Eyeing this guy at every slow song but afraid to talk to him

Dakota sat back in her seat and drummed her fingers on the armrest of the chair, waiting for Gina and the others to come up with the idea for what the next event would entail.

She sighed.

They’re making such a big deal out of this, aren’t they? While that’s a pleasure to see, I wonder if they’ll be able to figure it out…?

A smirk crossed her lips as she saw Gina approach her with an awkward, sheepish smile on her face. Judging by the embarrassed gleam in her eye, she’d finally clued into things.

“Well?” Dakota leaned forward, resting her chin on the head of her cane. “Have you managed to come up with an event?” She assumed that Gina was selected as the representative to convey the nature of the event to her.

“…Yeah,” Gina said, nodding. “I think so. Just to check… the event has to revolve around ballroom dancing, right?”

“Yes, correct. That’s what you proposed in the first place,” Dakota nodded. “Can’t change that, I’m afraid, it’s the nature of the transformation.”

“Right, yeah, I get that. But the judges, they can judge by whatever criteria they want?” Gina pressed for clarification.

The corners of Dakota’s lips tugged up. She slowly nodded.

“So if, for example, the event was going to be judged not based on skill and talent and perfect performance when it comes to ballroom dancing, but who had the most fun trying and failing to ballroom dance, that would be fine?” Gina narrowed her eyes.

The small smile on Dakota’s face widened into a full-on grin.

“If that’s what the judges agree to,” she confirmed with a nod.

Gina’s expression soured immediately.

“Are you kidding me?” She groaned. “Why didn’t you just say that in the first place, then?” She couldn’t believe Dakota had made them stress about this whole thing!

“Tell me something, Gina, how did you come up with the idea for that event?” Dakota asked. “To have everyone dance, and then grade the criteria not on technical skill but enjoyment?”

Gina baulked. “Well, because… I mean… we were talking, and, well…”

She looked over her shoulder and sighed. Then she turned back to Dakota.

“…Amelia… she told me that I was ‘too burdened’ by this. I didn’t get what she meant at first,” Gina said, scratching her head. “But in the end, I thought about it, as we were coming up with ideas, and… she was right. I was too burdened by this, wasn’t I?” She shook her head. “It’s not a big deal. It’s just a fun little event, right? There’s no BP or VP on the line, it’s not a challenge. We all kind of got into the competitive spirit of things, taking this so seriously… but it’s a party! Parties are supposed to be fun!”

All this time, Gina had been trying to live up to everyone’s expectations and prove that she could be mature and adult about this. But at the end of the day, this was just a party.

Rose had been completely right- they were supposed to have fun!

And stressing out about all this? That definitely wasn’t fun at all.

“Once I figured it out, it was pretty easy to decide what to do for the event,” she continued. “Since it wouldn’t be fair to anyone if we graded on skill, why not just grade on enjoyment? Let everybody do their own interpretation of ‘ballroom dancing’ and have a good time doing it! That’s going to be the fun criteria. It might be the last event, but nobody’s going to make a big deal out of it. And that’s the decision we came to as a group.”

Dakota beamed up at Gina. “That’s exactly what I was hoping for,” she said, rising from her seat and patting Gina on the shoulder.

Gina blinked. “…Huh?!”

“When you presented that plan to me that you came up with, with the help of Sylvia, I had my concerns,” Dakota explained. “I thought you were getting too lost in the sauce and taking things too seriously. But I didn’t say anything at the time. This is me trying to help you out! Giving you time to think things through, and realize that the important thing for your transformation was to get together and have a great party!”

Gina was happy to hear that… but upset, too.

“That’s really it?” She asked quietly. “Then why make me think through all this, huh? You could have just said something! You… you didn’t need to get all manipulative and controlling about it, Dakota! If you’d just explained-!”

Dakota looked perturbed by Gina’s outburst. The smile slipped from her face. But she held her ground.

“Perhaps you’re right,” she conceded. “But if I had simply told you the problems with your decision, would you have understood them? I doubt that highly. You need a chance to learn from your mistakes, after all.”

Gina could understand where Dakota was coming from. The other woman had a certain twisted logic behind her words.

But it still stung.

“…I appreciate what you were trying to do,” she said sullenly. “And thank you for giving me the freedom to come up with a new idea. But don’t try and jerk me around, okay? I don’t like that, and you know it, Dakota.”

Dakota frowned. “…Alright then,” she said. “I’ll accept your event as proposed. Now, shall we announce it?”

She looked over at the crowd of girls on the other side of the room, who were all staring expectantly back at her.

“…Although, I think they already know, so it’s somewhat pointless,” she giggled.

As casual as she was treating this whole thing, it was like the prior tension with Gina didn’t even exist. That surprised the punk girl for a moment, but she nodded, almost glad that Dakota was trying to put things behind her.

“We’re just going to have fun,” she reminded the host again. “That’s the focus of this party, after all, remember?”

“Exactly right,” Dakota nodded back. “Let’s have some fun!”

She stepped forward and clapped her hands together. “We’ve come to a decision!” She declared loudly, getting everybody’s attention. “Come, come!”

The girls gathered around Dakota, with Nick trailing behind, hoping that their idea had convinced the host. The whole group was pretty tense and expectant, but the smile on Dakota’s face was a bit reassuring.

And intimidating.

“It sounds like you’ve all come to the same conclusion, that tonight is supposed to be about having fun,” Dakota said, nodding to Gina. “That’s just what I like to hear!”

“Right, we wanted to make sure that everybody could have a good time, even if they don’t know how to ballroom dance,” Dani agreed.

“Not to mention, there are a lot of different dances to choose from,” Rose noted. “Which specific dance would you be looking for? Hard to say. So we decided to change the judging criteria.”

Dawn crinkled her nose. “That’s exactly the idea. We are allowed to do that, right?” Dakota had not specifically disabused them of that notion, so they’d gone and ran with it. But whether or not Dakota would agree, that was another matter.

But the host seemed onboard.

“It’s your party,” Dakota said bluntly. “If that’s what you’d like to set the judging criteria to, that’s perfectly fine! As I said, the only criteria necessary was that the event be around ballroom dancing, which it is. If you’d rather not be graded on the technicalities-”

“Then say that in the first place!” Cinder exploded.

Dakota shot her a glare.

“Cinder isn’t wrong, even if she could mind her manners,” Marley said, nodding to the other girl. “You could have told us, Dakota.”

Dakota nodded. “Yes, I could have,” she admitted. “But I wanted you girls to work together and come up with something that would make you happy!”

“I told her it was bullshit,” Gina scoffed, shaking her head. “And she agreed not to do anything like that again, so don’t worry guys. Everything will be fine.”

Nick sighed in relief. He sure hoped so.

“So shall we go over the specifics, then?” Dakota asked, looking around at the others. “This is your challenge after all, Gina, so would you do the honors?”

She stepped aside and let Gina do the talking. Which was good, because Gina wanted to justify her own choice.

Gina took a deep breath and stepped forward. “Okay, so… you guys know the broad strokes, but here’s what we’re going to do. Each of us guests will be dancing with a partner. You can choose Nick, or any of the judges, to be fair. And the judges will be grading you on your efforts. Technical skill, ability, style, none of that is really important. Just have fun and do your best! That’s what everyone will be looking for.”

The criteria was pretty loose, Nick could understand that. He was a little apprehensive about this event, if he was being honest.

But it sounded fair. And more importantly, fun.

“I don’t have to dance if I don’t have to though, right?” Holly questioned. They’d discussed that a little, but she just wanted to be sure. “Because I’m not sure I’d be able to have fun dancing with anybody other than Nick.”

She turned to Nick and batted her eyelashes at him.

“If anybody would like to learn,” Octavia stepped in, head held high, “then I believe I would make an adequate partner. I can play both the male and female roles of several dances.”

“Octavia’s really good,” Vivian said, nodding. “She’s the one who taught me how to dance, so I can attest to her skill!”

“There is one thing to consider, though,” Kim noted. She looked over her shoulder at Serenity, who was still up at the judge’s table. She was the only one who hadn’t come down to join the others, and she was looking at them with a stern gleam in her eye. “What about her?”

“Oh, yeah…” Dani scratched her head. “I guess we didn’t consider her, did we?” She mentally punched herself for being so insensitive. If anybody chose Serenity for their dance partner, they would find themselves afflicted by her abilities as a siren. That wouldn’t go well.

Serenity scoffed and shook her head.

“…I think that’s her way of saying not to worry about it,” Carly guessed. “I suppose she’s just not a big fan of ballroom dancing.”

“Still, it’s a little sad,” Mary murmured. “And as for the event itself… do we really have to do it?” She looked around at the others. “The grading criteria…”

Nick nodded. “It is a little subjective,” he agreed. “How do you measure what ‘having fun’ entails, anyway? I like the idea fine, but trying to rank that…”

He felt compelled to just give all the girls 10s and be done with it, as long as they looked like they were having a good time.

“It’s quite difficult, isn’t it?” Dakota mused. “What do you think, Sylvia?”

Suddenly realizing she was being put on the spot, Sylvia jumped slightly. “E-eh? Me? Why… why are you asking me?” She stammered, not sure what her creator was doing.

Dakota looked pointedly at her. “You were a host yourself once, were you not?” She reminded the other woman. “So you of all people would know just how difficult developing appropriate judging criteria can be.”

Sylvia sighed. “Yeah… it’s not a bed of roses, that’s for sure,” she agreed, shaking her head. “Sometimes, you just gotta go with your gut, you know?”

“Hey, I mean, it’s not like it matters all that much,” Carly added. “We talked about this before, remember? There’s nothing really at stake here.”

“Just the boon,” Gina said. “That’s what we agreed to. Whoever gets the most total points from the judges will get a boon.”

“Perhaps if you explained what the boon was, that might help matters?” Dawn looked to Dakota as she said that, but the words were meant for Gina’s ears, as well.

The punk girl winced.

“…Dakota, I think we should probably tell them,” she relented.

“I suppose we’ve come far enough into the evening that the time is upon us,” Dakota agreed. “We decided that the boon for the ‘winner’ of this little event, or in other words, the guest who best embodied all the traits of an elegant young lady of standing, would win a fitting reward in return. A thematic prize, so to speak.”

“Oh?” Kim’s ears twitched as she considered what would be a “fitting” boon for a wealthy young lady.

“It’s a very simple one,” Dakota said. “For the remainder of the round… well, just have a look!”

With a wave of her cane, she conjured a screen with the boon on display.

Ms. Moneybags: For the rest of the round, any BP that the contestant receives will be doubled. This includes bounty rewards and BP obtained from transformations, as well as the popularity poll.

Rose’s eyes nearly bulged out of her skull. “That’s the boon?!” She gasped.

Vivian whistled. “My, that’s quite something,” she nodded approvingly. “And you’re right, Dakota, that’s a very fitting reward indeed.”

“Wait, so… I got so much BP from selling those clothes earlier… so if I’d had this boon, then that would mean…” Kim began to count on her fingers, and was stunned by how high she was counting.

Dawn frowned. “…That changes quite a lot, it seems.”

“Oh, so it’s not some embarrassing transformation,” Dani noted. She’d had a nagging feeling in the back of her mind that something like that might happen.

“And we won’t get any penalties for getting l-last, or anything like that?” Morgana asked reluctantly. She remembered what happened at the previous party, and didn’t want a repeat.

Dakota shook her head. “This is purely positive,” she assured the girls. “There’s only one prize, but it’s quite a good one!”

“Are you sure you’re not doing this just to spur us on competitively?” Mary asked suspiciously. “Revealing this when we’ve decided not to take things so seriously…”

Dakota shrugged. “It’s a perfectly pleasant reward. You may compete for it, or not, at your own leisure.” She winked to the other girls.

“What if there’s a draw?” Marley asked.

Dakota blinked. “Oh? What do you mean?”

Marley scrunched up her face and frowned. “A draw. What if multiple people get the same score? This isn’t like the last party where the placings were ranked by the audience. We’re all really close in our point totals, so couldn’t that mean there’s a very high possibility that one or more people would receive the same score for the event, and thus, have to split the boon? How exactly would that work?”

Dakota looked surprised. “I wouldn’t expect that of all things to be your concern, Marley,” she said in response.

“Huh? Why not?” Marley questioned.

“Well, it’s not like you need to care about that boon anyway,” Dakota reminded her. “After all, you can’t earn any BP in the first place.”

Marley was silent for a moment as she processed that.

“…Wait, what?!” She took a second look at the boon, her brain racing as it sank in. “Gina!”

“Sorry!” Gina groaned. “I wasn’t thinking!”

Nick sighed and shook his head. “This is all sounding very familiar,” he mumbled under his breath.

“Hey, come on, it’s not a big deal,” Carly said gently. “This is a learning curve, Gina. You were trying to do something fun and thematic, and you weren’t thinking about the repercussions it might have on another contestant.”

“Yeah, you’re right, Nick, this does sound familiar,” Kim agreed. There were a lot of moments tonight that could have been avoided if Gina (and to an extent, Sylvia) had been more prescient of how certain events could have affected other people.

“Sometimes, things like this are unavoidable,” Amelia said gently. “There is no sense in worrying about it now, however.”

She turned to Dakota. “I assume that it would be too late to change the effect of the boon?”

“Hey, let’s not get ahead of ourselves here!” Rose said quickly. “Doubling BP, that’s really something special you know!”

“Oh, like you need to worry about that?” Dani rolled her eyes. “With all the BP you’ve got?”

“I-I still had to pay for this dress, you know!” Rose pointed out, gesturing to her dress. “And I had to pay the entrance fee!”

“So, what, you’re at 9000 now, instead of 10000? Oh, yeah, you’re really hurting,” Dani noted with a hint of amusement.

“Well, what are you complaining about?” Rose crossed her arms over her chest. “After all, it’s not like you care about spending your BP, right? What would you even do if you won the double anyway?”

Dani frowned. Rose raised a good point. The shop didn’t have much for her, and she hadn’t taken a look at her specialized list in weeks, since there wasn’t anything good on it. But maybe she could buy some new clothes?

Dakota loudly cleared her throat. “How about this?” She decided. “Since Marley is, essentially, Carly’s +1, how about if she wins the prize, then it’s the same thing as if Carly won?”

“That’s not fair!” Cinder exclaimed. “So what, it’s like the bimbo has two people running for her, then? Seriously?”

“I’ve gotta agree with Cinder on this one, it really isn’t fair,” Vivian agreed. “But then… I’m not going to make a big stink out of it myself.”

“What if you just gave Marley some other reward?” Mary suggested. “Instead of a BP doubler, you know?”

Dakota raised her eyebrow. “Well, that right there would not be fair for an entirely separate reason,” she replied. “No, the boon is equal for everyone.”

“But maybe she could give it away, then?” Holly suggested. “To whoever she wants, instead of just giving it to Carly, like at the beach party.”

Dakota considered that for a moment, then nodded. “You’re right, that would be perfectly acceptable!” She agreed.

Marley was still a little miffed that her “prize” if she won was something she couldn’t use for herself. Then again, was she really that surprised? After all, she was going to a party that ostensibly promised boons that would advantage contestants on the show, when she’d already been eliminated from it.

Should I even be going to these parties, then? She wondered. After all, I’m just robbing someone else of a chance to get ahead in the game. And this could be serious.

Someone else could really use that extra BP. Maybe Dakota was right to do it this way.

While Marley was mulling that over, Dawn stepped forward. “You never answered her question,” she pointed out, scowling.

“Mm?” Dakota blinked.

“What if there’s a draw?” Dawn pressed. “You never said what would happen then.”

Dakota smirked. Then she shrugged. “Well, in the future…”

“I know, I know, I get it,” Gina griped. “I’ll plan better next time.”

Her pride was bruised, but she knew Dakota raised a good point. There were a lot of unforced errors in how she’d planned out this party. Gina would have to do a lot better moving forward.

For now, though, Dakota would have to take over and dig her out of this pit.