Show
You can't be so shy all the time.
Look. Next time,
When you get up in front of the class,
Don't look at them.
Picture Callie in the back,
And act like she would.
Everyone in the crowd is singing with her. When Marie jumps, they jump; when Marie dances, they dance. Their cheers give Marie energy, and it carries her forward, through the last chorus of Calamari Inkantation.
Across the crowd, her eyes lock on Callie's, on top of her own van stage. Even from here, Callie's grin is infectious, and she can feel Callie looking back. They move in sync, two squids, one thought, as they finish the dance and take their bows and clamber off the vans. Callie catches up to Marie and links their arms together, and the two make their way through the crowd, murmuring 'Excuse me' and complimenting fans on their choice of team.
Once they're in the studio, Marie lets out a sigh that travels from her toes and slumps against the closed door. She closes her eyes. She just... needs a minute.
"Cheeseburger for me," Callie says. "Nothing else, this time; I ate way too much junk last break, I nearly puked when I had to start dancing again. Strawberry smoothie. Mar?"
"Pizza, two slices, just cheese," she murmurs, pushing away from the door. The jellyfish chef jots it down. "A small green tea, a small lemon-lime soda. Even with all the waters, I'm parched."
The jelly finishes writing and bobs his hat, then presents them each with an energy drink. Marie groans. This is the second night of the splatfest, they've been going over twenty-four hours, and this will be her seventh energy drink.
"On three?" Callie asks, holding hers up.
Marie takes her own. "On three."
They chug them, making exaggerated gagging noises the whole time, then the Jelly takes the empty glasses—and their orders—back to the kitchen. The two of them don't wait: they go to the bathroom first, and once they're finished in there to their dressing room, where Callie undoes her bow. Marie starts massaging the stiffness out of Callie's tentacles while Callie touches up Marie's make-up; by this point, they know not to take Marie's bow out mid-Splatfest. "How you holding up?" Callie asks her.
Marie pops a throat drop. "I'll be better when this is over, and we can announce the ending and go home and sleep until the results come out," she says.
Callie sighs as Marie rubs at a particularly sore spot on her tentacles. "Besides that."
"About as expected. There comes a point, every splatfest, where I've sung so much the words stop meaning anything."
Callie snorts and puts down the make-up brush. "I know what you mean. I could sing this in my sleep. You already do."
"Hey!" Marie gives her shoulder a shove. "I resent that!"
The two are laughing as someone knocks on their door. Callie ties her tentacles up again and Marie goes to open it.
Two sea urchins await them, each with a tray. "Your food's ready," says one.
"Thank you so much!" Callie chirps behind Marie. They each take a tray and look at each other. "Break a leg, Mar."
"You first, Cal," she says, smirking, and leads the way out.
Oh, she hates this part.
Extra tables and chairs have been set up all around the plaza. Inklings sit at all of them, in team t-shirts, talking and laughing with their friends. It takes only a second to know everyone's divided by teams, as usual.
A surge of panic that tastes like awful energy drink rises in the back of her throat. Marie swallows it back. Callie has to eat with Team Roller Coaster and she has to eat with Team Water Slide. That's how this works. And she can't eat with the same people she ate with last time, if possible—sometimes people shift so much over the full splatfest she sits down with someone only to realize, three bites into her food, that she sat with them twelve hours ago.
Callie races towards her fans with an easy smile, but Marie hates having to do this alone. She takes a deep breath and walks forward, scanning for some people who look relatively—well, easy to get along with. She spies a group of three around a table, and her hearts hit her chest with a heavy thud.
Go time.
There's an empty spot, and she moves towards it. "Is this seat taken?" she asks, stage mask on, stage personality in place (not that it's much different from her real self).
The purple-tentacled girl almost spits out her drink. "Of course! Of course! Marie! I am your biggest, tentacles-crossed, biggest fan."
Marie sits down with all the grace she's practiced and sets her tray before her. "I don't think you're tall enough for that," she says, like she's joked with squids every splatfest, and the girls titter and scramble to introduce themselves.
Only twenty-eight minutes until she can go back on stage.