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With a live show coming up in just a little over a month, rehearsals have begun in full swing. Some of the songs in this concert they've never performed on stage before, so Eli had had to create new dances for them. Now that they've all had time to commit them to memory, all nine of them have gathered up to do a run-through of the choreography. They're not worried about singing for now -- instead, they let the recording play in the background as they focus on the dancing alone. Eli watches all the way throughout, commenting on each girl's performance and pointing out unsatisfactory areas. ("Rin, don't swing your arm up that high!" "Nico, your turn is too slow!") Nozomi smiles a little to herself as she listens to her voice, even when Eli calls for her to stand up straighter, and not fall behind. Eli's very good at being authoritative.

They get through the group dances first, then move on to the units, and finally, pairs. The very last song on the list is Glass Garden, and Eli resigns from her position in the peanut gallery, and joins Nozomi in the center of the roof. Nozomi offers her a grin. From her spot near the CD player, Rin announces "Okay, ready!", and when they respond in kind, hits play.

They've practiced it well, Nozomi thinks. There's a bit of tension to the choreography, like a fear of coming too close for too long -- but then, it might very well be all in her imagination. Regardless, Eli is as graceful and poised as ever, and at the end of it, Nozomi feels they did a pretty good job.

Honoka applauds. The others, though, don't appear as enthusiastic.

"Mmm... somehow, it's a little..." Kotori begins, but doesn't quite have the heart to finish the sentence. Thankfully, Umi picks it back up for her: "Wrong! Totally wrong! It doesn't capture the feeling of the song at all!"

"Right?" Nico chimes in. "The choreography blew! Eli, you were stiff as a pole! A song like that's gotta have appeal, you know? It needs on-stage chemistry! Without it, there's no point at all!"

Nozomi looks to Eli with a sheepishly raised brow. Maybe it wasn't just her imagination, then.

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If Nozomi's feeling any discomfort, none of it shows on her face as she claps her hands together, beaming. "Why don't we try it again now? Just improvise based on the suggestions we got. It'll give us a more solid idea what to do for the final choreography!"

"Oh, improvise?" Eli's never been very good with improvisation. She's usually the kind of person that has to plan everything and think it through several times before acting. But Nozomi's smiling and she trusts her more than anyone else.

So Eli nods. "Okay. If you have an idea just lead me through it."

"All right." Nozomi gives Eli's shoulder a soft squeeze of reassurance. "I like what you had in the beginning. Why don't we do it the same up until the end of the first chorus, and then see what we can come up with?"

With Eli's approval, she turns to Rin. "Rin-chan!"

"Right!" The girl hops over to the music player, and excitedly slams 'play'.

Nozomi draws in a breath, and the song begins again. Her heart's beating noticeably louder in her chest this time, even as they retrace the same well-practiced movements of before. Even though she was the one to suggest this, she can't help the nervous flutter in her stomach as, halfway through the third verse, she begins walking towards Eli. Step by step, the distance between them closes. Nozomi keeps the smile firmly on her face, even as she swallows.

They don't touch yet. Nozomi finds that she's almost a little scared to. Instead, she circles around Eli, twintails fluttering behind her with the motion -- and a small knot loosens in her chest as Eli follows suit. They slip into it with surprising ease, drawing swirling patterns around each other with a natural harmony to them. When Nozomi holds out a hand, Eli does the same, and the tips of their fingers brush together -- just briefly.

The spiraling path drawn by their feet first leads them farther apart, and then closer than the dance ever allowed. Closer, even, than they've been this past month, ever since Nozomi's confession. She feels her throat tighten as the music begins to slow.

Eli's voice croons from the speakers: 'As we drift to sleep in our private flower garden...'

Maybe they can't ever really go back to being friends the way they used to. They certainly won't ever become something like what Nozomi sees in her idle daydreams. But this is just a song; it's an act, it means nothing. So maybe, just for now, this is fine.

With only a single step's distance between them, Nozomi reaches for Eli's hand, and wraps her fingers around it. Gingerly, she guides it up to the side of her face, where hair brushes skin.

The warmth of Eli's palm presses against her cheek, and her fingertips brush the shell of her ear. The muscles in Nozomi's knees feel liquid, the air between the two of them thick with electricity. Without thinking, her lips voicelessly form the words.

"I love your hand..."

They start the dance over and Eli already feels her heart beat faster, not from the dancing but from the expectation of what might be coming.

And she felt oddly calmed, when it was simply moving around each other and singing to each other. Nozomi's steps were easy to follow, almost as if they'd planned them before. They felt natural to the song and to them.

And she feels herself relax. She feels something similar to how their friendship used to feel, the closeness and ease. She's following the motions without hesitation until her hand is on Nozomi's cheek and Nozomi sings that line and Eli feels even her fingers tense and she can't help but think of that warm afternoon behind the school. Nozomi's eyes as she told her...

The moment feels all too long and also short when Nozomi lets go of her hand as the song continues. She follows along, though not as well as before, that strange tension returning to her joints. At one point Nozomi grabs her hand again and she's not sure if she's holding onto her hand too tightly or if her fingers are just incredibly stiff.

The song winds down and Eli feels Nozomi tug at her arm again. They end the song face to face and all Eli can think is that Nozomi is too close and leaning even closer. Before the song has finished fading out, Eli takes a step back and pulls her hand from Nozomi's. She takes a moment before deciding head for her water bottle as if that was why.

Edited 2014-08-21 18:40 (UTC)

Eli lets go, and as Nozomi's hand hits dully against her thigh, she realizes -- oh, she forgot to keep her smile on. She quickly reinstates it, ignoring the natural urge to reach back for Eli's hand, just as a burst of applause comes from their audience of seven.

"Yes!" Umi beams. "Some fine-tuning is required, of course, but I could feel the emotion much more clearly now!"

"Yeah! Yeah, that was awesome!" Honoka offers an enthusiastic double thumbs-up, as Nico folds her arms over her chest with a self-satisfied smirk. "It was all thanks to Nico's advice, obviously!"

"They didn't even take your suggestion, though," Maki mutters coolly, looping a lock of hair around her finger.

"Be quiet!"

Nozomi lets out a small laugh, and then turns to look back at Eli, eyes searching. "It seems like we did a good job, huh?"

Eli has her back turned to the girls, chugging from her water bottle as they offer their excited approval. Even with their screaming, Eli's ears ring for another reason entirely.

She turns to Nozomi, a smile forced on her lips. "Yeah! Good job, Nozomi. Thank you for taking the lead on that one. She turns to everyone else. She's out of breath and her words come out all too quickly. "Alright, I'm glad we're all happy with it now. We'll work on perfecting it this week. Good practice everyone! Excuse me, I have to go to the bathroom."

Eli walks back into the stairwell and feels like she can breathe again.

Edited 2014-08-21 19:10 (UTC)

"Woah, that ended quickly," Honoka comments with a raised brow, but then perks right back up. "Well, we really did a great job today! Good going, everyone. I'll see you all again tomorrow!"

"Yeah!" comes the eager chorus in response, and practice breaks up. The girls help each other stretch, chatting among themselves with contented exhaustion; Rin and Hanayo go together to return the speakers to the teachers' lounge.

As Nico leans her negligible weight against Nozomi's back to help her stretch, she idly comments, "Man, did Eli drown in the toilet, or something?"

Nozomi hums faintly in response, fingertips pressing to the floor as far away as her arms can reach. Then she slowly uncurls her back, and rises to her feet.

"Done stretching?"

"Yeah, I'll go check on her on the way outside."

Waving the remaining girls goodbye with a smile, she steps through the door leading back inside the school, to look for Eli.

Eli finishes splashing water on her face. She braces herself against the sink, eyes closed, and just lets the water drip down. She doesn't know what to do.

The last few weeks of ignoring it haven't made it disappear. That unease she feels when she wants to know what Nozomi is thinking. If her touches have any sort of meaning behind them or Eli's just making it up. If Eli's supposed to discourage it. She sometimes wonders if anything in her own actions or words ever lead Nozomi on and that worries her even more; she doesn't want to hurt Nozomi any more than she already has.

Her rejection hadn't been clear, but she thought Nozomi had understood. But that doesn't mean she can stop those looks or those touches, or reading into them.

There's a knock at the door and she hears Nozomi's voice on the other side.

Eli takes a breath and grabs a paper towel to wipe at her face. "Sorry, I'm almost done."

Nozomi nudges the door open, poking her head in with a look she hopes is reassuring. "Mind if I come in?"

"No, go ahead," Eli responds quietly, muffled by the paper towel as she finishes drying her face. "Sorry, did I take that long?"

"Everyone's finishing up their stretches," she offers as her answer. "It's no good to skip those, you know."

Eli nods. "Right. I'll do them later."

"Should I help?" she suggests, pleasant. The two of them always pair up, after all.

"Ah, that's fine," Eli responds. Nozomi usually does help her during cool-offs, but today she's not sure she'd be able to breathe. "I'll just do them myself."

"Okay," Nozomi says simply, and at first thinks to leave it at that. To pretend she can't tell what this is really about, like everything is fine. Just the way she's been pretending this past month.

But... her hands ball into fists at her sides and her shoulders tense as she thinks -- how much longer can she keep pretending? If she acts like this is normal every time Eli pulls away, then Eli will get farther and farther away from her, until she'll be completely our of reach. They haven't talked about this once, not even on the day Nozomi admitted her feelings, and she thought she'd be happy leaving it at that -- but she can't stand the thought of standing idly by and watching as their friendship crumbles into dust.

She should say something. They can work this out. If she just...

"Did you hate it that much?"

Nozomi swallows harshly, taken aback by the words that just left her own mouth. That wasn't right. It sounded-- accusatory. She hadn't meant to say that at all. Where did it come from?

Eli stands rigid in the silence after Nozomi's question. She could've sworn hours went by.

Ah, of course Nozomi's felt it too. She's never been as good as Nozoomi at hiding how she felt. And apparently she'd been doing an even worse job than she thought.

"I didn't... hate it..." She starts quietly, eyes cast downward. "But I was... uncomfortable. That song, and what happened... aren't you uncomfortable too?"

Nozomi laughs, but it doesn't sound believable even to her own ears. "Don't be silly!" she responds, forcibly injecting chipperness into her tone. "It's just a song. I made Umi-chan write it because I thought it'd be funny, remember? Everyone knows it doesn't really have anything to do with us."

Just voicing the words feels like pulling teeth, and the edges of her mouth are starting to hurt from all this smiling. The corners of her eyes, too, have an odd strain tugging at them.

Eli doesn't have to look at Nozomi to know she's lying but she looks up anyway. "But it's not, is it? You told Umi to write that before you told me that you..." She's writing the paper towel in her hands. "I can tell when you're lying, Nozomi."

Nozomi opens her mouth to give another lighthearted protest, but it dies on her tongue at those last words. It's true, it doesn't matter how long she keeps this act up -- in the end, the only one she's trying to kid is herself.

She drops her eyes to the floor, guilty. The smile wavers on her lips.

"Are you scared of me?"

Eli wrings her hand in front of her to stop herself from going to Nozomi. "I'm not scared. Or maybe a little. But not scared that you'll do something or anything I mean..." Now she's frustrated and she rubs at her eyes with one hand. "I--I don't know what I'm feeling. Mostly confused and worried... weird. I feel weird."

She closes her eyes against her hand and leans back, against the sink. Her voice is very quiet. "I'm sorry."

Edited 2014-08-22 00:45 (UTC)

Nozomi hears Eli's words, but they can't seem to quite settle in her mind -- too fleeting, too difficult to fully grasp. All she hears is 'maybe a little' (that is to say: 'yes'). 'Weird'.

She shakes her head. "No, it's my fault. I made everything weird... I'm sorry." Her voice hitches a little near the end, and she feels the sting in her eyes intensify. Nozomi bites at her lower lip to keep it at bay, but she know she won't be able to ward it off for long. Even with how long they've been friends, she can't let herself cry in front of Eli. Least of all now, after the mess she's made of their relationship.

"Um, I should..." she starts weakly, and doesn't even bother finishing the sentence before turning away. Any excuse she'd come up with wouldn't be believable, anyway -- there's no reason to bother.

For all this, how she feels and how she can tell Nozomi feels, Eli's glad they're talking about it. They haven't really talked about it since Nozomi brought it up and even then they didn't talk about it much.

So when Nozomi turns to leave, Eli's immediate reaction is to reach out for her arm and stop her.

"Wait, Nozomi!" Her voice hikes up at the end. Somehow, it's like a dam breaks and Eli has to explain. "We should talk about this, don't you think? Things have been different since that day, but I don't want them to be. I'm just confused and scared, I've never had anyone say something like that to me. And I can't stop thinking about it or if you're thinking about it, and every time you look at me or we touch I just feel this weird thing in my stomach and you're my best friend and I don't know what to do but please don't go!"

Nozomi freezes in place, not from the force of Eli's grasp so much as her words. Her head is hot and heavy, and she doesn't know how to make sense of them -- there's a strange, almost hopeful dip in her stomach, but unable to pinpoint its source, she can only think of it as irrational. Even her own emotions are jumbled up beyond recognition. She doesn't know what to say to any of this -- she doesn't even know what to feel.

But if Eli wants her to stay, she'll stay.

"Th-then..." Nozomi swallows through the hot bile climbing up her throat, still not turning back around. "What am I supposed to do?"

Edited 2014-08-22 01:54 (UTC)

"I--" she starts, searching for something to say. "I don't know. I feel like we've lost something, and I don't want that."

Eli's still holding onto Nozomi, and even though she knows she has no reason to anymore, she doesn't let go.

"I feel like I want to talk about it more but I don't know what there is to talk about."

That makes the two of them, then. Nozomi exhales through her nose, shaky and shallow, rooted stiffly in place.

Something in her shifts with discomfort, even though she knows it shouldn't. It's wrong of her to, and yet she can't help thinking -- if Eli really doesn't want anything to change, then why...

"... You never come to my house anymore."