Jikook oneshots

43.Acrobats, artists, and animals🩰

Author: flitter

Link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9443864?view_adult=true

Summary:
A lifetime of dedication and borderline madness, and Jimin snags his second consecutive role as principal ballet dancer. He should be thrilled, insanely satisfied.

If only.

(also: Ballet au with rival dancers Jungkook and Jimin who rise and fall together)

Notes:
"Ballet dancers are a self-chosen elite. To survive and surmount years of disciplinary preparation and seasons of even more arduous performance requires rigid determination and almost mindless self-abnegation. One other factor is difficult to predetermine: without a certain admixture of hysteria -- sometimes masking as self-obsession, sometimes even counterfeiting incipient madness -- performers, at once acrobats, artists, and animals, make little public impression."
- Lincoln Kirstein

Work texts:

Jimin is sure he's not human anymore. He hasn't felt his humanity as far back as he can remember. Bred for ballet, one track mind and limbs of grace, he watches through hardened eyes. If he glares hard enough at the floor-to-ceiling pane of glass that catches every mistake, he might shatter it. Heart worn out, melting and dripping between his ribs, Jimin is a shell of a man.

But for the price he pays – his life for the stage – Jimin slam-dunks his second lead role as his company's headlining male principal dancer. Tonight kicks off their Spring Season at the Metropolitan Opera House. The thin program trembles in his grip and he gazes at his name in bold block print, unashamedly taking up more than half of the program's front page. The curling pride feels iron-hot in his gut, but it's just a shred short of satisfying.

The role of principal dancer comes at an exorbitant price: lost childhood to six day-weeks by the barre, bones decorated with stress fractures, and a contract of selling souls to the hands of chance.

A lifetime of this and his limbs are ready to suspend a body between gravity's affair with the ground.

"Ten minutes! Places!"

Jimin has meditated through his routine every waking second in the past three months. Breathes it in and out, a crawling monster hoarding itself in his flesh. Each muscle twitch is measured and parse, not a millimeter out of line.

The curtains pull back, unhurried and the adrenaline starts pumping. An icy chill sets the stage, puffs of dry smoke swelling into the risers. Jimin stands tall, an elegant line of torso and limbs, and waits for the cue.

In the audience, front row center, Jimin sees him.

Despite the text sent earlier, the sight still freezes in Jimin's chest – a frigid landscape, bare and lifeless. Jungkook sits like he owns the place. He lounges back, raven bangs messy and tousled, a careless arm over the red velvet armrest. He's alone. Smirks right at Jimin and if the lights were any less harsh than blinding white, Jimin would see the honey-lacquered almond eyes that blaze.

But the music waits for no one and when Jimin dances, the symphony plays like they're chasing after him, woodwinds and strings crying out for his grand jeté. Turnout like water, graceful port de bras, Jimin's sinewy physique comes alive like dewy mornings with the choreography.

"That's him," they whisper. "Child prodigy. Heard he bends over to get his roles. Heard everyone wants him."

Jungkook stays silent the whole night, even through the intermission. His eyes crawl along Jimin's skin, a predator on the hunt. Maddening, teasingly, Jungkook knows when to pounce. He could crash it all, make Jimin snap out of reverie and collide with the unforgiving floor, a moment that would end his career. But he stays put. Watches and keeps his goading tucked away.