Monday came too soon.The classroom buzzed before the bell, desks pushed into little forts, paper rustling, half the class already fighting over printer queues.
Aoi stood at the front of their group table, holding a neat stack of stapled pages like the commander of a very tired army. "Scripts," she said, passing them down the line.
Kenji whistled low. "She actually formatted them. There are page numbers."
"Of course there are page numbers," Aoi said, arching a brow. "How else will you know what you're skipping?"
Suki clutched his copy dramatically. On the cover, in bright marker, were doodles of hearts and stars surrounding the words 'The Future Has Our Names On It!' — and beneath that, in smaller script, Written by: Suki Minori, Creative Genius.
Ryuzí eyed it like it might bite. "You wrote yourself a dramatic entrance?"
Suki looked up, innocent. "As I deserve."
Aoi pinched the bridge of her nose. "You're supposed to read, not rewrite the play into your autobiography."
Kenji laughed, flipping through his own copy. "Oh, I've got a monologue. Watch out, Oscars."
At the corner desk, Haruto quietly set up his laptop, sketchbook open beside him. On the screen flickered a half-finished animation — a paper airplane gliding over the watercolor version of their school. When the group gathered to watch, the sunlight reflected off the screen, making it glow.
"Whoa," Suki whispered. "It looks alive."
Aoi smiled faintly — the kind of smile that hid itself in her voice. "It's perfect."
Haruto ducked his head. "Still rough. I'll clean the transitions."
Kenji clapped him gently on the shoulder. "Man, you just raised the whole production budget from ramen to cinema."
Miyako nodded approvingly, jotting something in her planner. "We'll coordinate the narration with the animation timing."
Ryuzí, leaning back, crossed his arms. "If we manage to finish this without setting off the fire alarm, I'll consider it a miracle."
Suki threw an arm over his shoulder. "You have so little faith in me."
"I have experience," Ryuzí replied.
The bell rang, and homeroom sensei called out from the doorway, "Teams! First run-through after school! Auditorium's open for practice. Don't break anything I can't glue back."
By 4 p.m., the art room looked like a stage exploded inside it.
Props half-assembled, poster boards stacked, one speaker blaring a test soundtrack that sounded suspiciously like an 80s arcade theme. Suki stood in the center, holding a broom like a microphone.
"Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to our award-winning—"
"Stop," Aoi said flatly. "That's not in the script."
"It could be," Suki said.
"It's not," Aoi replied.
Kenji grinned, already recording on his phone. "No, no, let the genius work. We'll need bloopers for the end credits."
Miyako, sitting by the window, adjusted her glasses. "I'll note down any improvisations worth keeping."
"None of this is worth keeping," Aoi muttered, but she smiled when she said it.
Haruto sat on the floor near the projector, sketching new backdrops. The faint scratch of pencil blended with Suki's dramatic ad-libbing and Kenji's laugh.
"All right, let's try scene one," Aoi said, clapping her hands once. "Kenji, Suki, you're up. Ryuzí enters on cue three. Miyako narrates. Haruto — projection test."
Suki leapt onto the makeshift "stage" (a cleared floor space), clutching a prop paper airplane. "The future is like this paper—delicate yet full of flight!"
Kenji entered, arms wide, tripped over a paint bucket, and landed flat on his back.
Silence. Then Suki leaned over him. "And yet… the future crashes spectacularly."
Kenji raised a finger from the floor. "It's a metaphor."
Aoi sighed. "No, it's a mess."
Miyako hid her face behind the script, shoulders shaking from laughter. Even Haruto looked up, lips twitching.
Ryuzí muttered, "I told you it was a miracle if we survived rehearsal."
"You say that like it's a bad thing," Suki said, tossing the paper airplane dramatically.
It hit Ryuzí square in the chest.
"Bullseye," Kenji said from the floor.
"Congratulations," Ryuzí said. "You're grounded."
They tried again, somehow worse. Lines forgotten, cues mixed, Kenji accidentally set the projector to loop mode so Haruto's animation kept replaying every eight seconds. At one point, Suki ad-libbed an entire speech about "destiny and limited-edition stationery" that wasn't in the script.
Aoi's expression was that of a woman doing complicated math to calculate how much patience one soul could hold.
"Unbelievable," she whispered, writing something on her clipboard. "Twice."
"I heard that," Suki called.
"You were meant to," Aoi said.
Miyako looked up from her notes, lips twitching. "At least we're memorable."
Kenji jumped up and dusted himself off. "Hey, if we can't be perfect, we can be legendary."
After an hour, Aoi finally called for a break. "Ten minutes," she said, sitting down with her head in her hands. "Please don't destroy the art room."
Suki immediately collapsed on the table beside Ryuzí. "I'm dying."
"You've been sitting for thirty minutes," Ryuzí said.
"Artistic exhaustion," Suki murmured.
Ryuzí, without looking up, handed him his water bottle. "Hydrate."
Suki took it, sipped, and smirked. "Indirect kiss."
Ryuzí didn't miss a beat. "You can keep it now."
Suki laughed, scooting closer. "You're lucky I love your sarcasm."
"You're lucky I tolerate you," Ryuzí said, but his voice was soft enough that it wasn't an insult.
Across the room, Kenji was helping Miyako collect her scattered note pages after a sudden gust of wind from the open window sent them flying. Their hands brushed as they both reached for the same sheet. She looked startled; he grinned faintly.
"You always write so neat," he said, holding one page out to her. "Even your handwriting's polite."
"It's efficient," Miyako said.
"It's pretty," Kenji corrected, and she froze for half a heartbeat before muttering, "You're impossible."
"Maybe," he said, grin widening. "But you smiled."
Haruto, meanwhile, sat quietly sketching another concept panel. Aoi wandered over, curious, and caught sight of a small doodle in the corner — herself, half-profile, adjusting her glasses.
She blinked. "You drew me."
Haruto turned crimson. "It's—uh—practice."
Aoi leaned down slightly. "Keep practicing."
He went even redder, ducking his head so quickly his pencil almost snapped. She smirked — a rare, satisfied curve of her lips — and returned to her clipboard.
By the time the sun dipped below the window frames, the room was glowing gold and littered with snack wrappers and half-finished prop ideas. They ran the scene again, and somehow — through the noise, the laughter, the mistakes — it worked.
Miyako's narration was steady and calm, her voice threading smoothly through Suki's chaos. Kenji hit his cues without tripping. Haruto's projection synced perfectly. Aoi's clipboard checkmarks finally outnumbered her sighs. And when Ryuzí stepped in for the closing line — quiet, grounded, genuine — the whole group actually applauded.
For a second, even Suki was silent, grinning at him with something like pride.
"See?" Suki said finally. "Told you it'd work."
Ryuzí rolled his eyes. "By accident."
"Genius and accident are sometimes twins," Suki declared.
Aoi leaned against the wall. "In your case, they're triplets."
Kenji laughed so hard he nearly dropped the speaker.
They packed up slowly, the easy quiet of accomplishment settling over the room. Outside, the sky had gone violet; the faint hum of crickets bled through the window.
As they left, Suki tugged Ryuzí's sleeve. "Hey."
Ryuzí looked down. "What?"
"Next time," Suki said, smiling softly, "when we're famous playwrights, remind me of this moment."
Ryuzí's eyes softened. "So I can remind you that you broke two props?"
"So you can remind me you were there," Suki said quietly.
Ryuzí blinked, then sighed — that fond, helpless sound he reserved only for Suki. "…Idio—" He stopped himself, caught, and muttered instead, "You're impossible."
Suki's grin widened. "You love impossible."
They walked home a little slower that night.Ahead of them, Aoi and Haruto argued about scene timing.Kenji and Miyako trailed behind, their laughter soft and awkward, still new.
It wasn't perfect — their play, their lines, their lives — but it was something bright forming in the quiet between chaos and care.
And maybe, just maybe, it was enough.