Ciel checks his phone when Sebastian shows up at the dance— he's exactly on time. Ciel himself would have been late, but he came early in hopes of observing Sebastian Michaelis, the human being, as much as possible.

As the room fills up, Sebastian sticks to the walls, looking for someone to dance with, yet always glancing away whenever a potential male partner looks at him. Ciel leaves to greet Lizzie when she arrives, but he circles back to Sebastian. They chat some more, now discussing the results of the far less dramatic ladies' competition, their conversation rapidly growing easier.

Just minutes later, Grell bounds into the room in bright red sweats and heads straight for Ciel and Sebastian. "Ciel, darling, won't you dance with me? William was supposed to be my partner, but he's still in my room sleeping off the alcohol . . ."

Ciel pretends to gag, and Sebastian's jaw actually drops at this revelation.

"Oh, come on, you prudes— we're in the Olympic Village!" Grell swats them both. "A lot worse than that happened last night, by the sounds from our roof . . ."

"Ciel has a partner," Sebastian cuts her off, "but I'd be delighted to dance with you."

And so they dance. Ciel is an absolute klutz at every ballroom style he tries, only saved by Elizabeth's grace and experience— he's distracted, of course, still observing Sebastian over her shoulder. Meanwhile, Grell is watching Ciel; as he stomps on Elizabeth's foot for the third time, his coach rolls her eyes and whispers a no doubt cutting comment about his dancing "ability" into Sebastian's ear. Sebastian looks over at Ciel, then, and bursts out laughing.

Ciel's about to be indignant, when he realizes . . . Sebastian is laughing, out of neither pain nor fear but genuine amusement, and that terrible blankness is finally gone from his face.

Finally, Ciel feels like he's won the medal.

Author's Note- I've been drafting a sequel. Heck, I've been drafting three sequels! But I'm not guaranteeing that they'll ever get published, sadly . . . Last time I promised to continue a series, it didn't exactly work out :-/

Thanks sooooo much for reading!