❛ some nights, if things are a bit too quiet for you, you can find your way down here. ❜ for laura, from kōji!
◗ PROMPT COLLECTED FROM ASSASSIN'S APPRENTICE ░ ACCEPTING.
[ 𝑪 ] lass is long over, and most of their colleagues have already slipped back into their clothes and have crossed the threshold of the studio with their tiny purse dogs trailing after them, their animated chatter & laughter reverberating long after they’re gone from view. The promise of a fulfilling lunch nearly entices her to spring into action after them, but the comforting silence of the deserted room lulls her back into inaction — if desperately needed stretching can be categorized as such.
Opposite her, mirroring her in form but not figure, he is all limbs and strength, tan skin decorated in impressive swirls of black ink. Much like every other member of the company transforms their bodies into art with each plié, arabesque, and port de bras, @sachingja has gone further than most, his body made a permanent canvas for the art of another. Laura admires it like one does any renowned painting hung behind a display case; detachedly and entirely platonically. She's halfway through a hamstring stretch, bent at the waist over one leg while the other rests in retiré, when his voice filters through the internal counting born out of her innate perfectionism; thirteen, fourteen, fifteen— ❛❛ Some nights, if things are a bit too quiet for you, you can find your way down here. ❜❜
Her gaze flits up to meet his, brows raised in surprise. She completes her stretch while pondering his words, and as she leans back on her hands, a barely-there smile unfurls in the corner of her mouth. Though their professional trajectories mirrored the other's, roaming from The Royal Ballet to City Ballet, their paths had only truly begun to cross here. As if pulled by some thread of recognition, she'd often find herself passing by her dance partner to warm up next to Kōji in the corner of the studio instead — a shocking development even to herself, considering her well tended desire to keep her old life in Covent Garden as far away as possible from the one being built brick by brick in Manhattan.
❛❛ Did you really just use my sorry excuse of a social life as an avenue to invite me to meet your boyfriend? ❜❜ That once little smile blossoms even further, now comfortably curled up in the same corner of her mouth. Her dark eyes, usually intense with their laser-focus, glitter with rarely-seen mirth. Teeth worrying at her lower lip, Laura narrows her eyes in faux contemplation. At last she shrugs one shoulder, head cocking to the other side as she considers him, seemingly coming to a conclusion of sorts. ❛❛ Then that must mean we're officially friends. [One foot flicks out to tap thrice against his shin, a bout of friendly teasing.] Honestly, I'm a little shocked you've managed to even stomach the idea. ❜❜