Baila conmigo, お願い！！(Spain/Japan AU)

The last customer of the day wandered out of Kiku Honda's tiny book store at 6:43 pm. An entire 43 minutes past when the store was intended to close. The elderly lady had wanted to keep talking and had continued to ask questions of him. Thankfully she was much like the rest of Americans, and didn't know much about the rest of the world. Despite not having any problems, Kiku always claimed to be from either China or Korea, and he had a good amount of knowledge on both to back up that claim. It was a defense mechanism. The war was still fresh in people's minds, and despite the American Dream not many American's were all that interested in having immigrants come to stay. Especially those 'Japs' as they liked to call them. Kiku wasn't sure if he would get out right hostility for his nationality, but he wasn't about to take the chance either. His lively hood depended on this little shop, and if there was a chance of losing his business simply because of where he had lived and which side of the war he had ended up on, then Kiku was more than willing to lie to make sure that didn't happen.

So when the questions came up he flexed his knowledge of the rest of Asia and hoped that there wouldn't be many questions. Some times there were and some times people didn't ask at all. This elderly lady had wanted to know a great many things, and Kiku had done his best to answer her without seeming hostile or impatient even if she had taken up more of his time than he had wanted.

Kiku waited patiently by the counter until the elderly woman had hobbled out of sight before taking a brisk stride over to the door and locking it. He flipped around the small 'We're Open!' sign and sighed softly to himself. This whole week he had been trying his hardest to make the 7:00 class for the dancing school five blocks down, but something had always come up.

He could make it if he rushed, but he would still have to come back that night and prepare the store for the next days work. A task that would keep him well up into the night. Having to work late into the night wasn't an exciting thought. Get up early in the morning after those nights was always a struggle. Kiku was about to head back to the register when he instead went for his coat.

The first time he had noticed the small school of dance had been during his normal morning rounds to the grocers each day. Every morning he walked the seven blocks to the grocers, waited for them to open and purchased his food for that day. And always -without fail- on his way home his eye always wandered to that little place. It was tucked away, and hardly looked big at all, but it was a cute, stylish sort of old building. Every morning on his way home he would see a man in the open windows stretching and preparing for the day. Sometimes they would catch each others eyes, and the man would wave with an excitable look on his face. Kiku would nod his head politely and rush off.

Every morning he got back vowing to himself that he would one day go to those classes, and every evening he always found an excuse to make that plan for another day. He was tired of waiting. Today was going to be that day. So Kiku set out. He walked slowly towards the little building, passing all of the things he saw on a daily basis. Usually he wasn't out at this hour, with the sun sinking to meet the horizon, so so everything seemed more interesting to see everything. It was all lit up, and it was really something. Kiku had half a mind to stay out and just wander aimlessly, but that would be another excuse, and he was done with those.

When Kiku did finally come to the small dance school he felt that familiar lump in his throat. This was it, do or die. Look a fool or ebb away at the loneliness that had ensnared his life in America. It was just a door away. Kiku squared his shoulders, raised his chin, and turned the handle.

It was finally time to start his last class of the day. Antonio reached down to fix the thin laces of his black dancing shoes and used the opportunity to lightly stroke the swelling on his calves and ankles. His feet and toes would start hurting any minute now, it was always like this, at the end of the day, they just reminded him how tired they had become. It was no surprise, after leading a career in dance since he was four, and being now twenty nine; it was only surprising he could still dance at all.

He looked around his small classroom, at the usual attendees of his 7:00 pm class. Taking in all the people on which he now put his hopes to continue what he started. There was Rosa, the Latin American girl who had come seeking a piece of her culture and her past and now left every night with a piece of Antonio’s on her feet. Madame De Courtsi a fifty year old French woman looking for a way to keep the glory of her movie star days with her. The couple, Emily and William, engaged and celebrating their wedding in three months, wanting to look their very best when taking the dancefloor. Sasha the fashion designer. Ruth the dreamy hippie. Catherine, the dancer wannabe whose parents though she was just wasting the time she should be using to find a suitable husband. Marco his fellow Spaniard…

A mosaic of faces and personalities all gather under his roof for the only purpose of giving life to the most powerful of art forms.

Dance.

He stood up finally twisting his ankles to the sides to warm them up again as he walked and grabbed the LP player with him settling it on the nearest available chair ad the front of the class. When his reflection was clearly visible on the six mirrors adoring the front and back of the room he cleared his throat calling fro silence and let his class finally begin.

“Buenas noches damas y caballerso. How are you this evening?” A warm smile crept to his face at the various responses of “fine” and “extremely good” that came from most of his student’s lips. He could also detect the usual feeling of wonder that invaded the room everytime his thick Spanish accent was heard at the beginning of class; It never ceased to amaze him just how many classes could they take with him and still see him as some kind of exotic attraction. But he has seen this happen to most immigrants he knew so by now he just took is as plain normal.

“Remember that some of you asked me last class if I could show you a little bit of traditional dances from my land. Some of you may be familiar with it” His feet tapped the wooden tiles of the floor three times creating a rhythmic sequence “Flamenco!” Watching the surprised reaction he was getting, he decided to push it further and strike a dramatic “matador” pose before bursting into laugher. “Now, this dance requires a lot of ankle and back work so let’s start warming up wit that shall we?”

Right ankle, then the left one, a few sits up and a series of repetitions for the neck, the back and the hips. When he finally finished demonstrating, he let his hands fall by his sides and waited for his students to be over with their own last bit before moving to the next exercise. And that’s when he saw the door open.

His eyebrow shot up as a very straight yet quite small figure made his way inside the studio. His suit, Antonio noticed, was the blackest with the whitest and cleanest shirt he has seen… well ever. He saw the figure leave a perfectly immaculate briefcase to the side as he fumbled with some sort of invisible dust on his chest and Antonio could almost swear he saw fear flash through those black eyes; not that he trusted himself or his instincts too much of course, he was after all, terrible at reading other people’s true feelings. The man could have been tired for all he knew.

A small signal to Rosa to continue leading the class and he was already making his way to where the man was standing. As he got closer he could distinguish the Asian features that made up the man’s face, as well as the perfectly straight black hair falling a little short of the bottom of his ears. He got maybe a little too close and offered a friendly hand in greeting.

“Bienvenido señor, what can I do for you tonight?” There was something extremely familiar about the nervous expression in front of him but Antonio couldn’t quite put a finger on what it was. He studied the face carefully but it was in vain.

It wouldn’t be until a few months later when this man and himself knew each other better than anyone, that Antonio would remember that pair of hopeful black eyes that used to look at him from outside his school until he waved back.