the prince.
Yao Wang wasn't quite sure what he was doing at the ballet.
It had been a long and complicated story, with Francis and free tickets from someone in the show and some rescheduled appointments and "saving money" all mixed up to end with the small Chinese man sitting in this too-plush red theater chair, wearing a button-down shirt that had been hiding in his closet somewhere (Yong Soo's fault, probably) and nice pants. He felt surely awkward; everyone around him was dressed in blazers and ties and dresses. Tch, he wasn't even sure what ballet was being performed! But it was too late to check now; the house lights had dimmed so all he could see was the vague movement of the head in front of him and the illuminated red curtains brushing the floor of the theater.
Music began playing—very sad music that Yao felt somewhat anxious. He didn't want to see a ballet about a sad story. He fidgeted in his seat for a few minutes while onstage a pretty girl wearing a long white tutu danced, running away from a sinister-looking male dancer. The oboe then stopped wailing, and the curtain went down again for another minute or two while more music played.
Yao was getting impatient. Was the entire thing going to be sad music? He was grateful for the free tickets, most definitely, but if this was all that was going to happen, then he was going to get his wok and mutilate that damn Frenchman after this. Wasn't Francis always bragging about how ballet came from France?
Quiet, Yao, he chastised himself. Don't be an idiot, of course that's not all that's going to happen. This ballet is going to go on for two hours at the least. A girl being chased around by a sinister man is not the only thing that will occur.
But then the curtain rose again and suddenly the Chinese man couldn't process any more thought.
In the middle of the stage stood a very tall man, tall and strong with very light blond hair that swept across his forehead. He had purple eyes that shone even from across the stage to the seat tucked in the middle where Yao sat. Yao didn't think he'd ever seen eyes that beautiful or that purple—they were colored the exact shade of violet petals in his garden. They blinked sleepily and a warm, relaxed expression washed over the man's face, and he breathed in deeply, moving his arms in wide, sweeping gestures.
Aiya!
Yao forced himself to calm down—what a beautiful shade of purple!—and counted to four. Yi. Er. San. Shi.
Calmer now. Was. No. He was calmer now. (There, that was it.) Little. Just a little bit. Enough that he had more control of himself now; he could stop the shaking in his hands that he hadn't noticed before. He could suppress that little shiver in his spine and the tickling in his feet. That thumping desire in his chest. He could try and focus on another part of the stage, like… like… the stately woman that seemed like the queen and the mother of the prince that stood in the middle. He could not look at that regal prince of a man, no matter how tempting. No matter how graceful that tall, blond man was. No matter how he moved delicately across the stage, no matter how high he leaped or how long and lean his legs were. No matter how much feeling and spirit he danced with. No matter how beautiful that man was.
No. Of course not.
And yet as Yao sat there, watching the story unfold before his eyes, he found it beautiful. He watched the man fall in love with the pretty girl from before; he watched them dance together, their tender expressions as she spun and he lifted her up with his strong arms, his hands circling supportively around his waist. How they danced with the compassion and the freedom of love. He almost cried out when the sinister man from before jumped out and broke the two apart, and saw the prince fight for his love.
By the third act he was on the edge of his seat, biting his lip to hold back the horror as he saw the prince fall in love with the girl in the black tutu—it's not her!—even as she impressively did who knows how many pirouettes she spun on that one toe. He watched with horror as the prince kneeled at the girl's feet, placed one hand over his chest and then moved it, palm up, to the girl in black—a declaration of love.
The sinister man from before sprung up, and the girl from before in a white tutu and feathers in her hair and bodice pressed her palms against the makeshift palace window, her expression screwed up in sadness. The music grew to a bitter cacophony, and the prince put his hands to his head in pain.
After the curtain went down and rose again, Yao almost couldn't bear to watch the ending, dreading what would happen. He saw the prince express his regret and he saw the swan maiden forgive him. For the final struggle, the beautiful prince fought with the sinister man, dancing and twisting in the air until the sinister man buckled in pain, stumbling like ballet dancers do by running left and right in little tippy-toe steps until he finally collapsed on the stage.
The music swelled into a victorious melody, and the roar of applause at the end was deafening. The dancers bowed once, twice, three times, then four times until the house lights flickered back on and people began moving out of the auditorium. People. Not the Chinese man with the ponytail sitting in the middle, sitting there still, though the curtains had already gone down.
Yao had that image of that man burned into the back of his eyelids. It would not go away, no matter how many times he rubbed his eyes—like that would have done anything! Those purple eyes, that whitish blond hair: as if any sort of physical effort to erase those memories was going to help. He could remember how graceful he was as his feet lightly swept the stage, the sharp definition of those muscles under the bright stage lights. The striking profile of his face, with that nose that jutted out. It was so very intriguing that Yao had to see it again. He had to see him again.
His eyes skimmed the program until he found the words Prince Siegfried. That had to be the name of the prince in the ballet, and it was near the top, right? That meant he was the lead.
He used a finger to follow the dots lining across the page and came onto two words. A name.
Ivan Braginski.
Ivan Braginski. The name tasted sugary on his tongue, like the lightest, sweetest piece of long'an, "dragon eyes." It sounded vaguely familiar, and somehow Yao could remember Francis saying that name while handing him the tickets. The simple thought of it in his head echoed around in his head, and his heart began to beat faster.
Arggh. This doesn't feel stalkerish at all.
But Yao wanted to see him again. That was all.
His feet carried him out of his seat, up the still-crowded aisle, and out into the lobby. Then, acting on some random instinct, his fingers fumbled in his pocket for his mobile phone with his lucky red cover—he still didn't understand those things, cell phones—and dialed Francis.
"Âllo?" A familiar French-accented voice answered the phone.
"Francis?" Yao's voice shook unsteadily for no reason. Why am I so nervous? Dammit.
"Ah, Yao!" Francis drawled into the speaker so obnoxiously that Yao winced. "You do rarely ever call me!"
"Yes, I know," said Yao hurriedly. "I have to ask you something."
"Ask away, my friend!" Francis's chuckled crackled into Yao's ear uncomfortably. "I am always here for you, oui?"
"Sure," Yao said. "Who was the friend that gave you the tickets?"
"That would be mon ami Ivan Braginski!" Francis said. "Le star du spectacle! He was the prince Siegfried, was he not?"
"Er, yes." Yao swallowed. "Um… are you good friends with him? At all?"
"Of course!" Francis purred into the phone—oh, you creepy Frenchman. "What, do you want to meet him?"
"Ye—no. No. I was, um, just cur—"
"Do not lie to me, mon ami!" France chuckled knowingly into the phone. "You do want to meet him!"
"It's not like that!" Yao said indignantly, very red into the face. He pressed the phone closer against his ear and began walking out of the lobby into the parking lot.
"Tsk, tsk. I am from the country of love, cher Yao. Do not underestimate me."
Yao sulked angrily for a few minutes while he fumbled in his pockets for his car keys. "That's not—umphff!"
He'd run into a very soft wall of black knit coat. It smelled like something kind of sweet. Peppermint candy, maybe? And a trace of alcohol. Alcohol and sweat and makeup.
Makeup?
"I'm very sorry," a voice with a heavy Russian accent murmured softly. "I didn't see you there."
Yao looked up into the tall man's face and instantly recongized it.
"Francis, I have to go," he said numbly. "Zai jian."
"Yao, come on—"
But the Chinese man had already hung up. His phone nearly slipped out of his fingers as he fumbled to put it back in his pocket.
"Are you okay?" said the very tall—and now very suddenly kind—Ivan Braginski.
"I'm fine," Yao managed. His chest felt very tight and his face felt very hot. Yao, you idiot. "Um, you were the, uh, prince from that ballet, right?"
Ivan looked slightly taken aback, and then he smiled. "Yes. I was Prince Siegfried."
Yao bit his lip. That smile was just too much; it sent little bubbly happiness into his chest. Even now the muscles in Yao's face worked to smile, even as he tried to keep his already-obvious emotions at bay. Aiya, was he blushing again?
"You dance very well," said Yao with more effort than he should have needed.
The Russian smiled even more warmly, if that was at all possible. "Spasibo."
"Um… excuse me?" The Chinese man knit his eyebrows into a confused look. "I—I don't speak Russian, sorry."
"Oh, my bad," Ivan said apologetically. He tugged his worn cream-colored scarf away from his mouth a little bit—it was still very cold, even for late February—and chuckled slightly, in that odd way people did sometimes by exhaling harshly. "I mean, thank you very much. Yes. It is a very demanding role… but I think it's quite worth the work."
"You must like dancing very much," said Yao awkwardly, after a heartbeat of silence. He had nothing much better to say, but he had to say something.
"I do," Ivan said. "It's just something I've always done. Like breathing, da?"
Yao gave a small grunt of appraisal. "Yes, I know what you mean."
Ivan smiled at him briefly in the moment where they said nothing. "Well, …?"
"Yao," the Chinese man said quickly. "Yao Wang."
"Yao," Ivan repeated back with a cheerful lilt. "I'm feeling quite exhausted and want to sit down for a bit. Would you care to join me for coffee?"
"Coffee?" Yao pulled his mobile out of his phone to check the time. 8:36 pm.
"Da," Ivan said, adjusting his scarf again. "Perhaps at the coffee house down the street, run by those Italian twins?"
"Um… yes. Yes, of course," Yao stammered, and Ivan smiled again. Dammit, Ivan, stop smiling! Yao curled his hands into thin fists.
"Very good," Ivan said. "Should we go? I'm afraid that I carpooled here with a friend, and don't have my car with me."
"It's okay… I can drive." Yao decided not to mention the stockpile of parking tickets that he'd collected over the years. Parking was hard enough without a very handsome Russian man sitting in your sedan.
Pushing that thought away, he turned and began heading for his car, with Ivan following him. He had walked up to a few feet away from his car when his phone vibrated in his pocket. Sighing, Yao shuffled his fingers into his pocket and pulled it out, the bluish-white light illuminating his face.
You're going on a date with Ivan aren't you, read the text onscreen. The Chinese man could almost hear Francis's trademark French chuckle in the background.
Yao made a face, and tapped back a reply.
It's not what you think, he texted. Just coffee.
The start of every romance ;) came the reply.
Shut up, Yao wrote.
But even as he looked back at Ivan's smiling face, he couldn't resist smiling a little smile to himself.
Coffee with Russian ballet dancers. Couldn't get any better.
author's note~
Wow, what happened to the ending? Shnapples. Oh well. THIS ONE'S FOR YOU, RAIN, ILU ILU ILU LIKE YOU DON'T EVEN KNOW HOW MUCH *HEART HEART HEART*
Well of course, it's a fic trade, lol. XD Btw, her ff name is . GO FIND HER!
+ Swan Lake is this famous ballet based off a German fairy tale (cough, Parmesan). It plays out over four acts. Super duper short summary:
==Prologue: An evil dude named Rothbart curses a chick named Odette to always be a swan by day and a girl by night.
==Act I: a prince dude named Siegfried (might vary) celebrates his birthday happily until his mom tells him he has to marry someone. He gets annoyed and goes hunting.
==Act II: Siegfried meets a Odette and is about to tell her he loves her when Rothbart breaks them up.
==Act III: Siegfried has another birthday bash where all these girls come and try to get him to marry her. Then an Odette lookalike named Odile comes by and pretends to be Odette so Siegfried tells Odile he loves her. That screws everything up so Rothbarts like "BWAAHAHAHAHHA" and runs away.
==Act IV: Siegfried and Odette kiss and make up. Rothbart comes in, and Siegfried owns them. Happy ending.
I'm not sure where I got the idea for Russia being a ballet dancer from. (Am I the only one that can legitly picture that?) It just… looked cool.
Yeah, I know.