Chapter Text
It starts out as one very random night.
As a matter of fact, the entire day hadn’t been much of a thrill: Ludmila can’t remember anything remarkable happening until the evening. Surely, her mother must’ve scolded her for the thousandth time, but by now Ludmila has learnt to tune her out. Priscila is capable of going on and on and on, and using her tired old threats for hours upon end. Much to her demise, her daughter’s grown a habit of it. It used to wear her ears off until it was easier to ignore her.
Life in the Castillo household had become some sort of familiar hell: bolt into the bathroom at the crack of dawn, put on a fake smile through breakfast when Germán might see you, then run out the door before Priscila starts rambling about YouMix.
The dream of becoming the new star of the well-known platform wasn’t going as great as Ludmila would have anticipated. Just thinking about it made her skin crawl. Every moment in the music booth was spent alongside Marotti being his obnoxious self, and every producer around her constantly belittling her in favour of their lost pupil, Violetta.
Because obviously, wherever Ludmila goes, the ghost of Violetta must follow.
First in the Studio, which she had worked so hard to make her kingdom. She liked the compartmentalisation of her classmates: you had the trio of the annoying free thinkers, with their aggressively positive energy and constant displays of affection, and then you had the popular group, the righteous one. Natalia, Andrés and León were three planets, circling around her, the star. You had clumsy, dumb as a brick and easily manipulable Andrés who would do anything to be included. Somehow, Ludmila got her hands on him first or the friendship trio would’ve easily engulfed him. Well, Andrés also kind of came as a package deal with León. León, tall and handsome, had been her boyfriend for so long she kind of forgot if she ever really felt something for him. But he was popular, and she was popular, so it only made sense. At least, that’s what she was taught.
And Natalia? Well, Naty was indispensable.
But then came Violetta, and suddenly the halls were flooded by all the students pending from her lips, and she gave speeches about friendship, and love, and music, and whatever else she thought would win over her little minions. One by one, every loser fell in love with her and became enslaved by her mediocre voice and lacklustre presence. Fine and dandy, Ludmila told herself, what’s a battlefield without an enemy? But then León left her, and in the span of too little, she saw him with his arms around Violetta, spewing off bullshit about how love changed him.
So her next move was to toss the net on the other boy who had his heart set on the Castillo wunderkind, but that was a fiasco too. Everything she did in her power to destroy her failed. Tomás was weird and contradictory, Andrés followed wherever his best friend went, and with every step Ludmila took to regain her apex predator title, someone else left her side.
Everyone except indispensable Naty. Naty always stuck around. She screamed at her sometimes when she felt a rush of courage, begged her to leave her and her sister alone, or just disagreed with Ludmila’s actions altogether. But then in the middle of the night, when Ludmila tossed and turned in her bed, blinking off residues of tears, her phone screen never failed to light up with a goodnight message or something similar. Ludmila never answered those. Once, Naty asked her if the texts bothered her. Ludmila had shot her a glare so indecipherable, Naty just ignored it and went on with her habit.
Along came YouMix and another missed opportunity. First, the Italian boy no one had ever heard of won the contest and left to become a superstar, and Ludmila endured endless days of belittlement from her mother. One of those nights might’ve been the first time Ludmila had texted Naty.
Natalia. She had simply written. And Naty immediately called.
Maybe that night, as Ludmila snuck out of her room to see her, she thought of Naty as a friend before an assistant. Then again, maybe, as she came back to her house the day after, her mind was put back into place.
When word spread that the next YouMix star was to be Violetta, Ludmila didn’t go home at all. She faked rehearsals until she couldn’t anymore and then tried to enter her house through the back door. Her phone was taken from her for days, and once she had it back, she didn’t fail to notice one specific contact had been blocked. Needless to say, Naty was mad about it for a while. Ludmila never explained what had actually happened.
But the new year brought new ideas and old friends to town, and in the game of Ludmila's life. Diego, fellow manipulator and asshole for the sake of it, quickly bought into the idea of charming Violetta just to break her heart, and Ludmila made some empty promise of helping him find out who his father was. During the whole ordeal, Ludmila let something slip one night when the two of them were alone in his apartment. “Fathers are bullshit,” she said. And when asked to elaborate, she simply added: “Why did he never try to contact me?” And then quickly, yet too slow: “I meant, you. Why did he never try to- to contact- you.”
Diego was a good shoulder to cry on. Diego was a valuable asset Ludmila actually trusted, like a brother. Like a friend. And then Diego fell into the same trap León did before him, and suddenly he would protect Violetta with his life. Ludmila laughed out loud. Life was becoming some kind of cosmic joke.
She lost contests upon contests, until she actually started wondering if they were set up just to make fun of her, get her excited and then kill her light on the spot. There were days when if it weren’t for Priscila she would’ve never gotten out of bed at all. That crazy chick could never accept losing, the guys in the Studio would say when they saw her with her hair dishevelled and her eyes hollow. She’d rehearse on stage and fall, and everyone would laugh and call it karma. Once, she swore she heard Naty’s unmistakable giggle among the bunch, and that stung on another level.
The Italian boy came back and Ludmila latched onto him until she felt he was latching onto her, too. A guy who didn’t know everything she put her classmates through in these past few months was a perfect victim, and yeah, sure, he was nice enough to be eligible for the role of boyfriend. The fact that he responded and engaged with her astronomy references allowed him a bright little star next to his name, or a green dot, as the redheaded hippie would put it. A plethora of fake smiles and a regurgitated Violetta speech about how she’s going to become a better person because she loves him worked like a charm, and there was the YouMix power couple- except, Federico was YouMix material, and Ludmila was not.
Violetta had that title.
Ludmila doesn’t even care enough to remember what it was that sent Federico over the edge, too, only that she was on a bench, crying, letting go of everything and feeling so desperately alone at that moment that she wished for an asteroid to wipe down the human race, or that she would actually finally explode like the supernova she was meant to be. When someone sat down next to her, she thought of her mother first, and she froze. Then she recognised the red skirt, and the tanned legs, and her heart started beating out of her chest.
But Naty lost it around that time as well. You could never write a love song, because you don’t know what that is. What a joke. What a cruel joke coming from her. Ludmila wanted to punch her right in those teary eyes and devastated frown. Naty never liked confrontation. I don’t hate you. I could never hate you, she’d said. I don’t hate you, and that’s the whole problem. Ludmila went really quiet and really still. No messages, no phone calls from that night on.
So, love apparently changed Ludmila, and now she stood on a tightrope, in the middle of two choices. She could go back and earn her title of tarantula again. Except for some reason, Violetta and her gang started softening the blows. Now they saw her flaws, now they saw her weaknesses, and apparently, they had decided they wanted her redeemed. So she could go forward, and begin anew as the group antihero who needed to sneak in some mean comment when enough is enough.
That did work for a while, on tour and in the Studio too. She had Naty back, she had Federico back, and though some didn’t - couldn’t - trust her yet, Violetta started playing devil’s advocate for her. Whatever.
As if that wasn’t enough, Violetta started playing sister. Priscila decided Germán was the most eligible bachelor and went with it. That haunted Ludmila in a way nothing else ever did. Yes, obviously she knew what person her mother was, and that she would do anything to anyone- but choosing Germán? Violetta’s father? That couldn’t have been a coincidence. It was just too messed up to be one.
So this was already the worst year of Ludmila’s life. And of course, Antonio had to die, too.
Death was always a weird concept for Ludmila. When people died, they just died. You couldn’t really miss someone who would never come back, it was useless. (He never tried to contact her, anyway. He might be dead, too, and why would she care?)
So when Antonio died and the tour was cancelled, Ludmila felt anger. They had worked so hard for nothing? Another opportunity down the drain, like everything before it?
It really took everything in her not to lash out while everyone else was grieving, and because she had finally found stability in her life with her new ‘friendships’, she did something she didn’t really know she could: kept her mouth shut.
“So, you’re not on tour,” Priscila had said when she found out what happened. “Fix it.” And her diligent daughter knew what she had to do, the second she got her desperate hands on Violetta’s new song. YouMix’s fallen star was about to be replaced by a supernova.
In the rush that her mother might be proud of her once and for all, Ludmila didn’t feel any pain or regret for what she was doing. Everyone who thought she was finally on the right path, everyone who fought for her was just reminded for the last time of her true nature. Was there a species of tarantulas that could change colours to adapt to situations they can benefit from? Did tarantulas suck their victims’ blood dry until they found another juicier, thicker vessel to latch on? These were just some of the questions running around the On Beat students’ heads as they watched the new YouMix pupil leave the Studio forever.
And it made perfect sense: YouMix betrayed the Studio by suddenly dropping their sponsorship and leaving it in financial peril, and Ludmila betrayed it, too, the moment she felt her success was more important than her friends she had worked so incredibly hard to win over. A match made in hell.
Now that she had YouMix, finally, her mother should’ve been jumping up and down from ecstasy, seeing how well her scheming went. “You are nothing without YouMix,” was all she said instead, “so you better work like it. And if you screw this up, don’t come crying to me.”
Did you really think that would’ve worked?, a whisper came from behind Ludmila’s shoulders as a chorus of a thousand people, everyone from her life she had tricked to get to this point. Was it worth it, Ludmi? That was one specific voice.
“Yes,” she said out loud, to her mother and the whispers in her head.
So, although her life had been nothing short of eventful lately, this one night was pretty forgettable and useless. She was supposed to go on a date with her new fake boyfriend Felipe, a Spanish Federico surrogate who acted creepy and possessive. Because he, too, only cared about fame and success, and he was a pretty face who needed to do nothing but show his pretty face and do what boys with pretty faces do: have girls with pretty faces around their arms. The plan was to have him pick her up at her- no, Violetta’s house, and have the cameramen ready for when they walked out so they could get a few good shots. But then there was a problem with the paparazzi’s schedules, and surely the two pop stars weren’t going on a date without getting anything from it, so her evening was free.
She is in her bedroom, putting down some ideas for a new song she had in mind when the doorbell rings. Not thinking much of it, she doesn’t move from her position. Then it rings again, twice, three times more until with an exasperated groan Ludmila finally decides to go open the door.
It is pretty late, anyway, and Germán and Priscila are out on a date. Violetta is out, too, with her friends at karaoke, or something. Not like she invited her. Not like Ludmila wanted to see all of her former classmates’ faces, anyway. And if the housekeeper was out too for some reason, the only person left to open the door is, in fact, Ludmila herself. Who might’ve bothered to randomly come here so late at night? One of Violetta’s thousand suitors? A distressed Angie (or whoever that other crazy raven-haired lady from Germán’s past was) who needed to put her brother-in-law in his place once again? Or was it the police, finally coming to take her nut-job of a mother from-
Keep it realistic, Ludmila says to herself as she walks down the stairs. No wishful thinking.
When her hand is already pushing down on the handle, she finally realises, who else could it possibly be but Felipe? He was supposed to come, after all. Perhaps he didn’t get the memo and thought they were still going out tonight? It does make sense, and at least she gets some free enjoyment by shutting him down and sending his sour ass back home. Even better, she decides to hold her phone in the other hand, to show just how uninterested in his presence she is.
“What do you want,” she mutters swinging the door open. No answer. Ludmila looks up. This one, she couldn’t have guessed.
Naty is right there, soaking wet. When did it start raining? And what is she doing here? She blinks more times than enough and still sees her, an unreadable expression on her face. “Hi,” she says, completely out of breath. And Ludmila must look beyond bewildered, because never has she deducted so easily from her friend’s body language alone just how nervous she was to be here, shifting her weight between her feet and gripping the inside of her pockets tight with her hands.
Naty has her shoulder-long curly dark hair down and is wearing a hoodie with a flannel underneath, paired with some random jeans and sneakers. Raindrops are falling down her cheeks like tears, and her outfit is not matching with the weather. Come inside, gets stuck on Ludmila’s lips. She can’t invite her in. What if her mother shows up early? But by letting her just hang out by the doorstep, she’s going to catch a cold, and however cruel the streets might call Ludmila, she’s not going to let her friend just freeze to death right in front of her.
There really isn’t a need to ponder on her next move, either way, because suddenly, way too suddenly, Naty leaps to her, slightly on her tiptoes, grabs her by the cheeks and just kisses her. An innocuous, short kiss that squishes their faces together.
Rarely has Ludmila been completely left as speechless as when their lips finally part. Naty’s face now portrays the exact same fear her body was before. Her big eyes do not dare blink and her nostrils are flaring up. She starts emitting a weird, irrational panicked sound.
But Ludmila says nothing, as if the kiss has turned her to stone. Frankly, what could she even say? How could she react to what just happened? Part of her is tempted to just say ok, goodnight, close the door and pretend nothing happened. The other part, however, cannot process doing anything but staring at Naty.
And Naty is scared shitless by now, probably in the midst of a panic attack. Ludmila’s hollow eyes look down at her like her lips had poison in them, and she just killed her best friend. Ludmila keeps a tight grip on the door handle, feeling as if she might fall to the floor if she lets it go. Her face feels burning hot and pale as a ghost at the same time.
Did that-
Did she just-?
What just-?!
“I’m-” Naty is the first to speak up, though it’s only to encourage Ludmila. “Say something. Anything. Please.”
Ludmila has absolutely nothing to say. Every word known to man has left her vernacular on a space shuttle and has now landed on Mars and will never come back, ever. She might stay right there at the doorstep for the rest of her life. Why would she move, anyway? Why would she feel the need to, when nothing could faze her more than this?
To be clear, Ludmila is a survivalist. She’s prepared for any situation, ever, so she can come out on top or at least not fall off too hard. She’s prepared for an alien invasion.
She’s not prepared for Natalia Vidal to show up at her sworn enemy’s door, and kiss her, out of the blue.
And this is bad. This is really bad.
One unexpected event always leads to an avalanche of catastrophic consequences.
And Ludmila is always right.
Because the moment the ringing leaves her ears, the moment their eyes meet and she’s finally opening her mouth that’s been shut tight this whole time, they hear it.
They both hear the unmistakable sound of their lives, ruined forever.
Loud and clear, behind them, they hear a camera clicking.