#admin ji

You were four years old, and it was your first day at the Grand Academy of Dance. You were both only there to please your parents, because what skill did a four year old need more than any other? Ballroom dancing, of course.

For whatever reason, the dance teacher decided to pair you up with Lee Chan, the boy wearing obnoxious light-up shoes and a green t-shirt with a cartoon dinosaur on it. Together, you two stumbled through your first lesson, every step tentative, every move shaky. But you were both fast learners, and soon, you became the best dancers in your class.

From then on, you were inseparable. You went to kindergarten together, and after that, you went to primary school together. Both of you were small, shy, awkward, and mostly only spoke to each other. You walked to school together — fighting over who got to hold the umbrella when it rained — sat with each other in all your classes, and shared food at recess.

Even though neither of you chose to go for those lessons, they ignited a passion for dance in the both of you that may not have ever been sparked otherwise. You looked forward to Tuesday afternoons just for those classes where you’d get to dance with him.

He used to call you his spinning top, since he twirled you around at least once in every routine you did together. Your rehearsals for those cute performances your class put on every year for the parents were full of giggles and spins and complaints of getting dizzy. 

The dips scared you a lot. Almost all of your dances ending with him dipping you, and you had a bad habit of not lifting your leg like you were supposed to; you didn’t fully believe him to be strong enough to carry all of your weight. He would whine, with that nauseatingly cute pout, “Why don’t you trust me?”

Even after you two turned nine and graduated from the Grand Academy, you continued dancing. The ballroom twirls and waltz steps morphed into dougies and chest isolations over the years as you went over to his house every day after school to practise. You could still remember helping him push his coffee table and sofa against the walls to clear the space in the centre of his living room, watching kpop music videos and teaching yourselves the choreography.

Chan always teased you for wearing socks while you danced, while he usually either wore his school shoes or danced barefoot. You used to complain that you couldn’t move your feet around properly on the wooden floorboards without wearing socks, and even after all these years, you could still hear his teasing voice saying, “Are you gonna wear just your school socks when we perform next time?”

But those plans to perform never came to fruition.

On your very first day of high school, you were devastated to find out that you and Chan didn’t have any classes together. Right before you split up to go for your first lessons, you grabbed his arm and said to him, “Don’t abandon me.”

“I would never.”

With five years of hindsight, you knew now that promises were made to be broken. Especially promises made by immature 14 year olds in high school hallways.

Within the first week, he became acquainted with an upperclassmen dance crew called 13Months, which had already built a name for itself as being the best dance crew in the area. They were incredibly popular both in and out of school, and, when they asked him to join them, he took his chance.

Despite being just a freshman, Chan was just as good a dancer as the rest of them, and some people thought he was even better. He skyrocketed to fame, instantly becoming the most popular freshman in the school. Those jeans that never quite fit him right and those colourful graphic tees changed to plain black t shirts and trendy track pants — dancing clothes. He was no longer your slightly dorky, awkward, adorable best friend anymore. He was now cool, charming, and much too suave for a boy his age.

You didn’t fall out immediately. No, eleven years of friendship couldn’t just be washed away in a week. It happened over months, fading like slowly-cracking oil paint on aging canvas.

For the first month, he still spoke to you in the halls before class began, although he ate with his crew at lunch. Weekdays were for practice sessions with 13Months, but he reserved weekends for you, and you two would still hang out together before school started. He’d learned to choreograph from the leader of his crew, and so he choreographed routines with you.

By the second month, those dance sessions mostly stopped, and he now hung out with the upperclassmen before school and on the weekends. But he still greeted you in the halls in between classes when he saw you and texted you after school.

Eventually, people started to ask about you. They asked Chan how he knew this nobody who was always just studying or doing god-knows-what in empty classrooms after school. To him, you were now just a thorn in his side, a reminder of his past self he no longer resembled. And so he brushed off the questions, but the best way to stop them was to pretend he didn’t know who you were.

The first time you said hello to him in the corridor and he averted his gaze struck you down like an arrow to the heart. Only people who knew you well saw the flicker of hurt on your face, the darkening of that spark in your eyes. Chan saw it, but he pushed the guilt aside.

That night, when you texted him to make sure he was alright, your message was never delivered.

He blocked your number.

To him, you were childish. The days of Lee Chan dancing to kpop videos in his living room with someone who couldn’t even dance without their socks on were over. No, he danced in only professional dance studios or at dance spots with his crew now. He now had fans and admirers and performed at every school event, and you always skipped school on those days, simply because you couldn’t bring yourself to watch him.

As the months flew by, you faded from his life entirely. Not the memories, no, they were as vivid as ever, but he spoke to you less. And eventually, he didn’t even speak to you at all.

The last time you crossed paths was halfway into the school year, when he and his crew visited this teen hangout spot near the school to practice. By the time he and his crew arrived, you had already been there for about 2 hours. 

Unbeknownst to him, you practised there every weekend, since it had full-length mirrors and no one else from your school ever went there. None of your classmates knew you liked dancing, not even the kids you’d formed shallow friendships with just to avoid being completely alone.

Chan watched you dance for a while from the other side of the arena, unnoticed. Not only were you wearing shoes, you were wearing heavy heeled boots and doing retreats without ever losing your balance. Soonyoung, his crew leader, followed his gaze and remarked, “They’re good.”

He nodded, never once taking his eyes off of you. You were much better than he remembered, your moves incredibly sharp, and even your facial expressions were good. The routine was dripping with your style — he recognised it from all those times you two had worked together on new pieces — but now without his own overshadowing yours.

It had been over four years since then, and he hadn’t seen you since. He thought about you a lot. He wondered if you were still dancing. He wondered if you had changed as much as he had. But mostly, he just missed you.

And now he was going to see you again. You’d gone to university in another province while he remained in your hometown. It was after your freshman year ended that you had gotten invited to perform at a dance festival organised by his university. You accepted, since you were already going home to stay with your family anyway, and you were under the impression that Chan went to a university far away from home, just as you did. You didn’t expect to ever run into him again.

To say you had moved on would be a little bit of a stretch. It was so painful for you back then to see him on the school stage performing with his crew or in the halls talking to people who didn’t even know who you were. It was so difficult for you to hear the girls fawn over him and speak of him as if they knew him.

But you had come a long way from bawling for hours after realising he’d blocked your number. You learned to tune him out, and you never even looked in his direction anymore. You made new friends, although you never quite cared for them as much as you had cared for him, and you threw yourself even harder into your studies, determined to do well.

You didn’t stop dancing. Something as petty as an ended friendship wasn’t going to quell your passion. But you had to admit that whenever you were choreographing a routine in an empty classroom after school, you sometimes would look over to your left, expecting to see Chan there, giving you his opinion.

 He was the one who invited you to perform, simply signing off his emails as, “Dance Festival Committee”. And of course, from your brain being so fried after finals, you didn’t question how this person even knew your email address, much less the fact that you were a dancer.

And at the festival, while you performed a hip-hop routine you’d choreographed to a 2-minute track, Lee Chan and the rest of 13Months were watching you from stage left, hidden from the audience’s view behind the curtains.

Just seeing your face again made the guilt hit Chan like concrete. You looked just like you did years ago, despite having grown a little taller and cutting your hair. Instantly, he knew it was a self-choreographed routine; he recognised your style. And as he watched you do the Charleston, he noted that — just like before — you couldn’t quite move your left ankle as well as your right. It wasn’t obvious unless someone pointed it out, but it caught Chan’s eye because he knew it was there. 

When you two were just 8 years old, you were chasing him around a park for whatever reason when you tripped over a pebble and broke your left ankle. Chan could still remember sprinting home to get help and pushing you around the school for the next two months in a royal blue wheelchair. You recovered just in time to start rehearsing for your graduation performance with him.

“Didn’t they go to our school?” Junhui, one of his crew mates, asked nobody in particular, still slightly breathless from having performed right before you did.

Once your set was over, his crew left to walk around and explore the festival. But Chan stayed behind. You exited stage left, as you were instructed, only noticing his presence once you’d caught your breath.

“Chan.”

You took a step back.

He looked different from when you last saw him. He’d definitely grown a few inches taller, his shoulders had broadened, and his hair was now a dark blue. His features sharpened — he’d filled out nicely — but his eyes were still as sparkly as ever, and the way he was looking at you was the same as it always had been. You hadn’t seen that look since your freshman year of high school.

“What are you doing here?”

Now he took a step back.

He wasn’t expecting a warm welcome or for you to jump into his arms, but he was expecting at least a, “I haven’t seen you in ages, how’ve you been?” or even just a simple greeting. Your words, however, were delivered sharply and with no emotion.

“I- This is my university. I just performed.” Chan stuttered, and for some reason he was more nervous speaking to you than he was on stage. He didn’t know what else to say, or even why he invited you here in the first place. “Your performance was good,” he managed to force out.

You weren’t looking at him - you couldn’t bring yourself to — but you could hear the hesitation in his voice just from his tone. There was a tightness in your throat you couldn’t quite shake off, and that very quickly became frustration. When was the last time he’d complimented you?

“You can’t just ignore me for 5 years and then come back and pretend everything’s fine, Chan. I’m- I’m not doing this again.” You gestured vaguely between the two of you, unsure as to what point you were trying to make.

“I didn’t mean to-”

“You didn’t mean to do what? Walk past me in the halls every time I said hello? Block my number? Pretend I didn’t exist?” And you wished you were calmer. You wished the tears of frustration didn’t appear as quickly as they did. You wished your voice wasn’t shaking and reaching pitchy tones that revealed just how hurt you were.

In an instant, Chan crumbled. The slight tremor of your speech whittled him back down to his 14-year-old self, as if he was still standing in those halls of white and blue. As if he had just avoided you when you said “hello” to him. As if he’d just seen you, in that permanently-wrinkly white hoodie you always wore — god, he could still remember what you were wearing — visibly recoil from the steeliness of his eyes.

“I’m sorry,” he said, finally having the decency to drop his gaze, and you could hear the faintest bit of his familiar whine you used to get all the time during those dance lessons.

You pinched the spot between your eyes, letting out a shaky breath. “Did you ever miss me, Chan? Did I ever cross your mind?”

…

“I can’t tell what answer you’re looking for.”

“I’m looking for you.”

The audience outside began to cheer; the next performance was beginning. “You don’t want to find me. You don’t. You’ve already made up your mind. I know that.”

He was shouting now, gesticulating wildly, just as he always did. “But I’ll tell you. I’ll tell you that not a day goes by where I don’t think of you, the look on your face the first time I walked right past you in the hallway. How your excitement when you saw me changed to pain and knowing I was the cause of that. I’ll tell you that I have a playlist of all the songs we’ve ever danced to together, and sometimes when I’m listening to them it hurts so much I can’t continue. Is that enough? Is that enough for you?”

Without you realising, you’d been stepping further and further away from Chan as he spoke. Even though he was shouting, you weren’t scared of him. You were scared of how different he seemed. Yes, he still looked at you the same way, and yes, he was still doing that thing where he gestured mostly with his right hand, but the words coming from his mouth sounded foreign. They didn’t sound like things he would say.

“Why are you getting mad at me?” You asked, but your tone wasn’t defensive. “I should be the one getting mad at you.” You weren’t. There had never been a time you were angry at Chan. Even when your friendship was crumbling before your eyes, you were never angry, just sad.

“You’re a better person.” He said, as if it were fact. He wasn’t shouting anymore; he was speaking barely above a whisper. Every logical neurone in your brain was screaming at you to leave; to say goodbye to him forever and leave.

“Chan…”

“Nothing I say will make you forgive me. I don’t want you to forgive me. I know you won’t. But I’m so, so, sorry-”

You’d forgiven him. You’d forgiven him since you’d left for university. Since you were far enough from him for your thoughts to not get completely clouded by him. Since you’d learned to dance by yourself without longing for him to be next to you.

Against all your good judgement, you rushed forward and hugged him. And with no hesitation, Chan hugged you back. Almost instinctively, he rested his chin on your head — the height difference between you and him hadn’t changed — just as he used to. And he still used that god-awful drugstore cologne he first purchased when he was 12 and you didn’t have the heart to tell him you hated it.

You heard applause ringing from the other side of the curtains.

“Do you still remember the dance we did for ‘Low’?” Chan asked, voice partially muffled by your hair, making you smile. Of course you remembered.

It started out as a joke, with Chan constantly screaming, “Apple bottom jeans, boots with the fur, WITH THE F U R” over and over again. In the end, though, the routine you two choreographed to that song turned out much better than either of you expected.

You pulled away from his embrace. “Unfortunately.”

And then there were footsteps, pounding ones, all the way up the stairs to your left. The leader of Chan’s dance crew, Soonyoung, called out to Chan. “There’s an intermission! Let’s do an encore-” Soonyoung froze, noticing you.

“Go,” you nudged Chan towards him, smiling. “Break a leg.”

“Sorry, Hosh. But I want to do this with Y/N.” You jumped at the mention of your name, but Chan calmly fished out his phone from his pocket and handed it to Soonyoung. “‘Low’ by Flo Rida. It’s in the ‘My Spinning Top’ playlist.”

Just like that, he grabbed you by the wrist and dragged you onto the stage.

“WHAT-”

Ignoring you, Chan snatched a microphone from one of the AV kids. “Hi, I’m Chan from 13Months, and this is Y/N, the love of my life. We’re gonna be performing ‘Low’.”

Backstage, Soonyoung played the song, and you scrambled to get into your starting position with no time to think. As the line of the song he so often yelled at the top of his lungs came, you grinned. He was smiling, too.

You finished the dance without a hitch, and immediately, the next track started playing. It was the song of your final performance at the Grand Academy of Dance from when you were 9, right before you graduated together. 

Without even pausing to catch his breath, Chan took your hand and led you into the first move. It surprised you how easily the steps came rushing back to you, and you followed him flawlessly. Sharp, powerful hip-hop moves melded into fluid, elegant ballroom dance steps, and neither of you hesitated for even a second.

It was an odd sight: two kids, both in black ripped jeans and combat boots and eyeliner applied with a heavy hand, ballroom dancing.

The waltz was coming to an end. You felt 9 years old again. You felt like you were still in that fluffy, red tulle dress and ruby flats. Chan felt like he was still in that obnoxiously stiff suit and bow tie he spent the whole afternoon before the performance complaining about to you. For a minute, it felt like the audience was no longer filled with university students but with parents of children forced to take those  ballroom dancing lessons.

As always, the waltz ended with a dip.