Inou-Battle wa Nichijou-kei no Naka de - Volume 8 - Chapter 5

Scene 5. Taming of the Crew

Before I knew it, we had less than a month left before the cultural festival. A skit that wouldn’t even last twenty minutes might not sound like much to prepare for, but we were total amateurs when it came to theater, and if we wanted to put together a performance that was actually worth putting on in front of an audience, we had our work cut out for us. It wouldn’t be much of an exaggeration to say that we had literally no time to waste.

Ever since the day we assigned our roles in the play, we’d been working at a fever pitch to get all of our preparations finished. Our cast list, incidentally, ended up looking like this:

Romeo — Andou Jurai

Juliet — Himeki Chifuyu

Laurence (a friar who helps bring Romeo and Juliet together) — Kanzaki Tomoyo

Rosaline (the girl Romeo’s crushing on at the start of the play) — Kushikawa Hatoko

Narration, direction, and general management — Takanashi Sayumi

It, uh...sorta felt like we’d ended up shoving all of the troublesome responsibilities off on Sayumi, and I felt pretty bad about that, but there was just no way we could’ve gotten the play ready in time without taking advantage of her hypercompetence.

There were plenty of other backstage tasks that needed handling as well, of course—writing the script, building a stage, making props and costumes, and on and on—all of which we’d have to get done on our own. That, plus the fact that we all had to contribute to our classes’ projects as well, meant that we of the literary club found ourselves in an exhaustingly busy period the likes of which we’d never seen. Each day was more hectic than the last, and it felt like I had so much work to do it might just kill me...but at the same time, I found myself having a blast.

Anyway, here’s a short-form list of some of the events that occurred over the course of our preparation period!

Event 1: Completing the Script

After some discussion, we decided that Tomoyo would write the script single-handedly. It was a pretty big responsibility to leave to just one person, but scriptwriting’s one of those things where you’re better off having as few people do the work as possible. Too many cooks in the kitchen and all that—adding more people in just didn’t make the process any more efficient. The process we settled on was to have Tomoyo, who had volunteered to take on the job, write the first draft, after which we could all get together and tweak it as needed.

“S-So, what do you think?” Tomoyo said, fidgeting restlessly as we paged through the finished script. “Don’t hold back, okay? If there’s anything you don’t like, just come out and say it!”

“Honestly... I think it’s great,” I said after I finished my read-through.

Tomoyo’s face lit up in a flash. “R-Really?!”

“Yeah. You put it all together really nicely, in my book. The cuts you made make total sense, it’s paced well, and you got all the important scenes in too. I’d say you struck a really good balance with it. Right, Sayumi?”

“Yes, I would say so,” Sayumi agreed. “You’ve done a very good job of compensating for our lack of actors, in particular. We won’t be able to feature a number of characters from the original play, but I see you took care to reassign their lines to other characters or make up for their absence using narration. I believe it will be very easy for our audience to follow the story using this script.”

“Yeah. You’re amazing, Tomoyo,” said Chifuyu. Even our main heroine was satisfied with Tomoyo’s work. “You put in the smooch and the happy ending too,” she added.

We had indeed decided to go with Chifuyu’s suggestion for the play’s final twist. Juliet would awaken Romeo with a kiss, and that miracle would move their families so profoundly they’d put an end to their age-old conflict. And so, Romeo and Juliet would live happily ever after. It was a little contrived, sure, but it was the happy ending that Chifuyu had wanted.

Tomoyo sighed with relief. “Oh, good,” she said, looking both reassured and overjoyed that we’d appreciated her work.

“Yeah, I’d say the script’s great overall,” I said. “But, well...”

“Yes, that,” said Sayumi. We glanced at each other, unsure of how to broach the subject.

“Huh...? Wh-What?” said Tomoyo. “Is something wrong with it?”

“Nah, I wouldn’t say it’s wrong, but... It’s about this part.”

I pointed out a portion of the script—specifically, Romeo and Tybalt’s fight scene. Tybalt is one of the Capulets, Juliet’s cousin. He ends up killing Romeo’s best friend, Mercutio, and Romeo kills him in turn to take revenge, resulting in his exile.

In a split second, Romeo dashes across the cobblestone street. He flies through the battlefield with the force and grace of a raging gale, leaving a flash of light in his wake. He draws the sword at his waist and slashes faster than the eye can follow, striking toward the head of his best friend’s killer, Tybalt.

In a split second, Tybalt raises his own sword and intercepts Romeo’s strike. A sharp clash rings out and a shower of sparks flies as, in a split second that feels like an eternity, their blades lock together. The two men bring all their might, all their heroic strength, to bear, and their swords creak ominously under the pressure...until, in a split second, Tybalt shifts his guard and sends Romeo’s blade flashing past him.

As Romeo stumbles, Tybalt thrusts toward his foe with an elegant flourish, hoping to deal the killing blow...but in a split second, Romeo manifests a superhuman burst of strength and leaps upward, evading the attack with an aerial dodge. He spins in the air at an incredible speed, using the centrifugal force he builds up to whip his sword forward as he descends in a slash powerful enough to topple any foe.

Romeo’s sword plunges toward Tybalt’s neck like the plummeting blade of a guillotine, but in a split second—

“Splitting an awful lot of seconds, aren’t we?” I commented.

Tomoyo stared blankly at me. “Huh? W-Wait, really? I didn’t use it that much, did I?”

“You totally did. There’s literally at least one split second in every paragraph.”

“Hey, Juu,” said Hatoko, “what’s the big deal about the phrase ‘split second,’ anyway?”

If I had to explain what made the split second so special, I’d probably start by struggling with some philosophical explanation—like how you could relate the concept to the kshana, that being what Buddhist philosophy identifies as the smallest possible measurement of time—but really, none of that would get to the core of the matter. There was just something about the phrase that tickled my chuuni soul like nothing else—there was no real way to explain what gave it such depths of chuuni power, but it was a thing, and it was a cool thing. Split seconds: hella cool.

“I mean, I guess in a literal sense, it’s no different from ‘in an instant’ or ‘right away’ or whatever,” I admitted.

In novels—particularly light novels in the supernatural battle genre—I’d observed a tendency for authors to use the “split second” phrasing when they wanted something a little cooler than your boilerplate “right away.” And it worked, in my book! It really did sound super cool, and I could understand the impulse to put it in as often as possible...but Tomoyo’s script just used it so often, you’d think there’d been a blowout clearance sale on split seconds while she was putting her lexicon together.

“The overuse of ‘split second’ caught my attention as well, yes...but what I intended to point out was that the whole description of the battle is excessively dense and detailed,” Sayumi sighed. Tomoyo immediately broke eye contact. “The rest of the script is written in a clear and concise style, as one would expect from stage directions, but the prose of the battle sequence alone is almost stunningly purple.”

“O-Okay, so I might’ve gotten in a groove when I wrote that part and got a bit carried away,” Tomoyo stammered.

“And moreover, the phrasing you used—Romeo ‘flies’ across the street, blades flash, sparks fly—is straight out of a battle manga.”

“Y-Yeah, see, a bit carried away...”

“I seriously doubt that Andou would be capable of pulling any of these superhuman stunts off,” Sayumi concluded.

“Now, wait just a minute—I can’t let that one slide, Sayumi!” I cut in. “People had already started calling me a master swordsman when I was barely a toddler! You can’t seriously think that moves like those would be any trouble for—”

“Oh, so you can do them? How impressive. In that case, I’m sure you wouldn’t mind sparring with me for a—”

“Never mind. I was wrong, and I’m sorry. Please, anything but that!”

“...Surely bowing down to me is going just a little further than necessary?”

In the end, the whole ten-page-long epic battle sequence that Tomoyo had written in a fit of inspiration was replaced with a couple sentences’ worth of narration.

Event 2: Learning How to Act (Prelude)

I had thought that the first step in learning how to play our roles would be to read from the script...but it turned out I was totally wrong and we’d be starting with vocal exercises instead. Being our manager, Sayumi stepped up to lead our acting drills, and I was surprised to find just how authentic the lessons she taught us were.

“Daaang,” I muttered under my breath as I looked out across the seating in front of me. We were in a massive theater, big enough to rival Japan’s largest concert stadiums, and as I stepped up onto the stage, I couldn’t help but let out a gasp of astonishment. “Good thing we have World Create on our side. No way we’d be able to practice in a place like this otherwise!”

The theater was hundreds of times larger than the music room we’d be staging our actual performance in. It almost felt like a waste to use so grand a venue for vocal training, but at the very least, I was going to practice for all I was worth while we were there.

“All right, everyone, let’s begin,” said Sayumi. She had us line up in a row, facing the nonexistent audience, and speak up as loudly as we could. We started simply, just humming “Aaah” in a constant drone, then moved on to a drill in which we enunciated basic vowel sounds in sequence as clearly as we could possibly manage. Sayumi then gave each of us advice and guidance—and she judged me particularly harshly on account of my playing the leading role.

“Once more, Andou,” said Sayumi.

“Ah, ee, oo, eh, oh, ah, oh!”

“Once more, please. This time, try to focus on projecting your voice, and speak from your core, not your throat. Try to focus on...let’s see...a member of the audience in the second-floor seats, all the way in the back. Focus on that seat, and speak in a manner that its occupant will be able to hear.”

“Ah! Ee! Oo! Eh! Oh! Ah! Oh!”

“You’re still speaking from the throat, I’m afraid.”

“What, seriously...? I don’t even get what that means,” I sighed. I’d run smack-dab into a wall that I hadn’t even considered could be an issue, and it was doing some real damage to my motivation.

I’d never understood the whole “speak from your core” thing. My music teacher had said it over and over back when we were practicing singing in a choir in middle school, but the sensation had just never clicked with me. How does speaking from your core even make sense? I don’t have a mouth in my midsection! I’m not Bemstar, for crying out loud!

“Well, this clearly isn’t working. How can I help you understand...?” Sayumi muttered. For a moment she seemed to be at a loss, but then her face lit up and she clapped her hands. “Andou? Would you please recite your Malediction for me, in as emphatic of a tone as you can manage?”

“I am he who conquers chaos!”

“Like that!”

“Now I get it!”

And so, an unexpected wall was broken down with unexpected ease, and I never had any trouble speaking from my core ever again.

Event 3: Making Props and Setting the Stage

On account of our critical lack of personnel, we had to not only act in the play itself, but we also needed to handle all of the backstage work on our own. Worse still, we were the literary club, meaning that we didn’t have a stock of premade props passed down from previous generations or anything like that. If we wanted any props or any sort of set dressings, we were going to have to make all of them ourselves.

We did have one trick up our sleeves, of course: World Create. Chifuyu’s ability could let her create a pro-level set with ease—no, it could let her make something even better than what professionals had to work with. That being said, we’d rejected that plan without even really needing to discuss it. After all, using her power to do all the work for us would’ve rendered the whole exercise pointless. It just wouldn’t have been the same if we didn’t do it from scratch. I mean, if we wanted to make the process as easy on ourselves as possible, we could’ve just not put on a play in the first place, right? We’d resolved to use the powers we’d awakened to for the sole purpose of having fun, so if using our powers would take the fun out of an exercise, it went without saying that we’d have to shelve them instead.

“I mean, okay... I’ve got a feeling we’ve used our powers to take the challenge out of stuff a few times here and there, but context matters,” I mumbled to myself as I worked on the blueprint for the balcony set we’d be building. It was super sloppy, as far as blueprints went, but I figured it’d be better than not having any sort of plan at all.

The balcony would be used in the scene where Romeo, having fallen in love with Juliet at first sight, seeks her out for a reunion in the Capulets’ courtyard. That, of course, was the incredibly famous “Romeo, Romeo, wherefore art thou Romeo?” scene, and we wanted to make sure that the audience wouldn’t have to use their imaginations to fill in the details for it. No, we wanted a proper set that could actually allow Juliet to be standing above me. I was in charge of all the big set design stuff, so it was up to me to figure out how we’d actually pull it off.

“Maybe we could stack up some desks or chairs or whatever and cover them up with cardboard...? Can’t make it too high, though, that’d be dangerous. Maybe this would be okay...? All right!” I said as I wrapped up my blueprint then got up to show it to everyone. “Hey, Tomo—” I began, but halfway through saying her name, I noticed that Tomoyo was staring at her laptop with an intense look of concentration on her face, so I decided not to disturb her after all.

One of Tomoyo’s responsibilities for the festival was editing our literary magazine. Our main event was the play, of course, but we would only be able to perform it maybe three or four times a day. People would likely end up dropping in on us in between performances, so we’d decided to put together a display in the music room as well.

The display would feature copies of the magazines that previous generations of the literary club had left behind for us, as well as an all-new magazine that we’d make ourselves. That new issue’s contents: the script for our version of Romeo and Juliet, in full. Since Tomoyo had written said script, it had naturally fallen to her to handle editing it for print.

“Hmm... Maybe I really should cut back on the ‘split seconds’...? But then again, it gives such a good sense of speed that I really wanna preserve... Ugh, this is impossible!” Tomoyo muttered to herself.

Wow... What an unbelievably pointless thing to rack your mind over. You could’ve just omitted that whole fight scene, you know? And, like, do you even need a “sense of speed” in a script’s stage directions?

Anyway, Tomoyo wasn’t exactly in an approachable frame of mind, so instead I headed over to Hatoko and Sayumi, who were responsible for our costumes and props. We’d borrowed everything that we could possibly get away with from the drama club, but unfortunately, none of their spare costumes were the right size for the two leading roles, Romeo and Juliet. Chifuyu was too little, needless to say, and the only costume that would’ve worked for my role was too big. Costumes for male roles in plays, it seemed, were generally made under the assumption that the actor wearing them would be tall.

We couldn’t exactly go hemming a costume that belonged to another club, so in the end, we decided to just make those two costumes from scratch. At the moment, Hatoko and Sayumi were hard at work putting together Romeo’s outfit, hand sewing the shirt’s golden buttons and big, exaggerated collar.

“Oh, wooow! I had a feeling you’d be good at this, Sayumi,” Hatoko cooed.

“Your work is very impressive as well,” Sayumi replied.

“All right, then, let’s make it a contest! I’ll show you how well I can really sew!”

“He he he! All right, then. If it’s a contest you want, it’s a contest you’ll get.”

Silent sparks flew between the pair of expert seamstresses. Driven by what I could only assume was some sort of competitive rivalry, the two of them put the costume together at an incredible pace.

Maaan. Yeah, it’d be pretty tough to strike up a conversation with those two too. Maybe I should just get to work making the balcony on my own? I thought, but no sooner had the idea crossed my mind than Chifuyu plodded over to me. Her job, incidentally, was...well, whatever we could find to ask her for, basically. She’d help us out with our tasks on occasion, and she’d serve as our soothing mascot character the rest of the time. Not the most glamorous role, but somebody had to do it.

“Hatoko, Sayumi, you’re amazing,” Chifuyu said as she watched them work.

“I know, right?” I agreed. “Have you ever done any sewing, Chifuyu? Did they teach a class on it in school or anything?”

“I made a dishcloth in home ec class a little while ago.”

“A dishcloth, huh? How’d that turn out?”

“Cookie said that needles are too dangerous, so she made mine for me.”

“Well, somebody’s overprotective!”

Chifuyu didn’t really react to my outburst, and she just kept watching Hatoko and Sayumi work. “They’re trying really hard,” she muttered under her breath. “...Trying really hard to show off their housewifeyness.”

Suddenly, Hatoko and Sayumi—who had been sewing at such a fever pitch you’d think they were racing against time to reattach a patient’s severed arm—stopped dead in their tracks.

“I don’t think this is really about housewifeyness this time, Chifuyu,” I said. “They’re just working hard because they want the costumes for the play to turn out well, that’s all!”

“Is it?”

“Yeah, probably.”

“I thought they were working hard because they were making your clothes.”

A pair of shrieks rang out as two members of our club just about jumped out of their skins, jabbing themselves with their needles in the process.

Event 4: Learning How to Act (Laurence)

For better or for worse, Friar Laurence was a character whom you couldn’t get away with leaving out of the story of Romeo and Juliet. He was, after all, the character who secretly married the two of them the day after they fell in love at first sight. Laurence acts in the hopes that the marriage will help the Montague and Capulet families finally make peace, which makes him look like a pretty swell guy and all...but he’s also the character who comes up with the whole “feeding Juliet fake poison” plan.

“So, from a certain viewpoint, it’s all his fault that Romeo and Juliet end up dead,” I said.

“Okay, but only in hindsight, right? It’s not like he was trying to get anyone killed,” Tomoyo countered.

As the cultural festival drew closer, all of us became more and more occupied with our work for our classes’ projects and less capable of getting together as a full group. On that particular day, Tomoyo and I were the only ones in the club room.

“I mean, I know it wasn’t malicious on his part or anything, but, like...that’s exactly what makes it so sad, isn’t it? He thought he was doing what was best for Romeo and Juliet, but it ended up backfiring so badly that it got them killed instead.” I paused for a moment and sighed. “Honestly, I empathize with the guy way more than I do with the actual romance-for-brains protagonists.”

“Well, start empathizing with Romeo already! You’re playing him, remember? I’ve got empathizing with Laurence under control,” said Tomoyo as she spread her arms, showing off the nun’s habit she was wearing. That was one of the costumes we’d borrowed from the drama club, which explained why it looked pretty darn authentic.

“How’s it fit, by the way?” I asked.

“Just fine. Pretty much perfectly, actually,” said Tomoyo.

“Well, that’s good. I think changing Laurence from a friar to a nun was the right call for sure. Even if we’d found a friar’s outfit, I’m positive it would’ve been too big for you.”

“Not to mention that I’d rather not cross-dress in the first place,” Tomoyo said with a sigh, then she went back to inspecting her nun costume.

We had indeed decided to make Laurence into a nun instead of a friar, on account of our cast’s skewed gender ratio. I guess that would make him Sister Laurence, really?

“Anyway, I’m kinda surprised you’re so okay with this,” I said.

“Huh? With what?” asked Tomoyo.

“I mean, this whole costume thing’s kinda like cosplaying, right? I figured you’d be super embarrassed about it. I mean, remember when you ended up wearing that bikini armor, and—”

“A nun’s habit and bikini armor are totally different! Also, never bring that up again!” Tomoyo shouted as her face flushed red. She paused to take a deep breath. “Wearing a habit’s not an issue for me. It’s not like it’s super revealing or anything.”

“Yeah, I mean, that was probably the whole goal of their design, right? Forget showing skin—they don’t even show hair!” I said while I gave Tomoyo’s outfit another look over. She was wearing the full set: a veil on her head, a crucifix necklace, and a dress that totally covered her from the neck down.

“Wh-What?” said Tomoyo. “Q-Quit staring at me like that...”

“Oh, sorry. Wasn’t even thinking. Guess you kinda took my breath away,” I admitted.

“H-Huuuh?!” Tomoyo gasped as the flush returned to her cheeks with a vengeance. “Wh-What the hell are you talking about?! You— I mean— Huh? D-Don’t tell me you, like...have a thing for nuns, or something?!”

“Well, yeah, I guess. I’m pretty into them, gotta admit.”

Tomoyo let out another choking gasp. “O-Okay, wow. Yeah, that one’s pretty out there... Umm, well... I-If, I mean... If you’re th-that into it, then I guess...I don’t mind if you look a little more,” she muttered so quietly I wouldn’t have been able to make out most of it even if I had been paying attention, fidgeting restlessly all the while. The fact of the matter, though, is that I wasn’t listening at all.

Yeah, habits really are awesome. After all... “They’re so loose and flowy, you could totally hide all sorts of weapons under them! Seriously, they’re just the best!”

“...”

“I mean, talk about cool, right? Who even knows how many implements of war you could have in there! I mean, it’s a total classic, right? If a priest or a nun shows up, then there just has to be a bit where they pull out a gun or a sword or whatever from under their robes! What could possibly be cooler than someone who’s pledged themself to God secretly being a master of the killing arts on the side?!”

“...”

“Common sense to assume stuff hidden under loose clothes!”

“...”

“H-Hey, uh...Tomoyo? Isn’t this supposed to be the part where you tell me to get real? Did the Feitan quote go over your head, or something?”

“Would you please just shut up, you dumbass?!”

I had no clue why Tomoyo snapped so violently, but in any case, she took her costume off, and that was the end of that.

Event 5: Learning How to Act (Juliet)

If I’m going to be completely honest, I had plenty of doubts regarding Chifuyu playing a leading role. Would she be able to memorize her lines? Would she be able to, y’know, act? Would one of her whims kick in and make her decide that she didn’t actually want the part after all? I had so many worries I could barely count them...but, as it turned out, all of them were totally groundless.

When the time came for us to start our acting practice, Chifuyu buckled down and took it as seriously as I’d ever seen her take anything. She memorized her lines without issue, and she did her best to polish her acting skills as well. She wasn’t astonishingly good or anything, but the effort she was putting into it was very clear to me. You could tell just by looking at her copy of the script—its pages were worn and creased from her repeated read-throughs, and she’d written all sorts of notes about how to act out certain scenes in red pen in the margins. Supposedly, she was even practicing with Kuki at her elementary school when she had the time.

“You’re really putting your all into this, huh, Chifuyu?” I said.

“Yeah,” Chifuyu replied. “My friends at school said they’d come see the play.”

“Oh, gotcha! Yeah, guess you have to do your best, then.”

“Also...”

“Yeah?”

“I have to work hard because you chose me,” she asserted. She looked me straight in the eye as she said it, and it was so adorably precious of her I almost couldn’t stand it.

Anyway, Chifuyu’s Juliet act improved slowly but surely, day by day...with just one teeny, tiny little exception. That being...

“Or, if thou wilt not, be but sworn my love, and I’ll no longer be Chifuyu—”

“Cut! Chifuyu...” I sighed. “You said your real name again.”

“Ah,” Chifuyu grunted, her eyes widening just a little as she realized her mistake. That was the single worry that remained regarding Himeki Chifuyu’s capability to play the leading role: whether or not she’d slip out of character and act like herself.

“It feels like the second you let your guard down, you end up forgetting that you’re supposed to be Juliet, not yourself,” I said.

“But...I am myself,” Chifuyu replied, her shoulders slumping dejectedly.

“I think you’re just gonna have to force yourself to break the habit,” I said. “Let’s try this: from now on, try to act at least a little Juliet-ish even when you’re not practicing, okay?”

“Do I have to?” Chifuyu droned.

“It’s the best way to make sure you don’t slip up during an actual performance,” I replied.

“Mnh... Okay,” Chifuyu reluctantly agreed.

A few days later, I would come to profoundly regret making that suggestion. It was the moment I got an up-close-and-personal taste of how terrifyingly capable Chifuyu could be when she gave something her all.

“...All right, that’s a wrap! You nailed that scene, Chifuyu—nice work!”

“Oh, did I truly? Why, I’m ever so flattered, Andou! Tee hee!”

“...”

“And oh, what a splendid day it is today! Why, just look at Mister Sun, shining his best high up in the sky! And oh, look, Andou! A flock of little birds is flying by! Hello, birdies! How are you doing this fair afternoon?”

“...”

“Tee hee! You know, I have the strangest feeling that something just wonderful is going to happen today! In fact, I think that this just might be the day I meet my very own Prince Charming!”

“...For the love of god, bring back the old Chifuyu!” I screamed at the top of my lungs.

What the hell is this princess affectation she’s got going on?! Actually, scratch that—what the hell is this Disney princess affect she’s got going on?! “Mister Sun,” seriously?! She sounds like she might break out in song at any second!

Holy crap, this is messing with my head—I can’t even tell who’s saying what anymore! For a second, I thought some completely new character had shown up in the scene and started talking without any preamble!

I’d had my suspicions before that moment, but now I was certain: Chifuyu was, on a fundamental level, extremely capable. She was moody, capricious, and barely ever showed motivation for much of anything, which made it easy to assume she was helpless...but when her motivation did kick into high gear, she displayed incredible depths of talent in all sorts of different fields.

Chifuyu’s normal speech pattern was very distinctive, but apparently, it wasn’t like she had to talk in that manner. Rather, it seemed that talking like a normal person was just too much effort for her to bother with most of the time, even though she was perfectly capable of it in a pinch. In retrospect, she’d talked relatively normally when she was trying to use Squirrely as a ventriloquist dummy too. I had a feeling that she could have an incredibly bright future in the arts someday, but for now...for now...

“U-Ugaaah! I can’t take this! I just can’t! This isn’t you, Chifuyu! This is all wrong! You were never meant to italicize so many of your words! Go back to saying as little as possible and making fun of me in flawless deadpan, please!” I wailed, falling to my knees...and then, a moment later, I felt Chifuyu pat me on the head.

“Don’t cry, Andou,” she said. Her eyes were sleepily half closed. She spoke in a dull, listless monotone. The way she talked made it feel like she was looking down on me, even though I was several years her senior. The look on her face seemed totally impossible to read at first glance...yet somehow, astonishingly, it was as clear as day once you got to know her.

There. That’s her. That’s the character I’ve come to know!

“It’s okay,” she said. “I’m me.”

“I... I...”

“I’m not going anywhere.”

“Ch-Ch-Chifuyuuu! You came baaaaack!”

And so, the joy of our reunion left me bawling my eyes out in the arms of a little girl.

Event 6: Learning How to Act (Rosaline)

As I previously mentioned, with our classes’ projects keeping us busy, there were fewer and fewer opportunities for all five of us to get together as the cultural festival drew ever closer. One day, Hatoko and I ended up being the only members who showed up in the club room. We decided to take the opportunity to do a read-through of our parts in the script and practice our acting—though really, since Hatoko was playing Rosaline and barely had any lines, it was more like I was practicing and she was just along for the ride.

We decided to take a break eventually, and I found myself idly flipping through the script. “You know, I was pretty shocked when I learned that this whole play takes place over the course of five days,” I muttered, “but I was even more surprised when I learned that Romeo’s into a girl other than Juliet when the play starts.”

“Right? I was shocked too!” Hatoko agreed.

At the story’s outset, Romeo has feelings for a Capulet girl named Rosaline. Those feelings are entirely unrequited, though, and the cold shoulder she gives him sends Romeo into a state of anxious depression. He sneaks into one of the Capulets’ parties in order to meet with Rosaline, happens to catch a glimpse of Juliet, and falls in love at first sight.

“Man... Romeo’s kinda shallow, isn’t he?” I commented.

“Yeah,” said Hatoko. “He sure falls in and out of love easily.”

As far as I saw it, Romeo’s supposedly so head over heels in love with Rosaline that he’d sneak into his family’s sworn enemy’s party just to meet her, only to immediately have a change of heart and fall for some other girl he just met instead. I couldn’t exactly call it cheating, but it certainly seemed unfaithful of him, at the very least.

“And after he falls for Juliet, he literally never even thinks about Rosaline again,” I added.

“He gets over her in the blink of an eye, yup,” said Hatoko.

As a result, Rosaline doesn’t make any appearances in particular past that point. Some performances apparently cut her out entirely, leaving her as a character that gets referenced but is never seen. She was a character recognized worldwide as the sort of heroine that has so little impact on the story, she might as well have not even been there at all.

“Actually, Hatoko, while we’re on the subject—why did you ask to play Rosaline?” I asked.

Rosaline had so few appearances she could be cut without harming the story in the slightest. We’d considered cutting her from our version as well, of course, but Hatoko had gone out of her way to ask to play her, and we ended up keeping her around as a result.

“Well, honestly...I wanted to play Juliet, but since Chifuyu ended up being her, I just thought it would be nice to play Rosaline instead,” Hatoko somewhat bashfully explained. “I just wanted to play a character you’d fall in love with, that’s all,” she added with a smile and a faint blush.

I was struck dumb, and could feel my pulse accelerating by the second. “H-Hatoko...?” I managed to stammer.

“Huh...? Oh. U-Umm... I-I don’t mean you you—I mean Romeo! I wanted to be a character who Romeo falls in love with!” Hatoko yelped, red-faced and flustered.

“Y-Yeah, I knew that, duh!” I shouted, in much the same state as she was. Agggh, man, that freaked me out! I seriously thought she’d just told me she loved me for a second there!

“O-Okay, let’s get back to practice, Juu!” Hatoko stammered as she fanned herself with her script. Apparently, her face was still feeling pretty overheated. “I don’t have many lines, but you have a bunch of them, so we need to get in every bit of rehearsal time we can find!”

“I know, I know,” I said.

“Okay! Let’s run through the scene where Romeo’s whining about his unrequited love for Rosaline again!”

“Again? We’ve done that scene so many times already! I know it’s one of the only bits where Rosaline actually matters, but can’t we practice the other parts at least a—”

“Trust me, it’ll be fine! I have a feeling you don’t quite have that scene down yet,” Hatoko said, her tone firm and insistent, then turned to look right at me. “Do your best to fall for me, okay, Juu?” she added with a grin. It was as calm and gentle as her usual smiles, but this time, there was a certain mischievous tinge to her expression as well—one that was very much not like her usual self. It was a smile that carried a warmth, a maturity, and a slight, suggestive edge.

What did I do in the face of my childhood friend displaying such unusual behavior? Break eye contact and mutter “Sure.” Frankly, it was the best I could manage.

...And, well, that’s more or less the size of it. The time we had to prepare for the festival flew by at a dizzying speed, and while I couldn’t quite say that everything was going perfectly smoothly, whenever we ran into a roadblock, the five of us would come together to work out a solution and move past it. There’s no “I” in “team,” as they say, and for our purposes, there was no “me” in “literary club.” We kept marching along, putting things together as well as we could manage...until we ran smack-dab into a wall at the eleventh hour.

Actually, no. It wasn’t so much a wall as it was a pit—a pit I’d been vaguely aware of, which I’d decided wasn’t really a big deal at all and which didn’t really need to be filled, only to be shocked when it turned out to be a full-blown pitfall that I stepped right into.

It all started three days before the cultural festival was scheduled to begin.