Ballet Boy ~Phan OS~

Ballet Boy - one shot

BALLET BOY

When Dan was little he used to spend his Friday afternoons in the corner of the local gym, watching his older sister do pirouette after pirouette with the other girls of her ballet class. He would wonder how she didn't get dizzy from all the spinning, because he couldn't even walk straight after only three turns, let alone do a cartwheel or one of those amazing jumps.

Ellen was three years older than him, which was why their parents had told her to look after Dan when they came home late on Fridays. Of course, she never would miss a lesson just to look after her brother. Oh no. With the permission of her teacher she took Dan with her, sat him down in the corner with his brand new game boy, telling him to play one of those weird Pokémon games.

The first time he had come with her he had quickly discarded his video game in order to watch her dance. Dan loved watching her dance. She always looked so happy whenever she did something correctly. The other girls were really nice as well. They all were between five and ten years old. Older girls had class on another day in a different group. The advanced group. Dan had seen them dance once at a show of his sister. He knew Ellen wanted to train a lot so she could join them when she turned eleven.

However, as she grew older, Ellen was less and less interested in ballet. Horses were the new big thing in her school and she got lots of new friends that wouldn't let Dan play with them. That was something he didn't understand but could accept. He was a boy after all. What he couldn't get in his head was her lack of interest for ballet. So when Ellen told her parents she wanted to quit dancing, six-year-old Dan asked his parents if he could do it instead.

In his first lesson the girls thought he would dance for Ellen because she was sick or that he just wanted to watch even without his sister. Quickly did they learn that Dan was intending to take Ellen's place and become a dancer himself. And just like his sister, he was learning fast and it was obvious he knew exactly what he was doing, how he had to raise his foot to jump higher and how to stretch out his arms to spin faster. It might have been unusual for a boy to attend ballet lessons but it made his parents even prouder when they found him smile one of the brightest smiles he had ever shown during his practice at home.

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Sadly, his classmates found out about his ballet lessons. It starts with a push on his shoulder that makes Dan stumble into the wall after the last lesson of the day. From then on he constantly gets called names, his bubble gum gets taken away, and his books have ugly tears from when the other boys rip them apart. At school he can ignore them, but on the way home this task gets harder when he has to catch his balance whenever he gets pushed into a puddle on the sidewalk.

One day he is followed by them again. It has rained the day before so the streets are still wet and there are plenty of opportunities for his bullies to push Dan down and make his pants drenched and dirty. He is nearly home when he relaxes and lets his guard down, only to get sent flying to the cold ground, scratching his palms open from the fall as he stretches his hands out to catch himself. He hisses in pain and looks at the blood that starts to leak through the open wounds. The tallest of his bullies laughs the loudest and stands in front of him, holding his stupid new phone with the camera towards Dan as if to take a picture of his misery.

"What are you doing?" A boy's voice interrupts the bullies' laughter. When Dan looks up, there are his sister and a ginger haired boy that looks around the same age as Ellen. He has his arms crossed and towers over the guys that pushed him to the ground. While Ellen helps Dan up, he walks over to them and puts his hands to his hips, looking at them angrily. "Why did you push him?"

Most of the other boys are quiet, looking scared and ready to flee any moment. Douglas, the tallest of them, stands, his head held high, and glares back at the unknown boy. "Because that wimp deserves it." He says with a challenging stare.