Day one ended without incident. Day two — featuring the play, the most stressful event of my festival.
Our class was the day-two opener for the play, which meant a chaotic morning, but it also meant getting it over with early. Better than going last. If I’d been last, I would not have been able to eat lunch.
After getting made up by several girls into full Snow White attire, I was doing final script-check backstage when Reona came over.
“Looks great on you. Cute princess.”
“I can’t argue — don’t know what to say.”
She had teased me; I had no recourse. Apparently I am unfortunately well-suited to crossdressing.
If they hadn’t dressed me up on a whim before the trip none of this would have happened. Then again, they would have come up with some stunt regardless, so this was — comparatively — light.
“You wear the prince outfit well too.”
“As a girl, suits male attire is — complicated.”
“You’re popular with the girls, very enviable.”
Reona — quarter-English, well-built, in a prince outfit — was attracting enthusiastic attention from female classmates. Reona was, in this moment, more popular than most boys.
”…Hee. So being popular with girls makes you envious.”
“N-no, that’s not what I meant—”
“Suspicious.”
“Really — I swear on Mio.”
Please do not destabilize my nerves before a performance. As I was thinking that, Reona shifted to a soft expression.
“You retorted at me like normal — your nerves have eased.”
“Oh, so that was the goal.”
“Yeah. I’m an accomplished woman, you see.”
“Got it, Reona.”
Reona had read my pre-show tension and engaged with me specifically to defuse it. Successfully. The earlier cold gaze must have been a deliberate misdirect.
“If that hadn’t worked I was going to make you write 人 three times on your palm and swallow it. Mercifully not needed.”
“If that folk-remedy worked we wouldn’t have nerves anymore.”
I had tried it many times, never worked. If there were anyone for whom it did work — I’d love to meet them.
“Mm? I use it constantly — it always works. Riona, Mom, and my friends do not believe me, but.”
”…Seriously?”
She didn’t look like she was bluffing. The one person I’d hoped to meet was, apparently, in front of me.
“Reona, Yagami-kun — places, please.”
“Time?”
“Three-of-us-on-stage play — let’s land it together.”
“Yeah, appropriate effort.”
Shiraishi-san had ordered us to stage. The success of the play rested on Snow White-and-Prince, full stop.
What happened from here would happen. The opening announcement played, the gym lights cut, and the play began.