Love & Evil - nomin

Chapter three

"Are you excited?" Jaemin asks. "I've never worked with anyone from another team before."

"I'm a little nervous," Jeno admits quietly. He ties his shoelaces and grabs his water bottle. "It's my first time as well."

"I'm sure we'll do great, Jeno," Jaemin smiles. "I think we'll get along just fine."

Jaemin's gaze drops down to Jeno's throat when Jeno drinks from his water, then looks away quickly. Oh?

"Yeah." Jeno breathes. They stare at each other for one, two, three seconds, and Jaemin looks away.

"Yeah," Jaemin says awkwardly. He gets up from the bench. "I'll see you on the ice, Jeno."

When Jeno gets to the ice, the first step is finding a song for their performance. The performance will take place in a month already. Jeno usually likes to take his time with these things, he likes studying the details of things and those things take time. A month is... not a very long time for details. Jeno reminds himself what he's doing this for as he sits down on the floor with everyone else.

After a bunch of suggestions from everyone involved, they end up choosing "Love & Evil" by LOONA.

Jaemin and Jeno get on the ice, and Jeno is weirdly nervous about this whole thing. His hands are slightly shaky, and it's not because of the cold this time.

The performance would start out slow. They come up with the choreo on the spot, bit by bit, piece by piece. Jeno catches himself staring at Jaemin sometimes. Jaemin looks very professional. He is so graceful, always so graceful, like he's floating over the ice, like he weighs nothing as he acts out the little bits and pieces he comes out with. Jeno is determined not to mess this up. After a while, they have the beginning figured out. It starts with them dancing far apart from each other, repeating each other's movements. Jeno tries, he really does, but his body isn't correlating with him today. He blames his nerves.

The break doesn't come soon enough, and Jeno is walking back to the changing rooms with quick steps as soon as his coach says it's time. He sits down on the bench with a huff.

"Are you okay there?" Jaemin asks softly. He sits down next to Jeno. Jeno is reminded of that very first time he met Jaemin. Jaemin might not even remember that moment, but it left an imprint in Jeno's mind. He's not sure he'll ever forget about the kindness in Jaemin's eyes.

"I'm okay," Jeno musters up a smile. "It's not my best day."

"That happens," Jaemin says. "I think everyone has those kinds of days, Jeno."

"You do too?" Jeno finds himself asking.

Jaemin huffs out a laugh. "Of course," He chuckles. "Why would you think I didn't?"

Jeno pauses. He could handle this in two ways; pretend he didn't mean anything like that and make this awkward for both of them, or own up to it. "You just always look so..." Jeno trails off. He can't look at Jaemin, so instead he focuses on the floor. "Perfect, so graceful, like being on the ice is what you were meant to do."

Jaemin's eyes widen a bit. "Oh," He mumbles. "I didn't expect that."

Jeno feels his heart lurch in his chest. He gets up but is stopped by Jaemin grabbing his arm. Jaemin pulls him back down.

"I wasn't done yet," Jaemin says sternly. "I think the same way about you, Jeno, I mean-" Jaemin coughs awkwardly. "You look like you were meant to skate."

"Oh," Jeno says dumbly. A pause, then: ''Didn't expect that from you."

"I can be nice too, you know?" Jaemin laughs.