Chapter 137: Chapter 136 - The Most Horrifying Sibling Rumor
Class 2-B was due to have a fairly peaceful Monday after the Drama Festival.
After all, the stage had been dismantled,
the costumes returned,
and the props were stored.
Snow White was already in the past.
There should have been nothing unusual.
However, Class 2-B never really knew about the concept of "normal".
Especially after the last scene of the play.
At least that’s what Akari found out upon entering the classroom.
It suddenly became strangely silent.
Not completely silent.
But quite.
And very suspiciously.
Her gaze moved around.
More than half of the class stared at her.
While the rest tried to conceal their laughter.
And failed miserably.
Akari’s glare hardened.
"What is the reason for all the stares?!"
A classmate suddenly stood.
Without any hint of doubt about his future life.
"Good morning, Witch."
Explosion ensued.
Akari stiffened.
Slowly turning to the source of the trouble.
His smile spoke volumes.
They were not done.
Ever.
"Stop calling me that!"
"Why?"
"Because I am not a witch!"
"You played the witch."
"THAT’S NOT THE POINT!"
Laughter multiplied.
Violence seemed like a good option for Akari.
A few students instantly shifted their desks.
The wisest move yet.
At that exact moment, the classroom door opened.
Aoi entered.
As always.
Book in hand.
Completely neutral expression.
For exactly three seconds.
Then she noticed that she was being stared at as well.
Somebody pointed.
"The Prince has arrived!"
Explosion.
Aoi closed her eyes.
Breathed deeply.
And sighed.
"Again?"
Mina raised her head from her desk.
Stifling her laughter.
"Again."
Aoi took the news with exactly the same expression that one might wear knowing that it will rain tomorrow.
At the same time, Akari seemed ready to leave the class through the window.
But the moment Aoi sat down, another student stood up.
"Long live the union of Prince Aoi and Witch Akari!"
Once again, the room cracked from the laughter.
Akari slammed her forehead onto the desk.
First time.
Second time.
Third time.
"I hate this school."
"No you don’t."
"I definitely do."
"No you don’t."
"Why do you insist?"
Rika calmly held her notebook.
Since some person had apparently written her that.
On top of it, there was written in big letters.
The Legendary Sister Incident
Akari felt like dying.
"DELETE THAT."
"No."
"DELETE IT."
"It’s historical documentation."
"It’s blackmail."
"It’s scientific research."
"That’s even worse!"
While all of that was happening, Kuro enjoyed his juice sitting in a safe place far away from the action.
He had learned many things throughout his life.
One of which was that embarrassed Akari was one of nature’s biggest catastrophes.
There was nothing he could do that would improve the situation for him.
Another problem appeared even before the first class started.
Outside the classroom windows, a group of freshmen gathered.
Peeping in.
Gossiping.
Pointing at something.
Akari noticed instantly.
"What are they doing now?!"
One of the freshmen took out their phone.
The infamous video.
Last scene.
Collision.
Accidental kiss.
Disaster.
That video that became the most viewed in the school somehow.
The moment Akari got up to check what it was, freshmen instantly ran away.
"COME BACK HERE!"
They didn’t stop.
Survival instincts are always present among the freshmen.
The situation became even worse by lunchtime.
Lunchroom buzzed with conversations.
Pretty much all of them revolved around the Drama Festival.
And unfortunately, around Aoi and Akari.
Near the entrance, there was a large screen showing the highlights of the festival.
Akari glanced up.
Immediately regretted doing so.
Right there it showed the famous.
The notorious.
Accursed moment.
The spectators burst into laughter.
Again.
Akari almost dropped her plate.
"WHY IS THAT THE HIGHLIGHT?!"
The Student Council President was passing by at the wrong time.
"Highest engagement."
"What does it even mean?!"
"Means everybody was watching it."
"REMOVE IT!"
"No."
"WHY?!"
"It’s popular."
Akari gazed at him.
The screen.
At him.
Betrayal hurt even more than she expected it to.
Meanwhile, Aoi ate calmly sitting next to her.
"How are you so calm?!"
Akari demanded.
Aoi thought for a moment.
Answering with a straight face.
"I’ve accepted my fate."
Akari almost choked.
"You surrendered?!"
"No."
"I’ve adapted."
"THAT’S EVEN WORSE!"
Across the table, Mina laughed so hard she almost fell off her chair.
Kuro silently handed her a bottle of water.
She took it.
Laughing even harder.
A little while after school, Akari was still pissed.
Very pissed.
Deadly pissed.
---
Why?
There was a huge notification popping up in all students’ phones.
Drama Festival Hall of Fame
Including:
Prince Aoi & Witch Akari
---
With the same cursed photo.
As usual.
---
Akari twitched an eye.
---
"I can’t take it anymore."
---
Kuro knew that voice tone too well.
---
"That’s bad news."
---
"It is."
Mina confirmed.
---
She dramatically turned her back.
---
And marched towards the Student Council Room.
---
Everyone else followed her.
More from worry.
Less from curiosity.
---
They entered through the door.
---
There was someone sitting in the room.
---
Rika Sainoji, Student Council President.
---
Cheerfully typing her laptop.
---
Seeing them, she smiled.
---
"Oh."
---
Just that smile was creepy.
---
Very creepy.
---
Akari pointed her finger.
---
"YOU."
---
Rika blinked.
---
"Huh? Me?"
---
"YES, YOU DID IT."
---
Looking at her laptop and Akari in turn.
---
"... Yes."
---
Without hesitation or any other thing she needed to do.
---
Akari almost fainted.
---
"Why would you admit it so easily?!"
---
"Because it’s really me who did it."
---
"That didn’t help much!"
Mina couldn’t stop laughing.
---
Kuro held his head.
---
While Aoi just walked toward a chair.
Waiting for the inevitable coming.
---
Walking up to Rika’s desk, Akari said.
---
"Take it down!"
---
"Not gonna happen."
"No."
"Don’t be stubborn!"
"Never."
"WHY?!"
---
Turning her laptop around, Rika showed Akari the webpage.
---
Hall of Fame page.
With a photo and a view counter underneath.
---
"View Count: 82,417 Views."
---
Silent.
---
Everyone looked.
---
Including Kuro himself.
---
"Wow..."
"How?"
---
Proudly adjusting her glasses.
"Great content."
---
Akari was ready to kill Rika then.
---
"THIS ISN’T CONTENT!"
---
"It is."
"No, it’s not!"
"It is."
Critical hit.
---
Laughing out loud, Mina collapsed on the couch.
---
While watching the screen calmly, Aoi spoke.
"That’s a lot of views."
Turning around, Akari shouted.
"WHY ARE YOU SO CALM?!"
---
After thinking for a second, Aoi answered.
"Because we are sisters."
Silent.
All of them.
Aoi pointed at the screen.
---
"The whole school knows we are sisters."
"Not anymore."
From Kuro’s mouth.
Rika looked again.
And there was a comment section beneath the picture.
"Best couple in the Drama Festival."
Closing her eyes slowly, Aoi said,
"I understand what went wrong."
Thankfully, Akari immediately pointed.
"THANK YOU."
Meanwhile, Rika was continuing to type.
Noticing that, Kuro asked her.
"What are you doing?"
---
Smiling dangerously,
"I’m updating the description of the post."
---
Akari lunged at Rika with full speed.
Dodging her easily, Rika laughed at her,
"Just like always."
The Student Council Room became chaos instantly.
---
Laughing, Mina sat.
Sighing, Aoi stood.
Questioning all decisions he had ever made.
What about Rika?
Successfully pressing the save button, she grinned.
The Hall of Fame page updated.
Legendary Sister Incident.
The Most Memorable Event of the Drama Festival.
Akari froze.
---
Looking first at the screen,
then at Rika, and then at the screen again.
At least,
they were correct this time.
"... Alright." Akari sighed.
Rika blinked.
"Do I understand it right that you accepted it?"
"No, I didn’t."
"But why aren’t you angry anymore?"
Looking at the screen again.
"At least they know we are sisters."
Nodding.
Aoi said "reasonable".
The ordeal was over.
---
Or maybe not yet.
Suddenly receiving the same notification,
Hall of Fame Updated Successfully.
Views: 83,102 and counting.
---
Looking at Rika, and then at the screen,
and then at the ceiling,
"... I hate this school."
"No, you don’t."
Instant reaction from Rika.
Making everyone burst out into laughter once more.
Unfortunately for Akari...
The torture was far from over.
---
Almost immediately after everyone calmed down from laughter, yet another notification appeared.
Drama Festival Hall of Fame
New Comments Added
---
Fear gripped Akari’s heart.
---
Real fear.
---
That rare kind of fear reserved exclusively for exams and horror movies.
---
"Don’t..." She pleaded.
---
But nobody listened.
---
Especially not Mina, who already had the comment section opened.
---
"Oh no..." Kuro sighed when she read the top comment aloud.
---
"How bad?"
---
Mina didn’t even need to turn around.
---
"Worse than expected."
---
"That’s impressive." Aoi commented sarcastically.
---
"It really is."
---
Before anyone could say anything else, Akari snatched Mina’s phone.
---
Big mistake.
---
The top comment:
"Best sibling duo in school history."
Good. At least something familiar...
---
Relieved, Akari quickly read the following comment.
---
"The Witch was carrying the entire romance plot."
---
Twitching an eye, she moved further down the list.
---
Next comment:
"Poor Snow White got replaced as the main character."
Pointing finger at Rika, Kuro shouted: "See?! This is what I’ve been saying all day!"
---
Nobody was surprised at his outburst.
---
Except for Mina, who burst into laughter at the next comment.
---
"Can we get a sequel next year?"
Silence.
---
Eerily quiet...
---
Then, everyone slowly turned towards Rika.
Rika slowly turned away.
Very suspicious...
---
"Rika." Kuro frowned, pointing his finger.
"What?"
---
"Why are you turning your head away?"
---
"There’s nothing there." Rika lied.
So poorly that even Aoi noticed right away.
---
"You have an idea."
---
"Yeah, lots." Rika answered.
---
"That’s the problem."
Kuro retorted back.
---
Nobody said a word in response.
---
Because everybody knew how accurate that statement was.
And dangerously accurate too...
---
Suddenly, Rika calmly opened some folder on her laptop.
Named:
Future Drama Festival Concepts
---
Complete silence filled the room.
---
Akari got off her seat and slowly, oh so slowly, approached the laptop...
---
After taking a quick peek, she quickly regretted her actions.
---
File #1:
Cinderella but Everything Goes Wrong
File #2:
Romeo and Juliet but Both Survive and Sue Everyone
File #3:
Snow White 2
---
Akari shrieked out loud:
"THERE’S A SEQUEL?!?"
---
"No."
---
"THEN WHY IS IT IN THIS FOLDER??!!"
"Because it might come in handy someday." Rika calmly answered.
---
For what purpose?
Mina started laughing again. Aoi appeared mildly interested.
Kuro looked very worried.
Extremely worried.
Meanwhile, Akari discovered something even more disturbing:
Concept art drawn on Rika’s computer screen.
With Prince Aoi standing beside Witch Akari.
With the following caption under their picture:
The Witch’s Redemption Arc
Akari almost fainted right on the spot.
"DELETE IT." She whispered.
---
"No."
---
"NOW." Akari demanded.
---
"It’s a work of art..." Rika argued.
---
"It’s evidence against you."
"And it’s art..." Rika repeated herself.
---
"NOT ANYMORE!"
---
Ten more minutes of arguing went past before Kuro finally sat down on a sofa.
Very exhausted.
---
But not physically.
Mentally.
---
Having played a Witch for almost the whole week now,
and yet, he wasn’t the most traumatized person in the room anymore.
---
Impressive...
Then, the door suddenly flew open, letting a new member into the room.
"President?" He called.
"Yes?" Rika turned around.
---
"We counted votes." The man informed her.
---
"Voted?"
"On the audience survey."
Oh no...
---
What audience survey?
---
Rika nodded to him.
Then took a sheet of paper from the man’s hand.
Rika skimmed through it and then grinned widely.
That smile.
That terrifying smile.
---
"What does it say?" Kuro dared to ask.
---
"That the audience picked their favorite character." Rika explained.
---
Silence.
---
Nobody wanted to hear this news.
After all that happened.
Especially Akari.
---
Clearing her throat, Rika started reading.
In third place:
---
"Mina."
Oh.
---
Polite applause.
---
In second place:
---
"Aoi."
Expected.
---
Now came first place...
---
Rika’s eyes met Akari’s.
Never a good sign...
---
"In first place..." Akari felt her breath hitch.
She knew it already.
She knew it!
Inside deep down, she knew it.
She knew it...
---
"In first place...Akari."
The whole room erupted.
"What?!"
---
Akari stared.
---
Absolutely speechless.
---
The Witch.
---
As the chaos-bringer and sole reason of the most amazing ending in the history of drama festivals, Akari became the most beloved character in the entire production.
---
First place.
---
Mina giggled.
Kuro applauded.
Aoi nodded in approval.
"Congratulations." He said.
---
Akari looked shocked.
---
"WHY AM I WINNING THINGS?!"
---
No one could answer.
Because, really...
---
It was entirely thanks to Akari that the Drama Festival gained such a popularity.
Even though the girl herself couldn’t accept it...
---
With the sunset visible through the windows of the Student Council Room, Akari and the others got ready to leave.
---
But, the Hall of Fame page remained active.
Comments kept accumulating.
The number of views increased steadily.
---
The Drama Festival had ended.
---
But its legend had only just begun.
---
And considering the expression in Rika’s face...
The next disaster was already being plot
Suddenly, Kuro felt like there was going to be hell to pay later.
Unfortunately for him...
His feelings never deceived him.
