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He opened the door, and there she was.
She pulled away, her hands over her mouth muffling a sharp "Qua-!", eyes wide and widening, face red and reddening. "It's not what it looks like!"
He didn't really know what it looked like. He had opened the low cupboard to retrieve a spare ballet uniform (his was in laundry), and had found her huddled among shirts and leotards, braid tangled between arms and legs but somehow fitting neatly into the tiny space. He had no idea what to make of it.
Instead, he grabbed a shirt and closed the door again, which immediately slammed open. The redhead crawled out, red in the face, livid. What did she expect him to do?
"Why'd you do that for?!"
"What else did you want me to do?"
"Well, you should've… You could've… hmph!" she grumbled, pouting and wringing her hands like a child.
He turned away. "Moron."
"I am not-"
The door to the room snapped shut behind him.
He knew who she was, sort of. The clumsy girl was hard to miss, especially in the mixed ballet classes where the teacher would almost constantly threaten her with marriage, and her two friends would drag her away, the (demented) blonde one giggling. She was always distracted, and very distracting, stumbling about the place and disrupting lessons, always staying behind as punishment and mopping the floors. Sometimes, he pitied her. Mostly, he didn't care.
It had been an odd encounter, but was of no importance so it didn't matter in the end. He'd probably see her around again and nothing would change.
He certainly did not expect to find her in a cupboard full of cleaning supplies. Specifically, curled on a shelf above his head (how she had gotten up there was beyond him, she was so short), blue eyes shining in the dark. Glaring too.
He looked up at her. She glared back, before sticking her tongue out at him and shuffling back again.
He grabbed the mop (someone had spilled water all over the corridor floor) and backtracked out, muttering, "Idiot."
She shot forwards, nails scraping against wood, red pendant almost smacking him in the face, screeching "I'm not a- QUACK!" before tipping off the shelf and slamming into the floor.
He only stayed long enough to check that she hadn't injured herself, and then hastened away.
It was very different to be face-to-face from below than from above.
After that, he saw her in some classes, in the hallways with her two giggling friends, being strangled by the (insane) blonde, in a shop across the street perusing bird seed, and jammed between a door and a locker after rolling down the hallway like a tyre. They exchanged meaningfully hostile looks and some scathing remarks, as well as the frequent "idiot" or "moron". He once told her that she acted like a duck, which prompted her to attempt to smack him and instead crash into his chest. He would have been more annoyed about the whole thing if he hadn't noticed the (deranged) blonde sneakily shove her from behind.
The one place he was certain that he would never run into her was the boys' dormitories, as they were strictly off-limits to all girls (and vice versa). He was thankful for that, as some of his fellow students had a few odd habits (he was very tired of seeing rose petals everywhere) and it would have been a hassle, what with her explosively, dangerously nervous reactions.
That's why, when he heard a distinctive squeak from his bathroom, he very nearly flipped a table.
And there she was, huddled inside his (thankfully empty) washing basket. She had the decency to look embarrassed, if not slightly contrite.
"It's not what it looks like."
He pinched the bridge of his nose, not knowing whether to throw a fit or simply kick her out and never look her way again. He had resolved to shoo her away when she mumbled, "I'm hiding from them."
He looked back at her, thrown completely off. "From who?"
She told him about some of the boys he shared the kitchen and living spaces with. She told him about how they just teased her at first, for being so clumsy; they tripped her up, they kicked the bucket full of water which she used to mop the floors after class. She told him how they watched her practise ballet sometimes, messing with the music player and pushing her around. How they locked her in a bathroom with a broken light once, and left her in the dark for hours. How she hid sometimes when she saw them, just in case, in the cupboard full of spare ballet uniforms or cleaning supplies, because she was small and she could fit. How they'd dragged her to one of their rooms to force her to dance for them, upon which she'd fled and hid in the first room she could run into without being spotted, jumping into the laundry basket and hoping that it didn't belong to one of them.
He said nothing, and left. There were shouts. A scuffling across the corridor floor went unnoticed. When he came back, the basket was empty and tipped over.
He was almost disappointed, walking back out of his room and closing the door behind him. A shimmer caught his eye. A few metres away from him, a red pendant was on the floor, silver chain unclasped. It had nearly smacked him in the face once. A door a little further ahead was open.
It was the laundry room, and she was inside the dryer. This time, he wasn't surprised. She smiled shyly out to him as he raised an eyebrow.
"They won't bother you anymore."
She nodded slowly, mumbling a quiet "thank you" before attempting to pull herself out. He watched her for half a second before pulling her out himself, marvelling at how small she was in his arms.
"S-sorry for running away," she breathed when he set her down, and she attempted to clasp her pendant back on, "I heard the shouting and I thought someone would realise that I was in your room, one of them, and I didn't want that, especially because they might make a mess, so I ran, but I didn't want to go too far so that I could thank you…" she babbled away. He half-listened, watching her turn around and around while fiddling with the tricky clasp. When she finally managed, she turned back to him, fidgeting.
"Well, I-I'll be off then. Thanks again. It really means a lot to me."
"It's fine. I wasn't just going to act like nothing happened, idiot." He rolled his eyes at her, not quite keeping the small, secret smile off his face. She pouted, but her eyes sparkled.
Only when he watched as her braid followed her round the corner did he realise he hadn't asked for her name.
He knocked on the door of the sculpting room, where he had been sent to retrieve a missing ballet student ("She's very tall," the teacher had said, "You'll know her when you see her"). A gruff voice told him to come in, and he did, eyes skimming over the half-finished sculpture of a tall girl, arabesque, with wings; the model herself (the missing ballet student?); and the sculptor who was steadily reddening more and more, before resting on the swinging orange braid across the room. The owner of the braid stood on a stool, almost en pointe trying to reach for the box of sculpting tools on the top shelf. His hand shot past hers, pulling it down. She almost fell right off in shock, with a sharp "Quack!", face red.
She grabbed the box and scurried away, leaving it with the sculptor before scurrying back, grabbing his hand and dragging him out of the room.
"I'm supposed to be taking that girl back to ballet."
"You can't, they're not finished."
"Not my problem."
"Don't interrupt."
"Why not?"
She looked back and forth down the corridor, before whispering, "They're… lovey-dovey."
He stared at her, recalling a small girl with a drum, before snorting and turning away. She huffed, stomping her foot.
"Whatever," he said, turning back to her, "Go make yourself useful and hide in a cupboard, idiot."
She sputtered, stomping after him as he walked down the hallway.
It was a beautiful day.