The cast list feels like a cruel, cosmic joke. Or a declaration of war. Nami is the first one to find her voice, her usual cheerfulness replaced by a sharp, protective hiss.
"Are you kidding me?" she whispers, her eyes darting between our names on the page and Itsuki, who is standing calmly on the other side of the crowd, accepting congratulations from his friends. He's the smiling chancellor. Of course he is.
My mind is reeling. This is impossible. How could the drama club president have orchestrated this so perfectly? The amnesiac princess and the loyal knight who holds her memories? It's our secret, fragile reality, distilled into a fairy tale and plastered on a bulletin board for the whole school to see. And worse, she has cast our known antagonist as the play's antagonist.
Reo appears at my shoulder, his presence a sudden, solid anchor in the swirling chaos of my thoughts. He'd clearly just arrived. His eyes scan the list, and I watch his expression go from neutral curiosity to a shuttered, ice-cold stillness. He sees it, too. He understands.
"Let's go," he says, his voice a low, urgent murmur meant for my ears alone. He gently takes my arm and begins steering me away from the buzzing crowd, Nami trailing protectively behind us like a guard dog.
We find refuge on a deserted stretch of the athletic fields, far from the prying eyes of the main school building. The late afternoon sun is long and golden, but I feel a distinct chill.
"This can't be a coincidence," I say, the words tumbling out. "She can't know. How could she possibly know?"
"She doesn't," Reo says, his voice firm, though his jaw is tight with a barely concealed anger. "She's a third-year. Her favorite trope is 'tragic, fated lovers with a secret.' She's probably used it for every play since she was a first-year. This is just… a spectacularly unlucky alignment of the stars." He runs a hand through his hair, a gesture of pure frustration. "But Itsuki… him being cast as the villain. That's different. The club allows students to request preferred roles on their interest forms. He must have aimed for this."
The thought is sickening. Itsuki hadn't just accepted the role of the smiling manipulator; he'd sought it out. He's trying to play out our real-life conflict on a stage, to control the narrative, to twist it into a performance where he holds all the power.
"So what do we do?" I ask, my voice small. "Do we quit?" The thought is appealing. To just walk away from this bizarre, public parody of my life.
Reo is silent for a moment, his gaze fixed on the distant school building. "No," he says finally, his voice hard as steel. "We don't. If we quit, we give him the stage all to ourselves. We let him tell our story however he wants. We're not running. We're going to get the script, we're going to learn our lines, and we are going to own this narrative." He looks at me, his eyes burning with a fierce, protective light. "He wants to play a game? Fine. We'll play."
His determination is a shield. It pushes back my fear, replacing it with a spark of his own defiant anger. He's right. Running away is what Itsuki wants. Standing our ground, seizing control of this strange, theatrical prophecy, is the only move we have.
The first read-through is scheduled for the next day. The hours leading up to it are a blur of anxiety. My postcard that night is more like a battle plan, detailing the cast list and Reo's decision to face it head-on. He said you're going to 'own the narrative,' I write to the girl who will wake up as me. He believes you can do this. Try to believe it, too.
The next afternoon, we gather in the club room. The air is thick with the scent of old props and new-script ink. The drama club president, whose name is Haruka-senpai, greets us with her usual booming enthusiasm, completely oblivious to the silent war she has inadvertently declared. Itsuki is there, of course, offering everyone a polite, serene smile that makes the hair on my arms stand up.
"Welcome, cast and crew!" Haruka-senpai announces, handing out the scripts. "I'm so thrilled with this lineup. The chemistry is just going to be electric!"
I take the script, my hands clammy. Echoes in the Starlight. On the cover, there's a simple, elegant drawing of a lone star next to a wilting flower. I flip it open.
Reo was right. The plot is a well-worn path of tragic romance. The Princess Alya loses her memories in a magical accident. Her loyal knight, Ser Kael, is the only one who remembers their shared past and their secret love. But the court's chancellor, Lord Valerius, convinces the princess that Kael is a dangerous influence, and that he is the one she should trust, all while secretly plotting to usurp the throne.
It's a fairy tale. But as we start to read, it becomes something else entirely.
Itsuki, as Lord Valerius, delivers his lines with a smooth, honeyed charm that is utterly convincing. His voice is a silken web of feigned concern. "Princess," he says, his eyes on me, "Sir Kael's stories of 'yesterday' only serve to confuse you. Your mind is a blank page. Allow me to help you write a new, more stable future. A future with me."
The lines are a direct, chilling parallel to the real warnings he likely put in his report to the faculty. That Reo's presence was 'confusing' to me. A shiver goes down my spine.
Then it's Reo's turn. As Ser Kael, his lines are full of a quiet, desperate earnestness. "Alya, I know you don't remember. But your heart does. Look at the stars. We named that constellation together. Don't you feel even a flicker? An echo of the promise we made?"
His voice is steady, but I can see the tension in his shoulders. He is pleading, not just as a character in a play, but as himself. He's asking me, the real Arisa, if my heart remembers, if any part of our shared ritual, our rooftop sanctuary, survives the reset.
When my turn comes, my voice is a reedy, uncertain thing. Princess Alya's lines are full of confusion, of a girl caught between two powerful forces, two competing narratives of her own past. "I… I don't know who to believe," I read, the words feeling utterly, painfully real. "My head is full of fog. Every voice sounds like a stranger's."
We read through the first act, a slow-motion car crash of art imitating life. The experience is disorienting, destabilizing. It's like my own inner turmoil has been written down and is now being performed for an audience. I'm not just playing a role; I'm reliving my own daily trauma under the fluorescent lights of a club room.
The most difficult scene comes near the end of the act. The Chancellor has just given the Princess a "diary," supposedly written in her own hand, that details a beautiful, fictional past between the two of them. It's a forged history, a deliberate act of manipulation.
Lord Valerius (Itsuki): "You see, Princess? The proof is right there, in your own words. It is Sir Kael who is the liar."
Princess Alya (Arisa): (Hesitates, looking at the diary) "It… it is my handwriting. But the words… they feel wrong. They feel… hollow."
I'm supposed to look at Itsuki, to act out my character's doubt. But I can't. The line hits too close to home. The authenticity of my own handwriting on the postcards is the only thing I have to cling to each morning. The thought of that being forged, of that trust being violated, is unthinkable.
I look up, my eyes instinctively finding Reo. My anchor. The person whose version of the story my gut—and my body—trusts.
Itsuki notices the shift. He sees that I am looking at the wrong person for the scene. My character should be looking to him for reassurance. Instead, I'm looking to his rival for my cue.
A flicker of genuine, unscripted annoyance crosses his face before he smooths it over with his character's pleasant smile. "It seems our princess is already lost in the role," he says, his voice light, but with an underlying edge of steel. "Perhaps you are confusing your knight with your chancellor, Princess?"
The whole room freezes. He's calling me out, not just as an actor, but as Arisa. He's breaking the fourth wall of our silent conflict, blurring the line between the stage and our reality.
Reo is on his feet before I can even process the jab.
"She's reading the script," he says, his voice deadly quiet. "Her character is meant to be torn. Maybe if your Valerius were more convincing, her Alya would have no reason to look elsewhere for the truth."
The air crackles with a tension so thick you could cut it with a stage knife. Haruka-senpai claps her hands, oblivious. "Wonderful! Such passion! Such conflict! I told you the chemistry would be electric! Let's take a five-minute break!"
The moment the break is called, I feel a dizzy spell wash over me. I need air. I need the rooftop. I practically flee the room, Reo right behind me.
"Are you okay?" he asks, once we're in the hallway.
"No," I admit, my voice trembling. "Reo, I can't do this. He's using the play as a weapon against us. Against me. Every line feels like a trap."
"I know," he says, his expression grim. "But did you notice? In that last scene? You messed up."
My stomach drops. "I did?"
"Yes," he says, and then a small, fierce smile touches his lips. "You looked at me. Alya should have been looking at Valerius, believing his lies. But you, Arisa, you looked at Kael. At me. Even when you were reading the wrong lines from his fake diary, your instincts knew where to find the truth. He saw it. He knows he's losing."