jars of it - james chao
"I wanna dance with you all night, when its dark until its bright"
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( syn. ) james is a famous choreographer and all you've ever wanted to do is dance. You eventually find a way to sneak your way into some dance lessons.
loosely based off the movie "another cinderella story"
01 | 02
Ever since you were little dancing was your passion. You can recall being 7 years old and watching the music video channel on the television all day long. Being inspired by how serene and carefree the background dancers would look. You would spend so much time trying to mimic the moves of the popstars on your screen.
You remember begging your parents to go to dance lessons after you met a girl at school who told you about her dance class. At your young age, you didn't understand that those classes cost money. Money that your family didn't exactly have. You sulked for days on end.
As you got older the passion for dance never went away. It transformed into something different. Dance became a solace for you. Something that could clear your mind from the everyday stress. Something you could turn to as a way to turn your mind off.
One day you saw a job listing for a dance studio in the town over. In your head it was the best of both worlds. Everything you've ever asked for. Getting to step foot in a dance studio was your dream, and getting paid while doing it?? You were determined to get this job.
In the weeks leading up to the job you researched everything about the company from the famous dancers that have come out of the studio to learning the owner's whole life story. You spent hours creating and practicing a routine that could show off your strengths. Sure, maybe you didn't have the experience that the rich girls who attended the dance studio did, but you knew deep down this job was yours.
And that it was, because you were the only one who showed up to the interview.
What the ad failed to tell you was the “vacancy within the company”, was a custodial position.
Your job was to clean the dance rooms and mirrors after the classes ended. You were essentially cleaning up after the spoiled brats that attended the classes here. You knew not all the people that attended the classes were trust fund brats, but you've dealt with enough intentional spills and careless litter to grow a disdain for the girls that attend the classes on a regular basis.
Yeah sure, maybe some of it was jealousy because they got to actually attend classes here and you were stuck cleaning mirrors.
As tiring as the job is, there is one reason you stayed.
James Zhao.
Well more specifically. You stayed because on your first week on the job, you found an unused dance room. When you asked your boss about it he said they stopped using it since the ventilation broke and the glass wall was installed improperly. They never bothered to get it fixed and now use it as a makeshift storage room. This abandoned dance room just so happened to reside right next to the practice room of the one and only, James Zhao.
You knew of him before landing the job. Your extensive research of the company showed you that he was one of the company's most esteemed choreographers. He'd won countless competitions and all his students would testify to how amazing of a teacher he was. You never actually saw a picture of him but you never in a million years would have thought thee #1 dance instructor James Zhao would be your age??
All this to say, since the mirror wasn't installed right, it worked as a kind of window into his dance room. And the best part is, you couldn't be seen from the other side.
You actually found this out one day when your boss asked you to get some electrical tape that they had stored in the room. You were stopped in your tracks when you were met with a full class of about 30 people staring right at you. Except they weren't really staring at you.. More like through you. You rushed to apologize until you realized they couldn't hear you, and once you began walking towards the middle of the room and their eyes stayed planted in the same spots you realized they also couldn't see you. In fact all their eyes were unwavering in their gaze towards their instructor.
James just had that effect on people. His energy was just infectious and that magnetic presence only grew once he would dance. At least, that's how you felt whenever you would sit in that room during your break just to get a chance to watch his choreos.
That's how it started out. You would purposefully time your breaks to whenever James had a class. You knew you could never tell your boss, or anyone really. Because you were essentially attending a class that would have actually cost you your whole paycheck. At first you would reason, it's not like you were following along with his instructions. You were merely observing, soaking up all the knowledge.
But then it got to the point where you would go home to recreate a dance and you would hit a wall. You would try to think back to how James would do it and it just wasn't clicking in your brain. As the moves in his choreos became more intricate you could no longer simply watch from your place behind the glass.
So you began to get cocky.
You started wearing dance clothes under your uniform. You would follow along with James’s instructions and would rush to make yourself presentable by the time your break would end. You knew at this point you were being careless. This job was your one way into a world you've always dreamed of being a part of, and you were putting it in jeopardy. So, you were very careful and particular with your little secret to ensure no one could find out.
-
James wasn’t the kind of person who missed details.
It was part of what made him good at what he did. Timing, precision, the way a shoulder sat just slightly too high on the fifth count. He noticed everything. Or at least, he liked to think he did. So when something felt off, it lingered. At first, it was small.
The storage room door.
It never sat quite right in its frame, but he knew exactly how far it usually stayed open. He would walk by it everyday to get to his designated dance room and it always bothered him how the door was never closed properly. Opened just enough to leave a sliver of darkness visible from his view when he would walk by. One afternoon after leaving a class, his eyes flickered toward it out of habit.
Closed.
Huh. odd, but probably nothing.
A few days later there was another instance that kinda threw him off. This time, it wasn’t the storage room door but his dance room mirror.
Or … more so, the reflection
He was facing the class, correcting a student’s posture when something shifted in his peripheral vision. A flicker like movement that didn’t belong to the thirty bodies in front of him. James turned his head slightly, gaze dragging toward the glass wall. Everything looked normal.
Rows of dancers. Perfect alignment. No one out of place.
Still something about it felt delayed. Like a reflection that had caught up a second too late.
“Again from the top,” he said, sharper than intended.
The music restarted. The room moved in sync. But this time, James watched the mirror more than his students.
By the end of the week, James made the decision to further investigate his suspicions. He decided once class ended today we would take a look into the room next door. As he wrapped up today's session he made his way over to his bag and a few students followed.
It was normal after class for a few students to hang back and ask him any lingering questions about what they learned that day. But once the room cleared he gathered his things and made his way next door.
As he slowly opened the door, nothing stood out to him. He'd been in here a few times to get supplies but even from his few visits there there wasn't anything in particular that could answer his questions. That's when he realized he didn't know what it was he was looking for exactly. All he knew was there were multiple little inconsistencies that didn't add up.
Standing now in the dark abandoned classroom, he reluctantly began to convince himself there was nothing really out of the ordinary. All that looked back to him in the dark room was a bunch of boxes and shelves full of cleaning supplies. He was just simply in his head. Something that happened more times than he'd like to admit.
He spins on his heels and is on his way out of the room, when a particular glare from the floor sticks out to him. It was small and practically imperceptible.
Footprints.
James begins to walk around so the the sun catches the glare better from the position he was looking at the floor. Now that he was looking at it from a different angle, it was unmistakable. Footprints all over the dance floor.
Now James knew this room was made to be a dance classroom but to his knowledge, it was never actually used for dancing. These footprints puzzled him. He can't recall when this room has even been used in general, how could these footprints have been made?
Because this wasn’t random. And it definitely wasn’t nothing.
James exhaled through his nose.
“Think,” he muttered under his breath, though there was no one there to hear it.
He stepped back toward the footprints again, studying them more deliberately now. If someone had been coming in here unnoticed, they were doing it in a way that avoided obvious disruption. Still, assumptions were dangerous. He knew that better than most.
There were a dozen reasonable explanations he could force this into if he wanted to ignore it. Cleaning staff, maintenance, a forgotten use of the room. But none of them explained the repetition. None of them explained the pattern.
James stood there for a long moment, unmoving, eyes still tracing the faint impressions across the floor as if they might rearrange themselves into something logical if he just looked long enough.
They didn’t.
Instead, the conclusion settled in quietly.
If someone was coming in here then they were doing it on purpose.
And if they were doing it on purpose, they would come back.
James slowly turned his attention toward the room again, this time with something sharper behind his expression.
If there was a pattern, it meant there was timing.
And if there was timing, it could be controlled.
He looked toward the storage room door, his mind already moving ahead of the situation.
Whatever was happening here, he didn’t have enough information yet. But he would. He just needed a way to catch it in the act.
James straightened fully, brushing a hand through his hair as he made a silent decision in his head.
Tomorrow, he wouldn’t just be watching.
He’d be waiting.
And whatever was leaving these traces, would start to make sense.
authors note: a little short because i'm hoping to do a part 2 if you guys like it!! thanks again for all the love on my homesick fic u guys are amazing. talk soon!! ALSO GREENGREEN SOON WHOS HYPED?