A/N: I felt compelled to write High School Musical fic after finishing our run of the stage version at my high school (I played Ms. Darbus). And because this category is seriously lacking in femslash. Sorry it's so short.
Love at First Sight
by Miss Prince
Kelsi first met Sharpay in Kindergarten, and even then they were in different leagues. Sharpay was the sort of person who seemed like a spotlight was shining on her at every moment, drawing all eyes and lifting her above everyone else. The other kids hung on her every word. Kelsi, on the other hand, was almost unbearably shy, sitting in the corner coloring alone and writing simple poems on the back of her alphabet exercises. She was easy to overlook.
One day, Sharpay sat down next to her. They had just finished a lesson on capital Q's, and Kelsi had finished early enough to write a couple lines on the back before she had to hand in the paper. The pretty little blonde girl asked what she was doing, and Kelsi sheepishly turned her paper so she could read it. Sharpay thought it sounded like a song.
That was it: the sum of their grade-school interaction. The next year they ended up in different classes, and from then until high school the most they saw of each other was the occasional glimpse as they passed in the hallway. But for some reason, although the other children in that Kindergarten class faded from memory as she grew older and apart from them, Sharpay never did. The spotlight that followed her everywhere refused to go out, even in Kelsi's mind.
And when Sharpay got the lead in winter musical their freshmen year, Kelsi was drawn irresistibly to the performance, and she sat in awe in the third row as the little girl she'd never managed to forget morphed into a gorgeous, commanding young woman with a voice that made Kelsi want to melt. On Monday she'd joined the drama club, and on Tuesday she'd started to write a musical.
Kelsi went on to suffer mild humiliation and great disappointment at Sharpay's hands – until Troy and Gabriella stole the leads out from under the Evans twins and knocked Sharpay off her pedestal. There was a period of anger and frustration, but finally someone – Ms. Darbus, Kelsi assumed – talked some sense into her, and Sharpay threw herself into her smaller role.
Kelsi spent long hours in the rehearsal room with Sharpay, and together they sculpted the songs into perfect, magical things, which would bewitch the audience just as Sharpay's first high school performance had bewitched Kelsi. The two girls became closer, became friends. But music is deep and elemental, and sharing music together was like baring their souls. They watched each other a little too long, stood a little too close, and smiled in a way that was, perhaps, a little too personal for friendship.
Sharpay kissed Kelsi behind Troy Bolton's house after the first performance of Twinkle Towne, commanding but gentle, hands sliding through soft hair, and Kelsi kissed back, lips soft and pliant beneath the blonde's. And Kelsi realized she was in love with Sharpay; she had been for a long time.
Even in Kindergarten, it was love at first sight.