle of the room. 

“Whenever you’re ready,” the director, Colette, beams at you.

You purse your lips together, kneeling down in front of the tablet set out for auditionees to put on the music they’ve chosen for their piece. A soft piano melody begins. The panel immediately recognises it as the Dying Swan. The melancholy tune floods the square audition room, and you let the music overtake and guide your every movement.

The piece is beginning to come to an end. You’re sat on top of your heel with one leg pointed straight out in front of you. The swan’s final moments, she’s still fighting for her mortality. With one last flare of her wings—your arms—you envelope yourself. Arms crossed at the wrist resting on top of your ankle, and you bow your head, your forehead touching your shin. You wait a few seconds before uncrossing your wrists and getting up onto your feet, as gracefully as you can. Looking up at the panel, you’re met with satisfied smiles. Internally, you release a deep sigh.

Colette looks to her sides, and then she begins, “Your grace is incomparable. Truly, very well done.”

One of the people whom you don’t recognise chimes in, “One of the best we’ve seen so far.” He nods, looking pleased with you and himself.

Colette’s smile is sturdy on her face. “Now, how are your fouettés?”

As soon as you step one foot out of the audition room, someone is already there waiting to pounce. “How was it?” Karina asks ecstatically.

Your shoulders jump up a bit at her excitement, “-You scared me.”

She widens her eyes expectantly, waiting for you to answer her question.

“It was alright. I did well enough on Odette’s part.”

Karina rolls her eyes, “Is that what you think? Well enough?”

You’re eyeing down the water fountain at the end of the corridor, someone stood right in front of it as they’re filling up their bottle. A tall man waltzes past, his head turning towards you for a brief moment. As quick as he came into view, he leaves all the same. You’re stuck looking at where the outline of his body was, eyes boring holes into the beige-painted walls of the corridors.

“Hello?” Karina’s voice brings you back to the present.

“Yeah, sorry. What did you say?”

Monday mornings are never usually too bad. This Monday morning may prove your hypothesis wrong, though. The casting of the characters for Swan Lake were said to be posted up today, up on the bulletin board. They could just send out a mass message but your company insists on doing things the conventional way, only like back a decade ago. It’s tradition, they’d said, dancers all huddle up to hopefully find their names next to the character they auditioned for. 

You’re hoping the same as you begin your commute to work this morning.

You swipe your ID card against the reader and the glass doors click open. Already, you can see a group of people, some wearing their practice outfits whilst others look they they just walked in with their jackets still  on, all crowded around a rectangular pillar that stands in the middle of the staircase—separating the stairs that go up and the ones that go down. 

Curiosity spikes within you, an unease settling in the pit of your stomach. This is it. You walk over to the crowd that’s garnering more people by the second. 

“Y/N! Here!” You hear Karina’s voice from somewhere in the horde, and then a hand tugs at you. She pulls you through the mob of dancers, all eager to find their names plastered on the wall, until you’re stood next to her. You’re about two people away from the bulletin board, and once they move out of your way, it’s blatantly in your face. The plain piece of paper is titled: ‘Swan Lake Showing Castings.’

Your eyes skim past the castings for the male dancers and straight to the bottom half for the female dancers. You land on where it says ‘Odette/Odile’ and the name next to it: Juliette Martin. Not yours.

“Look!” Karina points at the paper, index finger underlining the role for Odette/Odile’s understudy. And there it is. Your name printed out next to the role of the understudy. Karina is visibly shaking with excitement, definitely more so than you. If anyone didn’t know better, they’d probably think that your name was Karina’s.

“Oh my god!” She flings her arms around you, and in her embrace, you shuffle out of the mob of people together. “You got it!”

“The understudy,” you remind her lowly. You attempt to soften your tone with a light, “Well,” and a shrug.

She’s not phased by your disappointment. “Still. You should be proud of yourself,” she leans her head forward, “I am. Proud of you, I mean.”

Her words force a smile onto your face and you manage out a quiet, ‘thank you.’

You’re in the middle of the barre routine, foot pointed out to second, when you feel a tap on your shoulder. Thinking that it’s your mentor’s way of telling you to fix something—it could be anything really, straighten your back, tuck in your pelvis, turn out, point your toes more—you settle for standing up taller and rolling your shoulders back. She taps you again, in the same spot. This time, you turn to look at your mentor; maybe she’ll feel like actually specifying her request, unlike usually. Her coarse, grey hair frames her face in artistically messy strands, the rest of it pulled back into a quick bun, unlike the neat, meticulously combed ones that ballerinas normally gravitate towards wearing. Once your mentor has your attention, she signals towards the door to the studio. You drop your arms from the barre, eyebrows raising at your mentor with your fingers pointing to your chest. She nods. This whole interaction is carried out in silence, as to not disturb the rest of the dancers going through the routine. You half-walk, half-jog on your tiptoes towards the studio doors, and the director is waiting by the frame.

She steps out and you follow her into the hallway. Finding a nearby bench, she sits down and prompts you to do the same.

The cold from the metal bars of the bench is insulated by your joggers, one leg pulled up to above your knee exposing the tights underneath, while the other sits where it’s supposed to. 

You breathe in, “What can I do for you?” You try to put on a convincing smile.

“Did you see the castings this morning?” The director begins.

You simply nod, not knowing where this conversation will go.

“Well, Juliette dropped out of the show this morning.”

“Oh,” you voice. And then the revelation hits you. You repeat, “Oh,” this time with full understanding of the director’s implications.

“So…” Colette’s lips are slow to curve into a smile, “You’re our lead.”

Your stomach flutters upon hearing those words, your mouth hung slightly agape. An excitement inches up to your face, the muscles in your cheeks spark up. “I mean, yeah. I’d love that. But why?” Colette notices the tiniest sliver of hesitation in your tone.

“Personal stuff—she didn’t know if she can stay in Paris for the next 2 months to train.”

You nod in understanding. “That’s a shame.”

“Some things can’t be helped,” Colette responds. “So, you’ll do it?”

“I’d love to.”

“Great!” The director’s face lights up as she puts her own hand over yours. “Training should start as soon as possible, so…” she looks down onto the floor to think, “The day after tomorrow?”

The way this conversation happened, it’s like you’re continuously a beat behind Colette. “I can look over the routines by myself tomorrow, no problem. Wouldn’t that be better? So we don’t have to wait an extra day?”

“Oh, no.” She gives a starry-eyed shake of the head. “Your training starts with partnering. You know, to test the chemistry.”

You mouth a subtle, ‘Oh.’

“Did you see who got the role of Siegfried?”

You let out a soft chuckle, “No. I kind of zoned out when I saw what role I got.” A sudden wave of self-awareness engulfs you after that sentence uttered with unfiltered honesty. If Colette picked up on that, she made no show of it.

“I don’t know if you know him, actually. Kim Doyoung got the part.”

Kim Doyoung.

You knew him. No doubt, you knew him.

You lay in bed, eyes staring at the ceiling. The covers are pulled all the way up to your chest despite it being warm enough that you don’t need to sleep with the covers on. As you shut your eyes, an all-too-familiar memory plays out in your head.

It’s 5 years ago. You’re a fresh face to the company having just graduated from the Paris Conservatory for dance. It’s a spring day, the trees outside the studio building are beginning to blossom again. 

It’s partner practice and the mentor decided that today is the day that everyone will try some lifts. Not that extraordinary, you’d been lifted countless times even during your days learning at the conservatory. Kim Doyoung just so happened to be stood next to you when the mentor announced this. You didn’t know anyone in the class back then, seeing as you’d just joined, and he made no conscious effort to go seeking out a particular partner, so naturally, the two of you partnered up.

You didn’t know who he was at the time, just the fact that he was undeniably handsome. A combination of both sharp and soft features to him; if he was anything as a partner, it was that he’s easy on the eye.

The mentor demonstrated a lift which consisted of the male dancer lifting his partner all the way up in the air over his head, while she arched her back with both feet pointed downwards; arms stretched out nearly in a 90 degree angle from each other.

Someone had counted to 3 and that’s when you jumped, assisting him the most you could as he lifted you well over 6 feet above the ground. The lift went fine. The mentor then suggested a variation in which the male dancer supports the weight with only one hand. And you don’t know what happened, but presumably Doyoung tried to hold the lift with a single hand, and that’s when it started going downhill.

There was a little instability in your core and you told him to put you down. He listened, or at least tried to, but the balance was thrown off. He was still holding the weight with one hand when he tried to wrap his free hand around your waist again. Before you know it, the fabric of your leotard did you no good and you started slipping from his grip. Being forced to basically propel yourself down, it came too unexpectedly, and you landed on the floor without properly bracing yourself. Rookie mistake, you’d thought even in the moment.

That day, you didn’t think much of it. But then your leg started hurting throughout the day, especially your knee. When you went to the infirmary, the nurse advised you to take a few days off from dancing; the pressure of being en pointe wouldn’t help the shock from the impact of your landing. Few days then turned into 2 weeks, courtesy of a second opinion from the physician that you thought would help argue your case—which was to continue dancing.

Doyoung obviously saw the injury take place, and you can’t be sure if he took notice of your absence in class for the following two weeks. But that was the first and last time you ever partnered with him. And you made yourself a promise to never dance with him, again.

Up until now, it’s been pretty easy living up to that promise. Key words: until now.

Even getting up out of bed this morning was something you thought over more than once. Were you really ready to go ‘test the chemistry’ with the man that you more or less held a grudge against for the past 5 years? You know that you should let it go, it’s been 5 years—and besides, it’s not like the accident rendered you completely unable to dance again. And it wasn’t on purpose. You had to remind yourself of these facts every time you start feeling a sting from your knee shooting through your entire leg.

You walk into the studio, curtains to the windows drawn all the way back, the view of the city reflected on one of the walls entirely lined with mirrors. Colette is already there, alongside Rafael, the choreographer, and Doyoung is there, too.

“Just on time!” Colette greets you brightly.

You catch Doyoung’s eyes for a split second as you walk further into the room. His face carried an expression, one full of indifference. Does he recognise you?

You pull the strap of your bag off your shoulder, and drop it down in the corner of the room right in front of the mirror.

“Shall we get started?” Colette’s voice piques your collective attention. “The first duet we’re running over is the Act 2 pas de deux. I assume we’re all familiar with it?”

Her question is met with a couple of silent nods.

In Act 2, the Prince, Doyoung’s character, meets Odette, your character, for the first time. Prince Siegfried absolutely revels in Odette’s beauty, grace, and reserve.

Rafael pushes off the windowsill and makes his way over to you and Doyoung, standing in the centre of the room with an unnatural distance between you. You don’t know if he recognises you or not, and you’re not sure which option’s worse. A, that he recognises you but fails to even acknowledge his mistake that you’ve been stuck thinking about for the past couple of days, or B, that he doesn’t even recognise you because whatever happened was that insignificant to him.

Rafael begins to mark out the routine, highlighting the part in the duet— the pas de deux—where Siegfried caresses Odette’s face with his fingers, turning her head towards him. Following this intimate moment between the characters, there’s supposed to be two consecutive lifts performed by Siegfried that makes it appear like Odette is floating in the air. You’re standing very, very still as Rafael mimics these movements with little effort. 

When he’s done, he asks a simple, “Got it?” before turning to face the speakers. Doyoung utters a quiet, “Yeah,” but you can only manage a nod that Rafael catches in the reflection.

And so, the music begins.

You take your place slightly off centre with Doyoung a little bit behind you. He takes slow, conscious steps towards you. His hand reaches out, fingers with the goal of landing softly on your chin. And they do. The pads of his fingers are cold to the touch, sending a shiver down you as you turn your face to look at him. Before you get the chance to properly look at him, your cue to take centre stage comes. In a fluttering-like motion, you quickly alternate between each foot putting pressure on your toes, bringing your arms to fifth up above your head. There’s a build-up in the music, and you feel Doyoung’s fingers tightly wrapped around your ribcage. The anticipation builds in Colette. But then, you call out, “Wait!”

Confusion colours Colette’s face, “What’s wrong?”

Rafael pauses the music, leaving the room in silence. Doyoung’s fingers loosen around you.

“I don’t know if I can do this,” you admit with a clean-cut honesty. You put mind to not catch a glimpse of Doyoung’s reflection in the mirror before you.

Colette chuckles, “What do you mean?”

“I can’t be Odette.”

A stillness falls over everyone in the room, but particularly Colette. You meet her eyes, and there’s an uncharacteristic air of apathy to her. “You’re kidding. I mean, you didn’t even—”

Rafael physically takes a step in between you and Colette, Doyoung still silent in the situation. Rafael holds up a palm in Colette’s direction, then turns to face you. “Let’s start again in 5 minutes—is that okay with everyone?” 

You glance over at the mirror and see Doyoung’s reaction. He widens his eyes in annoyance, and leaves the centre of the room, heading straight for his stuff on the side.

A thinly rolled cigarette sandwiched between your lips, you flick on the lighter and bring up the flame to the end of the stick. You take a slow drag before resting your forearms on the railing that outlines the balcony, cigarette tucked in between your fingers. On one hand, you’re glad that Rafael stepped in before Colette could explode, but on the other, he’s now set a precedent that you’ll be happy to cooperate again in 5 minutes' time. You don’t know if that stands true. And it’s looking more like 2 minutes now that you found your way out here to have a quick smoke.

You hear the door behind you swing open as you take another drag. The sound of chatter mixed in with cutlery clanging together in the canteen rushes out into your ears. You look back over your shoulder, and it’s Rafael.

“Mind sharing?” He walks over to the edge of the balcony next to you, eyes looking pointedly at the cigarette in your hand.

Funnelling out a puff of smoke with closed lips, you flick off the ash and pass the stick to him.

“Colette send you out here to get me?” You watch as he inhales.

He shakes his head, eyes looking down as he sucks in before breathing out. There’s a few seconds of silence in between him shaking his head and actually beginning to speak. “If this is going to work, you’re gonna have to trust him.”

“Raf, you know what happened. The last time I trusted him, I couldn’t work for 2 weeks afterwards.” He gives you your cigarette back and you take it in between your thumb and your index finger.

He sighs. “I do know what happened, and I know it was an accident.”

“If it wasn’t an accident, it really wouldn’t help your case here,” you take another long, deliberate pull.

Rafael pauses, slowly observing you as you exhale smoke from your lips. “Don’t you have some faith in him as a dancer? That he’s improved throughout all these years?”

He’s met with no response from you.

“You know, that was the last time he ever made a mistake like that in partnering. How’d you think he kept his job these 5 years?”

“Last mistake as far as you know.” Your words come out more sharply than anticipated.

“If you’re still uncomfortable, that’s fine. It’ll just be a shame to replace you—Colette loved your audition.”

Replace? Not even 5 minutes and there’s already throwing around of the word ‘replace?’ You suppose you did explicitly state, “I can’t be Odette,” back there. Guess it’s no one’s fault but your own.

“He’s dedicated. Driven. You can trust him.”

You can trust him. Those 4 particular words echo around in your head.

You follow Rafael all the way back to the studio. Colette watching as Doyoung is in midst of a solo routine. He comes to a halt when he sees the pair of you step into the room. Colette and Rafael exchange a look, not too particularly sneaky about it, either.

“Happy to see you join us again,” Colette stands from her chair, palms pushing against her knees, “Ready to do your job?”

You suck in a deep breath through gritted teeth, “Yeah.”

“Same part again, with the lift.” Colette delivers those last three words with extra care.

And so, the music plays, the same melody reverberating off the walls of the room. It’s like you’re living in déjà vu. The same scene plays out with Doyoung reaching out to trace his fingers along your jaw. There’s still a stiffness in you, prominent enough that you’re aware of it, when he touches you.

The music crescendos. His fingers laid flat against your rib again, preparing to lift you up in the air. There are multiple challenges to this. One obviously being your mistrust in your partner, which is crucial in duets. The other being the condition that you’re supposed to look dream-like, ethereally graceful while simultaneously being hauled up into the air, with nothing supporting you but the arms of a man whom you’d rather not even look at, let alone get lifted by.

You can trust him.

Alongside the music cue, you bend your knees into a plié and when you straighten your legs again, the familiar thrill of being thrusted high up into the air takes over you. Following the choreography, Doyoung sets you back down, and before you know it, you’re propped up again. Your arms flutter lightly, resembling the wings of a swan as the back of your wrists meet each other over your head, arms mimicking an ellipse. 

Doyoung carefully helps you regain grounding by setting you back down slowly, his hands still tight around your waist. When he finally lets go, he mutters into your ear, “That wasn’t so hard, was it?”

You turn around, met with the same expressionless face as when you first saw him earlier.

“That was…” Colette interrupts, “…standard. Chemistry needs a little working on, but nothing time can’t fix.” For some reason, you feel like that was meant for you with the way Colette’s looking pointedly at you.

With the newly added responsibility of your lead role, your schedule is now a little fuller, and brighter. Mondays and Tuesdays are solo training days, whereas Wednesdays and Thursdays are partner practice, specifically with Doyoung. Your company has always had a policy where despite whatever specified training there is for whatever show that’s currently getting worked on, Fridays were always company class days. Meaning that every dancer—the corps de ballet, every artist, soloist, even the principal dancers—come and train together. It’s like that saying that corporate businesses have, “We’re not a team, we’re a family.” Except you can feel a bit more of the ‘family’ aspect here than you probably can at some corporate job.

The weekends are the weekends. You’re not on the clock, but there’s still an unspoken understanding that you will be dancing, practicing, training, especially now with a role like this.

It’s Friday afternoon. You’re tucked in the corner somewhere, next to Karina, both observing the quick demo that the instructor is going through in the centre of the massive stage, just big enough to occupy all the dancers of the Paris House of Ballet.

The instructor tells the pianist to begin playing the piece, and the first row of dancers take position at the back of the stage.

“So, how was training yesterday?” Karina tries to contain her feverish squeal as she asks.

You bite back a smile at her exhilaration. “It was good.”

“When are you going to start giving me details without having me to ask for them?”

“It was nothing special. I don’t know what you want me to say.” You respond, watching the dancers as they travel across the stage in a multitude of jumps and leaps. 

“Nothing special?” Karina elbows you in the side. You follow her eyes to see who’s across the room.

Doyoung stands in line for the next group of dancers to take the stage. A loose black tank top hangs onto his exposed shoulders, grey joggers sitting low on his hips. The stage lights do nothing but highlight his arms; how every muscle in them pull and stretch in different directions as he moves them.

You pull away from ogling at him. “Nothing special,” you repeat. “I don’t even think he recognised me.”

“You’re joking.”

“No. A man nearly ruins your life and doesn’t even remember you. What else do we expect?” 

You and Karina share a chuckle, and the pair of you walk into the stage lights, preparing for the first position of the sequence.

It’s been a week since your first practice session with Doyoung. A week makes it sound like you’d gotten some time to warm up to him, when in reality, you’ve seen him three individual times for practice, and not any of those times did he even try to make casual conversation. Or less even, small talk.

You’re expecting today to be no different. Spend 8 hours with each other; 8 hours with his hands all over you; 8 hours pretending like you’re desperately in love—only for the pair of you to not even catch glimpses of each other outside the practice room.

You’d just finished running through another one of the many duets you have with him, this time as Odile, when you read the less-than-satisfied expression Colette has on her face. Uh oh.

She exhales sharply. 

“It’s been a week.” Colette uncrosses her legs and pushes her glasses up into her hair. She stands up, one hand on the barre that disrupts the otherwise continuous panel of mirror on the wall. “One week. And you two still look like you’d rather piss at windmills than take your jobs seriously. Now, don’t get me wrong. Y/N, you’re very good at the rejection part—the falling in love part, not so much.”

The first time that you and Doyoung’s characters meet, he’s already head over heels for her. She, however, isn’t so keen on accepting his adoration, and it takes at least several dances before she’s done dismissing him.

You shoot Doyoung a quick glance. He has his hands on his hips, one of the sleeves of his T-shirt rolled up to his shoulder. “Well, it’s not easy to have chemistry with someone as dull as a rock,” you bite out.

That catches his attention.

“I’m sorry? I’m not the one who first freaked the fuck out the first time we practiced.” A record, truly. He said more than 5 words to you in conjunction at once. Not that that accomplishment is enough to distract you from what he said.

“You wanna know why I freaked the fuck out?” You take a step closer to him. “It’s because you—”

“Enough!” Colette cuts between the two of you. “You two obviously have some differences.” That’s putting it lightly, you thought. “You don’t need me to remind you that you’re professionals. So, stop acting out whatever lovers’ quarrel you have, and focus on the honeymoon phase, instead. Please.”

She sits down on the floor again, crossing her legs. “Need I remind you that our version ends with Siegfried and Odette dead, so you two better sell it to the audience while they’re alive.”

You and Doyoung slowly look at each other, both reluctant. He’s the first to drop his gaze as he takes his position behind you, readying himself for another showing of his strength that the routine calls for.

Before you leave practice that night, Colette requests that you stay behind. You prepare yourself, thinking that it’s a reprimanding from her telling you to act more hopelessly enamoured. But she doesn’t. Instead, she asks to see your fouettés.

That’s the thing with the role of Odile. She’s incredibly fierce. Maybe it’s due to the fact that she’s the literal daughter of a dark magician who can magic up some spirit to possess her. In Act 3, she’s supposed to flawlessly execute 32 fouettés in succession, without once losing her balance. Basically, 32 full turns on your toe and landing it perfectly afterwards, as if that’s not the most nauseating thing in the world to do.

In your audition, you did maybe three or four turns. Now, Colette’s basically asking you to do that, but times 10.

It’s a challenge, no doubt, and it’s one that you’re not sure if you can take.

You settle yourself. Feet in fourth position—dominant leg in front, and the non-supporting leg at the back. Your arms out in second to the side of you. And you push off of your back foot. If there’s one trick to keeping your balance, it’s spotting. Pick a spot anywhere in the room, and only look at that spot when turning.

The foot that you’re spinning on continually drop back down to gain momentum to push off onto your toe again. It’s no easy feat. You’re about 10, 11 turns in when you start to feel the effects of dizzying. Having the option to end now—though incomplete—but at least with the standards of your turns up to par, or fighting through to the very last turn, you decide on stopping now. 

You land the ending, coming down in a plié before rising up onto your toes in a relevé. 

Panting, you drop your arms to catch your breath. You look at Colette, trying to hide the eagerness in your eyes.

“I’ll need to see an improvement on those, too,” she says in an icy tone, “Don’t let me down.”

You find yourself walking in the streets of the city at night on the last day of the weekend, heading towards the practice studio. Sure, you could wait a few more hours before it’s time for you to clock in, anyway, but you couldn’t. Not really. Especially not after the comment Colette made a few days back.

You press your card up against the reader and the familiar sound of the doors clicking open resonates in your ears. 

You settle into your personal practice room, making no effort to turn on the lights. The windows that line the entirety of one side of the room is enough to let the lustre of the moon shine through, bathing the studio in a pale light.

You pull on your pointe shoes, wrapping your toes in a bandage-like material beforehand. Unlocking your phone, you look for the audio file that Colette sent to you of the very orchestra that will be performing alongside you in a few months’ time. Each orchestra performs each piece differently, however slight the difference is. It’s better to practice directly to them to get a hang of their nuisances, Colette’d said.

The music blares out from your phone, the tempo fast and the atmosphere lively. Your feet instinctively take their positions, and you push off on cue with the music.

No matter how many times you try tonight, there just seems to be something off. Either the spins are alright, but you lose your balance upon landing, or your supporting leg just wants to give out, or both. For most of the tries, it was both.

You come out of a failed series of fouettés. Bending over, you drop your hands to your knees, simultaneously trying to catch your breath. Then, that’s when you feel it. The ever-so-familiar acute stinging in your leg. For a moment, it’s so overwhelming that it physically causes you to scrunch your face up until it wears away a little by itself. A cloud of defeat looms over you.

You pick up your bottle off the floor and decide to go fill it up by the fountain outside. This part of the studio is much more modernised than the rest. There are two main hallways connected by a square courtyard—the garden, as the architects called it. The garden is enclosed within four entirely glass sliding doors, allowing access from every side. You don’t really know who’s watering the plants in the courtyard, because if it was up to the dancers, you know that those plants would’ve died a long while ago.

The room allocated to you is along one of the two hallways, directly facing the south side of the garden. You step out, heading towards the water fountain that stands in the middle of the two corridors, facing the west entrance to the courtyard.

You’re pushing down on the button to fill up your water bottle when you hear a tune that you immediately recognise. It’s the same one that you were just relentlessly listening to—or practicing to.

There’s a slight crack in one of the doors opposing yours. Tightening the lid on your bottle, you decide to quietly make your way over to the room on a whim. Who else is here on a weekend night? And practicing to the same piece as you?

You discreetly try to peek your head in, the crack in the door only allowing you to see a slight sliver of the practice room.

At first you don’t really see anything. Just the sound of the vivacious music. Then, a shadow of a figure leaps high up into the air, flying past the tiny window of what you can see before you can register it. You don’t want to think it, but it can only be one person.

One other person who has a part in this piece.

The music suddenly stops.

“Stop hiding.” A voice calls out.

You freeze. Your hunched over positioning has you locked. Shit. What do you do?

“I know you’re there.” The voice sounds again. A bit ominous on their behalf, if you do say so.

Quietly, you push open the door, allowing yourself to see more than just a sliver of the room. The lights aren’t turned on. 

Crouched over in front of the mirror is the one and only person you didn’t want to see: Doyoung. 

His dark long sleeve shirt only thinly veiling his torso, contrasted by his light plaid pants. He watches in the mirror as you step one foot, then another into his practice room. The beam of the moon illuminated his face, making it visible to you even from a distance that he’s been here for at least a while with how the sweat glistened on his face and neck.

Say something. Anything.

“I didn’t know you practiced til this late.” You say, swinging your water bottle and holding it with both hands behind your back.

“I could say the same for you.”

Was that an insult or a back-handed compliment? Or you’re just reading too much into it.

Doyoung moves his foot out from under him with a groan, so now he’s sitting on the floor. He tears his eyes away from you in favour of whatever he’s looking at on his phone. A prolonged silence falls upon the room. If it was anyone else in the room with you, it probably won’t be as uncomfortable, but it’s not.

You rock onto the balls of your heels, about to turn back around and leave, but Doyoung breaks the silence.

“I’m sorry. For what I said the other day… and for what happened.” 

He utters the last part of his sentence so quietly that you can barely make it out. Half-stunned, half-confused, you stare at him. So, he does recognise you.

You steadily take step after step towards him until you’re at a normal distance for a conversation between two people, then you sit down next to him.

“I forgive you.”

“Like that?”

“Yeah. People are often surprised at what maturity can do for you as an adult.”

For a split second, you’d swear he was holding back a chuckle. “That coming from you?”

You twist off the lid to your water bottle to take a sip, “I’ll pretend I didn’t hear that.”

He leans back onto his hands behind him. A beat passes. “So, where’s my ‘sorry’ back?”

You set down the bottle in front of you. “If you’re expecting something back, then it wasn’t a real apology.”

He drops his head to the side to look at you. Eyes dark, a careful consideration of you sitting there next to him. Doyoung swallows tightly. There’s a steady rising and falling of his chest.

“I am really sorry. I never knew what happened after, then. I only found out when Rafael told me recently.”

“I guess… I didn’t expect you to know.”

A new wave of silence washes over the two of you, only this time, it’s by degrees less uncomfortable than the last.

Doyoung lifts his palms from the ground and crosses his legs, imitating your position on the floor. With his shift in positioning, there comes a shift in energy as well.

“Obviously, I want to do well. But I don’t want to look good owing to the fact of my partner’s lack of skill…” He says with an arched brow.

“Yeah…” you tilt your head at him, “Not the most desirable pitch. Try again.”

His lips twitch in an attempt to hide his smirk from you. “I’m saying… I’m willing to put our differences aside for this one time. For both of our sakes.” He extends his hand out to you, as if to initiate a business handshake, “Deal or no deal?”

You look at him, then his hand, then back at him again. Leaning forward, you fit your palm into his, “Deal.”

ACT II THE PAS DE DEUX

You thought that ever since you made that deal with Doyoung that things might be different. That he might start acting like a normal human being with normal human emotions. How silly of you to think that. Truth is, he hasn’t changed one bit since that night you bumped into him. Practices are still wordless. You still barely see him outside of your schedules. And even when you do, he pretends like he doesn’t see you, in the corridors, in the canteen, everywhere. That’s not to say that everything stayed the same.

It’s the week following your run-in with him. A Thursday, so your schedule dictates that you have duet practice with Doyoung.

“Good,” Colette calls out from her folding chair, “You two don’t look like you want to murder each other for once.” She doesn’t know what happened between you but she doesn’t care for it as long as you and Doyoung can look like you can at least tolerate each other.

It’s intimidating when you think about it. How he can go from looking so deeply infatuated one second, then the moment the music is over, his face drops. Eyebrows straightened. Just absolutely no emotion shown through his expression. You can’t help but wonder which version of him is genuine: The one who seemed truly apologetic in the dimmed practice room, or this one. The version of him that he parades around everywhere he goes. How do you even begin to tell what’s an act and what isn’t?

Every time his fingers touch you, you still feel a chill running down you. Though, you’ve come to learn how to hide it better.

Practice is finished for the night. The teal of the horizon begins to blend together with the darker blue of the night sky. Doyoung wastes no time in gathering his stuff the second Colette said that you were done for tonight. You try to do the same but Colette stops you. Her slender fingers wrapped tightly around your arm.

“Before you go, Y/N.”

She takes her hand off of your arm. The red frames of her glasses sit low on her nose bridge and she angles her head downwards to look at you, as if you’re a particularly difficult to read section of a newspaper. 

“I still need to see you land those fouettés. I’m giving you one— …two weeks, before I have to intervene.”

One of her eyebrows are cocked, the brightness of her eyes do nothing but emphasise the severity in her tone. Her harshness isn’t something you’re not used to, but every time she exerts this power over you, you can’t help but feel slightly humiliated. Who wouldn’t? To have someone repeatedly on your tail felt like having them pry open a wound, and before it even has time to scab, they’re back pricking and pouring salt into it. Except that wound is found on your ego.

You take a deep breath in, and try to force your lips into an understanding smile. “Yeah,” you say in a cheery enough tone.

You suppose that’s the way it is in ballet. That’s how it is in many things in life. Everyone’s after perfection, and no one is able to execute it.

This weekend, you decide to do something you haven’t done in three weeks: Stay in.

The last three weekends you’ve spent draining yourself away at the studio, but due to Karina’s request, you decide otherwise this time.

She sends you a message telling you that she’s 5 minutes away from your place. It’s no secret that the pressure of these last few weeks have been steadily building on you, especially to Karina. 

You open the wooden cupboard and pull a bottle of red wine from it, setting it onto the kitchen island in the middle of your open-plan kitchen. A soft orange paints the skyline, clouds pulling from each other like cotton candy. On one end of the island, there stood the doors leading to the balcony, enclosed by wrought iron fences. Technically speaking, it was a balcony, but in actuality, it was just a ledge—a glorified floor-to-ceiling window that you can open, really. 

You push open the balcony doors and the sound of the city fills your living space. The traffic a few stories down, people’s voices from the street or coming from the open balconies to either side of your complex. You stare off into the horizon, a flock of shadowed birds flies across your field of vision over the city.

Then, a ding sounds out.

You step back inside, walking across your kitchen to the other end of the island where the main door was. You slide open the door chain and push down on the handle. The door swings inwards, and stood outside in the hallway of your apartment complex was Karina, a bright smile on her face. “I got sushi!”

You pour the red wine into a glass that you set down on the counter, then another glass next to that. In one hand, you sit the bowl of one glass on the part of your hand that your fingers connect between, in the other hand, you wrap your fingers around the other rim and take a sip as you make your way over to the living space. Karina’s already sat down on one of the bean bags facing the TV. As you pass her, you lower one of the drinks to her and she takes the stem in between her fingers.

She hums tunefully to your offering.

You plop down on the leather couch next to her, careful enough as to not spill your wine. Throwing your head backwards onto the back of the couch, you sigh.

“What?” Karina asks with a slight smile in her eyes, taking a small sip of the wine.

You look at her through lowered eyelids, your head completely resting on the couch. “Nothing. I’m glad you came over tonight.”

She smiles. Shifting in her bean bag, she props one leg up as she leans forward to set down her glass on the wooden coffee table. “Come on,” reaching over, she puts her palm on your knee and gives you a gentle shake, “I know there’s something on your mind.”

Your lips purse together and pout to the side.

You met Karina a few months into your career as a professional dancer. It was a usual day for you, having recently returned to work from your injury. Every time you spotted Karina either on the barre or in centre, she looked so immersed into her craft. You remember being so impressed by her skill and control. Every movement of her arms looked so fluid, flowing from one position to another seamlessly. The power she held in her leaps were something else, as well. Her precision, even in the most consuming of movements, was something to be admired. Safe to say, it was to your surprise when she lined up behind you in the lunch queue and started making casual conversation. “Y/N, right?” She’d asked with a smile.

You found out that day that Karina went to the same conservatory as you. Though a grade below you, she was signed to the company as an mentee the year you graduated, so she never fully finished her course. She knew of you when you two were both enrolled at the conservatory, but your paths never crossed into more than just a polite smile and a nod territory. Since day one, she had a sort of optimism to her that you’d grown to love and appreciate especially throughout the years. In such an unforgiving and rigid industry, Karina’s softness continues to be your lantern leading you through the dark.

“So?” Leaning back into her bean bag, Karina prompts once again, glass back up to her lips.

You mirror her actions, taking a sip from the rim and disassembling the flavours in between your cheeks before swallowing. “Colette,” you mouth to her as if you two were sharing secrets you shouldn’t be.

Karina’s inquisitive expression urged you to elaborate.

You sigh, bringing your shoulders up and dropping them. “I can’t get my turns right, for Odile’s coda. And she basically told me that if I don’t get my shit together, she’s gonna have to ‘intervene.’” You arch your brow when you recall Colette’s words to you.

“Meaning…?”

“I don’t know—probably replace me.”

There’s a range of comforting words that Karina can pick from to say to you, but a small portion of them would be true. Her hand goes up to her bottom lip, tugging at them as she thinks—a habit that she’d never grown out of. 

“She won’t replace you.” Karina settles on the ‘not true’ section of the scope of her responses, her hand muffling her words. Both you and her know it. And it’s not due to the fact that Karina—or yourself, for that matter—thinks you’re not good enough for the role, it’s just how things are. It’s how Colette is: simple and straightforward. You can’t play a role? Someone else can—and they will. It’s never personal. Except it always feels like it is.

Still, you break out a weak smile at her attempt at reassuring you.

You lean your head back again, eyes now fixed on the ceiling and the base of the lamp that hung low over the coffee table.

“I think it’s my knee,” you admit for the first time out loud. You never wanted to talk about your accident because you were afraid that people might think you were making up excuses. This time, you felt like you were running out of options for explanations.

“Your knee?” At the mention, Karina leans forward in her seat.

“Yeah,” though unintentional, your words come out as a whisper. You clear your throat before continuing, “Every time after practice, my knee just starts hurting. Not insanely bad, but worse than before.”

“I didn’t know it was hurting before.” Karina has this expression on her face that’s almost like she’s interrogating you about this.

You can’t hide the sheepishness in your face and your tone, “It wasn’t serious.”

“Have you told Colette?”

You shake your head. 

“Y/N. You have to tell her.”

“And for what? To give her another reason to start looking for my replacement?”

Karina takes a deep, shaky breath in, like she’s uncertain about something. “Surely, she’d understand. Maybe it’ll at least throw her off your back for some time.”

Your eyes remain fixed on the ceiling. Maybe it’s a good idea. Maybe you should tell Colette. That’s an issue for another day, though.

There’s many different ways to approach the character of Odile, but at the core of it, she’s a seductress. Everything that she does comes back to her motive to seduce—and more specifically, the Prince. It doesn’t come as a surprise to you or your choreographer when your expressions don’t match your intent. 

To pretend to be in love is one thing. You’ve got years upon years of teenage pining experience to fall back on. But the art of seduction? No one has time for that.

‘Look more sultry. Look more alluring.’ Raf had said to you. And to your credit, you try but it’s already hard enough to have to spin and jump and twirl and leap, and now you have to look tantalising doing that? And all that’s considering the fact that you even want to try.

Your hours on the clock has finished for the night, but you find yourself starting to stay behind on most nights more often than not.

Kneeling down in front of the mirror, you rifle through your bag until your fingertips find a small, card box. You flip open the tab of the box and pull out one of the cigarettes, noting to yourself that you only have two others left. Then, you rummage through the pockets of your jacket for your lighter. With your necessities in your hands, you amble out of your room, turning the lights off as you leave. The hallways are fuller than usual, with plenty of soloists finishing at the same time as you. You weave your way through a group of dancers walking down the corridor and slide open one of the glass doors to the garden.

The hallway floors surrounding the garden is taller than the cobblestone ground of the courtyard, making it so that there’s a ledge as you step a foot inside. You sit yourself down on the step, one side of your body leaning against the opened glass door. You slot the cigarette between your lips as you bring up both your hands. One of them sparking on the lighter as the other goes to cover the flame by habit. 

You go to pocket your lighter—again, habit—only to realise that you’re not wearing your jacket, so your second best option was to just put it on the ground next to where you’re sitting. Just as you’re about to pull the dampened filter tip away from your lips, a voice appears out of nowhere behind you.

“You should really quit that. It’s not good for you.”

The surprise of it nearly chokes you, coughing out quietly again and again as the smoke escapes your lips. You look behind you but you didn’t need to see to know who it was.

You manage out one final cough. And towering over you stood Doyoung. Eyes lowered, posture upright, as if he’s literally and figuratively looking down on you.

“Yeah? When did you start caring about what’s good for me?” You put your cigarette back in between your lips right as you finish your sentence, a clear edge of hostility in your voice. Doyoung watches your cigarette between your fingers as you take a deliberately long drag. You’re not even finished when he answers you back.

“When you became my partner.”

What a liar, you thought. That explains why he’s been ignoring you everywhere.

The conclusion that Kim Doyoung is nothing but a liar quickly turns into the fact that he’s a narcissist when you put together the ideas that he’s only talking to you now because you’re doing something—smoking—that he personally frowns upon. And he can’t be having his ‘partner’ tarnishing his reputation.

“Don’t you love when someone expresses how much they care about you with their show of apathy towards you?” You remark, almost with an impatience in your tone, but a playful sarcasm on your face instead. Smoke pours out of your lips with every word that you speak, and you blow the rest of it to the side. The heat spreading from your chest comes as a shock to you. Before this, you hadn’t known truly how much it annoyed you that your existence went by unnoticed by Doyoung, although you knew it had to be an act.

Doyoung squats down so that he’s near enough eye level with you, elbows resting on his knees. He tilts his head to the side, eyes scanning your face quickly, then the stick sat in your fingers, burning itself away slowly. “Don’t tell me you’re stressed because of me,” he mutters lowly.

You lean forward an inch or two. “Believe me when I say you’re the root of most of my problems nowadays.” 

Doyoung holds back a subtle smirk on his lips, but not enough that you can’t completely pick up on it. He eyes your cigarette again, “Then, I guess you better stock up on those.”

He stands up and walks across the hallways into his practice room.

You turn your body, facing the inside of the garden. Glancing to the side, you see that the stick has burned down to nearly the filter. You quickly stub it out against the cobblestone before it gets to burning your fingers.

Days feel more like dreams to you. The repetition of what you do everyday is starting to blur the arbitrary line that separates every 24 hours from each other. And when you step foot into the shared studio between you and Doyoung, this very feeling engulfs you. 

Colette is sat in her folding chair, fingers typing away in a fit on her screen, and Doyoung is rummaging through his bag in the corner.

The conversation that you had with Karina crawls into your mind. Is today the day? You’ve been contemplating telling Colette ever since that night, but you haven’t been confronted with a chance, yet. You take cautious step after another into the room. The soles of your shoes making a light smacking noise as it lifts the linoleum flooring along with it with every step you take. You try to subtly keep an eye on Colette as you walk past her—making an effort to gauge her mood before you decide if you should tell her or not. She looks happy enough today.

You slump your bag down in front of the mirror, mind preoccupied with weighing the pros and cons of the decision that’s kept you up several nights in a row now. You’re so out of it that you didn’t even notice you set your things down right next to Doyoung, when you had to option to do so literally anywhere else.

He doesn’t say anything, simply looking up at you with a slightly inquisitive look. Then, he quirks his eyebrows when you meet his gaze. Though normally, you probably would’ve made some sarcastic remark about this, you didn’t today—or couldn’t.

You leave your things where they are, and step towards where Colette is—her attention still solely fixed on her phone.

“Colette, I have something I need to tell you.”

Your hands are brought up to your stomach, fingers interlocking with each other and then unclasping, and then locking again. She looks lost into her own world, not even a slight hum or a nod of the head to acknowledge you standing right in front of her.

“Colette?”

“Hold that thought,” she finally replies, holding out one finger towards you, head still angled down.

“It’s—”

“I have something exciting planned for you guys today!”

She jumps up out of her seat, catching you off-guard as you stumble one step behind you. Your lips mouth into an ‘Um’ shape, reluctant to ask her about what’s so exciting about today. Lucky for you, Doyoung took the pleasure in asking.

“What is it?”

“Costumes!” Colette exclaims, excitement practically bursting out of her. “They’re coming now!”

And right on cue, a metal clothing rack rolls in through the practice doors. The designer and her assistant both pushing the costumes in behind it. Right away, you spot your two distinct tutus and a couple of blouses for Doyoung.

The rack comes to a halt right in front of you. Colette instantly goes to grab a hanger with the Odette costume hung up on it. It’s both traditional, and beautiful.

The bodice of the costume fashions a plunging neckline, of which is lined with white feathers. There are crystals decorating the bodice, scattered all over the corset but primarily concentrated at the neckline. The tutu itself is showy, for sure. Bigger than any other tutu you’ve ever worn. There are multiple layers to it, and you’re surprised that it can even fan out by itself due to how heavy it looks. The bottom layers are made out of tulle, the surface of it outlined by embroideries in golden thread resembling those of feathers. On top of that, actual feathers are finely sewn into the waistband of the tutu, blending the bodice in. The whole costume, instead of being white, has the slightest hint of blue to it, making it so that it’s more of a bright white. It looks like the pure embodiment of heaven.

“Go on!” Colette urges, “Try it on!” She pushes the hanger into your chest, making you grab ahold of your costume. Then, she grabs multiple blouses off the rack and hands them to Doyoung, urging him the same.

The two of you listen to Colette, pulling your costumes on in front of the mirror. Your bodice is absolutely tailor-made to fit you. Colette can’t stop shaking her head and mumbling out words of awe and wonderment when she looks at you.

You glance over at Doyoung all the way across the room from you. His blouse the manifestation of royalty. His costume, like yours, consists of a white blouse with a deep neckline, with a fancy looking jacket layered atop of it. The jacket has the same matching gold embroidery all along the hems, the sleeves and the closures. The buckle in the front and the puffed-up shoulder pads adds to the regality of it all.

You study him in his costume. Looking him up and down, and back up again. He doesn’t notice this, or at least you don’t think so; he’s too busy ogling at himself in the mirror. His chest is slightly exposed by the depth of the blouse’s neckline, making it so that you can see the contours of his collarbones and his pecs. 

As much as you’d hate to admit it, he looks exactly like the part he’s playing—a Prince. 

The designer walks around you, holding up the waistband of your tutu. She clips the excess elastic together and she looks over to her assistant, mumbling something you can’t hear too well. “Nearly perfect,” she points at the black tutu still on the hanger, “Now try this one.”

After the designer finished marking down any adjustments the either of you needed, practice continued on as usual. During the midst of it, you’d forgotten all about the beginning of the session when you first walked in, that is until Colette of all people reminds you.

“Oh—you wanted to talk to me, Y/N?”

Your arms are held up above your head, hands trying to pull back loose strands of hair that’d flown free from the hours you’ve just spent exerting yourself. “Uh, yeah,” you quietly respond, a bobby pin clenched between your teeth.

You eye Doyoung, only to see that he’s doing the same. As soon as you meet his gaze, he looks away, back down onto his bag that he’s holding open to stuff his water bottle into.

Colette glances down at the watch on her wrist, “Well, come on, then. I have places to be.”

You take the pin out from between your lips and slide it somewhere into the back of your hair. “Um,” you mumble as you walk on closer to Colette. The same nervousness that had burned within you earlier returns, but this time, it’s even more amplified with the presence of Doyoung, for whatever reason.

Suddenly, you don’t feel like telling Colette anymore, and it’s not even because of her.

You try to speak as lowly as possible, almost muttering under your breath. Colette, however, doesn’t pick up on this too well, prompting you to speak a bit clearer.

You breathe in. “My knee. I know I’ve been causing you some trouble lately, but just give me some time. I’ll sort it out.” You don’t know if that was quiet enough so that Doyoung doesn’t hear and you don’t want to look in the reflection to see his reaction in case he did. “I promise,” you whisper.

Colette hears you this time, though, and her expression instantly softens. Her lips open, mouthing an ‘O’ shape, and her brows furrow in understanding. Colette lays a gentle palm on your shoulder, lips pursing together as she takes a deep breath in. Then, she sharply exhales. 

“If you really can’t do it, tell me.” She continues with a subtle shaking of the head, “We still have time now, but when it’s further down the road…”

You give her a firm, eager nod.

On the surface, you want to—need to—seem understanding. It was the reasonable thing to do. But deep down, all of what she’s saying just serves as a reminder of how replaceable everyone and anyone is. If you were to change how you viewed the situation, you can’t say that that’s a bad motivator, but it’s not the greatest one either. 

When you turn back around, Doyoung isn’t at his spot anymore. You’re looking at an empty room with the contents of your bag spilling out onto the floor in one corner.

Colette left moments after your conversation hurriedly to some meeting. You slump down onto the floor, knees tucked up to your chest and arms wrapping around them—not caring for your posture. The silence of the room rings in your ears, and that’s when you notice the sprinkling of raindrops against the window of the practice room.

The view outside is monochrome—all varying shades of grey. The sky was a light grey with pockets of white poking through, the buildings looked duller than usual under the gloom, and the streets were a dark grey, the rain further darkening the concrete. You watch one tiny bead of rain slowly run down the glass pane, rolling into other beads as they tumble down together.

“Is that true?”

Jesus Christ. Your shoulders jump up and your head turns to the door.

Someone sure has a habit of sneaking up on you unannounced. 

Doyoung’s hair is unstyled, the front parts of it covering his eyebrows and nearly touching the rims of his glasses. A white long-sleeve hangs loosely on his frame, with the fabric on his shoulder bunching up under the strap of his bag.

This is the first time that he’s shown up to practice looking like he’s actually showing up to practice. Usually, he’d make more of an effort to present himself—not that he even looks that much different. You hadn’t noticed this subtle change in his appearance until now, as he’s sneaking up on you, once again.

He approaches you gradually, a steadiness in his pacing.

“What?” You mumble with your eyelids fluttering as if you’re blinking back your consciousness, not even truly registering what he’d said—you’d been too caught off-guard with his sudden appearance.

“What you told Colette—is it true?”

He’s now a step or two away from you. This scene feels familiar, too.

For a split second, you truly have no idea what he’s referencing, but then it comes to you.

“About me sorting myself out? Yeah, I hope it’s true,” You respond in an attempt to hopefully deflect the conversation. A sarcastic expression draws on your face with your brows raised. You look away from Doyoung and into the mirror where you can see the two of you in the practice room as if you were a third person observer.

You were expecting a snarky remark coming from him but you don’t get one. Instead, you can see him just watching you intently in the reflection, as if he’s at a lost for words.

“About your leg,” he bluntly states. No audible emotion, no wavering in tone, just three plain, simple words.

It’s as if your eyes are drawn to Doyoung like how opposite poles of a magnet are drawn to each other. When you look at his face, there’s a solemnity to his features that’s teetering on the verge of unease.

There’s only one train of thought running through your mind. It’s that version of him again from that first night in the practice rooms. You can’t quite decide whether you like this Doyoung more, or the normal Doyoung more, but in this moment, you know you much prefer the unaffected version of him. 

You’ve never been one prone to sharing your vulnerabilities, especially not with someone like him. You’re not intending on starting now. “What are you asking me?”

“I think it’s pretty clear what I’m asking.” He says this in such a matter-of-fact manner, it’s hard to assess what his motive here is. Does he care? What is the goal here?

You’re trying to analyse the situation, but to Doyoung, he just wants to know. All the mental gymnastics you’re doing in your head—Doyoung does none of that.

“To you—probably.” Still, you continue to try to diffuse this weird tension between the two of you. You get up on your feet, clapping your hands together to get rid of any dust on them. You mutter out a quiet, “Well,” under your breath as you walk towards your things in the corner. Doyoung watches you in silence as you pack your things up; unlacing your pointe shoes, pulling them off and shoving them inside the bag.

You slide the strap onto your shoulders and get up to leave. As you walk by Doyoung, you feel the familiar touch of his fingers wrap around your wrist. The cold of his hands raise goosebumps all along your arm, and simultaneously freezes you in place. 

“Let me fix this.”

His voice is soft, and gentle, unlike his grasp on your wrist. 

Your eyes dart downwards towards his hand on you. You try to squirm free of his hold but he doesn’t let you. “Let me go.”

“Let me fix it,” he repeats.

“Fix what? There’s nothing you can do,” Your voice trails off.

Doyoung looks into your eyes, gaze unfaltering. The window to the side of him reflects in his irises, making his eyes appear glassier than normal. Without taking his eyes off you, he slowly starts to loosen his fingers around you.

“It’s my fault,” Doyoung says this in a way that’s as if he’s exhaling his words. The syllables following each other as he breathes out.

You look at him, and he doesn’t shy away and avoid your gaze. You’re looking at him and he’s there, fully. Just a few months back, you’re thinking of what you would give to have this very moment. To have him acknowledge his mistake, and to fully take responsibility like he’s doing now. Just a few weeks ago, you accepted that you would never get this—that Doyoung isn’t the type of person to bring you this kind of closure. And yet, here you are, with him standing right in front of you in a confrontation that you thought was impossible.

It’s not an apology, like that first night. It’s recognition. And now that you have both from him, you can’t help but wonder: why doesn’t it feel as relieving as you thought it would be?

“It was an accident,” you correct him. You speak those words aloud and they echo inside of your head. Those same words that you had to tell yourself over and over, the same thing that you had to convince yourself of through the years, now you’re here using them again.

“An accident that I caused.”

There’s an eerie feeling inside of you. This conversation isn’t productive, and it’d do more harm than good if you continue letting Doyoung play the blame game.

“It’s not your fault. And I’m fine now, aren’t I?” You lift your foot and stick your leg out slightly, turning it from side to side.

Doyoung watches for a brief moment before he begins again, “Just… Let me make it up to you.”

“And how are you planning on doing that?”

His eyes are back on yours and you notice the slight dip of his Adam’s apple as he swallows subtly. He sucks his lips in, lightly wetting them.

“Whatever you need me to do to make this right.”

Your stomach emits a faint grumble, but clear enough in the otherwise silent practice room that you’re sure both you and Doyoung heard it. You try to hold back a chuckle.

“Pay me back with dinner. That’s what you can do.”

Doyoung and you first agreed on dinner at some restaurant close to the both of you. However, those plans were quickly replaced not long after they were made. Simply due to the reason that Doyoung usually cooks his own meals, and he didn’t want to smear his perfect record.

Originally, he was supposed to treat you to dinner the night he asked, but something came up, so it got moved to tonight. It’s been a week since you agreed to let him cook dinner for you and it hasn’t really crossed your mind until now. 

You’re standing right in front of your mirror, contemplating what to wear. Maybe you could’ve—or should’ve—given more thought to this. And it’s right now that you’re just beginning to question what tonight is.

It’s just a casual dinner between friends, you tell yourself. But, you’re not friends. At least you didn’t think you were to him. Or maybe it’s just what you said it was—something he can do to ‘make up’ for his mistake.

All of this is running through your head as you’re holding up outfit after outfit up to your reflection. Your bed is littered with shirts, jeans, skirts, dresses; anything that you’ve ever owned. You’re not sure what kind of message you want to send with what you’re wearing, and you didn’t know if it really mattered, anyway.

Eventually, you narrow down your options to two dresses. One of them being a fitting black dress; sleeveless. The other is also black, slightly more appropriate for a club setting with the way the neckline is cut. You settle on the more modest of the options.

Pulling it on over your head, you can feel a slight tinge of embarrassment colouring your cheeks. You look into the mirror, suddenly becoming increasingly aware of what you look like. Self-awareness isn’t something you’d lacked, especially as a dancer, but tonight… it was different. You felt aware of yourself in a different way for better or worse.

You attempt to shake this feeling off, reminding yourself that tonight is just another regular night—nothing special to it. It’s just dinner.

After making yourself feel a little less on edge, you grab a nearby matching purse and throw on a jacket, then, you head out. You make your way to Doyoung’s apartment not too far from yours. It’s about 15 minutes away by walking, even less if you’re taking the subway. Considering how small the city really is, it’s not a surprise that he lives so close to you.

You take a second glance at your phone to make sure you got the right address before knocking on the apartment door. Your fist raps firmly against the wooden surface. For the first time tonight, your head is blank. Don’t get it twisted, the nervousness is still in you like it’s seeped into your bones, but any thoughts—doubtful or not—are nowhere to be found; only the echo of your knocking ricocheting off the walls of your mind.

The wait in between you making yourself known and Doyoung opening the door to his apartment is painful. Excruciating anticipation waltzing in every muscle of yours. You consider turning back around, walking away before Doyoung sees you, but before you even have a chance to move, the door swings open.

And there he stood. Head a little bit below the door frame, eyes widened, and an open stance. His black button-up is undone at the collar, exposing just enough of his collarbones that you know he left them undone for that very purpose. One side of his shirt is loosely tucked into his jeans, which had a leather belt wrapped around it. His sleeves are rolled up to his elbows and you can see steam rising from behind him. 

“Hi.”

“Hi.”

You greet him first, waiting for any indication to be let in. Instead, Doyoung stands in the way of the doorway, eyes fixed on you.

“Uh—You’re not burning anything, are you?” You ask lightheartedly, a finger pointing over his shoulder to where the steam is.

It’s like Doyoung snaps awake with a shake of his head. “Oh!” He looks over his shoulder at the pot on the stove. “No,” he reassures you as he turns back to you. Simultaneously, his body moves out of the way to let you into his place, “Sorry—Come in.”

You step through the doorway into his apartment. It’s similar to yours; an open-plan kitchen with two other rooms and a balcony. Except, his balcony can actually be considered one. Through the glass doors leading outside, you see a small square table with a white tablecloth over it, two chairs set up on either side. There’s two empty wine glasses placed on top.

“You have a nice place,” the hesitation that you can hear in your own voice made you want to crawl up and fall through the floor. Small talk has never been your forte. 

Doyoung shuts his door quietly and he turns back around to face you. “Thanks,” he takes a shallow breath in. He drops his arms from behind his back to his sides, straightening his posture subtly. “You look nice.”

And there it was again. His change in demeanour. You’re so focused on the sudden flash of indifference on his face that you don’t even pay attention to his words. It’s not like tonight wasn’t already confusing for you, he had to go and add to that confusion himself.

You mumble out a quiet, “Thanks,” not knowing what to think of his compliment. You’re grateful for the tiny hum of classical music in the background as you and Doyoung both stand somewhat awkwardly away from each other. You divert your eyes away from him and spot where the music is playing from—the vinyl record player tucked away in the corner of the open room.

It doesn’t surprise you that Doyoung is playing classical music as he cooks—he seems the type.

“If you want, you can sit down,” he speaks up. Doyoung extends a palm towards the balcony, “Dinner’s nearly ready. I’ll bring it out.”

You pull your lips into a tiny smile as you walk past him towards the glass doors. Sliding them open, you feel a gentle evening breeze brush against your skin.

Not only is his balcony better than yours, his view is also better. The platform looks over the main street, and you can’t help but wonder how the hell did he manage to rent a place like this. Directly across the wide open road are other apartment complexes, but on the ground, there are countless cafés, bars, restaurants, flower shops—everything. The warm glow from the lights within these establishments light up the street in a mellow manner.

You pull out one of the patio chairs and sit yourself down, a gentle wind blowing past again and getting caught in your hair. The faintest whisper of the symphony from inside travels all the way to you. You take in a lungful of fresh air—as fresh as city air can be—and lean forward on your palms placed on the edge of the seat.

It’s not long before Doyoung comes out with two plates in his hands. He sets one down in front of you first, then the other in his place.

“Do you want a drink?” He offers softly.

“Yeah, sure.” You get the feeling that you might’ve answered him a little too eagerly.

He disappears inside and shortly comes back out with a tall tinted bottle in his hand. Doyoung takes a seat across from you, his attention fixated on the things set out in front of him. He takes your glass into his hands, pouring a red wine into it carefully. Then, he does the same with his own. Once he’s done, he sets the bottle down onto a little trolley to the side of the table which you hadn’t noticed before.

He takes his glass, tipping its rim towards you. You take that as a signal and mirror him.

“Cheers.” You clink your glasses together, a clear ring sounding out as a result. Doyoung notices that when you go to drink your wine, you are most certainly not pacing yourself the way you should. One gulp, and the cup is a quarter-full, having only been half-empty when he poured it out.

One drink then turned into two, which quickly turned into another. The evening had gone better than you’d expected, better than you’d hoped. You thought that it might as well be you and him eating in detention for how conversation-less it usually is between the two of you, but tonight proved you wrong. Frankly, you knew it had to be due to the alcohol.

The pair of you explored many different topics: the weather; if aliens are real; whether or not you believe in astrology; your biggest dreams; cereal or milk first; et cetera, et cetera. But the topic of the reason for this whole night never came up, or the two of you were just extremely skilled in avoiding talking about it.

“After I graduated from the conservatory in Seoul, I wasn’t set on what I wanted to do,” Doyoung’s words had a slight slur to them, barely noticeable if you’re not paying attention. He picks up his glass from the table, this being his third of the night. “I was 18 at the time. I took a year off to travel and by the time I turned 19, I found myself here in Paris,” he continues, an easy flow in his voice. He takes a sip of the wine, “And I fell in love with it.”

You’re leaning back into your chair, swirling around the glass in your hand. Before you can even think of what to say back to him, Doyoung speaks again.

“What about you? How did you end up here?”

He downs the entirety of the contents in his glass, face turned away from you. You lean forward onto the table as Doyoung sets the goblet down lightly. Tilting your head away from him, you watch as the red liquid swirls and ripple over in the bowl with the movement of your hand, creating a vortex.

You return your gaze back onto Doyoung. His cheeks are lightly blushed; the tip of his nose, too. You exhale sharply.

“I’ve always been here. Guess I knew what I wanted to be since I was little and… I stuck with it.”

“That’s impressive,” Doyoung comments. You can tell he’s half there and half not.

“I suppose,” you mutter under your breath. You’re confident that Doyoung couldn’t hear you.

There’s a beat of silence, with the music in the background finishing right at this moment. Then, it starts up again. You hadn’t been paying particular attention to Doyoung’s choice in music for the earlier part of the night, but this particular piece catches your attention. And it looks like it catches his, too.

The familiar introduction passage travels all the way to the balcony fadedly, despite it’s lively nature. You recognise it as the accompaniment to the Black Swan pas de deux that you have practiced with Doyoung numerous times now.

The two of you share a glance before Doyoung gives in.

“Shall we?”

You hesitate at first. This is silly, you thought. Doyoung extends a hand towards you. 

“I don’t have my shoes,” you counter.

“So, what? It’s just for fun,” he urges you playfully, hand now closer to you.

Then, you give in. You place your palm into his as he leads you back inside of his apartment. There’s enough space inside for you to move around comfortably, but not to perform a whole duet. The two of you half-heartedly dance along to the music, mainly relying on muscle memory for the piece. For the second time tonight, your mind is blank. You’re only tuning into the music and letting your body move the way it wants, no thoughts dictating your actions at all.

A part of the choreography calls for Doyoung to place his hands on your arms from behind you, and wrap them around yourself, which is then followed by Odile rejecting this show of affection. Doyoung’s touch on your forearms is delicate, like a feather brushing past you. Yet, there seems to be a moment in which he holds on and lingers in his position for a little longer than expected. In that same very moment, you didn’t want to move on with the choreography, sending him away with a firm denial of his fondness. The Prince’s fondness.

The first parts of the music comes close to finishing. The last vibrato of the violin sounds out as you spin into Doyoung’s arms, flesh out an arabesque, shift into fifth position, and lean your torso forward. Doyoung slides onto one of his knees, hands catching your waist as you tilt into him with one leg up in the air and arms behind you.

Your wrists flick downwards right along with the last notes of the melody.

Your faces are close to one another. You feel that if you were to lean forward even just an inch more, the tips of your noses would touch.

The music comes to a halt. That’s when the sound of your breathing alongside Doyoung’s becomes noticeable. You can feel your chest burn with every rise and fall. Doyoung looks deeply into your eyes in a way that he’s never done before in all the times you’ve finished this piece with him. It’s like he’s watching himself in the reflection of your irises.

“And this… is where you’re irrevocably in love with me,” you whisper, not being able to hold back a tug at your lips as you did so.

Doyoung chuckles. His hands are still gripping onto the sides of your waist firmly.

Your arms begin to feel heavier by the second, so you set them down, putting both your hands onto Doyoung’s shoulders. Your leg goes down as well, meeting the other on tip-toes against the floor.

Doyoung doesn’t look away for one moment, and neither do you. You’re still catching your breath when you feel a pull on your hips.

You stop breathing.

Doyoung’s face is now even closer to yours. You can see every minute detail of his features; the way his eyelids folded, the individual hairs of his brows, and his defined cupid’s bow. That was something that you never noticed about him, and now you can’t pull your eyes away from it.

He watches you observe him, and he does the same.

Without even knowing, you inch your face closer and closer to Doyoung’s. Until finally, your lips meet his. 

INTERVAL

As the weeks went on, you and Doyoung found yourselves spending more nights at the studio than not. Nights would bleed into days, and hours would pass by where you either forgot or didn’t have time to break away to do practically anything, including finding time for dinner. To your surprise, someone took notice of this and decided to do something about it. 

You’d passed by Doyoung countless times in the hallways during these late hours where you’re both pouring heart and soul into your craft. Neither of you ever stopped to make conversation, with the both of you not knowing what to say.  And so, you didn’t.

Doyoung wouldn’t talk to you, but more so communicate through written words. The first time you found a note from him, it was stuck on top of a takeaway box. His penmanship small and neat, words that simply stated: “I ordered extra by accident.” You broke out a small smile as you picked the box off of the floor in front of the door to your room, believing in this accident.

The second time, a similar note on top of a thermos. Inside, a homemade soup that warmed you up in the cool hours of the night.

On another occasion, his note read something a little different. Alongside it was a lunchbox—not a takeaway this time. The note this time basically reprimanding you for smoking after he presumedly caught you on another night, and you couldn’t help but read it in his nagging voice. In the corner of the square piece of paper was a doodle of an angry-looking stickman.

You kept all of the post-it notes, stacking them on top of one another every time you receive a new one.

As you’re lining up the sides of the latest note against the pile you’ve been collecting, you catch a glimpse of your reflection in the studio mirror. A smile that you didn’t even know you’d been wearing appears on your face. Some part of you cursing yourself for feeling like a high schooler receiving love letters. Some part of you cursing him for making you feel this way. 

You tuck the notes into a pocket of your bag and return to practice. Maybe you should return the favour, you wonder. Despite trying as hard as you can, you can’t get the fact that Doyoung is just a hallway across from you the rest of the night.

ACT III THE CURTAINS FALL

If you were to describe your relationship with Kim Doyoung… it’d be a difficult task. If the saying, ‘opposites attract’ were true, then you and Doyoung would be the same pole on a bar magnet. It felt like with every pull comes a stronger push. But all those speculations and theorisations come to a halt as an elbow nudges you in the stomach.

“Hello?” Karina pushes you slightly with her shoulder, knocking you a couple of steps back. “You’ve got to quit staring at him like that.”

“I wasn’t—”

With one raise of her eyebrows, Karina shuts you up. You take a few steps to close the slight distance between you and Karina again, your shoulders pressed up against each other’s. “I was just… zoning out.”

“Sure,” Karina replies brightly, “Zoning out just fantasising about our Prince over there, I bet,” her head nods towards Doyoung across the room.

Now, it’s your turn to give your friend a nudge in the side, wanting desperately for her to stop speaking before anyone else hears you. She can barely hold back her chuckle and all you can do is hope that everyone else is too preoccupied with trying to memorise the sequence to pay attention to your personal gossip. 

You were starting to dread these Fridays. With everyone in the company being in the same room at once, you felt like there were too many eyes on you. And Doyoung as well, but they don’t seem to be watching him for every mistake he makes like they do with you. Karina makes you forget about all that for a little bit, though, with her merciless teasing.

“Sorry! Sorry. I just never thought that you two would—y’know,” Karina leans into your ear, about to whisper the next part of her sentence before you stop her.

“Shh! What if someone hears?” You scan the massive stage as dancers line up row by row at the back.

Karina expels a shallow sigh, “Who cares! You two are grown adults, and it’s not like you’re doing anything wrong by kissing him.” She shrugs nonchalantly, watching as another lineup of ballerinas dance across the platform.

You try your best to ignore the acceleration in your chest at the mention of that. You’re not one to regret many things, but you do regret telling Karina about that night; she won’t stop questioning you like she’s some PI. 

You run a hand up your opposite arm, giving yourself a slight squeeze on the shoulder. “We still haven’t talked about it,” you mumble.

Karina turns her head towards you and narrows her eyes. You flash a quick glance at her, then another, somewhat uncomfortable with how closely she’s studying you. 

After a few moments of what felt more like hours of Karina intently just staring at you, it seems she has come to a conclusion.

She gasps a small breath, “Do you have feelings for him? God, you’re getting into character.”

“What?” You give her a light smack on the arm, “No! I don’t— I’m just bothered that we haven’t spoken in weeks. That’s all.” The words come out of you slowly and articulately, trying your best not to fall into the hole you’ve dug for yourself. One look at Karina’s face tells you that it’s not working as well as you’d hoped it would, though.

She turns her gaze back onto the stage in front of the two of you. Her eyes never leave Doyoung, now in centre stage, as she tilts her head sideways towards yours. “I believe you’ve fallen to what the professionals call, ‘method acting.’”

It was at this moment, that you knew you should never open your mouth about how your night-time practices are going nowadays to Karina if you still want to maintain some shred of dignity.

It’s another one of your customary late nights again. Thanks to this role, you’ve gotten a lot more familiar with each and every crevice of this practice room in the past month than you have in all your years working here.

Dejection seems to be a recurring theme during your OT hours lately. Not that you can help it. Colette’s still on you for not making your turns, though she has toned it down several notches, which is more than you can ask of her. And confronting failure face-to-face continually doesn’t necessarily boost the morale, especially when it’s 10pm and you’ve spent the last few hours by yourself, in silence. Just occasionally cussing yourself; your pointe shoes for giving out; or the wall that you spin into, out.

You sigh as you sit with your legs out in front of you in the middle of the studio, fingers squeezing the tops of your knees. For the first time tonight, you felt tired. You hadn’t paused to even breathe during this session, and now that you have, the weariness you’d built up is catching up to you. Still, there’s a tiny spark of determination within you that refuses to be extinguished—the only thing that’s stopping you from ending it here tonight and going home.

As a last-ditch effort, you pull your knees up to your chest and push yourself off the ground. One last try, for tonight at least, or you’ll end up causing more damage to your feet than you care to admit.

You don’t bother with the music, you haven’t bothered for a while now. Hearing the same build-up over and over again started to feel passionless. And something about it stirs a visceral reaction within you that you really wanted to avoid as much as you possibly can.

So, you position yourself in the very centre of the room. Eyes fixed on the ones staring back at you in the mirror. You spread your weight evenly between your two feet, one in front of you and the other behind. One of your arms round out in a semi-circle out in front parallel to your chest as the other stretches out to the side. You lean your weight slightly onto your back foot.

The room echoes with silence. A deep breath fills your lungs. Your eyes burn holes into the mirror, paying no mind to the stray strands of hair that splay out messily. You roll your shoulders back and straighten your spine. With one last breath, you sink into the heel of your back foot, and with all the remaining strength you can muster up, you push off into the starting turn.

You manage a double on the starting turn before coming back down on your heel to propel yourself up again. Your eyes never leave the spot you’ve marked on the mirror as you make your rounds. Mostly singles, some doubles, and some rare triples. In your head, you’re trying to keep count, but it’s not the easiest when you have multiple other things requiring your full attention.

12, 13, 14. Your heel lands again as you whip your other leg out to the side of you, forcing momentum when you draw it through into passé.

You’re nearly halfway there, and that’s when you remind yourself to not lose the strength in your core. You straighten back up as much as you can between turns, and you keep counting.

You’re starting to feel the inevitable stabbing of your nail against your own toe as you’re making your way through the 20’s. Your breathing is also getting heavier and heavier.

Expectations were low. You often get to this point, but fall short of just the 32 fouettés you need.

26, 27, 28. 

You have to admit, there is a certain adrenaline that runs through you whenever you get this close. However, that’s the trap. You get excited, lose focus, and you don’t make it. So, as you catch a glimpse of your reflection, you try to steel the excitement threatening to boil over inside you. 29. 

This time, as you come down, you push off again onto your toes with more force than ever, your other leg providing as much assistance as possible.

You spin once, meeting your eyes in the mirror. But you have enough momentum to not have to come down again. 30.

And again. Your gaze lingers as long as it possibly can before you have to whip your head around. 31.

The last, final turn you need. Friction is stretching your force thin. You’re on the finishing turn, and with the last bit of exertion from you, you manage to make a full spin. 32. 

You land on your back foot, exhilarated at this small triumph that you shared with yourself tonight. Breath after breath, your chest rises and falls rapidly as you’re trying to blink away the dizziness.

Your arms fall to your sides, planting themselves onto your hips. An overwhelming sense of relief crashes over you as you watch your own reflection. A gentle smile starts to break onto your lips.

Then, something in the corner catches your attention.

Your eye darts over to the door. And what do you know—if this was any other setting, the very thought of being watched would be unsettling, but you should be used to it by now, you suppose.

“That was good.”

You hear it before you can clearly see anything. Perhaps your habit of not turning the lights on late on night does have its cons. But you don’t have to see for yourself to picture who it was in your head: Him and his devilishly handsome face.

On any other given night, you’d put up more of a rejection to his simple compliment and argue that you deserved a rating better than ‘good.’ But tonight, the urge just wasn’t there. 

“Thanks,” you breathe out.

He walks in through the doorframe, more of him coming into light as he draws closer to you. With every step that he takes, it’s like your heart threatens more and more to jump out of your chest. Why am I feeling like this? It is the first time you’ve spoken in person since you kissed, yes, but that doesn’t change anything, right?

As he walks closer and closer towards you, the urge to have that sturdy wall of sarcasm you normally put up around you returns. 

He stops a few steps short of being in reach of you. The planes of his cheeks highlighted by the glow of city lights outside. The man you’ve tolerated for as long as you can remember, Kim Doyoung, now standing in front of you, and it’s your knees that feel weak.

The thumping of your heart resonates in your ears—it’s so loud that you’re afraid even he can hear it. Trying to push all that down and stuff it into some locked up part of you, you try to think about how to navigate this conversation. Just two colleagues talking after ignoring each other after kissing each other; nothing to worry about.

“So. No lunchbox for me tonight?” You’re hoping that the cheek in your tone distracts from your undoubtedly rosying cheeks. But maybe acknowledging that was the wrong move—too late now.

“Actually, I was just about to leave it outside. But I saw you, instead.” He lifts his hand up and that’s the first time you spot the small, rectangular box in his grip.

You drag your eyes from the box back up to meet Doyoung’s. A beat passes.

Then, you muster up the courage. “Why… are you doing that for me?” You’ve asked yourself this question more times than you can count. Why is he being nice to you? That is strictly out of character for him, if you were to judge.

Doyoung crinkles his eyebrows, as if he’s offended that you’d asked him that question. “What do you mean?”

“I mean, why are you bringing me…? Every night we’re here. I haven’t asked you to.” You speak slowly, as if you’re carefully treading through a minefield that is Kim Doyoung’s mind and reasoning.

“Skipping dinner’s bad,” he extends his arm out with the box in his hand, signalling for you to take it off of him. You’re reluctant, but he persists. “What? I’m… taking care of my costars.”

Your eyebrows quirk up at his choice of words. He holds it out a few more seconds before his patience wears thin. 

“My arm is getting tired.”

And as his last push is met with nothing from you, he drops his hand to his side. Without a word, he scoffs and makes his way over back to where the door is.

“Fine, I’ll just put it in your bag.”

Subconsciously, you follow him as he walks over to the edge of the room, a bit dazed at the man in front of you.

He kneels down, shoving the box through the opening of your bag. When he stands up again, he seems a bit surprised that you’re literally right there behind him. Serves him right for all those other times he’s snuck up on you.

You stare at him and he stares back at you, his eyes widening at your silence, as if to say, “What?” in his typical bratty, condescending way. 

“You’re overcompensating.” You shoot out.

“What?” His slight annoyance is replaced by confusion.

“Don’t worry,” your cadence loosens up as does your posture. In a more lax manner, you take a few steps towards the barre on the wall, next to Doyoung. “I’m not some charity case you’re condemned to because you feel bad for whatever.” You place your palms behind you on the barre, feeling somewhat pleased with yourself for having figured out Doyoung’s motivations.

Doyoung himself is slightly amused at your deduction. He leans backwards with his elbows on the barre, his legs stretching out in front of him. He turns his head, eyes looking down at you. “Believe it or not, I don’t see you as ‘charity work.’”

You take a second to still your heartbeat that seems dead set on betraying you with how you felt his breath fan faintly against your shoulder as he spoke. You turn to look him in the eyes, either to prove something to yourself, or to him—you couldn’t be sure.

“Then, why all this?”

Doyoung returns your gaze intently. You hadn’t planned for it, and now there’s no way you’re letting yourself back down. The way he looks at you—into you—hitches your breath. The last time he looked at you like this… You’re not sure you can stop history from repeating itself if he doesn’t stop now.

For a moment, you can swear his irises swirled like liquid pools of obsidian, the sheen in them barely visible under the dimness. 

Before Doyoung even tries to come up with a way to talk his way out of this, he gives in. Into you.

In an instant, his lips envelopes yours. You wish you could say you were surprised, but deep down you were screaming at him to kiss you first. 

You melt into the softness of his lips. The depth at which he takes you in makes the peck from last time seem like child’s play. 

As both of you ease into each other’s touch, Doyoung’s eagerness becomes more and more apparent. One hand cups your jaw and the other settles on your nape, pulling you in as much as he can. Your lips fitted together like they were sculpted for each other. The way his mouth moved over yours as if they were connected to one mind.

Doyoung steps in between your legs, positioning himself in front of you with your back pressed against the wall. He never breaks his lips from yours, not even to take a breath. The hand that he previously had on your neck runs itself down to your waist, grabbing hold of it like he has so many times before. He pulls your torso closer to his, your chests pressed up together, your back slightly arched.

In all honesty, you would’ve expected Doyoung to be more the passive type, but you were gladly proven wrong. The way he presses his lips onto yours is with a force so strong that you’re sure it’s bound to leave your lips swollen and bruised. You don’t know if it’s intentional or not, but a groan rumbles in Doyoung’s throat, and you can feel it with a slight vibration. Your lips can’t help but draw themselves into a small smirk that he assuredly has to have felt.

It is only now that Doyoung pulls himself away from you, or more so pry himself away. In a way, you’re grateful because you don’t know how much longer you could’ve lasted before you completely lose yourself to his touch. 

His face parts from yours with both of you trying to catch your breaths as quietly as you can. 

With those eyes of his again, he switches between looking at your (only slightly swollen) lips and your eyes. He gently brushes the side of his thumb up your cheek, sliding under the hair that framed that part of your face. 

His eyes follow the movement of his thumb, before glancing back at you. Breathily, he whispers, “Does that answer your question?”

It’s your lucky day. Karina had plans for lunch hour today, leaving you sitting alone in the middle of the canteen poking and prodding at your food. At first, you didn’t consider it entirely ‘lucky,’  but the more and more you thought about it, maybe it truly is. After all, if you tell Karina what happened two nights ago, she will no doubt hold it over you ’til the day you die. And not telling her isn’t exactly an option if she asks—she always has a way of getting inside your brain. And even if she doesn’t ask, she could definitely tell something’s up especially with how you’re having to bite back your own smile at random given moments of the day. So all in all, maybe you are lucky, at least for today.

That very sliver of luck lasted only moments, though.

Your eyes are down, staring somewhat blankly at your phone screen in an attempt to seem preoccupied. However, someone sees through your act—or maybe he just doesn’t care for it.

Doyoung slides his tray onto your table, swiftly taking a seat opposite you. You look up at him, watching his very nonchalant actions as if this happens every day.

“What are you doing?” You mutter, perhaps involuntarily. Some part of you is taken aback, another part is confused. Every single time—every one of your encounters with Kim Doyoung felt like a chess game. When you think you’ve seen through his tactics, he reveals that he already has several other countermoves calculated.

Doyoung does what he does best: ignore you. He places his hands on the table, eyes scanning over your tray and his briefly. Then, he lifts his gaze up onto you. “Are you free this weekend?” He asks with an expression on his face that’s a little hard to read. It’s a strange combination of politeness and formality that you’re not used to from him, at least not when directed at you.

“What?” Your response almost comes out as a chuckle. What is he up to? 

“Well, if you are, I have two tickets to a show.” He ends his sentence with a small smile on the corner of his lips.

Is he…? Now, you’re almost certain that today is your lucky day because thank God, Karina isn’t here to witness this.

Back to the situation at hand… what are you supposed to make of this? Is this a date? Or maybe you’re jumping to conclusions for even assuming he’s asking you out on a date. Yes, you two kissed, twice. But does that equal a date now?

God.

Does he like you?—Why does that matter? 

Stop thinking.

You open your mouth to start saying something, and Doyoung looks at you expectantly. You suck in a quick breath, then your lips purse together. But you have to say something.

“If this is because of the other night, you don’t have to—” You cut yourself off as Doyoung raises his brows, prompting you to go on. “What are you up to?”

Doyoung leans in closer, planting both elbows on the tabletop. He tilts his head slowly to the side, gaze fixed pointedly at you, “You keep thinking I have ulterior motives.”

The urge to push his head back with your finger entertains you for a second, before you shoo it away. “Because this is unlike you. 5 years, and I’ve never seen you speak to someone if you’re not forced to.” You lean back into your chair, folding your arms across your stomach. “You’ve always had a kinda cold, and mysterious aura to you,” you mumble, maybe more to yourself than to him.

That seems to pique his intrigue. “You think I’m mysterious?” His eyebrows lift, exposing his amusement.

“That’s not what I meant,” you refute bluntly. “I just thought you were keeping up an image. The whole, ‘I have no friends, but I’m still cool’ thing, you know?”

If this whole encounter was a chess game, then you just found checkmate. Doyoung looks at you a bit in disbelief, and maybe slightly insulted.

“You think I—Okay, no,” he shuts you down firmly. He places his hands onto the table again, “Now, the tickets.”

Truth be told, you’ve been thinking about him ever since that night, but you would probably die before ever admitting that.

“I mean, sure. But you’re not denying that you have an image problem.”

At the first sound of your acceptance, Doyoung slides his fingers underneath his tray and is preparing to get up out of his seat. He stands up and tucks his chair in with his free hand. Once again, doing what he does best, he ignores the latter half of your sentence, “Saturday night, 7pm.”

With that, he’s set off in some direction to wherever he’s going. He’s just taken a few steps away and before he’s out of earshot, you follow up, “And what if people talk?”

He doesn’t stop walking away from you with his back turned, countering, “Sounds like you’re the one with an image problem.”

Saturday night, 6:55pm.

Shit.

Apparently, the entire population of Paris decided to get on this very subway all at the same time. The doors slide open but you’re having to budge and shove through row after row of people just to get off the car and onto the platform.

It’s a 10 minute walk and you have 5 minutes. If you don’t run to the theatre, Doyoung will inevitably be complaining about how you’re late for the whole night.

Running is a bit difficult though (and not to mention embarrassing) especially in the heels that you’re in.

You walk as fast as you possibly can out of the station and onto the city streets. The sun is just barely peeking out from the horizon and the lampposts begin to turn on as you weave your way through the avenues.

You’re just a crossing away from the theatre when you spot a particular silhouette. Their back is turned towards you, but you recognise that person as Doyoung. It’s in the way he stands, and the positioning of his feet. It’s undoubtedly him.

His head is down, presumably on his phone. The light turns green and you begin to cross. Just as you’re about to reach the other side of the street, you feel a buzz in your hand. You face the screen towards you. 7:02pm. And as you predicted, Doyoung is already starting his carping. A message pops up on the bottom of your screen, “Are you here yet?”

For whatever reason unbeknownst to you, your lips curve into a tiny smile that you have to force away, ignoring his message at the same time. You walk the couple of steps that separate you and Doyoung.

His back is still turned towards you, completely unaware of your being there behind him. He dons a long, black wool coat that amplifies his already broad shoulders, making him look and feel larger than life. To your surprise, the outfit you’re wearing coincidentally somewhat matches his—a long black dress with a coat over top. If people didn’t know better, they’d probably assume the two of you matched on purpose.

You hesitate before tapping his shoulder lightly with two fingers. His head turns around swiftly. And before you even get the chance to say anything—

“You’re late.”

You can’t resist the urge to roll your eyes and sigh. “By 2 minutes! And look,” You glance downwards at your shoes, Doyoung following your gaze. “You should be grateful I even made it here with two intact ankles.”

Doyoung eyes your heels, chuckling lightly to himself.

“What?”

“Nothing,” he looks at you with a satisfied smile on his face. “We should go in before we’re too late,” he suggests with a dip of his head towards the entrance of the theatre.

You mumble a quiet, “Whatever,” under your breath before you start heading towards the theatre ingress, Doyoung closely following behind you.

The theatre stands majestically. Every single element of it meticulously ornate, as is the rest of the architecture in the city, but this truly was something else. Its facade is adorned with intricate columns and statues sculpted to perfection. The golden lights illuminate the archways between the sculptures, leading to the interior. Every detail of the design echoed a timeless charm and glamour.

You’ve passed by this theatre more than a handful of times, but it’s your first time actually going inside. 

“What are we watching, anyway?” You turn your head around to voice, being cautious as you climb the steps leading to the open doors.

“You’ll see,” is all Doyoung responds back with.

It’s your turn to follow behind Doyoung as he hands the tickets to the man standing next to the entrance doors. You glance down at the tickets as the doorman studies them briefly before welcoming the both of you inside.

You give him a polite smile as you pass by, still following Doyoung. You make up the couple of steps between you and Doyoung so that you’re walking parallel to him.

“Swan Lake? Really?”

Doyoung smiles at you gently, “It’s a classic for a reason.”

Three beautifully devastating hours later, the ballet finishes. And Doyoung was right, it is a classic for a reason. No matter how many times you watch Swan Lake, it still manages to completely beguile you. The ballerina they casted for the main role was incredible, undeniably so. It’s then that you begin to question if you should’ve came here tonight.  All that it seemed to do was make you doubt whether or not you can give a performance half as enchanting as hers.

You and Doyoung are walking silently next to each other in streets illuminated by nothing but the warm glow of the lampposts. He insisted on walking you home, though he lives in the other direction.

“Penny for your thoughts?” Doyoung utters after a prolonged silence. He steps under the gleam of one of the lamps, highlighting the sharpness of his features as he looks back at you.

The mellow breeze of the night blows softly against you. “They were good.”

“We can do better,” he follows, resulting in you cracking a small smile.

“Cocky.”

“No—Just confident.”

“Fine, overconfident then.” 

He takes a big step ahead, balancing on one foot as he tilts his head to catch a glimpse of your face, forcing you to look at him. “And what’s wrong with that? I believe in us.”

Soon enough, the two of you arrive in front of your apartment complex. The chill in the night lingers in the air between the two of you. You mumble a quiet, “So,” under your breath, disguised as a sigh.

Stuffing your hands inside the pockets of your jacket, you rock forwards onto your toes. You suck in a long breath. “Thanks for the date,” you make it a point to highlight the sarcasm in your tone, but really, you were just trying to see his reaction.

Doyoung, however, doesn’t buy your facade. His eyebrows tick up and his eyes glisten with a hint of amusement. “A date, huh?”

“That was a little something called a joke,” you quickly follow.

“Well,” he leans forward an inch or so closer to your face. “Joking or not, we can’t end the perfect date without a kiss,” he mutters lowly as he looks into your eyes. 

You stare back at him, frozen. Your heart beats faster and faster with every second that he has his eyes on you. He raises an eyebrow, waiting for any sign from you.

Inching ever so slowly towards him, you drop your gaze onto his lips. Softly, you press a gentle peck onto him. When you lean back and open your eyes again, he’s wearing the faintest trace of a smile on his face that you’re sure has already burned its image into your mind.

“You should really find funnier things to joke about,” Doyoung utters. “Good night,” he whispers as he’s about to take a step back from you.

“Wait,” you reach out and grab ahold of his wrist. There’s an eagerness in your voice that you regret as soon as you spoke aloud. Doyoung looks at your hand wrapped around him, then up at you, causing you to loosen your grip. You know you’re probably going to regret this but—“It’s still early. Do you want to stay for a drink?” Your head and your heart has never worked against each other like this. You regretted it as soon as you made the offer, but your heart was just a beat faster than your mind tonight. 

There’s a brief moment of quiet where you’re sure he would say ‘no.’ But instead, he looks down at the ground, biting back his bottom lip before nodding along. “Sure,” Doyoung agrees with an easy shrug.

You lead him into the lobby of your complex silently. The air only seems to thicken with every second that you spend with him by your side, and it doesn’t help that the lift takes forever to arrive. You step inside, your heels clicking against the marble floor, and Doyoung follows along. 

He watches your every movement, from your pressing of the elevator buttons to you leaning back against the banister along the walls. You catch his eyes, and he doesn’t even try to hide his observing you.

A chuckle catches in your throat, “What?”

“What?” He echoes you with a certain smugness in his expression.

The lift stops right in time and the doors slide open. You let your eyes linger on Doyoung’s as you walk past him to exit into the hallway. Pulling out your keys from your pockets, you instinctually unlock your door in one swift motion and let yourself and Doyoung in.

Your arm reaches out to the side to flick the kitchen lights on. Stepping out of your heels, you slip off your jacket at the same time, throwing it onto the chair by the door. “Red or white?” You ask Doyoung, who’s slowly taking his own jacket off and setting it down on top of yours. 

You open the cupboard to where you store all your wines, scanning through your options. Doyoung sidles up to you, looking up at the cupboard himself. Then, you make the mistake of turning your head. 

He reaches his hand onto the handle of the cabinet, boxing you in between him and the wall. His gaze is fixed on the bottles, as if he’s really studying through each of them right now. The top buttons of his dress shirt are undone, the collar slightly crooked. A hum sounds from him, reverberating in the close distance between your bodies. His neck catches a sheen from the city lights filtering through your balcony doors behind you. And it’s only then you realise you’d just about made the biggest mistake of your life.

He angles his head downwards to look at you, an oh-so-innocent expression scrawled all over his face. “What do you think?” He asks with a feigned cluelessness in the lift of his brows.

You catch a subtle hint of his cologne—which was probably more effective than any other bottle that you had up in that cupboard in making you drunk. “What do I think?” you breathe out. Doyoung tilts his head towards the cabinet, but the look in his eyes told you he had no intention of opening up any of the bottles.

Doyoung drops his hand from the handle onto the edge of the countertop as he takes a step closer towards you. One step. And he’s cornered you between himself and the glass doors to the balcony.

“That’s what I asked, wasn’t it?” His voice is low and sultry as his eyes study each and every detail of your face.

For the last time tonight, you try to still the pounding in your chest, but it was clear that your attempts proved futile. “I think…” you start slowly, lightly tracing the tips of your fingers from up his hips to his collarbone. “Fuck the wine.”

Your fingers grab onto the silky fabric of his collar, pulling him close. His lips crash onto yours in an instant. Once you’ve given him the green light, there’s nothing holding him back. 

Doyoung’s hands roams every inch of your body as he kisses you as if you are the very air he needs to breathe. One of his hands grip tightly onto the flesh of your thigh, fingertips digging into the sides of it.

You wrap your arms around his neck, holding and keeping him close to you. For a moment, it felt like deja vu with the way he’s kissing you. So deeply and fervently. You throw your head back to catch a quick breath, but Doyoung doesn’t let even the tiniest fraction of a second slip away from him. 

He attaches his lips to your neck, leaving a trail of his kisses down onto your collarbones. His hand covers the small of your back, arching it into him as he sucks on your skin. 

You move your arms down behind your back, hands searching blindly for something. Then, a noise clicks in between your panting and the sound of Doyoung leaving desperate kisses on your skin. Doyoung pulls back slightly with a darkness in his eyes, as if he knows exactly what you just did. A smirk overtakes his lips, quickly taking yours into his again.

“You want everyone to know what we’re doing up here?” He mutters breathily in between quick kisses. God. You can feel his smirk against your lips when he envelopes you, twisting your stomach in ways you never thought possible. “I don’t mind.”

The click was the sound of you unlocking the handles. He takes a step backwards, pulling you along with him as he swings both doors to your balcony open. Immediately, a breeze brushes against your skin that only adds to the butterflies in your stomach. 

Doyoung presses you up against the cold, iron railing of the balcony, prompting a quiet ‘shit’ from you. The contrast of his warm palms on your thighs and the icy metal on your back sends chills down your spine.

His hands inch higher and higher up your legs, slipping under the chiffon of your dress. Meanwhile, his lips are never parted from you for more than a few seconds at a time. You open your arms, hands each gripping the top rail of the banister so tightly that your knuckles are beginning to change colours.

Doyoung moves your leg up, wrapping it around his waist. He trails his lips again over the delicate skin of your neck and chest. When the neckline of your dress gets in the way, he simply had no choice but to move onto the next part of you that’s uncovered by fabric.

Doyoung kneels down onto his knees. As he does so, his grip on your leg remained steady as he lapped it over his shoulder. He presses gentle pecks onto your inner thigh as he continues to lift the hem of your dress up, unveiling more of you bit by bit at a time.

Patience was never your strong suit. Doyoung, however, seemed to be the complete opposite. He takes his time peppering kisses all over the skin of your thigh as anticipation builds up within you. For a moment, you forget that you’re out on the balcony, but you’re reeled back into the present as another subtle gust of wind catches itself in your hair.

You bite down on your lip as Doyoung’s mouth inches closer and closer to the hem of your underwear. The anticipation practically pooling in between your legs. He lifts the dress up slightly above your waist, holding it in place as he grabs onto your hips with his big palms.

He leans in closer, moving excruciatingly slowly. You can feel the warmth of his breath so, so painfully close to you. He traces a finger along the lace trim, then softly presses his lips onto it—half of it touching fabric, the other half touching your bare skin. You wrap the leg you have thrown over his shoulder tighter around him at the sensation, or the lack thereof. 

Doyoung slides two fingers under the hem. He’s a tease. He runs the tips of his fingers downwards along the edge. Doyoung looks up at you watching him expectantly, smirking at the sight of you, breathing so heavily. He bunches the fabric together, pushing it to the side, and immediately, the chill in the night jolts you.

This is remedied by the presence of Doyoung’s lips on your clit. He first plants a gentle kiss, then, doing what he did on your neck and your chest, he swirls his tongue over it. His humming adding to the pressure building steadily within you.

You purse your lips together, desperate to not make a noise, and your leg tries to clamp itself shut.

Doyoung pulls away, licking his lips before tutting his tongue. “You wanted everyone to hear, didn’t you? That’s why you opened these doors?” He presses the tip of his middle finger up onto your folds, drawing ovals as he spreads the wetness all over your cunt. “Don’t get shy now.”

He latches his lips onto your clit again, and without notice, pushes that very finger up into you. The surprise of his movements forces a moan out of you, one that you couldn’t suppress.

Steadily, he slides in another finger, continuing to go deeper and deeper, —threatening more and more noises from you.

You let go of the rail with one of your hands, unable to hold back from the aching neediness you feel between you. Your fingers find themselves entangled in Doyoung’s hair, drawing him closer to you as you begin to move your hips against the friction of his touch.

He mumbles contently against you, “That’s it, princess.” Humming approvingly as you continue to grind yourself down into him. The entire length of his fingers disappear inside you and gradually, he pulls them out before picking up his pace.

Still, you’re straining your whines and whimpers, as if you’re embarrassed for him to hear them. You throw your head back as he begins to slide his fingers in and out of you at an increasing pace, a strangled moan catching in your breath.

He mumbles again, “Don’t hold back for me.”

The next morning, you wake up in your bed. Pillows scattered over the floor, sheets sprawled out on top of you. You turn, facing the other side of the bed only to find it empty. A haze covers your memory of the night before, as if the events have been frosted over, sealing last night to the you in those moments only. 

A sudden pounding plagues your head and you begin to feel the ache all over your body. You shut your eyelids tightly, trying to will away the pain searing through your muscles, but it doesn’t work.

Sliding on your slippers, you shuffle your way out of your bedroom only to find your entire apartment empty. There’s a sinking feeling in your chest for a brief moment before your eye catches something on your kitchen countertop. A note.

You sidle over, and immediately you can recognise the paper that the note’s written on. The neat handwriting on it read, “I’m off to practice. I made some breakfast for you with what you had, hope that’s alright,” with a small smiley face on the bottom corner.

You glance back at where the note was, and sure enough, there’s a plate of pancakes sitting on your countertop.

Taking a deep breath, you put the note back down. The sudden need to decipher and ascertain what last night means overtakes you, and you know just what you need to do.

You head back into your bedroom, throwing sheets and pillows all over the place to look for your phone. After scouring around for 5 solid minutes, you find it tucked into your bed frame.

Somewhat half-awake, you scroll through your contacts to find Karina’s name. The tone dials three times before she picks up.

There was no way that you wouldn’t tell her what happened between you and Doyoung—you could only keep things from her for so long. After Doyoung had left you that day in the canteen, it took you a little over 24 hours to spill everything to Karina. She was neither surprised or impressed.

“How’d it go?” She answers the phone, no greetings or anything.

You take in a deep breath, certain that Karina can probably hear you. “I don’t know,” you blurt out truthfully.

“Good-you-don’t-know, or bad-you-don’t-know?”

“Good? I guess? Karina…” You sigh, for probably the dozenth time since you’ve woken up this morning.

Karina waits a few seconds before she speaks again, “Tell me everything.”

You recap how the night went, leaving some details out when it got to the later part of things. Though you can’t see her, you can visualise her reactions just from her squealing over the phone.

“This method acting thing is really working, huh?” She chuckles to herself.

“No!” You rub your palm over your forehead. “I don’t know. I don’t know if he likes me or if I like him. It’s… weird.”

“Be so serious right now,” Karina says bluntly, “You’re kidding me.”

“What if it’s just physical?”

“Is it just physical for you?

“No,” you’re quick to answer that, “I don’t think so.” Karina stays silent for a moment or two, and you can picture her eyebrows shooting up in that familiar way when she’s trying to prove you wrong.

“Listen,” Karina sighs, “Friends who fuck for fun don’t cook each other breakfast. And go out on dates. I’m sure it’s a thrill to have anyone’s hands on you,” The sarcasm heavily blanketed her last sentence.

“It wasn’t a date,” you weakly try to object while thinking over her words.

“Yeah, just two people hanging out casually ending in a hook-up. Not a date. Just saying, that’s never happened to us before.”

Karina spends some more time trying to open your eyes to the truth that you were so repellent to, to no avail. 

By the end of the phone call, you let yourself fall onto your bed, mind more muddled up than before. Not exactly what you hoped for in this situation.

It’s been exactly 4 days since that fateful night. The date, as Karina kept referring to it as. You haven’t had the opportunity to see Doyoung this week, yet, which, thanks to partner practice, will change today. As soon as you step through the door to the studio, to be specific.

The moment you do, you hear a voice squealing out your name. Jerking your head upwards, you catch the eyes of Colette who’s making a beeline towards you.

“So, how was it?” She asks excitedly, catching you off guard for multiple reasons. 1, she’s never that cheery in the mornings. 2, you have no idea what ‘it’ is.

“How was…?” You trail off, letting her fill in the blanks of her query.

“The date!” Colette exclaims. And in the corner of your eye, you can see a head snap sharply in the direction of the two of you in the front of the room. You look over, and Doyoung’s standing there, in the middle of rolling up his long sleeves. Your gaze locks with his for a second or two, and a sudden embarrassment burns within your eyes that you’re not sure if you need to hide from him. You look back at Colette, her anticipation evident in her features.

“It was delightful,” Doyoung answers from across the room, rolling up the other sleeve. “Is that enough gossip for you today?” He says pointedly.

Colette widens her eyes at you. She leans in to your right side, putting her hand on your elbow as she mutters quietly into your ear, “I asked him earlier before you got here and he wouldn’t say anything.” She pulls away from you, “Did you have a nice time?”

You give her a polite nod with a small smile and she seems satisfied enough with that answer, mirroring your grin. Colette drops her hand from your elbow, letting you settle your stuff down.

Doyoung makes his way up to the centre, where Colette stands facing him. You shoot a quick glance back at them, a slight nervousness bubbling up inside you as they mumble among themselves, too quiet for you to make out anything they’re saying. As you’re pulling your pointe shoes out of your bag, Colette suddenly remarks again, “And to think you wanted to drop the role because you didn’t think you’d have chemistry with him, Y/N.”

You look back again at the two of them. Doyoung is facing away from you, stretching his ankles on the floor. You flash a tight-lipped smile at Colette before standing up and joining them.

Practice ended earlier than usual today—you’re not complaining about it though. Despite you never going home until later into the night, you’re still thankful that at least you have a slightly longer break today before you start your individual sessions again.

You dig through your bag for your purse, wanting to maybe get a snack or two at the canteen. You’re fishing around, and instead of your purse, you find your box of cigarettes. Your arms freeze momentarily. Flipping over the tab, you see that there’s only one left, having not touched them since the last time Doyoung caught you smoking and being his usual irritating self, chided you for it.

A small curve forcibly tugs on the corners of your mouth. You fold the tab back over, burying the box into a pocket inside the bag.

That evening, Doyoung freely waltzes into your practice room whilst you’re in the middle of practicing your turns. You haven’t been able to execute them as well as you had that one time, and you’re determined to perfect it.

Leisurely, as if he owned the place, Doyoung coasts through the door. He leans against the barre in front of the mirror as he takes a sip of his water from his bottle, eyes fixed on you in midst of a set of pirouettes. 

“I thought you got those down last time,” Doyoung speaks right as you land, appearing to be perfectly balanced despite the blur over your vision. He continues, “You can’t work yourself to the bone.”

“Once is a fluke,” you take a deep breath in.

“You’re plenty skilled.” He treads lightly towards you.

You look up at him coming closer, leaning your torso over to even your breathing again. “What? You’re done with practice so you’re here to distract me?”

Doyoung joins you in the middle of the room, taking a swig of his water. “I mean, nothing better to do.”

You plant your hands on the sides of your hips, eyes still locked on his. A beat passes by.

You drop your eyes from him, “Thanks for breakfast the other day, by the way.” You lift your foot from the ground slightly, pretending to be stretching it just so you don’t have to look at him.

“You’re welcome,” his tone is indecipherable.

The silence between the two of you quickly becomes awkward for you, desperate for some way to escape it.

“About the other night…” Doyoung’s voice softly begins as he sets the bottle in his hand on the floor.

“We don’t have to talk about it,” you reply trying to sound as nonchalant as you can, leaning your back into the wall of the pillar in the middle of the room. Truth be told, you were the furthest thing from nonchalant, but you couldn’t afford for him to know that.

Doyoung closes the gap between the two of you. He looks down at you, a hint of desperation in his eyes. “Okay, we don’t have to talk about it,” he repeats. He turns around so that his back is up against the pillar as well. “But we should do something about it.”

You glance over at him looking into the reflections of the two of you. In that moment, you’re not entirely sure what he’s hinting at. Then, you catch a glimpse of his hand, and suddenly your breath hitches. Without him even needing to say another word, your chest begins to burn, thanks to your sudden recollection that kicks in right at this moment. “Something like…?”

Doyoung pulls his eyes away from the mirror and onto you, watching as you take step and step closer, until you’re positioned directly in front of him. His gaze grows more intense as he continues to watch you, his smirk too. “That’s not quite what I meant, but I’m not complaining.” He finds himself putting his hand onto your hips without even thinking about it, as if it comes naturally to him. To be fair, he has already done so multiple times earlier in the day during your session, and it took all the will in you to focus on the choreography instead of his hands on you.

Your palms travel up against his chest, fingers clasping together at the back of his neck. You tilt your head slightly, “Really? This wasn’t what you had in mind?”

He purses his lips together briefly, and you can see his Adam’s apple bob slightly as he gulped. “You’re right. Let’s not talk.”

In a split second, your lips were pressed against each others. By now, the feeling of his lips on yours felt familiar enough that you’re sure your features have been moulded to fit his own. The softness of his lips contrasted by the pure desire driving his eagerness is a deadly combination. 

Your fingers inch their way into his hair, and his pulling on your waist. His palms slide downwards, and effortlessly, Doyoung hoists you up into his arms with your legs wrapping tight around him. 

The sudden movement catches you by surprise, making your lips part as you gasped gently. Doyoung settles his hands in the nook of your knees, and with you around him, he walks the two of you to the wall nearby, setting you down on top of the wooden barre.

His fingers push the strands of your hair back as he slides them up along your jawline. Your entire body pressed firmly against the wall, Doyoung buries himself in the crook of your neck. His hand caresses your cheek as he laid down kiss after kiss on your skin.

The whole time, you’re letting stifled hums and whines out, and every time you did, you can feel Doyoung smirking against you. You can’t help but to pull his hips closer to you with every second that goes by, desperate to have something. Your fingertips work their way around to the front of his waistband, hooking a thumb inside. If he didn’t sense your agitation before, he certainly did now. 

Doyoung pulls himself away from your neck. The visual of the low lighting combined with his disheveled hair, courtesy to you, was enough to drive you insane.

“You’re not very patient, are you?” He mutters as he runs a hand up and down your thigh tauntingly.

Can he blame you? Your mind has been driven to a place where you can’t even think straight anymore, only wanting to have your way in that instant. You bite down on your bottom lip, and slowly, with your eyes locked, you pull back the waistband of Doyoung’s sweatpants.

His eyes are filled with a deep carnal desire. Placed under his astute observation, you unhook your thumb from his sweats and instead, begin to peel off your leotard one strap at a time. He follows the movement of your hand as it slides the thin straps off of your shoulders, revealing your chest to him.

He hangs his head back, eyes closed, almost like he’s trying to not look at you. A quiet ‘fuck’ slips out from under his breath. You continue to strip off the rest of your leotard along with the thin, chiffon skirt that you had wrapped tightly around your waist.

Doyoung brings himself to look at you again, now with your entire torso bare. “Fuck, okay.” He sucks in the hollows of his cheeks as he brusquely pulls on the bunched up fabric and slides them off of you entirely.

You shoot him a quick look and he immediately pulls his shirt off with one of his hands. He takes your lips into his fervently as the tip of his thumb grazes against the underside of your breast.

Your hand travel down to the front of his trousers and not as discreetly as you’d thought. Doyoung groans lightly as you palm his bulge, even biting down on your lip when you apply more pressure.

“Okay, okay,” he whispers breathily, grabbing your wrist to direct it away before pushing down his sweats.

You try to keep your eyes on him but even in the bottom of your eyeline, you can see it spring up, hard and red. Doyoung wraps his long fingers around his cock, giving it a quick couple of strokes as he grunts lowly. 

The aching desire within you increases tenfold. And you couldn’t resist looking down, watching his hand travelling all the way up and down his length. A spark of frustration ignites within you, wanting desperately for him to just be inside of you right this second. 

Doyoung watches you watching him. He tries to stifle a chuckle, which catches your attention. “If you’re just going to jerk off, don’t waste my time here.” The movement of his arm slows down slightly, but his smirk grows wider.

“I would never want to waste your time,” he mutters tantalisingly.

Doyoung holds a firm grip around the base of his length. He looks down, having to stop himself drooling from the sight in front of him. He taps the head of his cock on your cunt, catching you by surprise and making you clench your thighs around him harder, which does nothing but elicit a chuckle from him.

Doyoung tightens the grip he has around himself, trying to still his shaking hand. And not being able to hold himself back any longer, he gently pushes himself into you, knocking the air out of your lungs. Your nails find themselves dug into the skin of his back as he drives further and further in. 

Your lips are parted, but you’re holding your breath. Doyoung’s gaze falls upon your face, watching every slight movement in your features as he pushes the last of himself into you. And though he hasn’t even done anything, yet, just the sheer size of him inside exhausts you. You rest your forehead against his bare shoulder, needing him to hold you steady with his arms. 

He plants a gentle kiss on the back of your head, “You’re so fucking pretty like this.”

And when you think your body couldn’t feel any weaker, your thighs tense up at the sound of his words. 

Doyoung lays his fingers on the nape of your neck, gently lifting your head and forcing you to look at him just inches away from your face. “You okay?” he mouths, earning an eager nod from you. You’re met with a small, pleasant smile from him at your response. 

He slowly drags himself against the tightness of your walls, groans catching in his throat. 

Doyoung begins to thrust his hips forwards and back, filling you up with his cock again and again. You let yourself wholly collapse into his chest standing up tall against you. The friction very quickly proves to be not enough for you, causing you to move your hips in unison with his.

A string of curses and moans falls from Doyoung’s lips as he picks up the pace. His hands also tighten around you, to steady himself or to steady you, it’s hard to say. He, once again, buries himself into your neck, panting into your skin and leaving subtle bite marks on it.

You snake a hand around to your clit, rubbing in synchrony to the rhythm of his hips. The stimulation overwhelms you, your mind solely focused on the desire to cum. Your head is propped up on Doyoung’s shoulder, and every time you moan into his ears, his heart skips a beat and he thrusts harder into you.

He mumbles your name over and over again, followed by a series of ‘fuck’s and ‘shit’s. His breathing, as well as yours, become rugged and uneven.

You can feel the pressure steadily building up within you, the circling of your fingertips becoming more violent by the second.

The bubbling of anticipation inside of you brings you closer and closer to the edge. Your body threatens to tremble even when propped up by the strength of Doyoung’s arms.

“I’m so close,” you manage to whimper next to Doyoung’s ear. And unbeknownst to you, that completely unravels him. Desperation taking over, he plunges himself deeper and harder into you.

The sudden change in tempo almost urges you to sink your teeth down into his shoulder. Your fingers are beginning to cramp but you’re so close to your orgasm, it’s practically within reach.

You lean your forehead onto Doyoung’s shoulder as weariness begins to take over your muscles. You just needed a little bit more to push you over the edge, and the sight of him ramming his cock inside of you made you fall apart.

Your walls clench so tightly around Doyoung that it’s physically hard for him to continue thrusting into you. Even if you tried to quiet yourself down, the overwhelming pleasure takes over any logical mind and you’re screaming out his name. Preoccupied with your own pleasure, you hardly noticed the stiffening of Doyoung’s arms around you, until you felt the warm ropes of his cum threatening to spill out.

For a moment, the whole world seemed to go quiet. Time stopped for a minute or two as your body slowly comes down from such a high. Your chests rise and fall in unison, both desperately panting to collect your breaths again.

You lean your head back against the wall, your half-lidded eyes meeting Doyoung’s. Your lips hang slightly ajar as the thumping of your chest increasingly gets louder and louder in your ears. You rest your forearms on his shoulders, weakly interlocking your fingers together.

You pant. “Do you fuck all your costars like that?” Lazily teasing with half of a smirk.

Doyoung leans in, still inside of you, unthinkingly pecking the side of your lips. He whispers into your ear, “Just the one I like.”

ACT IV THE CODA

The stage of the theatre you’ll be performing at a week from now isn’t much vastly different from all the ones you’ve previously performed at. However, the role that you’re playing this time is leagues away from your prior roles. This self-applied pressure weighs down on you up on this very stage. The bright, hot stage light shining on you doesn’t help with the feeling of unease either.

“One last run-through, everybody!” You hear a distant voice call out—from where, there’s no way to tell. Except from where you are stood on stage, everything else surrounding you is shrouded by utter darkness.

You take your position, prepared to act out the last scene of the ballet one more time. What’s one more to the couple dozen times you’ve done this today?

The symphony begins brightly, instruments layered on top of each other in harmony. You make your way across the stage, running in the ballerina way to run on your tiptoes. A huge cardboard cutout of a cliff faces the audience, and behind it are steps leading to a platform about 10 feet high. Following the buildup of the music, you climb gracefully up the steps, or the cliff, and the violin cue prompts you to jump off the platform and onto a soft landing mat about halfway down.

You land on your feet, nearly unstable enough to topple over but you don’t. Quickly, you scramble to get off of the mat so that when Doyoung jumps after you, he doesn’t completely crush your body upon impact.

Karina stands in the wings of the stage, waiting for you to come over to her. When you do, she places an arm around your shoulders. “Feeling better?”

You give her a shake of the head, “That jump never gets better, no matter how many times I do it.”

She shakes your shoulder gently with her hand, “Well, you have the whole of tonight to recover.”

A thud sounds from behind you and as you turn, you see Doyoung already stepping off of the landing mat, as if jumping from 10 feet up in the high has zero effect on him.

Not long after he gets on the ground, the music stops abruptly. Then, a familiar voice follows, one belonging to your director.

“Alright, that’s enough everyone!” You hear Colette’s disembodied voice booming out of a speaker from somewhere in the auditorium. “Get some rest, you are all coming to tonight’s company dinner. No excuses.”

Excited murmurs and mumblings surround you and Karina from the other dancers. With your head turned, you catch Doyoung’s eyes for a moment. He locks onto you, before breaking away with an uncharacteristically bashful grin on his face. One that speeds up the beating in your chest.

Karina laces her arm through yours, the contact causing you to come back to. “Come on, you’re helping me figure out what to wear for tonight.”

You share a chuckle with Karina as the elevator takes you up to the penthouse where your company dinner is hosted. The lift dings and its doors slide open, revealing the modern furnishments accompanied with the dark oak and golden accents of the wall panelling. You and Karina step out into the penthouse, every inch of it screaming luxury. You wonder how much money your company splurged to rent this place out—though you probably won’t want to find out. 

Floor-to-ceiling windows line one of the walls, the view of the city underneath breathtaking. “This is insane,” Karina mutters lowly beside you. She turns to you, a wide smile on her lips that shows her teeth. 

Taking in a deep breath, you simply nod, still bathing in the air of glamour all around you.

Off to the side is a long table piled with entrées and small desserts, a few people lining up around it. You nudge Karina with your shoulder and point a finger towards the table. Without exchanging a word, the pair of you make your way over to the food bar.

About an hour into the event, most everyone has arrived. Not that you kept paying attention after you spotted a certain someone stepping off the elevator.

Colette stands at the end of a glass dining table, carefully climbing up onto one of the chairs. A champagne glass in her hand, she raises it high and clinks a butter knife against it. The ring sending the room into silence.

As every one of your colleagues turn their heads towards her, you all instinctively gather around the dining table, waiting for the beginning of a speech that is guaranteed to follow.

“Thank you all for making time for tonight,” Colette wears a pleasant smile as she speaks, “I know you’re all very busy with the show next week.” It doesn’t take long before you’re zoning out onto some vase with a meticulously curated bouquet placed within it.

“And especially thank you to our principal dancers, Y/N and Doyoung,” at the mention of your name, your attention reverts back to Colette, hoping you reacted quick enough that she didn’t catch you looking off. “For taking this tale and giving it the passion to make it our own.” She lands her eyes on you, stretching her lips wide into an adoring smile.

You reflect her expression, raising your glass in acknowledgement before she turns to Doyoung on the opposite side of the circle you’ve formed.

Your eyes dart towards the sign signalling where the bathroom is. “Hey,” you whisper to Karina standing next to you, “Can you hold this for a sec?” Handing over your glass to her as she takes it in her hand.

Discreetly, you weave your way through the mob of people towards the bathroom by the elevator. “And of course, thank you to our corps de ballet,” you hear Colette’s voice trail off and get shut out by the heavy wooden door as it closes behind you.

The bathroom is lined with elegant, black tiles with gold carvings alongside the edges. Three stalls stand on the left side of the room, with a singular, large, modern sink on the opposing wall. 

You make your way over to the edge of the sink, your reflection meeting you in the mirror. Suddenly, sounds of cheer fill the room and you catch a movement to your right. The door is slightly ajar with a figure pressed up against it having already made their way in. 

“What are you doing here?” You blurt out.

Doyoung leans back, completely shutting the door and the noise out, “It’s a public bathroom.”

You turn your body entirely to face him. “It’s a women’s bathroom,” you correct.

“I know,” he shrugs as he walks over to you.

Your eyebrows furrow themselves and your chin tucks inwards slightly as you regard him with some judgement visible on your face. “Oh, great, make yourself comfortable, then.” You quickly check the stalls for anyone else in here by pushing on the doors with the tips of your fingers. Thank God no one is in here.

Doyoung looks down at you, seemingly amused at your reaction.

“What?” You utter with a slight edge of agitation.

“What?” He repeats, though much more relaxed.

You fold your arms, giving him a look.

“Can’t I pay my favourite costar a visit?” He tilts his head, tiny strands of his hair falling out of place.

“Not in a bathroom with everyone else we work with outside—No. Did anyone see you?”

Doyoung dismisses your question with a shake of the head, but you’re not sure how confident you should be in his answer. “They’re all excited about the bonuses that Colette just announced the company’s paying out.”

His elaboration gives you a little more reassurance.

Still, cautiousness rings in your bones. “What do you want?” 

Doyoung stays silent for a second, studying your features before responding, “Why do you look pissed at me?”

“I’m not,” you counter.

“You are.”

“I’m not.”

Doyoung doesn’t give another rebuttal, but instead looks at you knowing that you yourself know you’re full of shit.

He holds your gaze until you finally speak up. “I’m just nervous,” you confess.

“About?” He strokes his hand up and down your arm, then giving you a squeeze right above your elbow.

“I don’t know,” You allow your body to lean into his touch. “I don’t want to mess things up by people finding out that…” Even without finishing your sentence, Doyoung knows what you were going to say.

He places both hands on your arms, pulling you closer to him until he can plant a kiss on your forehead. “Even if they find out, it won’t change anything.”

Hearing this, you know he’s right. There’s nothing for you to be nervous about regarding your secret rendezvous with Doyoung, but the things we are nervous about often has no rational rooting.

You manage out a faint smile before Doyoung envelopes you in his arms.

“I know a way to destress, now that I think about it,” he murmurs in your ear.

You pull your head from resting on his shoulder, looking at him with an expression on his face you know too well.

“And what is that?”

His smile reaches the bottom of his eyes, curving upwards and carving into his irises. Using the side of his finger, Doyoung tilts your head up at him, lining your lips up with his as if he’s done so thousands of times before.

He gently presses a kiss onto your lips, soft and delicate like you’re a fragile paper crane that will crumble under too much pressure.

“Mh, tired today?” You tease, not used to this display of tenderness from him.

“And what if I am?” Doyoung leans back, taking in your visage fully. “It’s hard being the centre of attention all the time—”

“Shut up,” you sternly spit, taking his lips into yours again. “I have a hard time believing you don’t like the attention,” you mumble against him.

“Well, that depends who it’s from,” Doyoung’s hand runs the entirety of your back, tugging lightly when he reaches your waist.

“And coming from me?” Shameless. Absolutely shameless in your attempt to pry some sort of accolade from him.

Doyoung brushes his thumb along the ridge of your lip, “You know the answer to that,” eliciting a smirk from you.

You peel your torso off of him, hands pushing on his chest. “Let me give you some attention then.” Even without looking down, you skilfully undo the button of his dress pants, sliding them down just enough that you can slip a hand inside.

Pressed up against his body again, your fingers slide down along his v-line inside his briefs.

As Doyoung mutters a breathy, “Fuck,” your attention is turned back to the door.

“Shit, what if someone walks in?” You pull your hand back, as if someone actually did.

Doyoung offers with a roguish charm, “I locked the door.”  

You slap a hand onto his chest, not too hard. “You planned this,” you say, more like an accusation than a question.

He shrugs idly, looking pleased with himself.

“Motherfucker,” you mumble under your breath but you’re so close to Doyoung that he hears you loud and clear, only chuckling at you in response.

Your hand slips back down, fingertips feeling the base of his dick, half-hard. You snake your fingers around the contour of his shaft, wrapping your thumb around the other half of it.

Doyoung watches your hand writhe around, curses slipping from his tongue. 

There’s not much quite satisfying as watching Doyoung fall apart at your mercy. Your hand strokes what you can of his cock, slowly as you begin to feel more and more of his blood rush to it.

Doyoung has his head tilted back, exposing his neck wholly. Every dip of his Adam’s apple as he groans made visible to you.

“Fuck,” You hear him whisper next to you.

You pumping your hand up and down has made him fully hard, the tip of his cock pressing right up against his pants.

At the sight of this, you decide to stop.

The sudden absence of your hand snapped Doyoung out of his trance. “What?” He exhales.

You pull his trousers back to where it sat on his hips, “We’re in public,” zipping it up again. “You want to walk around after coming in your pants?” You raise your brows at him.

He scoffs, hands supporting himself on the edge of the sink, “So, your solution to that is making me walk around rock hard instead?”

You push yourself up to peck him on his cheek, “I’m saving you tonight’s laundry.”

The water turns on as you run your hands under it, washing them quickly before shaking them dry.

Doyoung watches you in disbelief, and still half-dazed.

Seeing his disheveled hair, you push some of the strands back—flashing him an innocent smile before unlocking the door and heading back out to the dinner.

There’s less than 24 hours before the premiere of the show you’ve spent the last 2 months working yourself tirelessly for. Logic would dictate that you should probably get whatever rest you can while you can. But you’re not a big fan of logic, and neither is your body judging by the fact that you cannot fall asleep despite it being 2am.

Unsurprisingly, you find yourself in the practice room that you’ve more or less confined yourself to. But tonight, you haven’t been doing anything in here. If alternating between staring in the mirror and staring out the window counted as anything, then you’ve been productive tonight, but otherwise, not so much.

Your mind’s been racing nonstop. This is your first show as a principal dancer. Every other show you’ve done previously, you’ve had a minor role in. It’s only natural that you’re nervous, you keep telling yourself.

More and more of the city lights are turning off one by one. The city sleeps, and it feels like you’re the only one awake to watch.

About an hour ago, you sent a message saying goodnight to Doyoung. For some reason, your mind keeps coming back to him. 

You continue to sit in silence, with the only thing occupying your mind being your thoughts.

15 minutes pass, and you’re still not feeling the effects of tiredness.

“Y/N?” You hear a voice disrupting your train of thought. Snapping your head around, you see the outline of the person who’s been inhabiting your mind continually.

He walks through the empty studio, the lights off once again, over to you sat by the windows. 

“Why are you here?” You mutter faintly as Doyoung sits down on the ground next to you.

“I knew I’d find you here.”

You look at him in the darkness, your arms folded around your knees, “Couldn’t sleep.”

“I know,” He says gently, letting the silence hover over the two of you.

He doesn’t begin to say anything else. 

A minute passes. Then, two. Then, five.

It’s somewhat weird to think that just a couple months ago, there’s no way that you could sit in silence with the man beside you and not pick a fight with whatever minute thing you could think of—like how he breathes too loud, or sits too strange. But now, it feels like the most natural thing that you can do.

“Are you scared?” You finally break the quiet.

“Scared?” Doyoung turns his head towards you, “No.” He contemplates for a moment before continuing, “Anxious, yes.”

“Why?” You meet his gaze, “You have nothing to be anxious about.”

“That’s what I keep telling you,” he eases with a grin.

You turn over his words in your mind.

Before giving you too much time to dwell on what he said, he begins again, “After tomorrow, you’d have thousands of admirers. Thousands.”

That puts a small smile on your face, “You’re saying that as if it doesn’t apply to you as well.”

“I wouldn’t care for them,” he follows without missing a beat, “The only admirer I need would be up on that stage with me.”

Mock aversion visible on your face, “Who? Because I’m definitely not one of your fangirls.”

“Yeah, yeah, you say that,” he rolls his eyes away from you.

Once again, the pair of you let the solitude linger around. A shift in mood rolling into the room with it.

“You know what I admire the most about you?” Doyoung’s sudden edge of sincerity rendering you somewhat taken aback.

“No, and don’t tell me,” you struggle to hold back an awkward smile, turning your face to the window.

Doyoung nudges you with his fist against your arm. “I’m trying to be an honest, heartfelt person here.”

“Don’t.”

He looks at you, evidently annoyed by your dismissals. “Fine, you want to know what I hate about you?”

You pause for a second, “Give it to me.”

“I hate that you won’t believe me when I try to tell you how good you are.”

You say nothing. It’s less that you’re choosing to say nothing, but more so that you don’t know how to respond to that.

“I hate that you won’t believe yourself.”

There’s an unseen vulnerability that meets back at you when you turn to look at Doyoung. The feeling that bubbles in the pit of your stomach isn’t one unfamiliar to you. In fact, you find yourself feeling like this more and more as time as pushes you towards this moment in your life. The feeling that Doyoung wholly and entirely understands you. The feeling that you can bare your soul to him, and he wouldn’t shift his ground.

“That’s not true,” you quietly manage.

Doyoung breathes a deep breath, his lips stretching weakly into a curve. He extends his arm out, “Come on,” offering it to you. “Dance with me.”

Singlehandedly, he pulls you up off the floor, leading you to the centre of the room. “Hold on,” he utters as he picks his phone from out of his pocket. Tapping on the screen a few times before a soft melody begins, and slipping it back inside the pocket. With one hand wrapped around your waist, he lines his other hand up with yours. Gently, he folds his fingers, lacing them in between your own.

Rather than opting for all the complex routines you and Doyoung have learned and mastered by now, he begins to guide you through a simple waltz. Just step, step, and step. Over and again, the pair of you orbiting in your own circle along to the soft hum of the music. 

Doyoung holds your hands closer to him, kissing your knuckles. “Whatever happens tomorrow, know that I will be right there by you.” 

His words, for some reason, carries so much weight with them. The phantom touch of his lips on your fingers a reminder of all the ways he’s been with you through this tempestuous happening. 

The moonlight illuminates his back, a bright halo outlining him.

For what might be the first time, you wholeheartedly believe him. 

You can’t offer Doyoung more than a beam, allowing yourself to accept what you know to be true. 

So, you simply melt into his touch, letting him guide you through a waltz in the dark.

⋆˚☆˖° ⋆｡ﾟ🦢 ｡⋆｡ ﾟ☾ ﾟ｡. ݁₊ ⊹ . ݁˖ . ݁

10:33PM

it's your—what—second? third? cocktail of the night and you’re convinced that you’re still as sober the second you walked into this bar.

you trace over the rim of your empty glass with the tip of your middle finger mindlessly, your other arm hanging off the rest of the stool. with every loop that you make, the annoyance within you grows.

you can count the amount of customers in here on two hands, and on one if you’re only taking into account who’s actually sat at the bar. yet, the bartender’s attention is solely focused on the group of men sat on the opposite end of the counter.

3 of them are sat down while the last one stands, leaning forward on the glass counter. you can’t make out what they’re saying, but by the looks of it, you can probably assume that they’re regulars here.

this pisses you off even more.

you stare into the back of the bartender’s head, thinking that maybe if you tried hard enough, you could will him over here.

instead of willing him to turn his head, one of the men sat down in the group looks over at you. you glance back at him, and seeing as he doesn’t look away, you don’t either.

the man only holds out for a moment longer before he snaps his head away. with how far he is and the moody lighting, you can only barely make out what he looks like, but you swear he was smirking as he looked away.

great.

well, you suppose that this could be another way to get yourself another drink—the drink that you wanted to order about 15 minutes ago now.

in your head, you start counting down the 60 seconds that you’re predicting it will take before smirky stranger gets up and comes over to you.

you drop your eyes down onto the empty basin of your glass, wrapping your fingers around the stem and rocking it back and forth in your hand. as you reach 1, you catch the movement in your peripheral of someone pushing their bar stool out and getting up from over there.

as the man walks all the way down the bar over to you, you choose to pretend you don’t notice any of this.

“hey.”

you tilt your head. your eyes drag up the torso of the man slowly before scanning his face until you meet his eyes. he’s not bad looking.

“yes?” you raise your eyebrows, a somewhat critical look in your eyes.

now that he’s closer to you, you can see clearly the smirk that he’s wearing on his face as he leans on the counter with his forearm. “you here alone?” he swipes a stray strand of hair away from his forehead as he asks.

“does it matter?” you tuck your chin inwards slightly, eyes directly looking up at him.

the man hangs his head forward as he chuckles lightly. you notice him fidgeting with the ring on his hand.

“i like you,” he says, meeting your eyes again.

you sit back as far as you can on the bar stool. the leg you have over the other bounces rhythmically as you return to drawing circles over your glass.

you study the man’s face. the cockiness that he wears is one you know all too well. his unearned confidence seen in the way he’s standing lazily.

you glance at the ring on his finger, then back up at him, “what does your wife think about that?”

the expression on his face doesn’t slip. usually, that particular rhetorical question catches them off-guard, but without even missing a beat, he answers, “does it matter?”

the movement of your leg ceases. unable to tell whether he’s being sarcastic or not, you squeeze out a weak smile before getting off your stool. quickly grabbing your phone and your purse in one hand, you head past the man to the door of the bathrooms on the opposite wall—leaving him standing by the bar alone.

you hear the man calling out after you. as you make your way past his entourage on the other end of the bar, chuckles and murmurs can be heard from behind you. actively ignoring his yells, you head straight into the bathrooms without glancing back once, calling out, “i don’t fuck married losers,” before you disappear inside.

if you thought the bar was too dark before, the bathrooms do you one better. the wall tiles are black; the floors are glossy, and black; everything that you can see is painted black—with the exception of the golden sconces next to the mirrors over the sinks. but the light emanating from them is so dim they may as well not exist.

you balance your phone on top of the soap dispenser. rummaging through your purse, your fingers dig for the rectangular tube of lipstick in there; it being black as well really doesn’t help you out. and the fact that your head is starting to feel like the beginning stages of an implosion doesn’t benefit you much, either.

you finally pick out the small tube from your purse, uncapping it instinctively. you hold the lipstick in one hand as the other grips onto the edge of the sink, allowing you to lean forward into the mirror without toppling yourself over.

you go over your lips with the pigment as carefully as you can, perhaps too carefully. when you’re done, you drop the tube back inside your purse as you pull away from the mirror.

running a hand through your hair, you analyse your reflection. in your judgement, you think you can still pass for sober.

grabbing your phone, you hesitate before going back out again. what if the man’s still in your place?

whatever.

if he is, then you’ll take it as a sign to leave and go to another bar, pub, club—whatever—at least the bartenders there might actually do their job.

there’s a sense of dread forming in the pit of your stomach as you pull the door open. a feeling that’s quickly replaced by relief when you see the lack of boisterous men at the bar table.

you make your way over to where they previously were. sliding back up onto the stool, you wave over the now free bartender.

“a pornstar martini, please,” you say, trying to hold back your still-pending irritation from the events earlier.

looking straight ahead, you see that someone else has also occupied your previous space. you watch as he downs the entirety of what was in his whiskey glass and slams it down onto the counter. he doesn’t look up.

his black hair is gelled back but the day has allowed strands to fall out of place. his shoulders rise and fall visibly just once before he pushes his glass a few inches forward in front of him.

your cocktail is placed on a coaster alongside a small shot as the bartender pushes it towards you, murmuring a quiet, “enjoy.”

the first sip of anything alcoholic is always vile, no matter how much you’ve been drinking beforehand. you down the shot, feeling the acidity burn as it travels down your throat.

then, you alternate to sipping on the martini.

it’s now that you recall your new year’s resolution from the start of the year: drink less.

probably not the best time to stick to a resolution like that in the middle of the bar. but the increasing intensity of your headache is pleading with you to do so.

you’re already halfway through your drink before your moral consciousness kicks in. but the important thing is that it did, you tell yourself, as you push the glass with a third of what was in it left away.

you fish for the £20 notes that you know you shoved inside your purse somewhere. when you finally find them crumpled and hidden under your keys, you lay a couple of them out onto the bar table, sliding it under your drink.

before you can up and leave, the bartender hurriedly makes his way over to your end of the counter.

“miss, your bill is already covered.”

you look at him, somewhat puzzled. there was no way in your head that the guy you insulted like a middle schooler would’ve paid your bill for you.

and as if catching onto your facial cues, the bartender continues, “the gentleman over there covered it.”

you glance over in the direction he gestures towards, over at the only person on the other side of the bar.

“thanks,” you reply quietly and curtly. you take back one of the notes off the counter, and consider taking the other as well, but decide against it last second.

when you gaze over at the man who bought your drinks for you again, he doesn’t even look up.

you make your way over. the least you could do is thank the man who saved you 20 quid tonight, you thought.

the closer you get, the more visible his features become to you. the last guy wasn’t bad looking, but the man sitting there is clearly not on the same level.

his face is of full of sharp, angular planes. the way his cheekbones catch the light from above, you can swear he looks something out of a painting.

“hi,” the coyness in your voice being something that made you want to punch yourself over.

the man doesn’t even so much so as spare you a glance as he takes another sip of his now-replenished drink, one that you're presuming to be whiskey.

“can i help you?”

his tone is somewhat surprising to you, to an extent. you’re used to being the standoffish one in the conversation, not the other way around.

you reposition your stance, standing up taller than before. "figured i'd thank you for the drinks." didn't expect you to be a prick, though.

that earns you a small smirk from him. he rests the drink on top of his pinky, his thumb grazing over the ridges in the glass. he purses his lips for a quick second as he swallows his sip, "well, you've thanked me."

he looks at you for the first time. his eyes hooded and slender, the glassiness of them shrouded in the dark atmosphere.

you nod, "i have."

he rips his focus from you back onto the dark liquor he's swirling around in his glass. giving no sign of further conversation, your body begins to turn towards the exit on its own accord. you take one step forward, the heel of your shoe clicking against the marble flooring.

then, you stop.

something about the man sat there piques a morbid curiosity within you. there's some sort of... magnetic allure that you can't simply walk away from.

you double back over to him. "you know, mr..."

"kim," he follows seamlessly. once again, he doesn't even look up at you, as if he expected you to turn back. "kim doyoung."

"right," you regard him fixedly. "and what exactly do you want from me?"

doyoung clasps his hands together and sighs dramatically. he peers at you out of the corner of his eyes, "what makes you think i want anything from you?"

the line between rudeness and banter has never been stretched thinner in your entire life, and you really can't tell what side he's on.

you put your purse on the counter, leaning in closer as you do so. "does this act usually work for you?"

a strange semblance of pride resonates in your chest as he turns his head to face you.

"what do you mean by that?"

"i'm asking: do you usually get laid by acting like you have a stick up your ass?"

he looks amused, "i have a stick up my ass?"

your eyes dart across his face in a confused, and slightly defensive manner.

"oh, i'm sorry. at least my ego isn't so big that i go around thinking everyone wants to sleep with me."

you push yourself up onto the stool next to him, "yeah, i really don't believe that."

doyoung watches as you position yourself comfortably on the seat. then, he leans in, closer than you'd expected and whispers.

"then, don't."

he leans back into his seat. one hand rested on top of the counter as the other throws the rest of the drink back in a huge swig. his face doesn't even so much as flinch when he swallows it; even just watching him makes your throat burn. he sets down his glass and gets up. snaking a hand around to the back pocket of his trousers, he pulls out his wallet, and from that, a 50 pound note.

he slides the money forward and shoves the wallet back inside his pocket. your gaze follows him as he begins to walk off, though, not in the direction of the exit.

stopping a few feet away, he turns his head back around to you, "you coming?"

on a regular night, you'd probably say 'no' to going somewhere with a stranger. an even higher likelihood if you don't know the where it is that you're even going. but you don't meet curiously handsome strangers on regular nights. and although you follow him, you're still well aware that this could possibly be the dumbest idea you've ever had.

he leads you down a hallway, as dimly lit as the rest of the place. at the end of it is a locked door that he conveniently has the keys for. who this man is and why he has keys to doors in this place, you truly do not know.

behind the lock is a lounge. a vip lounge in fact, as it suggests on the door. you step through the doorway and doyoung pushes the door shut behind you. you drop your things onto the couch right next to you and he tosses his keys on top of some side table.

you look up at him, suddenly being all too aware of every limb hanging from your body.

fuck.

you try to steel your undeniable nerves.

is this where you die?

no.

stop jumping to conclusions.

to the best of your ability, you try to ignore your speeding heart rate. "i thought you said you didn't want anything from me."

doyoung stands facing you, head slightly tilted back. slowly, he unbuttons the cuffs of his sleeves. "question is..." his voice drags out as he rolls his sleeves up to the elbows, "what do you want from me?"

his velvety tone puts your prior conjectures to rest. and now with the added knowledge that he probably doesn't want to kill you, you expected your nervousness to cease. yet, it doesn't.

perhaps it makes you even more nervous knowing he wants to fuck you rather than kill you.

if you were a virgin, that would make sense. but how fast the man standing before you makes your heart beat, how tense he makes your chest feels is the furthest thing from making sense.

you can only take the pumping in your chest for so long and you're blaming the alcohol, but the only thing running through your mind now is the image of you pushed up against him.

not wanting to restrain yourself any longer, you crash into his torso. arms reaching up and wrapping around his neck as your lips meet.

his hands pull you in closer by the waist. your lips envelope his perfectly, as if they were sculpted from each other. his lips are warm, the taste of whiskey now confirming your earlier assumptions. a faint hint of a minty aroma emanates from his skin.

using your arms to leverage yourself, you press your chest tighter against him, earning you a muffled hum as he kisses you deeper.

his palms drop from your waist to your thighs, kneading the muscle underneath slowly with his fingers.

you pull yourself away, breathless.

he looks at you in a way he hasn’t done previously the last few times. it’s like he’s looking at you expectantly; for an answer, a sign, anything.

“don’t tell me you’re not getting anything from this,” you breathe.

“did i say that?” you catch the end of his brow flicking upwards before kissing him again.

you run a hand down his chest, feeling the contours of his body underneath the button-up shirt.

your lips are pushed against his so hard that you’re beginning to feel the pressure from them. you force yourself to break away, catching your breath. through an exchange of lustful glances, you trail your fingertips all the way down his torso to his belt. you can tell he’s trying to hold back a smirk at your teasing.

you bring your other hand down to help with the unbuckling of his belt. suddenly, you feel the firm hold of his hand on one of your wrists, stopping your movements.

“you’re gonna let me have it that easy?” his grip on you loosening a little.

you look up at him with a sly smile playing on your lips, “you said i have a big ego,” you hook your fingers inside of his belt, “i’m trying to prove i don’t.”

using some strength, you pull him off of the wall that you pushed him up against and swing him around so now he's in your spot, back towards the couch. with a single finger, you push his shoulder back and compliantly, he plumps down onto the seat.

you kneel in between his legs. without wasting a second, your hands land on his knees and forcefully push them wider apart to make room for yourself.

just simply watching you seems to make him revel in pleasure. as you undo his belt, doyoung leans back and helps in whatever way he can by lifting his hips. your fingers slip inside the waistband of his trousers and pull them all the way down in one swift motion.

the cloth of his boxer briefs is stretched tight by the bulge underneath.

you sit back on your heels, hands running up his thighs slowly before stopping just shy of the hemline.

"are you going to ask?" you bat your eyelashes up at him.

his bottom lip recoils from being bitten back by his teeth. "you're fucking bossy, aren't you?"

"fine," you begin to pull down his shorts. "i'll make it easier for you." slowly, and that's agonisingly slow, you tug at the band, inching it lower and lower until it springs up in front of you. the tip of it passing your eye level.

you drag the briefs down to his ankles at a much quicker pace.

you wrap one hand, then the other around the shaft of his dick, and still there's the head of it left, burning pink and red. you watch him watch you. his breathing deepens as you give him a lazy stroke.

"do you want me to suck your cock?" a raspiness in your voice that tells him you want this as bad as he does.

"yes," doyoung breathes out, eyes focused on your hands. then, he looks at you, "please."

satisfied with his response, you begin to wrap your lips around the head of his cock. your tongue swirls over the tip of it, eliciting a quiet moan from him. your hands working together pump up and down his shaft in unison—you feel every vein between your fingers.

you can already feel it filling up your mouth with both of your hands still on it. you breathe in as deeply as you can before sinking your head down a little further. the strained moans that he lets slip does more for your ego than the both of you probably realise.

as you go deeper on his cock, you take away one of your hands to let yourself more space. you're only halfway down when you feel the tip hit the back of your throat. at that, you start to push back up. dragging your wet lips on his cock and letting his dick slowly slide out of your mouth as you pull yourself back.

you stroke the entire length of his dick with your hand while you readjust how you're kneeling in front of him. your attention entirely focused on his cock, you don't even notice his arm reaching out to you until his thumb lands on your face and his fingers under your chin, tilting your head up at him.

he hovers his thumb over your lips, gently grazing over them as he wipes something from the corner of your mouth.

you shoot a look at him with your eyebrows raised and he lets go—as if apologising for interrupting you—and his arm falls back beside him on the couch.

refocusing your attention, you spit onto the tip of his dick and smear it together with the precum dripping out from him, covering his entire shaft with it.

you work in a few rubs with your hand before taking him in your mouth again. as the tip of his dick hits your throat, you begin bobbing your head up and down while your hand works the remainder of his shaft.

it’s clear that he’s trying to hold back his sounds, but every time your teeth grazes a vein, he can’t help but groan. you watch him carefully as he throws his head back in ecstasy, hands balling up beside him.

“fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck,” he drawls breathily.

the muscles in his thighs twitch. he brings a hand up over his forehead and bites down hard on his lip. doyoung knows that if he were to look at you right now, he would lose it.

your hand reaches the base of his cock, and instead of sliding it back up, you give it a tight squeeze. this has him bucking his hips up into you, thrusting his dick deeper down your throat. “shit,” he pants, with his voice finally above a half-whisper.

he can’t help it; he has to watch. his eyes meet yours—pure euphoria in them. he keeps his steady gaze on you as you take his cock deeper and deeper every time.

a piece of your hair falls in front of your face and doyoung reaches out to push it behind your ear. he runs his fingers through your hair, gathering it all behind you and holding it back in a ponytail.

slowly, slowly, slowly, you drag your lips up. you make sure your tongue swirls over the tip over and over before you finally pull away.

“look at you,” he curses under his breath. “sucking my cock like a fucking pornstar.”

you have to hold back a smirk from showing on your lips. and suddenly, you become too aware of the lipstick that is most definitely smeared all over you.

“get up,” his voice takes on a demanding tone. one that makes you obey his words without even giving it a second thought.

using the back of your hand, you wipe away the drool on your chin as well as your smudged lipstick.

doyoung holds his palms out, waiting for you to take them. as you place your hands in his, he pulls them closer towards him.

you plant one knee next to his hip on the couch, followed by the other so that you’re straddling him. doyoung intertwines his fingers with yours. he brings your left hand towards him, softly kissing your fingers and your knuckles.

“you want to show me how good you can be, don’t you?” he mutters in between brushing your fingers over his lips.

you only nod in response, entranced by his fluttering touches.

"lift this up," he nods his head down at your skirt. without hesitation, you pull the hem of your skirt up over your hips.

the tip of his cock is directly under your clothed cunt. you roll your hips back, grazing against the head. doyoung bites back a chuckle, "i can't believe you're this fucking wet."

you suck on the inside of your cheek, "i can't believe you're this fucking hard."

he smiles lazily, "well, i wouldn't want to offend you."

you land a soft blow to his chest, one void of any real strength. this does nothing but amuse him further.

he cocks his head to the side. "pull them over," he eyes your lace panties.

you slide a finger underneath the sheer fabric, bunching it together and pushing it to the side. your bare cunt practically dripping on doyoung's dick. subconsciously, your hips start grinding back and forth, brushing your folds against his tip.

you're this close to sinking down on his dick when doyoung stops you with a single tap of his finger and a look.

"uh-uh. where are your manners?"

the smugness on his expression leaves you no choice but to roll your eyes at him. "fuck you," you spit out.

"yeah, i don't think that's the magic word," he leans back onto the couch.

"seriously?"

"if you want this dick inside you, you better ask for it, princess."

seeing how stubborn he is, you decide to play along. you lean your body closer towards him, arms once again wrapping around his neck. you plant a quick peck on his lips, then another on his cheek. your kisses trail all the way to the top of his ear before whispering deliberately slowly.

"i want you to fuck me senseless."

his expression says he's unaffected but the twitching from below you suggests otherwise. doyoung looks at you contentedly but still not giving in, yet.

you pull the top of his ear in between your teeth, softly biting down, causing him to grunt quietly.

"please."

immediately, it's like something switches on inside of him. he lines his dick up with your pussy, and without warning, thrusts his hips up into you.

you choke out a moan, the sudden stretch being almost too much for you to take.

he grunts, pushing himself deeper inside you inch by inch. "fuck, you okay?"

despite wanting to speak, the only thing that comes out of you are whines and whimpers, so you resort to nodding your head eagerly instead.

"you can take it, can't you?" doyoung groans, a noise so deep and guttural as he pushes the last of his length inside you.

he throws his head back once he's all the way inside. just the sight of your pussy swallowing the whole of him drives him insane.

he stays still inside of you, letting you adjust to his size. his fingers grip tightly onto your hips, his thumbs digging into your pelvis.

your eyes are clamped shut. you don't want to say it but his dick inside you makes you feel like you're getting split into two. your knees can barely hold you up, having to claw your nails into his shoulders to support yourself.

doyoung reads your expression carefully as he slides himself out, and then in. slow at first. so slow that it feels torturous for him when the only thing on his mind is fucking you dumb.

the more he thrusts, the more you begin to take pleasure in this. building up a steady pace, his hands hold you in place as the sound of your skin slapping onto each other echo in the room.

the friction occasionally rubbing against your aching clit works you into a frenzy.

doyoung begins to pound into you faster and harder, illiciting a long string of curses from you. crying out, you let yourself slump over his shoulder as he bounces you up and down his cock.

you can hear his heavy breathing right next to your ear. "this pussy was made to be fucked like this, wasn't it?" he spits in between his groans. "perfect little slut, made to take big dick so well, huh?"

in all honesty, your mind is clouded by the sole desire to cum. not hearing a word he says, but you agree anyway with tears threatening to spill out the corner of your eyes.

you reach a hand down, rubbing tight circles on your clit. the need to cum has made you desperate. willing to do anything to just to push yourself that little further.

nothing can turn doyoung on more than seeing the desperation scrawled across your face. every time he pounds into you, the tip of his cock twitches inside, swiping against your g-spot.

“my pretty slut’s gonna cum? huh?”

you whine in response, the ability to form coherent words absolutely out the window by now.

“fucking do it then.”

you bury your face in the crook of his neck as you’re nearing the verge of your orgasm. the muscles in your leg begin to spasm.

“cum all over this dick, baby, i know you can do it.”

his sudden use of the pet name for you completely unravels you with his dick all the way inside. legs shaking uncontrollably. you clench around his cock, your pussy walls tightening the harder you come.

as you gush all over the entirety of his dick, doyoung can’t hold out any longer. your screams of pure ecstasy drives him to his orgasm, shooting thick ropes of cum inside of you. his hips buck sharply, pushing his cum into the deepest crevice of your womb.

his jaw hangs slack, eyes closed as waves of pleasure ripple through him. his chest rises and falls dramatically, hands shaky although he tries to steady them on your hips.

“fuck,” you both repeat as you begin to come down from your high.

no longer blinded by your orgasm, you can still feel his cock throbbing inside of you, twitching as your cunt drains the last of his cum out of him.

breathing heavily, you meet his lust-filled gaze.

your thumb runs up his jaw lightly, drawing yourself closer to his face. visible beads of sweat form by his hairline.

you press a soft kiss onto his lips. smirking, you watch him keep his eyes closed for a few more seconds, revelling in the euphoria he’s experiencing.