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Wataru still sits on the stage where she died, in the same spot where she’d held Tenshouin after collapsing, almost like her body has merged with the wood of the stage, like she herself has become one with it. The feathers in her ponytail have drooped with time, and one of her braids is partially dissolved in her gloved hand, which flicks the ends of it over and over. Blood, spit and the foundation of her make-up have mixed into sludge on her face that she hasn’t seemed to notice.
“Buchou, what is this?” Hokuto has, by now, changed from his stage costume, having put away the mask. A prince, even out of costume, but now, after the pain and horror of that stage, he looks small. Concern has softened his usual expression into a mask she doesn’t recognize.
Wataru stares at him, or perhaps through him, for a long moment. “‘Why art thou yet so fair?’, Hokuto, have you forgotten your lines yet again?”
Hokuto’s expression hardens. “You’re not dead, buchou.”
Wataru laughs, though she doesn’t smile. “And yet here you are, to deliver me to the afterlife. Am I to take you for Death itself, then? The choir of angels, singing for me as I descend to hell?”
“I think Tenshouin may have been the one on the way to the afterlife, actually.” By the sound of Hokuto’s voice, he believes it’s where Yumenosaki’s Student Council President–no, Yumenosaki’s Emperor–belongs.
Wataru sighs. “He will recover, in time.” He must, even if the idea by now seems impossible to her, stained by his blood and having held his body in her arms. He’d leaned in to her, in his last moments, seeking warmth even as he had burned with fever. Tenshouin had weighed barely anything at all for a boy his age, even with all the weight of the revolution on his shoulders.
Hokuto conjures a tissue from his pocket and presents it to Wataru.
“We cannot seem to get the final act right,” Wataru muses, seemingly not noticing Hokuto’s efforts. “Perhaps I should blame myself for shielding my Romeo from death? I’ve taken the poison and the dagger for myself, after all. A strange turn to take: Paris, carried off by paramedics, Romeo, alive and breathing, Juliet, dead all the same.”
“You’re not dead,” Hokuto says again, now crouching down and leaning forward to wipe at Wataru’s face with the handkerchief. His movements are rough with frustration that he must surely be feeling, and he avoids Wataru’s eyes as he works. “And this isn’t Romeo and Juliet, it’s real life.”
Wataru hums under her breath, and moves for the first time in what may be since the end of the performance, letting herself fall backwards onto the stage, arms spread out from her torso. “And yet, all the world’s a stage, and we are on a stage right now, Hokuto.” She risks a glance at Hokuto, who is looking back at her with a very unimpressed expression. A mask, or genuine, she wonders. “Don’t you think we should be acting according to script, then?”
“Do you have a script prepared, buchou?”
She laughs again, involuntarily. “Ah, but if I had a script, wouldn’t I be acting right now?”
“You just said–” Mounting frustration is both visible on Hokuto’s face and in his voice. Ah, he’s always been quite hot-headed, and he must be frustrated now, after having fought fine as Hokke-Mask.
“I said we should be acting, not that we are. You’ve rejected my proposal of Romeo and Juliet, Hokuto, so we must look for an alternative instead, no? Perhaps you are Orpheus, escorting his lost love from the underworld, fighting your every instinct to not turn back until the end?”
Hokuto sighs. “You’re really set on being the doomed love right now, aren’t you?”
“You will forgive me my preoccupation with death mere moments after my own execution, won’t you? Oh, I could be Marie Antoinette at the Guillotine! Eponine in the arms of Marius!” She remains lying on her back, gaze fixed on the rafters above the stage, the lights that have long been turned off. “I’d much rather play dead than act the monster, Hokuto, I’ve gotten my fill of that act in the last months.”
“There are other acts, though.” Hokuto has gone from kneeling next to her to wipe at her face to standing above her once more, throwing a partial shadow even in the dim light. “Even for a one man show, or a two-man one, or whatever the theater club will do next year.”
“So you will continue to play with me?”
“I’m still in the theater club, and you’re still the club president,” Hokuto states it like it’s obvious. “Unless you’re planning to disband the club.”
Wataru continues to stare at the ceiling. “I should have known one born into the entertainment industry like you wouldn’t be rattled even by hell. Will you guide me, then, Orpheus?”
“If that’s what it takes to get you off this stage and into the dressing room.” Hokuto, as long-suffering in Wataru’s presence as ever, offers her a hand. “I’ll be Orpheus.”
She sits up to take his hand, and lets him pull her to her feet. “You’ll have to study your role much more thoroughly than this, Hokuto.” Back on her feet, it doesn’t feel hard to slip back into the role of theater club president, if only for the moment. “Orpheus was not allowed to look at Eurydice after all, and you’ve been scowling at me this entire time!”
Hokuto’s scowl deepens.
“But that is what I am for, is it not? To teach you how to play these roles.” It’s at least one role she can be sure to still have, now, until his Majesty the Emperor presents her with a new script. At least it’s one she knows by heart.