CREATURE

・chapter 32・

Asya picked some sticky tape off her sweatpants and shifted deeper into one of the grey couches in the living room, eyeing the Russian prodigy sprawled out opposite her. He was stretched out on his back with his calves just barely brushing her ankles, rubbing some black marker off his fingers.

They'd spent the better part of the past three hours sorting out the remaining boxes in the dining area before hauling them to different rooms to unpack. She would come to find that even Roman Zharnov of all people owned things like adapter plugs and coat hangers, which was a pretty unsettling notion once she thought about it.

But in and amongst the utterly mundane, she also came across a plethora of dusty bubble-wrapped trophies, ribbons, and medals. It was a collection that would put most Olympic athletes to shame, and yet when asked about it, he announced he was tossing the lot in a back-alley dumpster. She did manage to talk him down from that rather drastic course of action by promising she'd pick out the really iconic ones and let him get rid of the rest.

She wasn't sure why she offered to sort his awards, given that all that talent would end up going to waste in cocaine scandal, but decided not to read too much into it. It was simply her discomfort at seeing precious pieces of ballet history lost to rats and trash.

She'd planted herself on the living room floor and dug through piles upon piles of gold, platinum, white, blue, and red, and found that he'd won a lot of the same competitions she did in his youth. Like her, he'd all but dominated the international competition circuit for the bulk of his adolescence. He even took home the famed Moscow Grand Prix at a tender fifteen, the youngest in his age division by far, and she was fairly certain that record still stood nine years later. Needless to say, sorting the trophies, ribbons, and medals into piles of keep, toss and donate was another noteworthy addition to her growing list of bizarre experiences.

Once they'd finished they both ended up on the couch, cleaning off sticky tape and permanent marker while she quizzed him about some of his competition wins. It was probably the most normal conversation they'd ever had, easy-flowing and devoid of any sarcastic exchanges, and despite her best efforts to argue otherwise, he was somewhat... Interesting to listen to.

The past few days must have done some truly questionable things to her subconscious.

'Nureyev or Baryshnikov?' she asked.

'Nureyev.' he replied. 'You?'

'Neither.' she said with a small smile. 'Nijinsky.'

He raised his eyebrows suggestively, to which she shrugged and added, 'Come on, he was practically a virtuosic god. You can say what you like about Baryshnikov and Nureyev, they did nothing but dance to the tune Nijinsky set.'

He threw his hands up in mock surrender, letting out a dramatic sigh. She flashed him a smug look and wrapped her arms around her drawn-up legs, resting her chin on her kneecaps. It was a shame, she thought, that he would turn out the way he did. Not just because of the hit to his reputation, but because in normal conversation he seemed almost nice, almost normal. It was a side of himself she was almost certain he never showed at work or to the media, where he definitely preferred his lethally calm, somewhat insensitive and cold persona. She hoped the ballet gods would forgive her for wanting to take advantage of this side of him one last time before she went back to making good decisions.

'Why Nureyev?' she asked.

'Personal taste, I guess.' he replied. 'I used to watch him on videotape at the Academy, and I mean, talk about stage presence, the world went quiet when Nureyev danced.'

His expression softened a little, his eyes growing distant as he seemed to dig into his memory. 'They used to say he was like a panther on stage, like an animal let out of its cage. I never knew if that was meant to be derogatory or flattering, but I definitely think it was true. His dancing had these rough edges, this sort of deep internal conflict and fierceness that he could never quite get rid of. The working theory was that he got it from growing up starving and poor, having to fight every inch of the way so much so that it spilled into his technique. But he owned it, you know. He sent every balletic idea of effortlessness and making it look easy to absolute shit. Nureyev wanted his audiences to feel the danger in what he did and watch as he overcame it. Beauty and mastery are admirable, of-course. But anger, pain, and struggle, that's what captivates people.'