“And alright everyone I think that’s it for today. Council members can I see you for a minute? Everyone else, go home. We’ll see you at the next rehearsal. Remember, they're every Tuesday and Friday...!” Yoona waved at everyone as they began to leave.

Up on the stage, Joy, who had been cast as Chino, Bernardo's righthand man, had a grip on the collar of Seulgi’s shirt. She released the Dance Team Captain, and Seulgi rubbed at her neck. These actors were really serious about their parts.

“I’m going to enjoy killing you,” Joy said through a pretty smile as she walked away.

Really serious.

Seulgi was careful to step around the girls on the stage still marking off various positions with tape as she exited. She wasn’t sure what she had expected this rehearsal to be like, but she didn’t realize how long it was going to go on for. The sun had already begun to set by the time they started filing out of the auditorium, and after such a long day, she was ready to go home and collapse on her couch. And she was in desperate need of a shower.

She looked around for a moment, trying to see where Yeri had gotten off to, and saw the blonde talking animatedly to Saeron, who had been cast as Riff, Tony’s best friend. Seulgi smirked to herself and figured she’d just text Yeri later.

At least one of them was having fun.

“So what do you guys think?” Yoona asked the council as she accepted Krystal’s notes and glanced through them.

“I think we’ll definitely have our hands full,” Moonbyul muttered. She had initially been excited at the prospect of having so many extra hands helping them this season, but as the afternoon had unfolded, she realized all of the girls who had been assigned to the stage crew acted more like backstage pass-wearing groupies than anything else.

“That Seulgi’s a regular d’Artagnan,” the blue-haired Bernardo finished.

Krystal made a nauseated noise.

“I don’t know,” Yoona countered, handing the notes back to Krystal. “She seemed pretty sincere up on stage, despite some people giving her a hard time.” She gave Joy and Irene pointed looks.

Joy examined her nails leisurely. “That’s showbusiness. If she can’t handle the heat, she should get out of the fire.”

“Well I guess I’d expect better from our Arbiter at least. You’re supposed to solve problems, not cause them,” Yoona chided, turning her attention to Irene.

Irene smirked. She had actually also been impressed with how hard Seulgi had tried today, though that didn’t mean she was going to go easy on her. Irene still wasn’t sold on the idea of one of the most popular athletes in their school just waltzing in and snatching up the main part of their play.

Yoona just sighed. It was going to be a long couple of months. “Can you at least do one last sweep for me and make sure everyone's gone? I have to lock the auditorium up.”

+++

Irene found Wendy wandering around backstage looking for something. The smaller girl nearly ran right into Irene as her eyes were trained on the ground, retracing her steps. Irene put her hands out to prevent Wendy from colliding with her and Wendy startled.

“Oops, I’m sorry-!”

“What are you doing here still?” Irene asked with a faint smirk, crossing her arms.

“Oh, I can’t remember where I left my script…” Wendy mumbled in embarrassment. Losing her script on the first day like an amateur-

“Didn’t you let Seulgi borrow it?” Irene’s smirk grew, seeing a comical expression dawning on Wendy’s face.

“I did! You’re right! Shoot, she must have walked off with it,” Wendy concluded, snapping her fingers. “Ugh it was my only copy…” she groaned. Their next rehearsal wasn’t until the end of the week according to the Drama Club’s schedule, and she wasn’t sure when she’d run into Seulgi between now and then.

Irene pulled her own copy of the script out of her bag and held out her hand for Wendy to take. “Come on, let’s go to the library and make a copy of mine,” she insisted.

“Really?” Wendy asked. "Thanks!" She took Irene’s hand and let herself be led out of the empty auditorium with a small wave at Yoona who locked it up behind them.

Irene walked her through the desolate corridors of their school, the rows of lockers bathed in the orange glow of the setting sun. Wendy wordlessly followed along, watching their clasped hands and listening to the surreal echo of their footsteps in the empty hallway.

Irene paused as they neared the darkened library, and she put a finger to her lips indicating that Wendy should be silent. Irene peeked through the window in the door and saw the coast was clear and dragged Wendy inside.

Once the door was shut behind them Wendy heard Irene laugh.

“Uh… are we even supposed to be in here right now?” Wendy asked as the conspiratorial atmosphere lifted.

“We’ll just be a minute,” Irene said vaguely, flashing Wendy that mischievous grin of hers before weaving her way through the stacks to the copy machine, her hand still firmly holding on to Wendy’s.

Wendy was used to leaving the school when everything was starting to get locked up and shut down like this, since the Drama Club tended to run later than most other after school activities. The teachers and administrators thought theirs was a group consisting mostly of harmless nerds and didn’t think it was worth policing them as critically as some of the other clubs and teams around the school.

But now that they were essentially breaking into the school’s library after hours, Wendy wondered about that assessment.

They stopped at the copier and Irene finally released Wendy. She pried the staple out of her script and tapped the papers on top of the machine. Wendy suddenly remembered the script was over 100 pages long. They’d be here longer than a ‘minute’ with this old machine…

Irene placed the script in the feeder and hit the copy button. They listened to the machine begin to slowly scan each page in silence. The only light was coming from the dusky sky outside the windows, threatening to plunge the whole room into darkness at any moment as the sun finally slipped beneath the horizon.

Wendy was about to suggest she should go turn on a light when Irene suddenly spoke up.

“You tried out for Maria first, right?” she asked, watching the machine in page after page through it’s feeder.

It was an odd question. Irene had been at her audition, since she was on the council. Still Wendy wondered if she was just trying to make conversation.

“Oh, yeah... but I’m fine with being the understudy for Tony!” she said hurriedly, not wanting to cause a misunderstanding. Despite what a troublemaker Irene could be off the stage, she played ‘innocent’ awfully convincingly when she wanted to, and Wendy hadn't questioned it when she saw Irene had gotten the part.

Irene smiled at her through the lengthening shadows of the library stacks. “You were really good, though, you know?”

Wendy turned away shyly. “You think so?”

“I do.” Irene collected her script now that the old machine had finally finished scanning it in and was beginning to print it out. She glanced at Wendy out of the corner of her eye with another faint smirk.

“Could you sing for me?” Wendy suddenly heard Irene ask.

“M-me?!” Wendy sputtered.

“Yes you,” she laughed, nudging Wendy with her shoulder. “...Please?” she asked with a hint of shyness, recalling the song Wendy had auditioned with. “Could you sing ‘Tonight’ again?”

Wendy was glad the twilit gloom that overtook the library hid her embarrassment so well.

She took a breath and began in a voice that grew steadier and more confident with each line. “Tonight, tonight. It all began tonight. I saw you and the world went away! Tonight, tonight. There’s only you, tonight. What you are, what you do, what you say!”

Since she was also the understudy for Tony, she sang through his lines of the duet as well, until she came to the end. When she stopped, she looked over at Irene and saw the girl was standing there, watching her with her script hugged to her chest, and Wendy noticed even the copy machine had finished.

The dead silence made her even more shy, but why when she had been preparing to sing this song in front of scores of people up on the stage? Irene didn’t give her time to think about it, however, and instead presented her with another issue to get worked up over.

“See?” Irene said quietly. “You’re really good.” She enjoyed being right, but Wendy had unexpectedly knocked the wind out of her with that voice. She blamed the bizarre circumstances and soldiered on. She passed over the still-warm copy of the new script to Wendy and linked arms with her to lead her back out of the library.

“Do you think you could help me with the songs?” Irene asked her as they walked.

“With Maria’s songs?” Wendy asked, flustered. Did someone like Irene really need help? “I mean sure, yeah, I’d love to help!”

“Great,” Irene said, opening the door for Wendy and letting them back out into the hallway. “Are you free on Saturday night, maybe?” They paused outside the door of the library and Irene turned to face her.

“Saturday? Sure,” Wendy agreed. Irene’s rapid-fire questions were making her head spin, and being able to see her smirking gaze again certainly wasn’t helping.

“Perfect, I’ll take you to dinner first for helping me,” Irene said as she started walking backwards.

“Sounds good,” Wendy said faintly.

“See you Saturday, then!” Irene smiled brightly and spun on her heel, leaving Wendy alone in the empty hallway.

“See you- wait dinner?!”