Chapter Text
Today was, without a shadow of doubt, the strangest, most absurd day of my life.
I was standing in front of an open window in an empty classroom, quietly gazing at the cloudless sky outside with a massive grin on my face as I tried to make sense of everything that had happened in the past couple of days, especially Kasumi-san's pep-talk - if that was even the right word for it.
I love everything about you, Ousaka Shizuku!
I could still clearly hear her words in my head, and just remembering them was enough for a pleasant warmth to spread through my body.
No, Kasumi-san hadn't given me a pep-talk. I was dealing with an actual love confession.
Naturally, calling it that was a bit of a stretch, but if boldly telling someone that you love them wasn't a love confession, then I had no idea what was.
In any case, that was merely the tip of the iceberg of everything that was happening around me recently…
It had all started with the joint Drama Festival our school was participating in together with Touou Academy, in which I'd been meant to play the main role in Nijigasaki's play after nearly effortlessly winning the audition. And no wonder getting it had been easy - the role was practically made for me, or rather the President had picked the script with me in mind. After all, the protagonist was a girl struggling with the same problems as me - being afraid of opening up to people, hiding her true self out of fear of being seen as different - who over the course of her story is forced to face and overcome them.
I wanted to believe that those similarities were merely a coincidence, but I couldn't ignore the fact that the President had tried something like this before, except this time she managed to hit me right where it hurts the most… At first I'd believed that I could pull through by telling myself that this is just another role, only for her to replace me out of nowhere, saying that she needed someone who could put themselves out there.
She wanted me to stand on the stage and expose my true self. To embrace all my fears and lay my heart bare for all to see.
And that idea had been beyond terrifying for me.
After all, I'd spent many years building a shell around me to keep me safe. Slowly shaping the character of the fake Ousaka Shizuku who's just a normal, boring girl who's always nice to everyone while not letting them get too close. And acting had always been a means of escape. A way for me to forget about my sad existence and pretend to be someone else, allowing me to feel free, to do the things I wouldn't normally do out of fear of being judged by others.
And now I was meant to throw that all away and simply stand on a stage while being myself.
To make things worse, Kasumi-san and Rina-san had heard about me being replaced and tried to cheer me up yesterday by having us hang out after classes. And while part of me found it sweet that they cared about me, I was mostly disappointed in myself for letting my unease show and making them think that I needed help in the first place.
My pride getting the better of me, I'd pushed them both away, stubbornly pretending that everything is fine and deciding that I'll be fine on my own.
"As it turns out, I've been nothing more than a naive fool," I muttered to no one in particular with a bitter smile.
It just hadn't occurred to me back then that Kasumi-san's stubbornness easily dwarfs mine. Even though she hadn't stopped me from leaving her and Rina-san yesterday, today she'd ambushed me while I was practicing, or rather feeling sorry for myself in an empty classroom, fully prepared to help me at any and all cost. And, as I'd found out, she had a very interesting way of doing that…
Not only had she forced me to open up about all the feelings I'd been bottling up inside me for years, she'd nearly punched me in the face right afterwards and yelled at me for being naive, forced me to call her cute for some reason, criticized me some more for being stubborn and not that confident, only to wrap it all up with a literal love confession.
I love everything about you, Ousaka Shizuku!
Okay, technically she'd wrapped it all up by panicking and running away before I could respond while wearing the most hilarious expression I'd ever seen on her face and it took all my strength not to burst out laughing again.
If there was one thing I liked about Nakasu Kasumi, it was that there was never a dull moment with her. No matter how much time passed, she remained an endless source of amusement and I couldn't help but to see her as a mischievous puppy, constantly trying to act tough only to run away right after with her tail between her legs, never failing to cheer me up with her antics.
But more than that, she remained an enigma I had no hopes of cracking. Even though I could read her like an open book given how hopeless she was at hiding her feelings, I could never really understand what was going on inside her head.
I couldn't even tell how close the two of us were, really. Back when we'd first met, I kept believing that she only sees me as a means to an end since she needed one more person to form the club. But then she'd made it clear that she wanted to be my friend even if I didn't join, but at the same time I've had a feeling she simply wanted someone to be her friend, not necessarily me, so I'd decided to accept her and at least play that role until she found someone who would truly consider her a friend.
And yet we'd stayed relatively close during the days of the original club. Naturally, I'd been telling myself that it was simply because we were the same age - even though she'd been more or less friendly with the others, I was pretty sure she'd seen them as senpais first and friends second.
Then, our club ended up disbanding and reforming shortly after with Takasaki Yuu's help. As far as I knew, the girl had been the first person to ever openly praise Kasumi-san's cuteness and shower her with affection, so her getting clingy with her new senpai had come as no surprise. Back then, I'd been sure that she would lose interest in me as she finally had someone who would care about her more than I did and yet, somehow, the two of us hadn't drifted apart after all.
I love everything about you, Ousaka Shizuku!
And now there she was, telling me she loves me.
Ever since our first meeting, I'd been stubbornly pushing her away, telling myself that I'm only playing the role of her friend, and that sooner or later we would part ways, yet all this time Nakasu Kasumi had been the best friend anyone could ever hope for, someone who would always accept me for who I am and go to any lengths to help me.
Frankly, part of me had always known that, but I'd been too afraid to actually believe it. Afraid to hope that there really was someone out there who would accept me. Afraid that, despite everything, there was some invisible line that I would eventually cross by letting her get closer and it would ruin everything right after I let my guard down.
For so long, I'd believed that I didn't need anyone like that. That I was strong enough not to need to rely on anyone for help and I could solve all my problems on my own through hard work alone.
Today, I've been proven wrong.
And if of all people, Nakasu Kasumi - the infamous Kasukasu - has to talk sense into you and calls you naive without you being able to refute her, you know you need to change your ways.
I needed to change, there was no doubt about that. I wasn't really sure how, but if a problem that seemed trivial to a normal person was enough to nearly make me give up on my dreams, I had no hopes of becoming a professional actress.
Perhaps this was what the President wanted me to understand through this play. She'd put an obstacle in my way that I had no hopes of overcoming without changing - she wanted to make me or break me.
And I had no intention of letting her break me. I had someone who accepted me, someone who loved me, and that needed to be enough. I was fully prepared to stand on that stage and put myself out there like she wanted. I would embrace my feelings and expose my true self, making it the best performance of my life.
But what then? This wasn't just about acting - I needed to stop hiding behind a mask in everyday life too, to simply be myself.
To be myself…
What did that even mean? Who exactly was the real Ousaka Shizuku?
The answer was simple - she was an actress. Admittedly, it wasn't much of an answer, but it wasn't exactly wrong, and while there definitely was a better one out there, I had a feeling finding it wasn't going to be easy.
But that was fine, I didn't need to find it right away.
I wanted to change and I already knew the first step - I needed to learn to stop caring about what people think of me to help me become stronger, to make sure that what happened today was nothing more than a moment of weakness that would never happen again.
It was easier said than done of course, but thankfully I had a very useful tool at my disposal, one that would never let me down - acting. I couldn't change right away - people's minds aren't that simple after all. But I could change the way I acted. So for the time being, I would force myself to act like I'm no longer worried about others' opinions and hope that one day it would actually be true.
Fake it till you make it…
It wasn't much of a plan, but it was a plan nonetheless and it was enough for me to see the light at the end of this tunnel. I had a goal and I had a way of achieving it, now I simply needed to keep working hard until I got there, which was nothing new to me.
But there was one more thing weighing on my mind…
I love everything about you, Ousaka Shizuku!
Kasumi-san's love confession… I kept calling it that, yet I was under no delusions about the meaning behind her words. Even though 'love' was a powerful word that I would never use to describe my feeling for someone I consider a friend, I was fairly certain the same wasn't true for Kasumi-san - I had no problems at all imagining her telling anyone who called her cute that she loves them, not that I'd ever personally witnessed something like that. And it's not like she was some sort of outlier either - as far as I was concerned, I was the only teenage girl in Japan who held such antiquated views about it.
But no matter how much logic I applied to this situation, it couldn't change the way her confession had made me feel.
It's as if the two of us were the leads in a love story… Me, the troubled heroine who stubbornly tries to solve her problem, unable to ask anyone for help… And her, the protagonist who over the course of the story proves how much he cares about the heroine, doing everything in his power to help her even when she pushes him away, and finally lays his heart bare, in the spur of a moment boldly confessing his feelings that he has vowed to keep hidden at all cost…
Shakespeare had once said that all the world's a stage and that we're all actors playing our roles upon it. But if my life was a play, then it was a painfully boring one. Sure, there were times where something truly interesting happened, but those were few and far between. Which is why I'd always been enthralled by the world of fiction - things that I experienced myself couldn't even compare with my favorite novels, movies and plays.
At least until today.
Because the thrill of actually being confessed to was unlike anything I'd ever felt and I knew well it would never be matched by some second-hand experience, no matter how well-written or well-acted it would be.
Which was an enormous problem for me, because even though it's been mere minutes since Kasumi-san had made her exit, I was already craving more. I wanted to feel like that again. I wanted to hear those words again. I wanted to once more see her being so bold and forceful with me, her passionate feelings for me making her go out of control, turning the adorable puppy into a wild, ferocious beast. I wanted her to make my heart pound so much it would threaten to leap out of my chest.
I wanted to feel like a heroine again.
And more than anything, I needed to know what was going to happen next. To see the rest of Nakasu Kasumi's and Ousaka Shizuku's love story.
But there wouldn't be one, because there was no love story there in the first place. And the rest of this not-love-story was easy to predict: Given how panicked Nakasu Kasumi had been right after the confession, there was definitely going to be some awkwardness between the two for a while, but eventually things would go back to normal. And Ousaka Shizuku, no longer needing to hide her true self, would learn to be more open about her feelings and find a way to express her gratitude for the person who saved her. Ultimately, the two would grow much closer than they'd ever been.
As best friends, nothing more and nothing less.
They were both girls, after all.
"Gods, what a waste… All that setup for nothing…" I dejectedly muttered under my breath, giving the most unfavorable review to this 'story'.
Evidently, I was starting to lose my mind - receiving a love confession out of absolutely nowhere had simply been too much for me. After all, if someone had asked me an hour ago how I feel about Kasumi-san, I probably would call her nothing more than an acquaintance while coming up with some excuses about how not being able to open up in front of her meant that we weren't friends. And now here I was, being this close to thinking of her as a potential lover. The idea of dating a girl had never even crossed my mind before today, as I'd always dreamed of a fateful encounter straight out of a fairytale. Of my very own Prince Charming who'd come riding on his white horse and sweep me off my feet.
Instead, I'd been swept off my feet by Nakasu Kasumi of all people. Fate truly had a strange sense of humor…
Someone like her had no business making me feel like that in the first place. She was supposed to be more like a pet, or a glorified mascot of the School Idol Club. And yet the Kasumi-san that had found me here today couldn't be any more different from her usual self, almost as if her behavior had been nothing more than an act.
Or maybe I wasn't the only one hiding my true self…
The thought was so silly it made me let out a bitter laugh. It was yet another piece of evidence confirming that I was losing my mind. But in a way, it was understandable - I wanted to have someone who understood me and my struggles, and my subconsciousness was making enormous leaps in logic to find someone who would fit that bill.
But as absurd as the idea of Kasumi-san using acting to hide her true self was, I couldn't shake the feeling that maybe there was something to it after all.
Because thinking about it, dealing with Kasumi-san sometimes felt like dealing with several clones of her, all wearing the same face, yet each of them acting like a different person. Still, I was probably overthinking it - everyone had several masks they were using in front of different people and in Kasumi-san's case the differences between them were simply more pronounced.
And even though I was growing more and more fascinated by her, the fact remained that I was getting distracted, and I couldn't afford to do that. I knew I was going to be spending a lot of time thinking about Kasumi-san and everything that had transpired in this classroom, but that could wait.
For the time being, I needed to stay focused on the present. After all, there was an audition I needed to win.
And I wouldn't let anything stand in my way now.