The Question That Froze Her

Her heart began to flutter again. She couldn't have explained it.

And then—

'How did you two get here?'

The question arrived at the worst possible moment.

Dolores stiffened. It wasn't about how she had come to attend the festival at all — it was a question about her very essence, about an origin whose currents even she was still drifting through.

That the House of Artois was an immigrant family was more or less common knowledge in Aquigneux — so how could he, a native of Lange, not know? Could she hide it? Would he remain ignorant, so long as she didn't tell him the truth? Even if it meant lying?

'You're the ones from Victuria, aren't you?'

'Not — not anymore.'

Flustered, the answer tumbled out however it pleased. The realization of just how pitiful an excuse it was arrived a heartbeat later, and the shame of it made her want the sky to fall on her head.

Not once in her life had the fact that she was an immigrant, and not a Beloffian, ever shamed her like this.

'H-how did, um... how did you know?'

'It's not a common name, is it? And your father was something of a figure in Aquigneux too. He seemed to chase after anyone with power, desperate to climb.'

'My father, well...'

Though she didn't want it to, Dolores's voice crawled of its own accord into an anthill's depths, until it was barely audible at all.

Seeing her eyes redden, Xavier continued as if it were nothing.

'My family is far from settled, too. We're staying here right now because of my parents' work, but we'll be leaving soon. I stay in the dormitories during the semester, and during the holidays I'm dragged all over the place.'

'...So you're here because of the holidays?'

'I suppose so.'

'You attend the Le Havre conservatory, don't you?'

Xavier narrowed his eyes and turned his head.

'...That's creepy.'

'No, no — I only asked Madam Marguerite once!'

Dolores scrambled to defend herself, then hurriedly changed the subject.

'What's Le Havre like?'

The very moment the question left her lips, Luca's performance came to an end.

Ludicrously enough, Luca — having delivered a performance of such spectacular awfulness — was now offering his closing bow without a trace of embarrassment. The crowd hovered, uncertain whether to clap, and Xavier thrust his thumb out with abandon, the sign for brilliant—

'Terrible.'

—only to flip his hand in an instant and jeer the sign for the worst.

Luca muttered something at him from the stage, but Xavier looked utterly shameless. Then, eyes still fixed on the stage, he asked:

'Are you interested in Le Havre?'

'It's a wonderful place. Didn't you get in terribly young?'

'I did. Why the interest? What instrument do you play?'

'No — not the conservatory. The dance academy, actually...'

Xavier gave her a look of pitying incomprehension, then went, 'Ah.'

From the way it landed, she gathered the thought that Le Havre even possessed a dance academy had never once crossed his mind.

'The dance academy is famous too, you know. Very famous...'

'So I hear. I know a few people there. Is the dance academy — fun?'

'I love ballet.'

'My question was whether it would be fun.'

'Love is my answer. Ballet is hard, but I love it.'

Dolores's cheeks puffed and flushed pink at the edges as she answered tartly.

'That's the same as saying it's fun.'

'No. Fun lasts a moment... but love lasts a lifetime.'

'There's no such thing as a lifetime. You can love something and then hate it.'

'Something you love holds the only power that can change you. The only things with the power to change me are the things I love.'

The moment the words left her, Dolores winced. It was a proverb from Victuria.

Why on earth had she brought that up? Speaking that way would only plant an image of the immigrant in the boy's mind.

Xavier didn't seem to care much either way, but Dolores cared.

'No, it's just...'

As Dolores's lips faltered, a page turned.

Xavier's green eyes were fixed on her, boring in. A gaze that had drifted distant, as though a whole river ran between them, gathered and drew close all at once.

Dolores did not look away. It was Xavier who turned his head first this time.

'I think your skill is rather good.'

'Do you... like ballet?'

'Our family patronizes a ballet company. There's a youth company as well.'

At the word ballet company, Dolores's face brightened a little — and Xavier, as though refusing to permit even that instant, crushed the fantasy without mercy.

'It's nothing impressive. Just one of my father's little hobbies. In any case, Le Havre isn't a fun place — but if fun isn't what you're after, it might suit you.'

'But you enrolled.'

She meant to ask why he spoke so poorly of the very conservatory he attended. Xavier's answer came out a touch prickly.

'I wasn't going to.'

'...Why not?'

Dolores genuinely couldn't understand.

It was Le Havre!

'I wasn't interested.'

'I don't understand.'

'I enrolled to spite someone, and now I regret it.'

Xavier answered shortly. Then, as though some unpleasant memory had risen before him, he erupted into an uncharacteristically long tirade.

'Art has no rules. But the professors at Le Havre are fools who believe their canon only earns its place through rigor and severity. Had masters like Ravel or Dosent come out of Le Havre, they'd never have left their masterworks behind. And the place crawls with students who strut about acting superior for no reason.'

Only now did Xavier look like other children his age, and Dolores found herself studying him anew. Apparently finding her gaze uncomfortable, he lost his momentum and added one more remark.

'But if you want to learn the classical foundations, it's probably worth that much.'

Without quite meaning to, Dolores let a wry smile curl her lips.

'Why?'

'It sounds wonderful to attend Le Havre, but I imagine it will be hard for me.'

Turning her head away, Dolores stretched her legs out straight.

'Papa doesn't even know I do ballet.'

For Dolores, her homeland was nearly a thing she no longer remembered — but her father remained a musty old man who still spoke of the roots of Victuria.

The only ballet he permitted her was ballet performed for consumption.

Since leaving Victuria and emigrating to Beloff, her father had carried an ever-present hunger to prove his own aristocratic self — and so her mother said the family had to understand him for it.

'So you see, your father must be confused too.'

For reasons like these, so much was forced upon the children of such families. Everything from their friendships down to the course of their education.

Dolores's passion, her love of movement itself — none of it was ever a consideration.

Xavier asked in a tone that suggested it hardly mattered.

'Is it the tuition? The scholarships are generous. You'd have to be good, though.'

'My parents never talk to me about money. But I'm not sure it would matter. Even the parish school I attend now, they only sent me to so I could look after Pablo, my little brother. If it weren't for Pablo, I'd have been tutored at home. ...Is it, by any chance, expensive?'

Xavier closed his mouth with the expression of someone who had never once thought about it.

Just then, an arm shot out and hooked itself around Xavier's neck.

'Found you, squirt!'

It was Luca.

'Ah — dammit!'

Nearly hanging off Xavier entirely, Luca kept his grip around his neck while furiously mussing his hair.

Luca stood far taller, and so Xavier was helpless, pinned beneath him.

'That's no way to treat your older brother, is it? Hm? Hm?'

'Get off, or I'll kick you.'

'Try it. Go ahead, try it.'

Luca was a boy so bright it was hard to believe the two of them were brothers.

Only after a long while of scrapping with Xavier — shoving, pulling, playing at wrestling — did Luca belatedly acknowledge Dolores as well.

'You're the girl from before, right? Hello. I caught your performance from the back. It was something else.'