Story: The Great Shizuma (chapter 7)

Authors: Chiharu-ronin

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Chapter 7

Title: The Great Shizuma

[Author's notes: Remon and Kizuna as Statler and Waldorf...?]

THE GREAT SHIZUMA

Chapter Seven

The Great Shizuma

"Fair Brutus," cried Tsubomi. "Wherefore thee shan't be Emperor of Rome? Thy name dost ring truer!"

Brutus, who was being played by a shy, kittenish first year from Spica, blinked her wide blue eyes at her senpai. Both girls wore the common folk's white robes, brown girdle cords, and sandals. The middle school auditorium was freezing. The two Spicans shivered, but tried not to stutter their lines, so hard were they shivering.

Backstage, Remon was gagging at their horrid acting. "When I told them they could adlib their lines if they forgot them, I didn't know they'd adlib the whole thing!" She leaned her head against the wall. "My career as a director comes to an end!"

"You don't seriously want to go into directing, Remon-chan?" The green-haired Lulim student looked up and saw her girlfriend of God knows how many years, Hyuuga Kizuna.

"Well, no," Remon muttered, blushing as Kizuna leaned nonchalantly against the wall beside her. "But… I thought I was doing a good job conducting this whole jamboree. I thought my cast was more reliable than this."

"You gave most of the roles to girls from Spica, right?"

"Hai. They make up the majority of Astraea Hill's student body. Excellent students, poor actresses."

The girl playing Brutus just flubbed one of her lines. Remon took off her glasses and rubbed her eyes, which were starting to hurt.

"Fortunately, they'll be working stage crew next year," Kizuna sighed. She inched closer to Remon and put her arm around her. "Hey. Y'know? You look pretty good without glasses."

Remon's eyes flashed up toward Kizuna, her cheeks pinkening. "Really? Should I get contacts?"

"I suppose. If you want. I love you either way." Using her free hand, Kizuna pulled Remon's head closer and kissed her on the cheek. "Hey," she whispered in her ear, "you know what I want to do when this is done?"

The green-haired girl stiffened. She and Kizuna had been together a very long time, but they had never gone farther than kissing. There was one occasion where Remon had been daring enough to slip Kizuna the tongue. They had kissed like that for three seconds until both girls jumped back, feeling stupid and embarrassed. Now the question arose in Remon's mind: Am I ready to do this?

Kizuna laughed. "Get your mind out of the gutter, Remon-chan! I meant I thought of a killer prank we could play on the upperclassmen!" She leaned forward and whispered the idea in the green-haired girl's ear.

Remon giggled. "Wow. It's not the crickets in the Headmistress's desk, but I'll give it a seven. I'm in!"

"Great." Kizuna looked out on the stage. "The scene's about to end. Tell you what, you've put up with enough of this crud. You go get the necessary materials, and I'll take it from here."

"Hai!" Remon turned and headed out the back entrance.

---

Nagisa sat on the prop couch with Amane and Hikari. She felt trapped. She felt exposed. Now, in one of the most climatic scenes in the story, with Tamao and Shizuma practically in each other's faces, she understood what it meant to be Daisy Buchanan.

"Your wife doesn't love you," Shizuma told Tamao. "She's never loved you. She loves me!"

"You must be crazy!" the poet snorted, turning away from Shizuma and sipping some dyed water from her wine glass.

The silver-haired girl advanced upon her until she was facing Tamao again. "She doesn't love you, do you hear? She only married you because I was poor and she was tired of waiting for me. It was a terrible mistake, but in her heart she never loved anybody but me!"

Tamao's amethyst eyes flashed sorrowfully toward Nagisa. This play was becoming too personal. The redhead gazed warily with wide eyes at the girl she loved - but the girl who played the man she didn't love.

Amane rose from her seat and pulled Hikari up with her. "Um!" she said awkwardly. "I believe there is a nice buffet-"

"Just downstairs," Nagisa finished, popping up alongside the Étoile couple. "Oh, it's delightful! We should go-"

"Sit down, Daisy!" Tamao snapped and Nagisa complied. The poet's eyes darted between the redhead and Shizuma. Tension mounted in her voice. "What's been going on? I want to hear all about it."

"I told you what's been going on," said Shizuma. "Going on for five years." She smirked. "And you didn't know."

The poet let the wine glass slip from her hand. It shattered on the stage and she turned on Nagisa.

"You . . . You've been seeing this fellow for five years?" she spluttered.

In Tamao's eyes Nagisa saw a translucence, a clear view into the past, as if the poet had briefly glimpsed it. She realized then that the three of them had crossed that line. This conversation was more than just acting. They were really saying these things. Tamao really wanted to know if Nagisa truly loved Shizuma.

"No!" the redhead cried, jumping up. "I love you!"

But that didn't really happen. Shizuma recited her next line and Nagisa remained glued to the couch, her garnet eyes locked helplessly with Tamao's.

---

After the middle school play had ended, Kizuna and Remon began their transformation. They dressed themselves up in old-fashioned suits. Remon put her hair up in a white toupet and pasted on a white moustache on her upper lip. Kizuna also wore a white toupet, but this toupet had its hair styled more so like Donald Trump's.

Kizuna and Remon had transformed into Statler and Waldorf from The Muppets.

Now the two mischief makers ran in the direction of the high school auditorium. The Great Gatsby was close to ending, but the ticket booth was still open. It was imperative, Kizuna said, that they get balcony seats. If the balconies were taken, they would have to settle for back row seats. Fortunately, there was one balcony available, and that was where Remon Statler and Kizuna Waldorf sat, ready to hurl insults down at the performers.

---

Nagisa stood now, between the two who loved her, with her eyes down toward her feet and her shaking hands at her sides.

"I married him," she choked, her voice threatening to break into a sob.

"Daisy, that's all over now," said Shizuma, holding out her hands pleadingly to the redhead. "It doesn't matter now. Just tell him the truth - that you never loved him - and it's all wiped out forever."

Nagisa looked up miserably, knowing what she had to say. The mascara caused her to shed blackened tears. Trying to control her breathing, she gazed sadly at Amane and Hikari and recited the appropriate lines.

"Why - how could I ever love him - possibly?" She looked at Tamao, who had her hand balled into a fist and her eyebrows raised with concern. Then she looked at Shizuma, who appeared to be suppressing laughter. Finally, Nagisa faced the audience and Daisy 'fessed up.

"I never loved him."

Tamao stepped forward and grabbed her hands. "Not at Kapiolani?"

"No."

"Not that day I carried you down from the Punch Bowl to keep your shoes dry?" The poet cupped Nagisa's soft face in her hands. "Daisy…?" she practically whispered.

Nagisa forced herself to look at the poet. Tamao's opalescent eyes swam with tears as well. The redhead couldn't contain these horrid emotions anymore. Her sob came out like a bark, something she had held in for too long. She seized Tamao's wrists and pushed her away.

"Oh, you want too much!" Nagisa yelled at Shizuma. "I love you now, is that not enough?" She leaned into her, sobbing into her chest. "God damn it, Jay!"

"It's okay," Shizuma reassured, hugging the redhead. "It's all over now."

Tamao pointed her finger accusingly at the great Shizuma. "I know you. I know who you are and what you're about. One of Wolfsheim's gang. You…" And Tamao proceeded to expose Gatsby as a bootlegger. This would destroy him, and yet the poet felt no satisfaction because in the end . . . It really was Gatsby whom Daisy loved.

The scene ended and the players stepped backstage. Chikaru met them with an appreciative smile.

"Great job, guys! You all were awesome!"

"Thank you," Nagisa said shyly, wiping away her tears.

Shizuma caught up with the redhead, saying, "I must say, you play a…sentimental Daisy Buchanan. What was with the crying?"

Nagisa shrugged. "Just got into character, I guess."

"Well, you ruined your makeup," said Shion. "Chikaru will have to re-do it."

"I don't mind," said Chikaru. "Besides, Daisy isn't in the next scene. But George is, so you'd better hurry and take your place, Shion-chan." She grinned at her girlfriend as she grumbled and stalked off toward the stage entrance. Then a look of worry crossed Chikaru's face. She turned back to Nagisa. "Do you know where Tamao went? She's in the next scene, too."

"I'm not sure. I'll go find her, if you want."

"It would be much appreciated. Arigato, Nagisa-chan."

---

Tamao stood in the darkened prop hall, normally bustling with Lulim techies but now was occupied by no one other than the poet.

What Tamao remembered and craved in a way she could neither help nor understand was the time that distant winter before the Etoile election when she had come up behind Nagisa and pulled her close, the silent embrace satisfying some shared and sexless hunger.

They had stood that way for a long time, the minutes ticking by on Nagisa's wristwatch. The redhead's breath came slow and quiet, she hummed, and leaned against the poet's steady heartbeat. The vibrations of her humming felt like electricity to Tamao and, standing, she fell into sleep that wasn't sleep but something else drowsy and tranced, basking in the warmth of Nagisa's hands enclosing her own.

Later, that dozy embrace solidified in her memory and now the poet tried to puzzle it out. Another foolish, meaningless gesture, perhaps. Yes, it had to be. Just a couple days after that, Nagisa was running to Shizuma, leaving Tamao alone on the stage. What was the meaning of that? And maybe all that had followed after Shizuma's graduation - from their first kiss at the lake to how they had almost had sex yesterday - that was all nothing.

"Tamao-chan." Nagisa's voice reverberated harshly in the little room. Great. The last person she wanted to see right now.

"Over here." The poet's voice squeaked on the last word. She hadn't realized she had been crying.

The redhead approached her. "Shion-san says you're needed-" She cut herself short when she saw the tearstreaks running through Tamao's makeup. "...Uh, never mind. Not important. What's wrong?" She grabbed Tamao's hand. Another hollow gesture.

"What are we doing, Nagisa?"

"I dunno. What are we doing?"

Yeah, that didn't make any sense. She was a writer, and she couldn't formulate her feelings into clear sentences. She started over. "I... I keep finding myself relating more and more to Tom Buchanan. And it's just so sad! Daisy doesn't love Tom. She loves Gatsby."

"Daisy could love Tom," said the bemused redhead. "She married the guy."

"But she doesn't love him."

Suddenly, Nagisa caught on to the metaphor. She frowned. "Tamao. Shizuma and I are done. We're over. She's a thing of the past."

"But she's back! She's here!"

"So? Her being back doesn't make it not over." That made the poet's head hurt. "Ne, Tamao-chan, you don't think you're my second choice, do you?"

Part of Tamao wanted to fiercely deny this; it sounded way too pathetic, even for her. But, as her mother used to say, "honesty is a virtue." So she sighed and said, "I don't like how you behave around her."

Nagisa blinked. "How do I behave?"

"I don't know, you just-lay yourself down like a doormat and let her walk all over you. And I know you to be better than that."

"I never realized I acted like that," Nagisa thought, rubbing her chin. "But maybe I don't like how you behave around Shizuma."

"I don't think I behave any differently."

"You totally do!" Nagisa was laughing in spite of herself. "Around me and Yaya-chan and everybody, you're regular sweet old Tamao. But around Shizuma, as if she were flipping a switch-" the redhead gave a sharp flick of her index finger for emphasis "-you suddenly turn volatile and... really defensive."

Tamao huffed. "Well, if I am like that, it's only to protect you." She looked back up at Nagisa and her eyes welled up in the dim light of the prop hall. "I care about my Nagisa-chan, and I want to know if she feels that way about me, too."

"'Course I do! I would do anything for you. You know that... Don't you?" Nagisa raised an eyebrow and scratched her head. "It's funny. You never worried about this before. Why are you like this all of a sudden?"

Tamao told the redhead about her fight with Shizuma. She neglected to mention the former Etoile's intent to propose, but instead mentioned what Shizuma said about their "divine" roles in the play, and what she had said about hollow gestures.

"Shizuma said all that?" Nagisa asked. "Ouch. No wonder you decked her."

"I mean, I hate her fucking guts, you know? But I still believed everything she said. She was just so... convincing."

"She has a way of getting in your head," the redhead agreed. "It doesn't matter if you love her or hate her. She always gets to you. She got to me when I first transferred here. And you know what?" She smiled wryly at Tamao. "Retrospectively, I think that was all I felt for her: sheer bewilderment. But you-" she took the poet's hand. This time the gesture didn't seem so hollow "-at first I admired you for your talent and intelligence. But now I feel something more. It's more than anything I've ever felt for Shizuma." She squeezed Tamao's hand, leaned her head against hers. "I love you, Tamao. I hope you know that. I love you very, very much."

The poet began to cry again, this time for a different reason. They were free. Not even the most loved ex-member of the student body could break their bond. Not even the Great Alexander could break their bond. Nagisa pulled back with a gentle smile and said, "But you are seriously needed for the next scene."

Tamao nodded and ran out of the prop hall, leaving her ghosts and her doubts behind.

---

Kizuna and Remon's plot came into action at the very end of the play. The entire cast was on the stage, taking bows. Kizuna nudged Remon and, using their best Statler and Waldorf voices, began to holler.

"It was wonderful!"

"I loved it!"

"Bravo!"

"It was great!"

"Ehh, it was okay!"

"It wasn't bad!"

"There were parts of it I didn't care for!"

"Could've been better!"

"It was pretty terrible!"

"It was bad!"

"Boo!"

And the audience was roaring with laughter. Even the cast of The Great Gatsby found it funny; Nagisa wasn't so much bowing but doubling over with laughter. The Statler and Waldorf prank was just the icing upon this year's Drama Festival. It was official: The Great Gatsby was a hit.

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