in your reflection || rini au

27. falling

"five, six, seven, eight — one, two-" nini continued counting as she let ricky spin her around by the waist before she wrapped her arm around his shoulder and he lifted her, holding her steady so that she wouldn't fall from his shoulder.

she rested her back on him, raising her legs up straight in the air before he flipped her over to land back on the ground.

"then we can go up up down," ricky suggested, showing her the moves and nini nodded

"yeah," she agreed.

the two had been rehearsing non-stop these past two days, trying to come up with the best dance they could for their showcase. right now, it was six in the morning on a wednesday, and they were close to done.

"we need to add something else though." nini muttered, trying to think "something to up the difficulty."

"an overhead lift?" he suggested "like the trust lift or something."

nini looked up at him and raised her eyebrows "um...can your ankle handle that?"

"my ankle's fully healed." he assured her

"okay..." she nodded

"but you have to trust me." he said "it's kind of in the name-"

"yeah, yeah." nini chuckled softly "let's add it before the jump."

ricky nods and he goes to the opposite side of the studio, nini staying where she was before they counted down and began the moves

nini stood from the ground and leaped into the air, landing on her right foot. she felt herself freeze suddenly and hesitated for a split second before biting her teeth together and turning around, continuing the moves while ignoring her body's warning calls.

she waited for ricky to run towards her to lift her up and he felt that her body was tense. more than usual when he had to hold her to dance.

just before he could begin the move to lift her into the air, nini suddenly stopped him and quickly walked a few steps forward, ignoring the way she felt a seeping burn in her ankle muscles.

"um..." she cleared her throat and tucked both loose strands of her hair behind her ears

"what's wrong?" ricky asked confused, tilting his head to the right slightly

"n-nothing." she lied "i just-um, i think maybe we should finish up a little early this morning. and we should practice the lift with...um-with miss brown this afternoon. to spot us. you know? just to be safer."

ricky looked at her a little suspiciously. they'd always practiced lifts alone ever since they could "uh okay. you sure-?"

"yeah!" nini exclaimed, forcing a smile "yeah. plus, uh. i have physics first thing and i sort of have to be there early before mazzara gives me detention again."

ricky nodded slowly, still looking at her cautiously "okay...did you want me to drive you-"

"no, it's okay. red's driving me." she answered, bending down to pick up her duffel bag and she inhaled sharply as she stood back up "i'll see you at school."

and ricky turned to watch her rush towards the girls' locker rooms, confusion embodying his expression before he just exhaled slowly and grabbed his own stuff to get himself ready for school.