Showtime [Oneshot, YouMao]
Title: Showtime
Pairing: YouMao (Omi Youichirou/Katou Mao)
Rating/Warnings: G/RPS, 2nd person.
Word Count: ~800
Summary: Every rehearsal brings them closer to a successful performance - and each other.
Notes: Originally written for tumblr user persephonem for a fic meme, reposted here for ease of access.
--
Showtime
The first time you heard him sing, you had to temporarily excuse yourself to get over a laughing fit very poorly disguised as a coughing fit. He doesn’t have the choreography down yet, and he keeps bumping into you and Ueda and stepping on your feet when he’s supposed to be on the opposite side of the room. He’s very, very rough, but even when he messes up, even when you yell at him, he keeps on smiling. When he smiles like that, you can’t help but forgive him.
He regularly corners you after practice and apologizes. “Can you please run through it with me one more time, Mao-san?” he asks, doing his best to make himself look smaller, smiling so sweetly that something in the vicinity of your heart twists itself into a knot and you find yourself agreeing without a second thought.
You don’t think you can ever get enough of his smile.
For the first two weeks, he’s almost impossibly behind everyone else. Then, somehow, he’s keeping pace with everyone, getting the choreography right, singing the right words, managing to not run into you… well, most of the time, anyway. But he’s not much better or worse than you or any of the others, and the director gradually stops yelling at him so much, and starts making Okazaki practice the choreography again and again, and Kinari work on his singing, and even gets after you for forgetting your lines one time. It hardly matters that you’ve never missed that part before, but as you duck your head and look apologetic, you see him shoot you a wry look and you can’t help but smile a bit.
And then, out of nowhere, he’s way ahead of everyone. He never misses a line, or adlibs it so perfectly that it ends up permanently changed. He’s never out of key, unless he hasn’t had time to warm up his voice yet, and the few times he missed a step and collided with you during VICTORY or Shinken Shoubu, well, you’re pretty sure that was on purpose. It hardly makes sense, that he could go from where he was to where he is now so quickly, with such a dramatic increase in skill.
It’s embarrassing, but now you’re the one who has to ask him to help you with the choreography after practice is over.
For his part, he doesn’t make an issue of it at all, just smiles and says things like “Remember when I had trouble getting the turn on the fifth beat? I think you’re doing something similar, what I did was…” and leads you through it. You hassle each other a bit over how you both keep messing up, and about who ever heard of a middle school tennis player that could dance like this, but when you say “Was that some sort of new improvised dance move, or should I call an ambulance?” it comes out sounding a bit like “I like you a lot more than I should” to you.
At the end of a long practice that finally ends with a few grudging words of praise from the choreographer, you jump him. Not in an obvious way, just the way anyone might do after finally getting an okay on something they’ve worked excruciatingly hard for. But his eyes meet yours and your heart stops for a brief moment before he grins, the broadest grin you’ve ever seen him make, and he says, “Wanna do a little more extra practice?”
The practice he has in mind is not so much choreography or vocals as it is… “Team-building,” you say as your lips separate.
“Hmm?” he says, and you take advantage of his distraction to kiss the freckle underneath his eye.
“My favorite kind of practice,” you say. He hums in comprehension and starts playing with the buttons on your shirt. “It’s getting late,” you say. He frowns and drops his hands. You smirk. “I mean. Your house is pretty far away. So you better just spend the night at my place.”
Rehearsals seem to fly by after that, dance practices and runthroughs and stolen moments in empty hallways and out of the way closets blurring into one until you’re standing on stage, taking a bow at the end of the last dress rehearsal. You meet his gaze and think you might go blind from the brightness of his smile and the warmth of his eyes.
Afterwards, as you’re heading home, he drops in beside you. “Can’t believe it starts tomorrow,” he says. “Seems like we were just at training camp.”
You smile in agreement. “We’ve been working hard.”
“But you know,” he says, suddenly looking serious, “I’m not sure it’s enough. Are we really ready for this…?”
“Well, there’re still things to work on, but…” Your smile widens and you take his arm. “We’ll just work even more when performances start. After all… practice makes perfect.”
Pairing: YouMao (Omi Youichirou/Katou Mao)
Rating/Warnings: G/RPS, 2nd person.
Word Count: ~800
Summary: Every rehearsal brings them closer to a successful performance - and each other.
Notes: Originally written for tumblr user persephonem for a fic meme, reposted here for ease of access.
--
Showtime
The first time you heard him sing, you had to temporarily excuse yourself to get over a laughing fit very poorly disguised as a coughing fit. He doesn’t have the choreography down yet, and he keeps bumping into you and Ueda and stepping on your feet when he’s supposed to be on the opposite side of the room. He’s very, very rough, but even when he messes up, even when you yell at him, he keeps on smiling. When he smiles like that, you can’t help but forgive him.
He regularly corners you after practice and apologizes. “Can you please run through it with me one more time, Mao-san?” he asks, doing his best to make himself look smaller, smiling so sweetly that something in the vicinity of your heart twists itself into a knot and you find yourself agreeing without a second thought.
You don’t think you can ever get enough of his smile.
For the first two weeks, he’s almost impossibly behind everyone else. Then, somehow, he’s keeping pace with everyone, getting the choreography right, singing the right words, managing to not run into you… well, most of the time, anyway. But he’s not much better or worse than you or any of the others, and the director gradually stops yelling at him so much, and starts making Okazaki practice the choreography again and again, and Kinari work on his singing, and even gets after you for forgetting your lines one time. It hardly matters that you’ve never missed that part before, but as you duck your head and look apologetic, you see him shoot you a wry look and you can’t help but smile a bit.
And then, out of nowhere, he’s way ahead of everyone. He never misses a line, or adlibs it so perfectly that it ends up permanently changed. He’s never out of key, unless he hasn’t had time to warm up his voice yet, and the few times he missed a step and collided with you during VICTORY or Shinken Shoubu, well, you’re pretty sure that was on purpose. It hardly makes sense, that he could go from where he was to where he is now so quickly, with such a dramatic increase in skill.
It’s embarrassing, but now you’re the one who has to ask him to help you with the choreography after practice is over.
For his part, he doesn’t make an issue of it at all, just smiles and says things like “Remember when I had trouble getting the turn on the fifth beat? I think you’re doing something similar, what I did was…” and leads you through it. You hassle each other a bit over how you both keep messing up, and about who ever heard of a middle school tennis player that could dance like this, but when you say “Was that some sort of new improvised dance move, or should I call an ambulance?” it comes out sounding a bit like “I like you a lot more than I should” to you.
At the end of a long practice that finally ends with a few grudging words of praise from the choreographer, you jump him. Not in an obvious way, just the way anyone might do after finally getting an okay on something they’ve worked excruciatingly hard for. But his eyes meet yours and your heart stops for a brief moment before he grins, the broadest grin you’ve ever seen him make, and he says, “Wanna do a little more extra practice?”
The practice he has in mind is not so much choreography or vocals as it is… “Team-building,” you say as your lips separate.
“Hmm?” he says, and you take advantage of his distraction to kiss the freckle underneath his eye.
“My favorite kind of practice,” you say. He hums in comprehension and starts playing with the buttons on your shirt. “It’s getting late,” you say. He frowns and drops his hands. You smirk. “I mean. Your house is pretty far away. So you better just spend the night at my place.”
Rehearsals seem to fly by after that, dance practices and runthroughs and stolen moments in empty hallways and out of the way closets blurring into one until you’re standing on stage, taking a bow at the end of the last dress rehearsal. You meet his gaze and think you might go blind from the brightness of his smile and the warmth of his eyes.
Afterwards, as you’re heading home, he drops in beside you. “Can’t believe it starts tomorrow,” he says. “Seems like we were just at training camp.”
You smile in agreement. “We’ve been working hard.”
“But you know,” he says, suddenly looking serious, “I’m not sure it’s enough. Are we really ready for this…?”
“Well, there’re still things to work on, but…” Your smile widens and you take his arm. “We’ll just work even more when performances start. After all… practice makes perfect.”