,,got the munchies?,, jane

[derrick hirsch]

ooc; so sorry it's taken this long. stupid weather. :p

-- today was off to a wonderful start. practice had gone well, and there were only a few spots he was having trouble with. but he knew he wouldn't be the person who always bumbles around during class because they never practice or anything. people who showed laziness and didn't seem to care that they were holding up everyone else really made him mad. if you weren't going to put in 100%, then you shouldn't be dancing. he always got worked up, but he couldn't help it. he knows what it's like to put in hours upon hours of practice and working out.

-- now, he was hungry. he had dropped his duffel bag off at his dorm and sprayed some axe cologne on. he felt refreshed, the way he always did after a successful practice. he lived for dancing. his stomach growling interrupted his thoughts and he quickened his pace to the cafeteria for a snack. he picked up some chips, an apple, and a bottle of water. It was quite the combination, but he didn't care. he looked around the room casually to see if there was anyone he knew. there was one person, jane, from his dance classes. she wasn't one that he wanted to throw out of the class.

-- he walked up to her, she was sitting alone, his shyness began to take over, but he quelled it with positive thoughts. "hey. mind if i sit with you?" derrick asked smiling, waiting to sit down. he didn't want to impose on her, or sit down, then make her feel like she had to say yes. they didn't really talk or anything, what if she didn't even like him? he told himself to calm down and just take it easy. he needed to stop being so pessimistic.

[jane aniya barlow]

{ jane had stumbled into bosucher's lunchroom, the infamous 'pit', nearly twenty minutes ago, but had only just been sitting for a few minutes. jane was by no means popular, but she'd woken up this morning in a way spiked mood and had used her newfound energy to mingle about the room as she entered it. in fact, jane had switched lunch lines intentionally, so she could chat it up with more strangers who neither cared or noticed her. i mean, she'd even visited the home cookin' line which was notoriously grody. so far, jane had met a girl named ramilda who had brought her dog into the lunchroom and then got escorted out by security for it, loop head, someone named john or jake or josh, and a total bob dylan lookalike. yet, she still found herself sitting alone.
if there was anything jane hated more than hurricanes, it was feeling sorry for herself. good thing, she always brought a book in her bag. once jane had taken her smoothie and broccoli florrets to a deserted round table in the center of the room and pulled out her bellows novel, she realized that she really wasn't too dissapointed that no one had bit onto her blatant offers of companionship. herzog was a nice story, and she sort of liked keeping her thougths and her broccoli in the teeth incidents to herself, no problem.
but, just when jane was convincing herself how happy she was, she heard a familiar voice. jane looked up to see derrick hirsch, a total beauty from her dance department. hey, mind if i sit with you? jane tried to hide her face from lighting up. she wasn't a total loser who never got male attention. in fact, jane had been unsettlingly popular at her last boarding school. but, i guess you could say she was still getting used to campus and hadn't made all too many friends. she was more than happy to have someone to spend even just a few moments with. jane nodded, eagerly, with a smile, and scooted over making room for derrick.
she brought her leg up in front of her and curled it so she sort of sat facing him on the bench. "how's it goin'?" she asked. deep, jane, deep. "derrick, right?" jane asked his name, even though she had remembered it along with everyone else in their entirely too huge technique class. she didn't want to seem too eager, you know...

[derrick hirsch]

-- derrick was really glad that she had seemed happy to have him site with her. he was glad for the company. he had recognized her from his dance classes. he did kind of feel bad for interrupting her reading, but she didn't seem to mind. derrick hadn't wanted to sit alone and look like someone who had no friends. he did have friends, albeit they were mostly girls, but hey, that wasn't so bad, was it? it was weird to see her outside of class and in normal clothing, but she was pretty and he sat down next to her, smiling warmly.

-- her name suddenly popped into his head, he had been nervous that he couldn't remember it. jane was new to the school, and he wasn't sure that she had a lot of friends yet, and derrick was excited to get to know her and to talk to her. she seemed really nice. "oh it's going. yep. and your name is jane?" he asked, his german accent deep and thick. he was waiting for the look on her face to change. most people's did if they hadn't really heard him talk before. not too many people had german accents around here. sure there were a few british ones, but he didn't know of anyone else from germany.

-- sometimes he wished that there were more people from his beloved homeland. or that he could go back there more often than what he did. he felt sad for his parents, he knew they missed it deeply, but they had done it all for their remarkable little boy who had loved to dance. it wasn't really the first thing he told someone outside of bouscher academy. it wasn't that he was ashamed, he just didn't want to be judged right off the bat. being a male dancer didn't inspire a lot of respect from people.

[jane aniya barlow]

{ jane was pleased that derrick remembered her name as she had remembered his. she nodded in response to the question he placed it in. "yeah, it's jane, jane barlow." jane rolled her eyes at herself. she sounded like some corny character from an old degrassi script or something. jane cleared her throat, hoping derrick wasn't already deciding if she more closely resembled a paige or an ellie in his mind.

jane turned to face her food and took a sip from her smoothie. she brushed her curls to one side of her head, letting them fall off the shoulder farther from her new company. s'all about body language, j'know. "so you're in like my technique class, right?" she smiled at him gently. "i've seen you dance, and you're really incredible..." jane sort of let this compliment slide off her tongue, feeling awkward about giving it as soon as she did. "all the dancers here are so good, too."

at this point jane was halfway making conversation with herself. maybe it wasn't all too wise to give derrick a lead on how truly intimidated by this school she was. after all, she still knew so little about him. "where's that accent from?" jane asked, all too late. she'd noticed some sort of european tongue when he spoke the first time, but couldn't put a finger on where she'd thought it was born. jane really hoped he would give her an outlandish accent. she wished more than anything that conversation would pick up, for she felt much too awkward in these sorts of situations.

[derrick hirsch]

-- for a second, he thought he might have the wrong name and he sighed inwardly when she confirmed her name was jane. "it's nice to meet you." derrick said honestly, offering her a polite and warm smile. he wanted to make her feel welcome here. he couldn't imagine switching schools. of course he had been new here, but so was every other freshman he had started school with. he was lucky he never had to switch schools when he lived in germany. sometimes he missed his close friends, one that had stuck with him even with the hectic dance schedules, the ones that hadn't judged him. thank goodness for facebook though.

-- derrick nodded. "thanks." he said smiling, but his cheeks flushed. it wasn't that he didn't like complements, he just didn't take them very very well. he didn't think he deserved them. not in a vain sort of way, but because he wasn't exceptionally gifted or anything, he just put in the work and effort to be good. "you're pretty amazing yourself." he always felt weird if he didn't give someone a complement back. he didn't want her to think he was cocky or something. and she was good, he wasn't making that up at all.

-- "i see what half of them could do if they actually put in effort to their dancing." he said, trying to hid his disgust. all the dancers in the program at bouscher were very good. but half of them just kind of glided through, not really putting in much effort or applying themselves. if they had talent, wouldn't they want to put in the extra time to be that much better? derrick chuckled as she asked where his accent was from. "so you picked up on it, huh?" he said lightly. "i was born and raised in germany. it's definitely not as thick as my parents. sometimes i can't even understand them." he was glad he had spent time around the american's, it watered down his thick accent and made it easier to understand.