The music pounds from the speakers like a secondary heartbeat as Taehyung forces himself through the motions and steps time and again, limbs heavy and aching in the best of ways. He’s been at this for hours, running through the same playlist of songs since the first moment he hooked up his ipod and began to dance, determined to sweat out the memories that lingered his his body like a brutal toxin.
This isn’t the first time, of course, and it certainly won’t be the last, but it is by far the best. He’s worked himself to the point of exhaustion, the point where he’s inches from collapsing, where is legs feel like rubber, and his heart is hammering against his teeth, and the floor moves beneath him even when he’s standing still because he’s been in nonstop motion for that long.
The ten second break he offers himself for a greedy gulp of air proves to be five seconds too long, because halfway through his legs give way, and Taehyung goes down hard, hitting the lacquered wood flooring with a noise that is too akin to splitting a melon.
But Taehyung proves he’s okay as he pushes himself over onto his back and stares up at the ceiling. The free slot in the room’s schedule will be over with soon, as the next dancer is scheduled to start their own practice in about ten minutes, but that doesn’t stop Taehyung from continuing to lie there, eyes easing shut as a low laugh rises from cracked, dry lips.
Taehyung is so busy with the thought of how he’d considered her to be a fever he could sweat out that he doesn’t notice the passage of time or the way that the room’s door soon opens.
A lazy shrug, a low breath. His eyes snap open, the shimmer of blue gleaming in the fabricated luminescence of fluorescent lamps, hanging from the dressing room’s ceiling. It makes him look almost sickly pale and he doesn’t particularly like it. But he leaves it be, he’s alone either way so there’s nobody there to question it. However, he still curses his father’s fair traits, thereby also his complexion. Which Hoseok had happened to inherit, along with the shade his irises carried. The rest of his traits were mostly his mother’s. Much to his own pleasure.
He shakes his head, shakes off lingering remnants of stress and pounding echoes of voices he’d rather shake off. Work is tough, school is tough and the people he’s spending time with are driving him crazy. He doesn’t have a calm moment and he’s surprised he’s escaped unbruised this time, from Jinki’s piercing nails. He snorts to himself, because he can’t for the love of god come up with one legit reason to why, why Jinki would have such an interest in him. He isn’t very special, just ordinary. Or so he says.
Light azure hues glance at the clock, sitting on the wall to the left. Five more minutes. He notes, stepping back to rest against the wall on the opposite side of the corridor. There’s not a single person he knows, that’s aware of this, that he dances to release the pressure of his everyday life.
Tick, tock.
His time is creeping up around the corner, and as far as he’s heard, the footsteps he had registered previously, stopped several moments ago. So, he shrugs yet another time, before he pushes the door to the studio open and steps into the warm comfort of familiarity. Little does he expect to be interrupted by the sight of somebody else, causing him to freeze in place for a few moments before he steps easily over plain flooring. “ Are you alright?” He arches a brow. Considering the male is lying on the floor, he feels like he has to ask, rather than barge in and drive him out. It isn’t the way he does things.
“ ‘Ya need anything?”