First Dance

First Dance
Published	January 18, 2013 (2013-01-18)
Page count	8
Major characters	Mike, Lucy, Paulo, Daisy
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First Dance is a Bittersweet Club International-exclusive comic that winds the clock back to fifth grade, where an end-of-year dance is looming and Paulo can’t work up the nerve to ask his crush. Luckily, Daisy has a plan. What could go wrong?

Partial synopsis

A hand-drawn poster for the “End of year Dance” has gone up at school, and Daisy finds Paulo staring at it in a cold sweat. She’s over the moon about the dance herself, since it’ll be her “first dance EVER”. It takes her a moment to work out what’s eating Paulo. He wants to ask someone out, and Lucy floats behind him in a dreamy vision surrounded by hearts.

“HOW ROMANTIC,” Daisy squeals, and the coaching begins on the spot. If he’s too scared to ask outright, he should write Lucy a letter telling her to meet him after school, then ask her out once they’re alone. Paulo loves it and runs off to slip the letter under her desk. Left to herself, Daisy blushes at a thought of Mike and decides a plan that good is well worth borrowing.

Both letters reach Lucy and Mike during class. Each reads one and looks away blushing while the teacher drones on. All that’s left is the wait for the final bell — and an after-school meeting that neither schemer has entirely thought through...

Character dynamics

Daisy takes the news about as quietly as you’d expect.

• Paulo and Daisy: Daisy is the first person to welcome Paulo when he arrives at Roseville in fifth grade. In this story, Paulo admits that he wants to ask someone out, and she eagerly gives him a plan.
• Paulo and Lucy: At this age, Paulo struggles to approach Lucy directly. Flirting with Disaster shows them freezing when they first meet. Here, he again avoids a face-to-face conversation and follows Daisy’s advice to leave Lucy a letter.
• Daisy and Mike: Daisy blushes at a thought of Mike before deciding to borrow the letter plan. In Humble Approach, she says she has had a crush on him since fifth grade.

Trivia & observations

• The comic’s public teaser compares Paulo and Daisy’s plan to “that episode of The Simpsons”. That would be Lisa’s Date with Density, in which Lisa’s unsigned love note is handed to the wrong boy and Milhouse takes the beating for it.
• Daisy is thrilled that this will be her first dance. By middle school, she has been put in charge of planning the Spring Dance in Prom Preparation.

Related chapters

• Flirting with Disaster: Its flashback shows Paulo arriving at Roseville partway through fifth grade. Daisy welcomes him, and he can barely speak when he meets Lucy. This comic returns to that same fifth-grade crush.
• Curtain Call: Its closing flashback finds a grade-school Mike and Lucy under a tree, where the blushing question “Would you wanna marry me..?” gives way to “Oh, JUST FORGET IT!” The scene offers a main-comic comparison for Mike and Lucy at this age.