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taruruchi · 7 months

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“Dancing with you is enough”

[ SUMMARY ] Even if you might not be on the main dance floor, it was a glorious masquerade nonetheless.

[ GENRE ] Fluff... plus a bit of funnies here and there. And what if I told you first kiss 😳

[ NOTES ] The brainrot for this was so bad but it look me, like, a month to finish. Huge shoutout to Lina who helped me finally get to finishing this ily <33 Also. Spot the Taylor references (there are two and one is pretty obvious) OH YEAH and the povs randomly switch up from paragraph to paragraph so. Yeah, I hope it isn't easy to get lost 😔

[ WORD COUNT ] 2.1k

Noble Bell College’s ballroom was filled with cheerful chatter, carefree smiles, and a variety of colors as outfits flowed and weaved as students danced. The air was light, and there was little to no hostility between people, any disagreements put aside to enjoy this glorious night. No matter if you were out on the floor or at the side, quietly watching, for this time was for everyone to enjoy and bask in…

Which was kind of what Taruchi was doing: mindlessly watching as everyone danced, settling for paying more attention to the way the music seemed to capture the dancers’ hearts, guiding them along in their movements.

She wasn’t alone at first—it’s only that her constant companion at these kinds of events just disappeared. Somehow, even Idia, the KING of introverts, got dragged away somewhere by someone. Neither of them knew why nor how that happened, but it did.

And she thought she could rely on him to at least stand quietly with her.

In comparison, some distance from her, a conversation had just ended.

“Do visit the Mostro Lounge if you ever come to Night Raven College. I’ll be sure to give you a small discount as thanks for hosting this exchange.”

So the small group dispersed, going separate directions to talk to other people, thereby leading us to the point of this story.

“You look like you want to join in.”

Taruchi slightly jumped at the voice suddenly beside her. Somehow she didn’t notice Azul until he was right there. "Dude, you nearly gave me a heart attack," she said shakily, stepping away from the wall and fixing her dress. “Wait, sorry, what did you say—? Oh! Oh, no, not really…”

It was quite evident that that wasn’t the truth.

“...Is the problem that you can’t dance?”

Taruchi’s crossed her arms, frowning slightly. “Well, I never learned how to. Much less like that,” she gestured to the dancers.

At this, Azul saw an opportunity. He pushed up his glasses and cleared his throat. “In that case, you might be happy to know I’ve studied a bit of humans’ dances, so perhaps I could teach you.”

“You? Know how to dance?” Taruchi appeared dubious.

Azul put a hand on his chest, mimicking offense. “My, I’m hurt. I’ll have you know I take my studies of the human world quite seriously.”

“Fair,” Taruchi sighed. “But what do I have to pay you in return?”

“Oh, I believe it’s a fair deal already. Dancing with you is enough for me.” He smiled, ostensibly genuine.

“Oh, okay,” Taruchi quickly responded.

There was a brief pause as she fully processed his words and had a minor mental meltdown.

“Wait… Wait a second, wha—?”

“The deal is off if you just stand there gawking.” Azul was already walking briskly away to one of the balconies.

Though it was mildly annoying he just walked away, Taruchi was glad he couldn’t see the way her cheeks had heated up. She followed after him, but her head was filled with panicked thoughts: ‘Dancing with you is enough for me’? What does that even mean?! Dancing with me? He’s happy with just dancing… with me? What?!

Cue the internal screaming.

…Can you tell her brain was breaking by the second?

Azul turned around to see her with no trace of her earlier panic, only with a straight face on. “You certainly took your time,” he quipped, crossing his arms.

“I got here, like, 10 seconds after you. Do you age that quickly?” Taruchi retorted in an irritated tone before she realized what she said, her eyes widening. She immediately wanted to bury herself in a hole. “Oh— I am so sorry, I swear I didn’t mean that. It just somehow slipped out—”

“Oh, my,” Azul interrupted, a smirk appearing on his face. "I didn't realize you could be quite so harsh, what with everyone describing you as kind and soft-spoken. I might have taken offense if I wasn’t so amused.” He had the most vexing, overdramatic voice Taruchi had heard this entire night.

…Well, maybe excluding one person. She definitely didn’t want to dance with him.

Taruchi looked back at the way she came. Is it worth it to take dance lessons while dealing with this? Hmm… “Okay, maybe I should call off the deal.”

“No, please, I apologize.” Azul stepped towards her and took her hand. There would be no moment like this one again, he couldn’t let it slip from his grasp so quickly. “I’ll stop and start the lesson. By the way, did I mention that you look beautiful tonight?”

Taruchi rolled her eyes and sighed for the second time that night. “Okay, fine, I won’t call off the deal.”

She knew he had just said that to get her to give in. She tried to seem like she didn’t care too much. But really all she could think about was the fact that he called her beautiful and that he was holding her hand. She could allow herself to imagine for a second… or maybe more than a second. God, she hoped her cheeks weren’t red.

It’s a shame Azul didn’t have the reputation of genuinely meaning what he said, since this time he did mean it—Idia had teased him a while ago for staring at her. He had also realized how thankful he was that the twins weren’t there, lest he suffer the rest of the night. Though this wasn’t completely bad for him, because then he would have a cover to hide his true feelings and he wouldn’t seem vulnerable. At this point it was an automatic thing for him to slip into his “business mode.”

Taruchi didn’t seem enthusiastic, but she agreed. Azul was satisfied with that. “Shall we begin?” he asked, and with her nod, he bowed and kissed her hand.

“Wh-What? Is this part of it?” No matter how much she wanted to hide it, Taruchi was malfunctioning. She was caught completely off guard. Damn him for having charm.

“What kind of dance partner would I be if I didn’t kiss your hand before dancing?” he replied with a calm voice. In all honesty, as far as Azul knew, people just did that in romance books and movies. But it seemed like it worked on Taruchi, so he considered that a win and took a mental note.

“All right, stand straight. You’ll have your hand here,” Azul put her hand on his shoulder, “and mine will be here,” he said, putting his hand on her waist. “As for our other hands…” Azul took her hand in his again and lifted their hands up. They were already closer than Taruchi had imagined, and she was questioning all the decisions she had made to get to this point. “Now, I will lead, and you will follow. Just try to parallel my steps.”

They slowly stepped around the balcony, moving in time with the soft music coming from inside. Between making sure she doesn’t step on his feet and feeling embarrassed because of their proximity, Taruchi couldn’t look up at Azul at all. Even before this moment, she was bad at maintaining eye contact. But now she was dancing with this guy she liked. If she had to look in his eyes, she would—

“You know, I think dance partners are supposed to look at each other.”

Die.

Yup. She felt like dying inside. But she followed his instructions anyway. Even if she felt like her face was going to overheat. She had no clue how Azul looked so composed.

She ends up just studying him. His glasses gave him a different vibe, a more calm one, she thought, more… delicate? Was that the word she was looking for? (She once wondered out loud to Ace and Deuce about how Azul would look with these exact glasses, to which they only blankly stared at her… and Ace subjected her to his teasing.) His hair was kept, giving him a neater look, and it seemed like his view was clearer. Her focus shifted to the mole by his lips. She thought it was a charming feature, though she wasn't exactly sure why…

Azul noticed her observing his face. He would've thought she was judging his looks, and in that case he might've gotten insecure, except that he sensed no ill intentions and her expression remained mostly inscrutable. That is, until she seemed to realize that he was watching her too and she got embarrassed and tensed up. Her eyes stopped roaming and instead held his gaze.

Though to her it looked like her eyes were all he was focusing on, he was mesmerized by all of her. He couldn't help but notice how enchanting she looked under the soft moonlight when he twirled her. When she faced him again, she had a dazzling smile on her face, like she had forgotten the annoyance she held just minutes ago, a smile of pure enjoyment that appeared quite rarely.

It took a lot in Azul not to combust right then and there. It was insane how that smile made him feel. It was just a smile. It didn’t make sense. Still, he wondered what she was smiling about.

Honestly, Taruchi had just always wanted to try being twirled. Plus it was just unexpectedly fun to dance with Azul. It felt awkward at first, but now her nerves calmed down, the silence was comfortable, and she could dance to the music without too much thought.

As the song ended, Azul dipped her, holding her against him and careful not to let her fall. Her gaze had fallen upon the night sky dotted with stars, her eyes seeming to shine just as bright from wonderment, her lips slightly parted when she softly gasped, and all Azul could think was he finally understood what it meant for someone to be breathtaking. He pulled her back up and she flashed a grin at him before looking back at the sky.

“The sky is so clear and the stars are so pretty…!” Taruchi said excitedly. Azul just smiled down at her and softly replied, “They are, aren’t they?” while Taruchi focused elsewhere.

“And the moon…”

“Is absolutely gorgeous.”

“Yeah.” Taruchi’s attention finally fell back on him.

There was a song that would've been perfect right now… What was it?

It was like a scene from a book where one of the leads tried to hide their reddening cheeks, but the other brushed their hair behind their ear and rested their hand on their cheek… Okay, it wasn’t “like” that, it was exactly that.

Right.

“‘Cause you can hear it in the silence”

Was it possible for silence to drown out noise? The music and dancing hadn’t stopped from inside, but Taruchi couldn’t hear any of it.

“You can feel it on the way home”

She hadn’t noticed she was this close to Azul. She hadn’t noticed that he still had one hand on her waist, keeping her close to him. She hadn’t noticed how his cheeks were slightly flushed nor how his focus was all on her. If he wasn’t all she could think of at that moment, would she have noticed the way they were involuntarily gravitating towards each other?

“You can see it with the lights out”

Their hesitation stopped them, held them back a painful few inches away. Did he/she want this as much as she/he did?

But neither flinched away.

“You’re in love”

And they glanced back at each other.

“True love”

And that was enough of an answer.

Azul practically scooped Taruchi into his arms, she was so small, with her arms around his neck to close whatever space was between them. It was the best feeling she had known, feeling like she no longer needed to keep her emotions under control, under wraps to hide them as best she could. For all the daydreams she had, nothing could ever beat what was real and what she could actually feel, and that was the guy holding her and kissing her back.

When they both pulled away, they had red cheeks and the biggest, goofiest grins on their faces. What did you expect? It’s the first kiss, it’s flawless, it’s really something.

Setting Taruchi back on her feet, Azul cleared his throat and fixed his glasses. “Do you want to go back now?”

“Well, I don’t think I’m confident enough in my dancing to dance with anyone else yet, and…” Taruchi said sheepishly, glancing at the distant crowd inside and back at him. “I mostly just want to dance with you again.”

Azul looked stunned for a second before smiling and chuckling. “In that case, I’ll be your partner for another dance.”

“You’re in love”

#I got stuck before the kiss and. somehow it was easy for me to finish the rest after just trying to write #i had been putting it off for days because i wasnt sure if what i wrote was good enough #then i just wrote and here we are!!#again lina if you see this. tysm #hmmm i think this is the longest thing ive posted #whoaaa good for me #☆ taruchi's writings ✍️#id make a tag for em but theyre like. the only ones i make content of basically #so it doesnt matter for organization #just anyone tell me if i need to then i will!#☆ 💙

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