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Something tapped against the ground, something small. Claudine heard it when Maya hit her shoe against her hand out before putting it on; something she always did. The brunette bent to pick it up and put it in her sweatshirt’s pocket before Claudine could even recognize what it had been.
“What was that?”
“A pebble.”
“How did a pebble get into your dance shoes? Did you wear them out?”
Maya glanced at her out of the corner of her eye, “Did I? Perhaps I did. I don’t really recall.”
Claudine stared at her. Was she being short with her answers? Who puts a pebble in their pocket, for crying out loud? If she hadn’t been staring her down, she wouldn’t have even seen the odd look she gave her. It was a millisecond of... worry? Or maybe just a need to change the topic.
Maya didn’t even budge, so the blonde huffed. They had only known each other for about half a year, yet it felt like they had spent too much time as partners for Starlight for Claudine to accept such stupid answers from Tendou Maya, so she just shoved her hand into the girl’s pocket instead.
She took a sharp breath as something pricked her, and Maya froze as her eyes widened, “Are you alright? Is this really necessary, Saijou-san?”
“I’m fine,” she said as she managed to get a hold of the object that had stabbed her. She knew what it was by the shape of it before she even pulled it out, but sure enough, when she did they both looked down at a red push-pin.
Claudine squinted at it for a moment before her eyes shot back up to Maya’s more nervous ones. “This was in your shoe.” It wasn’t a question, though she phrased it like one.
Maya blinked, and then nodded.
“Why did you lie?”
Maya finished tying her shoes and stood. She began stretching her arms across her chest while she thought of her answer, “I didn’t want you to worry.”
“Why would I worry about y—“ Claudine interrupted herself and took a pause. Not a long one, just long enough for Maya to swallow the lump in her throat when the blonde squinted. “Someone put that there on purpose?”
Silence.
“Who would do something like that?” Claudine’s raised her voice, much to her partner’s surprise, “Even for this school, that’s a bit extreme! What if you got hurt?!” She stood up and went in the direction of the door, “This is malicious; I’m telling the faculty about this, come on.”
She reached for the handle, but Maya lunged to grab her wrist before she could leave.
“Maya. Let go.”
“No,” she pulled her back, but Claudine did her best to plant her feet. They were at a standstill. “It’s not that serious, our time would be better spent practicing. Dress rehearsal is tomorrow.”
Claudine snatched her hand away from Maya’s grasp, but ultimately gave in and stepped away from the door, “When this is over, I’m telling someone.”
“There’s really no point.”
“No point in trying to stop the sabotage attempts on the star of the show? You’ve said dumb things before, Tendou Maya, but now you’ve outdone yourself.”
Her partner smiled. It was small. “Do you really care, Saijou Claudine? If I was unable to perform the role suddenly, it would go to you. You would be the star.”
Claudine squinted, “Because of foul play? Why would I be happy about that? You think that little of me?”
“Of course not.”
“I don’t think a pin in your foot would stop you anyways, Tendou Maya,” was Claudine’s attempt at humor.
“No. It wouldn’t. So don’t worry about it. I shake out my shoes before I wear them for a reason.”
“So it’s happened that many times? Enough for checking your shoes to become a habit?”
“It doesn’t take that many times being stabbed to make a habit of it,” Maya told her.
“But you’re admitting that you have been traumatized by push-pins.”
Maya actually laughed. Claudine didn’t find it quite as funny.
“Perhaps. It’s usually more harmless things. Pretending to not hear me, messing with my things... you learn to not pay it any mind after a certain amount of time. Saijou-san, even you have ignored me at times.”
Claudine froze. She had her fair share of being ignored by her peers for just existing when she was younger as well; her stomach dropped because she knew Maya was right. There were times she had purposefully not acknowledged her.
It wasn’t long after they first met. She thought for sure something like that would never bother Maya enough for her to be able to recall it.
“You actually remember that,” it wasn’t a question; Claudine’s hands closed into fists at her side, “I’m sorry.”
Maya’s eyes widened, “Saijou-san... It’s really fine. You’re forgiven. I didn’t mean to upset you.”
Claudine shook her head, “The feelings mutual.”
Maya couldn’t help but smile.
—
“Was dinner okay, Kuro-chan?” Nana’s voice surprised her. Claudine had forgotten she wasn’t the only one still up.
“Great as always,” Claudine sent her a smile, “Thanks for cooking for all of us.”
“Of course!” Nana let her hand rest on her the blonde’s shoulder, “Then... are you okay?”
“Why wouldn’t I be?”
“Who knows... I just noticed a infomercial has been on for about 15 minutes and you haven’t changed the channel, though everyone else went back to their rooms a long time ago,” the taller girl laughed.
Claudine did as well, though it was more forced. She was embarrassed more than anything that she was caught being that out of it, “Maybe I’m more tired than I thought.”
“Is that all?”
She stood up, “Yes. I should sleep anyways. Rehearsal is tomorrow, after all.”
Nana frowned.
“—Although,” Claudine stopped herself. She hadn’t even taken 2 steps before her thoughts ate at her too much to keep them to herself, “Nana... I think I already know the answer, but if you saw someone being mistreated for a petty reason, you would do something to stop it if you could, right?”
Nana tilted her head slightly, “If I could, definitely. Is it a friend?”
“No!” The answer was quick, “We barely know each other, but she’s—“ Claudine stopped herself from saying something that would have made it stupidly obvious, “...No. It’s not a friend, yet it’s still been bothering me. She doesn’t want me to do anything about it, but...”
The taller girl smiled, “So she knows that you know? I wish I knew who it was, maybe I could help more.”
Nope. Out of the question.
Claudine almost broke. What’s the harm in telling Nana? She would keep it to herself, was the thought she had. Nana always seemed to like Maya well enough.
“I’d really rather not say,” was what she forced out of her mouth instead, “She wouldn’t want other people to know. I... I don’t really want to risk losing that trust,” she was telling the truth, and that statement alone being said out loud made her face heat.
“I think you should help her, but you already knew that.” Nana had a pretty good idea of who Claudine was referring to now, going on the redness of the blonde’s cheeks. She didn’t quite know what ‘mistreatment’ meant in this context, but it warmed her heart to see Claudine care this much. She smiled.
Claudine looked away shyly, “Yes. I just want to figure out a way to do that without...”
“Having everyone find out?”
“Yes.”
“If anyone can figure it out, you will, Kuro-chan.”
Claudine huffed, the sudden compliment bringing her confidence back, “You know what? You’re right. I will. Thank you.”
Nana giggled, “Goodnight, Kuro-chan.”
—
In the back of Claudine’s mind, she hated that she was still thinking about her conversation with Tendou Maya yesterday.
She went to bed thinking about it. She woke up thinking about it. She ate breakfast, still thinking about it. Her thoughts were eating away at her.
She caught her partner at her desk before class started.
“Saijou-san, good morning.”
“Good morning,” she leaned against the taller girl’s desk, close so as no one would hear their conversation, “I’ve been thinking... About yesterday. About the pin.”
Maya’s eyes widened, so she lowered them so that she would not have to look at Claudine anymore. Suddenly her textbook was way more interesting, “I’m really flattered you’re this concerned for me, Saijou-san.”
Claudine rolled her eyes, “Don’t be annoying when I’m trying to help you.”
“Help me?” Maya’s grip tightened around the pen in her hand, “But I believe I told you it wasn’t worth worrying over.”
“Tendou—“
The brunette interrupted, “No. Please push it from your mind. The moment they see their childish attempts at bringing me down actually have an effect on me, they win. I don’t want to give them that satisfaction,” their eyes met again. In practice yesterday, she was a bit unguarded. Now she was completely closed off again. Frustrated, even? She seemed to have to stop herself from raising her voice. Claudine supposed it was due to the presence of people other than just herself. Maya continued, “Please forget about it.”
Claudine’s fists tightened at her sides. She wanted to lash out at her, to tell her she was just being stubborn. In any other situation, she would not have stopped herself from doing exactly that, but there was something about Maya’s demeanor that told Claudine it would be best to back off for now, so she settled for stomping away, muttering, “You’re annoying,” before she was out of earshot.
Her partner just let out a pent up exhale and fought off the urge to let her head hit the desk.
Tendou Maya was wrong about this.
The blonde stewed over it all day. For the life of her, she just could not understand why Maya would not just stand up for herself. What kind of world was she living in where Tendou Maya would just live with the fact that she was being bullied? And why did that sentence make her heart feel so heavy? Maybe Claudine didn’t know her as well as she once thought, after all.
Before she knew it, she was heading straight to the dressing room after class. She had told Maya they would meet for practice right after school, as the rehearsal didn’t start for another hour. She decided that woman could stand to wait for her just this once. Checking on the status of her things was more important to Claudine at the moment.
Well, the status of both of their things. That was the extra excuse she made up for herself to even be doing this.
Immediately after opening the door to said dressing room, she decided she did not regret her decision at all. It took some real willpower not to have her “a-ha!” moment out loud and right into the face of a girl with brown hair walking towards the door from the costume rack, Maya’s Claire outfit draped over her arms. She was just a few centimeters shorter than Claudine herself and she had a terrified look in her eyes upon seeing the blonde. They recognized each other. Of course this girl knew who Saijou Claudine was; but the blonde recognized her from Class B. If she remembered correctly, she tried but did not make it into Class A, and was put into B by deafult.
The most important part was: Claudine knew everyone in charge of costumes by face. This girl was most definitely not one of those people.
“Saijou-san—“
Yes. Claudine had trained all her life for this. It was time to test her acting skills in a real challenge at long last.
“What’s this? Is there something wrong with Tendou Maya’s costume?”
“Y-Yes! I was asked to take it to have the waist brought out a bit,” she stuttered, “If you’ll excuse me, there’s really no time to waste today.”
Claudine put her arm against the door frame just before the girl tried to pass her into the hall. The action made the girl’s eyes even wider in fear so Claudine put on the realest, most charming smile she could manage.
“Alright. What are you really doing though?”
The girl was too stunned to answer.
The blonde continued, “I like messing with Tendou Maya as much as the next person, you know.”
The student’s jaw dropped slightly, “S-Seriously? You?”
Claudine rolled her eyes, “Obviously. And I heard she’s been having trouble with people pranking her lately. I am her co-star after all,” she sent the girl a playful grin, “So? Is it you? Or do you know who it is?”
The girl blushed, “It might be me.”
“I hope you weren’t planning on messing with me as well.”
The girl quickly denied it, “No! We all like you, Saijou-san. Don’t worry.”
Something twinged in Claudine’s chest, and she prayed her eye wouldn’t twitch like it tended to when she was angry, “Unlike Tendou Maya?”
“Well,” the girl shrugged, “She’s... you know.”
“Say no more.”
The student giggled.
“So? What were you really planning on doing with that?” Claudine gestures towards the costume.
“I hadn’t decided yet... Dirtying it seems a bit harsh, so I thought maybe just hiding it somewhere. Do you have any ideas, Saijou-san?”
“Too harsh? And a tack in her shoe wasn’t too harsh?” Claudine got a little too close to breaking character there, but she felt like a vein was about to burst in her neck at that ridiculous statement. Before the girl could react, she put on her ruse again and held her hands out, “I do have an idea, actually. May I see it?”
“Oh! Of course.”
The costume was handed over to her and Claudine looked over it for a moment. She wished her heart wasn’t threatening to beat out of her chest, but this is just what Maya-related anger did to her, historically. No matter how much she hated it.
She looked back at the student and then pushed past her, their shoulders knocking together and pushing the shorter girl out of the way. Claudine walked the costume back into the dressing room.
“Saijou-san?”
“I’ll take it from here,” Claudine called back, and hung the dress back on the rack by a hanger, right next to her own Flora costume, “Really, I wish people like you hadn’t made it into Seisho at all.”
“What?”
“It really makes the rest of us who wouldn’t do something stupid like this look bad,” Claudine smoothed out the fabric and turned around, crossing her arms.
She wanted to burst out into a loud laugh at the girl’s face. She looked like she didn’t know whether to scream or run away or start crying and pleading at Claudine’s feet.
“...Are you going to tell someone?”
Claudine shrugged, “Who knows? For your sake, I hope not,” she gave the girl her first real smile since this talk started, “I’m pretty unpredictable. Wouldn’t you agree?”
The girl’s fists clenched at her sides, “I...”
Claudine laughed at her, “You’re lucky Tendou Maya isn’t the type to get angry; I just found out she was being messed with on accident,” she shrugged, and walked forward, but stopped when she noticed the girl instinctively take a step back even though they were standing on opposite sides of the room. That made her laugh again.
“You know, Maya didn’t actually care about anything you were doing to her,” Claudine told her, “None of it was creative enough to work on her.”
That may have been somewhat of a lie. As far as Claudine saw, Maya didn’t fall for that prank, but what about in the past? And she had a hard time believing the taller girl truly didn’t care. Her frustration this morning told her otherwise on that front.
“Then why do you care?” The girl seethed.
Yeah, why did she care?
“Why do I care...? We’re partners, the childish things you attempt affect me too,” that may have been a lie as well but this girl would not be able to figure that out any time soon. “That is why I care. So if I were you, I’d leave and start thinking of excuses that are good enough to save me from being kicked out.”
The girl wanted to say something. Again, she just looked like she wanted to scream, really.
She finally turned around and hastily left.
Claudine let out the hardest exhale she had managed in a long time.
It felt great.
—
Claudine was absolutely giddy. She knew she was walking with more of a bounce in her step and a smile on her face all the way to their practice room, but she couldn’t bring herself to try and hide it.
“Saijou-san?”
“I know I’m late, sorry,” Claudine said as she walked in, smiling, holding two bottles of water.
“You are? It’s just been a few minutes,” Maya paused her stretching to turn towards her, “You seem like you’re in a better mood. Did something happen?”
“Not at all,” Claudine held out one of the bottles towards her partner.
Maya looked down at it, then back up at the blonde, visibly confused. Since when did Claudine bother buying her water from the vending machine? She took it anyways.
“Thank you..? Should I pay you back?”
It would be a lie to say Maya wasn’t slightly afraid of her right now, what with that smile and sudden optimistic aura and friendliness towards her.
She just laughed, “Of course not, it’s only water. You’re okay, right?” Claudine suddenly asked her, passing her to sit down and slip her sneakers on quickly, “No pins today?”
Maya tensed up even more, “No. No pins.”
“Good!” Claudine looked up at her again and a laugh escaped her again at the way her partner was looking at her, “Calm down then, you look like you’ve seen a ghost.”
Maya wasn’t convinced she hadn’t.
The blonde held out her hand, “Want to warm up?”
Again, Maya was having a hard time reacting to this Claudine. She was always the one to initiate their dances. She was the le—
“—Lead?”
Maya broke her stare on Claudine’s hand, “I’m sorry?”
“Do you mind if I lead first? We can switch after if you want,” Claudine suggested.
The taller girl just nodded mindlessly, but the feeling of Claudine stepping forward and taking her hand, the other now on her hip pulled her back to reality.
“Are you sure you’re okay?”
“I’m the same as always, Saijou-san,” Maya said. Claudine noted that that was the vaguest answer she could have possibly given. The brunette continued though, surprisingly. “Though I did want to apologize for this morning. I shouldn’t have gotten that frustrated with you; I know you just wanted to help.”
Claudine raised an eyebrow. She was apologizing, but even this seemed off to her. She lowered her eyes and sighed, “It’s okay.”
Maya exhaled.
“Can we start now?”
“You’re the lead.”
Claudine rolled her eyes, “You’re so stiff right now, every time I try to start you’re like a brick wall just stuck here. It’s like you have an instinct to not let anyone else lead or you lock up.”
Maya actually smiled and forced her shoulders to relax, “That’s not true.”
The hand on her hip gently coaxed her forward and they easily fell into their warm-up routine. It was odd, though.
Not for Claudine; Claudine was enjoying herself quite thoroughly. No, it was Maya who felt odd about the whole thing.
It wasn’t the first time she hadn’t led. In middle school, teachers often had the students switch places. It never once bothered her, but again, something about this instance was just different.
She already knew that the difference was Claudine. There was never any denying that. Maya just wished she didn’t feel so vulnerable.
Frankly, her thoughts in the last 24 hours had exhausted her, what with dress rehearsal being today, the pin conundrum, and taking her frustration out on Claudine.
And dress rehearsal was still an hour away.
Tendou Maya didn’t dread things, but today brought her pretty damn close.
“Stress isn’t a good look on you, Tendou Maya.”
The brunette just exhaled through her nose. The hand that she felt on her hip curled around to the small of her back before the routine ended in the final dip. Claudine had no problem with it. Upper body strength had never been an area that she found herself lacking in.
Maya, however, hesitated. Not enough to mess them both up; it was just half a beat of her knees wanting to lock up before she let herself fall back.
Usually, this routine would leave them out of breath, but Claudine had taken it slower than usual to get a feel for leading with Maya as her partner.
As a result, Maya felt heat creep up her neck at the way Claudine was looking at her.
“You can trust me,” the blonde told her, “I wouldn’t have asked to lead if I thought there was a possibility I would drop you.”
“I do trust you.”
Claudine helped her back up to a standing position, “You have weird ways of showing it.”
Maya exhaled again.
“Well, regardless, your word is enough. I’m glad you trust me,” the blonde nodded, “I know you’re just having an off day.”
On instinct, Maya wanted to argue that. Remembering once again that it was Claudine she was speaking to, she thought maybe defending her pride wasn’t necessary. Just this once.
She looked tired.
Claudine wished that new expression didn’t affect her in the way that it did.
She couldn’t tell her about what had happened in the dressing room. That was out of the question. That could just be her little secret for the foreseeable future, and she could only pray she put an end to the bullying, for the sake of her partner’s sanity. She had done her part.
Yet she still felt like she wanted to do more.
“Let’s go to the dorms until rehearsal,” Claudine told her. It wasn’t a suggestion, but rather a statement. She walked towards both of their things and picked up Maya’s bag to hand to her, “An hour of practice lost is nothing; it would be more productive for you to rest until then. Come on.”
Maya took her bag, to stunned to do anything other than that. She felt a hand in the middle of her back give her a soft shove forward.
She finally smiled, “...Alright. Just this once.”
—
“Ugh, what is with them today? They’re way worse than usual,” Kaoruko whined, watching from stage right as their teacher talked to Maya and Claudine between a scene, giving them each some pointers before trying it again.
“Kuroko’s in a good mood, huh?” Futaba had her arms crossed.
“It’s not just that! Right there! Did you see that?!” Kaoruko pulled on the fabric of Futaba’s goddess costume and jabbed her finger in the direction of the stage over and over, “The way Kuro-han keeps smiling at her! It’s like the seventh time I’ve seen her do it today, it’s making me sick!”
“Worse than usual?” Karen piped up, listening to their conversation, “I thought they did great...”
Kaoruko rolled her eyes, “I’m not talking about their acting.”
Futaba just laughed at Karen’s confused face. She patted her shoulder, “Don’t pay attention to Kaoruko. Tendou and Kuroko are just fine.”
“Oh, leave them be.” Nana put her hand on Kaoruko’s shoulder, making her jump and nearly yell, “We all knew they’d start to grow on each other eventually.”