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Odette's routine had always been filled with work and no place for rest. Dance practice, fan meetings, work in the Fatui, work in the Rokot. Yet every now and then, Vodyanitsa would light up her day with either her singing or chit chats. Maybe that's why right now she was looking at her friend who was trying to spin like Odette did during her performances.
“You are doing it wrong again.” Odette pointed out at Vodyanitsa's third attempt of succeeding. The Water Imp didn’t seem to give up even now.
“How are you even doing this?” Vodyanitsa exclaimed and slumped onto the couch in the room. She was the one who initiated this meeting, and she was the one who asked Odette to teach her some of the ballet moves. Yet it didn’t turn out to be as easy as Vodyanitsa had hoped to.
“It takes practice is all.” Odette said and demonstrated the move once again, flawlessly performing it. “If you give up so fast, you won’t be able to master it.” Her voice was that of a strict teacher. Vodyanitsa giggled at the thought but the sound still caught Odette’s attention.
“Did I say something funny?” Odette walked up to the couch, which Vodyanitsa was sitting on, and sat down while maintaining a respectful distance.
“No, no, no! I just imagined what a scary teacher you would be, that’s all.” Vodyanitsa said with a smile while looking at her friend. “Your hypothetical students wouldn’t be fond of you.” She pointed her finger at Odette with playful accusation.
“I was not even being strict.” As expected, Odette replied with little defensiveness and more honesty of how she saw the situation. “If you want me to be strict, we can start by teaching you proper techni–”
“Got it! Got it! My toes are gonna fall off if you try to make me spin again, you know!” Vodyanitsa cut Odette off, not wanting to suffer from dance practices. She had no idea how Odette did it every day for hours if she found it necessary…
“As I remember, you were the one who asked me if I could teach you how to spin.” Odette pointed out, staring at the Water Imp with an unimpressed gaze. Vodyanitsa only groaned in response before muttering something under her breath.
“That’s not the point right now!” Vodyanitsa stood up abruptly and grabbed Odette’s hand to pull her up. “Anyway, since I already dragged you to my room, why don’t you help me clean up?” The Water Imp smiled innocently as if she hadn’t asked for free labor just now.
“I think I’ll have to decline and go back to practicing for my next performance.” But even as the words left Odette’s lips, she didn’t fight back against the grip on her hand and willingly let herself be pulled to the table.
“Awww, come on! Live a little! You can either go and boringly practice in your room, OR stay with me and we will chat while doing something equally productive.” The grin on Vodyanitsa’s face was triumphant after she came to this questionable conclusion. But Odette caught herself on the thought of actually agreeing. Was the ballet practice more important? Absolutely. There was no room for equality of the “productivity” which Vodyanitsa spoke of, yet the ballerina couldn’t stop debating.
A few months ago, Odette was sure she would have turned Vodyanitsa down and would have just gone to do her own stuff. Had they recently grown closer in such a short period of time? It seemed rather unbelievable… Odette had never been a person who was good at expressing emotions or had any close friends. Maybe Vodyanitsa actually won a soft spot in her heart and mind.
Odette sighed in defeat and gave in. “I guess I can help out.” She let go of Vodyanitsa’s hand and turned around to take a proper look at the room. Props were scattered in the corners of the room, some clothes were on the back of the couch instead of the wardrobe, the table was a mess of papers.
“Thanks so much, Odette!” Vodyanitsa was about to throw herself onto her friend but stopped herself from doing so. “You can help out with the props, I will clean up the table and sort my clothes.” She suggested and already made her way to the desk.
A knock on the door made them both look in that direction.
“Vodyanitsa? Are you there?” Alyosha’s voice came from the other side of the door. Vodyanitsa only glanced at Odette before tearing her gaze away from her and focusing on the words.
“Did you need something?” The Water Imp quickly crossed the room to open the door and met the guy face to face. “Me and Odette were cleaning up.”
“Sorry for the interruption,” Alyosha started, stealing a quick glance in Odette’s direction. “I wanted to discuss something privately, can you give us a minute?” He was facing Odette across the room.
“Of course.” Odette replied shortly and went back to sorting the props among the mess on the floor.
“I’ll be right back, don’t worry.” Vodyanitsa waved at Odette, even if the ballerina wasn’t looking, and closed the door behind her. She and Alyosha went to another room for the private discussion he mentioned. Vodyanitsa assumed it had something to do with the Rokot.
Once they were out of anyone’s sight, Alyosha started. “There was new information regarding Lelek, I was thinking…”
———
Odette sorted out the props without a lot of effort. Fortunately, none of them looked broken, they were simply scattered around the room. Odette never let anything like this happen in her room, but for Vodyanitsa it only seemed to be natural.
After quickly sorting everything into the right places, Odette took one more look around the room. The table was still a mess of different books and papers. Vodyanitsa did say she was going to clean it up herself, but she still hadn’t come back.
With a small sigh, Odette decided that it was better to clean it up herself and leave to do her own rehearsals. The whole idea of chatting with Vodyanitsa while cleaning vaporized after Alyosha had shown up, so it didn’t matter anymore.
As Odette scanned the table with her eyes, she began sorting books first. There weren’t many, so it was the easiest part to start with. While her hands moved to collect the books carefully, her eyes checked other papers on the desk.
A bill from somewhere, some poem or perhaps a song, each thing appeared to have a dedicated paper for it. Then Odette's gaze swept across a notebook in the center. She read a few words to understand what exactly it was, but her own name caught her attention.
It took her a few seconds to find the same line on the page again, and she indeed hadn’t imagined it. The curiosity took over even someone as composed as Odette. She had guesses as to what the notebook was, and one of the probabilities was a diary… But who wouldn’t want to know what another person writes about them?
Odette put the taken book back on the desk before picking up the notebook. That was definitely Vodyanitsa’s handwriting. Who else could it be anyway? She was in Vodyanitsa’s room.
Her eyes found their way back to the page. Some words and sentences were already crossed out messily as if Vodyanitsa was writing it and didn’t get satisfied by how it turned out. Odette squinted to see behind the lines. ‘Dear Odette’ was one of the crossed out words after which came a sentence that had become completely illegible. Odette decided to ignore it and read the visible text instead.
Odette, I am not sure how to say this to you, but I hope that you won’t get mad! I am writing this because I realized that saying this out loud would kill me… Look, it’s just too embarrassing! I really like your dancing and your quiet personality! Of course you can be stubborn and quite a pain with that quality, but I like you regardless! Yes, what I meant to say was I like you, Odette
The text seemingly wasn’t finished. That was probably the reason why the notebook was still opened on this page in the first place.
Odette put the notebook back onto the table the way it had been there before she touched it, or at least close to that. The question that was on her mind right now… Why was her heart beating faster? She just invaded someone’s privacy and read something she definitely shouldn’t have. Was it guilt? Embarrassment? Maybe shame?
Odette took a deep breath which made no changes in her chest, and went to sit on the couch. She didn’t know what to do with this information. She had never paid any mind to her own feelings, so she didn’t have any answer to the whole situation. On one hand, she should apologize to Vodyanitsa for invading the personal space. On the other hand, she could lie and not say anything. That would save her from embarrassing herself, and not trouble Vodyanitsa at the same time.
But if she did the latter, guilt would surely eat her up from the inside. She and Vodyanitsa were good friends, and friends were meant to be honest with each other. Keeping such petty secrets wouldn’t benefit either of them.
Odette took another deep breath and put her hands on her lap. First her heart, now she felt warmer than usual. Her hands were always cold, but now they felt unusually warm.
Just what is going on…
Vodyanitsa couldn’t have picked a better timing than to return to the room now. She looked a bit in a hurry, probably worried about taking too much time while talking to Alyosha when she had been the one to ask Odette to help her.
“Odette! Sorry for the wait, I didn’t mean to make you do all the work! Really, it was just a bad timing!” Vodyanitsa made her way to the table while checking out the rest of the newly cleaned room. “You are a fast worker, huh…” She said with a nervous laugh.
“I guess that’s just a habit…” Odette replied quieter than she usually would and scolded herself internally. She squeezed her own hands on her lap, unable to even look at Vodyanitsa after remembering the page of the notebook.
“Huh?” Vodyanitsa turned to look at her, eyes narrowing. “Did you get sick while I was gone? Or have you somehow overworked yourself again?” The Water Imp made her way to the couch where Odette was sitting and looked right into the ballerina's eyes.
To her own surprise, Odette couldn’t meet the other’s eyes for the first time since they’d gotten to know each other. “What made you think that? I am perfectly fine. Such work is nothing to overwork oneself.” At least her voice found its way back to the even tone she always used.
“Oh really? Then why is your face red?” Vodyanitsa pointed at Odette’s cheek while her other hand was on her own hip. “Did you catch a cold?” Without further questions or warnings, Vodyanitsa put her palm on Odette’s forehead. “You seem fine though…”
At the physical contact, Odette’s whole body seemed to grow hotter. She leaned back against the couch to free herself from the touch. “I told you, I am fine.” The ballerina put her own hand to her face, feeling the warmth on her cheek. Damn it…
“Fine, fine, do as you please.” Vodyanitsa said with her usual playful non caring voice and let Odette be. She made her way back to the table to start cleaning up as planned.
Vodyanitsa’s eyes quickly found the opened notebook and that made her face go pale. She calmed herself quickly though, thinking that if Odette didn’t clean the table, she couldn’t have possibly seen it. And the table was still messy, so that was definitely a valid reason.
Vodyanitsa’s eyes landed on the pile of books. She didn’t remember leaving them there so neatly. Was her mind playing tricks on her? That must be it, right.
But as much as she tried to convince herself that this was just a false memory, something she remembered from another day, her brain was not buying it. After letting out a shaky sigh, Vodyanitsa spoke.
“Hey, Odette, did you clean my table?” She asked in a carefully neutral voice, trying not to scream from the doomed situation she now found herself in. Her brain was already screaming from how bad it was. If Odette saw… That meant she knew that Vodyanitsa liked her! There was no way Vodyanitsa casually let her colleague read about her feelings. No no no, never ever, right?
“I…” Odette still hadn’t chosen which path to walk on. Lie and save the trouble, or be honest and face the consequences of her curiosity. Odette could lie about her identity, her work, anything, so why was lying to Vodyanitsa right now so hard? Compared to the lies she’d told before, this was a child’s play.
Odette could feel her heartbeat in her ears, it was way too loud right now. Was this how it felt when guilt was eating her up from the inside? If that was the case, she’d rather never do anything ‘bad’ ever again.
“It was an accident… I am sorry. I shouldn’t have touched yo—” Odette started to speak only to be interrupted by a loud scream from her colleague. She flinched at the scream about “why do I have to be like this” and glanced at Vodyanitsa. She guessed it was a part of Water Imps’ communication. Probably…
Vodyanitsa was muttering something under her breath after the short yet seemingly necessary shout. Her hands were covering her face before she quickly dropped them and put them up in a surrender manner.
“L-Look, I didn’t mean for you to find this! And I certainly didn’t want to make things awkward between us!” Vodyanitsa laughed nervously at her own words. The nervous laugh was her own kind of a habit when she was mortified. Only after that did Odette notice that her friend’s cheeks were pink.
“I swear I don’t want to stop being your friend, Odette! I don’t want you to hate me or anything! Please, please, please just pretend that you’ve never seen it!” The Water Imp’s voice was shaking while she put her palms together and gave a small bow. She was very close to begging Odette to forget it if what she was doing right now wasn’t already considered as begging.
Odette wanted to say something, she truly and genuinely wanted to support her friend. Tell her that it was fine, that they could keep being friends, could still talk to each other without getting awkward just from being next to each other. But she didn’t have any words. She never had any words of encouragement, no matter how dire the situation was. She had never been good at feelings, had never known how to express them or even properly understand them.
“Vodyanitsa… You don’t have to apologize for anything.” Odette debated whether she should stand up and walk over or keep sitting on the couch while fidgeting with her hands. “If anything, I should be the one asking for forgiveness…” Odette’s voice carried some unusual gentleness as she stood up eventually, not really knowing what exactly to do with her hands or body as a whole.
“But I really didn’t want to make things awkward!” Vodyanitsa exclaimed again and looked up right into Odette’s eyes. When their gazes met, Odette could see the forming tears in the corners of Vodyanitsa’s eyes. Of course it was a big deal for her, Odette shouldn’t have felt as surprised as she did. Making her friend cry was the last thing Odette had ever thought of.
“Vodyanitsa–“ Odette said but cut herself off, not knowing how to continue. She had no warm and supporting words hidden at the back of her mind. She simply closed the small distance between them and awkwardly pulled Vodyanitsa in a careful hug, wrapping her arms around the opera singer.
Odette’s heart seemed to beat even faster as her colleague buried her face in the ballerina's shoulder. A few tears found their way onto Odette’s skin and that made her freeze.
“Vodyanitsa… I haven’t exactly rejected your feelings, why are you crying?” Odette didn’t move, somewhat scared to do so when Vodyanitsa was practically fused with her. Her thoughts were even messier than usual as well. First the notebook, now the crying. As if the whole Universe wanted for Odette to be in the worst imaginable situations.
“But aren’t you– Wait, what?” Vodyanitsa tore herself off of Odette and broke the hug to properly look at the ballerina’s flushed face. Odette wasn’t meeting her eyes and looked quite embarrassed. “You mean… This is mutual?” Her voice had disbelief and relief mixed in it as she spoke.
“I… I am not experienced in such things. But if I had to think about stereotypes of how liking someone should feel, it might be mutual.” The words sounded unconvincing even to Odette herself and she sighed after saying them.
“Is that why you’ve been red since I came back?” Vodyanitsa’s usual tone of voice came back, and Odette could see how relieved she looked after everything that happened in the last few minutes. Vodyanitsa quickly wiped her tears away and blinked rapidly to fully get rid of any water in her eyes.
“I guess you could say that. The confession, even if unfinished, caught me off guard. I’ve never had to respond to anyone’s feelings, so I tried to sort out my feelings first.” Odette gave her an explanation, still hesitant about looking at the Water Imp. But when she finally did meet Vodyanitsa’s gaze, she saw something closest to awe or adoration in her eyes. “Why are you looking at me like that?” Now her voice came out with some suspicion in it. Did she say too much or perhaps something wrong? Wait, no, then Vodyanitsa would look awkward… Never mind that then.
“Because this is the best day of my life, silly!” A wide and sincere grin made its way to Vodyanitsa’s face. The Water Imp finally relaxed after the awkwardness of the whole moment and appeared to get into some overly happy state which, as Odette felt, would last for at least a few days. And those few days the ballerina wouldn’t hear the end of it.
“Does that mean I can call you my girlfriend now?” Vodyanitsa was quick to wrap her arms around Odette once again, this time hugging the ballerina tightly due to newfound adrenaline rush. If Odette had to guess, they were both feeling those butterflies in their stomachs.
“If that’s how you want our relationship to be, then yes.” Odette returned the hug and a small unconscious smile could be seen on her face. Not like Vodyanitsa could see with the back of her head, so it was fine. Maybe happiness was in these quiet moments of peace after all. At least it was that way for Odette.