Chapter Text
Nothing excites Yeonjun more than dancing.
He loves it when his limbs move with the rhythm, swaying to the beat, in sync with the tempo of every song that echoes in the small dance studio. He feels alive, electrified whenever his arms and legs are numb from all the dancing he did. These days, he spends more hours perfecting the choreography than sleeping, but it is worth it. The dance studio feels more like home than his room, to be honest.
However, Yeonjun is still a human being. Even though Choi Yeonjun, one of the ace trainees in Big Hit Entertainment, is the prodigy that excels in every monthly evaluation, a threat to other trainees that share the same dream, there are times when he feels hopeless and doubtful. When those moments come knocking on the door, Yeonjun whirls into a dark hole. He will often contemplate himself, his passion for dancing, and his ability to be the best. Will I ever be enough? Will I make it to debut?
During his tough times, dancing has become a burden and no longer an enjoyment. To Yeonjun, it is his biggest fear. The fear of despising his passion for dancing rattles his resolution, testing his sentiment and sanity. He has given up everything for this one chance to be in the limelight. He sacrifices everything to perform on stage, dancing in front of thousands of people, soaking in the cheers and praises. He wants nothing more than this, but when the end is uncertain, and his future is blurry, maybe Yeonjun should have given up dancing.
Things happen for a reason. And there must be a reason why he spends his youth in an old dance studio than in school.
Yeonjun does not want to settle in the second-best. He wants to be on top of everything, challenging himself to the brink of exhaustion until he can no longer differentiate the dates and days.
So, Yeonjun works harder than anyone else in the company. Skins and bones, sweat and tears, pain and more pain until it suffocates him. He does not take breaks. He only does so when Heeseung scolds him and pulls himself out from the dance studio.
To Yeonjun, dancing is his soul, his reason to live, his destiny. Dancing is a part of his existence, an embodiment of his youth. Yeonjun will always find more reasons to keep his love for dancing alive. Nothing can ever give him more thrill and excitement than dancing.
However, the universe has other things install for Yeonjun.
Soon, something will challenge his love for dancing and his passion for being an idol. A tangling fate that means more than the world to Yeonjun will burst into his life like specks of rainbows. Until then, Yeonjun remains in his cycle, living his life five steps at a time, unknowingly waiting for it to come.
Yeonjun exhales an erratic sigh as he collapses to the wooden floor. His t-shirt is soaking wet, cold and sticking to his body. Beads of sweat cling on his forehead before it falls, tracing the lines of his face and drips down to his chin. He breathes heavily, chest heaving up and down in frantic motion, and for once, Yeonjun allows the tiredness to drown his body completely. The music is blasting in the background, and it becomes unnoticed, a lull, a noise that fills the blaring emptiness of the room.
He does not remember when did he start practising, but it seems like a long time ago. He woke up at 6 am after going to bed around 3 am and quickly went to the studio to practice. Yeonjun has lost track of time these days, and his human clock, Heeseung, is nowhere to be found. Maybe Heeseung is hanging out with the new trainee (Yeonjun thinks his name is Jongseong? He is not sure, too), or he went for his daily dose of cup ramyeon. Like how Heeseung cannot properly function without ramyeon, Yeonjun cannot work well without tiring himself to the brim every day.
To others, it is frustrating to see Yeonjun pushing himself beyond his limits, but to Yeonjun, he should not succumb to those boundaries. He is the boundary. The sky is not the limit, but Choi Yeonjun is. Until he reaches that boiling point, until he finally feels proud of himself, Yeonjun will not stop working to be better and better.
Yeonjun looks around, spotting the lights above his head is brighter, almost blinding, and he concludes that it is already nighttime. Now only does he realize the world is quiet around him, still even. He is the sole survivor revolving around the orbit, trying to find his centre while others are probably having fun with their friends. Yeonjun no longer hears the music booming, but he listens to his heart, how steady it is beating, fast and slow, and how hollow it sounds.
For the first time since he started training at the company, Yeonjun decides to call it a day. He has gone through hours of practice, from vocal training in the morning and dance practice for the rest of the day. Yeonjun glances at the big clock that strikes at 12. A sign of another day ending in a blink.
I deserve to rest, he assures himself.
With that thought in mind, Yeonjun stands up. Gathering the empty bottles and wet towels, Yeonjun reaches for his phone and press pause. The room stops shaking, comfortable silence filling the holes on the ceiling and the floor, repositioning Yeonjun back to reality. He approaches the speaker and turns it off. A loud beep follows suit, loathing. For one last time, Yeonjun stretches his limbs, every pull triggers a moan to escape his lips, and he closes his eyes to savour the pain cruising through his tense muscles.
Yeonjun switches off the lights and closes the door, locking it. As he walks down the stairs, he bumps into something, or rather someone, and he falls, along with his phone, tumbling down to the flat surface of the floor. He remains stagnant on the ground, both surprised and hurt from the impactful collision.
“Ow!” Yeonjun exclaims, his voice rebounds of the white walls.
Yeonjun rubs his sore waist and bum in tender circles, holding onto the rails as leverage, trying hard to stand up. When he searches for the perpetrator, he realizes the other is too in immense pain. Yeonjun quickly tries to help, soon realizing how small and fragile the kid is. Guilt rises in his heart like a gurgling tide, leaving a bitter taste on his tongue. Venging himself from the regret, Yeonjun kneels to look at the other.
“Are you okay?” Yeonjun asks while examining the kid’s body. He has some scratches on his elbow, and some of it is bleeding. Yeonjun searches for something, anything, in his pocket and finds a pack of clean tissues. He pulls one and dabs on the bleeding wound. The kid winces, convulsing as he continues to pat the blood dry. Yeonjun's heart shatters for unknown reasons.
“I am so sorry. I did not see you,” Frantically, Yeonjun apologizes repeatedly. Half of him wants to bang his head on the wall for being so careless, and another half of him badly wants to run away.
The kid sniffs, swallowing the tears from cascading, and answers, “It is okay. I am sorry, too.”
For a moment, Yeonjun feels his whole world is shifting.
An unknown force is pulling Yeonjun somewhere undefined, a road that will be both enthralling and challenging. Yeonjun has never felt anything like this before, not even when he is dancing. The feeling is so addicting and mortifies him at the same time. It is so mysterious, but Yeonjun looks forward to the world that will unfold behind this newly opened door.
As Yeonjun looks up, he meets a pair of eyes, sparkly and dark, like an abyss, deep in meaning and layered with countless stories. Then, he sees chubby cheeks, like floating clouds, and he looks adorable, small, fragile, something that Yeonjun wants to protect. Moles scatter all over his face like a constellation, and maybe if Yeonjun has the chance, if Yeonjun can have that chance, he would like to connect them all and create a galaxy out of it.
His heart skips a beat. Two beats. Then three. Then it stops.
“Are you new here?” Yeonjun finds himself asking. Curiosity kicks into his system as the urge to know the other intensifies.
Those eyes are fluttering in short lapses. Shy? Shock? Yeonjun does not know what kind of emotion the other tries to emit, but it is endearing and peculiar. The kid standing in front of him exudes two prominent auras- beautiful and enigmatic. And Yeonjun has always been a sucker for both.
The kid scratches his head, and his feet are tapping away nervously as he creeks a timid reply, “Yes.”
And he does not say anything else.
And, the weird thing is, Yeonjun does not say anything else either. Yeonjun realizes, those eyes are like a maze, and he is slowly getting lost in them. The kid has rendered him speechless, mindless.
Words and sentences are disintegrating, like thin, fleeting smoke from a cup of hot coffee, waltzing in the air and vanishing into the soundless ambience.
When the kid excuses himself, bowing respectfully at Yeonjun before he disappears into the night, Yeonjun too fades into a new world where the colours of green, blue and red paint the dark sky into a bountiful aurora.
Who are you?