The Dance: Shiro and Clarice

[x-blink.livejournal.com]

The two resident sword-fiends discover they have more in common than the sharp shinies and beating each other with sticks. They are teh cute



As the song ended, Clarice and Shiro headed over to the snack table to relax. "So when did you learn to dance like that?" Clarice asked, accepting the glass of punch. Unlike her old high school, this punch wasn't spiked or watered down.

"It is all footwork, ne?" Shiro said, taking a drink from his own cup. "It is just a matter of adapting martial arts for something less" - useful? No, certainly not the right word - "anoo, aggressive." He downed the rest of his punch and poured himself another cup. He was flushed, mostly from the exertion in uncomfortable clothing (Alex's nice slacks and shirt, which he'd borrowed because he had none of his own, were too big for him), but also from anxiety. His heart had been pounding all day, and Alex's snide remarks hadn't helped calm him.

"If I were one of those mystical 'I wirr teach you when you can retrieve this grasshopper from my hand' sort of teachers, I would comment on how the katas are meant to be things of beauty, so they appry to dance as werr as wordpray." Shiro said this in a thick accent. "But I am not. So instead I will say that those katas are the closest things to dance that I know."

Laughing, Clarice threw a grape at him from one of the food platters, "Silly, you are," she croaked, trying to sound like Yoda and failing miserably, "Dance you do."

Shiro caught the grape in his mouth and ate it. "It does not help me win Dance Dance Revolution, though. So, uh, are you having a good time?"

"Yeah," she nodded, suddenly unsure of herself. This was turning into a Real Date. Or at least a reasonable fascimile of one. "But DDR isn't real dancing. It's like...aerobics."

Shiro shrugged, and refilled his cup one more time. He was parched all of a sudden. Something about Clarice's tone and posture . . . Shiro was sure that platonic was going out the window. "Well, it requires eye-foot coordination, which is something that I ought to have, I suppose."

"Are you?" she asked suddenly, "Having a good time, I mean? Now that my stupid parents aren't around..." she laughed nervously. Last dance had been traumatic on the parents front, but she had learned. Never again was she inviting them to anything.

"Huh? Oh, un. I mean, yes I am." He tried to cover his nervousness with a small laugh. "Your parents aren't stu . . . well, they are a little. I was going to be polite, but I might as well be honest. They would benefit from lessons about public propriety."

Clarice shrugged, "They hate each other," she perked up at the new song, changing the topic, "Oooh! Slow song! Let's dance!"

Before Shiro could even say "yes," he found himself back on the dancefloor with his arms around Clarice's waist. "Anoo, why do they hate each other so much?" he asked, trying to keep the conversation on track because ohmygod his hands were on her waist and they were standing close and people were looking at them and was she wearing perfume?

He'd had his hands on her before when they sparred, usually so he could correct her stance or how she held her bokken, but he'd never held her quite like this. She liked it. And he wasn't a foot taller than her like most of the other guys seemed to be, "They got divorced. My mom is a wannabe hippy and my dad is a college law professor. It worked until my dad realized that you can't save the world by advocating lobster rights for high-paying ecologists."

"So they separated because their careers do not conform?" asked Shiro disdainfully. When he heard the words come out of his mouth and their accompanying tone, he mentally smacked himself. "Oh, I did not mean for that to come out so derisively."

Shaking her head, Clarice laughed, "That wasn't all that didn't work between them, but it was one of those duh things. But two lawyers who can't agree is not a pretty sight. They'll litigate everything to death - like whether Coke or Pepsi is better. So stupid," she liked how his hair was all spikey yet not. Very cool.

At least she laughed. (He made her laugh?!) "I take it that law school is not on your list of things to do, then, ne? They must have made that profession not very attractive."

"It's boring. All you do is write papers," Clarice groaned, it was too much like school for her, "but what about art school? Have you been accepted?"

"Not as of yet, no," he answered. "I still have to schedule interviews with both schools before they make decisions. So if they like me, then I should hear back by the middle of March or beginning of April."

The song ending, Clarice reluctantly headed back off the dance floor with Shiro, she had liked the dance, "It sounds really cool. Art school. I mean, anyone can be an accountant or whatever, but being an artist takes talent."

"To be fair, one does need to know how to use a calculator and work tax software to be a proper accountant," Shiro quipped. "I do not know what career path would interest me. What does one do with a degree in
art, anyway?"

"No idea. Advertising maybe?" she suggested, "Or you could team up with Marie-Ange and make the worlds coolest cartoons for Cartoon Network."

They already have enough faux-anime on that station. Actually, before Shinobi left, he did mention that I would be welcome to work for PR once he has wrested control of Shaw Industries from his father, whenever that may be." In other words, never, but it was a pleasant thought nonetheless.

"Nah, I'm talking live-action cartoons, man," Clarice tried to sketch her idea out with her hands, it wasn't working, "Like claymation meets animation but a hundred times better!"

"Live-action cartoons? I don't get it." Shiro shrugged again. "I actually think that, if I could find a good writer, I would draw manga. I am not not much of a writer myself, but that is what I like to draw, so if I meet someone who writes well but has no artistic talent, then it will be a win-win situation."

"Win-win is always good," she agreed, dragging him back to dance some more.