The school auditorium smelled like fresh paint and nervous energy.
Three days before opening night, the entire cast and crew had officially entered panic mode. Costumes were being adjusted with frantic fingers, lighting cues rewired with quiet curses, and set pieces moved, tested, and nearly broken half a dozen times. In the middle of it all, Rin stood like a general amidst chaos, clipboard in hand and hair tied up tightly.
Leo arrived early, as he often did now. There was a calming rhythm to the madness.
He set his bag down backstage and started running lines under his breath.
> "If I say I love you, it can't be undone..."
A shadow passed behind him.
Ami.
She gave a short nod. "Still rewriting?"
Leo shook his head. "Not anymore. Just… refining."
She lingered. "The new version. It's better. Realer. Hurts more."
"…Yeah."
Ami didn't move.
"You gave my character closure," she said. "I think I needed that too."
Leo looked at her. "I didn't want her to be forgotten."
Ami smiled faintly. "She won't be."
---
Yuki arrived late, clutching her thermos of lemon tea, hair slightly damp from a rushed shower.
"You look like you ran here," Leo said.
"I overslept," she said. "But in my dream, we already won best performance."
Kai snorted from nearby. "Premonitions from the soda oracle. Nice."
Rin clapped her hands. "Positions, everyone! Full run-through. No interruptions."
---
The first act flew by with almost mechanical precision. Everyone was too focused, too tense. But by the time Act II started, something shifted.
Yuki and Leo's characters had a major confrontation in this act. The scene was supposed to be heated—an argument, a tearful plea, and a half-hearted rejection.
But today, something was different.
Yuki stepped closer than she usually did.
Her voice cracked in a place it never had before.
> "You always say the right things. But it's not what I need. I need you to feel it."
That line wasn't in the script.
Leo blinked but didn't stop. He replied instinctively.
> "If I say everything, I'm afraid you'll walk away."
The auditorium held its breath.
Backstage, Rin narrowed her eyes. Not with anger. With intrigue.
---
After rehearsal, the main cast gathered outside near the sports field. The sun was setting, casting long shadows over the cracked pavement.
Kai tossed a water bottle toward Leo, who caught it with a reflex he didn't know he had.
"You know," Kai said, "if this were a drama anime, we're in the final arc before the confession episode."
Yuki laughed. "And then the inevitable misunderstanding arc."
Ami glanced at both of them. "Don't forget the bittersweet farewell arc."
Leo looked at them, three silhouettes painted by twilight.
"…Can we skip to the part where no one gets hurt?"
"Nope," they said in unison.
---
That night, Leo sat at his desk, flipping through the script. But he wasn't reading anymore. He was remembering.
The riverbank talk with Yuki. The silent glances from Ami. The half-nods from Rin when no one else saw.
He pulled out a fresh notebook and wrote three lines:
> "To love someone is to risk being wrong."
> "To stay silent is to choose the safest regret."
> "To act is to fall—willingly."
He closed the notebook.
Three days to curtain.
Time to fall.