𝗩𝗼𝗰𝗮𝗹 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝗗𝗮𝗻𝗰𝗲 𝗖𝗵𝗮𝗺𝗽𝗶𝗼𝗻𝘀𝗵𝗶𝗽 𝗣𝗿𝗮𝗰𝘁𝗶𝗰𝗲
⤷ 𝙹𝚊𝚗𝚞𝚊𝚛𝚢 21 / 𝚃𝚑𝚞𝚛𝚜𝚍𝚊𝚢 / 3:30 𝚙𝚖
⤷ 25 days left before the competition
ʜᴇʟᴘ ᴀᴄᴇ ᴀɴᴅ ᴅᴇᴜᴄᴇ ᴘʀᴀᴄᴛɪᴄᴇ ꜰᴏᴏᴛᴡᴏʀᴋ
ᴍᴀᴋᴇ ꜱᴜʀᴇ ᴋᴀʟɪᴍ ᴅᴏɴᴛ ꜱᴛʀᴀɪɴ ʜɪꜱ ᴠᴏɪᴄᴇ
ᴛʀʏ ᴛᴏ ᴡᴏʀᴋ ᴀʀᴏᴜɴᴅ ᴠɪʟ'ꜱ ᴅɪᴇᴛᴀʀʏ ᴘʟᴀɴ
-ˋˏ✄┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈
The second week of training had worked strange, almost imperceptible alterations upon the ancient timber and soot-stained stone of Ramshackle Dorm.
Routine settled over the creaking manor in heavy, cumulative layers until the drafty halls no longer felt entirely temporary. The living room ceased to resemble a structural disaster zone after the evening meal, primarily because Vil had threatened explicit bodily harm upon anyone who dared leave a stray dish or an unrinsed cup unattended. Even the auditory landscape of the house grew familiar, turning predictable where it had once seemed haunting.
There was the predictable midnight creak of the third step from the top landing. There was the heavy, rhythmic scrape of iron-wrought chairs dragged across the dining room floor during late-night strategy meetings, followed by the distinctive sound of Kalim singing wildly off-key while brushing his teeth in the communal washroom.
Practice, relentless and uncompromising, occupied nearly every single waking hour. By the midpoint of the second week, sheer physical exhaustion became an unlisted roommate, moving silently between them, pulling at their shoulders and weighing their eyelids.
The Pomefiore ballroom carried the stifling warmth of overworked bodies, laundry detergent, and the friction of rubber soles against lacquer. Sunlight spilled through the towering, leaded windows in heavy, molten sheets, illuminating millions of dust motes dancing a chaotic waltz across the polished flooring. The same precise four-measure segment replayed over and over, until the brassy melody embedded itself so deeply into their muscle memory that it felt less like a song and more like a heartbeat.
“Again.” Vil’s command cut through the humid air with the icy precision of a theatrical blade.
No one possessed the lung capacity, let alone the emotional energy, to mount a defense. Ace bent double, his hands braced firmly against his trembling knees, chest heaving as sweat dripped from the tip of his nose onto the floorboards. Deuce stared blankly toward the high, vaulted ceiling, his expression vacant as though he actively reconsidered every life decision. Grim lay completely sprawled across the lacquer, a pathetic heap of gray fur and limp limbs.
“Monsieur Fuzzball appears to have deceased,” Rook announced, his voice bubbling with a cheerful, entirely misplaced delight as he adjusted the brim of his hat.
“I am dying!” Grim shrieked from the floor, his blue ear-flames flickering weakly like dying candles. “My spirit is ascending to the great tuna can in the sky!”
“An important distinction,” Rook murmured, offering a courtly bow toward the limp creature.
“That is not an important distinction at all!” Ace wheezed, his voice cracking under the strain of his burning lungs. He wiped his brow with the back of his forearm, smearing a streak of soot and sweat across his temple. “If he gets to play dead, I want a turn too. My legs feel like they’re made of wet cement.”
Rook turned his piercing, analytical gaze across the rest of the line, his green eyes glittering under the gym lights. “Ace-kun approaches a remarkably similar fate, it seems. And Deuce-kun’s soul departed approximately three rehearsals ago, leaving only the magnificent shell of a warrior behind.”
“Please don’t say that, Rook-senpai,” Deuce muttered, his voice barely rising above a hollow croak. He didn’t drop his gaze from the ceiling rafters, fearing that if he lowered his head, the room would spin entirely out of control. “I’m still here. Mostly. My left foot is numb, but the rest of me is present.”
“Monsieur Pommette still fights admirably against the tides of fatigue!” Rook exclaimed, pivoting on his heel to face Epel, who stood with his jaw clenched so tightly the muscle leaped along his cheekbone.
“I ain’t dying before Ace does,” Epel hissed, his lavender eyes flashing with that fierce, rural stubbornness he tried so desperately to hide under Vil’s watchful eye. He shifted his stance, forcing his trembling thighs to lock into a proper resting position. “If he can stand, I can dance circles around him.”
“Kalim here glows with the unyielding radiance of eternal youth!” Rook proclaimed, gesturing with an elegant flourish toward the center of the floor.
Kalim, despite having sweated through half his silk-trimmed training shirt, beamed broadly, his white teeth flashing against his tanned skin. He offered an energetic, two-handed wave. “Thanks, Rook! Honestly, the beat is just so catchy, it kind of carries me along even when my shins start to burn!”
“And Roi du Poison remains perfection incarnate,” Rook finished, his voice dropping into a tone of pure, unadulterated reverence as he looked toward their housewarden.
Vil accepted the praise with a slow, deliberate inclination of his head, treating the compliment as his natural, undisputed birthright. Not a single strand of his golden-lavender hair had escaped its pins; his posture remained straight, a pillar of discipline amidst a sea of collapsing boys. “Praise will not fix the lack of synchronization in the second transition, Rook. But your observation is noted.”
Rook’s eyes drifted toward the perimeter of the room. “And Jamil—”
“I know, I know,” Jamil interrupted, his voice flat, even, and entirely devoid of the theatricality that stained the rest of the room.
Rook laughed, a light, melodic sound that echoed against the high walls.
Across the wide expanse of the gym, sitting on the bottom tier of the wooden bleachers, Yumiko pressed a damp white towel against the side of her neck, using the fabric to hide the small, involuntary smile tugging at the corners of her mouth. She kept her movements small, her presence quiet, observing the beautiful chaos of the alliance with the practiced neutrality of an outsider.
“Monsieur Multi-skilled survives through sheer, unadulterated irritation alone,” Ace countered, casting a sideways glance toward the vice-housewarden. “Look at him. He’s using his spite as a power source.”
“Painfully accurate,” Deuce agreed, finally dropping his chin to nod once in solemn solidarity.
Jamil clicked his tongue, a sharp, clicking sound that instantly cut through the boys’ bickering. He adjusted the heavy gold bands at his wrists, his dark eyes cool as he leveled a look at the two freshmen. “If you two have enough breath to analyze my emotional state, you have enough breath to correct your form on the turn. You’re dragging your heels, Ace. It’s slowing the entire line down by half a beat.”
“Yes, sir,” Ace mumbled, immediately looking down at his shoes with a sour expression.
“Practice resumes,” Vil commanded, clapping his hands together twice. The sound was sharp, like a small firecracker exploding in the enclosed space. “Positions, everyone. From the top of the chorus.”
The music flared to life, the heavy bass rattling the glass panes within their iron frames.
The sound of shuffling sneakers, the synchronous thud of landing jumps, the sharp intake of collective breath as nine bodies moved in an intricate, shifting geometry across the lacquered floor.
Until the choreography no longer belonged to conscious, analytical thought, but to some primal, animal part of the brain that operated purely on survival. Until timing completely replaced thinking. Until the heavy weight of fatigue settled so deeply into their limbs that each arm movement felt like lifting wet sand from the bottom of a riverbed.
“Break,” Vil finally called, his voice dropping the strict, razor-sharp edge as he checked his pocket watch. “Fifteen minutes. Hydrate and dry yourselves. I will not tolerate sloppiness when we resume.”
The room exhaled collectively, a long, ragged sound that resembled a deflating balloon.
Water bottles appeared from the depths of canvas gym bags with a frantic, plasticky clatter. Towels emerged from the shoulders and the side pockets of backpacks. Conversations rose in fragmented, breathless pieces beneath the hum of the overhead fluorescent lights, the boys drifting into their respective corners.
Jamil walked away from the main group, his steps measured despite the invisible weight pulling at his shoulders. He chose a spot near the far mirrored wall, dropping onto the floor with his back against the cool glass. He pulled his legs up, resting his forearms across his knees as he allowed his chest to rise and fall in heavy, deliberate counts. Damp, dark curls clung stubbornly near his temples, escaped from his intricate braids, and sweat had darkened the pale fabric of his collar into a deep gray.
In this quiet corner, away from Kalim’s immediate line of sight, he looked exactly his age. He did not look like Scarabia’s tireless vice-housewarden, bound by duty and ancient debts. He did not look like Kalim’s hyper-vigilant caretaker. He did not look like the endlessly resourceful problem solver that everyone in the room expected.
He only looked incredibly, deeply tired.
Yumiko noticed before he even had the opportunity to look up.
She rose from her seat near the designated speakers, her uniform rustling softly against the floor. She crossed the room with a cold bottle of water held firmly in her right hand and a fresh, unused towel draped neatly over her left arm.
“Here,” she murmured, stopping just two feet away from where he sat against the mirror.
Jamil looked up, his dark eyes blinking once through the fringe of his bangs.
For a long, suspended moment, neither of them moved. The ballroom continued to buzz loudly around them, a chaotic symphony of overlapping voices, squeaking sneakers, and the unmistakable sound of a small, magical monster choking on a piece of fabric.
“For the last time, Epel, your heel goes down on the second beat, not the third! You’re going to trip me and everyone else in this row!” Ace criticized the poor purple-haired boy in agonizing screams.
“I am not gonna trip ya! My heel is exactly where Vil said it should be! Maybe if your legs weren’t as long and clumsy as a newborn giraffe’s, you’d be keeping up with the rhythm!”
A gasp tore from the back of Ace’s throat as he took offense to Epel’s counter. “Clumsy?! I have perfect rhythm! You’re just pivoting like you’re trying to crush a stubborn bug on a farmhouse floor!”
Meanwhile, on the other side of the floor, the beaming golden boy of Scarabia laughed. “BWAHAHA! No way, Grim! He really said that?!”
“Myah! I’m tellin’ ya, the headmage’s hat looked exactly like a plucked crow! So I told him, ‘Hey, Teach, you lookin’ for your family?’ Gulp— Hey, let go of that, human! This ribbon is chewy!”
“Grim, stop eating the costume scraps! But oh man, a plucked crow... that’s gold!” Kalim held his stomach with both arms, tears of joy running down his cheeks from the blissful event he was having.
Far across the corner, the blooming faces of Pomefiore discussed their plans eagerly. “No, Rook. Look at the spacing here. If we keep Deuce on the left flank during the transition, he’s going to overshoot the mark. His momentum is too aggressive.” Vil rebuked, his decision unwavering.
“Ah, but Roi du Poison, look at the passion in his stride! It is like a runaway carriage, full of raw, untamed beauty. A spectacle!”
“We aren’t aiming for a spectacle of collisions, Rook. We need precision. Look at this chart. If we shift the second line back by exactly half a pace...”
Conversations continued within the vicinity of the golden light inside the room, but in this specific corner, against the reflective glass, the noise receded, turning into a distant, underwater hum that didn’t quite touch them.
Jamil reached up, his long, calloused fingers brushing against hers as he accepted the cold plastic of the bottle.
It was an insignificant, everyday exchange that happened dozens of times during a standard athletic practice. Except that, as the cold condensation from the plastic soaked into their skin, neither of them let go immediately.
Her hand remained curled around the top half of the bottle for a fraction of a second longer than necessary. His fingers lingered against the back of her knuckles, his skin warm and slightly damp, staying there just long enough for the pause to become deliberate. It was long enough to notice the intense heat radiating from his skin.
Jamil cleared his throat first, his gaze dropping to the floor between his sneakers as he gently pulled the bottle from her grip. “Thanks.”
Yumiko didn’t step back; instead, she extended her left arm, offering the white towel. “Take this too.”
Their fingers touched again as he reached for the fabric. The tip of his thumb brushed the sensitive skin of her wrist, sending a tiny, sharp jolt through the quiet space between them.
“You’re going to collapse from heat exhaustion one of these days,” she remarked, her voice low, conversational, yet tinged with a genuine undercurrent of concern that she tried to mask with a light tone. She crossed her arms over her chest, leaning her shoulder lightly against the mirrored wall beside him. “Vil’s transitions are brutal today. You’ve been doing double the work trying to keep Kalim from drifting out of his zone.”
Jamil twisted the cap off the water bottle with a quick, practiced flick of his wrist. He took a long swallow, his throat moving rhythmically before he lowered the bottle and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “I won’t collapse. I’ve handled much worse than a Pomefiore training camp in the middle of summer.”
“You say that like your body follows your legal instructions,” she countered, tilting her head slightly, her gaze tracking the way a single drop of water rolled down the side of his jaw. “You’re human, Jamil. Even you have a breaking point.”
“My body usually does exactly what I tell it to do,” Jamil retorted, a faint, proud line appearing between his brows as he leaned his head back against the mirror, looking up at her from under his lashes. “It’s a matter of discipline. Nothing more.”
“That’s concerning,” she murmured, offering a small, wry smile.
“It should be inspiring,” he corrected, though the harsh line of his mouth was beginning to soften around the corners.
“No, it sounds incredibly expensive,” she quipped, her eyes crinkling at the edges. “Think of the medical bills if you actually break something because you forgot to tell your muscles they’re allowed to feel pain.”
A laugh escaped him then.
It was a sound he rarely let anyone hear, especially during hours of duty, and Yumiko felt a small, triumphant warmth bloom in her chest at having been the one to earn it.
“I thought you never had it in you,” she muttered, shifting her weight as she looked down at him with a teasing spark in her eyes. “Actual proof that you know how to smile when you’re not trying to appease a crowd.”
Jamil raised a single, dark eyebrow, his expression instantly shifting back toward his familiar, guarded neutrality, though his eyes remained bright. “I smile plenty, Yumiko. It’s part of my standard administrative demeanor.”
“No,” she objected, stepping an inch closer, her voice dropping into a secretive murmur that didn’t travel past their small corner. “You tolerate happiness in your immediate vicinity. There is a distinct difference.”
Jamil watched her for a beat, his gaze steady, taking in the faint flush on her cheeks coming from the growing heat inside the room, the way her hair fell around her shoulders, and the stubborn, amused set of her jaw. “I tolerate you in my vicinity,” he pointed out, his voice smooth, dropping an octave into something that felt dangerously intimate amidst the clatter of gym bags.
“Oh?” Yumiko tilted her head, her smile widening just a fraction as she met his gaze without blinking. “Only tolerate?”
His expression remained perfectly neutral, a masterclass in Scarabian composure, but his fingers tightened slightly around the neck of his water bottle. “You’re exhausting,” he muttered, looking away toward the center of the floor where Ace was currently trying to balance a water bottle on Deuce’s head.
“That wasn’t my question, Jamil,” she reminded him softly, her tone laced with a gentle, persistent pressure that refused to let him retreat behind his walls.
The silence stretched between them for seven seconds, filled only by the distant sound of Epel arguing about harvest festivals in his native dialect. Jamil kept his eyes fixed on the opposite wall, his jaw working silently as he wrestled with whatever internal filter usually kept his tongue in check.
Finally, the corner of his mouth twitched upward, a faint, almost microscopic concession. “Frequently,” he murmured, his voice so quiet it was nearly swallowed by the ambient noise of the room. He lifted his head, his dark eyes locking onto hers with a sudden, intense focus that made her breath catch in her throat. “Manage your expectations, Yumiko.”
“Too late for that,” she whispered, her voice steady despite the sudden, rapid thumping of her heart against her ribs.
Their eyes met and held. It was a silent tug-of-war, an unacknowledged agreement to stand their ground in a space where everything else was constantly shifting.
Across the wide expanse of the lacquered floor, Ace froze mid-sentence, his water bottle hovering halfway to his mouth. His eyes went wide as he stared across the room toward the mirrored wall. He nudged Deuce hard in the ribs with his elbow.
“Hey. Are they... are they flirting right now?”
Deuce blinked, shifting his gaze away from the rafters to follow Ace’s line of sight. He squinted, his honest, somewhat dense expression twisting into one of deep, profound confusion as he watched the two figures by the mirror. “I think they’re flirting,” he conceded, his voice dropping into an awkward, uncertain whisper. “They’re standing really close. Like, waaayyy to close.”
“I don’t think Jamil even knows how to flirt,” Ace muttered, a small, devious grin beginning to spread across his face as he leaned closer to Deuce. “He always looks like he’s calculating tax returns or planning a military coup. Seeing him look like that is just weird.”
“Maybe that’s what makes it scary,” Deuce pondered aloud, rubbing the back of his neck.
Ace turned his head, spotting Epel walking back from the water cooler. “Epel. Come here. Back me up on this.”
Epel stopped, looking between Ace and the distant corner where Jamil and Yumiko were still locked in their quiet, unmoving stare. He considered the scene with such grim. “Nah, they’re definitely flirting,” he asserted, crossing his arms. “My cousins back home look exactly like that right before they end up engaged at the county fair. It’s the look that says they think nobody else has eyes.”
“Monsieur Multi-skilled displays remarkable, truly breathtaking progress,” Rook mused from behind them. He had materialized at Ace’s shoulder, his hands clasped beneath his chin as he gazed across the room with an expression of pure, poetic rapture. “The hunter found his target long ago, yet the dance of approach is a melody unto itself!”
Vil walked up behind them, his brow furrowed as he pinched the bridge of his straight nose with two manicured fingers. “Focus on your own lives, you ridiculous children,” he commanded, his voice sharp enough to make Ace jump. “If I see one more foot out of position during the chorus, I will extend rehearsal by an hour. Let them waste their breath however they see fit.”
Kalim, who had been listening at the edge of the group, beamed, his entire face lighting up with pure, unclouded joy. He looked over at the mirror, completely oblivious to Jamil’s usual need for absolute privacy. “They’re so cute together! Jamil looks way less stressed when Yumiko is talking to him. I should ask her to hang out at the palace more often!”
The sound of Kalim’s booming voice carried perfectly across the ballroom floor.
Jamil, who had just taken another swallow of water, froze entirely. He cleared his throat roughly, nearly choking on the liquid as his head snapped around toward the center of the room, his dark face instantly flushing a deep, sudden crimson beneath his tan. Yumiko, meanwhile, dropped her arms to her sides, her gaze instantly snapping down to her shoes as she became suspects-level interested in the specific grain of the wooden floorboards beneath her toes.
"𝘎𝘳𝘦𝘢𝘵. 𝘞𝘩𝘢𝘵 𝘢 𝘨𝘳𝘦𝘢𝘵 𝘮𝘰𝘰𝘥 𝘴𝘦𝘵𝘵𝘦𝘳 𝘪𝘯𝘥𝘦𝘦𝘥. 𝘐 𝘴𝘩𝘰𝘶𝘭𝘥 𝘩𝘢𝘷𝘦 𝘬𝘯𝘰𝘸𝘯 𝘣𝘦𝘵𝘵𝘦𝘳 𝘧𝘰𝘳 𝘪𝘵 𝘵𝘰 𝘣𝘦 𝘪𝘯𝘵𝘦𝘳𝘳𝘶𝘱𝘵𝘦𝘥. " yumiko thought to herself.
“Positions!” Vil erupted, his voice brooked no further delays as he stepped to the front of the room. “The break is over! Move!”
Practice resumed shortly afterward, the music blasting once more through the speakers, forcing everyone back into the rigid discipline of lines and counts, yet the moments followed them through the rest of the afternoon.
It was Jamil looking toward the wall of mirrors during a complex formation change, only to find Yumiko already watching his reflection from her seat on the bleachers, her eyes tracking the line of his spine.
It was Yumiko glancing during a short five-minute water break, only to discover his attention shifting away toward the door at a suspicious, entirely unnatural speed.
It was the accidental, effortless synchronization of their movements while they were helping to clean the equipment at the end of the day, their hands reaching for the same heavy plastic bin at the exact same second, their fingers brushing before they both drew back with an awkward, muttered apology.
Neither of them acknowledged it out loud. Neither of them dared to name it.
Naming things made them real, gave them weight, shape, and history. Jamil, a boy who had spent his entire life navigating the shadows of another person’s destiny, calculating risk down to the millimeter; a sudden emotion was a variable he didn’t know how to factor into his mind. Yumiko, carrying the weight of an entire foreign world on her shoulders, wasn’t sure she had the right to anchor herself to anyone here.
So, instead of talking, they continued dancing to their new found melody.
They keep stealing glances, hiding behind plastic water bottles during the grueling afternoon sessions. They hoarded half-finished conversations as they walked back toward Ramshackle beneath the high, violet skies of the evening, the air cooling as the crickets began their nightly song in the tall grass. It was the steady comfort of simply existing within each other’s immediate orbit, and every single member of the team noticed.
· · ─────── ·𖥸· ─────── · ·
By the third stolen glance during the Wednesday morning rehearsal, Ace had openly begun keeping a tally with a black marker on the back of his hand. By the fifth glance before lunch, Deuce had joined him, leaning over Ace’s shoulder to ensure the marks were accurate. By the eighth distinct instance during the afternoon run-through, Epel was actively requesting progress updates whenever they swapped positions in the secondary line.
Vil ignored all of them with long-suffering patience. Rook, meanwhile, looked more delighted with each passing hour, his poetic sensibilities thoroughly satisfied by the unfolding drama.
“Ah,” Rook sighed dramatically one afternoon, leaning his hip against the judge’s table while observing the final rehearsal formations. He adjusted his leather glove with a slow, deliberate tug. “Youth unfolds with such exquisite, unshielded artistry before our very eyes! The stage is grand, but the theater of the heart is where the true masterpiece resides!”
“No photography, Rook-senpai,” Jamil warned, his voice sharp and low as he stepped past the table to retrieve his clipboard. He didn’t look at the hunter, but his ears were distinctly pink.
“A tragedy for future generations, then,” Rook murmured, his hand resting over his heart as he offered a sorrowful look. “To let such beautiful transitions fade into the ether without a physical record.”
“You don’t even own a camera, Rook,” Yumiko pointed out from the bleachers, her tone amused as she set down her pen.
“A true hunter requires no mechanical equipment to preserve beauty within the halls of memory, Mademoiselle!” Rook proclaimed, pivoting to face her with a grand, sweeping gesture of his arm. “Your images are etched into the stone of my mind, a perfect duet of shadows and light!”
“That sentence made me incredibly uncomfortable,” Jamil muttered, his eyes narrowing as he finally looked up from his notes.
“It should,” Ace called out from the center of the floor where he was stretching his hamstrings. “He’s been watching you two like a hawk all day. It’s creepy.”
Yumiko laughed, a bright, clear sound that filled the small space between the bleachers and the floor.
Jamil looked over at her, his expression softening instantly at the sound, the defensive tension leaving his shoulders before he could stop it. She looked back at him, her eyes steady and warm under the chandelier lights. The world around them was vast and soundless, the rhythm of their beating hearts pounding hard against their chest as an invisible string found its way to bring them closer.
“Hopeless,” Ace muttered from the floor, shaking his head as he let himself fall flat onto his back. “Absolutely hopeless. They’re gone. Lost to the cause.”
“They don’t even know it,” Deuce agreed, nodding in solemn agreement as he offered Ace a hand to pull him up.
· · ─────── ·𖥸· ─────── · ·
U U
written by belle willows
art by yumemi.wrld
· · ─────── ·𖥸· ─────── · ·
Happy 150 days JaMiko! i managed to squeeze this art inbetween commission and college internship. okay time to go back to my hermit hole now.
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