Red Swan

Every day

A/N: Hey Guys, this is my first fic so please I need opinions. If I'm doing it well, if you can imagine everything, if you feel the feelings of the girl, because is sort of angst, and stuff like that.

Sorry if i have a bad orthography, English is not my first language.

THIS IS EDITED!

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“Perfection is finally attained not when there is no longer anything to add but when there is no longer anything to take away, when a body has been stripped down to its nakedness.”

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Emma opened her bright blue eyes, finally waking up from an eternity of nightmares fighting in her mind, that lonely and dark world. She took slow and heavy sighs while she was staring the blue sky landscape of the ceiling. She tried to stand up but she couldn’t. Her body was stiff and it felt heavy. When her alarm clock sounded a Beethoven’s classical music roared in the room. She took one last sigh and she got up.

After standing with her two feet in the icy floor she looked around her little room. White and steady furniture, beige drawers with painted yellow and red flowers; on top of it there was a red glass vase which held a dark purple tulip with a shining yellowish center. It was a petite, delicate and fragile flower that she changed every three weeks, always the same type of flower. Then two wooden closets each one with two silver knobs. Oil paintings and photos of ballerinas around the room, there was not even a single photo of her. On the last wall, standing there on its own, there was a giant and shiny mirror that went from the floor to the ceiling. 

She took few steps to get near the mirror; she started to see every detail of her body while she was taking her pajamas clothes: bony hips, petite breasts and shoulders, flat abs, long and skinny limbs, fine feet, with swollen veins. It was genuinely a fragile and elegant body. Suddenly, Emma frowned and turned around to see her profile body when she noticed a strange little bulge on her belly. She thought that something was different; she never had that “huge” thing on that part of her body. In fact, her body was just getting on her normal weight.  She frowned again.

“No” she thought frustrated.

“I’m not going to eat until I get away that…thing”.

 Before Showering she began looking herself again in the bathroom mirror, nude; suddenly she had the urge to scratch her back. “Ouch…” she thought when she felt her long nails touching the sensitive skin. She turned to see her back and it had long red lines, like scratches, she didn’t really had an explanation about how that had happened, so it was better to hide it, especially from her mom, who was an overprotecting mother.

She headed to the shower nude; hot water touched her white and thin skin, passing through her long and skinny neck and going down to her clavicle. By ending her bath she felt relaxed and pleased. Then she went back to her room to get ready for her class. Every day of the week, from 6 am to 7 pm, except for Sundays, she had to be there practicing for the big day. After all Ballet was her life.

Emma always went very presentable and beautiful to class, because for her it had to be that way, “appearance it’s really important in Ballet” at least that’s what she said. She picked a completely black leotard with a bare back, a soft pink Ballet skirt that was longer on one side, she always reassured for it to be in the place it should, everything has to be perfect. Finally she placed an also black mini sweater in her long skinny arms to hide part of her back.

To finish she raised her long curvy shiny dark brown hair to make a high bun, until a strand of hair popped out on top of her left ear. She boiled of anger, and remade the entire hair bun until it was perfect. She made it 3 times more.

-Good morning sweetie girl!- her mom “woke her up” with a happy smile plastered in her face.

-Time to eat breakfast, honey- she got near to Emma and saw her beautiful pale face. Her mom reached her shoulders until Emma grabbed her hand taking her hand away.

-I’m… almost ready, just wait a second, please- her mom wasn’t pleased from her reaction. Few seconds later when her mom left she screamed in mute. It ached when her mother grabbed her by the shoulders. “It’s because of those red lines” she supposed.

Finally ready she passed as fast as she could to get away of the kitchen, the food and her mom. Her mother started to shout her things like she shouldn’t skip meals and that she should be home early, but Emma didn´t want to be late for her class so she decided to ignore her mom like all the 365 days of the year.

Tired of all the rest, she could finally go peacefully to her classes, a little smile was plastered in her face, just thinking about the joy she felt while dancing made her happy and kind of pleased with herself, Ballet really fulfilled her life, nothing more could make her feel that way. “I would love to die dancing”, that’s what she always said, to anybody, because truly she didn’t care about other people’s opinions, except for the ones who had a relationship with her most desire dreams.

She went to her class by subway, she grabbed it every day. There was an old man, a pedophile, who was always there, at the same time as her, always looking at her body with a creepy smile, it kind of freaked her out, but she decided to ignore it too.  Sometimes she thought about changing her transport ways, yet this was fastest way to get to her classes, and of course that led to another crucial thing in ballet: punctuality.

Besides it’s not like she lived in a common city, she lived in a city with a round of 30.000.000 more people, yes, I think you already guessed. That city was Tokyo.

Emma was born in Seoul, South Korea, but at the age of 18 she decided to come to live in the capital of Japan, since here was one of the best companies of ballet worldwide. Also, why her mother was overprotecting? It was because she was an ex-ballerina but sadly she got pregnant at the age of 23, so she had to say farewell to her beloved carrier, that’s one of the reasons why she supported her daughter in all this.

Emma sacrificed a lot of things, even studies, even at the age of 26 she still did it, because she wanted to pursuit her dream, maybe she let people took advantage of her, and maybe she did a lot of things that normal people should regret about. But one thing is sure, she went a little too far.