AN: I forgot to mention that Lady Harlequin's characters from her fics will be making appearances from time to time in this particular fic. So, if some of you read the last chapter where I mentioned Sumire Hanagata, please read Lady Harlequin's "Somewhere I Have Never Traveled." Aside from the fact that it is a good fic, it will also help clarify some questions this fic of mine could be causing you to raise. Also, I might be giving away some hints of another OC here and there, but that's for you to figure out.
As for the ballet terms in the fic, I will soon provide the URL to a site that has a definition of terms plus Quick Time demonstrations, so don't miss that.
Now, on with the fic!
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"Someone once said that dancers work just as hard as policeman, always alert, always tense. But see, policeman don't have to be beautiful at the same time."
--George Balanchine
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"Oi! Micchy! Stop glaring at the wall or you'll crack it!"
Hisashi Mitsui snapped to attention, jolted out of his thoughts by the boisterous yell of his teammate, Sakuragi Hanamichi, their star rebounder. He narrowed his eyes at the freshman, covering his ears to keep his poor eardrums from shattering. It wasn't just Hanamichi's voice that had broke his train of thought, but the fact that he was standing right beside him and the redhead just HAD to shout in his ears.
"BAKA!!! You don't need to shout at a person you're standing next to!!!" Mitsui growled, whacking Hanamichi upside the head.
The tall freshman laughed. "I knew that would get your attention."
Miyagi, their new team captain, came up and whacked both Mitsui's and Hanamichi's rear ends. "Break's over guys! Get back to practice!"
"Jeez! Miyagi! You don't have to do that!" Mitsui complained, rubbing his tailbone. The diminutive team captain grinned.
"I know...But it works everytime," he replied before walking out of the locker room to join his girlfriend and their team manageress, Ayako.
Rukawa, meanwhile was moping in a corner, hunched forward on the bench, his black hair obscuring his eyes. Hanamichi shook his head. "This team's getting weird," he remarked and then looked at Mitsui. "First the kitsune starts acting weird, now YOU start acting weird, Micchy. I wonder who else will start acting weird."
"I'd like you to act quiet for a change," Mitsui snapped back, poking Hanamichi and leaning over to speak in hushed tones. "Can't you understand that Rukawa's acting like that because SHE left?!" He hissed.
The redhead's look changed abruptly and he lowered his eyes to the floor. "I know that," he replied softly. "I miss her too, but she said she wanted us to be strong and ~ "
"Oi, I know you're trying for her sake, too. But let Rukawa have some time alone. He fell in love with her, remember?" Mitsui reminded his friend, looking back to where the Super Rookie was still sitting, with a towel draped over his broad shoulders.
Hanamichi nodded. "Yeah. I just hope he gets himself together for the games we'll be having. Because that's what SHE would have wanted him to do."
They walked out of the locker room when Mitsui suddenly sneezed mightily. "Ah...Ah...AH-CHOOOO!!!!!"
The teasing atmosphere was back in a flash when Hanamichi pretended to shrink back in fear. "Gyah! Micchy's catching a cold! Micchy's spreading his cooties! Head for the hills! Run for your lives!"
"Urusai!"
They joined their laughing teammates for another round of practice, Mitsui rubbing his aching nose from the sneeze, a nagging feeling in the back of his head that it wasn't the beginnings of the flu, but something entirely different.
'Someone must be thinking about me...'
~*~*~
"Oi..."
The soft voice was enough to make Makiko snap back to reality. She craned her head around to see her pas de deux partner, Eito Yamazaki, looking at her with a worried frown.
"What?"
"You've been going through our exercises like the undead. What's wrong with you today?" Eito asked, shifting his feet into third position before they went into another set of battement tendus as Madamoiselle Cardin looked on. Makiko blushed guiltily. She had been distracted by thoughts of Mitsui again, playing out the 1001 ways in which to kill him.
"It's nothing to worry about, Eito-kun. I was just lost in thought," she replied, relaxing her hold on the barre.
"Lost in space is more like it," her partner muttered with a grin, stretching out one leanly-muscled arm for their arabesques. The other dancers who heard him supressed their chuckles and Makiko blushed even redder.
'Damn that Mitsui Hisashi to Hell!'
"How's your foot?" Eito asked, changing the topic as he glanced down worriedly at Makiko's left foot. As principal danseur and Makiko's partner, it was his job to protect her from bad falls and he worried non-stop about her.
"Doesn't hurt now," Makiko shrugged, finishing her développés.
"You make sure you do your therapy, cher, or else ze company and myself will mourn." Madamoiselle Cardin came up, kneeling down on one knee to examine Makiko's foot as she executed a fouetté. The arch seemed okay, but she was doubtful so she asked Makiko to execute another step.
"Please do a retiré, cher."
Makiko did so, stopping when Madamoiselle Cardin held her foot in place, clucking her tongue. "Just as I thought...Ze turnout is inconsistent...try to ask your doctor for more exercises for your therapy."
The eighteen-year-old girl smiled. "Hai. I will do that, Madamoiselle."
Madamoiselle Cardin was a middle-aged woman who hailed from Paris, France. Though she was officially forty-five, she looked thirty, with no wrinkles around her face and no signs of grey in her dark brown hair. In her younger years, she was the prima ballerina of one of the most prestigious ballet companies in Paris, but moved in with a Japanese danseur from the corps de ballet and settled down in Kanagawa to start her own company, much to the shock of everyone, including her family.
She never got married, but she and her partner Shigeki, remained happy training young people with the potential to become professional dancers in the future. In treating their dancers, they were strict but fair, never raising their voice and always believing in improvement. However, Shigeki died of lung cancer five years after the studio had started, leaving Madamoiselle Cardin on her own.
When she saw a twelve-year-old Makiko dance in a school program, she immediately wanted the young girl to sign up under her tutelage. Ever since then, she had been training the girl, treating her like she was her own daughter and pushing her to strive for the best. Makiko had then become her silent favorite in the class, and she was deeply worried when the accident had happened and she was afraid that Makiko would never be able to get her dancing career going.
She was wrong however, when her prinicpal bounced back from surgery and into the world of dancing once more, barely a year after her accident. That alone gained the admiration of all the other dancers in the studio and Cardin knew she had a winner.
"Okay, everyone will please assemble and gather around...I have something to announce." She clapped her hands together and all dancers hurried from the portable barres to the center of the room, half-excited and half-curious.
"As you all know," Charlotte Cardin began. "we have been working hard for very long. It is time now zat ze whole world sees your talent to dance ballet." She paced back and forth as she talked, keeping eye contact with every student in the room as the silence hung over them.
"So, it is with great pleasure zat I am announcing zat we will be re-staging Ze Nutcracker..." Here, she was drowned out by shouts and excited cheers from everyone and she held up her hands for silence. "In a week, we will be touring ze different schools and dance to spark ze interest. Ze people come and watch us after zat."
Makiko's eyes sparkled with the prospect of dancing and she grinned up at Eito, who returned her smile with his own. It was time to get the show on the road.
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To be continued...
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As for the ballet terms in the fic, I will soon provide the URL to a site that has a definition of terms plus Quick Time demonstrations, so don't miss that.
Now, on with the fic!
=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=
"Someone once said that dancers work just as hard as policeman, always alert, always tense. But see, policeman don't have to be beautiful at the same time."
--George Balanchine
=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=
"Oi! Micchy! Stop glaring at the wall or you'll crack it!"
Hisashi Mitsui snapped to attention, jolted out of his thoughts by the boisterous yell of his teammate, Sakuragi Hanamichi, their star rebounder. He narrowed his eyes at the freshman, covering his ears to keep his poor eardrums from shattering. It wasn't just Hanamichi's voice that had broke his train of thought, but the fact that he was standing right beside him and the redhead just HAD to shout in his ears.
"BAKA!!! You don't need to shout at a person you're standing next to!!!" Mitsui growled, whacking Hanamichi upside the head.
The tall freshman laughed. "I knew that would get your attention."
Miyagi, their new team captain, came up and whacked both Mitsui's and Hanamichi's rear ends. "Break's over guys! Get back to practice!"
"Jeez! Miyagi! You don't have to do that!" Mitsui complained, rubbing his tailbone. The diminutive team captain grinned.
"I know...But it works everytime," he replied before walking out of the locker room to join his girlfriend and their team manageress, Ayako.
Rukawa, meanwhile was moping in a corner, hunched forward on the bench, his black hair obscuring his eyes. Hanamichi shook his head. "This team's getting weird," he remarked and then looked at Mitsui. "First the kitsune starts acting weird, now YOU start acting weird, Micchy. I wonder who else will start acting weird."
"I'd like you to act quiet for a change," Mitsui snapped back, poking Hanamichi and leaning over to speak in hushed tones. "Can't you understand that Rukawa's acting like that because SHE left?!" He hissed.
The redhead's look changed abruptly and he lowered his eyes to the floor. "I know that," he replied softly. "I miss her too, but she said she wanted us to be strong and ~ "
"Oi, I know you're trying for her sake, too. But let Rukawa have some time alone. He fell in love with her, remember?" Mitsui reminded his friend, looking back to where the Super Rookie was still sitting, with a towel draped over his broad shoulders.
Hanamichi nodded. "Yeah. I just hope he gets himself together for the games we'll be having. Because that's what SHE would have wanted him to do."
They walked out of the locker room when Mitsui suddenly sneezed mightily. "Ah...Ah...AH-CHOOOO!!!!!"
The teasing atmosphere was back in a flash when Hanamichi pretended to shrink back in fear. "Gyah! Micchy's catching a cold! Micchy's spreading his cooties! Head for the hills! Run for your lives!"
"Urusai!"
They joined their laughing teammates for another round of practice, Mitsui rubbing his aching nose from the sneeze, a nagging feeling in the back of his head that it wasn't the beginnings of the flu, but something entirely different.
'Someone must be thinking about me...'
~*~*~
"Oi..."
The soft voice was enough to make Makiko snap back to reality. She craned her head around to see her pas de deux partner, Eito Yamazaki, looking at her with a worried frown.
"What?"
"You've been going through our exercises like the undead. What's wrong with you today?" Eito asked, shifting his feet into third position before they went into another set of battement tendus as Madamoiselle Cardin looked on. Makiko blushed guiltily. She had been distracted by thoughts of Mitsui again, playing out the 1001 ways in which to kill him.
"It's nothing to worry about, Eito-kun. I was just lost in thought," she replied, relaxing her hold on the barre.
"Lost in space is more like it," her partner muttered with a grin, stretching out one leanly-muscled arm for their arabesques. The other dancers who heard him supressed their chuckles and Makiko blushed even redder.
'Damn that Mitsui Hisashi to Hell!'
"How's your foot?" Eito asked, changing the topic as he glanced down worriedly at Makiko's left foot. As principal danseur and Makiko's partner, it was his job to protect her from bad falls and he worried non-stop about her.
"Doesn't hurt now," Makiko shrugged, finishing her développés.
"You make sure you do your therapy, cher, or else ze company and myself will mourn." Madamoiselle Cardin came up, kneeling down on one knee to examine Makiko's foot as she executed a fouetté. The arch seemed okay, but she was doubtful so she asked Makiko to execute another step.
"Please do a retiré, cher."
Makiko did so, stopping when Madamoiselle Cardin held her foot in place, clucking her tongue. "Just as I thought...Ze turnout is inconsistent...try to ask your doctor for more exercises for your therapy."
The eighteen-year-old girl smiled. "Hai. I will do that, Madamoiselle."
Madamoiselle Cardin was a middle-aged woman who hailed from Paris, France. Though she was officially forty-five, she looked thirty, with no wrinkles around her face and no signs of grey in her dark brown hair. In her younger years, she was the prima ballerina of one of the most prestigious ballet companies in Paris, but moved in with a Japanese danseur from the corps de ballet and settled down in Kanagawa to start her own company, much to the shock of everyone, including her family.
She never got married, but she and her partner Shigeki, remained happy training young people with the potential to become professional dancers in the future. In treating their dancers, they were strict but fair, never raising their voice and always believing in improvement. However, Shigeki died of lung cancer five years after the studio had started, leaving Madamoiselle Cardin on her own.
When she saw a twelve-year-old Makiko dance in a school program, she immediately wanted the young girl to sign up under her tutelage. Ever since then, she had been training the girl, treating her like she was her own daughter and pushing her to strive for the best. Makiko had then become her silent favorite in the class, and she was deeply worried when the accident had happened and she was afraid that Makiko would never be able to get her dancing career going.
She was wrong however, when her prinicpal bounced back from surgery and into the world of dancing once more, barely a year after her accident. That alone gained the admiration of all the other dancers in the studio and Cardin knew she had a winner.
"Okay, everyone will please assemble and gather around...I have something to announce." She clapped her hands together and all dancers hurried from the portable barres to the center of the room, half-excited and half-curious.
"As you all know," Charlotte Cardin began. "we have been working hard for very long. It is time now zat ze whole world sees your talent to dance ballet." She paced back and forth as she talked, keeping eye contact with every student in the room as the silence hung over them.
"So, it is with great pleasure zat I am announcing zat we will be re-staging Ze Nutcracker..." Here, she was drowned out by shouts and excited cheers from everyone and she held up her hands for silence. "In a week, we will be touring ze different schools and dance to spark ze interest. Ze people come and watch us after zat."
Makiko's eyes sparkled with the prospect of dancing and she grinned up at Eito, who returned her smile with his own. It was time to get the show on the road.
****************************
To be continued...
****************************