Cho-Cho's POV
She runs away with tears flowing from her eyes. This is the first time I saw Sarada crying in front of everyone. She is the tough-looking smart girl that everyone used to know, but there's something they don't know about this smarty and that she is too weak in dealing with her emotions.
She is crushed, I know. It is her dream to become an actress in a way that she can inspire people especially the kids to be good individuals in the future just as Mr. Martin did to her. She also wanted to conquer her emotional instability in crucial situations like this. She is so delicate that once you did not handle it with extra care, she will shatter.
The crowd was silent after she ran off the stage. She aims to head out straight without looking back.
"Sarada!" I shout at her. I think my voice echoes inside the room but she did not turn her head back and keep running away from everyone.
Indistinct fusses take over the whole room. All of the cast goes backstage to talk about the situation. Our adviser rushes to us after Sarada heads out.
"What happened Tsubaki? I thought Kawaki will show up!" she snaps. Her voice shivers. I can feel that she did not expect that this play would fail.
"I thought he is coming too, but that idiot—" she cuts her from her tracks.
"This play is over!" she declares and walks away. She stops for a moment and watches as the crowd slowly gets out of the room.
"This is awful," Namida says almost crying.
"Damn that bastard Kawaki. He ruined everything!" Iwabe scowls.
"It's my fault," Tsubaki insists. She takes all the responsibility with Kawaki.
"Tsubaki, it is not your fault!" Yodo exclaims. Everyone seems to agree. I am just watching them talk and worry about Sarada at the same time. I can't just leave them here as nothing has happened. So, I must stay a bit longer.
"If I had not recommended that idiot, this would not happen," Tsubaki says and her face saddens.
"It's not the time to point fingers to blame. We didn't expect all of this to happen," Wasabi explains. She gazes around and looks down at the script in her hands then her face turns sad.
"Now, the chances of Sarada and Boruto to be a part of the drama club has dropped to zero," Tsubaki adds. Now, it scares me that Sarada would not make it. It scares me more than Sarada would not move on with it easily.
"What should we do now?" Denki asks and nobody responds. I guess everyone still feels terrible.
"I'm heading out!" I finally say. I decided to look for Sarada. She is depressed right now and she needs someone to talk to and I think I am a suitable candidate for the position.
I head back to our classroom to check if she is still there. I wish I could catch up to her there.
"She is not here anymore..." I murmur when I arrived. The costume was on her desk and her things are nowhere to be found.
I look for her around the campus maybe she hasn't completely left but I could not find her anywhere. I head towards the Drama Club Office with the hopes that she tried to talk to the council and my surprise, I have crossed paths with a very familiar face coming from the direction of the place I wanted to come. Now, I wonder why. I turn my head back still surprised.
"What's wrong?" the President of the Drama Club speaks behind me and I turn my head right away after hearing her speak.
"Ah... um. I'm looking for my friend. Have you seen Sarada, the girl who played Snow White earlier?" I ask and her brows furrow. She shakes her head and I sigh.
"I see. Thank you," I say and my shoulders fall. Where did she go?
I grab my phone to text her. I type my message but deletes it too. I called her number instead.
"The number you have dialed—"
Her phone is off. Okay, I give up. I think she needs to be alone right now. I just type my message and immediately sends it to her. If she's feeling better, she will text me back.
A beep from my phone startles me. Maybe it's her. I grab it from the side table and immediately open the text message.
"Oh, it is not her..." I murmur. The message came from him.
"What happened earlier?" he asks.
"The play failed."
"Why what happened?"
"Kawaki did not show up."
"I thought it is Boruto?"
"He got an injury."
"What?! What happened to him?"
I continue to chat with him. I told him everything and even he is sad about what happened.
"I am waiting for Sarada to contact me yet she hasn't sent me any messages. I'm worried."
"Maybe she needs to be alone for now."
"I guess so too."
"Don't worry everything will be okay :)"
"I really hope so. :|"
"But... are you okay?" he asks me and my heart starts to flutter.
"Yeah, it's just that I am worried about my best friend."
"She'll be fine."
"Yeah, she will definitely get over it."
We chat a little and after I feel like it's already late at night, I say good night to him though I don't want our conversation to end. He calms me in times like this but I don't want to trouble him too.
I hope Sarada is doing okay right now...
Sarada's POV
"Sarada?" I hear my mom calls out to me from the kitchen but I did not respond to her instead I run to head off to my room. I know she's wondering now.
I slam my body on the bed while my uniform and shoes are still on. My face is buried on the pillow. My eyes are swollen due to crying earlier. I don't want mom to see me like this. My bag drops to the floor.
A beep from my phone startles me and I immediately grab it from the bag. When I opened it, a message from Namida appears on the screen. I ignore it and off my phone so nobody will bother calling or texting me then I put it on the side table and get my face buried on the pillow again. After a few minutes, I fall asleep.
"Sarada? Sarada?" a call from the outside wakes me up. It's mom knocking on the door.
"The dinner's ready, honey," she says.
"I'll be there in ten minutes," I shout from the inside and she replies with 'okay' and I hear her footsteps are heading downstairs.
I get up from the bed and change my clothes first. I look at the mirror and my eyes are still slightly swollen. What I do is I wear my eyeglasses so mom would not notice my swollen eyes. I don't usually use my eyeglasses at home.
"Are you okay?" mom asks me when I settled. I think she can sense me not feeling well today.
"Yeah, I am just tired from the play earlier," I lied and she smiles at me.
"So, how was the play?" she asks while smiling.
"A-Ah, U-Uhm. It was great!" I lied again. I make it sound happy so she won't suspect anything bad happened.
"Glad to hear that. By the way, I made your favorite soup," she happily says and serves the small bowl in front of me. It looks delicious but I don't have the appetite to eat all of them.
"Is there something wrong?" she asks in a worried tone when she noticed my silence.
I shake my head to refuse so she won't get disturbed. Mom is tired from work and preparing our dinner. I start to pick some solid stuff using my chopsticks from the plate served in front of me and put them in my mouth thereafter.
I say my good night to mom when I finished washing the dishes. She heads straight to her room and so do I. I sit at my desk and grab my phone and switch it on.
Messages from Cho-Cho and some of my friends appear on the screen. They are asking how I am. I don't have the energy and the enthusiasm to reply to their text messages.
I look up and see Mr. Martin's poster pasted on the wall. It was his photo in one of my favorite movies. Mr. Martin is my inspiration for my dream of becoming an actress. He is a role model to the kids like me and I want to be a role model to the youth too. Being an influencer will make a change like teaching the kids life lessons using real-life shows and keeping positive despite hardships.
"Life is very cruel to me. I should have been on my first step to that dream but it's over now..." I clench my chest with my palm. The thought of earlier's view was too painful for me to bear. I feel so ashamed and humiliated in front of everyone who expects a lot from me. I have never been criticized like that my whole life.
"I was so disgusted with myself..."
Saturday, 6:43 AM
A beep wakes me up. I fumble on the side table and finally, I found my phone. I open it and Cho-Cho's name appears.
"Let's hang out or visit Boruto?" her message's content.
Wait, visit Boruto? Well, I haven't heard anything from him since yesterday. Hmm, that is a good idea to see him. I think I need to unwind and pay a visit to the hospital.
"What time?" I reply.
"8:30," she immediately replies.
"Okay,"
So, I get up and rush to the bathroom. I brush my teeth, get dressed, and eat breakfast. I head out of the house after I wave goodbye at mom. She's in charge of the house today.
"Sarada!" Cho-Cho's waving at me already. She's always ahead of me. I dash towards her. To my surprise, she hugs me tightly. I didn't see it coming.
"I was worried, you know?" she says almost sobbing.
"What?" I furrow.
"You haven't texted me since yesterday," she is sulking while crossing her arms.
"I'm sorry. I did not have the energy to talk to anyone," I respond.
"It's okay since we've finally met," she says while smiling.
"So, let's go?" I ask and she narrows her eyes.
"What?" I scowl. She gestures at me like she is suspecting a crime.
"When it comes to Boruto you are snappy," she comments. I am surprised. I don't know what she is implying now.
"That's not true. You told me we are visiting Boruto, right? So, I am coming," I am quick to refuse but she seems more skeptical.
"Fine, fine," she doesn't want to debate with me I guess. So, we started walking to the train station.
We bring flowers and a basket of fruits as a present for him. We knock first before opening the door. A sitting Boruto welcomes us.
"Hey, you guys!" he is surprised when he sees us. We enter the room and walk closer to him.
"We bring you flowers and fruits," I say and we put them on the side table.
"How is your leg, Boruto?" Cho-Cho asks when we are like a few inches away from him.
"The swollen ankle subsides but I can't still move it," he answers. He stares at his foot.
"So, you still can't walk, huh?" I utter and he nods.
"What happened to the play?" he suddenly asks. We are surprised when he suddenly asked about the play. So, he hasn't heard anything about it yet? We look at each other and switch our stares at him. His face saddens when he sees our reactions.
"So, it failed?" he asks then his head falls.
"The jerk did not show up," I say.
"I'm sorry," he utters. I am shocked when he apologized. It sounds to me like he is blaming himself for what happened.
"You don't have to apologize, it's not your fault. It was an accident," I try to light up the atmosphere a bit. It was not his fault so he should not blame himself.
"You did not make it to the Drama Club?" he asks and I think my face glooms.
"Well..." I utter and he interrupts me.
"Maybe it was not yet the time..." he says while smiling.
"I guess so too," I say almost whispering.
"But, we should not give up yet, right?" he says full of hope. I nod as a response to him and when I look at Cho-Cho she was smiling.
"Good morning, Sarada!" My classmates greet me when I enter the classroom.
"Good morning!" I respond and smile at them. I am feeling better now.
"You look all right," Namida remarks and smiles at me. Wasabi and the rest ask how I was feeling this weekend or I really got depressed about the play.
"Well, I felt terribly sad about the play but I guess that's what life is and I am okay now," I tell them with a smile on my lips. They nod their heads repeatedly to respond to me.
When I glanced in the direction of the jerk, he was looking outside the window like he usually does. I hate that jerk and I don't care about him anymore.
"Good morning!"
Our adviser greets and puts the books on the table. We all keep quiet and I think everyone is expecting a long preach from her but I think she is not that mad based on her reaction.
"First of all, I have good news and bad news for you," she starts, and everyone sighs.
"The bad news is about your failed activity, I have decided to give you a different project to cope up with it," she continues and everyone whines about it.
"And what about the good news?" Tsubaki asks and everyone silences.
"And for the good news, it is only for one person and that is for Sarada," she adds and I am astonished.
"For me?" I utter and point at myself. She nods.
"You still make it to the Drama Club," she reveals and I think her words did not process inside my head yet.
Do I still make it to the Drama Club? How?
"How that happened?" I ask out of nowhere. I did not expect it to slip from my mouth.
"According to the President of the club, someone appeals for your spot and it was approved due to some acceptable reasons," she explains. And I think my heart rejoices upon hearing it from her.
Cho-Cho nudges on my side and when I look to her side, she was smiling at me.
"I wanted to know who appeals for my spot to the club," I say while dragging Cho-Cho to the Drama Club office.
"Okay, okay, I understand but can we slow down a bit?" she complains. I think I am just too excited to know who did that for me.
"I'm sorry," I utter and suddenly the President of the club gets out of the room and we move closer to her side. We have blocked her way.
"What's the matter?" she asks while furrowing her brows. She seems to be in a hurry.
"I want to ask about something," I start and she is half listening I guess.
"Oh, what is it?" she asks.
"About the person who appeals for my spot in the club..." I continue and she looks at me closely.
"I see, you are Sarada, right?" she asks and I nod.
"What do you want to know about... who?" she asks.
"Yes, I want to know who appeals for my spot in the club..." I say and she nods.
"Oh, it's..."
To be continued...