moral of the story | a ninjago highschool fanfiction

[23] Cole in a tutu...yea or nay?

cole

His feet were cumbersome, for dancing. They were big and he didn't know how to move them, unless he was in sport. There, it was simple movements. Back and forth, side to side, a diagonal, or move on instinct. Dancing was twirling around in a tutu.

Cole didn't do tutus.

His father was like a hawk Saturday morning, swooping down on Cole with a hungry glint in his eye to know more about his audition. Cursed word. Lou sat him down, grinning with glee as Cole dropped his sports bag on the kitchen floor.

"So? How did it go? What type of dance did they ask you to do? Choreography?" Cole blinked slowly, letting the volley of questions halt before answering them slowly as if it pained him.

"It went fine. We did contom— contemporary? The teacher taught us this choreography that lasted twenty-four counts, and we all learnt it. Then we had to answer some theory stuff and show our technique." His answers were as dull and as bored as possible, but Lou didn't notice, his happiness spreading over everything. For his sake, Cole tried to look uplifted.

"The team list is getting sent out next week. Very few spots." he added, emphasising few. Lou brushed it off.

"Only one audition?"

Cole shrugged, opening the fridge to get a snack he could wolf down. He was starving, and he needed to practice his plays after lunch so the Coach wouldn't get on his back. He'd butchered the audition already, and he wanted to be good at the thing he actually enjoyed. The chance of him getting into the dance team was as low as his father's opinion of his sports career.

"I need to study and uh, stuff this afternoon, Dad." In between mouthfuls of his sub, Cole watched patiently for Lou's response.

"Actually, you don't need to study this afternoon. We're, ahem, going to be sorting through Lily's things."

"What?"

"Your mother's belongings, there's something I need to find." Cole waited for more of an explanation, but Lou didn't offer anything else up.

His father had moved to the spare bedroom shortly after Lily passed away, leaving the master bedroom in a blanket of dust. A thick one, seeing as she'd died ten years ago. There was a difference between trying to forget your childhood memories, and involuntarily losing them. He had precious few of his mother and he hated the fact that in most she was bed-ridden, coughing, but smiling. She was always smiling.

Cole smiled for her.

"Sure." he was dubious, still, but after arriving home from the Julien's house, his father had offered no reasoning for his outburst. Maybe digging through his mother's possessions would change that.

His father jumped to his feet and crossed the kitchen to the door, and his footsteps thundering on the wooden stairs had Cole frowning. He scooped up a handful of pebbles sprouting at his toes and chucked them out of the window, not before running his thumb over the rough surfaces. One was uncannily smooth, it didn't look special, but there was a crude, faint tracing of a lily flower using cracks on the surface.

He sped up the stairs at his father's call, pocketing the pebble with a small smile. The door to the room was slightly ajar. For some reason he expected a lingering smell of his mother's perfume, lily and vanilla blossom, but all he smelt was dust. Cole sneezed uncontrollably as he closed the door behind him, making his way to where his father was rummaging through the mirror-doored closet.

The bed still had crisp, untouched, white sheets on it, a little rumpled at the end where Lou's wallet and phone had been tossed. Sitting on the edge of the bed, Cole watched his father pull out box after box of dust-lined things, staring at it, checking the label, then shaking his head like a dog ridding itself of water.