Chapter 1

All right everyone, may I have your attention please! The theme of the drama club’s spring performance has been decided: It will be Romeo and Juliet.

Shakespeare again? You must really like him, Buchou.

Fufufu, it is not so much that I like him as it is a simple necessity.

We are not a professional theater company, after all. Our actors and stagehands, even in the theater course, are of varying ability, personality, and experience.

We are lacking in nearly every area to be able to perform unorthodox, original plays to their fullest extent.

To leave a profound, moving impact on our audience with a fully original script—It is but a dream within a dream.

We have only the classics, the myths, the fairy tales which have been passed down through the ages to fall back on because they share the promise to move all of humanity.

Our themes must be based in the classics: that which everyone knows, and that which has plenty of precedents to work from.

From there, the only thing we can do is try to improve the quality of our story as much as is possible.

It’s monkey see, monkey do—That is the origin of theater. We’ll follow in the footsteps of our great predecessors, just like a baby laughing as it imitates its mother.

Not to say that I’m satisfied with this!

Oh, to drown an audience in a raging sea of fantastical dreams that would be seared into their retinas, their minds for all eternity… ☆

Hmph. If that’s what you think, why not do it on your own? You should be able to do anything you want as long as there’s no one there to hold you back, Hibiki Wataru of the Three Oddballs.

I don’t particularly like that title. It’s so overblown, and yet it feels lacking in a way…

And besides, a one-man show is so lonely, don’t you think? So I’ll borrow as much help as I can from all of you.

Romeo and Juliet is a love story, no?

Romance is not something you can experience alone, and there are some voids you can’t fill by merely loving yourself.

And so I’d like to stand on stage with someone I love, both today and every tomorrow.

What are you even saying… Whatever, so we’re going with Romeo and Juliet and that’s that, right?

I don’t really have any complaints, so we should get down to work as soon as we can.

Trickstar has been getting busier by the day, and if this performance is going to follow the same schedule as last year, we shouldn’t put this off.

We don’t have time to be marching in place, Buchou.

And why do you speak as if you have the right to boss me around, hm?

…Umm, Tomoya-kun—How are you faring? Are you following along all right?

Uh… Um, yeah. I always feel like I shouldn’t butt in whenever you two start talking. So I ended up just listening to you guys like I was watching a show.

Why not butt in? Don’t hold back; just insert yourself with confidence~!

Interrupt us! Hog the spotlight! Sweep us off our feet! Boldly step into the lion’s den, the grueling path where love blossoms… ☆

Gwah—! Don’t jump on me! What are you, a giant bird?!

That’s a good way to put it! Cock-a-doodle-doo~ ☆

Quit playing around. Be more careful with Tomoya; you’re going to lose another club member.

Oh, right. Are you sure we can do this? The drama club is just the three of us.

I’ve never even been on stage before… So doesn’t that pretty much mean you and this pervert will have to carry the weight of things?

If we’re doing Romeo and Juliet, we’ll be using up all of our talent with just those two roles.

I might be able to play an easy role though, if I try hard enough.

There is no such thing as an easy role. But in any case, there’s no need to worry about the talent.

As per usual, I’ve requested the help of my good old friends in the theater course.

They work on their own schedules, so it can’t be said how much help they can offer us… But we should manage to run the play smoothly with their help.

Oh yeah, there is a theater course here at Yumenosaki, isn’t there…

We don’t usually interact with the other courses, so it might be kinda rude to say, but I tend to forget they exist.

Please don’t.

That said, training idols is the academy’s main focus, so the rest of the school is often reduced to an afterthought.

And that’s quite ungrateful behavior, don’t you think? Most of the guests who attend S2 and other low-ranking Dream Fests are students from the other courses.

Though our paths may differ, our most gracious guests are the comrades with whom we pursue the same dream.

And so we should value them and try to get along.

Especially since our drama club is small, and we can only make do with the support and cooperation of the theater course.

I regularly perform with the theater course, and in exchange they lend me their aid…

But it will be much harder for you next year, so please do some networking with them sooner rather than later.

Fufufu, we should go make our introductions to them when the opportunity strikes, don’t you think~? We can go all together ♪

Hmm. Well, that is necessary… But I can’t handle being around those kinds of people much. They smell just like my mother.

Actors are peculiar creatures, aren’t they?

Those in the theater course receive an array of education pertaining to theater. But to no one’s surprise, at their core all of them want to be in the spotlight.

There are very few who decided from the start that they would specialize in backstage operations. All the world’s a stage, and everyone wants to play the leading role.