screm

As always, he was the embodiment of grace and elegance. His awakening: nothing less than a 10/10 from judges around the world. Kazuo woke up by hitting his head on the chair back to his left, a small trail of dribble had escaped from his mouth. The disgruntled fellow whipped his head around, where the hell was he? Wait, this was that theatre thing that he didn’t want to attend wasn’t it. He’d wanted to go, but had opted out because.. people, conversation, singing. Kazuo wasn’t bad at singing, it was just that he was afraid of doing it in front of strangers. So he’d hidden the invitation so he wouldn’t have to go… right? Nope, somehow he’s here. Kazuo reached for his phone, only to see a notification. ‘Hell spawned sister: Have fun at theatre school~ You can thank me later =w=‘

…eh? Did she.. accePT THE INVITATION? HOW DID SHE FIND IT, IT WAS IN HIS BOOK SHAPED SAFE. Kazuo snapped out of it, he probably looked weird, staring angrily at his phone while punching it. Revenge could come later.

For now he listened to the oddly grandmotherly woman, a kind good woman. Fluffable hair, good good fluffy hair. Ah yes, make friends. He had to make friends quickly or else people would form groups, those groups are hella hard to enter. He stood up, fixed his appearance, and stared at the sea of unfamiliar faces. Ohhhhh god he didn’t want to do this, what if the other kids didn’t like him and they wouldn’t play with him? (This isn’t primary school Kazoo) No, it’d be fine, he’s cool, he can be cool. People like cool.

Musical theatre certainly wasn’t Nime ver Captionem’s forte. They had two left feet and couldn’t hit a note if it had a target painted on it. But the summer program had provided an opportunity to get away from home for a little while. That was good. Staying out for the season wasn’t an issue for their channel, at least, they’d recorded plenty of videos to queue in advance. Three months worth of ‘em, once a day every day. Still, if they could bring their equipment and get some recordings in at the theatre, that would be spectacular.

When they woke up in the auditorium, they felt nothing but annoyance at the unorthodox introduction. But as it came to a close and they looked around, a small bubble of concern rose in their chest. As much as they loved to make videos for the world to see, Nime wasn’t so great around people. They tended to swear and yell and toss insults. A lot. And when you swear and yell and toss insults around other high schoolers, they tend to get mad. Mad high schoolers were never fun. They usually used fists instead of words to solve their problems. Nime was not built to handle mad high schooler fists.

At a first glance, nobody would have expected someone like Professional Streetboarder Noriko Miyazaki to be found somewhere like a theatre, participating in something like this. She was brash, she was loud, and even if she was coordinated, she wasn’t exactly anyone’s go-to for a backup singer. In short, Nori was more the get-out-and-go type, not a playbook-studying type. Or a practicing type. Or, um, a theatre type. But here she ended up.

In all honesty, she’d fallen asleep in a myriad of school-related places, so waking up disoriented in a theatre didn’t really worry her- groggy, the boarder figured that she’d fallen asleep during an especially boring briefing about music and the power of friendship or something. She gave a drowsy yawn, and glanced on the stage at WOW, AN ACTUAL HUMAN CARICATURE OF MINNIE MOUSE BUT AS A GRANDMOTHER. Okay. Her heart just kind of melted. She was adorably friend-shaped, and in all honesty, reminded Nori a lot of home. That dress definitely looked like something her mom might on occasion wear. And the entire idea of a random theatre group was, in honesty, very cute- it reminded her very suddenly and strikingly of a few close friends back home, and as much as the new student life was a fresh start, a small tight-knot friend circle was something she needed.

Speaking of fresh starts.

Here she was in a group, and she hadn’t made a peep yet from her one-and-a-half seat sleeping arrangement!

So she gave a huge yawn once more, and stretched as wide as she could, and kicked herself up into a standing position, fists firmly on her hips and chest puffed out as she made the only first impression she could. A brash one.

“‘Kay, so this is it, right?! We’re all a brand-new family, ain’t we?! So we’re gonna start this nice an’ clean an’ great! This is gonna be a brand-new start! I CAN’T WAIT TO BECOME BEST FRIEND WITH ALL'A YA!”

She stuck two fists in the air at her last triumphant cry, feeling a swelling cheer overtake her. Her thick Boston accent sticking out even in her fluent Japanese, she crossed her arms, suddenly feeling exposed but stubbornly refusing to back off.

Well, Otone knew exactly why they agreed to come here over the summer. They… really, really wanted to break out of the house. Just once. And in theatre, you still need sound people… right? It would still feel close to home, maybe.

And it did. Albeit, a much, much larger home. The way the teacher’s voice echoed around the room was comforting in a way, the place had really nice acoustics and it made their heart swell with glee. That was oddly positive for them, but a welcome change. The atmosphere in general was really welcoming, even for an extreme introvert like them.

Keeping their phone to hand, just in case, they got to their feet, looking around at all the new faces. Oh dear… maybe this would be a little more overwhelming than they first anticipated. Approaching people first wasn’t exactly something they could do well, so them and their tangled mess retreated a bit further back into the room. 

Waking up in those comfy auditorium seats brought back good band memories. Though this all seemed like Deja-Vu. It was as if he had gone through this same scenario before…Probably nothing.

Being greeted by the older woman known as Minnie Squeakers, he scratched his cheek lightly. It reminded him of the Disney character in the Americas. He loved theatre back home from when he had time off from the marching band and other band related activities, though this was the only time he could do it full-on, even if it meant temporarily leaving.

The atmosphere was nice and fairly simple. It seemed they had lots of downtime, and the drum major looked around at all of the faces. He picked up his trombone, lying in wait inside it’s dull-wood case, and clicked his tongue as he stood up.

“Okay then! It is a pleasure to meet you, Ms. Squeakers. I look forward to being with everyone and creating wonderful memories.” He beamed, performing an elegant yet strong salute, looking at it makes you know it’s definitely band related.

All of the very few people who knew Tomoe prior would likely have told you that a “summer school of theatre” would be the last place they expected to see her. Though, despite her lack of real experience with it, some fourth-wall breaking and even slightly meta events pointed to having something of a flair for the dramatic. Even if it was a long shot, it didn’t specify “for the talented who have previous theatre experience” at the very least. Maybe getting her entry in early had helped. Maybe it was nothing but luck. But still, whatever happened happened, and she actually. Got in. So that was all cool, and fun, and stuff.

The whole ‘waking up disoriented in a chair’ thing was marginally less fun, but if you’ll throw back to the introductory post of the actual murder game prologue and the fact that it’s been specified to be a recurring thing in other places, waking up in a chair was nothing short of the usual for Tomoe. This time, as well, she actually had some idea of what was going on as opposed to being completely in the dark. The woman on stage was a considerably more welcoming figure than some weird mouse hologram AI thing- but who’d have even thought of something like that being here? Preposterous. And on top of that, she could definitely appreciate the sense of style. Definitely not her colours, but the frills and ribbons were a PRETTY SOLID FASHION DECISION.