More changes take place, each on ran through several times. I do my best to keep my head from spinning, and my heart from beating too fast. At this point, there’s no way I can focus. I have to pretend that I can, and keep up with Kagane. I can’t let her see through me, because if I do, I’ll pull down the performance. The company, fans, and our members anticipate good results. Kagane’s working so hard. I can’t let that happen.

“This new move is going to take a few runs to get perfect, but I think both of you can get it by the end of today.”

Previously, Kagane and I would perform some form of ballroom move. Where Kagane would hold my hand as I twirl away from her, only for her to pull me back into her arms. There, I would stand with my back to her chest and pull away from her. The move was already flustering, but now it’s a twirl straight into a dip.

It makes sense to change it. The speed and intensity match the song’s tempo and concept far better. However, with this stunt, being distracted will cost me. I only have so much brain power left in me, but I don’t want to make a mistake that could hurt either of us. And so I do my best.

“Okay, we’re not going to do a full dip first, just a small one, so you know what to do.”

The first attempt is clumsy, mostly on my part. The second is better, the third perfect. The Kagane begins to lower me in the fourth run. The dip drops deeper and deeper until it reaches a perfect height. We rehearse the perfect dip meticulously. Every time, the world twists in the blur of my twirl, and only stabilizes in Kagane’s hold. She gazes at me with a performance of yearning. My first and only clear sight. Until we reset and rehearse the move again.

Blaring beeps sound and the choreographer reaches into her pocket and pulls out her phone.

“Hold on, I have to take this call. You two take ten. I’ll be gone for a little bit,” she hustles to the door and turns to us before she closes it, “But you can still practice if you want.”

The door closes, leaving only Kagane and me. It’s funny how the absence of one person can make a room so silent. In any case, I think ten minutes should be enough to grab my bearings, so I can refocus. I travel to the far side of the room to drink. The cold water hits both my mouth and my brain. Waking up my conscious mind and clearing out all the muck I’ve harbored. I shake my head to jumble everything back together.

“Yuzu.”

Kagane places her water on the floor and walks to the center of the floor.

“Come here, I want to practice the dip again,” she holds out her hand. Her demeanor so demanding and expecting, I suspect secondary intentions.

Of course, I have to hold her hand to do the dip, but for some reason. Maybe her temperament or her tone, there’s a foreboding weight plaguing me. Like this run through with only the two of us has more importance and permanence than the ones before. My steps like a credence, placing my hands in hers, a binding agreement. The uncertainty from that day rises in my chest.

Snapping. “Five. Six. Five, six, seven, eight.”

I burst away from Kagane, spinning elegantly until I feel her hand tug at mine. Her pull forces me back to her side, my sight a cacophony of indistinguishable colors and shapes until everything descends. The ceiling becomes higher, the walls taller, and Kagane … becomes closer?

Her body bends over mine, different from what we rehearsed. Her nose almost touches mine. It’s the closest she’s gotten to me within the past week. I swallow.

I can see her so clearly. Her long eyelashes have a natural curl. Her eyes are such a pretty shade of dark blue. There’s a mole that dots the skin beneath her eye. Her nose comes to such a nice point. Her lips have such a pretty shape. She didn’t tie her hair up today, so it forms a halo around her shoulders. Strands bend over her collarbones, enveloping me, making her all I can see.

She’s so pretty.

She really is a beautiful human being.

For some reason, my heart pangs. It almost hurts. I can’t tell if it’s even beating anymore. My breath circles between my lower and upper chest, but never once does it leave my body. My eyes flutter closed, and whenever they open, I’m looking at another aspect of Kagane’s visage.

She watches me, calm, almost observant. Unlike me, she breathes steadily, and her pupils aren’t darting around. They stay fixed. On me.

Butterflies join the air circling my chest. As this proximity forces me to appreciate every detail of Kagane again and again. Her eyes, her lips, her nose, her hair, the small mole. I can feel where my hands are. Her shoulders are warm like the rest of her body. Its heat washing mine, wrapping around me. Everything of her entrapping me, focusing me. She might as well be the world.

What was I even doing? How’d I end up like this?

I think and think, Kagane’s perfectly shaped eyebrows a huge distraction. Why am I in her arms like this? Where even are we? But eventually, slowly but surely, I come to. We’re in the middle of rehearsing.

I’m supposed to pick up my weight first, so Kagane doesn’t overextend herself lifting me out of the dip. She’s looking at me because she’s been waiting for me to do it. The instructor disappears for two seconds, and I’m hallucinating time stopping and Kagane getting close to mine.

And I’ve been sitting here and staring at Kagane like an idiot!

I spring myself up. Smack! A collision. My two feet are firmly planted on the ground for the first time in what feels like forever. My forehead aches, and rubbing it doesn’t help. Did I hit something?

I see it.

Kagane’s bent down, one hand clutching her knee while the other grips her forehead. She’s taking in deep breaths in too short of intervals. All the knuckles on both hands are visible. My forehead hurts, and her forehead hurts. Shit!

I was so eager to fix my mistake, I accidentally headbutted Kagane!

“Oh my gosh, Kase! I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean to do that!” I say, “Are you okay?! I promise won’t ever do it again. I- I’ll stay focused, I promise!”

A long, deep, and heavy inhale is all I get in response. It feels like years have passed when she’s inhaled long enough to let it out.

“Again, you’re being formal with me,” her hand slides from her forehead, obscuring her face. I can see her tightly closed eyes and the creases in her forehead through her fingers, “I have never met anyone who frustrates me as much as you do, Yuzu.”

Oh…

“Sorry…” I know I should’ve never joined this subunit with her. As she said, I do get on her nerves. “I just really like being around you. I’m sorry.”

“That’s not what I mean. Don’t apologize,” my confusion apparent, she lets out another sigh, “Fine. Doing it this way was never going to work.”

Removing her hand from her face, she asks me. “Yuzu, have you ever questioned why you’re the only person I allow to call me by my first name off stage? Why you never dorm with anyone but me?”

Nothing she’s said in the past thirty seconds has made any sense to me. “Huh?”

“Imagine this. First day of college, you’re walking through campus, and you see a girl who’s exactly your type, cute, walking past you,” she steps towards me, “You assume you will never meet her until you see her in one of your classes.

And all you see her do is sleep, play games on her phone, sleep, do party tricks with a pencil, sleep. She’s lazy, and there’s nothing you hate more than lazy people,” at this point, she’s in front of me, still stepping forward. I step back, “You do a group project with her, and not only does she slack off, but she flirts with you the entire time. You audition for the job you’ve always wanted, and she waddled in after you. Now the two of you are in a group together.

She wears all these cute outfits, gazes at you whenever you enter a room, but despite having the opportunity of a lifetime, she insists on doing the bare minimum. You get this excruciating nagging ambivalence every time you look at her, and it’s driving you mad.”

“Ambivah- what?”

“Then one day,” she backs me against the wall, “she’s not lazy anymore. She flirts with you, but the moment you return it, she freezes like a deer in headlights and like she wants to scramble away from you.”

There’s an intensity in the way Kagane looks at me, a silent pursuit of my understanding, pressing me to put the pieces together. “Tell me. What should I do about that?”

I blink, taking everything in. My mind flashes back to the way her hand both ruffled and smoothed my hair that day. The text she sent me, detailed enough to fill in the gaps in my thinking. Everything that has transpired this week. All the things I like that she gifted. The moments of uncertainty I’ve decided were method acting… Could it be, they weren’t method acting at all? Could it be that…

Kagane has started— No. Kagane has always liked me.

Oh my God, this is it! It’s happening! Shit, what do I do? I never thought this would happen! I’ve never prepared for this!!

She waits with a deliberate, unchanging stare. I can’t imagine what’s going through her head right now. This is it. I gotta say the right thing now, or else I’ll regret it forever. Swallowing, my fingers play with her bra strap, hoping to come across flirtatious instead of nervous. The words fumble from my lips.

“Well, I guess… You’d better snatch her up before she runs away.”

Warmth envelopes my lips as Kagane presses hers to mine. The force jolts my head to the wall, which slides up the surface as she lifts me into her arms. Passion, yearning, vindication expressed in every movement of her tongue. Her hands grip both of my thighs as my calves dangle by her waist. My arms wrap around her neck. She breaks away.

Breathless. “Ka… Kagane. Nh!”

She’s kissing down my neck, licking, and sucking at the right spots. Whatever meaningless thing I was going to say gets halted with each attack. She nibbles at me, and sensations are too much. Eons will pass before I reach any breath she’s allowing to catch. I’m in her arms, panting and stifling whatever sounds beg to exit.

Kagane’s fingers tilt my chin, her cheeks hold a muted pink, dark blue eyes clouded with desire. “Yuzu,” she breathes as she watches me struggle to gather mine, “You’re so cute.”

Kagane is so amazing. Even though she’s holding me up with only one hand, she’s not tired at all. No matter how much my legs fidget, her arm keeps them fastened around her waist. Her kisses are so deliberate, methodical, yet demanding and aggressive. As if I’m the biggest passion she aims to conquer.

My head spins. Kagane’s fingers cycle between gripping my neck, my chin, and fondling my ear. My collarbone gets pricked by her teeth, ravaged by her tongue. Next victim, my neck, my ear, then she seals my breath away. There’s no energy in my legs to squirm. They lay by the band of her sweat pants. My arms around her neck drop to her shoulders, my fingers lightly cupping her collarbones. Her body pushes into me further. I’m melted, she smushes me against the wall. I take her everything.

Kagane gives me a peck on my lips before dropping me back to my feet. My legs feel like jello, so I end up sliding to the floor. My heart pounds against my chest.

I can’t even finish wiping my mouth before the door swings open and the choreographer comes rushing in.

“Sorry, guys, it took longer than I thought. We’ll have to work hard to make up for the extra eight minutes— Oh my God, Yuzu are you okay?!” she exclaims, “You’re red all over, and it looks like you’re sweating.”

“It’s been eighteen minutes?” I look up at Kagane whose standing over me, back turned to the choreographer. There’s a small smirk on her lips. She has regained her composure way faster than I have.

Kagane looks over her shoulder. “That’s what I was going to tell you. I think she has a fever,” she crouches down, the cold skin of her back hand touches my cheek, “She’s hot. I think we’ll have to stop for the day.”

“She was out of it since the beginning, so we’d better,” the choreographer sighs, “It’s a shame though. We still have so much to rehearse.”

“Don’t worry, we’ll find some way to practice at the dorms,” Kagane’s playful look to me burns me more than any glower, “We’re far from finished.”

We’re not???

Kagane lifts me into her arms. The embarrassment of it all gets to me, and I end up burying myself in her shoulder. The choreographer tells her not to go too hard on me since I’m sick and that I’ll need proper rest.

Kagane responds with, “Don’t worry, I’ll take good care of her.”

She carries me out of the practice room and into ours.