A/n Who loves the Step Up movies? I know I do! I've been dying to do a story like this for a long time! My favorite character of all the movies was Moose! What about you guys? ;) Okay, enjoy!
A lot of people hate to fight. They hate danger and loud noises and bright lights. I think those people just hate to live. Dancing is like eating, breathing, sleeping, and winning the lottery all at once to me. I would dance forever to the rhythm of the world if life didn't get in the way. I would scream and slide and be alive every second of every day. I would dance my whole life away. And I wouldn't dream of doing all this dancing without my family, Inazuma.
Inazuma is my dance crew, it means lightning in Japanese. That's where we're all originally from. Now we all live on the streets of Southern California. Well, most of us live on the streets. My boyfriend Sai actually lives with his family in a townhouse, which is better off than the rest of us. Ha, a family. The mere thought of my own makes me laugh. A family is supposed to support you no matter what, but when I dropped out of med school, my family dropped me. My best friend in the world, Shikamaru, who had grown up with me, dropped out of college as well. We both just wanted the lives we dreamed about as little kids.
Shikamaru and I never cared about money or safety or our education. All we wanted to do was dance with no one to stop us.
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"Ino, baby, are you even listening to me?" The ever patient Sai asked me. I looked up at him with squinted eyes and smiled. The sun was practically blinding me, but I could still see him. Dark and mysterious, silhouetted against the sun's backdrop. It was moments like this that I remembered why I fell for him in the first place. But when he opened his mouth, I forgot sometimes.
"Mhm." I nodded my head with an agreeable smile but Sai just looked down at me with a somewhat tired expression.
"No, you weren't." He stated matter-of-factly. I resisted the urge to huff and roll my eyes and continued walking down the street with him, brushing hands but not actually holding them. "I said, did you finish packing?"
At the moment he said that I slipped my hand into his and pulled him to a stop. Sai looked confused but I lead him to a bench and we sat down together.
"Why do I get the feeling something bad is about to happen?"
I looked up into Sai's piecing and endless eyes then looked back down at my lap. I loved Sai, I really did. I just didn't know if I was in love with him. And dear Lord, I was almost positive I wasn't willing to give up my whole life for him! We had been dating for about a year and a half, and just last week Sai asked me to move up North with him to pursue our dreams of acting professionally. Just us.
Damn, it had sounded like a pretty sweet deal at the time. Pack up what small stuff I had and dance all day and night with my man. Fun, right? But as the week went on and I realized this could be my last week here, a strong wave of nostalgia punched me right in the face and made me really think about what I was doing.
"It's not bad Sai," I put my other hand over his and forced myself to look back into his eyes. "I want you to be happy. You know that right? And I really, really hope you get your dream. I want you to go show a couple of famous snobs what you can do, and turn that whole city around, okay?"
"Why does this sound like a goodbye?" I took a deep breath and when I let it out, I could feel my freedom running through my veins. It was a feeling I had missed for far too long being with Sai. He was a good guy, but I hated belonging to someone. Having someone keeping tabs on me and controlling me. I needed the old Ino back, and look out world, here she was.
"This is goodbye, Sai." I reached into my pocket and pulled out my train ticket for tomorrow evening. Sai's eyes widened as I slipped the piece of paper into his hand. "I can't leave my city, you know that. I found myself on these streets and made a life for myself. I'm not leaving it all behind. I love you, and really hope you're happy and get to dance forever."
Sai just looked at me with eyes void of emotion. He held me by the back of my head and gently pressed his lips to my forehead. He sat there like that for what felt like an eternity. Tears fell from my eyes onto his lap in a steady stream. I did love Sai, I just wasn't in love with him. He was part of my family here, and losing him would be hard, but not as hard as losing everything else.
When he pulled back his eyes were filled with tears and a warmth I hadn't seen in months.
"We had a good thing, Ino. Stay out of trouble." Sai carefully placed the train ticket back into my pocket before walking away. I watched him until I couldn't see him anymore. And it was a straight street, so I ended up watching for a damn long time. But once he was gone, it was like I had shed skin I had been wearing for far too long. And suddenly I needed to dance.
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"Music!" I barked as I stepped through the doors of my crew's loft. I knew one member or another would be by the stereo system. And sure enough, as soon as I stepped foot onto our dance floor the room was vibrating with a steady bass.
"Ino what are you doing?" A voice from way too close asked. I turned my head slightly to the left and almost bumped noses with Shikamaru. I knew he was only so close so I could hear him over the music, but I still felt my face heat up. I spun away from him and dropped to the floor in the splits then popped back up and let the music take over. Shikamaru just watched me with his arms crossed.
Soon enough more and more people from Inazuma joined me in free styling. It felt good, the way our bodies all moved together, never bumping into each other. We fed off of each other's energy and I got a little choked up being with them. How had I ever let the thought of leaving this place cross my mind? This was where I belonged and was needed. Shikamaru and I had founded this crew and I would never think of abandoning them again.
I threw my arms over my head and spun like a top on one foot. Oh did I mention? I used to be a ballerina. Now that was dancing that my parents approved of. I did ballet every morning before school and late into the night for most of middle and high school. Eventually their rules and conformity began to suffocate me and I quit, but I never lost the skills. I found new and interesting ways to apply them to my street dancing every day.
When my other foot finally landed on the floor after a good five minutes of spinning, the music stopped and I dropped to the ground with the rest of my crew, holding all of my body weight with my arms and putting my legs in the air. It was just something we did at the end of every dance to remind ourselves that no matter how we danced, at the end of the day it was all for one and one for all.
Everyone stood up laughing and high fiving and I joined in when suddenly a strong hand grabbed me by the arm and pulled me aside. I blew a piece of white-blonde hair out of my face and looked up at Shikamaru. He looked back at me with hard eyes and I couldn't help but shrink a little under his gaze.
Yes, Shikamaru was my best friend, but he was also my self-appointed body guard or something. It could get a little annoying, but he's also saved my life one more than one occasion. I owed my life and so much more to the boy in front of me, and he knew I was keeping something from him. It hurt both of us. I looked down at his sneakers, the slowly up his dark skinny jeans, white tank top, and finally got sucked into his thoughtful brown eyes.
"Where's Sai?" Shikamaru saw me leave with him, and it probably looked kind of sketchy when I returned alone. No one knew about our plan to leave tomorrow, I liked to leave goodbyes until the last second.
"Sai? Hmmmm…" I pretended to be deep in thought, but I knew Shikamaru wasn't buying my innocent act. I let out a puff of air before letting the words spill out of my mouth. "Northern California. Well, at least he's going to be. He's probably packing now." I confessed.
Shock instantly registered on Shika's face. He was never Sai's biggest fan, but as my boyfriend and best friend, they certainly tried to get along. Most times, it didn't really work out and they fought, but Shikamaru was obviously affected by this news.
"He's going where?" Shikamaru suddenly shouted in my face. I cringed, not used to his yelling. Everyone looked over at us by Shikamaru put up a hand and waved them all away, backing me into a corner.
"Ino, what are you talking about?" He asked in a lower voice now. I was glad he wasn't yelling anymore, but that didn't make the confession any easier.
"Sai and I… we were both going to North Cali tomorrow to get jobs as dancers." There, I said it. I know I probably didn't have to tell him that I was planning on going to, but when it came to me and Shika it was never better to leave things unsaid. If anyone saw us at that moment they would've thought I had just punched that pineapple headed genius in the mouth. He looked so horrified and hurt that I reached out and tried to comfort him. He pulled away quickly, but didn't do anything else. He just kept looking at me for an explanation.
That was just like him, to not do anything stupid in the heat of a moment. Anyone else would probably scream 'TRAITOR!' and throw me right out of the loft window, but Shika just waited.
"I'm not going." I said. Shikamaru just looked at me as if for the first time. He never would've expected me to consider doing anything to put my life here in jeopardy, but something about Sai's offer really made me believe I could get a job dancing as much as I wanted. I knew Shika would understand if I explained, but he didn't look like he wanted to hear it right now.
"You better go tell everyone else that he's leaving." Was all he said before walking away. I knew deep down he was just relieved that I was staying, but he was hurt. I knew that too… I backed up against the wall and just breathed in the air of my home. I could almost taste the music and energy in the air. I closed my eyes and planned my speech in my head, because while Inazuma was my family, they could also be as dangerous as a pack of wolves.
A/n When I looked it up, I found two translations of lightning so I just chose one... Yeah I don't really know how to dance or the names of moves, so I'm just gonna describe them, okay?
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