[je] valse
Koichi did ten months at Julliard, in the dance department. He didn’t much like ballet or tap and was too short, frankly, for competitive ballroom. “You understand,” his advisers told him, “it would look very strange to lead a partner taller than you. The aesthetics of it,” they said rather mournfully. And Koichi said yes I understand and thanked them very politely, and then he transferred over to NYU to study particle physics.
He’s at CERN doing some disgustingly esoteric research on the Higgs boson when Nagase knocks on his lab door. “Hi,” says Nagase, smilingly cheerful, “the producers at BBC think you’re the next big thing for Nobel physics, and also very pretty; so they’re inviting you to dance with me. This is an opportunity, I feel, that anyone would jump at. The weather here is, by the way, disgusting.” And Koichi, who’s been holed away in his lab for the past 52 hours subsisting on possibly toxic amounts of caffeine, is probably not in his right mind when he says, “Huh? What? Okay?”
(“No, no,” insists Nagase afterwards. “I just have mad persuasive skills.”)
Koichi’s fellow researchers all think this is a fantastic idea (mostly because they think Koichi needs to stop living in the lab); and it really is a fantastic idea. It’s a fantastic idea while Nagase takes him pub-hopping (“Because new friendships must be forged in a pact of ungodly amounts of alcohol!”) and while they stuff themselves to the esophagus with barbecued meat and while they roar around the northwestern suburbs of Geneva on motorcycles. It keeps being a fantastic idea until Koichi’s sitting in the studio conference rooms with a contract on polished oakwood tabletops in front of him. Then, it very quickly stops being a fantastic idea. “Wait,” Koichi frowns, and skipping the whole why am I dancing with a guy? or did you run out of female professional dancers? or even why do I have to wear a dress? rants, chooses to ask instead: “How comehe gets to lead?”
“Don’t worry,” smiles Nagase. He does this a lot. In fact, Nagase spends a fair majority of his time smiling at Koichi, as if he can’t help himself. “I am a great leader. I learned it from Leader.”
(This is, of course, grounds for a lot of worry; but Koichi doesn’t know that yet.)
Nagase’s smile might be a little like toxic amounts of caffeine: it makes Koichi’s heart thrum too fast and gets him all confused and leaves him probably not in his right mind. Because Koichi says, “Okay,” again; even though he knows that this is a terrible idea. It’s a terrible idea when they give him a frilly Matsuda-Seiko white ballgown for the Viennese waltz, and it’s a terrible idea when the Sorimachi-Matsushima pair from next door come over and Nanako keeps cooing about how adorable Koichi looks, and it’s a terrible idea when Nagase starts looking all proud and calling him things like “Kou-chan” and then adding possessive pronouns to that, i.e. “my Kou-chan.”
“I’m not, you know,” says Koichi, taking off the dress after the cameras leave. He changes back into his tracksuits, and bends to do post-practice stretches. “I’m not, like–I’m not the Ginger to your Fred or anything.”
“Of course not!” Nagase looks a little appalled. He flops down on the floor next to Koichi–still in tuxedo tailcoats but looking remarkably casual nevertheless. “They were never like that, you know.” He pauses, then, toeing off his dance shoes and leaning back on his elbows, turns to beam at Koichi: “You’re more like–I don’t know, the Irene to my Vernon. The Bert to my Ernie.”
Koichi kicks at Nagase’s ankle. “Who’s Ernie? You’re like Cookie Monster, you bottomless pit of–”, and Nagase calls him, “OSCAR. OSCAR. YOU’RE A GROUCHY GROUCH, OSCAR,” and they grin at each other, stupid and ten-years-old inside.
(“Also,” Nagase tells Koichi later that night. Koichi had opened his hotel room door and found Nagase looming outside in the hallway, case of beer in one hand and a DVD ofTotoro in the other. “Also: you have to wear heels for the paso doble. And maybe fake boobs.”
“You lying asshole,” says Koichi. Then: “Really?”
“The heels, yeah.” Nagase lifts his case of beer, “Let’s at least get shitfaced first.”)
