JAPTRAT (for now)

Chapter 4: Pandemonium

Everyone shuffled back to their seats as the dancers made their way to the center of the room. It was more or less a last minute decision to do a formal dance for the event. Avery, being the actual manager, had suggested it which meant that everyone had to stay back an hour everyday for the last week and a half to practice. No one was thrilled about this except for most of the girls and just one guy, Jimmy Geller. Nathan himself wasn't interested in participating but when Avery asked for volunteers, Danielle raised his hand on purpose, telling everyone what a great dancer he was.

Rita's mother owned a dance studio so she was the one who choreographed the dance, and she wasn't taking anyone's bullshit excuses to get out of it. She made everyone practice over and over again until a day before the event, Nathan went home exhausted, his feet swollen.

The dancers went towards the tables on the sides where black masks were layed out for the girls and white ones for the guys. Then they all stood in their respective positions in 10 pairs of 2, each facing their partner and ready to dance. The dance was divided into two parts, so in the middle when the music would change everyone had to switch partners, so that way everyone would dance with two different people. Nathan happened to be dancing with Addison and Sienna.

He was putting on his mask when he saw Alec discreetly pointing a phone in his direction, taking a video. Phones weren't allowed inside the gym due to security reasons and anyone who brought their phone had to give it to a guard standing outside, but Alec had never been very good at following rules. Nathan gave a final sweep of his surroundings when he noticed at the last moment that almost all the waiters were gone. He knew this wasn't right. Why would the waiters all disappear right before the start of the dance? He kept looking left and right to get any clue of what was going on.

"Nate, you okay? You have your thinking face on." Addison said, giving him a concerned look.

"Somethings not right Addison."

"What do you mean?"

"I'm not sure, but something's not adding up and I-"

"Nathan, you're being paranoid. You're probably just getting nervous about this dance, though you don't have any reason to be, because youre a great dancer. Now relax, the musics about to start."

Shes right, he thought, it's all in my head.

He cleared his mind and focused all his attention on Addision and his movements. All the dancers were standing to the side of their partners, one facing one direction and the other facing the opposite. Each of their right hands were placed parallel to the others and as the soft tune of a piano started playing, each pair turned in circles, their left arms placed behind their backs. Nathans tension started to ease away as he danced. He was in his element.

As the tune of the piano grew and they reach a high note, everyone switched directions. So where Nathan was turning anticlockwise before, he was turning clockwise then and vice versa for Addision. When the violins started playing, everyone went into the position of a waltz, the leader with their right hand on the followers back and the follower with their left hand on the leaders right shoulder, and the remaining hands clasped together.

"Sorry in advance if I step on your feet Nate."

"Wait, wha-Ouch!" he said, when Addisions heel hit his left foot.

"Sorry!" she said again, but he didn't mind it too much. Addison was an athlete after all, not a dancer. In the back of his mind he knew he'd have to take the risk of injuring his feet, God knows she'd already stepped on them a million times during practice.