Chapter 8: Fooling Around
The next morning, Yume woke up with butterflies in her stomach. Today was her first official day as Mikhail Vladimirov's partner, and she couldn't help but be nervous.
What if she and Mikhail didn't get along? What if she fell on all her jumps? What if Mikhail realized he had made a terrible mistake in choosing her - a singles skater with little experience with pairs - to be his new skating partner?
Those questions and more bounced around in Yume's head as she lay in bed long after turning off her alarm clock. She knew she ought to get up, dress, and go down to the cafeteria for breakfast, but it was if she was completely paralyzed.
"Yume, this is ridiculous," she scolded herself aloud. "You weren't even this nervous during All-Japan, so get your butt out of bed. Being late for your first official practice is no way to make a good impression on Mikhail and Coach Wong."
Reluctantly, when she realized that breakfast hours were almost over, Yume climbed out of bed and got dressed in her usual practice clothes. She then headed down to the cafeteria, grabbed the last bowl of oatmeal, and took a seat at a table with the other girls, who were finishing up their breakfast.
"There you are, Yume!" Clarissa said as Yume sat down beside her. "We were starting to worry about you. Did you forget to reset your clock to Pacific time?"
Yume shook her head. "N-No, nothing like that."
"Are you not feeling well?" Pilar asked. "You're looking a little pale, chica."
"Just nerves, that's all," Yume admitted, stirring some strawberry gel into her oatmeal, though not taking a bite. Even though she was hungry, she wasn't sure her stomach could take it.
Pilar frowned. "Why are you nervous? The audition is over. This should be the easy part."
"I just don't want to make a fool of myself in front of Mikhail. I want to prove to him that I really deserve to be his partner."
"You do deserve it, Yume," Clarissa insisted. "You don't have to prove it again. You already have."
Elizaveta nodded her agreement. "Yes, you were the best at the audition. Everybody thought so."
"Only because Mikhail didn't give you and the other girls a chance to skate to the best of your abilities," Yume pointed out. "I'm sure if Kalos hadn't insisted on having everybody improvise a pairs program, one of you would have been named Mikhail's new partner instead of me."
"I don't think so," Clarissa said with a shake of her head, shocking Yume, who privately thought that had she not been chosen, Clarissa would have been the best bet to become Mikhail's partner. "I mean, yes, you may not have been the most technically advanced pairs skater to try out, but there's something about your skating… It's difficult to define, but you definitely have it."
"Definitely," Pilar agreed. "So, don't worry about it, Yume. Just…skate. I'm sure you'll be fine."
Despite their encouraging words, Yume didn't feel any more confident than she had before. She only managed a couple of bites of her oatmeal before it was time for her and the other girls to head for the rink for their first group practice.
At the rink, most of the men were already on the ice warming-up - among them, Mikhail, who landed a textbook perfect triple toe loop just as they arrived. Even though Yume thought she saw Mikhail briefly glance in her direction after completing the jump, he didn't verbally acknowledge her presence, not even calling out a polite "good morning." Sighing, Yume sat down to put on her skates and wondered if Mikhail would ever let go of his Ice Prince persona around her, or if he really was just that cold.
"Hey, Yume," Clarissa, who was sitting beside her, said, lightly nudging Yume in the side with her elbow. "Check out the guy in the corner, the one doing crossovers."
Looking over to where Clarissa was pointing, Yume noticed for the first time a very handsome boy who appeared to be in his late teens, although how she could have missed him, Yume didn't know. The skater was very conspicuously dressed in ripped-up jeans and a tight white T-shirt that showed off his well-defined muscles instead of the sweats and tights the other male skaters wore. "Jason?" she guessed, and Clarissa grinned.
"Jealous?"
"He is cute," Yume had to admit.
"Isn't he?" Going to stand at the boards, she let out a sigh. "I just wish he would think of me more than just his skating partner."
"Maybe he will, someday," Yume said, coming up beside her.
"Not as long as Zoe Alexander is around," Clarissa declared just as the man in jeans skated to a stop in front of them.
"Hey, 'Rissa, you ready to warm-up yet?" Jason asked. "Coach Wong will be here soon."
"Y-Yeah," Clarissa stuttered, a faint blush coloring her cheeks. "I'll be right there, Jason. I just need to put my hair up."
"Cool," he said. Jason then skated off.
"Well, I guess I better get out there." After pulling her curly red hair up into a high ponytail, Clarissa stepped on the ice and performed a quick spin, the skirt of her light blue practice dress fluttering around her. "How do I look?" she asked Yume, who gave her an encouraging smile.
"Gorgeous."
"Thanks, Yume."
By that time, Elizaveta and Pilar had already joined their respective partners on the ice, and the last two people to arrive - Dominique and another male skater Yume presumed to be Dominique's new partner - were putting on their skates. Mikhail had yet to call her over to join him, so Yume decided to warm-up on her own.
What is with that guy? she wondered, watching Mikhail pull off a beautiful triple axel - a jump that most pairs skaters, male or female, never even attempted - in the middle of the ice. Show-off. If he really wasn't interested in skating with anybody but Tatiana Pekrovskaya, he should have just switched to singles. He has all the triple jumps…
Her thoughts were interrupted when somebody turned off the music that had been playing in the background. Everybody else had begun to form a line in the center of the rink, so Yume followed suit, taking the spot at the right end of the line beside Mikhail. She smiled at him, hoping to break the ice between them, so to speak, but he only gave her a curt nod of acknowledgment in return.
"Everybody here?" May, who had skated onto the ice, asked, coming to a stop when she noticed Yume at the end of the line. "Ah, Yume, good to see you again. It appears we finally have the whole group together," she said. "It's about time. Kalos has just announced the dates for the show, so we all have our work cut out for us if we want to be ready in time."
"When is opening day, Coach Wong?" the man standing between Pilar and Clarissa asked. From his similar accent, Yume deduced that he must be Sergei, Pilar's partner and Mikhail's fellow countryman.
"July 29th, which only leaves us only about four months to prepare. Mia Guillem, Kaleido Stage's head director and choreographer, is currently working on the script and has informed me that she may be stopping by unannounced from time to time in order to observe you, so I expect everybody to skate their best at all times. Got it?"
Everyone nodded their understanding.
"Good. Now, since today is Yume's and Mikhail's first day of skating together, I will primarily be working with them during this session," May explained. "I want the rest of you to work on your own. Sergei and Pilar, you two need to work on your Triple Twister; it's not nearly high enough. Elizaveta, you and Dmitri should work on consistently landing your side-by-side jumps. Sebastien and Dominique, practice your pairs spins, and Jason and Clarissa, I want you to continue working on the Broken Heaven Lift from last week, so, everyone, get to work."
As the group once again broke up into pairs to start their assignments, a confused Yume wondered what in the world a Triple Twister and a Broken Heaven Lift was. She may have only recently switched to pairs, but she knew enough about the discipline to know those weren't official names. However, before she had a chance to watch the other pairs and find out, May loudly cleared her throat.
"Now, Yume, I trust you were able to keep up with your practicing while you were in Japan?" she asked as Yume turned back around to give her new coach her undivided attention.
She nodded. "Yes, ma'am. I managed to add a throw double axel to my jumps, but I'm afraid that's all I was able to master while I was gone."
"That's good enough. A throw triple toe and a double axel will do for the show."
Yume's eyes widened, surprised by the announcement. May couldn't possibly be serious, could she? Mikhail and Tatiana were known for pushing the envelope when it came to the technical aspects of the sport. Even if May thought two throw jumps were sufficient for the show, there was no way Mikhail could be happy with such a decision.
"You mean you aren't going to teach me any more throw jumps?"
"Like I said, Kalos wants the show to open at the end of July, Yume. It would be a waste of our time. You two won't be competing, so there's no need to up the difficulty of your throw jumps at this time. To the audience, one throw jump is as good as another, and we already have the other pairs to try the more difficult throws."
"But -" Yume looked over at new partner, expecting Mikhail to object, but he remained strangely silent on the matter, letting May answer for him.
"Mikhail and I have already discussed this, and he agrees with me. We knew when we chose you to be his new partner that you, a singles skater, would not be as technically advanced as Tatiana when it came to pairs moves," May said. "That being said, that does not mean we are going to take the easy way out. You two may not be doing the most difficult throws, but I will expect you to perform the toughest side-by-side jumps, the fastest footwork, the most creative spins, and death-defying lifts. Can you do that?"
"I-I'll try…" Yume stuttered, again looking over at Mikhail. He did not look impressed. "I mean, yes, I will," she said more confidently, not wanting Mikhail to think badly of her. "I'll do whatever it takes to make this a show nobody will ever forget."
"Good. But, first, before we can begin learning the tricks, you two need to work on the basics, especially your unison. Let me see a Desert Mirage."
"A Desert-what?"
"She means side-by-side camel spins," Mikhail explained, speaking to Yume for the first time. "Come on, let's go."
"R-Right."
The two of them skated to the center of the ice and began doing the so-called "Desert Mirage". It soon became obvious that they were woefully out of sync. "Yume, show down a little," May called out. "Try to match Mikhail's spin."
Doing as asked, Yume slowed down her spin in an attempt go at Mikhail's pace.
"Now that's too slow! Start again."
They both stopped their spins and began anew.
"No, no, no!" May shouted. "You're too far apart, and, Yume, you're still going too fast. Come over here and watch Mikhail's spin."
Sighing as she pulled out of her camel spin, Yume wondered why May didn't just suggest that Mikhail try to spin faster to better match with her, instead of the other way around, but she thought it best not to argue and skated over beside their coach as Mikhail restarted his spin.
"See…this…is…the…tempo…of…Mikhail's…spin," May said, snapping her fingers. "You…must…match…it…before…we…try…faster. Understand?"
"Yes, I understand," Yume said.
"Good." Just then, Dominique yelled for May to come watch her and Sebastien's pair spin. "Okay, I'm going to see what Dominique wants. You two, practice the spin on your own."
After dinner, Yume headed up to her dorm room, more sore than she ever remembered being in her entire life. She and Mikhail had spent hours on the ice working on their unison, plus another hour or so working on weight training, which Yume had not expected. She could understand why Mikhail needed to build up his muscles, because he was the one who did the lifting, but May insisted she needed to build up her upper body strength as well.
"And tomorrow I start yoga and ballet lessons as well," she sighed as she pulled out her key and unlocked the door to her room.
Upon entering the dorm, Yume tossed her gym bag on the coach, headed to the bathroom to prepare her bath, and began taking off her clothes. A nice, hot soak was just what she needed to soothe her aching muscles, and she sighed in contentment as she submerged herself in the water, closing her eyes as she sat back and relaxed. She could already feel the pain melting away.
As Yume soaked, her thoughts turned to that day's practice. Yume thought they had done fairly well for their first day of skating together as a pair, but Mikhail had been as unsociable as he had been the day of the audition, barely saying a word to her all day long except to tell her to spin faster or jump higher. She tried talking to him during breaks, hoping that they might at least become casual friends, but he clearly wasn't interested in friendship, only seeing her as a business partner.
It really shouldn't have bothered her so much, but it did. All the other pairs seemed to click so well together, both on and off the ice. Pilar and Sergei had already become the best of friends, Elizabeta said Viktor was like the older brother she always wished she had, and even though Jason was completely oblivious to Clarissa's crush on him, the two of them seemed to get along very well until Zoe Alexander happened to come by during one of their breaks to give May a message from her father. Clarissa had not been lying when she claimed he had the hots for Zoe; Jason couldn't take his eyes off of the pretty contortionist the entire time she was there, brief as it was. It was as if Clarissa had become completely invisible to him.
Even Dominique and her new partner Sebastien seemed to have a strange like/hate relationship, despite her failed attempts to steal Sergei away from Pilar. Sebastien was French-Canadian, so the two of them liked to speak French together, which drove May crazy since she couldn't understand a word of what they were saying. She was forever reminding them to use English, but ten minutes after promising they would, they were back to French, probably to hide the fact that they were cussing each other out - at least according to Clarissa, who had taken French in school and could understand some of what they were saying.
Yume almost thought she would prefer even that to the cold indifference she got from Mikhail. Maybe it was the language barrier. Mikhail seemed to understand English, and he spoke it fairly well whenever he did speak, but maybe the reason why he didn't talk much was because he wasn't confident in his English skills. She could certainly understand that. When she first started learning English, she hated having to speak it in front of other people, afraid that she would make some dumb mistake and embarrass herself.
Deciding she would give Mikhail a few more days to warm up to her before completely writing his friendship off, Yume got out of the tub, wrapped a fluffy towel around herself, and started combing her wet hair in front of the mirror, humming a song they had skated to in practice to herself.
"Well, you certainly aren't the next Sarah Dupont, that's for sure," a male voice said, startling Yume and causing her to drop her comb in surprise.
Immediately, she looked up at her foggy mirror, and, upon seeing the reflection of a doll-sized man hovering over her left shoulder, Yume screamed.
"Yume!" Pilar shouted, pounding on the door. "Yume, are you all right in there?"
Yume, ignoring the little man, ran out of the bathroom and answered the door. "Oh, Pilar!" she said, struggling to catch her breath. "Wh-What are you doing here?"
The Hispanic girl frowned, a concerned look in her dark eyes. "I was just walking by on the way to my room, and I thought I heard you scream. Are you okay?"
Okay? Of course she wasn't okay! She had just seen a tiny man floating in mid-air in her bathroom; that certainly wasn't okay. However, aware of how crazy that would sound to Pilar if she told her the truth, Yume quickly came up with a cover story. "I'm fine," she insisted, forcing out a fake laugh. "Silly me. I just slipped on some water when I was getting out of the tub, and it surprised me, that's all. I wasn't hurt."
"Are you sure?"
"Really, I'm okay."
"Well, that's good," Pilar said, smiling. "I'm glad, but be more careful next time. Coach Wong will freak if you twist your ankle or break your leg."
"I will. Thanks for checking up on me."
"No prob. See you in the morning!"
Pilar turned around, but before she could leave to go back to her room next door, Yume grabbed her arm. "Hey, Pilar," Yume said, "um…right before I screamed, did you, by any chance, happen to hear a male voice?"
"A male voice?" Pilar raised an eyebrow. "Yume, do you have a guy in there? Is he what made you scream?"
Yume felt her entire body blush at the implication. "What? No!"
"Oh, really?" Her curiosity piqued, Pilar attempted to peek over Yume's shoulder into the room. "Who is this guy? I want to meet him."
"Pilar, I'm telling you, there is nobody else in here," Yume declared, regretting ever asking Pilar about the voice. "You know Marion doesn't allow boys to spend the night in the girls' dorms, not that any guy would want -"
"Uh-huh, sure. Whatever you say, Yume," Pilar said. It was clear from the amused tone in her voice that she did not believe Yume's story one bit. "Well, then, I'll let you, ahem, get back to whatever you were doing. Alone. All by yourself."
"There isn't anybody else here!"
"Did I say there was?"
With that, Pilar winked and headed back to her own room next door. Shaking her head, Yume sighed and went back inside to change into her nightclothes.
If Pilar didn't hear him, he must have been a figment of my imagination, she thought to herself as she dressed. Yes, that's it! I just imagined -
"Can you see me?"
Her thoughts broken by the same male voice as before, Yume opened her mouth to scream again, but caught herself just in time. Instead, she quickly pulled down her over-sized nightshirt and turned around to come face-to-face with the doll-sized man once again.
"You pervert! Who do you think you are, you Peeping Tom?"
"Actually, my name is Fool," he corrected, giving her a grand bow, "and I am the Spirit of the Stage."
"I don't care who you are, because you are just -" Yume suddenly stopped in the middle of her tirade, remembering something. "Wait, what did you say you were again?"
"The Spirit of the Stage. Your elder sister Sora must have mentioned me to you before?"
Feeling faint, Yume sat down on her bed, her eyes wide and her mouth dropped in disbelief. Sora had indeed told her stories when she was a little girl about a Spirit of the Stage named Fool who only Sora had the ability to see, but Yume had thought they were just that: fun stories to entertain her kid sister. Yume never honestly believed Fool existed, yet, there he was, standing before her as clear as day.
"I-I can't believe this," Yume finally stuttered after a long silence. "You really, truly exist?"
"Your name is Yume, isn't it?" Fool asked. He ignored her question, looking around the room at all her skating memorabilia. "It isn't often that I appear to a figure skater."
"That's right. I thought you only appeared to trapeze artists." She said it as more of an accusation than a question.
"No, no. It's true I appear most often to trapeze artists, but every once in a while, other types of performers can see me."
"And I'm one of them…" Yume breathed, shaking her head when she realized what that meant. "No, this can't be right. I'm nobody special. I'm just a beginner in pairs skating who somehow ended up becoming partners with an Olympic champion."
"That may be true, but the fact that you can see me means that you were chosen for the stage."
Yume stood back up and began pacing around the bedroom. "This is absolutely ridiculous," she muttered to herself. "This cannot be happening. I must be dreaming. That's it, I'm dreaming. I'm dreaming, and I'll prove it." She stopped in the middle of the room and painfully pinched her arm. "Ouch! Shimatta, it's not a dream."
"You need to calm down, Yume. Why don't you lay down on the bed and I'll give you a nice, soothing massage - Hey!"
"You really are as perverted as my sister claimed," she said, grabbing Fool by his midsection and tossing him in her armoire. "There!"
Satisfied, Yume then crawled into bed, hoping that when she woke up the next morning, she would discover it really was all just a dream.
DISCLAIMER: Kaleido Star doesn't belong to me.
Translated May-speak:
Triple Twister - split triple twist
Broken Heaven Lift - star lift
Desert Mirage - camel spin, as Mikhail helpfully explained to Yume