[Weekly Short] Angel's Toes (approx. 440 characters)

"Takashi, do you really want to do this?"

Takashi nodded cautiously.
A ballet studio. The wall-to-wall mirror and the single barre running across it looked like the boy's tightly pressed lips.
Facing the teacher with her professional smile, Takashi's mother wore a look of blatant concern, yet she decided to grant her child's wish.

"No skipping classes. If you're okay with that, then go ahead and try."

With his lips still pressed tight like the barre, Takashi nodded cautiously once more.

Contrary to his mother's worries, the boy practiced his pointe work very earnestly, mixing in with the kindergarteners who were three years younger than him.

"Look, if you only stare at your feet, your posture will suffer."

A pair of pointe shoes appeared before Takashi's eyes.
He looked up to see a girl around the upper grades of elementary school. Kiwa was standing there.

"Here, this is how you do pointe."

Kiwa demonstrated a beautiful posture in her pointe shoes, which showed signs of heavy practice.
Takashi felt flustered by those beautiful toes.

"Give it a try."

Kiwa supported his body.
His toes, which had been hurting until just a moment ago, felt hot. The pointe shoes felt as light as an angel's wings.

This is my 6th entry for Kasan Tahara's weekly short-short.

When I write by habit, I feel like I could easily expand it to about 1500 characters, so I found it difficult to figure out how to trim it down and shape it into a proper short-short.
I feel that way even more when I go straight for the prompt like I did this time.

If you found this interesting, please consider leaving a like or a comment.
It encourages the author.
See you in next week's short-short.