Drama Day came.

For the majority of students, it was one of the most exciting days of the year.

Food stalls crowded the campus.

Games took over the hallways.

Music came from the yard.

People were running around in costumes.

Everybody was excited.

For Kuro Kurogane, however, it was the day of his public execution.

The moment she appeared at the school gates, she regretted it all.

First of all, to be alive.

Secondly, to take part in the drama club.

Thirdly, to agree to participate in this play at all.

In three hours, they’d have to open the auditorium.

In four, the performance would start.

And backstage was already an absolute chaos.

"WHERE’S THE APPLE?!"

The voice echoed through the building.

Some teachers jumped back.

Kuro sighed.

"Again?"

Akari raised her finger towards the heavens.

"The poison apple is missing."

Silence.

Everyone looked at each other.

"Is it really missing?"

"The main prop."

"The most important prop."

"Aha..."

"Lost it?"

She frowned.

"It ran away."

Kuro closed his eyes.

"Run away?"

"You don’t know that."

"Well, yes."

"It’s literally an apple."

"It’s an apple with the face of a witch."

"It’s actually a prop of an apple."

Akari wasn’t convinced at all.

Another catastrophe was happening.

Rika suddenly stopped.

Then checked her notebook.

Then her bag.

Then the notebook once again.

Her face paled to grey shade.

Mina saw that.

"What happened?"

Rika looked at her with panic-filled eyes.

"The script pages..."

Silence.

"Tell me about them."

"I lost pages twelve to twenty."

The audience froze.

"WHAT?! HOW?!"

They both screamed in unison.

These pages included three big scenes.

Two jokes.

One transitional part.

And forty percent of the lines for Akari.

She gasped in horror.

"Without my villain speech?!"

She started looking around the auditorium in frenzy.

Through desks.

In bags.

Under boxes.

Literally everywhere.

Meanwhile, Mina faced her own trouble.

She was the narrator.

That meant that she had to say many lines during the performance.

And unfortunately...

Stress beat her.

"Mina?"

Silence.

"Mina?"

Nothing.

He finally approached.

Pointing to her throat, Mina explained.

"...You’ve lost your voice?"

She just nodded with despair.

A narrator without a voice.

On the day of drama .

Three hours before the performance.

Kuro looked above.

Obviously, the universe hated him.

The backstage turned into an absolute mess.

Teachers were running around in a circle.

Students were looking for the lost props.

Somebody was adjusting stage lights.

Somebody else was painting the scenery.

It felt as if there was a war going on there.

And still...

Catastrophes went on.

One of the Seven Adventures tore off his costume part.

Mirror actor got stuck inside the mirror prop.

The curtain couldn’t move anymore.

And Akari managed to collect three apples.

Not the correct one, however.

"How did you get those three wrong apples?"

"How do I know?"

"I mean..."

"It’s a mystery."

By this time, Kuro gave up asking questions.

Then, Aoi arrived.

Unlike everybody else...

She was calm.

Her costume was perfectly done.

Her script was well-organized.

Her hair was done too.

Everything was fine.

A few students stared at her with disbelief.

"How are you so calm?"

Akari asked harshly.

Aoi paused.

And then answered.

"Panicking will change nothing."

Nobody contradicted her.

Since she was right, actually.

Unfortunately, this wasn’t a problem anymore.

One hour later...

Finally, the auditorium door opened.

The students entered inside.

The parents took seats.

The teachers came too.

Festival guests joined the crowd.

The number of spectators increased and increased.

Until it was almost full...

The backstage.

The actors were peeping behind the curtain.

But then...

They regretted it.

"That’s a lot of people."

Mina whispered.

She got her voice partly back.

Fortunately for her.

"Yes."

Rika agreed.

Akari suddenly looked panicked.

A rare sight indeed.

Very rare one.

Kuro glanced at the audience.

Then at the stage.

And then again, at the emergency exit.

Minami noticed.

"No."

"I didn’t mean anything."

"But I thought it."

Fair enough...

The final preparations began.

Costumes were adjusted.

Microphones were checked.

Props were arranged.

The scripts were studied again.

The atmosphere gradually changed.

The chaos was there.

But now the excitement appeared in it too.

Nervousness.

Anticipation.

Expectations.

Hard preparations led them here...

Even Kuro admitted that something changed.

They had all been working so hard...

Despite all the jokes.

Despite all the catastrophes.

Despite Akari.

Above all, despite her.

The stage manager made a signal.

Five minutes before performance.

Everybody fell silent.

For the first time today.

The students were exchanging nervous glances.

Mina clutched her script tightly.

Rika checked her notes one last time.

Akari fixed her witch hat.

Aoi stood at the center of the stage.

Waiting for it to start...

Kuro , in turn...

Decided that fainting would let him out of this.

Unfortunately.

He doubted it.

Three minutes before performance.

The sounds from the audience became stronger.

Excited discussions started filling the auditorium.

Parents were looking for their kids.

Students were discussing rumors about the performance.

Teachers took out their cameras...

Nobody knew what exactly to expect.

Which was probably good indeed...

One minute.

Behind the curtain stood the final stage.

A big red wall standing between preparations and reality.

Behind it, hundreds of people were waiting...

The actors lined up.

Ready.

Or as ready as they could be...

Minami took a deep breath.

Smiling, she said.

"Good luck."

For a moment, no one moved.

But then, Akari broke the silence.

"With all our strength, let’s create history."

"Not really a good idea." Kuro commented.

Countdown started.

Five.

Four.

Three.

Two.

One.

Lights came.

And the show officially started...

To everyone’s surprise, it worked well.

Jokes were well-taken.

Audience was laughing.

The scenes went smoothly.

Even improvised moments turned out okay...

Rika’s ridiculous scripts were entertaining the crowd...

Really...

With every successful joke...

The tension decreased a bit.

Confidence was increasing...

Step by step, everybody relaxed.

Even backstage... During transitions...

Excitement increased.

"We’re really doing it."

Mina whispered.

"We’re winning."

Akari stated proudly.

"Not really, Akari."

Aoi interrupted.

But apparently, she was happy.

Scene after scene passed.

The audience was interested.

The performance went without a hitch...

Everything was perfect.

Better than expected...

Suddenly...

Realization hit them.

It was time...

For the climax.

For the finale.

For the awakening.

For the kiss...

Suddenly they remembered.

The last part of the script...

Backstage went dead silent.

Akari stopped joking.

Rika stopped writing.

Mina stopped everything...

Even Kuro was nervous...

Only Aoi stayed calm.

As usual...

Stage manager looked at the watch.

"Last scene in five minutes."

Silence.

The actors glanced at each other.

After hard preparations.

Weeks of rehearsals.

Hundreds of disasters.

It all led them to this one single moment.

The audience was waiting...

The curtain stood ready...

And backstage...

Everybody started feeling nervous.

Even if they tried not admitting it...

Because the most important part of the performance was just beginning.

While the actors had panicked in the backstage, something quite different was happening in the auditorium.

The people there had absolutely no idea what they were going to see.

And that made it even better.

Every seat was occupied.

Students sat in most of the rows.

Teachers sat in the middle seats.

Parents sat towards the back.

Even some students from other classes came.

Of course, they did, thanks to all the rumors spreading around the school about Class 2-B’s play.

These rumors were highly contradictory.

"I’ve heard that they have rewritten Snow White completely."

"I’ve heard that in this version Snow White becomes a politician."

"I’ve heard that the prince is carrying spreadsheets."

"I’ve heard that the witch opens her own company."

"What?!"

"I don’t know anything either."

Nobody could tell what was true or not.

It was okay since even the cast wasn’t sure anymore.

There was a group of teachers near the front row of seats.

"One of my students is participating in this," the man in glasses commented.

"I’ve heard concerning things," replied another teacher.

"That’s right, that’s right," the third one agreed.

However, the students were talking about the casting as well.

Especially about one actor in particular.

"It is Kuro who plays Snow White, right?"

"Yes, that’s right."

"I still can’t believe it."

"I bought a ticket to the front row just to see him there."

A few students nodded enthusiastically.

It’s better to be honest.

In fact, if Kuro had overheard the conversation he would have fled the country immediately.

The lights in the auditorium dimmed and everybody became very excited.

It seemed like they could hear each other’s heartbeats.

Then Yui showed up.

Actually, she wasn’t planning to attend this performance.

However, she knew the cast list too well.

Unfortunately, there was someone else who insisted.

---

"Come on."

Akari pulled her along towards the empty seat.

---

"I don’t need to see it."

"Yes, you do."

"You don’t need to."

"Yes, you do. You absolutely do."

---

Yui got a sense of impending doom.

---

As soon as she settled on the seat she took the festival program in her hands.

Her eyes scanned the paper, then they stopped.

Cast List.

Snow White: Kuro Kurogane

Prince: Aoi

Yui stared blankly.

Stared and stared again.

Finally closed the program.

"You’re smiling."

Immediately noticed Akari.

"I’m not."

"I definitely am."

"Not."

"I definitely am."

"You’re definitely smiling!"

Yui preferred not to comment.

Because if she admitted it she would just encourage Akari even further.

---

Of course, it didn’t work.

---

She had already been too excited.

Dangerously excited.

"I just cannot wait till the ending."

Yui raised an eyebrow suspiciously.

"What ending?"

Akari smirk and grinned.

"The ending."

A deadly silence.

All the rumors.

Discussions.

Emergency meeting.

Then realization hit her like lightning.

"Oh no."

Yui’s smile became even wider.

"Oh yes."

In the meantime, Namida entered the auditorium.

Namida, Minami’s mother.

She wasn’t invited.

No way, moms never get invitations anyway.

When she finally found her seat, she looked through the program.

And gasped dramatically.

"Kuro is Snow White?!"

Some nearby parents turned to look at her.

Namida became ecstatically happy.

"This was worth coming!"

From two rows behind her, some students quietly agreed.

Meanwhile, backstage people weren’t aware how dangerous their audience had become.

Especially since they hadn’t heard anything from Kuro yet.

First act went perfectly fine.

Second act went perfectly fine as well.

Third act was great.

By the time they had reached the intermission, the whole audience was highly engaged in the performance.

Students enjoyed every joke, parents laughed at the comedy, teachers looked pleasantly surprised.

Even those who expected nothing good out of the show got something.

Rika’s strange script somehow worked.

Backstage, the cast congratulated each other.

It lasted briefly.

Since the second part of the play wasn’t finished yet.

And the ending was coming up.

---

Back in the auditorium, Yui relaxed comfortably.

"This is nice."

"It is," Minami sighed.

This surprised even her.

Because even though everything went crazy.

Even though the whole story didn’t make any sense.

Even though the script barely resembled the original story...

They managed to act very well.

Yui gave Minami a knowing look.

"You’re proud of them."

"No."

"But I am."

"No."

"But I am."

---

Minami averted her eyes, that was practically the same thing as a confession.

Lights dimmed again.

Time to start the second act.

Students quickly rushed to their seats, parents straightened, teachers grabbed their cameras.

There was a definite difference in the air now.

They felt more invested.

More emotional.

Everybody expected the ending.

Because there were rumors that had spread over half of the school about the last scene.

They couldn’t confirm it but wanted to see.

Hundreds of people watched eagerly as lights in the auditorium darkened and the curtain started rising.

---

While backstage...

Kuro sneezed.

Immediately got the feeling that something was wrong.

Unfortunately, he was definitely right.