Once More With Feeling

Chapter 7: Glissade

I guess I should hate Miss Suzume by now.

Everyone else does, and she must be used to it. You don't get to be that harsh without knowing you're not everyone's favorite person.

I'm not a big fan of hers, don't get me wrong. She's mean, and overly criticial, and severe, and nasty, and sometimes cruel. But she's also preparing us for What's Out There when we graduate KPAA and move on.

And in ballet, the horrible reality is that everyone is mean and overly critical and severe and nasty and cruel. She's not a bitch just for the sake of being one. She's trying to toughen us up so we can handle the bitter, scrutinized, dog-eat-dog world we're going to be entering when we're done here. So yeah, I don't particularly like her, but I do appreciate this.

I do appreciate this.

I do.

(If I tell myself the same thing over and over, I start to believe it.)

It's just like dance. Miss a turn, then you do that turn 20 times so you don't fuck it up again. Bend your knee, then do thirty extensions so it hurts and you don't forget. Feel like ballet life just isn't enough? Tell yourself 3000 times that it is, until you believe it yourself.

Practice makes perfect.

"D-Did you hear?" asks sweet, gentle little Hinata at practice that afternoon. She rushes up to me with excitement in her dove-colored eyes, her perfect shiny black ponytail bouncing back and forth in her enthusiasm. She joins me for my stretches in a corner of the practice room and waits for me to press her for details.

"Hear what?" I ask indulgently. I like Hinata. She's pretty, and I love pretty things. I envy her perfect figure, her perfect hair, her breathtakingly beautiful eyes.

"There's g-gonna be r-r-recruiters. At our h-holiday sh-showcase!"

Of course I've heard it. Miss Suzume's only beaten it into me a thousand times since the beginning of competition season; I know why she gave me the heads-up, though, ahead of the other girls. It's because I'm her star, and I'm likeliest to be snatched up by a great school, and her best chance at getting recognized for pumping out amazing talent.

The fact that I'm an anorexic neurotic with a dwindling personality is just something I have to hide.

"That's awesome!" I say instead with a smile, extending my left leg into the air with my hand cupped around my heel. I remember how hard this used to be, before I devoted an unholy amount of time to improving my flexibility. Now, it's the easiest thing in the world; there's no strain in my muscles anymore that tells me it hurts. Practice makes perfect.

"And...M-Miss Suzume's g-g-giving me a f-featured part in o-our r-routine!" she adds, with a fierce, fierce blush that tells me she's so, so pleased with herself that she can't even contain it, but painfully shy and modest at the same time. It's endearing, and it's why I like Hinata so much. In this whole company with all these cutthroat, two-faced, hypocritical opportunists, she's unbelievably genuine.

"Really?!" I exclaim, happy for her in a way I just can't find the energy to be for myself anymore. "Hinata that's amazing, this is your chance to get discovered!"

"W-Will you help m-me on it?"

"Of course!"

Then Hinata blushes again in the middle of her stretch, and says in her quiet little voice, "You're n-nothing like wh-what everyone else s-s-says you are."

I raise my eyebrows at her, more amused than anything. "And what does everyone say I'm like?" Like I don't already know.

She hesitates, then murmurs, "A backstabber. They s-s-say you'll d-do anything to g-get ahead."