The backdrop was an ancient Greek-style plaza, with towering columns and gauze curtains gently fluttering under the breeze of a blower, looking like clouds wrapping around a mountain peak.
The floor was covered with imitation marble plastic mats, and the stage lights shone from the wings, bathing the entire set in a honey-colored dawn.
The narrator's voice flowed from the speakers, carrying the solemn tone characteristic of an ancient epic.
Shizuru Kirishima stood in the very center of the stage, her ancient Greek-style white robe draping from her shoulders, with a woven gold belt tied around her waist.
She raised her hand, her voice steady and solemn, delivering her character's first monologue. She knew every single line by heart.
But her eyes were not looking in the direction they were supposed to according to the script.
Past the blinding row of footlights and the shadows cast by the curtains, the densely packed audience below resembled a dark sea.
She couldn't find that figure.
Every step she took on the stage felt as if she were stepping on cotton.
Yet, the play had to go on.
She automatically recited the lines engraved into her muscle memory, her arms performing movements she had rehearsed hundreds of times.
But half of her consciousness was not there.
She wondered if Lightweaver had been held up by something.
Or maybe she had already arrived, and Shizuru just hadn't recognized her?
Scanning the audience, she noticed a girl wearing a cat-ear headband leaning next to a wheelchair, whispering to the person sitting in it.
The cat-ear girl looked up toward the stage and gave a brilliant smile.
Shizuru recognized her; the people from the Wings of Freedom were here.
If they were here, then Lightweaver...
She finished the second half of her line, took a deep breath as she turned, and cast her gaze back over the audience.
She's not next to them?
As she finished her final line of the monologue, the lights brightened just as her last word faded.
Lightweaver pulled her phone from her pocket, turned off the flash, and pressed the shutter button, aiming at the figure adorned with gold threads on stage.
In the photo, Shizuru happened to be walking between the columns. The lights from both sides fell on her simultaneously, and a corner of her golden veil was blown up by the wind, revealing a fraction of her face.
Lightweaver saved this photo in a separate, encrypted album, setting the permissions so that only she could view it.
This way, she would have an answer ready if Shizuru ever questioned her about it.
Just as she put her phone down, the screen lit up again.
It was a message notification, the sender's name shining brightly on the lock screen.
Yuki: 【Not back yet?】
Yuki: 【We're in the sixth row on the left. We saved the middle seat for you.】
Yuki: 【Kizuna went to the restroom to look for you just now, but she couldn't find you.】
Do they think I ran off? Did Kizuna really go to the restroom to look for me?
Qiluo looked down at the messages on her screen.
“I got lost just now. The hallways outside the theater are too winding. I'm back now, I'll be there in a second.”
She muted her phone, slipped it back into her pocket, and looped around through the side emergency exit of the theater. Taking a deep breath in the hallway outside the restroom, she pushed open the back door of the theater.
The audience seats were dark, and the play on stage was reaching its climax—
Shizuru stood in the center of the plaza, facing the crowd played by the chorus, reciting the monologue about choices.
Shizuru swept her gaze across the audience again as she turned.
In that darkness below, I still can't find her.
She promised me. She never breaks her word.
Did something really happen? Or... did she actually come, but just like she said last time, she took on a form I can't recognize?
She lowered her eyes, her fingers slowly tightening inside her sleeve, then gradually relaxing.
“Who are you waiting for?” the classmate playing the messenger recited the line from the script.
According to the script, she was supposed to say, “I am waiting for someone who will not come.”
But she didn't deliver that line. Instead, she spoke a different sentence.
“I am waiting for someone who said they would come.”
The messenger froze for a moment, clearly not expecting her to ad-lib.
But Shizuru had already turned her gaze back to the audience, smoothly continuing with the rest of her monologue.
Even if she didn't come, this performance must end perfectly.
Whether she comes or not, I must fulfill what I promised.
She stopped looking down at the audience.
She cast her gaze far into the distance, looking past the faces she recognized and those she didn't, landing on the tightly closed doors at the back of the theater.
Qiluo groped her way along the wall in the dark to the sixth row. Kizuna was the first to spot her and gently tugged on Yuki's sleeve.
Yuki turned her head, picked up her bag from the middle seat, and placed it on her lap, freeing up the spot they had saved for so long.
By the time Qiluo sat down, the lights on the stage had just shifted to a deep blue, dyeing Shizuru's veil the color of seawater.
As Qiluo settled in the dark, Yuki leaned her head slightly toward her and whispered, “Just in time for the climax.”
Kizuna handed over an opened bag of potato chips from the other side. Qiluo shook her head, her eyes never leaving the stage.
All the lights in the theater turned on at once, illuminating the ancient Greek plaza on stage in a brilliant golden glow.
Shizuru stood in the dead center. Her laurel wreath was slightly askew, fine beads of sweat dotted her forehead, and her chest was still rising and falling slightly.
It's fine. It was just standard backstage help anyway; it wasn't really worth making a special trip to see.
Only when someone in the front row stood up to applaud did she snap out of it. She took a step forward and bowed alongside the rest of the cast.
Applause washed over them like a tide.
She straightened up. Under the cover of the stage lights, she could finally scan the entire audience openly.
The members of the Wings of Freedom were still in their seats. Night Sakura was nudging Kohinata with her elbow, while Kohinata stuffed the last takoyaki into her mouth, her cheeks bulging as she clapped enthusiastically. Amamiya was quietly applauding beside them.
Shizuru shifted her gaze.
For some reason, her eyes lingered on an empty seat.
There was no one in that seat, but a folded program pamphlet lay on the cushion.
Someone had sat there, but they had just left.
Shizuru's gaze shifted from the empty seat to the side aisle. A silver-white figure was walking along the wall toward the exit. The white wig was exceptionally conspicuous in the dim light, and the red highlight at the tips of the hair swayed gently with each step.
“...Lightweaver?” She instinctively took a step forward.
But that person had already pushed open the side door and vanished into the light of the hallway.
She wanted to give chase, but the curtain call ceremony was not yet over.
She could only stand on the stage, surrounded by the clamor of the crowd and the blinding lights, watching that door slowly close in her field of vision.
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