Chapter 112: Neglected To Mention

The next afternoon, Serena Frostfall walked into our classroom for the first rehearsal, and around thirty commoners stopped breathing simultaneously.

The SSS-rank, the girl who’d won the Duel Festival without breaking a sweat, and the future wife of the crown prince, was now standing at the front of our shabby little classroom with a script under her arm, glaring at our desks.

"Is that Frostfall?" somebody whispered behind me.

"Why is she here!?"

"Is she going to kill us?"

[You? No. Me? Maybe.]

Odette sat at the teacher’s desk, since she’d volunteered as stage manager on the grounds that nobody else could read. She adjusted her glasses and spoke without looking up from her clipboard.

"A large predator has wandered into the watering hole," she murmured. "The herd has gone completely still. Nobody wants to be the slowest one."

[Don’t turn this into a nature documentary!]

"Okay! Everybody!" I clapped my hands. "This is Serena! She’s our new masked knight! Please be nice to her, and please don’t stare directly at her!"

Everybody kept staring directly at her.

Lily was standing beside the chalkboard, holding her script with both hands, and she had been bright pink since the moment Serena came through the door. Serena glanced at her once, then flipped her own script open to the last page.

"Fine. Let’s start with the hardest part and get it over with," she said, and she began reading the final scene out loud. "The knight reaches the princess beneath the falling rain. The knight removes the mask..."

She stopped.

Her eyes moved down the page and stayed on one line for a very long time.

"The knight kisses the princess," Serena read, very slowly, "until the curtain comes down?"

The whole classroom held its breath again.

Serena’s face stayed perfectly calm. She closed the script with a quiet little snap. Then, she turned her head, and her red eyes landed directly on me.

[Ah. I’m going to die.]

She crossed the room in four steps, grabbed me by the collar, and pulled me down until her mouth was right next to my ear.

"You were in that booth with me for an hour," she hissed, so quietly that only I could hear it. "You had plenty of chances to bring this up, SAKANA!"

"I-I forgot!!!"

"You forgot to mention that I’d be kissing Lily in front of four hundred people and the Queen?"

"It slipped my mind! I was very busy at the time!"

Serena’s grip on my collar got so tight that my feet nearly left the floor. For a second, I honestly thought she was going to throw me out the window. Then, she glanced back over her shoulder at the class. Thirty faces were watching her, waiting to see whether the great Serena Frostfall was going to quit.

I could see the math happening behind her eyes. If she walked out now, everybody would know a kiss had scared her off. In other words, quitting would mean admitting the kiss meant something to her, and Serena would rather die than admit that anything meant something to her.

She let go of my collar.

"From the top of the scene," she announced. "Everyone in position."

Odette pulled a cord, and the class’s homemade rain machine, which was a bucket with holes in it, started dripping on the stage area at the front of the room. Lily stepped under it with her script shaking in her hands.

"S-Sir Knight, you came!" Lily squeaked. "Even though the stars themselves forbade it..."

Serena walked into the rain, took Lily by the waist with one arm, and dipped her backward in a single smooth motion. Lily let out a tiny gasp and grabbed Serena’s shoulders.

"Princess," Serena said, in a flat, furious voice, "I would cross ten thousand burning seas for you."

She was looking at Lily. Lily was looking at her. Then, at the exact same moment, both of them looked over at me.

I was standing between the desks with nowhere to go. My girlfriend was being dipped by the girl I’d been on my knees for in a confessional booth yesterday. They were inches apart, under a dripping bucket, in front of our entire class, and both of them were staring at me.

In other words, this was the most awkward moment I had ever experienced, in this life or the last one.

"Now, ahem, the kiss," Odette said, writing something on her clipboard.

Serena leaned down and kissed Lily.

It was, perhaps, the stiffest kiss I’d ever seen. You’d never believe these two used to make out for fun. Lily’s whole body went rigid, and then it went limp in Serena’s arms.

"The curtain hasn’t come down," Odette added.

Serena held the kiss, Lily stayed limp in her arms, and the bucket kept dripping. Nobody in the classroom moved a muscle, and for a long time, the only sound in the entire room was water landing on the floor.

Finally, Odette pulled the curtain cord.

Serena set Lily back on her feet, let go of her, and walked straight off the stage.

"I’m taking a break," she announced to nobody.

On her way past me, she paused just long enough to look me in the eyes. Then, she slowly drew one finger across her throat.

The door slammed behind her.

---

{Lily}

By the end of the week, our whole class had been cast, and I was starting to think the play might actually be wonderful.

Our director was a skinny boy named Hugo Patterly, who had volunteered. He stood on a chair at the front of the classroom and waved a rolled-up script over his head.

"Act Two, scene four! The sorcerer’s confession! Fenna, whenever you’re ready!"

Fenna slouched out to the middle of the stage area in a black cape that was too short for her. She was playing my misunderstood sorcerer brother, the one who turned evil because nobody in the castle ever believed in him.

"For years, I have hungered in the shadows," Fenna read. Then she looked up from the page, straight past me, and right at Kohaku, who was sitting in the back row. She grinned, and her chipped fang showed. "I’ve been hungering really hard, actually. Constantly."

"Fenna!" Hugo cried. "The sorcerer is hungering for revenge!"

Fenna shrugged.

"Sure. That too."

Kohaku slid down in her seat until only her ears were showing over the desk.

[Fenna is very passionate about acting. That’s nice!]

Next was Marisol, who was playing the secret twin, the girl who’d been switched at birth and raised by a cruel baron while I got to grow up in the palace. She swept into the scene in her tailored uniform and pointed at me dramatically.

"So, sister," she read. "We meet at last."

Then she lowered the script and kept going.

"Do you know what it’s like to look into a mirror and see the life you were supposed to have? Every birthday, I set two places at the table. One for me, and one for the girl who got everything. I hated you before I even knew your name, and I hate that I still want you to like me."

The whole classroom went quiet.

I felt my eyes start to water, and I wasn’t even acting anymore! Hugo was crying openly on his chair, and two girls in the front row were holding hands.

"That... That’s not in the script!" Hugo sobbed. "It’s so much better than the script! I’m writing it in!"

"Of course you are." Marisol flipped her hair over her shoulder. "That’ll be two silver for the rewrite, darling. Exposure doesn’t pay my tailor."

Finally, it was time for the last scene.

Odette pulled the cord on the bucket, and water started dripping down onto the stage area. Serena stepped into the rain across from me. She had her script rolled up in one fist, and she looked furious.

My heart started pounding so hard I could hear it in my ears.

"S-Sir Knight, you came!" I said. "Even though the stars themselves forbade it, and even though my father swore an oath upon the moon, you still came for me!"

"Princess," Serena said stiffly. "I would cross ten thousand burning seas for you."

She stepped forward and put her arm around my waist. It was strong and warm, and she smelled like cold air and the expensive soap the palace kept making her use. I suddenly remembered being six years old, and Serena holding my hand on the way home from the river so I wouldn’t slip on the rocks.

[Why is my face so hot!? I have a girlfriend! She’s sitting right there! Actually, do I have a girlfriend? We haven’t put a label on it yet!]

"Okay! Now, lean in for the kiss!" Hugo called.

We both leaned in until our noses were maybe an inch apart, and I could feel her breath on my lips, and Serena’s red eyes were glaring straight into mine like this was all my fault.

"And hold!" Hugo said. "Perfect! We’ll do the actual kiss next week!"

Serena let go of me so fast I nearly fell into the bucket, and she muttered something under her breath that I’m pretty sure was a curse.

[Phew! I have a whole week to get ready! Wait... why do I feel a little disappointed?]

I decided not to think about that at all, and I went to find Kohaku instead. I wanted to ask her how I’d done, and maybe hold her hand, and maybe make her promise she wasn’t upset about the leaning.

But when I turned around, Professor Sabine was already standing next to Kohaku’s desk.

She’d been standing in the doorway for the whole rehearsal. At first, I’d thought she was supervising. Then I noticed that her eyes had been on the back row the entire time, mostly on Kohaku’s tail.

[She must be very worried about Kohaku’s posture.]

"Miss Sakana," Sabine purred, and she took Kohaku by the arm. "I’m afraid I need you urgently for some advanced convalescence. Your bruises from training require a thorough examination."

"W-Wait, professor, I was going to..."

"Duty of care, Kohaku~"

Sabine marched her out the door, and Kohaku looked back at me over her shoulder the whole way, with her ears completely flat.

I waved after her.

[Professor Sabine is such a caring teacher!]