be my next mistake // prinxiety

★ 12 : rehearsal ★

*tw: mentions of family issues + suicidal thoughts*

Virgil grabbed his bag and water bottle before heading out to his first rehearsal for the upcoming promotional tour.

Midway through rehearsal, he wiped his forehead with a purple towel and Patton requested him to go backstage and check out the effects the crew put in.

"Hey, Virgil!" a brunette named Jordyn called and showed a map of the stage. "Confetti canons here before everyone leaves. And we took your suggestion. We ordered a bunch of these clear purple plastic balls to throw into the audience. What do we put in them?" She handed Virgil a pen and welcomed him to write on the paper she was working on.

He scribbled down a couple ideas like a signed photo, extra confetti, short notes, a Virgil sock puppet logo keychain, and so on.

Jordyn read over the list. "You sure you wanna sign like, a million photos or write tons of different notes?"

"I'm up for it, I think it'll be cool," Virgil replied, though he couldn't deny that he could already feel the wrist pain coming. "We're only doing like, sixty per show, so I'll be okay. At least it's not one for everyone in the audience."

"Okay, cool! How about..." Jordyn crossed out a few options. "Signed photo, note, pins, and keychain? Confetti can be collected when we shoot it out in each theater."

"Sounds good," said Virgil.

Later, he set his phone in the audience and started recording to see if he actually liked his finalized choreography. Not every song had strict choreography but he needed some structure for specific parts.

He wished he was better at dancing, but it took years to convince his parents to let him take classes and he started in his teens because they tried to tell him men dancing was "gay". He only convinced them when he faked having a girlfriend in sophomore year, who was really just Patton's lesbian cousin acting since Virgil couldn't get an actual girlfriend back then.

So he wasn't the greatest dancer, but he passed as above average in professional dancers' eyes.

He cringed watching his own video of himself, but he ended up not hating the choreography he made himself. He passed along the video to his team and then kept practicing, tweaking things on his own.

Soon enough, his time at rehearsal was up. While he changed into his normal clothing, he heard his phone ringing. He picked it up after seeing it was a call from Joan.

"Hey, Joan. What's up?" he asked.

Joan sighed out, "Have you checked Twitter?"

"Goddamnit. What happened this time and how am I always the last to know about it?"

"The hashtags 'mariehannahcassidy' and "virgilsparents' are both trending. They're trying to figure out exactly what your parents did to you as a child."

"What?! How the hell did they even get her full ass name?"

"There's an audio recording of you talking to her apparently. You called her Marie there, and through digging, someone found a lot about her and your dad."

Virgil's jaw dropped. "The fuck? I was on a short call with her yesterday and called her that, but I was alone. I looked around to make sure! I was in an empty alleyway!"

"Then that's pretty creepy. But your end of the phone call was recorded and spread around and nobody can seem to find the original poster yet for some reason."

The singer leaned against the wall. "What are they saying about my parents?"

"In short, there are a bunch of different theories. Some think they were physically abusive, some thought they were biphobic and kicked you out in high school. Some even think you're just angsty and disrespectful to her."