The auditorium smells like varnish and dust that learned to be polite. Lights hum. A gull argues with the roof, distant and insistent. If I close my eyes, I can catalog every sound: the wobble-wheel on a rolling riser, the soft slap of tape coming off a dispenser, the stage curtain breathing on the AC. I've stood in rooms like this in other lives. They all make the same pre-show kind of quiet—held-breath quiet.
Yumi Saegusa stands center aisle with a clipboard and a mood that says "we will run on time because I decided we will." Kenji from AV is on the side fiddling with a snake of cables. The stage crew has a ladder out, which makes every safety poster in the building sweat.
"Monthly Assembly MCs," Yumi says when we walk in. "Volkova. Sato. Congratulations; this is me voluntelling you."
Arina goes nearly still. Not a freeze—more like her muscles filing a formal complaint with gravity. "That's… public."
"It is," Yumi says, calm like a lake you could walk across if you were very polite to physics. "Third period, Friday. Two scripts: main and backup in case of rain and generator delay." She checks a box with a satisfying click. "You'll rehearse now for the room and tomorrow for timing."
Arina inhales the kind of breath you take when you plan on being a person. "Okay."
The word is steady. Her fingers on the folder say different. They hold the paper like a bird that might fly away.
Kenji does a test ping on the PA. The speaker squeals like a small, doomed kettle and then rights itself. I watch the ladder, because ladders are honest about their desire to betray you.
We climb the steps. Microphones wait like patient robots. Kenji gives us "testing" gestures with two hands and an apologetic smile. The overheads flicker—just once—like the building is remembering a storm it had last year.
"We'll start with version A," Yumi says. "Keep it clean. You each get one personality atom. Any more and it becomes morning radio, which will make me commit crimes."
"That's… a lot of pressure for atoms," I say.
"Atoms build worlds," she replies, absolutely the kind of person who would say that and be right.
We take our places. Arina sets her papers down with square corners. My stand is a fraction too low; I adjust. The mic smells faintly like citrus and old metal. There's that stage dryness in the air that makes your tongue feel like it needs to read the manual.
"Whenever you're ready," Yumi says.
We begin.
Arina's first line is precise, clean, the textual equivalent of a straight ruler. Her eyes stay on the page. On line three, the overheads give a small, nervous flicker. It's nothing, but bodies are old instruments—we react.
A whisper so soft it might be for the paper slips out of her: "Не сейчас (Ne seychas—Not now)."
I shift a half-step into her periphery. Tap, tap on my paper—left, right. The rhythm we've been using since day one.
She breathes. Four in. Two hold. Four out. The line lands. We roll forward. The room does the thing audiences do when they think they're invisible—it leans. The stage crew kid on the ladder stops mid-rung, listening.
We make it to the end. Yumi checks a box. Not the "excellent" box. The "exists" box.
"Again," she says. "Add your atom."
Arina glances at the script and back. "A thank-you to stage crew," she says. "One line. No jokes."
"Approved," Yumi says, because competence loves to be recognized. "Sato?"
"Three words," I say. "Then we'll thank the weather for cooperating."
"No weather jokes," Yumi says, pointing a pen at me like a wand. "It hears you."
Kenji barks a laugh. "It does, though."
We go again. This time, on my line about the library exhibit, I let a little warmth be audible instead of hidden in my chest. Arina adds exactly three words at the end—"and stage crew"—and the crew kid on the ladder flexes like he just leveled up.
"Better," Yumi says. "Now practice the generator contingency."
Kenji holds up a tablet. "Forecast says showers Friday. If we lose main power, we switch to half house lights and their mics stay live on the generator. Backup script is shorter—pauses longer for switches. You'll need to look calm while we panic silently."
"I am not good at 'looking calm,'" Arina says, which is funny because she looks like a person a statue would ask for advice.
"You do fine," Yumi says, so direct the compliment can't be dodged. "Run it."
We do the backup version. The lights flick deliberately to simulate the handoff. My eyes adjust automatically; their job in a past century was to survive candle-to-gas messiness. I anchor my voice in the place below ribs where sound is steadier. A draft sneaks through the side door; the curtain lifts an inch like it wants to see who wins.
Arina's hand shifts on her paper. Tiny. Not a tremble; a temperature change. A small Russian breath touches the base of the mic: "Я могу (Ya mogu—I can)."
She can. She does. We finish.
"Okay," Yumi says. "Good. Again at seven-fifteen tomorrow, generator test at seven-thirty." Her gaze flits to the windows, where the sky is spring-bright like it's lying. "Bring umbrellas."
I have one. Navy, with white dots. It's in my bag like a rule against stupidity.
We step down off the stage. The rolling riser moves an inch at the wrong time—someone forgot to crank a brake. It arcs toward Arina's shin. I pivot. Foot against caster. Heel digs into floor. Weight redirects. The platform remembers manners.
"Whoops!" the crew kid yelps, hustling over to lock it. "Sorry, sorry."
"It's okay," Arina says, but her eyes go straight to my leg like they took a photo and are comparing it to the present.
"Shoes: the unsung heroes," I say.
"Ankles," she replies, dry. Translation: I saw. I won't ask. Not yet.
Hana finds us by the stage door like a meteor with hair. She's hugging a stack of club flyers and a reusable bottle plastered in stickers that say things like USE YOUR INSIDE VOICE OUTSIDE. "My lit pair!" she sings. "Now: my assembly pair! I'm so proud I could combust."
"Please don't," Kenji says, rattled by his own gear enough already.
Hana squints at my face. "You look calm. Are you calm?"
"I'm always calm," I say, which is only true if you edit "always" to "visibly."
"Arina?" she asks, even though she can see all the micro-tells. She just wants the answer out loud.
Arina considers being honest and settles on being precise. "We will be prepared."
Hana approves of that as a life choice. Then her phone buzzes. Her eyebrows go up. "Uh. Group chat has discovered you two can… stand near a microphone attractively."
Reika ghost-appears behind her, because of course she does. Hoodie, bob, disposable camera—still unused. "I did not post a clip," she says preemptively. "But someone posted a clip. It's only six seconds. It's also kind of cute."
"Define cute," Arina says with the wary curiosity of a cat presented with a cucumber.
Reika flips her phone. The story shows exactly nothing scandalous: a panning shot of us at the mic, Arina's mouth forming "and stage crew," my half-smile at her line, Kenji giving a tiny fist pump, Yumi doing unholy math in the background. The caption is harmless: metronome & hug, take two. There are heart stickers. Because the internet.
"It will vanish in twenty-four hours," Reika says. "And comments are mostly… nice."
"Mostly?" I echo.
"One says 'ship name??' but they spelled both names wrong, so legally it doesn't count," Reika says. "Also, I will fight anyone who posts mean things."
"Please don't fight people," Arina says, like she's scolding a pet rock.
"I will fight them with artisanal memes," Reika corrects.
We leave them to debate ethical memeing and follow Yumi's pen taps to a small table in the orchestra pit where the scripts and a highlighter graveyard live. We go through the copy line by line. Arina traces a small checkmark next to the stage-crew thank-you. I add two tiny pauses for when the AV handoff happens. We choose a backup for backup: if the generator hums too loud, we slow down more.
"Aloud again?" she asks.
I nod. We do one more pass with the room empty except for the lights humming and Kenji pretending to be a lighting tree. It's cleaner. Softer, too. A person could stand in this and not break.
"Tea?" I ask, afterward. "The vending machine kind that scalds away fear."
She weighs the plan against her calendar and her heartbeat. "Ten minutes."
We take the back corridor to B-wing. The vending machines are humming whales. A band club down the hall hits a chord and laughs as it dies. Two first-years walk by balancing a whiteboard between them like a stretcher, arguing about whether a cat is a literary device.
We sit on the fire-exit bench with two hot cans and the generosity of a window that shows exactly the sky and nothing else. Rain smell hasn't arrived yet, but the air has that metallic taste like it's thinking about it.
"Do you ever…" she starts, staring at the steam like it's a scrying pool, "wish someone would do it for you? The scary thing."
"Sometimes," I say, because lies make you alone. "But the only time someone did, it got scarier."
She flicks a glance at me.
"I mean," I say, picking a truth that fits in this hallway, "it taught me the wrong lesson. That I couldn't. That I shouldn't have to."
She drinks. The metronome in her head ticks. "I hate being watched by crowds," she says. "Not because I think I'll fail—because I might be… seen."
"That is the failure," I say. "In this country." I immediately consider deleting the sentence with my mouth.
She doesn't look offended. She looks like she just found a sentence she didn't know she needed. "I… want to be seen by people who won't punish it."
"Small crowds," I say softly. "One person."
She nods. The sound from the band room behind us jumps—feedback squeal, then laughter. The vending machine scams someone out of a coin. A teacher's heels go by, staccato competence.
"I will be there," I say, plain. "Third period. If the lights flicker. If your hands shake. If nothing goes wrong at all."
She tilts her head, the answer shaping itself before words: "Спасибо." Spasibo. Then, in Russian, so quiet it tries to be a secret to the can sleeve: "Если ты рядом, я не упаду (Esli ty ryadom, ya ne upadu—If you're beside me, I won't fall)."
I hear it. I put it in the same pocket as the umbrella and the ladder and every other thing I am not allowed to react to.
We head back. On the stairs, a basketball, wild and unsupervised, drops into the stairwell from the open gym door at a speed that says "someone miscalculated." A first-year flails under it. I step in, catch, flick my wrist, and send it back through the opening at a perfect arc, one-handed. It thunks satisfying on wood and a chorus of "oooh" and "who threw that" follows.
Arina stares at my hand. "You catch everything."
"It's a hobby," I say.
"You are very committed," she says.
"I've had practice," I reply, which is an understatement across centuries.
The day slants into afternoon. We part with logistics instead of emotions—seven-fifteen call, bring umbrella, backup script copy to be printed tonight, no added jokes. Yumi texts a schedule with timestamps down to seconds. Karina sends a shrug emoji and then a pep talk that is more line break than words: breathe. don't perform breathing.
At home, I read the script with the metronome app set low. I pace the line between too much and not enough. I imagine the exact moment the lights might flicker, and I insert steadiness like I'm sewing a seam. I stop when the seam is tight enough to hold.
Night brings rain at last. The sound threads through the city without asking permission. I sleep hard and light. Dreams come with backstage dust and a language I'm not supposed to touch and a girl saying "I can" to the inside of a microphone.
Morning decides to be dramatic.
The forecast's "chance of showers" is a lie; it's a performance. Water falls like the sky read a monologue and chose feeling. My umbrella blooms navy and dotted; the pavement makes that first-rain smell ("petrichor," says one of my many teachers in my head). Buses hiss. Bikes make small bow waves near the gate. Students bloom into flowers of fabric.
The school's generator hums like a big, sleepy animal. Yumi is already there, pen like a magic wand, directing traffic. Kenji has headphones on and the expression of someone trying to will electricity into good manners.
"You're early," Yumi says, pleased.
"We are people of punctual character," I say.
Arina arrives under a pale gray umbrella, drops her bag, and shakes rain off the edge the way you'd shake it off a memory. Her hair is a little damp at the ends; it makes her look more here and not less precise. We trade umbrellas like spies exchanging intel—hers under the bench to drip, mine on the rack by the stage door.
"Generator test in two," Kenji calls. "We'll go to half-light, then back. Mics stay live."
We step onto the stage. The hum beneath the floorboards feels like a big cat purring wrong. I don't like power I can't see, but I respect it. The house lights drop to half. The room goes soft and shadowed. It is not scary if you already live in places like this.
"Ready," Yumi says.
We run the backup script. Arina's voice stays clean. When the lights breathe back up, she swallows, then lets her shoulders lower a millimeter. The metronome in her head holds. The room holds.
"Good," Yumi says. "You get a breakfast pass I forged for you. You have twelve minutes to convince the vending machine to trade food for currency."
We bow to the machine. It grants us sandwiches, those crustless rectangles that taste like diligence. We stand in the service corridor where a fan makes shirt cuffs flutter and eat like astronauts. Hana snaps a photo and doesn't post it. Reika, miracle of miracles, just looks and says, "This is what normal looks like right before something cinematic happens."
"Please do not invoke cinema," Kenji begs from behind a coil of cable.
"Fine," Reika says. "I will invoke competence."
Third period arrives with a certainty I respect. The rain backs off to a steady whisper. The auditorium fills with the rustle of bodies sitting and the murmur of young attention trying to act like it's not a river. Teachers line the walls like polite trees. The principal adjusts the mic with both hands like it's a ceremony. The generator purrs. It is all ordinary and not, at the same time.
Yumi cues us with her eyes. We walk out.
The stage feels smaller full. It shrinks to the size of breath. My first line has weight; it sits where I put it. Arina's first line is cool water. She almost hurries on line two and then doesn't. On line three, there's a cough in the back that wants to be louder than it is. It isn't. Practice is paying rent.
When we get to the stage-crew thank-you, I catch the eye of the ladder kid from yesterday. He blushes like someone gifted him a medal he didn't ask for. Arina adds "and stage crew" in exactly the place we planned, and it sounds like an offering, not an injunction.
Halfway through, the lights dim—just a breath. The generator hands off and back like it's testing itself. The room murmurs and then decides not to. Arina's fingers tighten. She finds me without moving her head. Tap, tap. She breathes on four. We continue.
We end on time. The applause is school-assembly polite, which is to say it exists. The principal thanks us. The PA does not squeal. We step offstage and into the backstage grin you wear when a thing is over and hasn't killed you.
Yumi checks a box that might as well be a little gold star. "You did well," she says. "No more rehearsal today. Only the part where you are people."
"I will attempt 'people,'" I say.
Arina holds her script like it might evaporate now that its job is done. "I… didn't hate it," she says, startled at herself.
"It liked you back," I say.
Her mouth almost smiles, then files it under "later." She picks up her umbrella from under the bench, shakes it once, and looks at me for a beat that is a sentence.
In Russian, soft enough to be mistaken for air: "Спасибо, что был рядом (Spasibo, chto byl ryadom—Thank you for being there)."
I force my face to be a boring place where nothing interesting happens. Inside, something old that hates hope makes room for it anyway.
We stand by the stage door while the rain considers stopping. Hana pops up, vibrating. "You did it! I didn't cry! Okay I cried a little." She thrusts a tissue at Arina like a ceremonial offering. "For later."
Reika leans on the wall, camera still unraised. "Review: metronome & hug, live edition. Five stars. Would attend again."
Kenji emerges from the AV cave and bows to the generator as if appeasing a deity. "I aged five years," he reports.
"Welcome to my brand," Yumi says kindly, and then shoos us all to class before the school remembers it has algebra.
In the corridor, Daichi pulls up next to me, hair damp and grin indestructible. "You were smooth," he says. "Like you've done this before."
"Is that a compliment or a suspicion?" I ask.
"Both," he says cheerfully, then lowers his voice. "You good?"
"I'm fine," I say, and this one is true without editing. "She's… good."
"I saw," he says. "The whole room leaned in." He nudges my shoulder with the kind of care that doesn't bruise. "Proud of you, bro."
We split at the stairwell. The day goes back to being a day. The rain slows to a drizzle that makes the courtyard look like gloss. The air tastes like clean metal and the promise of naps.
After school, Arina and I meet at the shoe lockers without planning it. Habit creates its own appointment. She stands with the umbrella hooked on her wrist like a bracelet.
"I'll return your umbrella tomorrow," I say, lifting mine.
"You can keep it in your bag," she says. "For safety."
It's not about rain. I know that. I nod like it is. "Safety is an excellent superstition."
She looks at the slice of sky you can see from this angle, then at the window above the lockers, then at me. "До завтра (Do zavtra—until tomorrow)."
"Tomorrow," I echo.
She steps into the hall and the day eats her in a good way—Hana on one side, Reika on the other, Karina's "good work" floating like a ribbon, Yumi's schedule rustling like leaves. Daichi finds me with a text of a trophy emoji and a picture of a sandwich. Kenji sends three lightning bolt emojis and then "it behaved."
On the train, the harbor is a dull silver strip. The umbrella rests in my bag like a promise disguised as a tool. My knuckle is smooth. My shoulder is fine. The part of me that counts breaths counts on its own now, like it learned the rhythm from someone else.
At home, the window opens its inch and the city exhales rain-warm air. I put the script away. I add one line on a sticky note I won't show anyone:
When the lights flicker, remember who steadied you.
The note sits there, yellow and small and truer than it looks.
Okay, Rayan. Don't mess this up.
To be continued.