With No Words Said- Luwoo

Imagination

The winter went away, and with it left the cold and the snow too. Then came the blossoming flowers and slowly, heat crept its way to Seoul, with the calming music of cicadas replaced by the one of distant laughter and late-night conversations and cars. And soon, the wind blew and the sun was replaced by cotton-like clouds overhead.

Almost unwillingly, Yukhei moved on too, just like his friend had told him to. He was just so busy all day, caught between his life as a music student and his life as an outgoing teenager, he barely even had the time to call his parents, let alone think about his failed friendship with his crush and all the regrets that came with it.
And when he did have time, he liked to spend it drinking some hot chocolate in a café nearby with Mark, a sweet Canadian boy that had arrived in Seoul some months after him and Taeyong, and when the weather got too hot to drink anything anywhere near lukewarm, he liked to party, drowning the fatigue with fresh and fruity cocktails.

A year passed and the boy graduated from his high school program. He decided to stay in Seoul though, the opportunities were just much greater than back in the country side were his parents stayed, or back in China where he came from. Plus, he really didn't want to leave his friends. Again.

The boy was pretty proud of the 20 year-old man he had become. He had become more mature and responsible, but his body hadn't changed a lot, although he did grow taller by a centimeter or so and his face got a little more defined too.

He still lived together with Taeyong, but getting older, they suddenly realized it would perhaps be a wise choice to have separate chambers. And so they moved from their cramped room for a bigger one, almost apartment-like, they had no problem paying for, as they added Mark as their roommates.

Yukhei had stayed in the capital that summer. Firstly, because he wanted to work part time somewhere, and secondly, because he didn't feel like spending his summer with his mind overflowed with sore memories of his late teenage years idiocy, like he had a year ago.

He spent it earning his well-deserved first paycheck delivering pizzas in the evening, sleeping late in the mornings and composing some songs in the afternoon.
Before his first day of work, he had told himself he would save that money for later, for when a new computer might come in handy for example.
However, the day before he had to go back to university, he found himself in a bar paying for his two roommates' and his drinks.

The next morning was the first day of September, a new start as people procrastinating their way through life liked to say, and the man woke up twenty minutes after his alarm had ringed with a pounding headache. He started at 9 that day but both of his friends started later. He still kicked them awake, just because he felt like it.

He hurried in the shower and barely looked at himself in the mirror, the sight of him with dark bags under his eyes and messy, even slightly greasy, hair not worth wasting time. Then he made himself a coffee, probably a little too dark for his liking, and burned the tip of his tongue. After some technical problems with his clothes –how come the only jeans he felt like wearing were tainted with puke and pizza grease?– he finally left the campus.

What probably set the day as a shitty day, was when he missed his bus by a few seconds and had to run all the way to University in the awakening heat of late summer, the bus still in sight but always too far for him to reach before it left again.

He arrived at his lecture right on time, with his grey tee full of sweat in the back and in the armpits areas.
He earned looks from people all day but didn't really mind, his mind too foggy for him to take offense in the judgement people eyed him with.

Somehow, Yukhei made it to the end of the day without collapsing once, that time in music history didn't count, the voice of the teacher was just too hypnotizing to not fall asleep.

He had heard at lunch that a welcoming show was held for the new students– and he had almost joined the strangers' conversation just to say that it just like every year and that there was nothing to be excited about, but he had repressed his post-drinking murderous remarks and had said nothing– but he still headed home after his classes.

It was only 6 in the afternoon but he was already so tired. He let his tall body fall in his bed for a short nap.
A short nap that turned out to last for almost a hour and a half.

The young man woke up at 7:45 or so, almost as fresh as a daisy, and showed no signs of life as he lay still in his bed, staring at his ceiling. A buzzing sound shook him out of his thoughts.

"hello?" he asked through the phone with his raspy voice.

"where are you?"

"home."

Taeyong almost deadpanned at the answer he got and added "are you planning on coming here to see the show?"

The tanned male was silent for some time, almost as if thinking when in reality he was just zoning out again.
"hello?"

"oh, yeah, right. Uh, I'm afraid I won't be coming." Taeyong sighed loudly, in a way he knew made Lucas weak.

"please? Pretty please?" The latter could almost see his friend batting his eyelashes in front of him and he blamed his soft heart when he finally accepted to come.

He had to shower and dress up again, and only that was enough to annoy him, but he still put on some nice clothes. He hoped maybe, he would finally find someone that was willing to have more than just sex with him that night.

He showed up at the University at 8:30 and looked for his friends in the park that surrounded the buildings. He found the two males chatting excitedly not far from the scene that had been installed there a few days ago.

"holy crap!" a startled Mark exclaimed.

Proud of his joke, Yukhei laughed along with Taeyong. The other's face when scared was gold.

"so... what exactly are we waiting for?" he wondered out loud.

"ok, so basically there are some guys coming from I don't remember which country in Europe coming up soon." Taeyong answered as Mark was focused on his phone.

"uh uh... and would you mind telling me why the fuck they would come all the way to Korea?"

"that's actually a great quest–" Music interrupted the dancer and the lights were turned off on the stage, leaving the park in the dark.

The beat was strong and low and matched the dancers' moves with perfection. They were a small group of 7, including 3 women.

Lucas watched in awe the group, his shoulder against a trunk, eyes captivated by the male in the center. The projectors didn't illuminate his face enough for Yukhei to distinguish his features precisely, but something about the other man was familiar and made his stomach flutter.

He blamed the painkillers for the weird feeling and focused his attention on the show again. It had already been going on for more than two minutes but the people on stage showed no signs of inattention or tiredness whatsoever, their limbs moving just as powerfully as in the beginning.
Yukhei wasn't really a dancer himself but he was still impressed by the quality of the show, and when he looked at Taeyong he could tell it wasn't just himself.

Soon enough, the music stopped and the little group placed themselves in the front. The applauses were a little late, the public still breathless from the performance.
Then they clapped and the sound strangely resembled a thunder's.

And when the light went on again, the tanned male could have sworn he saw Jungwoo coming down all sweaty from the stage.