^Yay, another reader! <3
You stole Yuuyami's wedge. hahaha
[Chapter Eleven -- It's a Shot in the Dark, But...]“Everybody, I’ve got bad news! Takahashi-san’s in the hospital! She got hit by a car!!”The silence in the room was deafening. I know it’s an oxymoron and all, but had you been there with me… you probably wouldn’t have been able to describe it any other way. Nobody dared to move at first, and I could see Risako paling a bit out of the corner of my eye.
Natsuyaki had this incredulous look on her face, as if she was having trouble grasping just what it was that Umeda had said.
“What do you mean, ‘hit by a car’?”
The tall girl bit her lip, and she started to fidget. Like she was uncomfortable with revealing what it was she had to say.
Or maybe she just had to go to the bathroom, I don’t know.
“A-ah, well… the story I was told is actually quite strange… s-see, there was this other woman there… Gaki… Gaki-something. And see, the doctors wouldn’t let her in to see Takahashi-san because she wasn’t family and she was freaking out all over them, and then they went inside the room and shut the doors. So it was just her and me in that hallway, and I asked her what had happened, because I figured maybe she was close to Takahashi-san… and apparently they had been drinking last night, and she… kind of… ran out into the street. The police didn’t find her until this morning… I think she’s going to be okay, but… we can say goodbye to our performance, that much I know.”
Dead silence again. My mind was still trying to process the story, and Risako looked like an alien had landed somewhere in front of us, her eyes wide with disbelief.
And then… Natsuyaki started cracking up. Hard. At first it was just a series of little giggles and then she completely and totally lost it, erupting into a fit of cackles and mad laughter. She even dropped to the floor at one point, clutching her sides as she continued with her hysterics.
…I failed to see what was so funny.
“What is wrong with you?! Takahashi-san is in the
hospital! She could have
died! And even though she’s going to be alright, our show is ruined without her!”
Risako was furious, and again, that indignant little teddy bear look had crept up onto her face. She was standing over Natsuyaki now, her hands balled up into fists at her sides, and I wondered if maybe she would kick the other girl. Now
that would have made me laugh.
“She- drunk- hit by a car-” That was all I managed to decipher between Natsuyaki’s little episode, as she was still laughing uncontrollably. The more I thought about what happened, the more I was starting to see the hilarity in it.
Picturing a smashed Takahashi-san…
I giggled a little bit just then, earning a deadly glare from Risako. It was enough to shut me up, but still… I would laugh about it later, at least. If Natsuyaki and I had one thing in common, it was a strange sense of humor.
“Alright, so… we’re out then.” There were three other girls within the troupe that from the start I had considered to be… well… less-than-enthusiastic about the theatre. They hadn’t really pulled their weight at all yesterday, and were slow about getting started. And now…
“Out…? What’s that supposed to mean?” This was beginning to be a bit more than Risako could handle.
“You know we’re only here because we have to be. You and Miyabi-chan are the stars of it all, anyway. You don’t really need us. So… we’re out.”
The three of them then exited the building, brushing past Umeda, who looked like maybe she was going to faint or throw up or both all at the same time.
“W-what do we do now?”
The question hung in the air, and it didn’t seem as though it was going to be answered anytime soon. Risako continued to stare at the door after the girls had left. And although Natsuyaki had sobered up by this point, she was sitting up grimly on the floor.
I could only imagine what they were thinking. It was upsetting. Their teacher was out-of-commission, half of their troupe was now gone… and the performance they had been looking forward to… well, it probably wasn’t going to happen.
Um… hell no.
I didn’t come out all this way to participate in something only to have it disappear like this. Even if I
had been tricked into it. That old flame inside of me had been rekindled, and it was burning so hot that I refused to let this go.
“We keep going. We practice hard for nine more days and then we give the people in this city a show they’ll never forget.”
“Are you out of your mind?” Naturally, Natsuyaki would be the one to oppose me. “Our routines were written for a group of seven, not four.”
“Then we’ll make up new ones.”
“You’ve got to be kidding me. They won’t work for the songs we’ve got anymore.”
“Then we’ll get new songs, too.”
“Now I KNOW you’re crazy. None of us write music or play instruments. And we don’t have the money to go out and buy the rights to anyone else’s stuff. So yeah, you’re crazy.”
No. I’m a genius. I promise. Risako’s not the only one in our family that is. I turned to her, this great plan carrying itself out in my mind.
“Yurina writes her own songs, right? Lyrics and music, right?”
“Well, yeah, but-”
“Do you think she could write some stuff for the theatre before the performance? And perhaps play for it as well?”
“It’s possible, but… Momo-chan, I don’t feel comfortable asking so much of her.”
I grinned and walked over to Risako, putting my hands on her shoulders so that I was… well, somewhat level with her.
“She’ll be cooped up in that house all day for a while. And yesterday when we went to see her, already I could tell that she was tired of it. I have a feeling that she’d jump at this chance, Risako. And if she doesn’t, all she has to say is no. We can find another way if that happens.”
A slow smile started to spread across her lips.
“Momo-chan…”
I patted her shoulders, and then turned around to face the other two that were still in the room. Natsuyaki was frowning at us, and she had her arms crossed in front of her in a way that reminded me of Maasa. But Umeda, at least, seemed slightly hopeful.
“I-I’m up for this… I think that Takahashi-san would want us to do this…”
I turned to our resident evil girl.
“And what about you?”
She was regarding me now with a look that wasn’t as bitter as it had been last night. There was something like curiousity there… and perhaps maybe… just maybe… I had impressed her a little bit, and earned some of her respect.
“…I still don’t like or trust you… but this… this place right here… it’s all I have left to believe in. So count me in, too.”
I breathed an inward sigh of relief, while Risako went ahead and did it out loud behind me anyway. Everything was going to be okay, I told myself. It just had to be. I don’t know what I was trying to prove, or to whom I was trying to prove it. But I knew one thing for sure:
The show must go on.