New World | SOOKAI

Chapter 9

Soobin gently pulled me up by the hand from my seat and led me to a corner of his bookshelves, several of them were filled with records, they too seemed alphabetically sorted. He briefly let go of my hand and I stood behind him in waiting as he finally found what he sought.

"I didn't know you could dance.." I said to him excitedly, but I was nervous. It certainly wasn't something that I expected to happen that evening, but it would bring me closer to him, in all manners of speaking.

"There are many surprising facts you don't know about me, Kai."

That was an understatement. But I laughed at him anyway at the truth he spoke.

"I never pegged dancing to be one of them is all."

"Do you know the Waltz?" he peeked back at me over his shoulder with a curious eye.

I shook my head at him "No, but I'm guessing you're about to teach me."

"Perceptive of you" he offered me a small, teasing smile and he pulled the record he had found out of its cover, placing it upon the turntable. It too, was antique, though not nearly as much as everything else in the room I had discovered so far. He set the needle down to play. A classical piece started, though I did not recognize it.

Soobin curled his once again strangely chilly fingers around my wrist and he walked me over to the middle of the room a short distance away from the piano. He turned to face me and all I could do was smile at him like an idiot.

"I will give you a quick demonstration. You move in triple time. 1-2-3, 1-2-3, do you understand?"

Soobin, you're talking to a musician here. But I nodded at him anyway, the smile on my face only increasing with every passing moment.

"You move in a sort of angled square formation. Where your feet move first depends on who's leading. I will lead for this dance, it will be easier for you to learn."

I nodded at him once more. I could tell he was excited by the way he just let the words spill out of his mouth, it was the fastest manner he had spoken to me in yet.

"Come here" he said softly to me and I stepped into his personal space, my heart began racing again at the close proximity. He held his left hand open at our shoulder height and I noticed I was almost as tall as him, there was little to no difference at all.

"Put your right hand in mine" and I complied.

"And your left hand rests on my right shoulder." I did as instructed and fought back the idea of placing it somewhere else. I didn't want to taint the otherwise innocent moment.

His right hand slid up behind me and gently rested it at my lower back against the edge of my jacket. Though he was tender with his hold, I felt secure within it. I could tell he had done this perhaps many times before. The idea of Soobin dancing, especially the likes of a Waltz, deeply confused me. Everything about him seemed to lack modernization. He seemed frozen in time from a world much older than both of us. Was he a time-traveller?

Don't be stupid, Kai. He's just.. Soobin.

"When you start following, your right foot will always go back as my left comes forward."

He demonstrated and I watched, joining him with the simple enough instruction.

"And then to the side, and back up, and across."

I followed his feet almost better than I had hoped I would.

"So you dance in a square, once you gain confidence and get your rhythm, we could then start doing circling squares."