#meme-ories

to the bottom of seb’s heart, he loved nini. she was one of the main reasons seb had even decided to join a majority of the music programs he was involved in today—that being mostly theatre and choir in the ninth grade, just like the rest of the friend group. before he’d actually gotten the chance to join them all, he’d admired nini and her dedication to the programs she was in, immensely—after all, she nearly always had a positive aura about her and her outlook was crazy positive all of the time. she just had this way of making seb feel accepted and herd whenever he was in her presence, like when she was one of the only upperclassmen who took the time to talk to him at the beginning of the year, too (before she realized he was actually pretty cool and therefore convinced the whole group to let him tag along to their group, which then brought in gina and carlos, too, and it just made everything…bigger. fuller. happier.).

over the course of the show so far this year, he and nini have gotten pretty close! it hasn’t been too long and they’re only a bit of time into the show, but they’ve been bonding over how much their roles hate each other in the show, and about how hard some of the ensemble choreo was. carlos was crazy sometimes, seb swore.

in a flurry of excitement on a regular—well, mostly—fall day, seb just couldn’t help but excitedly tell nini the news of what had happened to him. after all, carlos asked him to homecoming, and he couldn’t just keep it to himself! he had to tell somebody! and considering the only person he really knew well, and knew would care—aside from carlos, obviously—was nini. he just had to spill everything.

quickly wrapping his arms around nini’s small body, seb soon pulls away to look directly at her. he has this huge grin plastered on his face, and he can’t really help the flush that’s consumed his otherwise pasty skin on his cheeks. it’s kind of embarrassing, in a really good way, he supposes. “thank you!” he says quickly, but soon gets overwhelmed at all of her questions. “i think we’re just meeting here? and i have suits at home! i’m so nervous—i’m so nervous! i’ve…never really been to a dance like this before, and especially never with a boy, and i don’t know how it’ll go in front of all of the kids who aren’t in theatre and stuff, but…but i’m so excited, too! i—“ seb rambles, nearly unaware of how fast he’s speaking until he finally looks directly at nini, because it looks like she’s finding it a bit hard to keep up.

he can’t help it, though!

“sorry. i’m just…this is kind of a lot.”

@sebmattsmith​

Nini beamed as Seb spoke rapid-fire at her. He was so excited and he deserved every second of it. When he stopped for air, Nini put her hands on Seb’s shoulders: “Seb, you beautiful soul, don’t ever apologize for being happy.” She hadn’t been able to follow all of what he’d said but she’d gotten the gist and in all honesty, she didn’t need to know exactly what was said. She was here to be supportive of Seb.

That being said, there was one part of his mini-monologue that she had picked up on and needed addressing. 

“Seb, it’s gonna go great. Everyone’s nervous for their first real dance. And as for the non-theater kids...” Nini took a breath and looked at Seb in the eye, “That’s going to be fine too. Everyone’s going to be so wrapped up in their own stuff, their own drama, they wont blink twice at you and Carlos being adorable.” She smiled at him again and gave him another hug. 

leave a “amuse me” in my ask, and I will write a funny drabble about my character trying to cheer your up. @theninisalazarroberts

“c’mon neens, what’s wrong? haven’t seen you this pissed since i stole your phone.”

ej stared directly at his friend, brows furrowing as he attempted to meet her eyes. it didn’t seem like she was going to budge, which just strengthened his resolve to have her smiling again. ej attempted everything to cheer her up from poking her forehead whispering soft ‘boops’, to giving his signature cross eyed idiot looks, and even embarrassed himself in front of the entire cafeteria trying to balance random pieces of fruit on his head. it didn’t seem like anything was working, and maybe nini didn’t look so much mad, but more sad. ej sighed, sitting across her in deep thought. he had a frown painted on his face, until an idea popped in his brain, and a grin (which looked almost deranged) began to reveal itself.

ej moved next to her, placing his phone square in front of her. “so… remember when i told you I wrote you a song?” he pressed play, revealing a pop beat instrumental as he clears his throat. “before you go and make that face you make when you’re mad at me….”

Nini was miserable. She had given up going to YAC (sorta - her moms had said no) and had signed up for weekly classes at the University of Utah theater program’s weekend program for high schoolers. She had thought it was going to be a great experience. Except that the instructor had completely torn her apart. In fairness, he’d done that to everyone (”you can’t grow if you dont till the soil” he’d said), but that didn’t make it hurt any less. Didn’t mean it didn’t wreck her confidence, which she’s already had to rebuild repeatedly. 

@sebmattsmith

Nini considered Seb Matthew-Smith to be her best friend in drama club (minus Kourtney, who was just her best friend). They had bonded the previous year, being supporting cast members in the fall and spring musicals. This year doing High School Musical was huge for them because they had both been given lead roles. And despite the fact that Gabriella and Sharpay weren’t supposed to get along, Seb and Nini just became even better friends. (he had been a great shoulder to lean on and a great buffer during the drama with Ricky and EJ and Gina’s ‘wonderstudy’ stuff. So when Seb had told her that Carlos had asked him to homecoming, Nini had been thrilled for her friend. 

Nini had a policy: If a friend asked for help, she helped them however she could. Generally, it was a good policy. She liked being helpful and helping people. Sometimes, it backfired or made her feel like a doormat when people took advantage of it or was just generally exhausting. But the pros outweighed the cons, so she stuck to her policy.

Nini couldn’t decide which category this fell into. She was at the mall, shopping with EJ. He had asked for her help picking out his suit and tie for prom and while she had thought it was strange when he asked, she agreed. She had seen pictures of EJ from homecoming and last year’s prom - she knew he owned at least one suit and could clean up nicely so why he needed her help was a mystery. But he had asked and she had a policy and he was her friend. 

“Okay,” she clapped her hands together as they walked down the hallway of the mall. “Do you have an idea of what you want? Or know what colors your date is wearing? Because I – Do you have a date?” Nini suddenly realized she didn’t know the answer to that question. Maybe he was going with the drama club group like she was. She figured she would have noticed if EJ had done a promposal or something. Or at least heard through the drama club’s gossip grapevine if he’d asked someone. Or been asked, because that could have happened, too.

They turned into a store and wandered to the suit section.

“If you don’t know, playing it safe with a black tux is a good idea. Then you can have more fun with the tie color.” She said, thinking out loud, looking at all the options. “Then there’s the question of bowtie or necktie…” She looked at him expectantly.

Leave a “Offer Me” in my ask, and I’ll write a drabble about my character giving yours a gift.

“Do you have a second? I want to give you something.” Nini asked Ricky. It was still before their call time, so theoretically, all he had was time, but Nini was aware how stressful pre-show could be and that sometimes, you just wanted to be by yourself. 

But Nini also wanted to get this out of the way so she could focus on the show. Not that she was the lead but still, she needed to get her head in the game. Wrong musical but the point stands. 

She tapped her fingers nervously against the neatly wrapped box in her hands. Nini took gift giving very seriously. Gifts were an opportunity to say “I know who you are” and, in Nini’s opinion, should show thought and effort. She normally liked to give things that were personalized or something she had made, like a song, or a craft of some sort. But gifts for the end of the show were tricky because it firstly had to relate to the show and also by the time she got around to thinking about end of show gifts, she was so busy that she didn’t have the time to really make things. And her wrap gift for Ricky at the end of Beauty and the Beast was particularly hard because, well, they had just broken up a few weeks ago and while things weren’t nearly as weird or awkward as they had been at the start of the year (they were actually still friends this time around), it still felt like a lot of pressure and if he wasn’t the Lumiere to her Babette, she wouldn’t worry about it at all but he was Lumiere and she was Babette so... And Nini’s not proud of it, but she took the easy way out: she got him one of those Funko Pop figures of Lumiere. Creatively, not her best, she knows. 

She handed him the wrapped box, and fought back the sudden surge of anxiety she felt as he got ready to open it.