Miss Hwang, their drama teacher, was definitely one of those teachers who lived and breathed the subjects they were teaching. She had apparently practised acting ever since she was little, and she’d had a successful career even though she was still fairly young.

For example, she had spent a couple of years in America where she had helped training some upcoming drama actors, before she went back to Korea to pursue teaching. Also, her boyfriend was apparently an actor who’d played the leading role in a whole bunch of famous musicals. Some of the musical fans in their group (Baekhyun, for example) had almost squealed in delight when they’d heard who it was (but Jongdae had never heard of the guy since he was more interested in films anyway). So you could say Miss Hwang was very passionate about her subject, which was also made obvious during their lessons.

"Okay, second scene! Luhan, are you ready? Snow White is out getting water from the well, and she is humming a melody to herself. If this was in front of an audience the spotlight would be on her and we would have audio of birds chirping in the background, alright?"

It was the next week and they had started practising their play without props and with the script in their hands. Tao had just left the stage after doing a very convincing portrayal of the furious queen, and now it was time for Luhan and Sehun to shine.

“Do I seriously have to be humming on a song?” Luhan asked, and their teacher immediately replied that yes, he had to, “since it brings out Snow White’s innocence even more”. Luhan then started humming while pretending to fill a bucket with water from a well.

“Alright, enter the stage, Sehun!” the teacher said and Sehun slowly made his way to the other end of the stage, just standing there looking at Luhan until the latter left with the imaginary bucket of water.

“This is where the spotlight would shift to Sehun if we were performing it for real”, Miss Hwang then said. “Okay then, Sehun, you know what to do!”

The script said that ”the prince looks at Snow White leaving with an expression of curiosity mixed with longing”, and the prince was supposed to say his only line from that scene.

“Wow… what a beautiful girl”, Sehun said stiffly with no feeling in particular visible on his face. He then covered said face with his hands in embarrassment, and laughter was heard throughout the room. Jongdae couldn’t help but join in on the laughter, it was well known that Sehun wasn’t the best actor out of all of them, especially during the first rounds of practise. Jongdae loved watching him act though, mostly for the fact that he was just being so adorable.

Once again the teacher announced that it was time for the next scene, where Tao ordered the huntsman, aka Yifan, to take Snow White into the woods and end her life. Tao had been very surprised when he’d found out that he was supposed to tell the huntsman to bring him Snow White’s heart as proof that she was dead, not expecting the fairy tale to have such a dark twist.

“Is this seriously from the Disney movie?” he asked incredulously.

“It’s an old movie and they didn’t have the same concept of ratings as we have now”, Jongdae explained to him, “Besides, it’s not so bad. He doesn’t even do it and the heart isn’t pictured anyway. They pretty much only mention it.”

Tao still seemed a bit unsettled, but carried on nonetheless, and it was soon time for the next scene. The scene showed how the huntsman takes Snow White to the woods, fails to kill her and lets her flee instead. It basically consisted of Luhan running around to dramatic music in the dark woods, trying to look as terrified as Snow White was supposed to feel. Except, there was no dramatic music in the background and there was also a significant lack of dark woods on the stage, so it just turned out looking kinda hilarious instead, with Luhan running around in circles awkwardly. Jongdae had to keep himself from laughing, because he knew Luhan wouldn’t be too happy if he did.

Looking over to where Sehun currently sat, the younger boy didn’t laugh at the scene either since he was too busy listening to Tao, who was seated next to him. From what Jongdae could hear, Tao was talking about what a brilliant idea it would be to make the scene more exciting by adding a fight sequence between Snow White and the huntsman. Sehun simply nodded, smiling amusedly at his friend’s suggestion.

After a long, almost completely improvised scene of Snow White exploring the house she’d found in the woods, it was finally time for Jongdae to get up on the stage, together with the six others who also played the dwarfs. It wasn’t that much acting on his part, really, he just had a few lines and most of them simply consisted of him trying to say something but ending up sneezing instead. But he did a good job acting, if he was to be honest. Although the only thing their teacher said to him was:

“I guess you’ll need to practise your fake sneezing to make it more believable”, which hopefully meant that the rest of his acting was good enough for the teacher to only point out a small thing like that. Right?

The next scene was one of the most amusing parts of the whole play, Jongdae thought. It was the scene where the queen finds out that Snow White is still alive after asking the mirror, and she unleashes her fury on the huntsman. Even though it was only their first time practising, Tao really went all out and screamed and shouted at poor Yifan, who just stood there, taken aback by the younger’s fit of rage. Tao even shouted some obscenity in Chinese that made Yifan’s face pale a little and Luhan giggle.

Jongdae knew that the reasons behind Tao’s extreme way of acting out this scene were his will to show off his skills as an actor, but mostly because he could use it as an excuse to get to express his feelings about certain people properly. It was well known that Tao’d had a big, embarrassing crush on Yifan during all of his first year, and he’d done everything to impress the other boy, including following him around and doing anything that the other wanted. Basically he’d totally been head over heels for the other, so imagine how Tao’s heart shattered to pieces when he found out that Yifan was as straight as uncooked spaghetti.

Tao seemed to have gotten over him now though, even if he still was a bit mad that he’d wasted all his time and efforts on a boy that would never like him back anyway. Which was evident now that he was still shouting at the other, even though the queen had already gotten her message across very clearly at this point. Their teacher seemed to approve of his acting, though.

“Great, Zitao! It’s very professional of you to imagine yourself in the queen’s shoes and feeling the same rage that she does in this scene. Excellent portrayal!”

Tao kind of just shrugged and smiled sheepishly in reply. And with that, the play progressed and soon enough it was time for the last scene. The scene where the prince awakens Snow White from her slumber. The scene where he kisses Snow White. That scene.

Jongdae gulped. He wasn’t even part of the whole kissing business, why did he care so much? Maybe it was because he wanted to be a part of it. Maybe he wanted to be on the receiving end of Sehun’s, or the prince’s, kiss. However, he absolutely did not want to play Snow White and he couldn’t do anything about the roles anyway. They had already been decided and their teacher would probably flash him a smile of death and tell him to leave the room if he asked about it one more time. So, what could he do?

Jongdae thought that possibly, their teacher could accept a change in the script. She would always tell them how she loves when they add their own input on the script and change it to suit their liking more, so why not?

Almost everyone were on stage now. Luhan was lying in the middle playing dead, and all the dwarfs were assembled around him. Sehun slowly entered the stage, and walked up to Luhan in an even slower manner, trying to drag out the time as much as possible (at least, that’s what Jongdae hoped he did). If the boy was nervous or not was hard to tell on his poker face, but his voice gave it away when he spoke up.

“Do… do I really have to, uh, kiss him on the practise rounds?”

“Well, it is practise, so I would prefer if you did. It’d be good if the actual performance at the end of this semester won’t be the first time you two kiss, anyway. You need to create some chemistry and make the kiss seem believable.”

Jongdae then raised his hand, trying to put an indifferent look on his face.

“Y’know… Why does Snow White have to be saved by a prince, anyway? Isn’t that pretty old-fashioned and enforces stereotypical gender roles?”

“I actually agree, can’t Snow White save herself?” Luhan piped up, not looking very dead anymore. He seemed like he was about to add something but he was quickly interrupted by Tao, who was speaking in an excited voice.

“Yeah! I’ve had this great idea for a while, listen up: Instead of fainting from the apple, Snow White senses the queen’s bad intentions and challenges him, I mean her, to a battle to the death using only their bare hands! It would bring more excitement to the play if we add an action sequence, don’t you think?”

Jongdae found the idea pretty stupid, but to be honest he’d still prefer it over the actual kiss scene. Some of the others didn’t share his opinion, though.

“Yeah but Tao, we really don’t want Luhan hyung to die”, Baekhyun said. Luhan instantly retorted, a bit red in the face.

“Hey, I can defend myself!”

About two or three people in the room rolled their eyes at that, but before anyone could say anything their teacher interrupted.

“Okay everybody, quiet down. Yes, I know that the scene contributes to the clichéd idea that girls need a man to save them, but… It’s just so romantic!” Jongdae was almost certain that the teacher’s eyes sparkled at that moment. “And it is a perfect ending to the play! No one in the audience will have their feelings unaffected by this scene, I’m sure of it!”

Miss Hwang took a break to breathe for a second and then continued.

“Sehun, Luhan, I’ll let you off the hook this time, but I want you to have practised the kiss scene at least a couple of times before we actually perform it, okay?”

The two nodded as a reply and Jongdae cringed. Things were really not going his way. Even though they didn’t have to kiss today, they still had to do it later. And he certainly didn’t want to think about that.

What if Luhan was an excellent kisser and Sehun, if he didn’t already like him, would fall for him after getting to experience his lips? What if the two would start hanging out after school to “practise their lines” but instead end up only practising that very scene, very thoroughly?

Jongdae tried to subtly shake his head, as if that would help him to get rid of those terrifying thoughts.

He couldn’t agree with his teacher, there was nothing romantic about Luhan and Sehun kissing, not at all.

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author's note: i just wanted to clarify that i absolutely don't hate hunhan (it's only jongdae who does that, lol). actually, i adore the pair and that's why i made the two of them the ones to kiss in the play u v u

hope you enjoyed this chapter!