CREATURE

・chapter 6・

Roman leaned against the back of the elevator with a disgruntled sigh, crossing his arms over his chest as he closed his eyes for a few moments. As pathetic as it sounded, he was tempted to take a sixty-second nap while getting to the top floor. It was just past four in the afternoon, so thankfully most of the working day was done, but he still had a double coaching slot with Walsh to look forward to.

Between jet-lag, being out of shape, learning three new pieces and the boxes of unpacking that awaited him that evening when he got home, he wasn't in the best of moods. His day hadn't exactly started well either, having woken up in a world of pain that morning even a cold shower didn't help soothe.

He hadn't expected much different from his first day back in intensive training, but it might have gone over easier if Walsh wasn't hellbent on proving some wildly unnecessary point to him. The Englishman had dished him three new pieces to learn before Monday, all complicated, technical sets that the ballet master had choreographed specifically for him. Probably in a futile effort to prove to the Bolshoi boy that the English were just as tough as the Russains.

Walsh could come up with as many tricky solos as he wanted, but he was nothing out of the ordinary as far as Roman was concerned. He'd been trained by some of the most relentless teachers in the industry, and tough methods were pretty much the standard at the Bolshoi Ballet Academy. He'd been racked for the first time when he was eight, got weighed every week all throughout his adolescence, and passed what was arguably the world's hardest dance exam with distinction. In short, Walsh didn't come close to what he'd grown up with. But still, that didn't mean the Englishman wasn't going to try and rattle him, if only to prove some meaningless point.

Roman felt the elevator slow down and come to a rumbling stop, and opened his eyes with a small frown. Realising it had stopped on the third floor, he sighed again and mentally readied himself for more small-talk. Over the past two days he'd been hounded around every corner by students and company dancers for either photographs or autographs, and truth be told he was out of practice with the whole polite-humble act. Who knew, maybe he was never really that good at it anyway.

But when the door opened, he found himself face-to-face with a young soloist he was actually hoping to talk to.

She was busy saying goodbye to someone over her shoulder, and didn't seem to notice him straight away. When she did, she offered him a small smile. Just a polite greeting he supposed, but judging by how quickly she broke eye contact, she was probably a little thrown by him. She stepped into the elevator and pressed the button for the fifth floor, putting a fair amount of distance between them once she did.

She didn't seem too bothered by his presence, and he was half-surprised that she didn't strike up a conversation. They had met, after all, and usually people had something they wanted to ask him. She did seem a little restless, shifting her weight between her feet and chewing on her bottom lip like she was nervous. Perhaps it was because she was preoccupied with something else that she was particularly interested in conversation.

Like the day before, she'd drawn his eye in class that morning. His attention had found its way back to her repeatedly for no obvious reason, but eventually he figured it was probably an old habit of his paying its dues. When he was younger he used to scope out his competition that way, by looking around him to see who did something better than he did. Besides making him a fiercely competitive child, it also taught him how to spot something unique.

But unique wouldn't have been enough to get her promoted to soloist, and even with her training being technically well-rounded and an ambitious work ethic, she still wouldn't have pulled it off at her age. No, to make soloist at nineteen she would have to be unequivocally gifted, beyond a fault.