The Acting Contest

At the end of the school day, Takahashi started the meeting for the school play by reciting a quick summary of the script written by Izumi. The story was titled 'The Knight with the Black Mask', a title that elicited some groans from some of the students. The kingdoms of Geralon and Maltimus are on the brink of war. In order to keep war from occurring, Geralon sends Princess Altera on a secret mission in order to broker peace.

However, a conspiratory group inside Geralon sends assassins after her, hoping to blame her death on the Kingdom of Maltimus and give them just cause for a war. However, their plans are foiled by a mysterious knight who refuses to divulge his identity. The knight becomes the princess's erstwhile protector, saving her from various threats and villains. After an arduous journey, Princess Altera finally arrives at the Kingdom of Maltimus, only to be kidnapped by an evil sorceress who attempts to poison her.

The mysterious knight saves her, but falls prey to the poison himself. He is revealed to be Benedict, the prince of Maltimus. The King of Maltimus, believing Altera poisoned Benedict, puts her on trial, but the power of her love for Benedict cures him of the poison. The awakened prince clears her name, then asks for her hand in marriage. Their union would bring peace to the kingdoms forevermore.

“Soo predictable,” remarked a student from the back.

“Yeah, but I think simple is good. I don't want to do a complex story,” argued another.

While the students' opinions on the play seemed divided, they looked like they were mostly happy to finally have a play to work with. Takahashi was simply thankful that Izumi happened to be at the teachers' office right now.

Takahashi then turned around and began writing names on the blackboard. “There will be a number of small roles, but let's first focus on the main roles. There will of course be the hero Benedict and the evil sorceress, as well as the kings of each country. We'll vote in order to decide who'll get each role.”

“What about the princess Altera?” asked one of the female students. “Shouldn't we vote on that first?”

Takahashi braced himself before answering. This was likely going to be the most difficult part of the day. “About that. I've decided that for this play, I'll have Fukuda-san play the role of Altera.”

Almost immediately, an uproar erupted from the students. “What the hell, Takahashi-sensei?” Yada stood up from her seat and put her hands on her hips. “When exactly did you decide that?”

Takahashi gritted his teeth. He was fairly aware that this would happen, but what could he do? The whole point of doing this play in the first place was to show Fukuda the force of her own acting. He wouldn't be able to do that if she had anything less than the starring role. Still, he knew that even if his students normally seemed apathetic about the festival, they would be irritated once he announced this. Even the normally carefree Yada was upset.

“I understand that this might seem odd, but I didn't make this decision lightly. I've seen Fukuda-san's acting skills, and I think she's a good fit for the role.”

“Really? Because it sounds like favoritism to me, Sensei. After all, nobody here has seen Fukuda act once!”

The students roared in agreement. Takahashi struggled to keep a scowl off of his face. While Yada may never have been very responsible, she was quite popular. It was easy for her to rally the students behind a cause.

As the students continued to voice their complaints, a quiet yet firm voice cut through.

“Excuse me?”

The students turned to see Fukuda raising her hand in the air. She seemed small and quiet, but she didn't shirk back at the negative energy in the room a bit. Takahashi breathed a sigh of relief as he called on Fukuda.

“Yes, Fukuda-san? Do you have something to say?”

“I think simply deciding that I'll be the lead is a bit presumptuous on your part.”

“You're betraying me, Fukuda-san?!”

Sure, it's not like they discussed that she would be the main lead, but if she wasn't, then there would be no point to the whole thing! She wasn't getting cold feet because of the other students' negativity, was she?

“I would like to suggest something.”

“Huh?” Takahashi was concerned. “What are you going to suggest?”

“Takahashi-sensei, you wanted me to be the lead role because of my acting skills, correct?”

“Yes.”

“But no one other than you and Izumi-kun has really seen me act. If that's the case, why don't we settle it with a little acting contest?”

“An acting contest?”

“Anyone who wants to be the female lead can perform a small scene. Doesn't matter what. The students will vote for who they think performed the best, and the winner will receive the role. Is that fine?”

“Alright,” Yada replied. “That seems fair to me, right Sensei?”

“I guess it's out of my hands,” Takahashi murmured. “But are you going to do that for every role?”

“No, that's way too much trouble,” Yada said as she waved dismissively. “We'll just vote.”

“Alright then. We'll hold the acting contest tomorrow then, so everyone can be prepared. For now, let's at least decide on the male roles.”

The class quickly settled on the male roles with a fairly painless voting process. After that, Takahashi divided anyone who didn't want to act into those in charge of making the set and those working as backstage crew. Some of the students complained, but Takahashi stayed firm in his decisions. Eventually the bell rang, and Takahashi concluded homeroom for the day.

As the students left, Takahashi saw Fukuda leaving by herself. He waited a moment for the rest of his students to leave, then followed after her. He caught her at the shoe lockers, and casually pulled her to the side to speak.

“Are you gonna be okay?” Takahashi asked in a low voice. “The whole point was for you to experience acting on the big stage, right? That'll be hard without the leading role!”

Fukuda sighed. “You're being a bit too pushy, Takahashi-sensei.” She thrust out her right arm towards Takahashi's face and held up a finger.

“First of all, you coming up and asking to speak with me secretly is only going to make people think you really are favoring me.”

“Ack!” He couldn't really say anything to that.

Fukuda held up another finger. “Secondly, don't forget that this school play is for the whole class. Didn't you say you wanted everyone to be able to enjoy the festival? Will they really be able to do that if you enforce your own decisions on them?”

That rang a little hollow. After all, the students didn't even care about the festival until about a week ago. Still, he understood what Fukuda was getting at.

“Then what? Are you really going to do this acting contest?” Takahashi asked. “It'll probably be easier for you to get the role over a vote, but...”

“You're the one who said I was a talented actor,” Fukuda replied with a pout. “Now you're worried that I might lose to people who aren't even in the drama club?”

“Not at all! But it is Yada-san. She's a popular girl with lots of friends. She might get her friends to vote for her even if her acting's not up to snuff.”

“Yada-san isn't some kind of queen bee, Sensei. Yeah, she's popular and she doesn't match the image of a diligent student, but she's a pretty nice girl. She won't stoop to tricks like that. If she loses fairly, I'm sure she'll accept the judgment.”

This was a surprise to Takahashi. He didn't realize that Fukuda had such a good understanding of Yada. In addition, he was surprised her opinion of Yada was so high. After all, his opinion of her was that she was a flighty person that shirked her responsibilities constantly.

“In any case, shouldn't you be happy about this?”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, now the class is all pumped up about the play, right? When I was walking out, all anyone could talk about was the acting contest.”

Takahashi realized that she was right. The acting contest may not have been what he had planned, but in the end, the students were pretty jazzed up about it. Maybe he needed to take a step back. He had been so used to his students being so devil-may-care about everything that when they finally decided to take the initiative on something, he became overbearing.

“Alright,” Takahashi declared, putting his hands up. “I'll leave things to you then.”

“You will?”

“Well, there's not much I can do anyway, right? You'll have to blow them away with your acting skills.”

“I do?”

“Of course you do! You're not going to use this as an excuse for not doing the play, right?”

“I'm just kidding, Sensei. Don't worry. I'll give it my best, just you watch.”

Fukuda walked off. Takahashi was surprised by her growth. He had always thought of her as a rather shy and reserved girl, but as it turned out, that was anything but the case. He was still uneasy about the contest, but in the end, the only thing he could do was trust in the acting skills that wowed him in the first place.

*****

Takahashi laid down in his bed as he stared at the ceiling of his apartment room. He had been home for a couple hours now, but he had nothing in particular to do. As he idly scrolled through the internet on his phone, his mind ended up wandering towards the acting contest. However, he tried not to dwell on it too much.

He got up from his bed and got dressed again. A walk out on the streets might do him some good. As he put on his jacket, however, he got a phone call. He took a look at the screen and grimaced.

“Hey, little brother! How's teaching life treating you?”

“Akane-neesan. What do you want?”

“Eh, how rude. I'm giving you a call after having not seen you in so long, and this is how you treat me?”

“We live in the same city,” Takahashi sighed. “And I just saw you last week.”

“In any case, I need a favor from you.”

“I knew it.”

“Shut up! Anyway, I have to work overtime today. It got sprung on me all of a sudden, so I need you to pick up Momiji, okay?”

“Momiji-chan? Is she at school?”

“Yeah. She's doing some kind of special after-school activity meant to encourage creativity in kids or something like that. I think they said it was some kind of acting class.”

“Acting class?” Fukuda popped into his mind again.

“Well, I say it like that, but it's nothing so professional. Just a bunch of elementary school kids acting out scenes from anime and stuff like that. It's an elaborate form of daycare, in a way.”

Takahashi sighed. “Alright, I'll pick her up. What's the address?”

Takahashi hung up the phone and left his apartment building. The school was pretty close to his place, so he only needed to walk there. After a short twenty-minute walk through the neighborhood, Takahashi soon arrived at his niece's elementary school.

Looking around at the courtyard, Takahashi could see other parents standing around waiting for their children to come out. However, he couldn't catch sight of his niece anywhere. As he tried to enter the school, a teacher patrolling the outside walked up to him.

“Um, excuse me, but can I help you?”

“Sorry. I came here to pick up my niece in place of my sister. I heard she was taking part in an after school program or something?”

“I see. They'll be out soon, so if you could wait for a moment...”

As he said this, a small group of children was let out of the school's main doors, followed by a couple of chaperones. Takahashi glanced at the group looking for his niece when he recognized someone else instead. It was Fukuda, walking with the younger kids to the gate. As she neared the crowd of waiting parents, Fukuda caught sight of Takahashi and a complicated expression appeared on her face.

“Takahashi-sensei. You didn't follow me here, did you?”

“What? No! I came here by complete coincidence to pick up my niece!”

“Niece? Are you telling the truth?” Fukuda eyed him suspiciously.

As if to rescue him from the situation, a young girl only six or seven years of age emerged from the crowd of children and leapt into Takahashi's arms.

“Uncle!” The little girl called out with a smile.

“Hey, Momiji-chan,” Takahashi called out with a laugh. “Your mom told me to come pick you up.”

“Yay! Are you going to stay over today?”

“Uh, I don't know about that...”

“So Momiji-chan is your niece?” Fukuda asked. “I suppose I see a slight resemblance.”

“Is that a dig? In any case, I didn't know you helped out at an elementary school like this.”

“It was only recently that I decided to start, and only for two days a week. I thought it would help me sharpen up my acting skills.”

“Is that so?”

“Shizuku-neechan is so good at acting!” Momiji said as she jumped up and down. “Every time she plays a role, everybody stops to watch her!”

“Stop that, Momiji-chan.” Fukuda scolded her, but Takahashi could tell that she was just embarrassed.

Fukuda cleared her throat as if to change the subject. “In any case, you can go home now if your business is concluded.”

“Are you sure? I could walk you home too, you know.”

“No thanks. I still have to talk the teachers about something anyway.”

“All right.” Takahashi put Momiji down and took hold of her hand. “I'll see you tomorrow, then.”

Fukuda waved the both of them good-bye as they walked away. Takahashi took another glance at her while walking down the street hand-in-hand with Momiji.

“Do you know Shizuku-neechan, Uncle?”

“She's one of my students at the school I teach.”

“Really? Wow!”

“Can you tell me something, Momiji-chan?” Takahashi asked.

“What is it?”

“Fuku... I mean, Shizuku-neechan, how long has she been volunteering here?”

“Um... I think a couple days, maybe?”

“And she teaches you how to act?”

“Kind of. Most of the time, we act the story out, and then the teachers show us how we can do better.”

“And that's what Shizuku-neechan does?”

“Yeah.”

The two of them continued walking in silence. Takahashi wondered why Fukuda would start volunteering here all of a sudden. She said she wanted to bone up on her acting, but did helping kids learn how to act really do that for her?

Takahashi shook his head. That wasn't the point. The whole point of this whole endeavor was for Fukuda to see a future in acting, or to at least allow herself to enjoy acting, even if it was as a hobby. If this was a sign of Fukuda being more open to the idea, then even if she wasn't necessarily acting herself, then that was more than enough. The only thing that mattered now was the acting contest tomorrow.

*****

The first thing Takahashi realized was just how poorly the acting contest was designed.

In the first place, Yada and Fukuda had only established the basic rules of the contest. They hadn't put limits on the number of entrants, and as a result, over half of the female students in class decided to put themselves forward as the female lead. He was sure that most of the students had assumed that the contest was only supposed to be between Yada and Fukuda (as had he), but it looked like that was not going to be the case.

The second mistake was not standardizing a single scene for everyone to use. This meant that everyone who came to compete showed up with their own piece to perform, each one differing in length and tone. Not only did this mean that the scenes were wildly different, but it also made the performances pretty hard to rate, especially for amateur critics. Sure, there were a couple entrants that were very obviously bad, but the more average performances were a little harder to separate.

Even worse, not everyone picked a monologue. Some of the contestants picked roles and scenes that actually required multiple people to perform, which was obviously going to be difficult with only one actor. Some girls tried to overcome that by performing both sides of the play, but that only made things harder to rate.

Takahashi squinted his eyes in frustration. Even if he wasn't hoping desperately for Fukuda to win, he still would have had a hard time accepting the haphazard way this contest was being held. Even the students were uncertain about who exactly was winning at any specific point in time, which he knew was only going to complicate things even more.

Whether it was by design or by mere coincidence, Yada and Fukuda were the last two contestants. Yada went first, and she had gone the extra mile and dressed up in a costume for her scene. She was dressed head to toe in a witch's outfit, and according to her entry, she was performing as the Wicked Witch in The Wizard of Oz.

“What a weird pick,” Izumi grunted.

“What do you mean?” Takahashi asked curiously.

“I mean, they're competing for the role of the princess, right? Shouldn't Yada be playing Dorothy?”

“Does that matter?” Takahashi replied. “None of the other girls picked a princess role for their piece either.”

Izumi seemed unconvinced, but there was no time for him to argue, as Yada was about to begin her performance. She walked up to the front of the class with a sashay and spun around to face the students.

Up until now, most of the contestants' performances were pretty bad. Takahashi was pretty certain that Fukuda's performance would blow them out of the water even without giving her all. But Yada was completely different. Okay, she was an amateur and it was obvious. Her performance was awfully flashy and her delivery was hilariously melodramatic.

Nevertheless, the students seemed enthralled by her performance. It made sense; most of the performances were pretty unremarkable in comparison. However, while Yada's performance may not have been technically strong, she was still very emotive and expressive, and the other students couldn't help but get caught up in her sway. Her performance was pretty short, but by the end, all of the students were roaring in applause. As Yada reveled in the applause, Takahashi came up to Fukuda, who was quietly waiting her turn.

“Well? From your perspective, how do you think her acting is?”

“She's better than you, that's for sure.”

“Har har. Come on, I'm serious here.”

Fukuda sighed. “She's definitely an amateur, but for an amateur she's not bad at all. She's definitely got the kind of charisma that draws people's attention, even if she doesn't have the technical ability of a trained actor.”

“That's a pretty detailed analysis. I can't deny that she's got the class on her side.”

“Definitely. I'm sure she would make a fine Princess Altera.”

“Hey now. I hope you aren't thinking of giving up,” Takahashi said cautiously.

“Don't worry,” Fukuda said as she removed her glasses. “I won't give up the lead role after you've worked so hard to make this play happen in the first place.”

Once the applause had died down and Yada sat back at her seat, Fukuda walked up to the front of the class. Unlike Yada, Fukuda had not prepared a costume for her performance. Instead, she walked up to the front of the class wearing the same school uniform that she always wore. However, she had brushed her hair to better keep her bangs out of her face, which she'd done up with minimal makeup. Apparently she'd looked some tutorials up on the internet.

As Fukuda stood and prepared to perform her role, Takahashi took a look to see what she was planning to perform.

“The Golden Princess?” he read out, not recognizing the title. “What's that?”

“You don't know The Golden Princess, Sensei?” Izumi remarked. “It's an old shojo anime from the 80s about a princess named Sheila who is chased out of her country and must raise an army to take back her home.”

“Is that so? That's pretty close to what the role of Princess Altera asks for, isn't it?”

“You could put it that way, I suppose. I don't really think that anyone else here would know about such an old series, though.”

That was an understatement. Even Takahashi, who was a good ten or so years older than his students, was too young to have seen The Golden Princess when it was airing. Considering Izumi's reaction, it seemed to have been fairly notable, but he doubted that anyone in his class would recognize it.

That might end up working to her disadvantage. Most of the students had picked pretty recognizable characters for their entry, often characters from well-known fairy tales or Japanese folk stories. That gave the audience a good idea of what the character was supposed to be like, and how the scenes were meant to go. That meant that as long as you could perform along what the audience expected of you, then you could generally give a passing performance. If you gave a performance that surpassed what most people would expect, then that would look even better.

Fukuda, however, was performing a scene from an anime nobody in this class was likely to have seen. Not only would there be no comparison point for people to refer to, nobody was going to have any idea how this role is supposed to be performed. She was going to have to wow them with the sheer force of her acting, which meant she was basically entering the contest on hard mode.

“Why did she pick such an obscure character and scene to perform?” Takahashi wondered aloud. “Even if she wanted to pick a role that was close to Princess Altera, shouldn't there be plenty of well-known princess roles that matched the description?”

“Well, that's not all, I think,” Izumi chimed in. “I mean, Fukuda hasn't seen the script yet, right? That means she couldn't have picked a character that would perfectly match Altera's characteristics.”

“Then why did she pick The Golden Princess?”

“I'm not Fukuda, so I can't tell you.”

Takahashi turned his attention back to Fukuda, who was about to start her scene.

“This is a scene from The Golden Princess, specifically the 39th episode. Princess Sheila is about to address the coalition army she has spent the entire series working to create as their commander-in-chief. She must make a speech that will rouse the forces to fight to liberate her home from the Dark Kingdom Gavalant.”

Another problem that existed because of the lack of thought put into the acting contest. Most of the time, it didn't matter because the other contestants picked famous scenes from well-known stories. But since Fukuda picked an old anime series from the 80s, she needed to provide context for the upcoming scene on her own. That made things even harder, because even with that provided, it's not as if the audience would immediately understand the atmosphere the scene demanded without seeing it. Takahashi could already see confusion spread amongst the other students.

“The Golden Princess? What's that?”

“I've never heard a story like that before.”

“What is it? Is it a European story or something?”

Takahashi winced. Fukuda was facing an uphill climb, and most of it was by her own design. Despite having faith in her acting abilities, he wished that she'd picked a more recognizable story like Cinderella.

Fukuda, for her part, seemed not to lack any confidence in her decision. She took a deep breath to signal the beginning of her performance.

In almost an instant, the atmosphere of the entire room had changed. Fukuda's voice rang out clearly as she performed the scene before the entire class. To Takahashi, Fukuda looked as if she was there on that hill, giving that speech to a massive army below her.

Having watched a sequence of middling to mediocre performances all in a row, Takahashi had subconsciously developed some sense of critical analysis when it came to acting. The performances he had seen beforehand were stiff and lacked an emphatic feeling that would be expected from the situation. Even Yada, who'd had the best performance so far, could not express herself on the level that Fukuda was doing right now.

The scene was short. Fukuda couldn't have spoken more than ten lines. Yet when she finished her performance, the crowd of students immediately interrupted into a round of applause. It was as if everyone had forgotten that her being given the lead role without a vote was the reason why they were having this contest in the first place. Even Fukuda seemed overwhelmed by the amount of applause that she was getting.

Once the students had calmed down, Takahashi walked up to the front of the classroom and addressed the entire class. “Okay, judging from that reaction, I assume that nobody has any problems with Fukuda taking the lead role?”

Nobody seemed to have any objections. Yada, who was the most vocal when it came to speaking out against Fukuda's automatic nomination earlier, sat in her seat with her arms crossed and a small pout on her face. She seemed annoyed, but even she understood that Fukuda's talents were the real deal.

“Well, now that that's settled, why don't we decide on the other female roles? We'll probably settle things with a vote, since we don't have that much time left.”

To his surprise, Fukuda raised her hand.

“What is it, Fukuda-san?”

“I'd like to make a suggestion,” Fukuda explained. “I think Yada-san should play the evil sorceress Zaleera.”

“Huh?” Yada piped up with an annoyed look on her face. “Why's that?”

“Your performance as the Wicked Witch was very impressive,” Fukuda answered. “I think you would do very well in the role of the evil sorceress.”

Another student chimed in from the back. “I honestly thought the same thing. I really liked Yada-san's performance as the Wicked Witch.”

“Me too. I thought she would be a great villain.”

As the students' praise continued to build up, Yada's reaction changed from annoyance to slight embarrassment. “Well, if everyone thinks I pull it off, then I don't see why not...”

Takahashi took the opportunity to write Yada's name in for the evil sorceress's role. “Very well. Let's take a vote on the rest of the roles!”

The remainder of the roles were soon settled, and leftover students without a role in the play were added to the setpiece and backstage teams. With the roles now fully set, Takahashi finally dismissed class for the day.

As he laid back in his chair and let out a tired sigh, Fukuda walked up to him and gave him a quick salute. “Good work today.”

“You really like giving me a heart attack, don't you? Well, I suppose things worked out in the end, so who cares?”

“You're the one who pushed me into this, you know. Are you saying you don't have any faith in my acting?”

“That's not what I meant,” Takahashi grumbled. “Hey, can I ask you a question?”

“What is it?”

“Why did you pick The Golden Princess? Was there a specific reason for that?”

“Why do you want to know?”

“I'm just curious, is all,” Takahashi scratched his head awkwardly. “You know, everyone else was doing Snow White and more familiar stories. With your acting skill, I'm sure you could have gotten the same kind of reaction even if you performed the most overdone story in the book.”

“I wonder about that.”

“Hm?”

“The reason I picked that scene from The Golden Princess is because it was what made me want to act,” Fukuda explained with a small smile. “I probably couldn't have performed so well if it was another story.”

“I see,” Takahashi remarked. He was surprised to hear such a personal reason behind the decision. “You're probably right.”

“Well, you got what you wanted. I'll be performing the lead in the play for the school festival. Make sure you don't forget to print out the scripts for everyone tomorrow.”

“I won't forget! You better make sure to practice your role perfectly so you can wow the whole school with your acting skills!”

Fukuda gave him a small smile and left the classroom. Takahashi let out a sigh and leaned back in his chair. It took a lot of work, but his class was finally on the starting line. There were three more weeks until the school festival began. He hoped he could make this work.