Act I, Scene I

“Say that she rail, why then I’ll tell her plain! She sings as sweetly as a nightingale!”

“Mr Kondo?”

“Say that she frown, I’ll say she looks as clear as morning roses newly washed with dew.”

“Mr. Kondo?

“Say she be mute and will not speak a word, then I’ll commend her volubility, and say she -”

“Mr. Shuichi Kondo!”

My daydream was interrupted. My eyes abruptly snapped open and then closed again as the ceiling glare assaulted my eyes. I wasn't used to the light of the classroom quite yet. Once they had adjusted, I could see nineteen other classmates giggling in my direction. I was already red in the face.

I needed to learn to whisper better.

“I’m sorry, Mr. Ishida.”

“Perhaps you could assist me in evaluating the extent to which the distinction between a product-oriented approach and a market-oriented approach determines the long-term financial sustainability of a theatre production?”

I couldn’t, and he knew I couldn’t. Mr. Ishida took my lack of an answer with smug satisfaction, while everyone else gave me a look that showed me they didn't want me to be there. I don't blame them, something like that is really simple if you have the slightest interest in business.

“I am thrilled that you feel the confidence to confess your love in such a poetic way in this classroom. However, I need not remind you that you are on the general studies course.” Mr. Ishida glared at me with an air of somebody who was definitely trying to look authoritative and failing. Rumour had it he was a failed rakugo performer who took out his anger at his inability to make anybody laugh on children he was supposed to teach. “Save it for extracurricular activities, if you please.”

The class was attempting to hold in their laughter. I slumped down in my chair, defeated.

I wasn't under any illusion that my time at Sakura Seishun Academy for the Performing Arts was going to be easy. I had hoped that its connection to various international schools in Tokyo and the Tokyo University for Performing Arts meant that I could at least hide in something I enjoy.

It turns out that theory was incorrect.

Walking where I needed to get to was difficult. Even amongst the bustle of the crowds, I had to stop to check the signs. The academy had been gracious enough to place enlarged text signs over the school to help me with my navigation. This couldn't help with my spacial awareness, however.

“Out of the way, four eyes!”

“The theatre department is that way, darling!”

“Need a hand, grandpa!?”

Expected, yet somehow still emotionally draining.

I took an unreasonable amount of time navigating from classroom 1-E, my classroom, to 1-A. As big as those signs are, I still needed time to read them, and the ballerina-like dance I had to do to avoid stepping on people’s toes was really quite something.

I slowly opened the door to find a bright, beaming smile waiting for me.

***

“Wow, Shu, you really messed up a marketing approach question? Sometimes I wonder why you didn't just go to a normal high school.” Haruka tapped her foot on her footplate while blowing and popping the bubblegum in her mouth. With a sudden realisation that she had committed a mistake, she slammed her hands on her wheels and looked up at Shuichi. “I’m sorry! I know the reason, it's just…Shit, bro, I’m sorry.”

I shrugged, trying to play it off. “It’s okay. I know you didn't mean it,” a mischievous grin crossed my lips. “I can quite easily push you down the stairs when no one's looking if you did.”

“Ableism!” Haruka gasped. “J’accuse!”

“I am going to abandon you in this hallway.”

We both began an involuntary giggle which started in the very pit of our stomachs and, against our best judgement, erupted for the whole school to hear. Haruka shook so violently from the laughter that I thought she was going to topple over her chair by herself. “I am sorry though,” she said after finally calming down. “I really don't get why you would do it. You put yourself in front of the thing you love most every day knowing that you can't have it. That's brave.”

“Now who's being condescending. Look, I don't mind. Sometimes we can't have the things we want right away, sometimes it just takes a bit of extra effort. I have faith that one day I'll be on the stage. That's why I'm here. That's what I want.”

“I hear ya, bro.” Haruka said wistfully. “You’re eye broken, I’m leg broken, and we both can’t have what we want. Sucks to suck.”

“Come on, you don't believe that. I'm sure you've got a dream that you're working hard towards, right?

“Oh, for sure, yeah, definitely. I’m working on it all the time, right now even.”

I sighed. “This is going to be something really sarcastic, isn't it?”

“How dare you! Perish the thought, sir!”

“All right, then, what is it?” I braced myself for sarcasm.

“I wanna play in the Nadeshiko League.”

“Knew it.”

Sarcasm received.

“You gonna tell me I just need to believe in myself too? Dream, believe, achieve, or something.” She winked at me theatrically.

“You know that's not what I'm saying!” I protested, my hands getting a bit too flappy for my own good. “If not a dream, then there's got to be something that gets you out of bed in the morning? Something that makes you want to get up and face the day?”

“State mandated schooling.”

“Haruka.”

"Okay, okay. For real though, this is it. You can't laugh though. Promise?" Haruka’s brow furrowed as she tried to find a grip on something in her bag. She also, for some reason, started jabbing me with a walking stick towards a dark space within the lockers.

“This is the most brutal love confession I've ever had, ouch!”

“It's the only one you've ever had and you should be thankful!”

“Okay, okay! I don’t see the boys lining up to carry you up the stairs. Stop poking my knee!”

We had arrived in whatever dark crevice she had decided to place me in. It was far enough away from everyone that nobody could see us, but still close enough that the light was just about peeking through. In the weird half-darkness, she gave me the photo that she pulled from her bag.

If you could enter the words “genetically attractive blonde” into a search engine, this would be the guy that came up. Sparkling dark blue eyes, pristine short blonde hair done up just so, striking a pose that, even to Shuichi, seemed mildly seductive.

“Your big reveal is that you’re attracted to a hot guy?”

“Not just any ‘hot guy!’ Ren Miyano!”

My blank look seemed to anger her further.

“Ren Miyano!”

“Saying the name multiple times isn't gonna make me know who it is any more.”

“This is what happens when your interest in the performing arts cuts off at nineteen sixty. Star of stage and screen, he's the same age as us, but he's already rumoured to be involved in the next James Bond film. He can perform men and women on stage as well! He's so versatile and sexy! And sexy and versatile! And handsome!”

“Cool.”

“And.”

“And?”

“He goes to Sakura Seishun!”

I raised an eyebrow. “I’ve never seen him.”

“Yeah, that's because you've got about as much interest in making friends as I have in the high jump.”

“Wow, rude, on both of us. To be fair, though, it's not that I don't want friends, it's that every time I try to talk to anyone I get all sweaty and panicky and then try really hard not to vomit on the floor.”

“I know, babe. Anyway! Since today's Friday, Ren is going to be in after school acting classes! Normally a bunch of girls go before I can get there, and I can never get in, but with your help, I just might be able to. It's like a double sympathy card!”

“I'm not gonna be able to say no to this, am I?”

“Nope!”

Another sigh. “Okay, I'll do it. But you know between the two of us, we've got the spatial awareness skills of a toddler. How are we supposed to know what direction the stage is in?”

“What time is it?”

“About 3:50, why?”

Haruka grinned. “Just in time.”

We both heard the floor rumble. Quiet at first, only a few things shifted out of place. Gradually, as it got worse and worse, the floor began to shake and the lockers began to move in one giant collective lump—a few inches to the right, and then a few inches to the left. It was just after we managed to fasten ourselves to a spot that we saw the cause.

A stampede of hormonal teenage girls.

“So,” Haruka said, teeth chattering. “You ever crowd surfed before?”