KPop: Allegro (SeKai) [2/2]
Jul. 11th, 2012 06:05 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
maayacolabackupIt’s not really an illness, Jongin thinks. Not a problem. It’s just his armor; same as Chanyeol’s smile or Wu Fan’s furrowed brow.
It’s just like that. Something that obscures the parts of himself he wants to keep private.
Only he can’t control Kai, and he can’t stop Kai, and sometimes, the idea that Kai might exist forever inside of him makes it hard for him to fall asleep.
Even more frightening is the idea that Kai, one day, might not let Jongin come back.
stretched out, or made longer.
Fact: Kim Jongin doesn’t always need Kai.
Sometimes Jongin makes mistakes, and he doesn’t really have any variety talents, and he’s not all that funny unless he’s known someone a long time. While that’s all true, Jongin would like to think that his friends like him anyway, because he always remembers everyone’s birthday and favorite food, even if he doesn’t always manage to say Happy Birthday without blushing when he hands over a present he spent three hours agonizing over at the store.
But sometimes, he’s staring out at hundreds of faces that all look like they want something from him, and Jongin worries he will always need Kai.
the dancer jumps into the air and rapidly crosses the legs in front and in back.
Sehun stares at Kai, blinking slowly as he studies him. “There’s something-“ He coughs into his hand. “Never mind.”
Kai grins, and Sehun looks away. “Don’t think about it,” Kai says, and Jongin wishes Sehun could see him in there, in Kai’s eyes.
“I’m always thinking about you,” Sehun murmurs, and Jongin memorizes the words.
the foot slightly leaves the floor.
Professionally, Jongin always wants to do his best. Injury or no injury, disappointment is not an option. It’s not that Jongin is arrogant (although he thinks Kai might be), it’s Just that he doesn’t like to think of failure.
“You can do this,” Changmin says sharply, as Jongin practices his introduction over and over again. “It’s not that hard.”
“I know,” Jongin says, and he fumbles through the introduction one more time, tightening his jaw as he trips over his own stage-name.
“I’m EXO-K’s K-Kai,” Jongin says, and though when he’d gotten the name, it had seemed so right, now it seems unwieldy and ugly on his tongue. “I’m EXO-K’s Kai.”
“It’s your own name,” Changmin says, rolling his eyes. “You can learn your own name, rookie.”
It’s not my name, Jongin wants to say. It’s not my name and I don’t want it anymore.
He straightens, instead, lifting his carriage like he’d been drilled to since primary school. ”Posture,” his ballet teacher used to tell him, ”is half the battle. If you have good posture, you look more confident, and people will think you know what you’re doing.”
“I’m EXO-K’s Kai,” Jongin says again, and this time, Changmin gives him a thumbs up.
“We’ll make an idol out of you yet,” Changmin says, and Jongin wants to throw up.
the dancer springs into the air, landing on the front foot with the back foot raised. The back foot then slides through to the front.
It’s Kai, not Jongin, who makes the first move, grabbing Sehun by his costume jacket and shoving him into the wall in the dressing room after everyone else has left. He takes a moment, to appreciate the heat of Sehun’s skin, and the light hint of rose soap mingling with the sweat and hairspray, and then he’s kissing him. Sehun makes a surprised sound into Kai’s mouth, but Kai swallows it, taking advantage of Sehun’s parted lips to sneak his tongue inside. Kai licks along the palette of Sehun’s mouth, and the metal bar of his retainer along the backs of his straightening teeth, and across the soft, silky insides of his cheeks as Sehun melts into the touch, hands falling to Kai’s waist and nails digging into the skin.
Sehun kisses him back eagerly, overanxious like a puppy, mouth too wet, noisy and pleased, and Kai loves it, Jongin can tell, tilting his head to get closer, so he can take Sehun’s upper lip into his mouth and tease it with his teeth. Sehun tastes like the sour candies he and Junmyeon had been munching on before the performance, and like adrenaline and relief, too, and Jongin finds the combination is as addictive as Kai seems to think it is. Kai lets go of Sehun’s jacket to push hands into his hair, and Sehun moans, low in his throat, a tremulous, pulsating sound that’s almost torn out him, and Kai devours that, too. Kai takes and takes and Sehun gives, opening wider, tongue finally battling back, wrapping around Kai’s enthusiastically.
It’s Kai’s turn to gasp, and Sehun hums with delight, pulling Kai closer with his hands. Kai easily goes, and now they’re pressed together, chest to chest, rabbit heartbeats completely out of sync. It’s a frantic rhythm not unlike the score of Satie’s Parade; ballet to the tune of milk bottles, typewriters and foghorns that somehow sounds indescribably lovely. Sehun’s fingertips dance an intoxicating pattern along his sides as he sucks at Kai’s mouth, eager and sloppy.
The gold tassels of Kai’s tank rub against the soft cotton of Sehun’s t-shirt, and Sehun’s belt digs uncomfortably into his hip, but these are minor sensations, in comparison to the slick slide of their mouths. There’s too much saliva, and Jongin can feel a string of it as Kai pulls back, linking their mouths even as they separate.
“I’ve wanted you to kiss me,” Sehun says, and Jongin wants to shift and wipe away the smeared gloss and spit at the corner of Sehun’s mouth, but Kai just drops a hand from Sehun’s hair, nails scratching across collar bones and sternum as it falls, earning a hiss. “For a while.”
“I know,” Kai says, and Jongin hasn’t known, but Kai sounds so steady and sure. Kai’s hand finds purchase, hooking the tips of his fingers on the waist of Sehun’s white pants and tugging. Sehun comes easily forward, breath warm and sweet and stirring Kai’s eyelashes. “Me too.”
“I know,” Sehun says, mockingly, and that tiny grin appears; the one that always makes Jongin want to hurtle forward and discover all of Sehun’s secrets.
This time, it’s Sehun who closes the distance, and Jongin’s heart breaks and puts itself back together, and Jongin wishes, achingly, that it were him stealing Sehun’s uneven breaths.
walking, in ballet.
Jongin, despite the fact that he hasn’t trained seriously in ballet since becoming a permanent trainee with SM, still has a ballet dancer’s mindset.
Every jump should be higher, and every spin should be sharper, and every connection should thrill the audience just as much as the elements one is connecting.
Jongin thinks about the kisses Kai claimed as the elements; an arabesque, a sissonne ouverte, or a tour jeté. Jongin is left to fill in the blanks, and make everything fit together. A ballet, after all, is made up of bravura and understated grace.
As Jongin is smushed up against Sehun in the van, pressed just as close as Kai had pressed them backstage, Jongin alternates between contentment and jealousy as Sehun’s head falls to rest on his shoulder, hair tickling Jongin’s chin.
Jongin tentatively grabs Sehun’s hand. Connection. Sehun squeezes back. Connection.
inwards.
Fact: Kim Jongin doesn’t like to be alone.
Some people, Jongin knows, are fine alone. Junmyeon is genial and kind, but he’s perfectly fine when left to his own devices. Chanyeol, too; his loudest friend can often be found curled around a random self-help book, absorbed by whatever esoteric meditation theory he’s reading about, just as pleased as he is in a roomful of people.
But Jongin, as much as he likes the quiet, hates to be alone. Maybe it was all the time he spent alone as a kid, but Jongin despises solitude.
Maybe that’s why Sehun fits so easily into Jongin’s life, winding into the calm moments like a soloist through the corps de ballet, experienced an easy and exactly where he should be.
Jongin hates to be alone, and Sehun is just the right kind of company.
But Kai…
Kai is not.
Fact: Kim Jongin is starting to think he’d rather be alone all the time than have Kai lying in wait, prowling under the surface.
a circular movement of the leg. a beginner’s barre exercise.
“I think you’ll have the most trouble,” Leeteuk says to Jongin, as they sit together on the steps that lead up to the rehearsal room where the rest of EXO is rehearsing one last time for their Korean showcase. Leeteuk had gestured to Jongin, beckoning him out of the rehearsal room, and Jongin had obeyed. “With all this.”
“Yeah,” Jongin says. “I’ll just do my best to let everyone else do the talking.”
“That’ll work for now,” Leeteuk says, “but not always.”
“What do you mean?” Jongin shifts, stretching his legs out straight so they don’t cramp up. He flexes the foot at the ankle, back and forth, methodically. “I’m a dancer, not a comedian or an actor.”
“You’re an idol,” Leeteuk responds. He’s already wearing a suit. He’s going to MC the showcase, Jongin remembers suddenly.
“There’s more that one type of idol,” Jongin mumbles.
“Being an idol is real life under a magnifying glass.” Leeteuk hands Jongin a soft-drink, and cracks open his own. “Everything is bigger and blown out of proportion.”
“So everyone keeps saying,” Jongin says, and he scratches anxiously at his sweaty hair. “I just want someone else to be responsible for all that.”
“Real life doesn’t work that way,” Leeteuk says. “You can’t just do some parts and expect someone else to pick up the slack.”
“Why not?” Jongin says, and he knows he sounds a bit whiny so he smiles to soften the words. His back itches as his t-shirt starts to dry.
Jongin knows that, really. In ballet, the soloist has to perform everything; has to know his part, and the parts of everyone who dances with him, and the parts of the corps, too, because otherwise he’ll get lost in the dance. An out of sync soloist can ruin a performance. A soloist can’t expect someone else to know what he should be doing, even if he’s expected to know about everyone else.
“Part of being an adult is being responsible for your actions,” Leeteuk says. “Part of it is sometimes doing things that are hard, but worth it in the end because they allow us to do the things we love.”
“Are you SM’s registered idol-counselor?” Kai jokes, and Leeteuk punches him in the arm.
“I’m being serious, kid. Don’t rely on someone else to do the stuff that’s hard, or that you don’t like.” He takes a deep gulp. “Otherwise, you won’t be able to do the stuff you like, either. You won’t get to do anything. And you’ll regret that.”
“Right,” Jongin says, and he thinks about Kai, who smirks at the camera perfectly at the count of one, and knows exactly what to do to draw a blush out of Sehun. Kai, who does all the hard things so Jongin doesn’t have to. “I’ll remember.”
a fast sequence of half turns performed by stepping onto one leg, and completing the turn by stepping onto the other, high on one’s toes, legs in tight against each other.
One week is how long Jongin spends staring at Sehun from across rooms, remembering the buttery slick of his mouth and the taste of his skin. One week is how long Jongin thinks about doing it again. One week is how long Sehun returns his stare, an inquisitive angle to his eyebrows that dares as much as it questions.
One week is how long it takes Jongin to stop trying to pick apart the memory that belongs more to Kai than to Jongin, and steel himself to make new ones.
Jongin walks out of his room in the middle of the night to get a glass of water, but there’s a shapeless lump on the sofa; a green blanket with a shock of reddish hair fluffing out the top of it. He grins at the sight.
Jongin sets his glass on the table and sits down on the floor next to the couch. He lifts up a single corner of the blanket to reveal Sehun’s sleeping face. “Shouldn’t you be in bed?” Jongin whispers, not respecting a response. But Sehun’s eyes open, heavy lidded and hazy, and Jongin finds him prettiest like this, relaxed and dreamy.
“Couldn’t sleep,” Sehun says. “It was too hot in the room.” Jongin’s room is hot too; the circulation, when they close their doors, traps the heat inside, making it stale and too warm.
“I couldn’t sleep either,” Jongin admits, although his reasons have nothing at all to do with the temperature of his room.
“I see,” Sehun says, and they both fall into silence, and it’s awkward and thick like nothing has ever been between them. Jongin realizes, maybe at the same time Sehun does, that his arm is still across Sehun’s chest, gripping the thin green blanket that he had pulled away from Sehun. The warmth, even through Sehun’s ugly t-shirt, is something Jongin doesn’t want to give up.
“Sehun,” Jongin says. “Do you think I could-“
“Yes,” Sehun says, and then Jongin is kissing him. The angle is weird, Sehun’s head sideways as Jongin presses at his lips, but it doesn’t matter, because Sehun tastes, this time, of toothpaste, and Jongin is the one who is kissing him.
Sehun’s tongue skims at Jongin’s closed mouth, and Jongin hurriedly opens for him, letting Sehun slip his tongue between to explore Jongin’s, and it’s even better like this; slow and simple, just the crushing of mouths and the sounds of lips separating and coming together.
Sehun makes a tiny, mewling sound, though, that suddenly makes it not enough. Without breaking away, Jongin slides closer to the couch, and then onto it, straddling Sehun, squeezing one leg between the back cushions and Sehun’s thigh. His other leg hangs off the sofa, because they’re too long to both fit on the couch, but it’s good, like this, because now Jongin can get closer. His one hand wriggles between Sehun’s torso and arm, and the other comes up to find his jaw, stroking the muscle there, and feeling it work as Jongin kisses him deeper.
Everything is better, like this. Jongin isn’t as smooth as Kai—his knee accidentally digs into Sehun’s hip, and Sehun grunts in pain before he laughs into Jongin’s lips, and Jongin can’t contain his own tiny noises of arousal as Sehun’s fingers sneak up between them to flick at his nipples, brushing his thumbs over the pebbled buds before taking them between index finger and thumb and rolling. Jongin accidentally gets a bit of Sehun’s hair in his mouth, and he has to sputter and brush it out of his way before diving back in, and Jongin almost falls several times because he’s completely off balance.
But still, despite all those tiny imperfections, this is infinitely better, because it is Jongin who is in control, not Kai. It is Jongin who is making Sehun hard beneath him, hips thrusting up for much needed friction that Jongin can’t deny he needs, too.
“Sehun,” Jongin whispers, and he’s surprised at how low his voice is, and how it cracks in the middle of Sehun’s name. “I-“
“Me too,” Sehun says, and even in the dark of the living room, Jongin can see how swollen Sehun’s lips are, pink and full and begging to be kissed again. “Me too.”
And then Sehun’s hips are bucking up again, his cotton pajama bottoms rubbing roughly against Jongin’s silk, and Jongin bites back a moan at the way it feels when their erections rub together, even through fabric.
They come like that, in their pajamas, kissing and tasting and thrusting into each other’s hips, and Jongin thinks it’s perfect, this pas de deux, because it’s them. Because it’s Kim Jongin and Oh Sehun together, and because it’s not Kai who is taking chances, it’s Jongin. It’s sloppy and off-rhythm and terribly uncoordinated, but Jongin thinks it’s the best dance he’s ever been a part of.
“Sticky,” Sehun says, lips pursing in a cute expression as he squirms. Jongin remembers when they were fifteen and he didn’t know what the swooping feeling in his gut had meant. He knows now.
“Noona-killer,” Jongin says, pressing another kiss to that tempting mouth as he lowers himself down. His release is cooling on his thighs and lower belly, and he hates the way it feels, but not as much as he loves the warmth and pliability of Sehun’s body. “Don’t make those aegyo expressions at me.”
“I’m not really looking for a noona right now,” Sehun says, his straight, thick lashes batting slightly. He sounds drowsy again, and Jongin could fall asleep with him, just like this.
“Me either,” Jongin says, and his voice cracks again, like his voice is still changing, and it’s humiliating, but Sehun doesn’t laugh. Instead, he looks up with glimmering eyes.
“I’m a very selfish maknae,” Sehun says, and Jongin tentatively smiles back. Sehun looks moments away from sleep, but Jongin knows they can’t sleep here.
“Up,” Jongin says, and he’s hauling Sehun up, and pushing him by the shoulders into the bathroom.
They clean up, with inaudible giggles and stolen pecks that sometimes turn into longer, less productive kisses. Eventually, they make it back out into the hallway, and Jongin is giddy with all these tiny triumphs. “Good night,” he whispers to Sehun, hand on the door to his room. “I hope you sleep better.”
“Good night,” Sehun replies, and Jongin thinks about straightening bowties and mint toothpaste and rose scented soap, and it feels like his heart is beating con brio.
Inside his room, Kyungsoo is fast asleep. Jongin grabs a fresh pair of pajama bottoms and stealthily climbs beneath his covers, trying to calm himself down enough to sleep.
Jongin doesn’t miss Kai at all. Jongin just lies in bed and presses his fingers to his lips and recalls how it feels to have Sehun smile against them.
to run in small quick steps.
Fact: Kai likes Sehun as much as Jongin does.
Jongin can see it in the way Kai slips into Jongin’s skin when Jongin is sleepy, looking down at Sehun’s soft face and skim the bridge of his nose with an index finger, light enough that he won’t rouse him, and in the way Kai always watches Sehun, even when he should be doing something else.
Jongin can relate.
But more and more, Jongin doesn’t want to share.
More and more, Jongin wants Kai to be nothing more than a name Jongin uses when he performs, and not a part of Jongin’s life that’s out of his hands.
Kim Jongin is not—
a lowering of the body which is made by bending the knee of the supporting leg. “to melt.”
In 2007, Jongin competes in SM’s Youth Best Contest. He’s not sure why, only that he loves to dance, and he’s a pretty good singer, and it makes sense, he guesses, to try and get accepted somewhere he’ll be able to do both.
When he signs the provisional contract, it feels a little like signing his life away, but not enough to make him back down. His mother’s mouth is set in a disapproving frown, but she signs too, and now, Jongin thinks, there are no more decisions to make. Now, Jongin can just dance.
a rocking, swinging movement. the dancer looks tossed, though self-propelled.
“What are you staring at?” Taemin asks, walking into the dressing room. His hair is in his face, shaggy bangs hanging over his eyes.
“Kai,” Jongin says absently, biting his lip, and Taemin looks at him like he’s said something silly. Maybe he has. Jongin narrows his eyes at his reflection.
“It’s almost time for the show to start,” Taemin says, grabbing Jongin’s upper arm and pulling. “Let’s go.”
“In a minute,” Jongin says.
Are you going to come out today? Jongin thinks at Kai. He’s not sure if Kai can hear him. But he thinks he sees that shifting shadow in his eyes that means Kai is there.
“You can stare at your BB cream-magic-white face later,” Taemin says, tugging again, and this time, Jongin doesn’t protest, just lets himself get pulled along.
Kai doesn’t come out. Jongin does the whole show by himself, and at the end of it, he’s sweating and shaking and nervous and alive, and he’s not sure if he’s going to be sick or if he’s going to run and do a hundred, a thousand split jumps across the parking lot.
Sehun laughs at the frenetic shaking of his limbs. He reaches up and wipes a pearl of sweat from Jongin’s forehead with the towel in his hand. “The make-up’s all sweated off,” Sehun says, and Jongin grins widely at him. He can feel his lips stretching across his entire face.
He feels amazing. “At least the show’s over,” Jongin replies, and Sehun pulls his arm back, dropping it to his side.
“It’s better like this,” he says, looking away. Jongin blinks. “It’s nice to see your real face.”
“You like tans?” Jongin teases. He’s bouncing now, on the balls of his feet. elevé after elevé.
“That’s not what I mean, at all,” Sehun says mysteriously, and Jongin means to question him, but then Sehun circles Jongin’s wrist with his hand, middle finger resting on right on Jongin’s pulse, and Jongin even forgets to breathe.
an exercise in which you raise your pointed foot high off of the ground keeping both legs straight.
They mean to make dinner for the others, when they’re left home alone, but Sehun ends up trapping Jongin against the kitchen table and kissing his neck, a stolen moment after a busy week of promotions in which they’d barely had any time alone.
Jongin leans his head back, to give more access, and Sehun kisses down Jongin’s throat, nibbling at the skin. Jongin grips his hands on the edge of the table for balance, as Sehun’s drops to his knees, hands furiously undoing the buttons to Jongin’s trousers. “What-“ Jongin starts to say, then the answer is obvious as Sehun pulls him out and holds him lightly in his palm.
There’s a move, in ballet, échappé, escaped, in which the legs move from fifth position to seventh, that has always made Jongin feel like he’s about to fall. As he kicks his pants off, to the other side of the kitchen somewhere, and Sehun brings his lips to the tip of Jongin’s half-hard length, it’s a little like that. If it weren’t for the table, Jongin bets he would have fallen already.
Sehun is tentative, at first, and then gains confidence, licking wide circles before taking Jongin into his mouth.
Jongin realizes, all of a sudden, he’s watching not doing. He feels a sickening lurch of loss that’s not physical at all, because he has no body, but it just as real and just as powerful. No, he thinks. No.
Kai’s fingers sink into Sehun’s hair as Sehun takes him in deeper, tongue finding the underside of his cock and lapping at the vein, before sliding back up and licking around the head. “Good,” Kai says, and Sehun shudders and works his mouth a little harder. Kai uses his hands to guide Sehun’s head back and forth, gently, and Jongin can see Sehun looking up at him wickedly, and he wants-
Jongin wants to move his hand to Sehun’s jaw and feel the muscles work. He wants to brush Sehun’s hair out of his face so he can see it better, too. But Jongin can’t do anything but watch.
“Harder,” Kai says, and Sehun obliges, closing his lips tighter over Kai’s cock, mouth hot and wet and just right.
And then Sehun’s letting Kai fall from his mouth, and standing up and shoving him back, so Kai is forced to sit on the kitchen table, bare-assed. It’s cold, and Kai hisses, and Jongin can see the nervousness in Sehun’s eyes.
Sehun presses his fingers to Kai’s mouth, and Kai sucks them in, running his tongue along the digits because he probably likes the way it makes Sehun squirm. Jongin would be less impatient.
Sehun pulls his fingers out and steps between Kai’s legs. “Let me,” Sehun says, and Kai kisses him, a slow melting kiss that more a too-wet drag of lips against each other than anything structured.
Sehun’s finger brushes against the cleft of Kai’s ass, and Kai spreads his legs automatically. Sehun groans into Kai’s mouth as he circles one saliva-slick finger around the ring of muscle there.
When Sehun slips a finger inside him, Kai growls and bites on Sehun’s lip, and Sehun gasps and his hips jerk, and his erection bumps against the inside of Kai’s thigh. And then there’s a second finger joining the first, ciseaux, and Jongin can feel the pain and the pleasure; the almost dry stretch of him that he wishes he could…
And then, all of a sudden, he can, slamming back into his own body as Sehun crooks his fingers up, finding Jongin’s prostate and pushing on it, and Jongin keens, hands grabbing Sehun’s shoulders and fingers digging too tight, and Sehun laughs breathlessly as their mouths come apart. He keeps up the pressure though, and Jongin feels like he’s coming apart, thighs shaking and shuddering as Sehun pushes against that spot over and over again. Jongin’s length throbbing against his belly, and Sehun’s jeans are too rough against hypersensitive skin.
And then he’s coming, just like that, and Sehun leans forward and slams their mouths together again, swallowing all of Jongin’s shudders and moans, and this, Jongin thinks, is not for Kai. This is for Jongin.
Jongin reaches, with the languor of post-climax, for Sehun’s trousers, but Sehun laughs and pushes him away. “I already…” he looks away, like he’s embarrassed, but Jongin is the one sitting on the kitchen table, legs spread like a girl and naked from the waist down. Strangely, Jongin doesn’t feel that embarrassed though; just sated and kind of like he doesn’t want to cook at all.
“Hey,” Jongin says, and Sehun’s eyes flick up to look at him, and Jongin can’t resist leaning forward to capture those lips again.
“Why is the kitchen table so clean?” Chanyeol asks later, suspiciously, and Sehun snickers before he manages to turn it into a cough.
Jongin does a slow burn. “I, uh-“
“Jongin spilled on it,” Sehun says, with a straight face, and Jongin almost chokes at his word choice. “So we bleached it.”
“What did you spill, geez,” Chanyeol says, frowning exaggeratedly. “It’s going to smell like bleach forever.”
“Sorry,” Jongin mumbles, and Sehun’s shoulders are shaking so hard Jongin’s surprised he isn’t crying.
“Whatever,” Chanyeol says. “At least it’s clean.”
And then he’s gone, and Sehun is pushing him back against the counter, trapping him between his arms, and kissing him soft and slow.
“We’ll try that again later,” Sehun says. “More.”
“Okay,” Jongin manages, and Kai lingers, and Jongin, for the first time, realizes that he completely resents that Kai came at all.
a small jump.
“I’m not quite sure,” Sehun says, “how you manage to be so different from one day to the next.” His finger captures a lock of hair, twisting it around in a gentle coil, and Jongin looks up at Sehun, who smiles down at him softly. Jongin thinks he looks a bit like an angel.
“It’s like,” Jongin says, “there’s another me.” He takes a deep breath, and the air whistles out of him on the exhale, steam from a railway train, and Jongin closes his eyes. “Two people in one skin.”
“That must be crowded,” Sehun says, a laugh in his voice, and Jongin can feel Sehun’s fingernails scraping along his scalp, and Kai can have everything else but he can’t have this.
“Sometimes,” Jongin murmurs, and Sehun’s fingers still, and then his hand is pulling free from Jongin’s hair. Jongin opens his eyes as Sehun shifts, and Jongin’s head falls to the bed. “What are you-“
Sehun straddles him, looking down on him from above, hair hanging around his face like a soft cinnamon halo. “So, who am I talking to, now?” Sehun’s ‘ss’ sounds like ‘th’, and Jongin usually thinks it’s cute, but it’s not cute now, not with the way Jongin is relishing the firmness of Sehun’s thighs on either side of his hips, and the way Sehun’s hand is sneaking up his shirt, skating along his belly and up his chest with intent.
“Jongin,” Jongin says, and Sehun leans down and kisses him, a light touch of lips to lips, as fluttering and ephemeral as a butterfly. “Kim Jongin.”
Sehun kisses his nose, and his cheeks, too; tiny kisses that seem to leave marks that tingle long after he’s moved on, and this, Jongin thinks, is tombé, the act of falling. But it’s more than that, greater than that, because Jongin is tumbling into Sehun’s intense gaze, lost in his eyes and in the soft brush of fingers against skin and the effortless way they fit together, two halves of a whole. It anchors Jongin here in his own body, because it’s the most intuitive of touches; the first explorations of lips and hands and skin that want more than this.
And Jongin could live with Kai having everything else, but this moment, here and now… he can’t have this.
waltz step.
Jongin discovers ballet before he discovers video games, girls, deep-dish pizza, internet porn, sports, or American cartoons. He stares through the window of a studio while his mother gets a haircut, taking in the measures, perfect steps of the dancers, who stand with one hand on the barre and the other above their heads in a reverse letter ‘c’. They look strong, Jongin thinks, and when his mother comes out to join him, hair shorn and colored but looking all too much the same to Jongin, he tugs at her skirt and points into the studio and asks her “what is that?”
“Ballet,” his mother replies, and she brushes him off, almost ignoring him as she checks her phone. “We’ll be late for your taekwondo class if we don’t hurry, Jongin.”
Then in the fourth grade, Jongin watches ‘The Nutcracker’, and he can barely sit still, the need to move coiling in his legs and arms like he’s a wind-up car held back in a child’s strong-willed grip.
“I want to do that,” he tells his mother, and he forgets about taekwondo and piano, and finds a new kind of joy.
So in a lot of ways, ballet is Jongin’s first love. It’s the first thing he finds that he wants to give everything to—he wants to live ballet and breathe ballet, and in his sleep he thinks about the steps, and he stretches and strengthens his leg muscles during classes by doing modified elevé lifts underneath his desk as he waits for mathematics instruction to end.
If ballet is Jongin’s first love, then Oh Sehun is Jongin’s second, even bigger love.
Watching Sehun fills Jongin with that same restless energy, that same joie de vivre that Jongin finds between the notes in a score, balancing on his tiptoes as he seeks the sky with outstretched arms.
Jongin looks up at Sehun like Sehun is the heavens, and Sehun looks down at him like he’s the earth, and Jongin spins in fouetté en tournant, and they go round and round each other in a dance that Jongin thinks is better than any choreo he’s ever been taught.
“You,” Jongin says, and Kai lurks at the edges of Jongin’s vision but Jongin doesn’t want to share, “make me want to stay.”
“That’s good,” Sehun says. “Because I don’t want you to go.” Sehun smiles, sun breaking through the clouds, Relevé, Relevé, Relevé. “Where would you go, anyway?”
Jongin presses his palm flat to Sehun’s chest and curls his fingers like he’s wrapping them around his heart.
“You have no idea,” Jongin says.
seesaw, teeter-totter.
Fact: Neither Kim Jongin or Kai are the type to say ‘I love you’ in words, in any language.
Kai says it by going down on Sehun in the shower, until Sehun accidentally cracks his head on the tiles and Kai is laughing too hard to continue until they stumble out and Kai pushes him down onto the closed toilet to finish what he started.
Jongin says it pressing his nose into Sehun’s hair as they ride in the van, or a casual arm around Sehun’s waist as they wait for the others to get dressed in the morning, or by remembering that Sehun likes two spoonfuls of sugar in his coffee in the morning.
Jongin thinks he can say ‘I love you’ Kai’s way, too.
Jongin wants to say ‘I love you’ in every way, all by himself.
”obscured.” the dancer stands at an oblique angle to the audience so that a part of the body is taken back and almost hidden from view.
Sometimes Jongin’s not sure who Sehun likes better, Jongin or Kai.
Kai is brave in ways Jongin is not, pushing Sehun up against the wall in the dressing room and sliding a hand down Sehun’s trousers, thumb swiping across the head of his cock as his mouth swallows Sehun’s hissing moans, air rasping though Sehun’s teeth as Kai licks the inside of his mouth, teeth crashing together. Kai doesn’t hesitate to rut against Sehun’s hip as he kisses and nips his way down the column of Sehun’s neck, tongue lingering along veins and pearl pink skin, tasting powder and leaving marks that will fade before Sehun even releases into Kai’s fist. Kai doesn’t care that someone could walk in any minute; all he cares about is the way Sehun feels beneath him, crushed between Kai’s body and the wall, warm and pliant and so easy to please, black –rimmed eyes fluttering, perspiration a gentle sheen on foundation-caked skin. “Jongin,” Sehun whispers as he thrusts forward into Kai’s touch, and Kai laughs into Sehun’s clavicles as Jongin whispers to no one. It’s not me, he wants to say, but he can’t. He just watches through his own eyes as Sehun comes, gasping and whimpering and Kai bites down into his shoulder, shuddering with his own hurried climax.
Jongin thinks, as he watches, feeling the stickiness of sweat and everything else but unable to move his own body, that this is everything he wanted, but not how he wanted it.
a linked sequence of steps. chained together.
Fact: Most of the time, Jongin is pretty sure the one Sehun likes better is him, although, in the end, it’s hard to say.
Kim Jongin is not.
Sometimes.
There’s a moment, when you finish a dance, before the audience applauds, where your heart sits in your throat from a combination of triumph, exhaustion, fear, and anticipation. It feels like nothing and like an eternity at the same time. Then, the audience bursts into raucous applause, and heart hammering against your ribs, you walk out and bow, and it’s over.
Kai lives for that moment, maybe. Jongin could live for that moment, too.
a flashy style of dance with elaborate steps, and music that matches. usually a soloist putting on a show; showing off technique. a highlight of key solos.
Fact: Jongin doesn’t want to watch his life.
Jongin’s scared of letting people down, and Jongin’s scared of all the things he’s not good at—the things that aren’t as easy as a chasse across the floor. Jongin’s scared, but Jongin is also tired of missing things, and wishing he were the one moving himself. He’s tired of Kai being the only one who takes.
Leeteuk had told him not to rely on someone else to do the stuff that’s hard, or that he didn’t like, otherwise he’d also lose the stuff he loved. He understands, now.
halfway between a step and a leap.
Jongin has his headphones in, listening to ‘Run and Gun’ and thinking about the choreography that he’s already committed to memory.
“Excuse me, Captain Social Skills,” Chanyeol says, after he yanks the earbud out of Jongin’s ear, “but sitting in the living room with all of us while we watch TV with your headphones playing music does not count as ‘spending time together’.”
“I am listening to you talk, though,” Jongin says, gesturing to his mp3 player.
“You have a sickness,” Junmyeon says. “I bet you’re thinking about the choreography right now and doing it in your head.”
“Um,” Jongin says, and Chanyeol laughs.
“He’s got you,” Chanyeol says.
“Is it so hard not to think about?” Baekhyun asks, and Jongin nods.
“I just-“
“Need to relax,” Sehun says, shifting closer. Then Sehun tickles him, and Jongin squawks in response, leaping out of his seat and dropping his mp3 player to the floor.
“Hey!” he says, and Sehun chuckles at him, emphasizing his underbite as he claps with glee. “I’m only trying to-“
Sehun stands up and shoves him playfully, and Jongin moves backwards, stumbling into Chanyeol and Baekhyun’s room. Jongin bumps his elbow on the door, but Sehun’s grinning face is charming enough that he doesn’t mind.
Sehun laughingly wrestles Jongin down to Chanyeol’s bed, and Jongin hooks a leg around Sehun’s to flip them, and suddenly he senses it,
Jongin feels himself being pulled in, out of his fingers and toes, vision going less clear, and there’s a surge of panic. No, Jongin thinks, and he holds on for dear life, concentrating on Sehun’s pealing giggles in order to stay in this moment, and in control.
It’s a battle that only takes moments, but afterwards Jongin feels exhausted, and numb at the tips of his fingers and toes. But he wins. He wins.
Sehun manages to defeat him in their game, however, laughing down victoriously. “You underestimated me,” Sehun says, and Jongin rests his hands flat on Sehun’s thighs.
“Never,” Jongin says, and then undulates his hips, tossing Sehun onto his stomach and trapping him with a leg over his backside. “But you totally just underestimated me.”
Jongin feels sort of strange, right now. He’s never been able to stop Kai from coming out before. Now that he thinks about it, he’s never tried. Jongin’s always just assumed, since Kai’s first appearance, that there was no choice, but Kai had just tried to take over and Jongin had stopped him.
He wriggles his cold bare toes, and flops his head to the side, to look at Sehun, whose cheek is pressed into an unflattering shape by the comforter on his bed, and memorizes the playful turn of Sehun’s lips as he looks right back.
It’s like spotting, Jongin thinks; when you pick a spot and just keep looking at it as you spin, until you can’t crane your neck any farther, and then quickly turn your head so that you’re looking at it again. It’s how you keep from getting dizzy, Jongin knows, when you just keep doing turn after turn after turn.
Sehun is Jongin’s spot. Sehun is what keeps Jongin from losing his orientation.
“You’re amazing,” Jongin says, and then he blushes; the kind of blush that travels down his chest and leaves him feeling warm and anxious.
“It’s better, when you’re like this,” Sehun says, after a minutes, as Jongin starts to curl in on himself in embarrassment.
“Like what?” Jongin says softly, and Kai simmers and burns, clawing at Jongin’s throat and Jongin chokes him back again.
“When you’re just you,” Sehun says. He mumbles, because he’s falling asleep, but Jongin hears him perfectly clear. His hands still, and Jongin bites down on his lip.
“Yeah?”
“Yeah,” Sehun says, and Jongin makes up his mind.
“Get out of my room, you idiots!” Chanyeol yells from the sofa, and he can hear Kyungsoo laughing, and Jongin is happy. Wants to stay happy.
lift up with your whole body.
In Act III, Scene 4 of ’Le Corsaire’, Conrad, the pirate protagonist, hold Medora, his love, tightly in his arms as his ship is battered by a seemingly endless storm. The sails are shredded by terrible winds, and the sickening crack of the ships mast beneath the pressure is portrayed by a haunting orchestral swell, and the ship sinks to its doom among the murky, frothing waters as the audience watches in horror.
But then the lights go up, and there, on a rock, saved by some miracle, are Conrad and Medora, whose love managed to save them from certain death, arms outstretched, long, delicate lines painting a picture of survival.
Conrad, as he lies on that rock, with his true love, is a changed man.
Jongin feels like he’s been thrown against the rocks, too. Dragged under and scrambling for the surface.
But Jongin has his own Medora, and Jongin refuses to disappear beneath the tumultuous waves.
a fault in which the dancer turns his or her foot in from the ankle, thereby breaking the straight line of the leg.
“I worry about you the most,” Kyungsoo says, and Jongin sighs.
“Why?” Jongin asks, shifting in his seat. They shot the covers, today, for their first mini-album. Jongin doesn’t like the way the make-up sits heavy on his face.
“Because you’re the only one who doesn’t seem to know who you are,” Kyungsoo says, and his wide, round eyes are staring at Jongin like he can see right through him. Maybe he can. “Out of all of us, you’re the one who is the most—“
“I know,” Jongin says, and he presses his palm to his cheeks and feels the powder scrape off in thick, unappealing clumps.
it’s a quality, not an elevation. the dancer strives to exhibit his or her lightness or airiness. to imbue ballon into every step is the quality of a skilled dancer.
Jongin looks in the mirror and Kai stares back at him, lips curled in a smirk and eyes alight with all the confidence Jongin lacks.
Kim Jongin is crazy.
“I want my life back,” Jongin says. He slides his hand down the flat plane of his chest, feeling the bones and sinew beneath his fingers. He lingers along the strange ridges and thicker cords of muscle; his skin is smooth and his nipples are pebbled, and Jongin touches it all, eyes locked with his own reflection in the mirror. “I want my skin back.”
Kai is still smirking at him as Jongin pushes his hand down, across the hairless expanse of his belly, index finger circling his navel. He feels dizzy, but he doesn’t close his eyes. His skin is hot, and a rose-colored flush decorates his clavicles and his neck,
Jongin is surprised that he’s hard, because it doesn’t seem like he would be, but now, as he touches himself, too rough, watching in the mirror as Kai reflects back at him.
Hands dip lower, circling his belly button. Jongin feels like with each touch, he’s reclaiming himself; telling his skin and muscle and bone you’re mine, and it’s… It strange, that he has to, but Jongin feels like this body has two tenants and Jongin can finally, honestly tell himself that he only wants there to be one.
“I can do it by myself,” Jongin whispers, and the face in the mirror dares him, mocks him, and Jongin remembers all the times Kai has done what Jongin has not been able to do.
But Jongin is tired of needing someone else to do the hard part. Jongin wants to be strong enough to do it himself.
His palm is shockingly cool as he wraps around himself, but it heats quickly as he starts to jerk himself Kai? off, and Kai’s eyebrows furrow. Jongin wants to close his eyes, but he can’t—he wonders if that’s Kai’s doing, or his own. It’s confusing, and he can’t breathe, and everything goes hazy.
It’s like he’s soaring, for a moment, caught between being in control and out of control, and he’s not sure if it’s Kai’s fingers or Jongin’s fingers that speed up, pulling back his foreskin and running a callused thumb down the slit, precome leaking just enough to smooth his pull.
Jongin, or maybe Kai, Jongin can’t tell anymore, grunts low in his throat, and it’s over.
As Jongin spills across his fingers, or maybe Kai’s fingers, he finds himself sinking back into his own skin alone, breathing with his own lungs, alone, and feeling each and every nerve of his body like he’s standing on a dark stage in first position with leg tendu waiting for the music to start.
Endorphins race through him, like he’s just danced an entire act as the lead, and his heart pounds to the rhythm of an overzealous timpani, and every centimeter of his body seems alive and bursting with sensation.
He isn’t Jongin, and he isn’t Kai; or maybe he’s Jongin and Kai, and all he sees in the mirror, when his eyes flutter open, harsh bathroom fluorescents dragging him back down to Earth, is himself, whoever that is. He’s spent and sticky, and his chest is swelling and sinking with heaving, stuttering breaths. His knees feel like jelly, and there’s a mess on the floor that he should clean up, soon, now, before Chanyeol wakes up and bursts into the bathroom without knocking like he always does because that’s just how he is.
And Jongin is always embarrassed, even if he’s just brushing his teeth, because that’s how he is, but right now the thought of being seen, just like this, doesn’t unsettle him very much, and maybe that’s Kai, but Jongin is in control.
He turns on the faucet with his left hand and submerges his right under the flow. The water is as cold as he is warm, and Jongin looks up into the mirror one more time, resting his hands on the edges of the sink and staring desperately at his own reflection. His arms are shaking, or maybe his whole body is shaking, but for the first time in a long time, Jongin feels completely and totally here.
Kai is there, lurking in the depths of his eyes, but he’s a part of Jongin. And maybe Jongin is crazy, and Kai was never real, but Jongin thinks he was-- is real, and Jongin’s just ready, now, to try being EXO-K’s lead dancer, and to be Kim Jongin, all by himself.
“Thank you,” Jongin says. “But that’s enough.”
He is light.
turn in the air.
Fact: It’s not like Kai just… goes away.
Jongin can still feel him sometimes, trying to take over, like when Jongin’s dancing on stage and he can’t even hear the music over the screams, or when he’s got Sehun’s legs over his shoulder as he fucks him slow and careful.
He can feel him, but now Jongin knows him. Now Jongin owns him, and instead of two people, Jongin thinks they can be one.
“Something about you is different,” Sehun says, as Jongin traces the shape of Sehun’s mouth with his index finger, following the bow of his top lip. Sehun’s breath whispers across his skin like a caress as he speaks. “Can’t quite pinpoint it, but…”
“Good different or bad different?” Jongin asks, letting his hand curve along Sehun’s ear, teasing at a strand of hair and stroking the shell of Sehun’s ear with a slow and patient thumb.
Sehun smiles slow like a cat, eyes narrowing to speculative slits as his eyes do a thorough perusal of Jongin’s face. “Good,” he says, after a long moment of silence, and Jongin bites his lower lip and tries not to smile. He fails, he knows, because Sehun lifts up and pecks him on his lower lip before collapsing back to the pillows. His hair splays around him, warm browns against the white sheets of Jongin’s bed, and Jongin thinks he is beautiful.
“I’m… settled,” Jongin says, and Sehun’s head tilts to the side as Jongin lies down next to him, throwing his arm across Sehun’s hips.
“Settled, huh?” Sehun muses, tongue peeking out to wet his lips, and Jongin leans closer and catches it with his teeth, gently, before he wraps his own tongue around it, pulling Sehun into a wet, sloppy kiss leaves them both breathless.
“Yeah,” Jongin says, against Sehun’s chin, where there’s the faintest hint of stubble to prickle against his lips. “Like, into myself.”
“I’m happy for you,” Sehun says, and he throws a leg over Jongin’s legs, and the extension of the limb, Jongin notices, as he runs his hand up the long line of Sehun’s thigh, is in flawless extension.
“Me too,” Jongin says, and he kisses Sehun again, just because he can.
Later, as Sehun stretches him wide, replacing lubed fingers with his cock, hands holding Jongin’s thighs up as he thrusts in and out, sweat on his upper lip and hair a mess, Jongin doesn’t worry.
Sehun catches Jongin’s eyes, and Jongin knows, for sure, that Sehun’ll see nothing there but Jongin, as long as he continues looking.
Kim Jongin is definitely not crazy.
It’s a relief to realize that.
the dignified, classical march.
“I’m Kai,” Jongin says, and smiles at the interviewer. “EXO-K’s Dancing Machine.” He smiles, genuinely, and bows as deep as the table between them allows, and the woman seems taken aback, flushing a little, and Jongin does his best to keep meeting her gaze. It’s easier than before, with a little of Kai’s courage weaving through him and taking residence in his heart.
“Nice to meet you,” she murmurs, and Sehun’s fingers dance up his thigh, twirling to the steps Jongin had taught him just last night, before they’d lost interest in ballet and found interest in each other, Jongin fucking Sehun slow against the studio door as Sehun gasped and whimpered and said Jongin’s name, over and over and over again.
“Likewise,” he replies, and catches Sehun’s hand with his own, locking fingers in an embrace no one can see under the table.
“Finding your place?” Taemin asks. His hair has fallen into his eyes. He’s wearing the long extension again. Jongin always wants to call him noona when his hair is like that. “Took you long enough. Look at you now. Seducing interviewers.”
“Shut up,” Jongin says. “I’m not seducing anyone.”
“Sehun gave her glare like he was going to eat her as punishment later. You’ve got a jealous friend.”
“No,” Jongin says. “He knows there’s no reason to be jealous.” Taemin coughs into his hand, and Jongin wonders if he’s given too much away, but then Taemin is pulling his hair over one shoulder and grinning.
“It seems like you’ve figured out the trick of it.” Jongin raises both eyebrows. “Of being an idol, I mean.”
“It’s a trick?” Jongin kicks at Taemin’s leg, and Taemin kicks him back. “It’s not a trick.”
“It’s all about balance. You don’t have to be one extreme or the other. Somewhere in between is enough.”
“Yeah, I think I’m getting that, now,” Jongin says, and he offers his longtime friend a big, earnest grin. “It took a while, but I’m getting that.”
acknowledgement of the orchestra, the corps, and the choreographer.
Fact: Jongin is Kai.
More accurately, Jongin is Jongin and also Kai, and when Jongin is Kai, he is also, at the same time, Jongin.
It’s a delicate balance, but Jongin is a danseur; he can rise onto point and do spins and still, still, fall out into a perfect piroutte en dehors.
And whenever Jongin is afraid, standing on stage with the others, overwhelmed by the lights and the screams and all the things he has to be that aren’t Kim Jongin, the boy who likes to dance, he looks to his side, where Sehun waits with that small smile that never fails to make Jongin’s heart sing with joy in his chest, like a glissade across wooden floors in leather shoes, and knows it’s worth it.
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