[Rybinsk - gala time] В наших глазах (Conrad)

Rybinsk, 28th December 2003

Zhenya had barely slept when her alarm woke her on the day of the gala at the artistic flying school. The girl felt slightly nauseous and very nervous. She had spent the first days of winter break training as much as she could but she still felt that she was not ready for the event anyway. She wasn’t sure if it was reassuring or additional pressure that Conrad was coming to watch the show either. Truth be told the girl had not expected her friend to follow her invitation and when he had she hadn’t been able to hide her astonishment. She had told him, of course, that she was very happy to see him there and she hoped that she would not embarrass herself in front of him and the rest of the probably huge audience with a poor performance in the show.

The gala and all surrounding circumstances were quite different this year, making the girl feel more nervous than ever. As Junior European Champion Zhenya felt there was more attention on her now than in earlier years. Yet, that was hardly the biggest change. For as long as Zhenya could remember Aglaya had been in the show; for the last few years her older cousin had been the featured star of the gala and now she wasn’t even participating. Zhenya hadn’t even seen her at the artistic flying school at all. This year Nastya and Anatoliy had the honour of being the athletes that smiled at the spectators from posters at the artistic flying school and actually all over the wizarding area of Rybinsk.

However, not only the list of participants had changed. The security measures were intense now and instead of feeling reassured by the added precautions, Zhenya found the security guards and added enchantments quite unsettling. She did not feel at ease anymore, did not feel like the artistic flying school was home now that things had changed so much. Was it really needed to have security guards all over the place? Did that not send the wrong signals to the spectators too? Zhenya felt that the gala had always had such a nicely relaxed and festive atmosphere in the past. Surely the safety measures took some of that away…

When she got dressed in the changing room she did not talk to anyone, avoided looking at the other athletes, hoping that none of them would address her. She hadn’t been able to eat much at all and when she started to warm up, her legs felt like jelly. It took her a while until she got over her anxiety and when she walked into the arena with some other junior athletes for a group performance she felt more excited and eager to perform than scared. The crowd was cheering and the girl felt a rush of adrenaline as the music started and they performed. The music sounded loud and clear, the lighting effects were spectacular and, although they hadn’t had much time to practise, they really did well.

She didn’t have long to rest after that presentation until it was her turn to perform alone. While the senior athletes usually had special show programs that was rarely the case with juniors. Zhenya performed to Valse triste by Sibelius - the music that she had also used for her free program at the last European championships. She could tell that she was not executing her technical elements as well as she had done in competition despite the fact that there wasn’t the pressure of judges being present this time. However, the girl was quite emotional. The music clearly played its part in that and the chilly wind that blew into her face made her eyes water. As she completed her program with just some minor stumbles and the crowd cheered only for her, Zhenya smiled. She felt excited, relieved, happy and, at least for this brief moment, forgot about how everything had happened, all the changes that had occurred. 

Instead of changing from her burgundy catsuit with some glittering effects into something more casual, Zhenya just put her broom away, slipped into warm boots, and grabbed a padded jacket. She did not even think of removing the unusual amount of eye makeup and the dark red lipstick that she had applied specially for the show but immediately went to look for Conrad who, after having been checked by a security guard, had been allowed to take a seat in the athlete’s area of the stands. Zhenya smiled when she saw him and made a beeline for the empty seat next to him. “Hey,” she said a little breathlessly as she sank down on the seat. “How do you like it so far?” the girl nervously asked, not daring to ask how he had liked performance in particular. She was afraid that he might not have liked her performance or did not enjoy the gala in general.

@Conrad Sturm

Conrad glanced shiftily over his shoulder again; the security guard was still looking at him. Which made sense -- he was one of the only people sitting here that wasn’t an artistic flier -- but also didn’t make sense -- shouldn’t they have been more suspicious of the artistic fliers? the people that actually stood to benefit from stupid things like poisoning each other? If Conrad had been up to something nefarious he certainly wouldn’t have done it from here -- he was so transparently suspicious already.

He’d had to catch two portkeys here -- one to Berlin and then one to Rybinsk, because he hadn’t gotten his apparition license on his first try (which his father was still lording over him months later) and because their little port wasn’t enough of a transport hub for a direct to Russia. Maybe that was another reason he didn’t understand Zhenya’s family -- next to the Shishkins and the Tikhomirovs, the Krügers were insignificant.

But whatever -- he wasn’t here to understand Zhenya’s family (though he suspected that was a reason she’d invited him, to prove to them both that they like, loved each other.) He was here to support Zhenya. Also, he was here because he’d wanted to look at magical sound equipment -- it differed a lot from the Muggel stuff, or it’d seemed to, from the brief look he’d gotten before Zhenya’s terrifying aunt (or possibly her grandmother, he didn’t know) had had him ushered away.

Conrad hadn’t seen Zhenya fly too often, so her routine had been sort of a surprise. Somehow he hadn’t been able to imagine her being actually good at sixteen years old. But she had been pretty lovely, and the music had been pretty lovely, and he was pretty unsure how he felt about having disdained artistic flying for the past seven years.

Somebody else took her position in the centre of the arena; Conrad was watching with slightly less interest when Zhenya sat next to him -- Hey. He looked over at her -- the makeup was frightening, honestly, but he’d seen worse on opera singers. “Hey,” he said, and, “It’s good. I liked your dance. You look very pretty.”

He shot another glance at the guard again, though, and added more confidentially, pointing one thumb over his shoulder, “I think your family hates me though, I’ve been searched like a hundred times.” He was getting sick of Probity Probes.

Zhenya’s face lit up when Conrad said that he liked the show, her performance and thought that she looked pretty. Her red lips formed a big smile and she blushed ever so slightly. Fortunately the light on the stands wasn’t all that bright so this might actually go unnoticed.

“I’m so glad!” she exclaimed joyfully. “And thank you! It means a lot.” The girl beamed at her friend, feeling actually happier that he liked it than she would have guessed. She hadn’t been aware of her needing his approval for what she did.

She turned to look at her cousin who was out there performing now when the audience applauded loudly. Volodya was so good. His jumps had such a great height and Zhenya admired him for that, jumps were her own weak spot. She assumed that she might just not be quite as brave as Volodya and others who excelled at jumps. They were dangerous, after all.

Conrad mentioned that he had been searched many times and seemed to take this as her family hating him. The girl quickly shook her head, her eyes wide with surprise. “Oh no! That’s certainly not the case. It has nothing to do with you. The precautions are just really extreme this year. It has never been like that before. It feels strange for us, too, the athletes I mean. There was a lot more interaction between us and the... “ she paused, not wanting to sound vain if she said fans because she didn't want him to think that she thought that she believed to have fans of her own and trying to find another word, “and the audience.” She sighed and shrugged. “Well, we do not talk about it in public but you know why this is. Not sure everybody does, though. I suppose there’ll be even more rumours out there after this show.”

Zhenya wondered if Aglaya was somewhere at the artistic flying school today or if she stayed clear of it. She had seen Nastya briefly earlier but she wasn’t quite sure how she was dealing with the pressure of being one of the stars of the show. There was certainly more attention on her than on all junior athletes combined.

“Happy belated birthday to you, by the way. I’ve still got a present for you,” Zhenya said, gently nudging his arm. She was somehow eager to change the topic at least for now. They probably couldn’t avoid getting back to the topic of the added security if they chose to leave the stands again at some point but for now she wanted to get away from anything that might ruin her good mood. “I’ve been wondering what to get you,” she explained unnecessarily, “I’ve decided to give you two things,” the girl put her hand into the pocket of her jacket and pulled out a snow globe of an artistic flying arena where a small group of tiny artistic flyers made some moves. “I thought it might be nice as a… souvenir to remind you of today,” she muttered, holding it out for him to take.

“And... “ she chewed on her lip for a moment, not quite sure if she was brave enough to go ahead and give him her second present. This might change everything. Maybe he wouldn’t like it but she sure hoped he would. They were friends for quite a while now and he had said that she looked pretty, after all. She took a deep breath and slid to the edge of her seat to get into a better position. Then she leaned forward, flung her arm around his neck and put her lips onto his.

Zhenya beamed at him and Conrad -- for a change -- grinned back for a moment. (His smile was too wide for his face -- he’d always felt that way -- with Zhenya all made up, he was more aware than ever of his weird face and his plain clothes, though at least they were new.) He tugged self-consciously at his shirt collar and propped one foot on the back of the chair in front of him -- though he’d dropped the silly smile, his face was still warm.

But she looked back at the arena at the performer and he let go a silent breath of relief and followed suit. This was a male performer, so he felt obligated not to give a damn, but there was something could be said for showmanship, at least. But he glanced back at her -- the makeup was still frightening on second look, but it was easier to see the normal Zhenya under it, which made him a little more at ease with all of this. Behind the scenes at an artistic flying arena was nothing like anywhere he’d ever been before.

She was quick to reassure him that all the suspicion of him hadn’t been personal (which he had known, but which was nice to hear anyway) and Conrad nodded, as though he was just remembering. “Right,” he said, “Your cousin.”

Zhenya nudged him. “Okay,” he said, sitting up straighter. He couldn’t remember when he’d told her his birthday, but he’d almost certainly been complaining about it -- his parents had been doubling up his birthday and Christmas presents since he was five -- it didn’t escape him that she was giving him two things. It didn’t escape him that she’d made a note of when his birthday was. That was really, really sweet; he was a little excited despite himself, despite his instinct not to get his hopes high. She handed him a snowglobe and he held it up to look at the figures inside; he gave it a violent little shake to see if it would disturb them.

This was useless to him, obviously -- he’d just stick it on his windowsill or, more likely, in a box so his parents wouldn’t find it and get any ideas that he liked artistic flying, at all -- but it was nice of her. He opened his mouth to thank her and got as far as a mumbled, “It is very nice,” still holding it carefully in both hands. His parents just got him clothes these days -- it was an oddly wonderful novelty to get something useless to him. Like she just wanted him to have it.

He looked back up at her in time for her to give him her second gift: he dropped the snowglobe into his lap by accident. It took only a moment to acclimate to the idea that this was happening, to him, right now; he leaned closer to her -- he wasn’t sure he liked having her touching his neck -- and shut his eyes and kissed her back. He didn’t know how this worked but it was good enough to try, wasn’t it? -- it was brief, probably because she didn’t know how this worked either, and he wiped his mouth with one hand (it came away with the lipstick on it) and said, “Ach du Scheiße” and grinned again, this time shocked enough not to wipe it off his face after a moment. He sat back in his chair. “Well -- thank you. That was very nice too.”

“Yeah,” was all that Zhenya said in response to Conrad mentioning her cousin. She felt strange about the situation. The added security bothered her. It did not make her feel any safer than she would have felt otherwise. It was just awkward. Maybe Aglaya needed protection but the rest of them were clearly safe or weren’t they? Zhenya sure hoped so, feeling entirely unable to deal with any different interpretation of the situation.

At the mention of birthday presents Conrad sat up straighter and somehow the girl felt more under pressure now than she had earlier when she had been performing. What if Conrad didn’t like either of her presents? Clearly he was expecting something nice, something special now.

It was hard to really hear what Conrad mumbled as he took the snowglobe from her because Volodya’s music was so loud. It did not matter, though. She just hoped that he would appreciate it at some point even if he probably didn’t like it much yet. However, this was a special day and he would graduate at the end of this school year. While the present wasn’t useful, she still hoped that he appreciated the pretty snow and the fact that it would remind him of her when they would not see each other on a daily basis at the common room or elsewhere at school.

Her second present made her heart beat loudly now. Zhenya felt as though it would be audible if it hadn’t been for the almost deafening music. She felt reassured when Conrad leaned closer to her and when he closed his eyes, the girl did the same.

It was odd.

Zhenya had no idea what she was doing. She had never kissed anyone like that before. She had never even talked to her female friends or relatives about how kissing really worked. However, trying it had seemed like a good idea here and now.

Yet, the junior artistic flyer wasn’t so sure about this anymore now. His lips were softer than she had imagined and cooler - she realised that he had been sitting here for a while and while the stands were charmed to be not quite so cold it was still not a properly heated area.

She wasn’t sure what to do once their lips touched. Should she open her mouth? She had absolutely no idea. Maybe she should have done some sort of research, should have asked someone. She parted her lips slightly, hoping that she was doing this right. They both pulled away simultaneously and Zhenya felt as though her cheeks were burning. She turned her face down, only observing Conrad out of the corner of her eyes.

He wiped his mouth.

Did that mean that he had not liked it? Then he said something in German which she did not understand but interpreted as some sort of exclamation of surprise, maybe because her lipstick had lost colour on him. He grinned now, though, and Zhenya relaxed slightly, timidly smiling back. It was hard to believe that she had really just taken the initiative to kiss her friend. She had actually come up with the idea this morning when she had worried that he might not like the snow globe after all.

“Yeah,” the girl mouthed at the same moment when Volodya ended his performance and the audience applauded loudly. He said that this had been very nice and Zhenya wondered what it really meant. Did this change things between them? Would they do it again or just try to forget about it? The girl felt tempted to run away and hide but she felt a little dizzy now and didn’t think she could make a graceful exit.

Glancing at Conrad again, Zhenya chewed on her bottom lip nervously and then reached into the pocket of her jacket again to pull out a tissue. “Let me clean this off,” she muttered as she reached out to remove the last bit of red lipstick from his face, eager to remove all evidence of what had just happened before any of her siblings or cousins would notice anything and tease her.

Conrad was at once exhilarated by what he’d just done (technically what Zhenya had just done -- he’d sort of just sat and taken it) and anxious about it. He’d never kissed anybody before, and he wanted to give her that excuse in case he’d been awful, but he didn’t want to admit that he’d never kissed anybody before. He was older than she was and until now he’d thought he had more of a spine than her, too. It flushed him with worry imagining that she might be disappointed in him somehow.

The crowd applauded as he sat back into his chair and for a moment he was petrified again that somebody was looking; Zhenya must have had the same thought, for she pulled out a tissue and reached to scrub the makeup off his mouth. Conrad thought that the last thing he wanted right now was for Zhenya to mother him -- he dodged backward instinctively and protested, “Don’t -- let me do it,” and wiped at his mouth more roughly with his hand, then looked doubtfully back at her. “I made it worse, didn’t I -- Go on ahead.”

Considering she’d just been kissing it, he wasn’t especially comfortable having her touch his face -- he was suddenly, keenly aware of where they were, and who they were there with. Conrad made a concentrated effort not to squirm away again, but as soon as she was done, he sank deeply back into his chair and picked up the snow globe again, from where it’d fallen into his lap. He licked his lips -- there was still a faint, powdery taste on them from her lipstick -- and shook his head incredulously. A bewildered laugh threatened to bubble out of him, but he gulped instead -- his laugh, hiccoughing and shuddery, had always embarrassed him.

“What was that for?” he said, looking back up at her (he had slid as low in his chair as was reasonable, his long legs cramped in the space in front of the next row). “Do you want to...” He didn’t know how to say what he was thinking, nor did he want to ask and sound like a girl, so he said instead, “Do you like me?”

The answer was obvious -- she’d remembered his birthday so she could give him a kiss -- but he didn’t think he could believe it until he heard it with his own ears. He couldn’t decide whether to raise his eyebrows at her or not -- even though he’d regained his wits he was still somewhat dumbstruck -- so he just tilted his head and twisted his mouth to one side.

Zhenya chewed on her lip thoughtfully, wondering if her lipstick had not only lost colour on him but also smeared over her face. It was silly thought, though. They had hardly snogged so wildly that this was a possibility but somehow the girl felt self-conscious now, wondering if she should ask him to check or hurry to find a mirror. However, if she went to the ladies’ room now she might also run into a family member and that would probably not be good.

The applause felt somewhat strange, surreal now. Part of her thought it sounded funny, unusual, another part felt as though some people might be applauding their kiss and a last part thought that she ought to join in and clap her hands for her cousin, too, but she did not do that.

Conrad did not want her to wipe away the remainders of her lipstick stains and she could see why. It was like a gesture mothers did with their toddlers when they smeared chocolate or something on their faces. Hardly anything a young man would appreciate. She watched him, using his hand to remove the lipstick and smiled as he finally allowed her to go ahead.

“It’s not much left,” she muttered, carefully wiping some red colour out of the corner of his lips. “Do I still look… presentable?” she asked, her voice sounding a little strange even to her. She did not want to leave Conrad and would not have to do it for at least over half an hour but she would have to get back on her broom for the big finale at some point.

Zhenya watched as Conrad leaned back on his chair and picked up the snow globe again, wondering if he was holding it so he could pretend to examine it and would not have to look at her for the time being. It gave her the time to at least take a deep breath and try and compose herself again. There were so many thoughts on her mind, so many feelings boiling up that she did not quite understand.

However, she did not have a lot of time to try and figure herself out as Conrad looked at her again and asked what this was for. Zhenya felt somewhat stupid now. She could hardly say it was a present for his birthday because that was not an accurate answer. She could have just given him the snow globe or possibly a book or…

He asked if she liked him.

Zhenya felt how her cheeks’ colour was matching her dark red lipstick (or what was still left of it anyway). Conrad looked at her now, his head tilted and his mouth twisted to one side. She wasn’t sure how to interpret this. Was he teasing her? Was he genuinely waiting for an answer? And if he needed an answer did that mean that he did not feel the same?

“Ugh…” Zhenya muttered, feeling quite incoherent and unable to even think of a good answer to give to him. She briefly glanced back at the arena where a few young junior athletes were starting a group performance and smiled. They seemed so disorganised but in such a cute way. She had been there, too, at some point. When she had still been too young and not successful enough to have a solo performance at the gala.

“Of course I like you,” she said, not looking at Conrad until she had finished the sentence. “Or do you think I would... kiss everybody for their birthday?”

Conrad had no idea what was presentable for artistic flying -- to him, Zhenya looked particularly pretty now, rosy under the makeup. He had never really noticed the colour of her eyes before -- lighter than his, and bluer -- he said after too long a moment, “Yes. You look good.”

He was probably turning red too, now, but blotchily and unevenly -- he’d seen himself in the mirror when he was feeling overwhelmed, with his cheeks dark under his freckles. He had to get a hold of himself before he made himself look stupid, he thought; that felt suddenly more important than anything else. He gripped the snowglobe until the tendons on his hands were visible and stared at it for a moment. The music was cuing in again; he swayed a little to the rhythm.

When he looked up at her again she was turning even pinker; he realised he must have offended her. “Of course I don’t think that,” he said. It’d been a reassurance anyway to hear her say it, though; whatever of his blush he’d chased away was creeping back onto his face. “I meant -- do you want me to be your boyfriend?” He’d never been a boyfriend before; it sounded somehow strange on his tongue.

That opened so many windows into things he didn’t know about -- what did couples do at Durmstrang, apart from kiss in the closets and hold hands under the desks? Would he have to have her around his roommates?  Would he have to hang around with her friends? or her family? or his? He hoped not -- he thought he and Zhenya had a good thing on their own, that they got along only because they were out from under anybody’s thumbs. Again he had the thought that her family couldn’t possibly like him.

But -- he had liked kissing Zhenya, and in a fluttery, anxious way he’d liked the past few minutes just sitting here afterward, looking at her and letting her wipe lipstick off his face and looking at her mouth when she smiled at him, and he liked Zhenya, so he added “I’d like to.” He couldn’t bring himself to say anything so strong as he wanted to, but he thought he wanted to, too.

Conrad reassured her that she looked ‘good’. Zhenya smiled faintly, feeling not entirely convinced but wanting to believe him. She enjoyed Conrad’s company, liked that they were so different and yet had become good friends. However, she did not particularly trust him to be a good judge of whether or not she looked presentable.

It was both soothing and confusing to see that Conrad blushed as well. Zhenya didn’t know where to look anymore. Looking at him made her feel entirely weird, she felt as though her cheeks turned redder and redder when she met his gaze and actually felt tempted to repeat the kiss just like she would repeat an element in artistic flying practice. It had been nice but it could surely be better than just nice, right?

The girl offered a close lipped smile when Conrad reassured her that he hadn’t thought that she’d run around kissing people for their birthday. Of course he had not meant it like that. Zhenya felt stupid for having even voiced this thought. However, who could expect her to be sensible now anyway? She wasn’t even a good student, she had little experience interacting with people apart from her artistic flying family. Nobody could assume she knew what she was doing.

The next question Conrad asked made total sense, of course. It was a logical consequence that he voiced it and yet it came as a shock to Zhenya who had not really thought that far ahead. Well, she had in a way, but she had clearly not considered it a possibility that they’d actually talk about it now, right after they had kissed. Now that she heard the question, though, the girl wondered what she had been expecting. She had only gone as far as imagining the kiss and hoping that he’d like it. However, what came right after that had been hidden behind a veil of insecurity - after all, the junior athlete had not really believed she’d get to this point anyway.

Boyfriend.

Did she want him to be her boyfriend? Did she want to be his girlfriend? A nervous giggle escaped Zhenya as she thought about it. ‘Hey Mama, meet my boyfriend Conrad.’ It seemed so surreal. Zhenya liked Conrad and she liked him a lot. In fact, she had realised it during the time that she had not spoken to him at the beginning of the school year. She had been mad at him then but that was only because he mattered more to her than she had been aware of. However, being one half of a couple was such a foreign and slightly scary concept.

Conrad now said that he’d like to and Zhenya’s eyes lit up. It might be a little strange and probably quite challenging but it seemed as though they both wanted it anyway. “I’d like to, too.” she whispered against the music and then laughed nervously before she repeated louder “and I’d like to be your girlfriend.”

Was this a good time to practice kissing some more? Zhenya tilted her head a little and looked at Conrad thoughtfully. She felt that they needed to seal their agreement properly. They needed to have their first official kiss as boyfriend and girlfriend. However, did he want to risk getting lipstick smears on his face again? Instead of asking or making a bold move, the girl just licked her lips and leaned slightly towards him, leaving him the choice of whether or not he took this obvious invitation to kiss her.

Conrad would have been bothered by her laughing at him if he weren’t feeling exactly as nervous and excited as she must -- he was in too elevated a mood to get defensive, and besides, Zhenya was agreeing with him. “Okay,” he said, then, “Cool.” Elated or not, he had gotten a handle on himself again -- the little raised decals on the snowglobe must have been printed in his palms by now, and he was still red-faced, and he still felt like laughing too even though he was manically, desperately repressing that urge, but (he took a deep breath) he felt like nothing would ruin this like laughing would. He’d inadvertently offended Zhenya before and he was anxious not to do it again.

She was still looking at him for and he was starting to squirm, even though he reassured himself this was probably a normal thing girls did, looking -- he tensed against the urge to look away or make an excuse to leave, feeling strangely like every part of him was vibrating and yet completely still

A moment later he was grateful he hadn’t looked away; Zhenya was leaning in again and it could only have meant one thing. He leaned in awkwardly, his hands gripping tighter around the snowglobe -- he was still aware where he was and how much of her family was here, and thought it would be best not to get caught being handsy -- to kiss her again. She’d opened her mouth a little the first time but he wasn’t sure he’d liked that. He’d never really liked wet things.

He pulled away when the next dance ended and the audience applauded again. He wasn’t sure how much time had just passed, and felt sort of like he’d been jolted awake -- this time he did let out a single laugh. “God -- your family makes me so nervous -- they aren’t looking, are they?” He thought that if they had been, he’d have been jolted out of it sooner, but he gave a furtive look around anyway. He pulled his gaze back to Zhenya -- to his girlfriend, he thought, and then immediately decided he’d have to take a little longer to get used to this before he called her that -- and pressed his lips together in a slim smile. “You have makeup there,” he mumbled -- she still had the tissue in one hand, so he touched his own face at the top of his lip rather than try to get it for her.

Okay, cool.

Zhenya looked at her boyfriend fighting more nervous giggles from escaping her. “Yeah, cool,” she said but wasn’t sure if her voice carried far enough against the noise in the arena. It did not matter. They had agreed on it. They were now a couple.

Conrad took the silent invitation to go for another kiss, leaning in again too. It was odd, though. Conrad was holding on to the snow globe instead of touching her. She thought that they wouldn’t get good marks for that kiss and her lips twitched slightly as she tried not to giggle. The girl could tell that he felt tense and as he pulled away, at the same time the music of another program finished, he said something that explained it.

Her family. Well, Zhenya could see how that would stress him out. However, if they disapproved of them being a couple - which was quite likely to say the least - they would give her a hard time rather than him. She could already imagine the things they’d say. ‘Don’t let a boy ruin your chances of becoming Junior World Champion next summer’, ‘You have worked so hard these past years. Don’t throw your future away for some boy.’

“I’m sure they’re busy with the show,” the girl said, but instead of sounding convinced she sounded rather doubtful. Conrad pointed out that she had makeup where it didn’t belong but instead of taking the tissue out of her hand to wipe it away he just showed her on his face where it was on hers. The girl quickly rubbed it off, looking at him questioningly then. “Is it gone now?” she asked, hoping that he’d confirm that there were no too obvious signs of what they had been doing left anymore.

“Do you want to keep watching?” she then asked, glancing around nervously. “If you don’t we could go to the ballet studio. Nobody should be there now and…” her voice trailed off as her blush intensified. “Or we’ll leave it until we’re back at Durmstrang,” she offered.

She was sure they were busy with the show, but Conrad wasn’t -- or, even if her family was busy watching the show, who was to say one of their guards wouldn’t spot them? He would rather have been at Durmstrang -- her family was all over there, as well, but none of them were being paid to keep watch, and -- with the exception of her older brother -- none of them scared him. He shifted in his seat, adjusted the snowglobe in his hand.

“Yeah,” he said, grateful for the excuse to look at her lips again. She really was remarkably pretty -- Conrad felt like a fool when he got flustered but it suited Zhenya in what he imagined was the way his mother said sarcasm didn’t suit him.

He did want to keep watching, but she’d asked in a way that made him think she didn’t; he glanced back at her, noted how darkly she’d flushed. Oh. He had never been in a ballet studio before -- somehow that was the first thought he had -- and he didn’t think he knew what she wanted to do there. He really didn’t want to do anything -- he hadn’t expected anything like this to happen to him this year, much less today.

For a moment he cast his mind around for an excuse. “Is there not another performance?” he asked -- his best hope. Failing that… surely they wouldn’t want to be caught alone in the ballet studio, no matter what they were doing; maybe the increased security was, somehow, on his side. He glanced back at the guard and caught his eye -- quickly he whipped his head back around. “I don’t want to get you in trouble,” he said hastily.

(But -- what had she meant? He couldn’t ask her -- that would be stupid and he didn’t want to look stupid now of all times -- but what had she meant?)

A relieved smile spread across Zhenya’s face when Conrad confirmed that the traces of their kiss had been wiped off successfully. While she did not feel ashamed or guilty for having kissed Conrad, the girl still wanted to keep this a secret, at least for the time being.

Zhenya nodded quickly when her boyfriend asked her if there wasn’t another performance for her. It was probably better if they didn’t do what she had just suggested herself. There was no point in spoiling the day by getting caught kissing in the ballet studio. It had been a stupid idea in the first place but the longer she thought about it the worse it seemed to her now. She wasn’t even sure if she wanted to have another kiss today. It was all so new and strange and overwhelming already.

“Yeah, there is,” she admitted. “I guess it’s in a little less than an hour now.”

Conrad seemed to look at the security guard and Zhenya glanced at the man herself, feeling suddenly even more awkward than before. Surely the colour of her cheeks was more intense now than her lipstick.

“Hmm,” Zhenya muttered as Conrad mentioned that he didn’t want to get her into trouble. It was nice of him to say so and she had by now come to the conclusion that she’d better stay here and watch the rest of the show until it was her turn to take part in it again, too. However, him not wanting to go made her wonder if she had said something wrong, after all.

“Well, I guess we should just keep watching the performances then,” she offered. “I’d also like to see Nastya and Anatoliy’s performance together. I’m sure that’s going to be interesting. You know, there are no competitions for pairs yet, but maybe if that goes well that’s something for the future of our sport. I really wonder what they worked out there. I don’t know iif I’d like to perform with a partner, though. I’m not sure if that makes it harder or easier…” her voice trailed off as she became aware that she was talking just for the sake of saying something rather than because she had anything that Conrad needed to know.

“Do you…” she paused and chewed on her lower lip for a moment before continuing. “Do you think that you’d like to try flying on an artistic flying broom yourself now that you see the show?” Zhenya didn’t want to make Conrad an artistic flyer, she didn’t need him to understand her sport very well. However, she hoped that he liked it at least to some degree because it was a big part of who she was and he, as her boyfriend, needed to accept that.

Conrad echoed Zhenya’s “Mm” affirmatively and settled back into his seat. He was still holding her little snowglobe in one hand, but he crammed the other one under his leg as though to warm it up -- he hadn’t been able to tell what she was thinking about, the last time she’d glanced at him, and wasn’t sure what to make of that. It wasn’t, he assured himself, like he was an expert in girls to start with, never mind an expert in Zhenya, who was -- for a girl -- especially confusing.

He didn’t really care about paired competitions or whatever it was she was talking about; until she let her train of thought scrape to a halt, he stared rather blankly at her, trying to keep up just enough that, if she asked if he’d been listening, he could repeat something back at her. He wasn’t sure, again, what she was thinking when she looked at him again -- whether she expected something of him, whether he was supposed to respond. (After a moment he decided it had been too long to randomly say something, so he let the chatter die a natural death and glanced sideways at the performers again.)

Had he made her uncomfortable, kissing her that last time? Was she uncomfortable after kissing him? Were they doing something wrong? His hand wasn’t yet comfortably numb between his leg and the seat; he extricated it and clutched weakly at the hair on the crown of his head as though it would jar him into thinking straight again.

Zhenya paused mid-question and he looked back at her; hastily he sat up straighter and said, “No!” It had come out stronger than he’d meant it; he said with less urgency, “No thank you.” He could tell his face was blotching again -- he let go of his hair and rubbed his mouth. There were plenty of reasons why not, most of them rather weak, but he didn’t want to justify himself; it felt cheap to ascribe any reason to something he already knew. But she was still looking at him, and he felt like she expected an explanation, so he said, like he was dragging it out of himself, “I would look stupid.”

Zhenya was neither surprised nor offended when she saw Conrad’s rather blank expression after she had rambled on about the pair performance that Nastya and Tolya were giving. It had to be expected that the things she had to say on that matter meant little or, actually, nothing to her boyfriend. It was okay, totally understandable and yet, quite faintly, there was some hope that at some point Conrad would be able to take an active part in a conversation about her sport, simply because artistic flying was an important part of her life. The boy did not say anything and Zhenya’s cheeks reddened once again. She tried to make up for that with a small smile.

The girl had a hard time turning back to face the centre of the arena. While she had been excited to see the gala (and, of course, to take part in it), it felt so unimportant now. She chewed on her lower lip, trying to hide a grin from spreading across her face. She had just had her first kiss(es). She glanced sideways, her eyes slightly narrowing as she wondered if she should just try again, after all. Kissing had been nice but not great yet. She felt sure that with some practice they could perfect their skills in that department. Well, maybe now wasn’t the right time, out of the corner of her eye she could see the guard glancing around.

Conrad sat up straight at her question and his ‘no’ came out quite strongly. Zhenya was slightly taken aback, wondering what that meant for them and their future as a couple. His face was getting blotchily red again and Zhenya was worried that her expression might show her disappointment with his reaction.

An “oh”, escaped her before she could help herself and she turned her gaze down when Conrad said that he’d look stupid. “I didn’t mean anything like you joining the club at Durmstrang,” she quietly justified her question, hoping that she was speaking loud enough still so that her voice would carry to him.

She glanced sideways at him and shrugged meekly. “Really, I just thought that, maybe, you’d like to… try it out... It was a stupid idea, I guess.” She wondered how he could like her if he didn’t like her sport. After all, she was, first and foremost, a part of the artistic flying family. If there was one thing about herself that she could not change then it was this.

“But you still want to be… well, you know…” she blushed heavily again now and grinned sheepishly, “because I do.”