#denyuu

Dennis will never forget the first time he fell in love.

It happens in the middle of February, when the streets are unusually bare because everyone has taken to cars in fear of the cold, and Dennis stalks alone down the street with his hands in his pockets and a chill down his spine. Rehearsal ran late and the buses have stopped functioning, but it’s nothing new to him. The buildings stand in a perfect line next to the road, a wall of darkness that blocks out the moon and offers no light of its own–it’s one in the morning on a Wednesday night and no one’s awake.

He breathes hot air on his hands and rubs them to create some heat. It’s only marginally better when he passes under a streetlight, but he can’t dawdle in the open. No one sensible is awake, and Dennis doesn’t like taking chances.

So when he turns the usual corner to his shared townhouse and expects pitch black as well, he blinks stupidly at the first house down the road with its lights on and window wide open, a sweet lull of orchestral music floating out into the night.

The new neighbor, he realizes when he passes by. They were moving in earlier this morning, but Dennis had to leave for rehearsal before he was late (again). He shakes his head and decides against complaining–the classical music isn’t bothering anyone, it seems like.

He’s got his key halfway in the lock (cursing at how cold the metal is and how stupid this lock is because Yuuri insisted on replacing their previous one despite it being perfectly fine) when he catches a glimpse of movement from his neighbor’s window.

It’s a hand, fluid and graceful, that stretches and bends and moves like water with the body connected to it. Torso next, clothed in a crimson red skintight–leotard?–that rolls as if there are no bones under it. Red and green hair, feet in a pair of pointe shoes.

Pointe?

As if on cue, his neighbor stands both feet on his toes, arms curved like a cradle in front of him. What happens next is a flurry of movement that picks up with the orchestra–a grand jeté, jump, twirl–Dennis can’t keep up. The music reaches a crescendo and then crashes like a tidal wave, and he goes with it.

It ends with an arabesque en pointe–Dennis only knows because he’s seen more than enough ballets as part of research, but even with his experience the one he does is breathtaking. His neighbor relaxes into a neutral stance and returns to his heels, and gets up to turn off the music.

“Is someone there?”