A soft haze of stage lights clung to the rehearsal room, thick with the scent of sweat, resin, and something sweeter—her perfume. The speakers still echoed the last beat, but he didn’t move. Bang Chan stood there, breath caught in his chest, watching her sway through the mirrors, unraveling choreography like a spell she barely knew she was casting.

There was something chaotic in the way she danced. Unpredictable. Like a spark that never settled. She spun, launched herself into the steps with a reckless joy that made gravity seem optional. He should be thinking of counts and clean lines, but all he could feel was his pulse, and all he could smell was her. That perfume—wild, dizzying, impossible to name.

He leaned against the mirrored wall, sweat cooling on his neck. Her laugh—sharp, unfiltered—cut through the room like a match strike. It stirred something in him he hadn’t named yet. Not until now.

He wasn’t immune. Not to the way her fingertips lingered after adjusting his shoulder in a routine. Not to the way she threw herself into movement like it might carry her somewhere better. Not to the way his skin burned days after her touch.

"You're driving me insane," he murmured, half to himself.

Her gaze caught his in the mirror, a flicker, quicksilver. She turned back to the music, but something had shifted.

Every time she passed him, it felt like gravity reversed. He didn’t know where the floor was anymore. She was undoing him in small doses: a tilted smirk, the slide of her hand across his jaw in one improv session, her palm on his chest like she could feel the rhythm there. Maybe she could.

She left a trail of chaos behind her, and he followed, willingly.

By the end of the night, breathless and undone, he was no longer sure who led. But he knew what he wanted.

“Just… stay,” he said, voice rough, heart bare. “Make me forget which way is up.”