[LEVE] Follow and Lead

Unlike his first leve involving dancing, this time Khaidai had met his client with a hint of nervousness: only someone desperate would ask for assistance this close to the Masked Valentione’s Ball. Added by the fact he still considered himself a beginner in the ballroom dances across Eorzea, he must have been equally as anxious as his Miqo’te client when they first met each other.  

“D-do you think you can teach me all I need to know?” he had asked, little of the supposed “debonair” present in his meek mannerisms. “I must admit, I never learned how to dance. In all other instances, I would feign illness or find some ‘urgent matter’ I must attend to escape the situation.”

“But why would a gentleman such as yourself feel such a need?” Khaidai had asked frankly, though without a hint of judgement in his voice. 

“Well, you see... I was not born like the others of my standing — that is to say, I come from a humble background where only dances we needed were for ritual purposes. I only came to wealth and fame in my young adulthood, and in order to keep myself in such a position, I had to eliminate all there was to me that spoke of my meagre past.” His words had carried an aura of sophistication in them as the man had spoken, but it was easy to see how difficult it was for him to say it out loud, let alone to someone he didn’t even know. 

“I cannot promise to make you appear as if you had always known these things, but I shall certainly do my best to ensure you won’t make a fool out of yourself either. But it means hard practice up until the ball, and to understand beforehand that not everyone learns to dance in less than two weeks,” he had warned him, and promptly seen how the self made aristocrat had then knelt down before him to thank him. 

The situation was worse than Khaidai had thought. Aside from not knowing even the basics of ballroom dances, K'pahl was one of the few people Khaidai had met who simply could not comprehend the movements of other people so that he could properly copy them. He had even tried moving the man’s body himself to demonstrate how he should position himself, but his attempts — just like all the previous ones — seemed to be in vain. 

“Please forgive me for being such a poor student,” K'pahl had apologised on the fourth day of training. “It is easy for me to see you are a man of much skill and capacity to teach, but I fear I am simply not made for dancing. Perhaps I should simply come out clean and admit my shortcomings to everyone or decline the invitation... Of course, you will still receive your full payment.”

Khaidai had frowned at this, and after a moment of thinking, asked: “Your partner... Do you know what kind of dancer she is?” 

“Direct and upfront. She likes to take the lead whenever we are together... and I admit, I quite enjoy her forwardness.” 

“In that case...” Khaidai had smiled conspiratorially, “I may just have found a solution to all our problems.” 

************************ 

Khaidai stood by the serving table with a glass of champagne in his hand. The ballroom was filled with live music and dancing people, decorative masks and the matching costumes turning the space into a flurry of colours dancing across the floor. 

There, in the midst of everything, he saw K'pahl dancing alongside his stunningly gorgeous partner; feet following the confident steps of the woman as she set the pace for the both of them. Radiant like the sun itself, the joy and pride in dancing with her loved one in front of all the people made even Khaidai’s own heart skip a beat as he gazed at the pair. It had been a gamble for someone like him to allow a woman take the role usually meant for the man, but it seemed to work in K'pahl’s favour: from the talk he could hear around him, people seemed impressed by the boldness of it, as well as the tact of K'pahl to allow his sweetheart the spotlight in what she was truly excelling in. 

Khaidai took a sip of his drink and smiled to himself. While a part of him was sad that he hadn’t been able to teach K'pahl what they both had initially been expecting, it made him glad that a compromise could have been made. “He may never be the talk of the dancefloor for his own skills, but he most certainly knows how to follow when someone else leads him,” he thought and chuckled a little.