The butterfly effect, in which the world is interconnected by strings of seemingly irrelevant events, lies on the delicate balance of decisions and indecisions. The fluttering of a butterfly’s wings a week earlier could have stopped the hurricane that bent trees in half and ripped the fish-scale shingles from their roofs.
A train moves along a single track while the world runs on a forever diverging timeline, a single beginning and an uncountable number of endings, like a string winding and twisting around itself until you don’t know where it starts or where it ends.
And like a tangled mess of strings, the more you try to fix it, the more unfixable it becomes.
♣
The card has a glossy shine, and Sehun frowns a little as he wipes a thumb over the gold letters.
SM Entertainment Seoul Auditions
He contemplates trashing it. But, then again, how many people are willing to chase him down for nearly thirty minutes just to have him consider auditioning?
Come audition for us. I have high hopes for you.
He spins the card between his thumb and middle finger a few times and pockets it.
♣
It takes him three auditions to make it, running through his playlist of the only songs he has decent choreographies to. The judges’ scrutinizing glares make his mouth dry, and he nearly misses the first beat blasting through the speakers.
His heart is still pumping to the beat of Usher’s Yeah, eyes blinking away the sweat racing down his face, when there’s a moment of dead silence after his last dance. The judges lean against each other, whispering, and Sehun feels incredibly lonely standing in the center of the stage.
There is no congratulations when he enters the company. The gleaming tiles and white walls are clean but Sehun feels cold. He’s assigned a number and his schedule and is sent off with nothing more than a I’ll see you here tomorrow.
He stands amid the mass of moving bodies, watching each one walk to their next destination or maybe nowhere at all, just aimlessly wondering feet following nothing but the lining between the tiles. Sehun looks down at his feet, sees the peeling rubber from how worn the shoes are, and wonders how far they’ll take him.
♣
He starts recognizing a few people he sees more often than not. Some of them smile at him when they pass by and Sehun sometimes waves back a second too late. Dance class has broken his limbs and given him new ones. Practice makes the days longer, seconds stretching into minutes and minutes into hours. He loses track of the time and starts counting by weeks and soon months are rushing by like bullets.
He finishes the days in exhaustion, ankles threatening to snap beneath his leaden bones. He takes the bus home every other day, and today the windows are dotted with raindrops that are soaking into his hair and dampening his backpack. He vaguely worries about the state of his homework but he focuses more on the cramp in his thighs from one too many hours spent in front of the mirror, rehearsing the same moves over and over again until his body is numb.
He comes home to the smell of baked potatoes and the warmth of his mother’s smile.
“How was your day today?” she asks when Sehun’s digging into his bowl of rice.
“Just fine,” he answers automatically like he always does, the true meaning lost due to overuse. He shoves another spoonful of rice and potatoes into his mouth, chews, and swallows.
The cycle repeats.
