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The backstage of the Wondershow, contrary to one's belief, is quite spacious for the four troupe members to work with. While not as big as the stage itself, it provides a great storage unit for their unused props, costumes, and most importantly, lounge area. A wide closet sat in one of the corners of the room with a makeshift dressing room next to it. Vanity dressing tables were by the walls as well, and props from all their shows messily laid around the area.
There was a rundown couch they’ve moved in the middle of the room for when casual days arrived, alongside a coffee table and carpet the mascots offered when they were redesigning (read: getting scraps for) the backstage.
Casual days are when rehearsals are yet to take place. Where they brainstormed ideas, discussed the scripts, took costume measurements, and in general, just hung out.
While they often prefer the outside whenever they were coming up with ideas, it’s very much appreciated on days like this, where the rain falls heavily beyond the Wonderstage walls.
Nene and Tsukasa stayed on opposite sides of the aforementioned couch, both simply lounging around as they waited for the rain to settle. Rui and Emu had run outside to check on the safety of their equipment, and both Tsukasa and Nene had agreed to let them do what they do best. Rui’s their director and prop manager, after all. And Emu knows the stage like the back of her hand. She’d be able to spot something out of place in a split second.
Nene has her eyes focused on her mobile phone as the battle begins, the musical stinger at the start of each encounter plays in her headphones, drowning out any sound from the outside world. No rain patters, no chatters, not even Tsukasa’s fingers typing away on his laptop as he, she presumes, works on their latest script. She should thank Rui for the noise-cancelling upgrade soon.
Her attention fully on the battle at hand, she checks her inventory for her resources. Her weapon is on the brink of breaking, and her health boost items were running thin-
A bright light flashes from the outside.
-She clicked her tongue. Not great. Her supplies are scarce and the enemy is not a low levelled one. Is there any way she can back out? She’d rather not waste her remaining supply on a non-important opponent-
A small quake of the earth was felt from beneath her. There it is. The thunder that accompanied the light. But it wasn’t the thunder that broke her concentration, no. Instead, it was the violent flinch from the corner of her eyes as she felt the whole couch shift. Out of pure human instinct, Nene briefly shifted her eyes towards the movement but found that she couldn’t refocus on her game when her eyes landed on what actually happened.
Tsukasa, on the other side of the couch, had begun slightly shaking. Eyes darting left and right before blinking furiously and shaking his head. The legs he had implanted on the floor had been pulled up onto the couch with them and if Nene didn’t know any better, she would’ve assumed he was curling into himself. The laptop he held balanced awkwardly on his now slightly slanted lap as he tries to calm his trembling fingers and start typing again.
Tsukasa’s scared of thunder. Huh. Interesting?
Nene almost wanted to laugh. It was silly to think, actually. How someone loud as himself is terrified of something equally as bold. Well, he is deathly afraid of bugs so she guessed it wasn’t completely ridiculous. Still. It was kinda funny.
Another light came from the skies and Nene decided to check if her theory was actually correct. All humour from before dissipated as she watched Tsukasa’s genuinely terrified eyes dart to the entrance, staring at the sky outside before sinking into the couch, pulling his legs further into himself that she began slightly worrying if the laptop on his lap would crack. He brought his shaking hands to his ears and to her horror, she saw glimpses of tears welling up in his eyes. A few seconds passed.
She felt the thunder’s vibration from beneath her feet, though her headphones cancelled out any and all sounds of it.
Her theory was proven with no chance of misinterpretation. She watched as her troupe leader flinched, nearly jumping out of his seat himself. Sure, Nene’s crude but she’s not cruel . Genuine concern filled her as she watched Tsukasa try to control his breathing, each attempt more uneven than the last as he started mumbling something she couldn’t figure out.
And now she really thought about it, it’s weird. Tsukasa’s never been shy in voicing his fears. And by that, she means he screams, and he screams loud.
This…This doesn’t seem like that. There’s no wide eyed, baffled fear. No exaggerated gestures and ear-piercing screams. He just seemed…small. Like he’s resigned. That he’s comforting himself more than trying to even run from it.
Slowly, she took off her headphones and she was hit with an on-slaught of noise. The rain hadn’t calmed down in the slightest and the raindrops were angry.
The walls of the Wonderstage weren’t thick at all, which made Rui and Emu’s outside conversation slightly audible. And if it weren’t for how aggressive the rain was, she would've been able to hear every intonation in their voice. Though, that's probably due to the fact that they had to yell to even hear each other out there. More importantly, she heard Tsukasa’s mumblings as his breath hitched and his eyes shut, probably to keep the water at bay.
“-your eighteen for fucks sake-”
“…hildish…”
“-so much for a future st-”
“-not…lone anymore, you’re fine-”
“…. ull yourself together-”
Nene blinked owlishly, at a loss for what to even do. She could barely even catch anything he was mumbling, either because it was drowned out by the rain or was thrown out so quickly that her ears failed to register. She found her voice after he started to calm down once more, his legs lowering slightly so as to not break his laptop in half.
“Tsukasa…Are you scared of thunder?” she asked, although from her shock, she noticed how blunt and stiff she herself sounded. He wouldn't misinterpreted that, would he? No, of course he would. She judges him all the time. Who would blame him if he did? God, why is she so bad at showing that she cares .
His eyes snapped towards her before furiously rubbing his face. It’s a testament to how startled he was that he never noticed her staring for what had to be about a minute by now.
“WHAT?!” he yelled, scoffing as if that very statement cursed out his entire family tree. “That’s absurd! It’s thunder, Nene. It’s loud! Naturally, even a future star like me would get startled!” he glared at her, though it’s hard to muster up her usual annoyance at the sight of his red-rimmed eyes.
She let her shoulder sag in obvious worry. What can she say here? He’s denying it, obviously. She should’ve gone for a softer approach. Can she back out from this encounter instead? The video game on her phone slowly blinked away to a black screen from the lack of activity.
She doesn’t want to push him. She knows how uncomfortable it is when people push, especially when you don’t want to talk about it. But she also doesn’t want to see Tsukasa like this. It’s so far from his usual demeanour. So…vulnerable.
She didn’t notice the light outside this time, so even Nene herself slightly flinched at the booming thunder that suddenly rang. Now that her headphones were off, she noted, yeah, it was loud loud. Though her flinching was nothing compared to Tsukasa’s deeper descent into the corner of the couch, clutching his ears as he laid his forehead on his knees. His laptop now closed and slid off his lap as his leg had been pulled fully towards his chest. He was shaking.
Nene could feel something in her shatter. Is this empathy? Because empathy sucks. She’s so close to crying because what can she do? She can’t figure it out. She can’t make the thunder stop, she doesn’t know how to comfort people, she doesn’t know how to help-
Her hands reached her headphones.
She lets out a small exhale before taking it off her shoulders, closing in on their resident star, and gently pries his arms away from his ears. His head shot up to look at her and god, she never wants to see him cry like this ever again. Not out of fear. Never out of fear. Her headphones were placed onto his head and she cradled it gently.
Nene noticed tension leaving his shoulders as soon as the headphones were fully on and she presumes no sound was able to be heard at that point. That is, before he pried it off himself.
“No, no, no- Nene, it’s alright! I, in good conscience, cannot accept this! You needn't worry, I’m your troupe leader after all!! Who am I if I couldn’t handle nature’s challenges?” He laughed, though it fell flat on her ears. The longer she focused, the more cracks in the mask she saw. His laugh was less confident, more of a distraction. Half-way through his sentence, she noticed his voice waver.
Nene bit her bottom lip to stop herself from blurting out something stupid and instead thought of her next words carefully. She’s not good at emotions (No one in Wonderlands x Showtime is, but she’ll lament on that for another day) but she doesn’t want to mess this up. She doesn’t want her friend to feel so scared when she’s right there . She…wants them to rely on her, if she could be so selfish.
So she sighed, what she notes had to be her typical annoyed sigh from the slight relief that flickered across Tsukasa’s face. He must’ve assumed she started to think of him differently. It’s what she would’ve thought in his shoes.
He opened his mouth to keep on blabbering on how “Seriously, Nene! You needn’t worry at all! I’m completely fine ” and what-not. She began to grow slightly irritated at the blatant lies thrown and had finally decided on the words she’s about to say when she noticed light flickering outside once again.
She panicked.
No. Absolutely no way on this green earth would she willingly see him like that again, so she wrestled the headphones away from him as he scrambled to not be crushed beneath her sudden movements.
“Wh-?! HEY! Nene! What are you- OW?? Don’t- Seriously, stop! You don’t have to-”
She held her headphones firm to his ears, face pinched in what had to have looked at least slightly aggressive, mere milliseconds before the thunder’s sound came crashing.
Tsukasa flinched slightly at the quake that came with it, but otherwise stared wide-eyed at the songstress.
They stayed like that for a few seconds before Nene loosened her grip and snatched her phone from the other side of the couch, quickly typing in something on it.
Ding!
Tsukasa’s eyes turned to his phone, seeing a notification pop up.
<keep that on or so help me>
His hands reached up to her headphones, before stopping, and reached back down to his laptop. Nene breathed a sigh of relief, because finally , his stubbornness is tough when it’s used against you, and she rummages through her bag on the floor for the back-up earphones she brought along. They’re not sound-cancelling, but she’ll make do just fine.
Slight shuffling brought her attention back to the blonde and she noticed that he’s moved significantly closer to her. Tsukasa cleared his throat and straightened his back.
“I- uh. Thank you, Nene,” he said, voice still not as confident as she would’ve liked to hear.
She clicked her phone back on.
<no problem. seriously.>
He smiled and leaned on her slightly, as a silent thank you on top of his already verbal one. Nene couldn’t find it in herself to actually mind.
Ding!
His eyes flickered to another notification on his phone.
<u scared me>
<i care>
<its difficult for me to show but i rlly do>
<dont do that again>
Tsukasa laughs, though not his loud, boisterous one. No, this is a much softer, genuine laugh that she wishes they’d hear more from him. Somewhere in her heart, she knows they will.
“Don’t do what? Get startled?” he grinned.
…
<deny help>
His face fell albeit slightly. “I didn’t think it was needed,”
Nene frowned and started typing way more harshly than she needed to.
<thats not for u to decide>
<sometimes u dont notice>
<at least hear us out before u start being all loud and dismissive u dick>
“Language,” he half-heartedly scolded her.
<ive heard u call rui worse you dont get to say that>
Tsukasa simply rolled his eyes and lowered his phone before being elbowed by his friend. He basically folded forward and groaned before staring at her incredulously. “WHAT?! I thought we had a MOMENT!” he squeaks out.
She furiously pointed at his phone.
<u didnt answer>
<promise me, kasa>
<dont shut us out>
He breathed a deep inhale to recover before his face does a bunch of weird tugs. She wasn’t sure what emotions he was cycling through. A frown? Laughter? Grimace? Well, what she does know is that he settled for a smile and leaned further into her side.
“You have my promise, dearest troupe diva,”
All she gave was a firm nod.
She would deny any and all allegations which accused her of pulling him closer at every lightning that painted the sky outside.