4 Four

"Eli, look!" Ricky excitedly pointed at the television screen. "See, I can do that too!" He said as he started imitating the dance team that was performing.

"Woah!" Elijah clapped with a huge grin on his face, "You almost got it!"

"Bro, I also wanna be a performer when I grow up!" He said excitedly, "But I don't know if mom and dad will let me."

Elijah smiled and ruffled his brother's hair affectionately, "Of course they'll let you."

"Really?" Ricky looked up at him with hopeful eyes.

"Really."

"Then you better do it with me! Oh man, we can be like a duo! Just you and me. Deal?"

"Deal."

Back then when they were just children imitating dance moves on TV, life was like a canvas. They could paint their dreams and imagine a perfect life. A life filled with happiness and everything they ever wanted. Their dreams coming true.

But unfortunately that was all it would ever be.

A painting.

Elijah stared ahead and pretended not to notice Lucas who was walking right next to him. He didn't have to look to the side to know the latter was smirking.

"I saw you yesterday."

Elijah didn't reply and kept walking ahead, ignoring the weird looks people were giving them.

"So..... Did you change your mind?"

"What will I get in return?" Elijah asked suddenly without sparing Lucas a glance. He could tell the latter was quite taken aback with the question.

"Uh... What do you want?"

Elijah smirked.

"I haven't decided yet."

"Wait, so you actually agree?" Lucas blinked.

"I do." Elijah sighed, finally looking at the brunette, "But I still I haven't forgiven you for punching me that day. So you're gonna have to make it up to me."

Lucas narrowed his eyes, "You're taking advantage of the situation, aren't you? Well played. Alright, what do you want?"

"I still haven't decided yet so for now I'll agree to be your partner... as long as you promise you'll do whatever I ask of you when I decide what I want."

"How do I know you're not gonna ask me to do something I can't do?"

"You don't," Elijah shrugged, "That's just a risk you're gonna have to take." He held out his hand, "If you agree, then let's shake on it. I'll keep my end of the bargain, but you must also keep yours. If you don't, well, unfortunately I don't care as much about you or the competition."

Lucas narrowed his eyes, "You're not gonna ask me to make out with another guy or something, right?"

Elijah scrunched his nose up, "Why the fuck would I even do that? That's not something I want to see."

"In that case." Lucas sighed, shaking Elijah's outstretched hand, "It's a deal."

"Great."

"We'll have to go to Mr. Lee to sign you up for dance class."

"Then I'll wait for you by the main entrance after class."

"Sounds like a plan." Lucas smiled, mentally doing a victory dance. After Elijah nodded and proceeded to walk away, Lucas called after him.

"Yo, Elijah." The brunette smiled, "Welcome aboard."

"I hope I don't regret this later." Elijah muttered under his breath before making his way to the cafeteria.

"Hey," Noah beamed once he saw Elijah taking a seat at their booth.

"Hi," The blonde smiled.

"I saw you talking to Lucas in the hallway earlier. I take it you made up your mind?"

"Yeah, I agreed."

Noah grinned, "That's great."

"Yeah… I,uh, I wanted to say thank you. For yesterday."

"Don't mention it," He waved his hand in the air dismissively. “I’ve done nothing.”

"Although right now I don't know if I made the right decision by agreeing to partner with him. He really gets on my nerves sometimes."

Noah chuckled, "That's Lucas for you. You'll learn to get used to it soon enough."

There it was again- the curiosity. It was obvious Noah knew a lot about Lucas. But then again, that was none of Elijah's business. The two began to eat their lunch when a question popped in Elijah's head.

"So, what do you plan to study? If you don't mind me asking."

"No I don't and please stop with the formalities," Noah laughed softly, and Eli couldn’t help but think, he sounds really nice when he laughs. "And as of now I plan to study medicine. It's been a lifelong dream for mine to become a doctor."

Elijah smiled, "So where are you planning to study?"

"Somewhere abroad, hopefully. My parents are always in and out of Canada for work, I might just end up going there. What about you? Do you plan to go abroad?"

"No I'll probably just study here."

For the rest of lunch, none of them opened a book, but they engaged in conversation instead. It was just normal everyday conversation, about school, studies, their teachers, or maybe a new book or a movie. Eli found it to be much more enjoyable than the usual silence between them. After lunch break was over, they walked to class together. Noah was a nice guy, Elijah thought. They had quite a lot in common and they seemed to get along almost seamlessly. Elijah knew he wasn't very good with socializing but strangely enough, it wasn't so bad with Noah. The doe-eyed male was just so friendly and approachable, easy-going and not to mention wise and mature. He was starting to think that one day they could actually become good friends.

After classes, Elijah waited by the main entrance as promised and kept glancing at his watch. Lucas is exactly 17 minutes late, he thought to himself, rolling his eyes. It seemed so typical of someone like him to be late.

A few minutes later, a flustered-looking Lucas emerged from the school doors, hair a little disheveled and a slight smirk on his face. A girl walked out right after him, gently tugging at her skirt, and he winked at her before making his way over to Elijah. The latter looked at him in disgust, trying hard not to think about what he had just gone down.

"What?" Lucas cocked a brow.

"Nothing," Eli found himself already regretting this decision, "Let's just get this over with."

"Elijah Quinn?" Mr. Lee seemed quite shocked. "He's the one?" He looked to Lucas for confirmation.

"Yup," Lucas grinned.

"What a pleasant surprise," He said, looking quite impressed, "From what Lucas told me, you're a pretty good dancer."

Elijah eyed the brunette who just shrugged. "I think so?"

Mr. Lee chuckled, "Alright then. Here's the application," He said, digging out a paper from his desk and handing it to Elijah, "Just fill it in, submit it to me tomorrow and you're in the club! Although since you're a little behind on the group rehearsal for the showcase, I'll have to give you some extra training."

"There's gonna be a group performance?" Elijah asked.

"Yes, and it's compulsory for all the club members to participate in it. As for your routine with Lucas, you guys will have to choreograph it yourselves."

"Oh..." Elijah nodded understandingly. "Okay. I'll fill this in today. Thanks, Mr. Lee."

"Okay, you two get going now." He smiled as he watched the boys leave his office.

"Let’s go to the café so we can discuss some stuff about our routine," Lucas said.

"Now?"

The brunette stared at him blankly, "We have less than a month left to choreograph a full routine, Elijah. So yes, now."

"Alright." The blonde sighed.

"Okay so first we'll have to pick a genre. Should we go for a ballad?"

Elijah shook his head, "I think ballad would go better if it was a solo performance."

"True. Or if it was a duo with a romance theme which... ew no way."

Elijah rolled his eyes, "Then why didn't you get a girl to be your partner?"

"Girls get really annoying during practice. I wasn't planning on doing it with a girl anyway."

"Well a ballad's not gonna work for an all-male duo so how about dupstep?"

Lucas scrunched up his nose, "No fucking way."

"EDM?"

"I literally do that like every time. I'll have to change tactics."

"Well then do you have any better ideas?"

Lucas thought about it for a minute, "How about R&B? We could go for something sexy."

"Really now...?" Elijah sighed.

"No seriously! All it's gonna take is a few hip gyrations here and some pelvic thrusts there, maybe a wink and lip bite, and that win is as good as ours. As the old saying goes, make those ovaries explode, and you can have anything in life." Lucas grinned. "Plus I think that style would suit you. And I'm basically the king of sexy around here. It all works!"

"That's not an actual saying." Elijah pointed out, amused, as he took a sip of bubble tea.

"Who cares?"

Elijah rolled his eyes, "Alright. R&B is fine. What's next?"

"Now we'll have to pick a song."

The two began to look through Lucas's playlist, each wearing one earphone.

"I think this one's good." Elijah stated, slightly nodding his head along with the beat of the song. It had a nice beat with sultry vocals and the lyrics were quite fitting with what they were going for.

"Yeah? I think it's good too. We could go for this more gentleman kind of sexy. Suit and tie and all."

Elijah imagined it and it looked really good in his head. He was actually starting to get a little excited for it, "Are we doing the whole song?"

"I think the audience would get too bored if we do the entire thing. Maybe two minutes of it. We have to leave the crowd wanting more," Lucas pointed out, and Elijah nodded his head in agreement. "It's settled then! I'll work on trimming the song today and we can start practice tomorrow. I'll ask Mr. Lee to let us use the school's dance studio after school. If he doesn't let us then we can always practice at my place. Or yours."

"Your place is fine," After all, Elijah's parents didn't know he was doing this.

"Alright," Lucas shrugged.

"Well... are we done now?"

"Yeah. Oh, we should exchange numbers."

Elijah handed Lucas his phone and the latter did the same. They saved their phone numbers on each other's phones and not long after, they parted ways. Elijah decided to walk home since the weather was nice. Once he got home, he saw his father sitting on the sofa in the living room, looking through a newspaper.

"Where have you been?" His father asked without even looking up.

"Out."

"Out where?"

"Does it matter?"

"You're my son, of course it matters." Elijah almost rolled his eyes at his father's words.

"I was out with a friend. I'll probably be returning late from school every day since we're having an after-school study group," He lied.

His father's eyebrow rose up questionably, "Since when do you do study groups? You're just fine on your own."

"Well it's better than being cooped up at home all day."

"Alright then. Suit yourself. All I want is good grades by the end of the year. You know what you have to do."

"I know."

"Good," He went back to his newspaper and Elijah made his way up to his room, sighing softly. Frankly, he was glad he'd be out of the house some more since he hated being at home. But right now he was just hoping practice would move along peacefully.

Practice was not peaceful at all. It's only just been a week and things were not going smoothly. Elijah and Lucas disagreed on a lot of things and spent most of the time bickering rather than coming up with something useful.

"We're supposed to swing our left arms during this part."

"No it was the right!"

"I precisely remember it being the left."

"Don't you think this move is kinda off?"

"I think it's good."

"I think you're stupid."

"No no no. We should do it like this instead."

"Are you fucking kidding me? That looks ridiculous."

"How many hip gyrations are we gonna have in the first damn minute? This was supposed to be classy."

“Hip gyrations are classy!”

"For fuck's sake you need to stop looking like a fucking rod."

Their insults only got sourer everyday and things were moving along slowly.

"This is so not gonna work," Lucas had his face in his palms as he shook his head.

"There, there," Sam patted his back comfortingly, or more like sarcastically.

"He's so fucking annoying! He keeps disagreeing to everything I say! I'm the pro here, he's supposed to listen to me."

"Maybe you should listen to whatever he has to say." Chris suggested, "You guys are equal partners. You should come up with your ideas together and agree on them."

"I think Chris is right. You guys hate each other too much is all," Alex spoke up, "If you want this to work you're gonna have to learn to agree with each other."

"I tried being nice with him. He's the fucking asshole."

"Well you did punch the shit out of him a few weeks ago. If I were in his place I'd want to punch you in the face 24/7." Sam stated matter-of-factly, making Lucas shoot him a death glare. "Just saying." He shrugged.

Meanwhile, on the other side of the cafeteria, Noah was giving Elijah a knowing look. "I take it practice isn't going very well."

Elijah chuckled, picking at his food, "Understatement of the century."

Over the past week, the two had grown somewhat close. They actually talked during lunch and walked to class together whenever they had the same class. Safe to say Noah was basically the only person in the entire school Elijah felt comfortable with.

"I think you should really try and get along with him. I know you despise him and all but if you guys want things to go smoothly, you'll have to let go of your grudges."

"I can't. He's one of those people that I simply can't stand. Irritable, short-tempered and unbelievably stubborn. And he always just wants things to go his way." Elijah sighed. He really didn't need all this extra stress in his life.

"And yet. At least give it a try. Treat him to lunch some day and try to sort out your differences. Trust me when I say things are never gonna move along if you two don't get along."

"Treat him to lunch..." Elijah snorted.

"Well, it's gonna keep going this way if you don't do something about it. When it comes to Kim Lucas, you're just gonna have to be patient and be the bigger person."

Elijah sighed. It didn't look like there was another choice anyway. "Fine."

"Good," Noah smiled at him, "It'll work out, I'm sure."

"I hope you're right," Elijah slightly tilted his head to the side, "Just out of curiosity, do you also dance?"

"I used to. I wasn't really that passionate about it but it was something I generally enjoyed doing."

"Really? So why don't you dance anymore?"

Noah stayed quiet for a second, "It's just something of the past now, I guess. Plus I can focus on my studies better now."

"Ah, I see." Elijah nodded understandingly, but he couldn't help but feel that it wasn't the whole story.

Elijah walked into the dance studio after school and he saw Lucas sitting on the floor, back slumped against the full-length mirror. He heard Elijah come in but didn't bother to look at him. Practice with Lucas was increasingly becoming the most dreadful time of his day.

"Well? Aren't we gonna practice today?"

"We're never gonna win if it keeps going like this," Lucas muttered, "We're losing precious time and we haven't even choreographed the first half of the song. And I'm not even happy with whatever we choreographed together so far."

Elijah sighed. Honestly, neither was he. He looked at Lucas and thought for a minute. He did promise to keep his end of the bargain. And that included helping Lucas win. As much as he hated the guy, he remembered Noah's words earlier that day and decided to listen to him. What's the point of holding this stupid grudge, anyway?

"Do you wanna take a break today?" He finally said. Lucas looked up at him in disbelief.

"Take a break? People are supposed to take breaks when they've actually accomplished something."

"We're never gonna accomplish anything if we keep going like this." Elijah stated, "And as much as dislike I you, I also want this to work. So I'll try to forget about what you did even though my pride begs me not to."

The brunette just stared at Elijah blankly and the latter just rolled his eyes. He walked over to Lucas and lightly kicked the side of his leg, "Come on. I'll treat you to some coffee. Then we can talk like normal, civilized human beings."