“Ha ha! Thanks for noticing. Took you long enough!”
“Don’t act like you raised her, Mickey! But…yeah…I didn’t really notice before. And I guess it’s thanks to you that she’s started to open up to the rest of the class lately.”
“She told me she wants to go to college to study fashion design.”
“Oh, that’d be perfect for her!”
Just then, Looney returned from visiting the boys’ dressing room, still wearing her uniform. I grabbed my super-cool superhero mask and walked over to her…but before I could say anything, a peal of applause broke out in the gym. The first performance had begun.
Next thing I knew, I felt a fist against my chest.
“We’re all depending on you, Miki-chan. Don’t let us down,” she told me with a goofy grin.
So I mimicked her gesture, pressing my fist square against the center of her chest. “Leave it to me.”
Twenty minutes later, the third-year class finished their performance—a stage adaptation of The Little Prince. I was a fan of that story, so I kinda wished I could have seen it, but as soon as the curtain fell, that thought went right out the window. Quietly, we slipped backstage while the crew got everything set up for us. I could hear some people taking deep breaths, while others flailed their limbs, trying to get the jitters out. Kyou-kun (AKA “Pedestrian B”) stood beside me, his beam wobbling all over the place, the way it did whenever I spoke to him.
Then the crew members hurried offstage, and one of the student council members peeked behind the curtain to check if we were ready. It was time. In just twenty minutes, the past month of hard work would finally come to an end.
“Next, we have a superhero show from Class 2-A. Let’s all get in touch with our inner children and root for the hero!”
The audience applauded…and then the stage lights went down.
There was a short lull before the curtains would open again. In the sudden darkness, I couldn’t see a thing. After all, I couldn’t see anyone’s beams if I couldn’t see their faces. It was so quiet, even our whispers threatened to carry out to the audience…and in that moment, I realized something: my heart was pounding harder than usual.
Oh crap. Am I…nervous?
Now that I thought about it, my legs felt like jelly, and I could feel sweat trickling down my back. Right…this was what it felt like to be nervous. It’d been so long, I’d almost forgotten.
Oh God, but I’m the hero! This whole show is riding on me! Crap, crap, crap! My cue isn’t for a while still, but…I’m gonna be fine, right? Right? Someone, please tell me—
“It’ll be okay.”
In the darkness, I heard a voice, loud and clear. Then, the next thing I knew, someone reached out and grabbed my cold, tingly left hand. Their fingers weren’t rock-hard like Looney’s, but I could feel some stiffness there. Before I could figure out who it was, however, the hand pulled away, and a few seconds later the house lights came back on. That was the cue for Pedestrians A, B, and C to walk onstage.
Whoever had grabbed my hand, I had felt their warmth…and the faintest tremble. Then I realized my nerves had disappeared—wait, no, they hadn’t. I could still feel it. But when I balled my hand into a fist, those feelings started to shift into something else.
Oh, okay. Now THIS I can work with.
Summoning all my emotions into my left hand, I looked out at the less-than-manly figure walking away from me and silently thanked him.
As it turned out, once you harnessed the power of your stage jitters, everything else was a piece of cake. The show progressed smoothly, without a hitch. We had a veteran thespian running the sound and lighting, so no worries there. Plus, our narrator standing at the very front of the stage was from the broadcasting club, and as you might expect, his voice was like butter. The other actors seemed to have harnessed their jitters, too, because the Pedestrians and Office Workers were reciting their lines with no hiccups.
Now it was my turn to walk onstage, accompanied by Looney and another girl. Our characters were just ordinary teenage girls, gossiping about dumb stuff, but the audience was actually laughing at our jokes! What a relief.
The first act was primarily focused on establishing the superhero and the bad guys through dialogue, including some foreshadowing that there might be a wolf in sheep’s clothing. Naturally, we made one character look blatantly suspicious as a red herring. But in actuality, Looney’s character was wearing the same wristband as the evil mooks in full-body spandex. This was an Easter egg Looney added to give the audience a hint, and she made sure to casually draw attention to her wrist as she recited her lines.
Then the stage lights dimmed, and eerie music began to play as a group of evil mooks ran onstage. The teenage girls all screamed, and when it looked like the mooks were going to carry them away, they began to call for the famous superhero. But she didn’t show up right away.
This was my cue to run offstage, leaving Looney behind while I hastily changed out of my tracksuit and affixed the ornaments to my superhero costume underneath. Meanwhile, the narrator addressed the audience, encouraging them to call for me. Then I put my mask on, and right as the crowd was hyped up, I ran back out to them!
From there, the superhero protected the civilians as she mowed down all the evil mooks, tokusatsu-style. Damn, I’m such a badass! Once they were defeated, a thunder sound effect played, and the burliest guy in our class walked onstage, dressed up like a powerful warrior. As the other characters shrank away in fear, I alone rose to the challenge. This would be a hard fight, but with the help of my special moves, I would ultimately defeat him. Then the bad guys all scrambled offstage with their tails between their legs.
At last, peace was restored to the town! Or so you might think. But then a high-pitched laugh rang out from backstage, and the audience realized Looney was gone. Cue the true villain: our favorite lunatic. A shocking betrayal by someone I thought was a friend. Originally this scene was going to have some romantic undertones to it, since the villain was written to be male, but oh well. Instead, my character was purely devastated to learn that their friendship was a lie. But I had to fight her if I wanted to protect the people.
That said, as the true villain, Looney was no pushover. Sound effects played as she deflected all my attacks with her staff. Then, using her witchcraft, she overpowered me. The superhero was in danger! Now it was time for the minor characters to cheer for me while the narrator encouraged the audience to join in. Fortunately, our audience was primed to play along, and with their voices calling for me, I rose to my feet. Sound effects and lighting cues abound, I shouted the name of my ultimate attack and threw out a kick!
Looney had given me some very specific stage direction for this scene: Come at me with all you’ve got. So I aimed my strongest kick at her (padded) shoulder, and she dramatically staggered backwards. Then, with one last line of dialogue, she breathed no more. The evil mooks carried her lifeless body offstage, leaving only her fox mask. The minor characters all cheered, and the narrator prompted the audience to applaud.
This scene required some nuanced acting on my part. The evil was defeated, yes, but my character couldn’t truly celebrate. I had vanquished my friend with my own two hands, and now I would have to live with that knowledge while cherishing the peaceful world I had protected… According to Looney, this was “a message to fellow Japanese people who never truly stopped to think about the costs of our freedom,” or something like that. Pretty deep, if you asked me.
Either way, bottom line, the story was about the value of peace. The minor characters would all rejoice, I would say my closing line, and then we were done. This was the end of our superhero show, and only a small amount of dialogue remained.
As Office Worker A said her lines, I felt myself relax a tiny bit. At this point, we were finally in the clear. There were no more hurdles to overcome. After all, we had nailed this last scene in every single rehearsal. What was I ever nervous about?