Attitude en pointe, balançoire, attitude à la seconde, chassé, sauté, ballon, grand jeté, breath in, breath out, breath in, breath out, keep steady, keep time, keep focus.
In one last swift move, thin yet strong pale arms captured the girl as she propelled her body into the air and lifted her form above his blond haired head. His blue eyes sparkled, gazing into green ones. The movements stopped and loud cheering from the only other occupant in the room errupted, clapping, and calls of, "Simply beautiful, Sakura-chan!" and "That was incredible, Fai-san!" echoed through the room as the music on the CD player faded out. The blond man placed the girl back onto the padded flooring and they hugged, another rehearsal well done. He walked to the CD player to pop out the CD before it continued on into the next track.
"Thank you, Tomoyo-chan," Fai practically sang, pleased with how he felt after he rehearsed.
He looked at Sakura with a smile as she removed her ratted out point shoes and threw them into a bag of at least twenty others. She smiled back at the man, tying the bag closed and ready to put away until tomorrows rehearsals. She then pulled out her phone, turning it back on. Her biggest pet peeve, she discovered over her years of ballet classes, was when one of the dancer's phones was on during their rehearsals and rang with new phone calls, text messages, and e-mails. Therefore, she turned hers off, as did Fai and even Tomoyo, respecting her wishes. Sakura noticed she had two missed calls from her brother, Touya, and a new voicemail. She listened then groaned, deleting the message to get rid of the annoying icon in the upper corner of the screen. Even if she had listened to the voicemail five times, her phone would still alert her that it was new.
"What's wrong, Sakura-chan?" Fai asked to girl, packing away his own shoes and taking off his sweaty shirt, exposing his thin yet muscular frame, muscles moving underneath as he moved to unpack a small towel, clean tank top and sweater out of his bag, setting them out onto the floor along with the sweaty t-shirt he had just removed. Tomoyo's violet eyes shared the same question as the man.
He wiped the excess sweat off of his form before deciding to continue rehearsing after the girl left, repacking the tank top and sweater and going to stretch out his legs on the barre along the mirror, still shirtless, as Sakura replied, "My big brother can't make it to the dress rehearsal tomorrow! And I was so excited to see him there too!"
She looked close to crying and she threw her cell phone at the bag packed with point shoes. She hadn't seen her brother in a long while since they had went their seperate ways and her being in both college and the dance academy did not help her to plan her time for her brother. She always seemed to be busy when he was free and he was busy when she was free. The only time they were both free was when they were sleeping and for both their occupations, they needed their sleep. Sakura was always paranoid that if she sleep even a few minutes less than the eight hours of sleep she required of herself, she would pass out when she was dancing. Fai had tried to tell her that she was just over-reacting, knowing that she wouldn't, seeing as he always got at most six hours of sleep a night. Sakura was a wonderful girl though.
"That's too bad," Tomoyo sighed, she was also hoping to see Sakura's brother. She and Sakura had been friends since high school and Touya was a wonderful brother and friend. "Oh! You reminded me that I forgot to ask my brother to come tomorrow!"
"Tomoyo-chan, you have a brother?" Fai wondered aloud, having worked with the girl for at least three years and never knowing she had a brother.
She giggled, "Yes, an elder brother. Though he is usualy too interested in his martial arts competitions to bother with the shows I work in, but not this time! There isn't a competition for at least a month and he can't get away this time!" Her eyes sparkled with a devilish shine that made Fai chuckle nervously. Along with the fact that this was one of the first shows that she had worked on mostly by herself. She had been working as an assistant to the lead customer for the past few shows and finally, finally, the lead costumer had let her costume the main characters of this performance and she was so excited.
"Before you get all excited," Fai began, cleaning out all the worst shoes from his own shoe bag and placing them to the side, "You should probably call him to make sure he can come."
Tomoyo laughed nervously and agreed.
"Well, I'm leaving!" Sakura called. She had changed out of her tights and shorts and into a long sleeved pink dress with fur along the cuffs and seams and a brown sleeveless, woven vest on the outside. Her legs were covered in brown boots and her brown hair covered head was snuggled into a brown, cream, and pink beanie with a little ball of fur on the top, matching the fur on her dress. One could tell she was prepared for the winter, unlike Fai, who usually only dressed in a tank top and thin sweater with a pair of jeans. The cold didn't effect him much during the day and was even caught wearing flip-flops in the middle of Decemeber down the street on his way to the store a few times.
"Have a good evening, Sakura-chan!" the blonde man called changing back into his sweaty t-shirt. He wanted to get his jumps perfect before the dress rehearsal tomorrow. Tomoyo and Sakura had endlessly told him that they were perfect, but he wasn't so sure of himself. Practice makes perfect, even if perfect doesn't exist.
"See you tomorrow!" Tomoyo called, hugging the girl before she left then running back to grab her cell phone and call her brother. "Fai-san, would you rather me talk outside?" she asked the man, as he lowered himself onto the floor into a split.
"I don't mind, Tomoyo-chan," he said, smiling sweetly to the girl. The collar of his shirt was worn and stretched so it fell in front of his form when he leaned forward in her direction, exposing his slightly sweaty chest to the younger girl, causing her to blush a little. He didn't notice as he turned around to stretch away from the mirror, bending over to touch his toes. This didn't help Tomoyo as her innocent eyes were pulled right to his ass. She turned around to look out the window, blushing madly.
"Focus, Tomoyo, focus! Call your brother and don't look at Fai!" she whispered to her reflection in the window, mentally slapping herself, pretending to preoccupy herself with fixing her long, black hair in the reflection of the glass before opening her phone.
"Did you say something?" Fai called, moving to the far side of the room, getting ready to launch into his first jump.
"Nothing, Fai-san, nothing," she called back, scrolling to her brother's name in her phone's contact list and pressing the "call" button. She held the device to her ear and waited for him to pick up as she gazed at the blond man, watching Fai do flawless leaps into the air.
The man was truly beautiful.
Elbow, jab, knee strike, jab, round house, block, block, jab, elbow, breath, breath, breath, focus.
Arms up to his chest, fists in front of his face, he ducked under a punch from the woman in front of him before aiming to jab her in the stomach. She turned, moving around him to strike him with her palm in the back of his head. He ducked again, ready to swipe his foot under her legs as she jump and kicked him in the chest, knocking him to the ground. He rolled out of the way before she could strike again and with the ringing of the bell, they both stopped and turned to the door of the building. The woman, not recognizing the pair, an elderly man and young boy, most likely his son, standing in the doorway, welcomed them.
"Good evening! Welcome to Souma's Martial Arts Academy! I'm Souma, is there anything I can help you with?" she questioned the two, her dark eyes sparkling. She loved new students.
"Oi, Souma! Where'd you put my water bottle!" the man who was sparring with her called.
She smiled at the two in the door way before turning to him, "Stop being stupid, Kurogane, it's right where you left it!" She pointed to the counter and there sat a water bottle with a dragon swirling around it. Souma turned back around, short, dark, brown hair pinned into a pony-tail swished slightly with the movement, and she apologized to the two before leading them to her office in the back of the building.
As the two disappeared into the office, Kurogane spotted his cell phone with red-brown eyes trying to migrate south for the winter while he took a drink of water from the bottle. It vibrated with an incoming call, scooting closer and closer to the edge of the counter until it almost fell before he swiftly grabbed it and flipped it open, holding onto his ear, forgetting to check to see who it was.
"Hello?" he grunted into the phone. He hated talking to people over the phone, but it was the fastest way of communicating.
"Kurogane?" an eager and familiar voice called out. He could sense the smile on the other end of the line.
"Tomoyo-hime?" he said.
"Ah, Kurogane, how many times have I told you to stop calling me that!" Tomoyo whined on the phone.
Kurogane grinned, "That'll always be your name to me," he said. He heard a puff of air as she sighed.
"Fine," he could see her pouting.
"Why the call?"
"Are you busy tomorrow?" she asked, hope filling her vocal chords, "The dress rehearsal for the academy's winter performance is tomorrow night and I'd really like if you went! It's the first show I did almost completely on my own!" She remembered all the nights she spent in the costume room, sewing various tu-tus and coats, dying fabrics in the kitchen turned tie-dye center, and ironing fabrics.
"Ehh..." Kurogane thought about it. He wasn't really a big fan of ballet and though he did love his sister and knowing she was almost as good as a professional costumer, he still would rather not go. "I don't know, Tomoyo-hime..." he trailed.
"It-it's alright if you don't go! It's just that it's..." she trailed off also, not knowing what to say. Disappointment dripped in her voice.
He thought about it as he ran a large, tan hand through his short, spikey, black hair. He hasn't seen her work in motion since he came back from China at least a few years ago when she was helping the drama club at her high school with the costumes for their production of Alice in Wonderland. He had been so busy with competitions and practice, he barely got to see his sister anymore. But it was ballet. Dancing, prancing, fairy dust, ballet. But then, it was also his sister, his sweet, wonderful, little hime, sister.
"Kurogane?" Tomoyo echoed into the phone, "Are you still there? Kuroooganeee?"
"Huh?" he grunted, not realizing that there hadn't been any interaction for a few minutes. He reached for the small towel in his back pack and wiped his face clean of sweat.
"Will you please come?" she asked again.
He sighed, for his sister, "Of course I'll be there, Tomoyo-hime."
"Thank you so much, Kurogane!" she chimed happily. He heard a voice in the background but could not distinguish the words. "He said he'll be there!" she sang to the voice, who responded back, still a mumble to Kurogane.
"Who was that?" Kurogane asked, curious.
"Oh, just one of the performers I'm working with," she replied, "I have to go. He's about to leave and I'm not about to be left in this building with Yuuko," she shuddered on the other end of the phone and there was a low wind chime of laughter in the background.
"Bye, hime," he said.
"Good night, Kurogane," Tomoyo said, hanging up the phone.
Kurogane closed his phone at the dial tone. He went into the practice room to practice his round house kicks before heading out of the academy to his car, ready to go home for a relaxing shower.
"Practice makes perfect!" Souma always told him.
He snorted, a round house kick being launched almost knocking over the practice dummy as he thought about that saying.
Perfect doesn't exist.
The next night, Kurogane went to pick up his sister from the dance academy building. He didn't know weither or not to dress up, so he pulled on a black, button up shirt and tucked it into a pair of dark jeans and loafers. A thick blazer was thrown in the back seat of his car. When he glanced outside of the window, he was glad that he had pulled on something nice because his sister looked absolutely stunning in her dress.
It was dark purple with long sleeves, a high collar that was bottoned up from the wasit up, a thick black belt tightened around her to express her figure and draped down into three layers and at the ends of each layer, little strings of black hung, the longest layer ending at half of her calves, the rest of her legs covered in black boots with an inch of heel. Her arms were tucked into a thin, black blazer, similar to that of a male's, but shorter, ending between her waist and hips, also shaped to outline her curves. A small black top hat adorned her head with a purple ribbon tied around it with the assistance of a headband. Her long black hair hung in curls around her body. She was definetly Kurogane's little hime.
The man was too focused on his sister to notice another male was standing with her until he too got into the car. His sister hopped into the passenger's seat next to Kurogane, leaning over to kiss her brother on the cheek before clipping in her seatbelt.
"Kurogane, brother, this is my friend Syaoran," she said, gesturing to the back seat to the brown haired, brown eyed boy.
He sat nervously, but reached out to shake Kurogane's hand, "It's nice to meet you, Kurogane-san."
Kurogane reached back to take the hand and shook it, nodding to the boy as if repeating the statement. He turned back around to continue driving, according to Tomoyo's directions to the performance hall. Once they parked not to far from the hall, they were early as Tomoyo wanted to go backstage really quick and wish everyone luck, so they got a really good spot and free parking. Inside the hall, Tomoyo showed the woman at the ticket booth the pass she had and the two males followed suit, going into the auditorium.
"Go find seats and I'll be right back. I'm going back stage!" Tomoyo called, running to a door, exiting the auditorium to go into the wings of the stage and to the back.
"Wish Fai-san good luck for me!" Syaoran called after her and a faint call of "Okay!" met their ears.
A man on a violin stood on the stage in front of the curtains, playing familiar classical tunes and Christmas instrumentals as people filled into the area. They quickly found seats, Kurogane setting his blazer down on the seat next to him for Tomoyo and Syaoran sat on the other side of the blazer so that the girl can sit in between them.
"So, who do you know in the performance?" Kurogane asked, after a long period of silence, attempting to block out the violin. He wasn't really a people person, but he attempted to get along with friends of Tomoyo's so that she was never upset with him.
"My roommate, uh, Fai-san," Syaoran said, a bit surprised at the sudden conversation, "Who do you know?"
"Just my sister..." Kurogane said. "What do you mean by roommates? Are you guys in college?"
"Ah, I am but he isn't. He's older than me and it was the only place available closer to the school. We live in an apartment about a mile from the college."
"What do you study?"
"Archeology," Syaoran said, you can sense some pride in his response and his brown eyes lit up. He was really serious about this major.
Kurogane smirked, he liked this kid. He nodded and turned his attention to the stage as the man stopped playing the violin and was testing the microphone. He spotted the shadowed figure of Tomoyo briskly walking back towards them. Syaoran waved to get her attention and she squeezed through people to get to her seat. Syaoran and Kurogane had picked the best seats in the entire hall.
The man announced the performance and walked off the stage. The faint tapping of the composer in the orchestra pit was heard through the silence and the music started, the curtains raising and the dancers began their performance.
After about an hour of performance, there was a brief intermission and it continued. Towards the end there was a scene, one would guess to call it, with just a male and female dancing a duet piece. Kurogane was really impressed with the costumes for this performance, each with much detail and exactly the correct fit for each performer. Kurogane leaned into his sister and with a very low whisper, he asked, "You really made all of these by hand?"
She muffled a giggle in her hand, "Mostly. Just a little help from my mentor."
"They're incredible!" he said, gasping as the male on stage tossed the ballerina into the air, spun and caught her without breaking a sweat. "Who's that girl? Is that Sakura-chan?"
"Yes," Tomoyo smiled, admiring her best friend on stage.
"She's grown a lot."
Tomoyo smiled and looked at Syaoran, seeing how he enjoyed the performance and she could see that he only had eyes for Sakura. She smiled sweetly at his gaze. Love at first sight was real. She couldn't wait to tell Sakura later. She turned back to her brother, leaving Syaoran to his stare. "The man on stage is my friend, Fai-san. He was the one with me yesterday," Tomoyo informed. "Don't tell any other dancers, but I think he's my favorite!"
Kurogane gave a little glare to the male on stage as Tomoyo playfully punched his arm, "Not like that!"
He smirked and again turned his gaze to the stage, looking at this "Fai-san." He moved with grace, flowing around Sakura like water around a rock in a river. His foot steps as he leaped and praced on the gloss wooden floor barely gave any more noise than a snowflake landing did. The music went incredible well with this part. The blond hair, neatly pulled back and held with various hair pins and hair stray to keep from falling into his face. The costume Tomoyo had designed for him was a full body white leotard, sewn with intricate designs on the legs and didn't leave much to the imagination between his thighs. Over the top of the leotard, which was completely white, was a light coat, equally as detailed. All of it was colored in blues, greys, black and white with hints of gold in between. The colors of the costume brought out the bright blues of his eyes, which Kurogane could even see from his seat in the audience. A content smile was on Fai's face the entire performance. He looked content, peaceful, happy. He wore black over his feet, but Kurogane didn't know if they were socks or shoes or what. Tomoyo later informed him on what they were.
Syaoran still looked up on the beauty of Sakura. He brown hair was was pulled back also, but with a blue ribbon, matching the blue of Fai's costume, and detailed with white and silver and gold swirls and snowflakes. Her dress was that of the plain tutu you see ballerinas wear in children's books, but in the same colors, and the tutu part of the costume was in the shape of a snowflake, as you could see when Fai lifted her at a certain angle. Her white point shoes were new, and untampered like freshly fallen snow.
The lights were blue, giving their skin an odd tinge of color but other wise fit in. At the end of performance, Sakura leapt high into the air with all of her might and Fai caught her, landing into a lunge and holding her body above his head, their eyes gazed deep into each other and they leaned in for a kiss but before the audience could see if they kissed or not, the curtains clsoed and the music faded off.
The crowd cheered, begging for more. Many people stood, Tomoyo and Syaoran included. Kurogane clapped, but slowly, a little stunned. All of a sudden, he was a bit more interested in ballet. Or rather, he was bit interested in a certain blond ballerino.
Perfect did exist.
Hello, owls:
Wow, I haven't written fanfiction in years. So long that I forgot my old password and fanfiction won't even send me a reset email (xtremekiiwii was my old account). This is my first fanfiction in years, plus my first Tsubasa Chronicle fiction, and being an AU. I really hope you all like it. I really look forward to writing and keeping it up. Fai is such a wonderful character. I wrote the plot, it should be around nine chapters and an epilouge. Also, please excuse any if at all spelling errors, my spelling can be terrible. I've been working on a laptop without Microsoft Word and it's awful! When I get back onto a computer with Word I'll check through and fix them.
Also note; I'm not sure if the ballet terms are correct, having not taken an type of ballet class in 12 years. I found the terms on Wikipedia. Wikipedia is beautiful.
Please and review and tell me what you think! I'll post the next chapter next week. :)
- Civetta
Word count: 3,769