53 Break a Leg

Arata ran deeper backstage towards where the yelling was coming from. He witnessed two girls, one lying on the ground with the other looking over her. The one on the ground, was none other than Akiba.

"Are you okay?" He ran up to them.

"I don't know if she's fine." The other girl replied. "We were just talking about the play. Then next thing I know, one of those bags came flying down."

"That sounds pretty dangerous." He looked up, checking to make sure that nothing else was going to follow. At this point, everyone else had caught up to him.

"Akiba!" Yogi yelled out, as he saw the cause of the yelling. "Are you all right?"

"I-I'll be fine." She tried to assure everyone. However, as she struggled to get up. Her legs buckled below her.

"You don't look all right." Arata commented. He noted that while she avoided most of the bag. It appeared to have caught her ankle a bit. "We need to get the nurse."

"We can't do that." Ichiri stopped him from leaving. "The rules state that everything involved with this, must be handled by the students."

"What? That sounds pretty stupid." He may not have known how things worked around here. But this wasn't something that he was okay with at all.

"Don't go." Akiba stopped him once more. "I… don't want everyone to get in trouble because of me."

"But it could be serious." Yogi tried to persuade her. Arata stood there, watching, thinking about this situation.

This seemed like a pretty bad stipulation. Without help, they'd be hopeless. It almost seemed like something that Hine would do with him. Unless... There was a point to this.

"If that's how you feel." Arata broke his silence. He knew it now, this wasn't just some festival event. It was like a test for them. "You two, help get her somewhere safe." This was hard for him, but with all this arguing, he knew that someone was going to have to take charge.

"Right, I'll help too." Yogi was about to pick her up, but Arata grabbed him.

"No. You need to go and get ready." There was only minutes until the play was going to start. There was no time for delays.

"Hey, you over there. Can you double check everything up there?" Ichiri noticed what he was doing. She wasn't about to let him outshine her in her directorial debut. "Make sure that everything's safe. You got me?"

"Where's Erina?" He asked her, after he got Yogi to go on ahead.

"Right, because we need our replacement. I don't know, but we better find her right away." She responded.

"What's going on?" They didn't need to look for her. As she approached them with a worried expression. "I heard yelling, and now I'm seeing Akiba being carried off somewhere."

"It's a bit hard to explain." Ichiri told her. "All you need to know right now is that you have to take over for Shinshiro."

"Yeah, and we should-" He stopped, hearing that sound again. Before they even heard the warning yells from the people up above. Arata dove over to Erina. Tackling her and bracing for impact. A loud thud was heard.

"Um, that wasn't even close." He turned around to look at Ichiri, who was looking back at him unimpressed. The other bag that had fallen was quite a ways from where they were even standing.

"You… You tried to protect me." He turned over to look at Erina. Laying on top of her, he had a really good look at her face. Arata could've fallen into those beautiful blue eyes.

"It's nothing." He picked himself up, then helped her up. "It'd be a problem if both our Helena's were knocked out." What he said, while true, was hiding his true feelings of the moment.

"We should get going, the show's about to start." Ichiri walked them out quickly, to make sure no more interruptions were about to happen. "You better get ready, you'll be up soon." She told Erina.

Erina didn't respond, but she went and got into costume. Luckily, she had prepared for this, even if she wasn't expecting to be playing. Once ready, she stood just right by the stage entrance, as her part was about to begin.

"I don't know." She finally said something, to Arata, who was waiting by the entrance to keep track of what was going on.

"Don't know what? Don't tell me that you're going to chicken out now." That would've been his biggest disappointment in life, if that were the case.

"I mean, I don't know if I deserve this." Everything was happening so fast. One would think that this is something that she'd wanted. To play a couple with Yogi, but something inside her had regret. "Do I really deserve this opportunity?"

Arata paused a moment to think over her words. She thought that this was him giving her the silent treatment, but he didn't want to mess up what he was going to say.

"The opportunities you deserve, are the ones you take." He answered. Before there was time to continue, it was now her cue." Now go, we can't disappoint everyone, right?"

"R-right." She steeled her resolved, and began to walk out.

"Oh…" He said to her while she continued to walk. "Go break a leg out there." Arata turned away before she could react to him. There was somewhere else he needed to be at the moment.

"Oh, Arata. I wasn't expecting you." Akiba was nursing her injury, it wasn't serious. However, she was going to have a hard time walking with it at the moment.

"Well I just have to check if you're okay." He told her. "So how is it?"

"She'll be up and walking pretty soon, actually." The girl helping her said. She was studying to become a doctor, so this was simple stuff for her. "It could've been serious, but luckily she just has some bruising. We'll hold off though, in case of swelling."

"Do you mind if we talk in private?" He asked her.

"Oh yeah, I have to head out and help with the production anyway. I'll be back to check from time to time." The girl left, leaving the two alone.

"It's pretty bad, isn't it?"

"Oh no, it doesn't really hurt-"

"About the play, I'm sorry that you can't be in it right now." He knew it wasn't his fault, it wasn't really anyone's fault about this situation. This was just something that made him feel bad.

"I know, it's disappointing to say the least." She answered.

"You want to vent about it?"

"No." He was surprised at the response, but checking her hands. He knew she wasn't lying. "I actually don't mind just talking with you, you know, normally."

"You really don't, huh?" He realized that during his time away from everyone. She was the only person that he maintained some level of contact with, other than Yogi. "Well, at least we don't have to watch the play." He chuckled, she smiled at his joke.

"Yeah, we don't…" They spent some time chatting with each other. Nothing important, just things to pass the time with. Until she brought up the play again. "You know, I'm kind of glad that I'm not in the play right now." She said.

"Why's that?" He asked.

"You already know." She answered. "When we were talking the other day, and you tried telling me about the bad things that could happen." He thought about what he said then. He felt bad about trying to scare the girl. Especially given what had happened today.

"Well, to be honest. I thought you'd be a good Helena." He told her.

"Maybe…" She responded gently. "But, I've always gotten scared about things like this. I probably would've just messed everything up for everyone. I hate this shy side of me."

"Well I'm pretty sure that everyone would prefer that over your other side." He told her. She frowned at hearing him, turning her head down. He was trying to be nice, but he could tell that he apparently said something wrong. Before he could get the chance to think about it, another person came running in.

"Akiba!" It was Akaki coming in to check on her. He had a very worried expression and tone to him. "Are you okay? We were worried when you weren't on the stage." Shortly after, the rest came in.

"I'm fine, really I should be able to move well soon." She assured him.

"Hey guys..." Arata greeted everyone else.

And so, everyone stayed backstage to keep her company. Arata waited along with the other actors to keep progress on the play. Everything was finally running smoothly, and he took a moment to take a breath. Soon, they were nearing the end of the play. Just one more act to close things off, and they could consider this a success.

With the last intermission happening, he was stand with all of the actors and understudies. That included Erina and Yogi. One that wasn't sure how to approach him, and the other that didn't want to stop talking with him.

"Hey, Arata look." He turned around to see it was Akiba, now walking normally again. "Nothing's hurting now." She had made a full recovery.

"Wow, that's pretty nice. Do you think that you might have a chance to come back in?" He wondered if Ichiri would allow that. It might seem weird to the audience if one of the actors suddenly changed.

"It is pretty nice." Yogi came up and gave her a hug. "I'm glad that you're all right."

"R-right…" She responded to him, flustered.

"That's wonderful." Said Erina. "If you want, then you can take your spot back." Arata looked at her confused. He was surprised that she would be the one to offer that. He figured that she'd at least give some resistance.

"Yeah, here I'll…" Yogi, in his excitement ran off to grab some things for her return. Or at least, he was about to. But he didn't realize that he was standing by one of the big lights, resulting in him banging his head on it.

"Yo-yogi?" Arata rushed over to check on his fallen friend. No response, as he was knocked out cold.

"Okay guys, it's time for… What happened here?" Ichiri came over to them and was about to command them, when she came into this scene.

"He… He knocked himself out." Was the only words that came from Arata's mouth. This was bad, another one of their lead actors had been injured on the job.

"Damn it." She muttered to herself. "Fine, Kashimura, you're up then."

"I am?!"

"Duh, you're his understudy. We don't have time to try and wake him up, you'll just have to finish this for him."

"Okay, but I'm not in costume yet."

"Just take his clothes, we don't have time. You're up in a couple minutes." He couldn't believe he was about to strip an unconscious person. This almost felt criminal to him.

"Okay… I'm ready." The outfit Yogi was wearing was much too big for him. He felt like he might trip over the pant legs, but he just had to stay calm and focus. "I guess I'll be seeing you soon, Akiba." She nodded to him. Just as he was about to take his position, Erina finally had something to say to him.

"Arata…" She paused, unsure if she could do it. "Go, break a leg." Hearing this from her, it made him smile.

"Don't worry... I will."