Before I Loved You
Chapter Eight
Haruhi's POV
I was never one for fairy tales. Pretty, pink princesses never truly appealed to me. Which, honestly, was one reason I was about to scream at the girl that was pulling the corset so tight on me that I couldn't even breath.
"Stop." I gasped out as I wrapped my hands around my back and undid about five of the laces. Ugh. I don't even know why I had to wear a corset. But then again, why do I keep asking myself questions like that? It was obvious wasn't it? The reason was two devious twins that insisted on having, "magnificent, wonderful costumes to display my full potential." Tamaki must have been rubbing off on them.
"Play starts in fifteen minutes." the class representative shouted throughout the din backstage.
Great.
'Haruhiii. Are you ready? It can't take possibly that long to put on a dress." Hikaru said as he brashly walked right into my dressing room without knocking. Whipping around I was about to start lecturing him on the dangers of the corset to my ribs when I saw what he was wearing.
A dark navy blue slim cut jacket with gold tassels hanging off of the shoulders. This covered a white button up that was covered in ruffles over matching blue pants. Oh, I almost forgot the saber that was strapped to his side.
Noticing my silence he grinned and walked up to me, "Awestruck by my beauty? It's alright. Everyone else is too." Walking around me in a circle he scolded me. "Haruhi, come on, the show is about to start. You don't even have your costume on." I wonder why.
My costume, otherwise known as a torture device, consisted of layer upon layer of soft pink shifts, skirts, and silks. The outermost layer was stitched beautifully with white thread. Oh, and there was no zipper, buttons, or Velcro. It was supposed to be laced up. Like a corset.
Spinning me around so that my back was towards him he gently picked up the laces and started to tighten them so that they were taught, but not quite as breathtaking (ha, pun) as my "costume help" was.
I wasn't shocked when I saw Kaoru walk right into the dressing room without knocking either. They did say that twins were similar, right? "Wow, Hika. We've only known her for three months and you're already making the moves on her?" Karou said with a suggestive smile. I rolled my eyes.
What would I do without my pervy redheads?
'Whatever." Hikaru commented, "There. Done. Now go!" he said as he pushed me out of the dressing room and onto the stage. You have the first line. You can't be late. Break a leg….or rather, try not to." he said as I wobbled in my brand spankin' new six inch heels.
"Shut up. I've got this." I replied as I shakily walked onto the stage. "I've got this."
"The annual school carnival is coming up and this year the class has decided on a play." the class rep. yelled, "It's decided that we're going to do Cinderella. Now, it's time to draw roles."
As we all started to line up I desperately wished that I would get a small part. No, it's not cause I had stage fright or anything , well, actually, there were quite a lot of reasons.
1. I would get behind in school work and I had to retain a number one status to stay in school on the scholarship.
2. I would have to stay for rehearsals and that would get me behind on chores.
3. Hikaru and Kaoru would be sure to put me in something ridiculously fru-fru and ruffly.
4. I wasn't that great at acting.
As I stepped up to the bucket it had to be just my luck when I saw the name Cinderella scrawled neatly onto my slip of paper. Peering over my shoulder Kaoru showed his. DIRECTOR was written on his. "Haruhi what'd you get?" he questioned as he snatched my slip away from me. 'Princess? You got PRINCESS?" Scowling I snatched my paper away from him, "Yeah, so what?" I asked as he wiped away tears from his eyes.
"Ugh. What did you get Kaoru. I got prince. I hope the princess isn't ugly." Hikaru said in a bored tone as he stuffed his slip into his pocket.
"Far from that." Kaoru commented as he pushed me in Hikaru's direction. "She's right here."
"Haruhi? You're princess?" he said as he smothered his laughter with the palm of his hand.
Sighing I started to walk away to study in the library for my free period. I started to calculate how much time would be lost with practicing for the play after school. Hm, not as much time to go grocery shopping. Hopefully since I'll be staying the Hikaru and Kaoru they won't make me come over.
As per usual I heard the twin footsteps echoing behind me as they caught up to me. "Now that I think about it, it can't be that bad with you as princess." Hikaru said as he draped an arm on my shoulder. "Of course not." Kaoru echoed with a seemingly suspicious glance my way.
Wonderful.
But of course, things were far from that. The main cast was lacking potential. The evil stepmother seemed more concentrated on what types of teacups we were using for sets than actually reading her part. Also, both of the evil stepsisters and mother kept on giggling when reading their lines. Not to mention the class representative being an unwilling fairy godmother. It seemed that he was concentrating on starting at one of the giggling evil stepsisters. Not that I could complain. I wasn't exactly a tremendous help to anyone. According to Kaoru, who had very much so stepped up to his role as director, I spoke in a non-expressive voice.
"Be in love with the prince!" he had spoken through his voice amplifier, otherwise known as a small orange traffic cone, "You sound like he's the bane of your life, not the reason for your existence."
Glancing out of the corner of my eye I saw Hikaru swagger over to me and bat his eyelashes. "Yes Haruhi. Be in love with me. You LIVE for me."
Pushing him away I tried to refrain from laughing as I was stared down by Kaoru. "Um, I'll try." I said as I repeated the line. "I love you my prince. I never, ever want to be without you again."
Looking at Kaoru for approval he shook his head in disappointment. Wow. He really took his job seriously. Beckoning me to come over he said, "I think that we might need to change the play. Or at least rewrite the script. I mean, this is the fifth day we've practiced this scene and you haven't changed your voice at all. I mean, it sorta sucks. No offense."
"Right. None taken. But how would we change the play? It's Cinderella. Everyone knows the story. We can't exactly change it." I said.
"Ah, but that's the thing. We can. We can just say it's something Cinderella-ish. I think that it would be easier if we let the characters be more like themselves. Like you, the princess, could, no offense, but be more…how should I put this…unemotional. And the prince, instead of being all prince-like and gallant could be more like that arrogant but like the lovable Hika we all know. And the fairy godmother could be, well, let's just say not very concerned with Cinderella's problem. And how much could it hurt if we changed the stepsister's and mother's personalities? All in favor say "Aye.""
While still trying to digest how we were going to go about making these changes I was met with a resounding "Aye" from behind me. I looked back at all of the crew members and extras leaning on the walls with bored expressions clearly stamped on their face. With the exception of the main characters everyone else had voted yes. Not that I had minded either way.
Clapping his hands Kaoru smiled, "Okay. Time to get the real show on the road. Cast members. Get your butts in gear and start giving ideas on writing scripts. I want drafts by tomorrow that I can review. Okay? See you guys tomorrow!"
To say that the class was pleased with this assignment was clearly an overstatement which was proven by the groans that followed after Kaoru's unexpected announcement. To say that they were displeased would have been an overstatement too. Rather, the reaction was more of a relief. I guess it would be relief from the crappy acting that we had been giving them to watch for the past couple of days. At least now they could actually try and make the play better than what it was. Which I assume was probably the most boring production of Cinderella that they've probably been seen in their life.
As far as I could tell it was actually going pretty well. But considering these kids had been going to operas in Italy every summer as far back as they can remember I would have to say that this wasn't exactly up to their standards.
That's what I was still getting used to. This higher class way of thinking. Our budget for school plays at my old school was nothing. Literally. We used what we had at home and in the school closets and attic. For this play we had a 5,000 dollar budget. When I asked why to the class rep. he had kindly explained it instead of the weird looks that I had gotten from some of the other kids.
"You see, there's the matter of making the sets, having the costumes custom made, the orchestra, makeup, electricity, and whatever else we happened to need. Actually, the school has cut down on the budget for the carnival. Weird. " he explained to me. Kindly he didn't comment on my mouth that I believe was hanging open from shock. Stupid rich people.
I could only manage an, "Ah." as I sat down in my chair and pondered about how much nice food I could get for that much money.
"Hey, Haruhi, what do you think of these three scripts. I think that these are the best." Kaoru said to me as he pointed at three stacks of paper lying side by side on his desk. "Me and Hika narrowed them down from a stories about a Schizophrenic Cinderella to a Cinderella that was fell in love with a cloud that she thought was a prince and everything else in between."
Raising an eyebrow at him he just shrugged his shoulders. "What? We have creative people in our class. So what?" he said as he pushed the papers towards me.
Skimming through each of them I decided that the play would turn out much better now that they had modified the characters a little…er, a lot.
Cinderella Version One was set in modern day. It basically goes on like the normal fairy tale except for well…in the 21st century. Also, they changed the characters to fit our personalities. Alright. That wasn't too bad.
Cinderella Version Two had more of a Romeo and Juliet flair about it. I guess that could work too.
Cinderella Version Three was Cinderella, except with reverse roles. As in most everything was opposite. It could actually work. Interesting.
As far as I could tell either one of these would be better than what we had. Which we didn't really have at all. But other than that, I'm sure the play would come out fine. My math project on the other hand wasn't exactly foolproof considering how much time Kaoru made us spend on this play. Actually, I was surprised that most of the kids listened to Kaoru. When I came here they sort of seemed to shy away from them. But then again, so did Hikaru and Kaoru.
Out of the corner of my eye I saw them laughing with a couple of other people. They had changed hadn't they? Other kids didn't seem to hate them as much. And they weren't so…well, so angry looking all the time I guess. Laughing Hikaru caught my eye and smiled at me. Putting my head down I felt the heat spread across my face in record time. Flashes of memory ran through my brain as I felt the cool room of the haunted house and Hikaru's calming hand stroking my hair. Shaking the thoughts out of my head I wondered what was wrong with me. I was here for school.
What was I doing? Blushing? At a smile? God, it sounded like I was turning into one of those fan girls that Hikaru and Kaoru always seemed to have.
"So which one?" Hikaru asked as he walked back over to me and sat on his heels so that he could be eye level to me.
"Any of these would work. They all still have the basic story line, so it doesn't really matter. Which one do you like the best?" I questioned back.
"Hm, well, all of them have one thing in common. And that's you fall in love with me. So basically they all have the main plotline, right. After all, who could resist these looks?" Hikaru grinned cheekily as he struck a ridiculous pose.
Doubling over with laughter I replied with an, "Of course."
"Hey Kaoru. Why don't you just have a vote?" I suggested.
"Good idea."
And with that, a couple of arguments, set changes, costume changes, and a freshly printed stack of new scripts it was decided that we would be putting on a play about something Cinderella-ish in which the roles were reversed and so were the personalities.
Which is how I ended up being first on stage. In a pink frilly dress and heels that I could barely walk in. After trying to delicately walk in my costume (more like stomp around) I heard the final touches being ready for the opening act I sat down on the couch with a platter of fancy tuna in the center of stage and took a deep breath.
As the curtains were rising I heard someone whisper from backstage, "Hey, Haruhi. Good luck, and don't trip. We can't have something Cinderella-ish with a dead princess." Hikaru said with a final grin and a thumbs up.
The orchestra started to play and the spotlight focused on me as I tried not to focus on all of the people in the audience. Which brings me to the point where I decided that if life was a stage, then surely I would have pushed Hikaru off it. But life was life, and as Kaoru said no matter what happened, the show must go on.