The theater was, simply put, magnificent. It held approximately 3000 seats and a large, glass chandelier that hung from the ceiling. The main curtain was a brilliant shade of gold and in front of it stood a handsome young man that couldn't have been over 30. He stood on the stage, pacing back and forth, watching the students in the audience with the same unwavering attention that I paid to him. Fellow dancers sat on either side of me, their faces unfamiliar and their voices obnoxiously loud. Although the plethora of teenage squeals was probably added to by the fact that it was the first day that lessons would start again for the year.
I knew from the moment I had stepped into the room that this year was going to be quite a wild ride. I was at a new school on the other side of the country where art geeks reigned supreme and druggies smoked saliva or shellfish or whatever that was at 7 in the morning and there was a hand on my shoulder, and my god, give a man a warning!
I looked up to see Vriska, alias spider bitch, with another girl whose eyes held the same manic glow that made me want to piss my pants. My eyes widened at the sight of them, not really sure what to say since I was kinda having half of a heart attack at that moment and I briefly wondered if that was even possible.
"H-Hello…" I said, breathlessly trying to communicate my thoughts as they came and went. Vriska looked at me, same accusingly intense stare as always, even though always was only about an hour, but we can leave that small detail aside. Her head tilted towards the other girl, and that was when I noticed, for the first time, that she was not the one intruding my very large personal bubble. It was, in fact, the anonymously named girl with the blank faced, apathetic stare, not too different from that of a dead body. Her eyes were staring into my soul and I felt like she was trying to eat me with all the same eagerness that most teenagers devour a hamburger. The problem here was quite obvious:
I was being creeped on by two girls with a penchant for cannibalism.
The unnamed girl moved her hand at that moment, sitting down in a seat and staring straight ahead, her eyes never wandering; never moving. I too turned back to the front, trying my hardest to ignore the possibly murderous glances that Vriska was sending the back of my head.
"Sup guys?" The man at the front of the room said in a deep, cool guy tone. "How is everyone's first day back?" The theatre erupted into a gaggle of screaming teenagers and I tried desperately to sink further into my seat, covering my ears in an attempt to muffle the sound.
The man in the front of the room laughed, throwing his head back and rolling his shoulders. He waited for a moment, letting us all chill our chops before speaking again. "I'm glad, I'm glad. But you know, this year is not going to be all fun and games." All eyes in the room locked onto him, gloom wandering on their eyes while I kept my knees locked onto the side of my head and my neck pulled into my shoulders. "You guys are seniors." He added. "Many of you will sign with companies at the end of this year, but you've gotta look good if you want that to happen." I looked up at the man through my lashes, gazing at his god like glory. At the way he managed to capture the attention of 80+ teenagers, with little to no effort. I was excited to say the least.
"When you came in there was a packet on your seat. Most of you are probably still sitting on it, so get up and look at the first page." I spun my eyes in a dizzying circle, watching as every student, save one or two, stood and pulled a thin pack of papers from underneath them. I myself had noticed before taking my seat and was now fingering the corner, pulling it up and letting it go again.
"This year, we will be studying popular culture as it relates to ballet, also known as contemporary ballet." The nasally teenage voices around me started back with their incessant chattering at this revelation, their attention now clearly captured, albeit soon released through the vocal chords of said adolescents.
"THIS," he shouted recapturing all eyes. "Will help you to connect different types of dance and learn to apply your technical knowledge, but will also teach you to apply emotion to your dancing as-well. For your final, you will be asked to complete a dance which you will choreograph on your own as well as a group number."
As soon as the bedazzling man finished his last sentence, everyone was back to talking, murmuring between each other in a way that made me feel painfully left out.
And I wish I had been but really, what does this spider bitch think she is getting at, always all up on me!
"Sooo….Have you seen Feferi?" She asked me, leaning over to rest her chin on the back of my chair. My shoulders rose and my chest shrunk into my seat in the ever anxious manner that seemed to control my body.
"…ya…" I said, trying my best to disappear into the red fabric behind me. "S-she's um…over there." I pointed towards the westward wall, where Feferi was sitting beside a boy whose face remained a mystery to me but just out of the corner of my eyes I could see a set of glasses perched on the end of his nose. When the blue eyed monster turned to look in the direction I had motioned towards, it was like an electric charge had pulsed through the room from her sheer excitement.
"SOLLUX!" She screamed shrilly across the theatre, catching, even briefly, the attention of everyone in the room. Said boy faced us with interest on his face, but upon first identifying the offending voice, he visibly deflated into an irritated pile of nothingness. The look that crossed his eyes looked like he just wanted to scream "what the fuck do you want?" It reminded me slightly of that annoying grey kid that Gamzee shared a room with.
I watched with pity as the bespectacled boy slammed his head into the back of his chair with an audible *thunk*. I watched, as Vriska waved excitedly to the boy and he tried his hardest to ignore her motions. And lastly, I watched as the apathetic eyed girl grabbed a hold of the others arm and shot her a murderous glare, one to rival the spider bitch herself, and cocked her head to the side.
"Vriska….Must we really cause a scene?" I could sense the venom on aforementioned girl's tongue even before she opened her mouth. She looked the other up and down and pulled her blood red lips into a tugging smirk of a grin and brought her eyebrows towards the ceiling.
"Well exccccuuusee me, Ms. Sassy Pants. I wasn't aware that you were in any position to tell me what to do. What, did you and Sollux get in a little…domestic again? That's unfo-"
"Vriska, STOP IT!" I screamed, not thinking for one minute before the words even left my mouth. It was like fucking word vomit, the way they just came up out of the blue. Both sets of eyes, one pair ice blue and the other one, something closer to the color of a blueberry shot themselves at me with all the speed of a bullet, and with their eyes now on me, I suddenly found myself at a loss for words.
"I…I mean….uhm…please don't fight?" The girl with the ice blue eyes turned her attention to the packet in her lap with little more than a sigh while Vriska kept her eyes glued to me, glaring reproachfully.
"Do you remember that talk we had earlier?" She asked, daring me, challenging me to fight her.
"…yes." My eyes shot down to my lap.
"And you know that you can hold me to my word….right?" She ended with a sugary sweet burn in her voice. It was like pouring acid on a cut, the way she said it. I didn't even dare to respond to the question, knowing full well that is was rhetorical and even one flaw in my wording would throw me under the bus.
And with nothing left to do, I simply had to keep my mouth closed and wait for the class to begin.
I've never been particularly good with keeping track of things—keys are probably the worst for me.
When I got back to the dorm room after an exhausting round of lifts and turns, I quickly found that my key was nowhere to be found. While this would not be much of a problem for most students, I had also found that my roommate had the wonderful habit of never being around. This left me sitting in front of my room, patiently waiting for him to return from whatever adventure he may have found himself on.
"Hey, ma lil' bro. Egderp out again?"
I knew who was talking before I even had to look up from the book that lay in my lap. It was that same distinctive, deep, bright laugh that I had come to be familiar with over the past 24 hours. I closed my book, laying it in between my bent knees and torso.
"Hey Gamzee…" I whispered, shyly. After that, I found that words refused to come to my grasp. They got lost somewhere about the black case in the other boys hand and the smeared grey and white paint around his lips. I continued to search fruitlessly for a phrase to appease his mind.
"Yes." The words gathered at the teetering edge of my teeth before spilling out. Gamzee nodded at me, black curls bouncing beyond the frame of his face.
"I gottcha." He placed his case beside me, lowering his body next to it, his legs spread in front of him, almost reaching the wall parallel. I looked over to the long, granular, black box with the hood at one end. I saw it picked up by a handle, carried into a large lap beside my own.
I knew what it was- I'm not stupid. I also had the prior knowledge of knowing that Gamzee was a music student. He pulled the trombone from its case, hooking on a long, greased slide with ease and insterting a mouth piece.
"Mind if I just chill here with you?" He asked, resting the instrument on his shoulder. I looked at him, nodding slowly in confirmation.
A loud bellow echoed down the hall, ringing from the bell of the brass mechanism with breathtaking clarity. There was a breathless quality to his music; not a hollow one, but one that made it sound like love poured into a song.
I curled my legs into my chest, laying a cheek on my knees and closing my eyes, listening only to the sweet melody of salvation resonating from the boy with the gold trombone.
"Breathtaking…" I whispered into the air.
"You really think so?"
My eyes shot open when he spoke. I had been sure to speak quietly enough so that he wouldn't hear but I suppose a musicians ears might just be better than mine.
"Well…" I pushed my legs away from myself, laying my hands over my hips. "Ya."
The behemoth wrapped an arm around my shoulders, pulling me into the side of his chest. He laughed his flighty laugh and squeezed me even tighter than before. "Well a mighty big thanks lil'bro!"
I peered warily down at my legs, not sure how to respond to the physical contact. His arms were mighty heavy and his breath was rattling my nerves. I looked at my arm, checking for the time. John had said he would be back around noon and the watch around my wrist told me that it was such. This being said, I saw no such boy entering the premises.
I fell backwards, landing on the hard linoleum dorm floor. My head cracked against the surface, leaving a pulsing headache in its wake. John looked down at me and I saw another figure walk past him, black jeans and a grey sweatshirt. John was, dully noted, not wearing a shirt.
"You aren't allowed to play in the dorms." A volatile voice said from beside me. Instinct told me that it was Gamzee's grey faced roommate, but I found myself unable to keep my eyes open long enough to get a look for myself.
I felt two hands on my shoulders, not quite rattling but knocking me from side to side in a less than careful manner.
"Did I kill him!?" John's voice rang out. A plastered groan escaped my mouth and my eyes welded shut even tighter than before.
"That really hurt you know…"
"Ya, I know."
There was a sly sense of desire to his words but I let the thought slip away. I gripped the cold ground with my fingers and pushed myself to a sitting position. Struggling to stand, I pressed my hands to the wall for balance. The metal was just as cold as the floor though and my found myself wobbling towards my bed with little tact.
"I'm gonna pass on lunch."
"You sure…?" I heard John say. I collapsed onto my bed with a groan and the metal springs creaked beneath my weight.
"Ya." I said into my pillow. "I'm sure."