Maple told me about you.


May was up with the sun the next day, and she made no secret of it. And then she let Dawn in, who was apparently also an early riser. Maybe it was some kind of Whittaker disease.

Leaf, with her head buried in her pillow as a poorly-crafted noise and light reducer, hoped it was contagious.

Though there are small kitchens in the rooms themselves, theirs was rather devoid of anything edible at this point, so the three of them headed for the dining hall and the promise of fresh breakfast. Leaf was still a bit groggy as she followed behind the other two, who were neck-deep in a rather animated conversation about something or other. She wasn't really paying attention, so when Dawn suddenly demanded her opinion on the topic, she could only settle for a noncommittal shrug. At least May found the reaction funny.

Even without a helpful suggestion from Dawn, Leaf had decided a cappuccino would do her some good. She followed their examples and grabbed a sandwich — egg, cheese, ham, and something else, it smelled divine — but the first thing she did when she sat down with them at a table was indulge herself in a steaming sip of coffee.

According to the clock hanging on the wall nearby, it was just before seven o'clock. The dining hall, which can easily fit three hundred students, wasn't particularly busy, but classes wouldn't begin until eight. Leaf couldn't blame other kids for getting breakfast at a decent hour. Well, either that, or they were Whittaker Early Bird Disease-positive and had come even before she had. (But that seemed doubtful. Even dance academy kids had their limits. Right?)

"Hey, Leaf," May said, then swallowed the bite of sandwich in her mouth. "What's your first class today?"

Leaf wracked her brain, hoping the coffee would help. She'd maybe, stupidly, only taken a couple looks at her timetable, and it would have caught up with her sooner or later. "Conditioning?" she guessed, and it sounded right.

"Rou-ugh," May said, stretching the word out into two syllables. "I've got it first thing tomorrow, so at least I'll have a day to mentally prepare myself."

"Oh, it's not that bad." Dawn rolled her eyes. "You're scaring her, May." The brunette glanced at Leaf, whose eyebrows were perhaps a wee bit drawn together in concern, and laughed.

"Just don't complain. Castiel will step up into your butt if you whine." Her voice suddenly dropped to a baritone. "Fifty push-ups, and I'll be seeing you behind Gerig Hall at three o'clock! Punk!" She collapsed into a fit of giggles that Leaf joined after a moment, and even Dawn was smiling.

oOo

Even without May's description, Lt Castiel Dunham was a terrifying man in and of himself. He could have been approaching thirty, forty, seventy, it didn't matter; just being in the same room as he was made one stand straighter and melted the smile off of a face.

"We had to crawl through the jungles of the Sevii Islands, footslog through mud that sucked men in by the dozen, and fight raging blizzards of the very north of Sinnoh!" he barked, as though recounting his war experiences would encourage the teenagers in his conditioning class to get their "butts in gear". It didn't seem to do much in the way of inspiration, but it certainly would provide something to snicker about after class. More threatening was his face, maroon, and the cords in his neck straining to burst out.

Yes, a truly terrifying sight.

The whole room was humid to the point of stickiness once the clock struck ten. Leaf wasn't as sore as she'd expected, but she knew she would feel like she'd gotten hit by a freight train in the morning. After a quick check of her timetable and the map of the school that had been provided in the informational packet, Leaf headed off for Room A1 of Bates Hall.

Bates Hall, like Gerig Hall, was a later addition to the school, included to adapt to the changing times and interests of the student body. The only indication of this is perhaps it is slightly less weathered than the other buildings. It hosts ballroom classes on the first storey and folkloric on the second, and it sees the fewest number of students, expectedly, though the number of students majoring in these styles has gradually increased over the years since construction.

To be perfectly honest, Leaf wasn't quite sure what had driven her to choose ballroom as one of her classes. She'd never had any experience with the style. Perhaps it was only curiosity.

But you know what they say. Curiosity killed the cat.

"You're kidding," she muttered once she'd entered the room and seen a certain person she thought (ridiculously) she'd managed to evade. Of course, it was Gary Oak, chatting up some girls. How was she not surprised. She plopped her bag down by the door, trying to stay as undetectable as possible.

Unfortunately, she hadn't had time to change between conditioning and ballroom, so now she was just a hot mess in her athletic shorts and tank top. At least she'd brought a pair of appropriate shoes (found last-minute by Louis, the light of her life), and she was fairly certain she could manage the two-inch heels.

There were two teachers, Natalia and Ivan, both with thick accents and in need of an attitude adjustment. Natalia was particularly unimpressed with Leaf's outfit, but the brunette assured her it wouldn't happen again. The teachers didn't waste a moment as the clock struck half ten to begin class, and they'd hardly begun teaching the foxtrot before corrections went flying like it was a war zone.

"Stand straight, Miss Booth, you are not a sack of potatoes."

"Your mother did not teach you right and left, Mr Mason? Lead with left foot."

"Too stiff, Miss Green! Again!"

Leaf had found herself partnered with Liam Fournier, a young man with a curly head of dark hair and a tendency to bite his lip in concentration. Gary was across the room, gliding smoothly along with a blonde who seemed to be glowing with utter delight. But it wasn't as though Leaf were remotely interested in what he was doing. Definitely not.

Sudden pain in her toes ripped her gaze away from him, and she stifled a curse. Liam mouthed an apology to her, his green eyes wide. She shook her head. She'd been too slow. She hadn't been paying attention to the steps.

By quarter past twelve, Leaf was absolutely certain of one thing: ballroom was going to be hell, and in more ways than one.

Liam, as apologetic as he was, couldn't make up for the heinous crimes he'd committed against her toes. "I'm sorry," he said, for what must have been the seven-thousandth time that morning as they packed their bags. He rubbed the back of his neck sheepishly. "I guess smooth stuff's not really my thing." Leaf could, unsurprisingly, agree.

Then there was the matter of the teachers. Natalia proved to be a nitpicker of no less than virtuosic proportions, though Ivan came in a close second. Leaf shouldn't, couldn't, have expected any less from a world-class dance academy. With teachers like these, Whittaker seemed determined to make Pallet a daycare in comparison.

And finally, that git. Gary Oak was far from guiltless. He insisted on making every move look flawless and using that certain undeniable charisma to bring the girls about him to puddles while Leaf stewed in her own little cloud of annoyance and foot pain and earnest apologies. Every time she looked over at him, it seemed as though he'd read her mind to catch her eye and give her an all-too smug smile. And Leaf pushed aside the little voice that suggested he was distracting in anything but an utterly irritating way.

oOo

"I see you're not dead yet," May said over Leaf's shoulder at lunch as she plopped herself into the next seat at the same table from breakfast. "Just wait until tomorrow morning."

"That's exactly what I was thinking," Leaf said then sank her teeth into a chicken caesar salad wrap. After four hours of dance, she realised she was famished and totally regretted not getting an apple or something on the side in addition to the wrap.

Dawn, less excitedly than May, slid into the seat across the table a few minutes later. "Were classes all right?" she asked over the baby carrot in her hand.

"Sure," Leaf said once she'd swallowed, "but are all the teachers here so crazy?"

"No, it's all just in your head," May teased, bumping Leaf's shoulder with her elbow. "Lemme guess… You had Dunham, so…" She tapped her chin with her index finger. "...Natalia?"

"She's a good teacher," Dawn instantly defended.

"Yeah, but she's loony," May said. "I think she ran a prison camp north of Snowpoint before coming here." Leaf didn't think it was her place to second something like that, especially when Dawn's mouth quirked into such a frown, but she offered the compromise of a half-smile.

"Anyway…" May continued with a sip of her water. "What's the scuttlebutt? Anything new?"

"It's the first day of classes, May," Dawn said, rolling her eyes.

"Yeah? And Gary Oak's probably on his third girl this year already."

It had probably been too much to ask of the gods that the three of them might enjoy a peaceful lunch without the mention of that name, Leaf supposed. Some people were just too popular.

Finally, it was time for musical theatre. Leaf was excited to see what other students of Klotz Hall would offer. The warm-ups and exercises felt pleasantly familiar to her muscles after the first two classes of the day, and the atmosphere was relaxed.

She was surprised to see Liam there. "You don't have to worry," he said when he saw her. "Frank's not going to make us pair up." He smiled, and she couldn't help but return it, partly out of sheer relief. He introduced her to Pam, a short girl with short hair and an even shorter attention span.

Liam had the tendency to throw himself into every move in an almost Chaplinesque style, and on several occasions Leaf was certain he would fall and hurt himself ridiculously. But he never did, and he and Pam kept the whole class entertained with their antics.

Leaf decided she liked him when he wasn't accidentally breaking her toes.

oOo

According to the school's site, the dress code for ballet is pink tights and a leotard in black, maroon, or pink. Now Leaf was determined, especially after recalling Natalia's terrifying glare, to dress appropriately.

Leaf walked into Room A2 of Murphy Hall to see a group of the skinniest girls she'd ever seen. They were a carbon-copied sea of pink tights and black leotards, and she felt incredibly noticeable (and not necessarily in a good way) in her maroon leotard and eggshell legwarmers. Cue instant fashion regret.

"You must be Leaf," a green-haired boy, not unattractive, said to her while she tied the ribbons of her pointe shoes. When she looked up at him, she must have looked somewhat confused, because he added, "Maple told me about you. Drew Hayden."

He was handsome in a sort of boyish way that, at eighteen or nineteen he was, he hadn't yet grown out of. And he looked a bit familiar…

"We had conditioning together this morning," he helpfully said, as though he'd read her mind, and it clicked. She was still caught up in the First Day Rush, so she could forgive herself for not immediately recognising him. Not to mention she'd been a wee bit too busy trying to keep up in conditioning to really pay much mind to the identities of other students about her.

There was a certain scientific precision to Deanna's class. She was pleasant, but even so she demanded no less than the best from each of her students. Barre exercises quickly turned into floor exercises.

Leaf felt a familiar buzz through her body, that rush of adrenaline that was, in a way, comforting, as all of the dancers queued for grand allegro. They fell into place as groups of five to cross the floor with striking unity, glissades smooth as silk and pas de chats light and prickly. Her turn came quickly, and the brunette relaxed herself into preparatory position, counted to eight, and pushed off.

She felt the memory in her muscles of a combination she had probably done hundreds of times before with minor differences. As she struck arabesque, she kept her chest raised, confident her foot reached no lower than the level of her head.

She tried to catch any response from Deanna, but the teacher was already focusing on the next group, throwing corrections across the wide room.

Leaf looked on as she tucked a strand of hair, loosened by a particularly rapid tour jeté, back into its pin. Conditioning Boy Drew crossed the floor without error, substituting the choreographed double pirouette at the end for an impressive set à la seconde that made the girls titter.

Ah, Leaf thought, so he's another one of those.

As they completed reverence, Leaf sighed in relief to herself. Finally, the end of today's last class had come. Not that she hadn't expected attending Whittaker to be tough, but expecting and doing weren't quite the same thing, after all. She unraveled the laces of her shoes from her ankles, and out of the corner of her eye she could spy a head of green hair, leaning against the wall by the door. It touched her, in a way, that he had decided to wait for her.

"So, you enjoying yourself?" Drew asked on their way to the dining hall. It was nearing six in the evening, and the students who milled about the grounds showed no sign of the hustle of the fifteen-minute intervals between classes.

"Definitely," Leaf said. "It's...different. I really do like it."

"Good to hear. Good to hear," he said again, a bit absently. "Witt's a fantastic school. The teachers are first-rate, the students are decent, too. Well, for the most part." He allowed himself a bit of a smile at that, though Leaf got the impression it wasn't directed towards her.

They chatted aimlessly, jumping from topic to topic. Something about the boy just made it easy to speak with him and forget where they were.

Drew was recounting his favourite anecdotes about various teachers when, to Leaf's surprise, he suddenly stopped in his tracks. "You know what, I'll see you later," the boy said, and Leaf noticed they were already close to the dining hall. The sight of her roommate, in animated conversation with another student, caught her eye, but she looked back at her companion in bemusement.

"You're not coming in?"

"Ah, no, not at the moment," Drew said. He relaxed slightly. "I've just got to...drop some things off in my room. I'll be back later." Leaf only shrugged and watched him walk off for a moment before heading in the direction of dinner.

"Hey, Leaf, nice to see you again," May said once she'd arrived. "We're just waiting on Dawn now." After a moment, the girl seemed to realise her company. "This here's Brendan," she introduced, and the boy standing next to her offered a pleasant smile and a hand to Leaf. "He majors in hip hop, too, though he's not as good as me."

Brendan rolled his eyes good-naturedly. Something told Leaf he was used to May's character.

May started again. "So anyway, like I was saying—"

"Brendan!" They all turned to see a young man, tall with cropped, blond hair and a streak of sunburn across his cheeks, approaching the dining hall. Another one followed, the sleeves of his t-shirt pushed up past his shoulders. "Sorry to keep you waiting," the first said. "CJ here just had to have his twenty-minute shower."

"The Deitz needs to be meticulously clean," the second retaliated. "And I'll be kind enough to remind you that it was your shoe that was 'stolen' and found ten minutes later in your own bag."

"Clean? You were probably just ogling sexy Pa—"

"It's totally cool, guys," Brendan interrupted, just as the blond was breaking out the air quotes. His voice was deeper than Leaf had expected, toned with the same drawly accent as May's, though it suited him. "I really don't mind, Dennis."

"Of course you don't mind. You get to hang out with your girlfriend."

"Sure. Both of them," Brendan recovered in no time, though it was obvious to all parties whom Dennis was referring to.

With that, the two boys quickly dragged him away with hardly a moment to spare for a farewell. Then it was only a matter of a minute or two before Dawn showed, a bit out of breath and apologising for being late.

"Frank really worked you that hard?" May teased, but the bluenette just waved her off and they entered the dining hall.

oOo

The summer sun lounged low in the sky, bathing the grounds in a reddish glow as Leaf and May returned to their room from dinner. Dawn had left earlier, yawning widely and excusing herself to turn in soon.

Instead of following the main path, May had led Leaf out through the back door of the dining hall to walk along a narrow trail. The trail, flanked by heavy-boughed beeches and always alive with the sound of chirping chaffinches, serves as the boundary between the grounds of the school and the city streets surrounding it. On an especially hot summer's day, it is more common for students to use the well-shaded path whenever possible.

The sounds of South Baldwick Avenue to their left were unobtrusive through the tall, wrought iron fence, thick with climbing plants. Loose gravel, speckled by the ribbons of late light peeking through the flora, crunched beneath their feet.

"So," Leaf started, hesitant to break the pleasant quiet. "How long have you known Drew?"

May stuck out her tongue. "That dork? He transferred here a couple years ago. Unfortunately, he's from Hoenn, too." She must have caught on to Leaf's slight confusion, because she added, "He grew up in the city. Rich folks. They're too fancy to have rube accents like the rest of us."

"Have you two always shared such a...special relationship?" Leaf couldn't help but ask.

"Only as long as he's been an incorrigible pain in the ass," May said with a wry shrug. "So, yeah."

"What about Dawn?"

May smiled. When she spoke, her voice was gentler, considerably so. "Oh, we've been together going on four, five years now. She was my first friend here, you know." She fell into a thoughtful silence, but Leaf didn't prod. After a moment, she continued. "Some people think she's stuck up, because she likes to do her own thing. But she's not. Believe me. She doesn't know the meaning of stuck up."

As she let out a sigh, her shoulders relaxed suddenly, though Leaf hadn't noticed them tense.

Her smile was back shortly. "Come on," May said, taking Leaf by the hand. "I wanted to catch the latest episode of Johto's Got Talent."


A/N: Welcome to the annual update of Step Up. I'd throw confetti, but for the life of me, I can't find any confetti.

I dare you to go back and find the title drop embedded in this chapter.

You know the drill. Especially if you've got any questions! Don't hesitate to ask and I'll answer them to the best of my ability. Thanks to LaughingMangoes, Kazuya RandomAuthor, Julie Togepi, and Ebaz for the beautiful reviews. Appreciate ya.

And in response to Miss Togepi, well, we'll just have to wait and see, won't we?

P.S. As for next update... Could either be this one, or maybe we'll finally get somewhere with Lulu. We'll see.