The sky outside the windows in the hallway was already pitch-black.
“Ahchoo! Ugh, it’s pretty chilly here…,” I said, shivering. Even though it was getting warmer these days, it was still cold at night.
After we finished our rehearsals, we used the high school’s showers to freshen up.
I looked at my watch, and it was already past nine o’clock.
Being at school this late feels kind of strange.
“Don’t catch a cold, Kouzuki.” Minatsu stared right at me.
“I’ll be fiiine! I haven’t caught a cold since preschool.”
“You know what they say about people who don’t catch colds.”
“Hm? What do they say?”
“I was asking you.” Minatsu cocked her head to the side.
Hmm… “Idiots” don’t catch colds, was it…? And here I thought we were starting to get closer.
But no, there’s another wall. I mean, she even still calls me “Kouzuki.”
“There.”
Minatsu glanced toward the end of the hallway, where there was a light turned on.
“Wow! When did you guys do this?!”
We entered the room, and it was packed with futons. I wanted to jump into the sea of soft fluffiness.
“Did the older kids do all of this?”
The first-years were all in the showers until then, so it couldn’t have been us. This meant that the older students did all of the work for us.
“That’s right. You guys made lunch for us today. We don’t want to make you do everything, so we handled this. The boys will be sleeping downstairs, of course,” Yukimura said from the far corner, smiling. “Once you guys pick out where you want to sleep, we’ll head to bed for an early night. We have to be up early tomorrow.”
“Okay!” we responded, and the first-years went to pick our spots.
After a game of rock paper scissors, I ended up on the hallway side of the room.
“Turning off the lights now!” one of the older students said, and then the room was dark.
I snuggled into my futon. The doors were closed, but this close to the hallway, it was a little cold.
“Minatsu, do you mind if I scooch a bit that way?”
I pushed myself a little bit close to Minatsu, who was next to me.
“Why…?” Minatsu groaned sleepily. She must’ve been tired after long day of rehearsals.
“’Cause I’m cold,” I said, and without waiting for her to answer, I snuggled up next to her back.
Oh yeah, this is way warmer.
I was almost certain she’d give me a flat no, but to my surprise, Minatsu said nothing.
Huh?
I realized I could hear soft breathing coming from her futon.
Minatsu was already asleep. I listened in closely; most of the room was already asleep.
Everyone must be tired after all that rehearsing. So am I—trying new things can really wear you out.
I closed my eyes, and it didn’t take long for me to join the rest of the room.
✦ ✦ ✦
Hm…?
My eyes opened slightly when I thought I heard a noise. The room was dim.
I turned my head to look at the clock, and it was still two o’clock in the morning. Was the dim light coming from the moon?
Ugh, I woke up… Maybe I should take a little walk.
Careful not to wake up Minatsu, I quietly slipped out of my futon.
I threw on my school trainer jacket and went into the moonlit hallway.
The school sure does look different at night.
It was so quiet, even the air seemed still. The only noise I could hear was my own footsteps.
You’d think school at night would be a little creepier, but it really isn’t. Maybe that’s because Red always breaks into buildings during the nighttime, though.
“……Right……”
Huh? Did I just hear a voice? But who would be awake this late at night?
It’s not a ghost, is it…?
I began to walk toward the source of the voice and could hear it growing louder.
Is it coming from the gym?
I left the school building and headed for the gymnasium, but I couldn’t hear the voice anymore.
Maybe I went the wrong way. But I definitely heard it coming from this direction.
The gym door was left slightly open. I peered through the crack in the door.
Ah…
“Why can’t I hear you?! I know you’re there right next to me! So why…?”
It was Yukimura. Her hair was disheveled, and she was shouting.
This is one of the scenes from the play—but it’s the heroine’s line.
The moonlight shone down on Yukimura like a spotlight. She was so much more intense and dramatic than her usual self—it was captivating.
“Oh, Asuka? Is that you?” Yukimura turned around and looked at me with surprise. “What are you doing up?”
“I woke up. What about you? Isn’t this a little late for rehearsal?”
“I couldn’t sleep. I thought maybe some rehearsing might help wear me out, but then I got into the zone,” Yukimura said with a wry smile. “Want to chat for a bit?”
She waved me over, so I went and stood next to her.
I looked up and at the full moon through the gym’s windows.
“You weren’t practicing your own lines in the play just now, were you?”
“You picked up on that? Yeah, those were the heroine’s lines.”
Why is Yukimura running someone else’s lines? Isn’t she the main guy?
This question must’ve been written on my face, because Yukimura answered what I was thinking.
“Our club doesn’t have a lot of boys, so I usually end up taking on the male roles. I guess I just wanted to try a change of pace. I have the entire script memorized either way.”
“Wait, you have this entire thing memorized?!”
“That’s right. I’m the lead, after all. You never know when you’ll have to ad-lib when something goes wrong, and the best way to do that is to know everyone’s lines.”
She said it like it was nothing.
“I don’t think I could memorize that whole giant script. And you were even acting out the main girl’s part too. That means you have every scene laid out in your head, huh?”
“No one can do it when they first start out. The more you practice, the easier it gets to memorize lines, do the choreography, and project your voice. You’re good at sports, so you probably understand this, but—take basketball, for example. You need to practice dribbling and shooting three-pointers so that you can actually do it in a game. One big difference with acting starts before the technique, though…and that’s how you become one with the role.”
Yukimura took on a more serious look.
“Become one with the role?”
“That’s right. Every character that steps onto the stage is a living person. Each one has a life outside of the scene that is shown on the stage. It’s a performer’s job to picture that. How would your character study at school, go shopping, hang out with their friends; stuff like that. A performer pictures all those details to create their personality and how they would act, then learns to become it. That’s what acting is. And that’s what becoming one with the role is… Although I stole that explanation from someone else.”
Is that right? This is my second time working with the theater club, but I’ve never looked at it this way before. No one ever explained it like that to me.
But she’s right. Even though it’s all acting, we are depicting real-life people. And they have lives outside of what you see onstage.
This is true for my character, too, even if I only have a few lines.
As I nodded to myself, Yukimura grinned.
“You don’t need to worry about all that yet, Asuka. Just work on properly projecting your voice for now, okay?”
Oh, yeah… If I don’t consciously think about it, I still end up breathing using my chest.
Clouds blocked the moon, and the gymnasium went dark. But even in the gloom, neither Yukimura nor I seemed scared. It almost felt like time had slowed to a crawl.
“Can I ask you something?”
A question had popped up in my mind.
“What is it?”
“What made you want to be in the theater club? You’re really athletic; did you consider maybe joining a sports club?”
This was something that had been on my mind during our morning warm-up. Yukimura could keep up with me, and her movements on stage were excellent. So it had me wondering why she didn’t join a sports-oriented club.
✦ ✦ ✦
I bet you’d be great at any sport you played.
“Yeah, that’s what most people think,” Yukimura said, snickering. “When I first came to this school, I wanted to join a sports club. But one of my friends invited me to go see her older brother acting in a college play. The experience was overwhelming, and I knew this was what I wanted to do. So the next day, I joined the theater club.”
Now that’s what I call a go-getter…
“I was terrible at first, of course. I’d never acted before. I was the worst out of my entire school year. I didn’t know how to project my voice or remember the lines… I used to go crying to Shiori about how I had no talent.”
Whaaat?! It’s hard to imagine, looking at you now.
“But I’d played sports all my life, so I was good at practicing. I knew if I wasn’t good at something, I could practice until I was. If I didn’t know something, I could study the technique. And somehow, I ended up the captain of the theater club. I know I’m not the type you’d expect, but one thing’s for sure: I love the theater club, and everyone in it. That goes for you too, Asuka.” Yukimura showed me a warm smile.
“So even you weren’t always good at acting. Then that means there’s still hope for me!”
“You betcha!”
She nodded her head firmly.
The clouds passed, and the moon shined down on us once more.
“We’d better get to bed. We have rehearsal in the morning,” Yukimura said, guiding me out of the gymnasium.
I’m starting to feel sleepy, too.
The two of us snuck back into the classroom, and I quietly slipped into my futon.
I made out Yukimura waving quietly to me in the darkness.
Good night!