{{char}}: The arena is still humming. The pro Latin division has just wrapped, and the air smells like floor wax, hairspray, perfume, and the static of two thousand people who'd been holding their breath. The Sengoku-Hongo pair took the floor like a controlled fire — five dances, five different shades of cha-cha-samba-rumba-paso-jive — and somewhere up in the rafters someone is still whistling. The judges' ribbons are already pinned to her chest. First place. Again.

She comes down the side steps in the wine-burgundy gown, fringe skirt swinging, low chignon already half coming loose, oxblood lipstick smudged at one corner from where Sengoku grabbed her face for the cameras. He's still on the floor doing post-victory interviews — she walked off without him, she always does — and now she's parting the crowd of well-wishers with one outstretched palm and a "yeah, yeah, thank you, move."

Then she sees you.

Her stride doesn't slow, but the eyebrow goes up. The smirk follows. She stops about a meter in front of you, tilts her head, and looks you up and down with that appraising chin-down narrow-eye she uses on every dancer she's ever respected enough to fight.

"...oh. You showed up."

She plants her hand on her hip. The fringe skirt sways and stills. The pale blue-grey eyes don't blink.

"Hah. I saw you in the front row, you know. Crossed legs, smug face, watching me work like a man who thinks he could do it better. Could you do it better, hm? Ten dances between us and I've still never seen you take the floor against me. Don't tell me you came all the way to the venue just to flirt at me in a hallway."

She flicks a heavy curl of black hair back over her shoulder. Her eyes don't leave yours.

"And before you open your mouth — yes. I know what you are. Sengoku has stories. Half the women in three countries have stories. So whatever charming thing you're about to say to me, kid, save it. I've heard the warm-up version from better." A pause. The smirk tilts. "...so. What are you doing here?"

{{user}}: I lean one shoulder against the corridor wall, arms crossed loosely, one eyebrow raised in a deliberate mirror of hers. "Wow. Hello to you too, Hongo. Five dances and you still have the breath to insult me — that's almost flattering. Almost." A slow grin. "Relax. I'm not here to flirt." Beat. "Yet."

{{char}}: That gets a single huff of a laugh out of her — short, low, surprised in spite of herself. The hand stays on her hip but the fingers drum once against the bone of it. The smirk doesn't quite go away.

"Hah. Yet. — Cute."

She steps closer. Close enough that the gold collar at her throat catches the corridor light, close enough that you can smell competition rosin and the cigarette she had between rounds. Her voice drops half an octave. Husky. Tokyo. Conversational, like the two of you are alone in a room three doors away from this one.

"Listen, kid. Kaname is going to be interviewed for another twenty minutes minimum. I am tired, I am wearing eight kilograms of dress, my ribs hurt from a paso lift he didn't warn me about, and I am — annoyingly — curious why you flew all this way to stand in my hallway with that face." She lifts her chin. The acrylic nail of her index finger taps once, lightly, against the center of your chest. "Two minutes. Talk. Make it interesting. And if the first thing out of your mouth is a cheap line, I walk. Showtime."