Komui looked at the darkened monitor, waiting, trying hard not to chew on anything, his pens, his glasses, his fingernails. He might not have been so nervous, but he'd been reminded twenty minutes earlier of why the Campbell twins were such a menace.
This time, they had a good day, but this time the song suited them better, a heftier dose of angst and chaos built into it. They danced opposite each other as if one was the other's reflection, Jasdero's light to David's dark, then moved so smoothly together that they seemed to blend into a single entity, like a living kaleidoscope. It ended with both of them pretending to shoot each other to a bloody pulp, but that only evoked the Hammersmith Odeon concert. It wasn't to their detriment this time. This time, it was a work of art.
It was why nobody made a fuss about what was or wasn't under Jasdero's costume. It would look petty because it would be petty. Somebody would need to beat them fair and square, and so far, only Alistair and Eliade had come close.
Eliade was gone, and the odds of Alistair ever finding another partner like her were zero. He and Fou were limping along as best they could, but they were desperately unsuited to each other, and were struggling to make even the top five. The worst part was that Rouvellier hadn't learned anything. He was still scouring the world for another perfect orphan.
Komui wished he had the luxury of admiring what the twins could do on a good day, but he didn't. All he could do was be grateful he'd agreed to give Lavi and Lenalee their head. He was right in guessing that the end result would be bawdy slapstick, but he hadn't guessed at how elegantly it would be delivered.
Only Lavi, Komui thought, could simultaneously channel Fred Astaire and all four of the Three Stooges. He danced a very credible young man taking a girl out for a spring walk, but every time Lenalee bent or stretched as if looking at a flower or bird or cloud, Lavi made a point of closely ogling whatever body part was within range. Since he had only one eye, this involved some very pointed ogling indeed. Since Lenalee was pretending to have no knowledge of this whatsoever, any change in position resulted in Lavi having to dodge or face serious injury.
The first time it happened, a few people in the audience tittered, as if unsure of what they were seeing. The second time got chuckles, and when Lenalee's toe missed Lavi's chin by a scant centimeter, the audience gave in and laughed freely.
Komui smiled. It was the same reaction he had when he finally caved and let them show this to him. Their Harlequin and Columbine was a shadow of it. Lavi could let his terrible sense of humor run rampant, while Lenalee could almost be the ballerina she'd trained for over half her life to become. They were, in their mismatch, perfect for the Comedian Harmonists.
The song finished with a bourree en couru, and Lenalee was two thirds of the way through when Komui swore he heard a crack. He froze, watched as she stumbled and Lavi caught her, but it was so well done that he thought maybe they'd rehearsed it when he wasn't watching, an alternate ending to a piece that had never been deliberately choreographed. Komui waited for them to stop, but they didn't. Instead, Lavi lifted her in his arms, pausing with his face near hers, then he set her down on one foot, keeping hold of her hand with his.
As soon as he saw that, Komui started running.
A thunderous round of applause poured out as he opened the backstage door and pushed past two stagehands, who let him through as soon as they saw who he was.
"Komui!"
It was Lavi, carrying Lenalee in his arms.
"How is she?" Komui asked, but the question was unnecessary. Her face was streaked with tears, and she was holding one foot higher than the other.
"I'm fine, ge ge," she said. "I'm going to be fine."
"She needs an X-ray." The tendons in Lavi's neck stood out as he transferred Lenalee to her brother.
"Thank you," Komui said, blinking back tears of his own. If it had been his call, he would have told them to sit China out, to let Lenalee's foot heal properly, but it wasn't his call.
"Lavi." Lenalee reached for her partner. "Thank you."
Lavi wiped at his face as he squeezed her hand. "You little idiot!" Then he looked at Komui. "Take her."
"Come on, mei mei. We're going to get you taken care of." Komui said in Chinese, then he switched back to English. "Lavi, come with us. You can call Reever from my phone." Otherwise, the boy would pace the soles off his shoes, and the least Komui could do was spare him that.
"We finished it," Lenalee said as they made their way into the corridor. "It wasn't exactly how we planned, but we did it. We won't be disqualified."
If Komui wasn't mistaken, she'd just danced the last several seconds of that song with a broken metatarsal so that Lavi wouldn't lose points with Rouvellier. "He's right," Komui said as a group from India made way for them. "You're a little idiot."
Lenalee laughed through her tears. "I'm going to be fine," she said. "I promise, ge ge, I'm going to be fine, so both of you stop worrying."
Jasdero and David dance to James and the Cold Gun by Kate Bush, and Lenalee and Lavi dance to Veronika der Lenz ist Da by The Comedian Harmonists.