“I’d appreciate the answer sometime today, Sazama.”
The deep cadence of my chemistry professor’s voice instantly snapped my attention back to class. I could feel my heart racing as my ribcage prevented it from bursting out of my chest and ricocheting across the lecture hall. Alright, Genjo, just give him the answer… wait, the answer to what? My eyes scanned the blackboard to find the problem in question as quickly as possible. The only issue: there were several questions that had been written out on the board. Which one was it? Molarity? Stoichiometry? Redox? No… those all had answers written underneath them already. Only a few seconds had gone by, but they felt like hours. All I could make out on the projector screen was a powerpoint slide with a vague model of an octahedral molecule on it.
Here goes nothing.
“...Xenon hexafluoride?”
I heard a barely noticeable clang as the professor’s pen fell out of his hand and onto the ground. “I stand corrected. It appears that Sazama has been paying attention after all.” Using a laser pointer, he circled xenon on the periodic table that rested high on the wall at the front of the classroom. “As many of you can see, xenon is a noble gas, a category of elements that is generally understood to be relatively inert. Under normal circumstances, xenon is rather protective of its electrons and refuses to bond with any other elements.”
The professor moved the laser pointer from xenon to fluorine. “However, fluorine has such a high electronegativity that it simply doesn’t care what xenon wants to do. That’s how we end up with weird molecules like xenon hexafluoride - a molecule that simply shouldn’t exist given all of the ‘rules’ of chemistry.” After finishing his explanation, the professor looked back at me. “Sazama, I’m impressed by your ability to listen to my lectures while you’re half asleep.”
The rest of the students in the class laughed as I finally slid my headphones off my head. “Eh, I wouldn’t call it an ability, sir. I’d say it’s more…” I glanced down at my desk and remembered that I hadn’t even gotten out a pencil, much less a notebook. “...a habit.”
“Whatever you want to call it, I strongly urge that you put it on hold in my classroom.” The professor picked his pen back up off the floor. “Your talent will only get you so far in this class. I’ll make sure of it.”
Fully understanding his words, I immediately zoned out again. It’s not my fault that the class isn’t hard yet. I swear, if he asks the ammonia and bleach question, I might -
“Can someone in the class come up to the board and write out the products for a reaction between bleach and ammonia?”
Oh my god.
When class was dismissed, I bolted out the door. I don’t think I’ve ever left a classroom that quickly in my life. Sitting in the desk closest to the door is honestly an underrated luxury. I stepped out of Kurosawa Hall and greeted the sunlight - it felt nice, like I had just gotten prematurely released from a prison sentence. Why did they have to make this class so early in the morning? Adding insult to injury was the class immediately after chemistry - Foundations of Biology. For some reason, my biology class was in Moore Hall of all places. You’d think that a school like this would have a dedicated school of biology, but I suppose that after enough mental gymnastics, I’m sure it makes perfect sense to put it in the film school.
I walked through the front door of Moore Hall and was startled by just how dark it was inside - none of the overhead lights were even switched on. The scarce traces of light originated solely from several lamps that were scattered along the outer walls of the hallways. As I followed the signs on the wall that directed me to my classroom, I passed an eerie door with red light seeping out of the small gap between the door and the tile below. Man, I can’t believe I have to walk past this thing three days a week.
The biology classroom felt small and claustrophobic, especially for a class that should be much larger than the mere nine other students who were present. I couldn’t shake the overwhelmingly uncomfortable sensation that felt like we were all packed in there like a can of sardines. (The amount of self control it took to not immediately text Ryu about that was immense.) I could barely even focus on a single word that the professor said - I was too distracted by how little distance I could feel between me and the other students. I was occasionally able to snap back to reality to look at the cell diagrams that had been drawn on the whiteboard, but my anxiety wouldn’t let me comprehend any of it for more than a few seconds at a time. I hope I didn’t miss much - after all, it’s only the first day. I’ll just read the book when I get home. (I could hear mom’s voice in my head saying, “Like that’ll ever happen.”)
I waited for everybody else to leave the classroom before packing up my belongings, since I really didn’t want to feel even more claustrophobic trying to get out through the crowd. The professor must’ve noticed, because he walked up to my desk as I was about to sling my backpack around my shoulders. “Sazama, are you feeling alright? You looked really spaced out for the entire class.”
“Not really, Dr. Greene.” I put my headphones back on and searched for a song that matched my melancholy mood. I’m surprised I even remembered his name. “It’s nothing against your material or anything like that. I just feel really uneasy in this room… it’s too cramped for me to stay focused.”
“You’re not alone in that feeling.” Dr. Greene walked over to the board to erase all of his messily drawn cell organelle diagrams. “Myself and the rest of the biology professors have been teaching out of classrooms this small for the past few years. I’m not 100% sure why hiring tons of professors to teach the same course for smaller class sections is more affordable for the academy than just building a new school of biology, but I’m certainly not complaining about having a job.” Dr. Greene chuckled to himself, quietly repeating the joke to himself like he had forgotten that I was in the room with him. “Either way, we’re stuck with it, whether we like it or not. So I’ve been making the best of what I’ve been given.”
He handed me a small piece of paper with a phone number written on it. “Here’s the number for the school’s disability services. If this issue prevents you from being able to properly learn, then I’d encourage speaking to them about potentially moving into another class, though I would also suggest giving my class a couple more tries to see if it gets any better.”
“Thanks.” I took the paper, shoved it in my pocket, and left. Disability services? That can’t be right, can it?
On my way out, I tried walking past the creepy red door as fast as I could without looking like I was running. My heart nearly stopped when I watched it open and saw the red light envelope the entire hallway. In a state of fight or flight, I started walking even faster to get past the door. When I heard footsteps coming, I nearly shifted gears into a full blown sprint.
The voice, however, wasn’t quite as terrifying. “Hey! Genjo! Hey! Hey! What’s up, man?” Even if I was deaf, I’d still recognize that voice anywhere.
I turned around and saw a red-clad Hiro standing in the hallway behind me. “Oh, I’m doing fine… how’s it going?” The quiver in my voice was so obvious that it practically slapped both of us in the face as soon as I opened my mouth.
Hiro’s trademark enthusiasm brought the exact opposite energy to the conversation. “Oh, you’re not gonna believe how much fun today has been!” He looked back into the room before hurriedly shutting the door. “Sorry, that’s the third time today I’ve forgotten to close that. Clumsy me, huh?”
“Nah, don’t talk like that, man.” I walked closer to Hiro to close the awkwardly wide gap between us in the hallway. “What’s that room even for?”
Hiro’s eyes lit up brighter than the entire inside of the building. “I thought you’d never ask!” He slowly opened the door again and dramatically gestured for me to walk inside. “Come in, come in, if you dare… for this place is not for the faint of heart. You see, of those who venture inside, very few have survived to tell the tale…”
“Haha, I’m sure I’ll be fine, Hiro.” I took a step forward before Hiro placed his arm out to stop me.
“Don’t say I didn’t warn you… Welcome to the Dark Room.”
Hiro’s comical horror movie trailer voice barely prepared me for what I saw inside. Inside of the room itself, the red light felt oppressing. The partially developed photographs that covered various unfamiliar devices certainly didn’t help the room feel any less creepy. All of the faces in the photos that had finished developing felt like they were judging my every move.
“Having fun yet?” Hiro slapped me on the shoulder, scaring the absolute shit out of me. I flinched out of shock, lost my balance and nearly fell straight into a tray full of liquid and undeveloped film. “Oops, sorry. Maybe I should’ve saved that for after the tour.”
“Yeah, no kidding.” I regained my balance and moved as far away as possible from any of the trays. I stared deep into the liquid within the trays, afraid that I might sink in it if I got too close. “Are any of these your photos, Hiro?”
He picked up a photo that was resting in one of the trays. “Ooh, I actually think mine is ready to move into the stop bath.” Hiro showed me the film - I could barely make out anything. “Cool, huh?”
I didn’t know whether to agree or not. “I’m sure it’ll turn out great! Now can we get the hell out of here, Hiro?” I started shivering as the red light that consumed the entire dark room started to crawl up my spine.
“Yeah, yeah, I guess we can leave, Genjo.” Hiro set his film in a different tray and walked me out of the dark room. “So… how was it??”
All that I gave Hiro in response was a look of discomfort.
“Alright, you can at least tell me you hated it.” Hiro adjusted his baseball cap to move the brim out of the way of his eyes before grabbing me by the shoulders. “Look at me. Look at me, Genjo. Look me in the eyes and tell me it sucked.”
I gently brushed his hands off my shoulders. “It didn’t suck. I just get creeped out by stuff like that.” I flicked the brim of his cap. “Thanks for showing me that. It’s not every day you get to see your friends doing the stuff that makes them happy.”
Hiro couldn’t help but react a bit bashfully. “T-thanks. That means a lot, Genjo.” The timidness didn’t last long however, as he switched back to his horror movie trailer voice on a dime. “I m-mean… that concludes today’s episode of Tales from the Dark Room… Keep an eye open tonight, Genjo…” Can’t help but admire Hiro’s commitment to the bit.
We both left Moore Hall laughing hysterically at each other’s ideas for scary stories and made our way towards the nearest dining hall for our hour-long break between classes. For the first time, I didn’t feel the need to check the map. Turns out that living on campus for a few days helps you learn the layout fairly easily. Go figure.
Hiro lightly slugged me on the shoulder. “Genjo, I’m not even a week into filmmaking, but trust me - nobody would greenlight that.”
“What are you talking about?” I opened a bag of chocolates that Hiro had bought to make up for the time he ate all of mine on the plane and popped one into my mouth. “I think that ‘My Sister’s Prom Date Was The Ghost of Ludwig Boltzmann?’ is an extraordinary idea.”
Hiro rolled his eyes. “Sounds like somebody’s been reading too many light novels.”
I zipped up the bag of chocolates and put it away in my bag. “No such thing. You’ll eat those words when my ideas make millions, dude.” Hiro and I kept exchanging playful insults with each other as we kept walking.
As we approached an intersection between multiple sidewalks, I noticed that Hiro was too engrossed in our conversation to look where he was going. In fact, I noticed that he was on route to collide right into a person that was walking down the intersecting sidewalk. I quickly tugged Hiro by the back collar of his shirt and yanked him back, saving him from embarrassing both of them.
Hiro rubbed the back of his neck. “Ouch! What was that for -”
The girl that Hiro nearly walked into interrupted him before I could answer. “Interesting. It feels like I’ve been seeing you everywhere lately, Sazama.”
I knew that voice almost as well as I knew Hiro’s. I nervously looked up and saw exactly who I didn’t want to see - Dokuro. “Well I can’t say the same for you. You been following me around, or something? ” Wait, why did that come out so rudely? I coughed in an attempt to make my change in tone seem more natural. “...I’m just glad I was able to stop you from getting hurt.”
Dokuro’s eyes narrowed. She started mumbling under her breath. “...would’ve been nice to hear that the first time.”
I cocked an eyebrow in confusion. “...what?”
“Nothing.” She brushed a small lock of hair out of her face. “Sazama, has anyone ever told you that you speak really fast?”
“What do you want?” I took a step towards Dokuro without even thinking, feeling my hand begin to shake as I tried my hardest to keep my cool. “Because if I’m being honest, I’ve been getting pretty tired of your bullshit lately. You always come up to me and ask me vague and confusing questions, insult me to my face, write down everything I do like I’m a god damn lab rat, and then have the nerve to act like I’m the weird one?” Any sense of poise I had left in me evaporated away as I felt my blood boil. I resisted the confrontational urge to step any closer to her as my voice escalated in volume. “What the hell is your problem?”
Dokuro didn’t change her composure whatsoever. “Personally, I think that question should be asked the other way around, wouldn’t you say?” Her demeanor walked an incredibly fine line between grace or feeling nothing at all. “You take everything so personally, Sazama… Why? The way that I speak to you is no different from how I interact with any other person in my life, yet it seems to me that you are simply incompatible with that type of communication.”
Hiro quietly and cautiously stepped in between me and Dokuro. “H-hey, guys… maybe we should pick a better place to talk about this?”
I kept eye contact with Dokuro through Hiro’s intervention. “Don’t worry, Hiro. I have nothing more to speak to her about.”
He began to stammer, struggling to find a way to handle the situation. “G-Genjo, I t-think we sh-should try and t-talk this one out. Y-You think so t-too, right?”
“I don’t.” I stepped around her and kept walking towards the dining hall. “It was great seeing you, Chika.” Neither Dokuro nor Hiro followed.
Dokuro slowly turned to face Hiro. “I don’t believe we’ve met.”
Hiro was unresponsive for several seconds. He expected her to introduce herself, or at least any gesture of some kind. “...Oh! Uh, my name is Takamaru… um - Hiro Takamaru.”
She took a deep breath and started walking away before stopping for a brief second. “Takamaru.”
“Can you keep a secret?”
~
In only the blink of an eye, I had already found myself in the dining hall with a bowl of soup on the table in front of me. It’s not like me to get so furious with people, but whenever I do, I tend to not remember much about what happens. Out of the bits and fragments of memory that I could piece together, all I could think about was how much that woman pisses me off.
The loud clatter as Hiro set multiple soup bowls on the table refused to let me fester in my own animosity for much longer. He politely slid a napkin over to my side of the table. “Are you sure that you don’t wanna talk about it?”
I practically yanked the napkin out of Hiro’s hand before he could let go. In the process, I accidentally crumpled it up pretty badly. “I’m sure.”
Hiro sat down, noticeably conflicted about something. “Okay… if you say so.”
We sat and ate lunch in nearly total silence, minus the occasionally loud slurping of soup, or Hiro’s fragmented words as he attempted to start a conversation before ultimately deciding not to. Not that I would’ve heard it anyway - my music was too loud to hear even the loud humming of the fluorescent lights. Luckily enough, none of my thoughts were very audible at this volume, either.
After about 20 minutes, Hiro started working on the review homework we had been assigned for our calculus class. I watched as his pen would glide effortlessly across the paper, deriving and integrating like it was a second language to him. 3x - ⅓ dx… God, I was so desperate to avoid thinking about her that I started to get excited over calculus.
This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it
I lost interest in watching Hiro do homework after a while, and I began staring off into space, not looking for anything in particular. Nothing kept my attention for very long - a boy dressed in a full suit and tie, another boy drinking water out of an entire jug, a panel on the ceiling that someone must’ve forgotten to paint during the last renovation… Of all the times for nothing unusual to happen, why now?
When I looked back at the table, Hiro had already left. In his place, he left a napkin reading, ‘Sorry I couldn’t make your day better, Genjo. I still think you should try and talk to her, but that’s up to you. Text me if you need anything. - Hiro’.
I shoved the napkin in my pocket and went to class.
~
Ford Hall - School of Archaeology and Anthropology.
You know, for a building focused on ancient human history and civilizations… this place looks really tacky. I mean, where do I even start with this place? More obviously than anything else, the cybernetic font on the sign did not age well. And the concrete exterior… ugh, I can taste the vomit in my mouth just looking at it. If their goal was to turn this building into an archaeological site of its own, then they certainly succeeded.
Thankfully, the interior was a bit more tasteful and a bit less 70s. In fact, it was more like a museum than a school building - replica skeletons of various primate species were lined up along the wall, leading from the front door towards the main lecture hall like in that classic ‘monkey to man’ image you always see in the evolution chapter of biology textbooks. I’m sure exactly zero people have gotten upset about that one.
It didn’t take long for our first lecture to pique my interest.
A man named Dr. George Hornbuckle, donned in a safari vest and round, dark-tinted glasses, stood before us at the chalkboard. “Before we start, I have one vastly important question for you all. In fact, this might be the most important question I ask all semester.” Hornbuckle read it aloud as he frantically wrote out the question in large text across the board:
“What makes you human?”
“Now, I know that may seem pretty obvious. ‘We think, therefore we are’, right?” As Dr. Hornbuckle wrote out the phrase at a similarly brisk pace, he immediately scratched it out. “No… It’s not quite that simple, is it?” He turned to face the class. “Would somebody like to tell me what they believe makes us definitely human?”
One student instantly raised their hand. “Is it self-awareness?”
Dr. Hornbuckle chuckled. “I don’t know, is it self-awareness? Have some more confidence in your answers, everyone.” Even after making fun of their answer, he still wrote it on the board. “Come on, this is a conversation about us. We should know the answer to this better than any other question on the planet!”
He pointed his chalk at me from the front of the classroom. “You, young man… let’s hear your answer!”
I froze up for a few seconds before answering. “...DNA.” I ran my hand through my hair out of nervousness. “...I mean, our DNA. We have different DNA from every other species on the planet. That’s why we’re human and no one else is.”
“Tsk, tsk. I figured the scientists in the room would show themselves eventually.” Dr. Hornbuckle wrote my answer underneath the previous student’s answer. “Let’s continue down that line of reasoning, shall we?”
He opened a drawer, pulling out a human skull and a chimpanzee skull. “Look at how different these two skulls are. Surely, this one isn’t human, right? We don’t have the same DNA, after all.” Based on the sarcastic tone in his voice, I knew he was about to prove me wrong somehow. “Ah, but you see, the chimpanzee shares about 99% of its DNA with humans! So can we really say we’re completely different? And even if you don’t believe in our relationship to our friend the chimp here, doesn’t everybody in this room, let alone the whole world, have different DNA? So, is any single one of us more or less human than another?”
Dr. Hornbuckle put the skulls back in his drawer and continued with his lecture. “We’ve had some incredibly thought-provoking answers so far! I’m impressed with you all. Let’s have one more person in the class answer.”
The last student volunteered. “What about a soul?”
“Hmm.” Dr. Hornbuckle wrote the word ‘soul’ on the board much more slowly than usual. “How exactly does one define a ‘soul’? Is it the emotion? The intellect? Or is it simply something beyond our comprehension? Or…” He wrote a question mark at the end of the word ‘soul’. “Does it even exist at all?”
“The intention of this lecture is to show that, while there are not necessarily any wrong answers… are there any correct answers?” Dr. Hornbuckle pointed at me and the other two students who participated in his discussion. “What these three students have unknowingly proven just now is that archaeology, no matter how much information we may have about a group of people, is still an interpretive science. We will always be bound by the limits of our own knowledge as individuals… we will never know everything. It would be foolish to expect otherwise. But…” He looked very intensely at us from behind his darkened lens. “That can’t stop us from trying.”
Dr. Hornbuckle dismissed class shortly after that, but I couldn’t stop thinking about his lecture for the rest of the day. Even as I laid in bed, trying to fall asleep, that question still prodded at me. I restlessly thought about all of the people I had met over the last week - Hiro… Chika… Ryu… Eiichi… Yukio… Nami… Aiko… Daniel, Luna, and Cleo… even Paramélisi… “What makes us human?” No…
“What makes me human?”
~
Nine hours of sleep didn’t help me come to any conclusive answers.
…Neither did the 10 minutes walk to theatre class.
“You know what, I don’t feel like giving a boring ass lecture this early in the morning.” Professor Clayton grabbed an eraser and wiped off all of the lesson plans that she had written on the board just minutes prior. “I have a better idea!” In place of the lesson plans, she wrote ‘Find a partner!’. “Theatre is supposed to be fun, not just a bunch of snooze-inducing seminars about stuff you don’t care about!” She paused for a moment. “Okay, well, technically it is, but not today! I want you all to pair up and rehearse anything of your choice! Whether it’s a play, a musical, a TV show, or even a freaking car commercial, I don’t care! Just have fun with it!’
And with that, Professor Clayton left us all to our own devices. …Did she forget that I have absolutely no clue what I’m doing?? Shit, I don’t want to embarrass myself in front of anyone who’s been doing this for years, or god forbid, in front of -
“Whaddup, sleepyhead?” Aiko perched herself on top of my desk as her voice - which was just as chipper as I remember it being - snapped me out of my inner monologue. “Come on, let’s go. This scene isn’t gonna rehearse itself, you know.”
I still needed a moment to process this whole interaction. “Uh… you sure you don’t want a better partner?”
“Nope!” Aiko stood up and grabbed me by the hand. “Seriously, we gotta go. I know the best rehearsal spot, and we need to get there before anyone else gets there first!”
“Wait, I don’t - woah!!” I barely had the chance to convince Aiko to pick somebody else before she rushed out of the classroom, pulling me along with her like a chariot tied to a horse. As she took a series of twists and turns throughout the building, she eventually lost her grip on my hand in her excitement, forcing me to run close behind her. “Hey, Aiko!! Where the hell are we going???”
Aiko looked at me over her shoulder. “Don’t worry about it! We’ll be there soon, anyway!”
I panted heavily as I struggled to keep up with her. “That… makes me… more nervous… Aiko…” How is she running at a pace like this so easily in three inch heels?
Once she opened the doors to the front of Fujiwara Hall, I sort of gave up completely on questioning where Aiko was taking me. As I followed her around the entire northwest quadrant of campus, she kept yelling at me to “Keep it up, Genjo!” and “Better not get lost now, sleepyhead!”. Man… you doze off in class one time, and you’ve got a new nickname for the rest of your life. Not that I mind it, or anything. I just wish she’d have waited at least a week before deciding that she knew my whole personality.
After a solid mile of running, Aiko finally stopped and firmly planted her feet in front of a massive, unlabeled building with a regal entrance that was unfortunately boarded up. “Well, here we are, Genjo! Ain’t she beautiful? Everything you always dreamed it would be?”
I stopped next to Aiko and bent over to catch my breath before getting a closer look at the building. “Aiko… who the hell was gonna take this spot from us, again?”
“No one!” Aiko ran up on the steps and spun around to face me. “I just wanted to get here as quickly as we could so we had as much rehearsal time as possible!” Wow, somebody let this girl have her daily amount of sugar early.
“But…” I had to stop and catch my breath again. “...how the hell do we get in there?”
Aiko snickered. “Genjo, have you so little faith in your fair lady, Aiko?” She leaped off the steps to the front of the building and dragged me around the back to a conspicuously open window. Aiko gestured toward the window. “Okay, get in!”
“Aiko, what the - I mean, I - are you crazy??”
“Why would I be?” Aiko effortlessly hopped through the window and held her hand out to me. “Here, grab my hand. Unless you’re a big boy and you don’t need my help.”
“Ugh.” I begrudgingly climbed through the window. “I didn’t do that to prove a point, by the way.”
Aiko kept pestering me as I entered the building with her. “Aw, that was sooo brave of you! You’re so tough, Genjo!” She started ruffling my hair for a few seconds before deciding that maybe she was taking the bit too far. Aiko ran over to a breaker box and yanked on a lever next to it. “Check this out.”
I brushed my messy hair out of my eyes and saw what Aiko had dragged me along to see. We were inside of a massive auditorium that looked like it hadn’t been touched in years. A gorgeous painting of the world spanned the entire ceiling above the mezzanine floor, which split off into over a dozen rooms. Each country on the world map was styled differently to each have their own identity, yet they all came together in such a cohesive way as a greater piece. None of the seats looked damaged or destroyed - they just looked worn with age. And to top it all off - the wooden stage, still covered in a thick layer of dust.
Aiko tapped me on the shoulder from behind. “So… what do you think?”
“What do I think?” I turned towards Aiko and grabbed her by the hands out of pure excitement. “Aiko, this is incredible! Why doesn’t anybody else know about this place?
“Haha, I don't know.” She looked completely lost in thought as she gazed out at the stage. “Sometimes the best kept secrets are the ones worth hiding.”
Aiko started running down the aisle towards the stage. “Hey, Genjo!! Are you coming to rehearsal or not?” I smiled as I caught her infectious enthusiasm and ran after her.
Small clouds of dust puffed up beneath her feet as she stepped up on the stage for the first time. “Ah, it feels good to be back, baby!” She turned around and noticed that I hadn’t followed her up on stage. “Hey, dummy! You’re allowed up here too!”
My face turned completely red preemptively for however I was going to find a way to embarrass myself today. “Wait, Aiko, I forgot to tell you that I-”
“That you’re not an actor?” Aiko grabbed me by the hand once more and pulled me up the steps onto the stage. Loud thuds mimicking my steps echoed throughout the theatre as I stumbled my way next to Aiko. “Why does that matter, dummy? Your only audience is me, and I’m sure as hell not gonna make fun of you.” Aiko exaggeratedly smiled at me. “That is, unless you want me to.”
I smiled back almost as excessively as she did. “Count me in.”
“Okay… don’t say I didn’t warn you!” She pulled a paper script out of her back pocket and handed it to me. “Here’s the scene I wanted us to do!”
I looked down at the script - it was for a musical that was set in America during the 1950’s. The characters all seemed to be on a TV show about teenagers who sang, danced, and advertised various hair products. Aiko flipped the page to a specific scene right before the two lead characters were supposed to perform a song together on this TV show.
“Um… Aiko -”
“Oh, you don’t have to sing yet if you don’t want to.” Aiko pulled out a second script from her bag. “If you want, we can do this one instead. There are a lot more scenes without singing in them.”
I took a brief glance at the new script - Beauty and the Beast… a fairy tale that everyone should know. “Oh, it’s your choice. I’m okay with either.”
Aiko’s eyes met mine with a glimmer of elation. “Wait, you mean you are okay with singing??”
I sighed. “...Maybe.”
Aiko let out a shriek of euphoria and she hurriedly started moving various platforms around the stage. “Oh my god. Oh my god!! Genjo, we have to do this scene now!” She nearly fainted from her sheer joy alone.
I shoved the other script into my jacket pocket as I helped her move the platforms and other objects around. “Aiko, it sounds like you really like this musical. Of course I’d be happy to do it with you.”
“Yep! It’s one of my favorites! I remember when-” Aiko’s voice abruptly trailed off. “...Never mind, I’m just excited to do this scene again!” Something about that statement felt off, but I chose not to say anything.
Aiko set her phone down on the stage and hit the play button on the song. “We’ll listen to it a couple of times, and then we’ll start!” The more and more we listened to it, the less convinced I was that I’d be able to actually pull it off. I mean, wasn’t this character supposed to be the cool guy that every girl on the show is head over heels for?
“Well duh, Genjo.” Aiko rolled her eyes. “That’s why it’s called acting.” …How did she read my mind? “It’s not mind reading if you’re thinking out loud, dummy.” Right… that’s how.
After a long session of deep breaths and warm up exercises, Aiko and I finally began our first rehearsal of the song.
It was terrible.
“Aw, don’t be too hard on yourself, Genjo.” Aiko patted me on the back. “Stage fright is natural. You’ll get used to it!”
Stage fright… I felt inclined to agree, but something else felt wrong. I was nervous, that much was certain. But I couldn’t exactly put my finger on what, or perhaps who, I was afraid of.
I practiced the song by myself a few times before we attempted running through the scene again. Once I felt confident enough in my delivery, we gave it another shot.
Interestingly, it was Aiko who got a bit flustered that time.
“Hey, Aiko..” I could tell from the look on her face that she had gotten incredibly overwhelmed just now. “Did I do something wrong?”
Aiko quickly shook it off. “N-nope! Everything’s fine!” She took a sip of water and immediately got back into the mood to perform. “You were doing great, by the way! I genuinely didn’t expect you to have such a knack for it.”
“Oh. Uh, thanks.” I nervously flipped through the script again in an attempt to avoid making eye contact with her. “All in a hard day’s work, right?”
Aiko laughed. “You know what I mean, smartass.” She walked up and handed me the bottle of water. “Seriously, that voice isn’t half bad. Just drink some water and take care of it, and we’ll absolutely kill this performance.” My hand shook slightly as I took the water bottle from her and took a small sip. “I know you’ll do great whenever we’re ready.”
I handed the bottle back to Aiko. “Don’t give me too much credit. I’m just learning from the best, aren’t I?”
Her demeanor abruptly shifted. “Yeah… I guess you are.” I don’t understand… Why did that make her so sad all of a sudden?
“Oh… Aiko I’m s-”
I was interrupted by the sound of her alarm blaring from her cell phone. “Oh, shoot, that means class is over.” She ran over and grabbed her phone and put it back in her handbag. “Well, I guess I’ll see you in class in a couple of days.” Aiko turned around and started walking towards the steps on the other side of the stage.
I took a step after her. “Aiko!”
She stopped and turned around to look at me. “What is it, Genjo?”
Without me even asking them to, my fists instinctively clenched up. I finally realized… that’s what I was so afraid of. I couldn’t hurt somebody else without meaning to again… not after Dokuro. I took a deep breath, sighed, and unclenched my fists.
“I didn’t mean to upset you earlier.”
Aiko’s expression turned from melancholy to puzzled. “Genjo…” She stepped back towards me. “You had nothing to do with that. I was just…” She trailed off, but didn’t finish her statement after that. Aiko hid her face as she turned around. “I’m sorry, I really need to get going.”
As she spun around to run off stage, I started to run after her before I saw an eerily long, shadowy black hand reach out from behind the stage curtain and clutch Aiko by her ankle. Millions of thoughts and emotions wrestled with each other in my mind as I heard Aiko’s screech of horror, all the while the shadowy arm took hold of her leg and attempted to drag her behind the curtain. Too many thoughts… too many feelings… they were all so overwhelming… so I did the only thing I could do.
I snapped my fingers.
With the thrust of my right arm and a surge of energy rushing through my body, the hand bound around Aiko’s ankle had been severed from the shadowy limb from whence it came with a blast of nuclear power that momentarily lit up the entire auditorium as they collided. I briefly collapsed to my knees, not anticipating the amount of force that it took on my body, before pushing through the pain and running after Aiko to protect her. “It’s okay, Aiko…” I looked out to try and find the arm - it had already retreated back behind the curtain. “...You’re safe.”
Aiko swiftly jumped up and tightly clung to me, still unable to shake off the dread. “Genjo… what was that?” After a while, she finally let go. “Seriously, what the hell was that?”
I took her by the hand… “Don’t worry, I can explain.” I saw the look in her eyes - she was still horrified. “But it’s a bit complicated…”
“...Do you mind if I call a friend real quick?”