The last notes of the piano and Christine's voice echoed off of the walls and reverberated around them. There was a moment of silence in which Christine tried to catch her breath before Erik turned to her from the piano bench.
"That was lovely as always, my dear," he told her.
"Thank you, Maestro," she looked down at the floor, a blush creeping across her cheeks.
She had always loved to hear him praise her, but she had noticed in the last year that something had changed for her, and lately it didn't take very much at all for her face to turn pink around him.
"And I know that I am not the only one who was highly impressed by your performance the other night," Erik continued. "I heard that de Chagny boy at your dressing room door, the Vicomte, he asked you out to dinner."
A frown passed across her face, but not because Erik had heard their conversation, no - she knew Erik was often in the walls and listened to many conversations, that's just how he was, after all - no, her frown was because of the cheery hopeful tone in which brought it up, a tone much more suited to Meg or Little Jammes gossiping about boys. It didn't suit her Angel of Music, she thought, and she certainly didn't need yet another person trying to push her to go out with someone.
Erik caught her frown before she schooled her face into impassivity.
"Raoul is so silly," she shook her head and rolled her eyes, hoping that Erik wouldn't dwell on this subject - she didn't want to spend her time with him discussing the Vicomte, for Heaven's sake!
Now it was Erik's turn to frown. He was well aware that a large portion of the men who showed up at dressing room doors often had less than wholesome intentions - hence why he tended to listen in on those visitors who showed up for her, just in case one did not take her refusals very well.
"Has he been untoward with you, Christine?" he asked softly.
"No! No, it's not that, it's just-"
How could she explain it to him when it was so muddled in her own mind?
"Raoul has nothing but kind to me. I am just not interested in having dinner with him, that's all. I do not wish to give him the wrong idea," she fidgeted with the fabric of her skirts.
"It is just dinner, Christine, it is hardly a marriage proposal," Erik scoffed. "Besides, is he not an old friend of yours? Surely he just wants to catch up."
Erik worried about Christine. Of course he worried, it was only natural for a mentor to worry over their student - over whether she took too much sugar in her tea, over whether or not she'd disobey and attempt to sing when her throat was sore, over if her nerves would get the best of her in her auditions. But he found he worried over her in other ways too.
Christine was an excellent student. Her dedication to her music was unparalleled, and her tenacity in practicing only grew as time went on. It seemed to him that there was nothing she'd rather do than sing, and while that did make him terribly proud of her, there were times that this worried him too.
Every so often he'd gently remind her that there was nothing wrong taking a day off from practice, that she should go and join her friends who were out shopping, that she needn't spend all her time cooped up with her stuffy old tutor. Christine would just shake her head and laugh and ask him to play the next aria. He loved her complete devotion to her art, but at this rate the poor girl was in danger of becoming a recluse such as himself.
He could not let her succumb to such a fate - there was, after all, absolutely no reason that she needed to hide away from the world. She was too charming, too talented, too beautiful to keep stored away in the Opera House forever. She deserved to go anywhere her heart desired - that so far she only wanted to spend all of her time in voice lessons was surely an oversight on her part. She was going to miss out on some of the sweetest parts of life if she kept insisting on practicing instead of going out! Why, by now all of her friends had had at least one serious relationship, several had even gotten married, and all the while Christine had never even gone out with the same boy more than once! It certainly wasn't due to lack of interest on their part - Christine would sometimes bring up which stagehand or dancer had asked her out and she would flip her hair coquettishly and proclaim that she had turned him down for this reason or that reason and it never failed to bring a smile to his lips to hear her list off the qualities of all the boys that she found boorish or offensive because her list was rather long.
If Christine didn't want to end up as old spinster, she simply had to out more often than she did. After all, she certainly wasn't going to meet anyone standing around here in this old room while he played accompaniment for her singing. That thought was followed by a strange wave of an emotion that he couldn't quite name and didn't want to examine too closely. The point remained - he knew better than anyone that the solitary life was terribly lonely and dismal, and he didn't want for that for her because she deserved so much better. And if it took a push here or there to accomplish that, then that is what would occur. She should go to dinner with the Vicomte.
"We were friends when we fifteen, Erik - that feels like another lifetime ago. He has been in the military, and I have been here - what could there possibly be to catch up on beyond what we already went over last night?"
"Christine," he admonished. "Let the boy take you to dinner just this once. Would it not be nice to get dressed up and eat a fancy meal? I'm sure he'll take you to only the finest of restaurants, that's an opportunity you should not pass up - not everyone gets such opportunities, you know. Erik has not been to a fancy restaurant, probably not since Christine was a very little girl, for he has no one to go with. But Christine - Christine has someone who wishes to take her and she should go just to try it."
It was on the tip of Christine's tongue to say that perhaps Erik did have someone who wanted to go to a fancy restaurant with him, but he continued speaking.
"Unless, of course," he added slowly, not wanting to pressure her. "Unless there was a reason that you did not want to attend dinner with him - you do not have to do anything you do not want to, my dear. You do not have to justify your choices to me, either. I only want what's best for you, and I am merely offering my opinion when I say I think it would be an enjoyable experience for you."
Christine sighed. Oh, she had a reason she didn't want to go out with Raoul, all right. However, it certainly wasn't one she could tell him about. But it also wasn't the kind of reason Erik was likely hinting at - Raoul was nothing but a gentleman and she had no worries over how he might behave with her. It was just-
She didn't see the point in going out with Raoul when she knew she wasn't interested in Raoul, not in that way, not in the way Raoul was hoping. She wasn't interested in any of the boys she'd gone out with before, nor any of the ones she had turned down recently. They were alright, she supposed, but they were nothing special, not to her. She had realized a while back that there was only one person she was truly interested in, but unfortunately that person did not seem to return her affections... Especially since he currently seemed intent on pushing her into the arms of another man.
Christine bit her lip and looked away, willing the tears pricking at the corners of her eyes to stop.
"Do you really think I should go with Raoul?" she asked softly.
"I do," he swiftly replied.
She nodded, sighed, and made her way to the door. Normally she liked to stay a while after her lesson and chat with him, but she was decidedly opposed to the direction this afternoon's conversation was going and she felt it would be better just to end it here. She cast one sidelong glance back at him before she walked through the door - and it was such a wretched and mournful look that he almost recanted his answer. But then she was gone, and it was done, and couldn't quite place his finger on what, exactly, was the cause of this particular strand of sadness that he suddenly found wrapped around himself.