Warning: Mild swearing involved in this chapter.

N: Najimi will be referred to as they/them to avoid confusion.

"Waaaah!" Tadano yelped, letting off an abrupt scream echo within the school clinic—the nurse immediately tended to his attention.

"Is anything the matter?" replied the nurse.

"W-where am I?" his eyes fluttered and wandered around the place.

"Oh, you ended up collapsing due to fatigue. Your classmates brought you here, by the way." the doctor remarked.

"So I was tired…" Tadano said, rubbing his own head.

"Yes, they said that you've been working yourself a little bit hard. It's this school's cultural festival, I understand, but you needn't take it seriously." the nurse said.

"I guess… so."

Tadano felt his eyes sink to his head; he felt a little bit sleepy and also still lightheaded. He sat up on the bed, which relieved the throbbing in his head. The warm sunlight burst from the window revealed the floating specks of dust. The rays met his eyes and his forehead which was dampened with a small, cold towel. The dim and tranquil clinic brought ease to his expression.

He reminisced about that fatigue when his eyes grew wide all of a sudden, knocking the sleepy feeling off of him. That's right! No doubt about it now; he now had the ability to read minds! The signs were all there before he even realized; the man who got cheated on, when Manbagi thought about something, Hitomi talking in her sleep, people talking to themselves. It was as clear as Fiji water and he couldn't deny it now.

Glaring at his pale right palm, he clasped it tight. Tadano's face lit up with a sort of proud feeling—a sense of astonishment coursed through his veins. Being the nice guy he was, though; he also considered the weighing responsibilities of the power, promising himself not to cross lines with it.

"Okay, you can go now." the nurse remarked.

"Oh, thanks!" Tadano gets up from the bed.

As he was about to exit, Tadano turned his head to someone familiar—Najimi was sleeping on one of the beds. He shook them to try to wake them up.

"Hey, Najimi, wake up!" he whispered loudly.

"Uh, ughh… good morning Tadano-kun." Najimi yawned.

"Why are you asleep on the bed anyway?" he questioned.

"They told me to watch over you, but then I was so tired that I ended up asleep here for a while. I ended up collapsing too, y'know.." they said.

"No, you just wanted to sleep so badly. Why did they put you in to watch me when you were also tired?"

"Oh yeah, good point, you got me there." Najimi said with a sarcastic tone. "Now, why don't we hotfoot it outta here? We gotta prepare now."

"Yeah, let's go."

"Oh, and thank you!" Najimi waved out, extending their gratitude. The nurse let out a warming smile.

"Uhh, Tadano-kun?"

"Yeah, Najimi?"

"Why did you go out cold at that time?" they questioned.

"I don't know… multiple things ran through my head. I felt the thoughts of other people. I was… reading minds." he proudly remarked.

Tadano stopped in his tracks, realizing that he flubbed. Oh, great. He goofed it up, he dun goofed it up! On the first day he got it, too!

Najimi stared deep into his soul, making him feel awkward. They tried to hold their bursting laughter in. Their skeptical expression neared on his, fists on their chin.

"Hey, Tadano-kun. Don't tell me you're going back to your chuunibyou days." Najimi giggled.

"I… guess I am. Sorry, I'll try to change it." Tadano's eyes looked down with shame, a visible layer of pink ran through his face. He was saved there—his dignity was, at least. He would paint himself in a more delusional image if he said he wasn't. So, Tadano had to find the balance and the right choice of words by giving off an apology.

"Hey, hey. I thought you got over Kawai-san now. I presume some feelings still resonate with you?"

"N-Nah… not really." Tadano stated.

"Hm… okay. As a dear friend who witnessed your rejection, I'll be there for you if you have any doubts, m'kay?" they said, patting his back.

"Yeah, sure…"

Making their way to the door, they slid it and heard a voice call out to them.

"Oh, Tadano-kun and Najimi-chan, you made it just in time. Come in! We're planning for the play!" Takarazuka called out.

Takarazuka was a person who possessed quite a distinctive quirk—a woman in nature and a man in nurture; she was a handsome girl. You read that right, a handsome girl. Her mannerisms acted like that of what a man was traditionally supposed to be. Clad with her signature; elegant, gleaming-white, flamboyant suit and pants, her rosy and charismatic aura shrouded the room and sparked confidence. She was up and ready to play the role of a charming prince.

"We were just deciding who our two directors were going to be for the play. Why don't you take the spot, Najimi-chan?" She requested.

"Okayyyy! But Tadano-kun will be the director and I'll be assisting!"

"Hehe, if something goes wrong, I'll just use him as my scapegoat." Najimi thought, their grinning face painted with a shade of mischief.

"Your job requires the utmost responsibility. You better do your best, hmm?" they said.

"Yeah, I fucking knew it anyway, this bitch is just going to blame me after all." Tadano thought. It didn't really have to take a rocket scientist nor a mind reader (which was him) to know what they were up to anyway.

"So earlier, we decided that we should do a play. And for the plot? A foreign prince falling in love with a princess would work—that'd be something that would grab the heart of the audience!" Najimi shouted out, while literally holding a heart, which they collected from the science lab. "So, who will be the princess?"

The class obviously didn't have to take a millisecond to think about it. Not needing to communicate to reach a consensus (haha, get it?), the entire class veered their heads with instant unison, their eyes centering at Komi. She quivered in silence contemplating on the major role she had to play which would grasp the audience's attention.

"Ok, raise your hands for Ko-"

Without a need to know what would happen next, all hands hung up in the air in a snap. Who wouldn't want to see the dashing beauty herself play such a magnificent role anyway? Of course, if you dared do such a thing as refuse, they'd all agree that you were mentally ill and needed help.

"Alright, for the prince is Naruse-kun or Takarazuka-san! Raise your hands for Takarazuka-san!"

Naruse tousled his bangs in style and boasted. "Hmph. I'll definitely be picked, no doubt ab-"

His narcissism took an abrupt pause when they all picked the latter.

"Kometani, you too?" Naruse questioned the boy sitting in front of him.

"Sorry, Naruse, but I merely picked the most logical decision." Kometani commented with an aloof expression.

"And with that settled, let's all rehearse now!" Najimi exclaimed with excitement.

"Sorry for taking this role, Tadano-kun." Takarazuka spoke up.

"Hm? Oh, it's okay." said Tadano.

Takarazuka covered her chortling countenance with her hand thinking about how dense Tadano was to not realize what she meant.

While the rehearsals went on, some of the classmates were also assigned to work on the posters and assemble the stage for the class play. Tadano wanted to be of more use, so he went to assist Manbagi with the posters.

"Hey, Manbagi-san. May I help you with that?" Tadano asked.

"Ta-Tadano!" she called out hesitantly. "You're the director, right? Shouldn't you help with the play?"

"They said they had everything covered. And I didn't want to be useless, so I'm here to help with some things."

"Alright, then hold this still for me, please."

...

"By the way, are you alright now?" uttered Manbagi.

"Yeah, no problems now. It was just fatigue." shrugged Tadano.

…

"Ta-Tadano, do you want to check out the festival together?" Manbagi hesitated with her request, a shade of pink running through her face.

"Sure, Why not?" said Tadano.

Manbagi's cherry red face overheated and it looked like it was going to burst. And burst it did, she dashed off the class without warning, leaving Tadano puzzled. The dense guy didn't know what she was thinking when she suddenly just ran off.

Everything was well ordered in the rehearsals until Takarazuka decided to pause it for a while and propose a new plan and plot.

"I think we should recast Komi-san." she stated. Komi was taken aback by the proposition, her mind pondering on how she was playing the role wrongly. "Ah, my apologies, I did not mean for you to be removed from the play, but rather change your role in it." Takarazuka uttered "I think someone like Manbagi-san would fit the role better, since she presents a more friendly image." she pointed behind to the gyaru.

Komi felt dismayed and let down by her barrage of thoughts. "Was I not friendly enough? Have I always been unfriendly? Did I let them down?" she anxiously loathed.

Her self-pitying thoughts made their way into Tadano's mind, in which he immediately went to comfort her. "You aren't doing anything wrong, Komi-san. You didn't let anybody down; I think you did your part well!" he reassured her with a bright smile.

Komi's eyes extended, vigorously nodding with such cute confidence. She smiled back at him, thinking about how great of a friend he was to understand her in the core. Now, you wouldn't need some mind-reading skills in a situation like this, emotional intelligence alone would do fine to resolve it. But with his sheer empathetic understanding and mind-reading powers made him feel like he was now a fully-fledged psychic. Nevertheless, Tadano understood her nature with or without it.

Takarazuka continued explaining. "Our actors wouldn't be able to take breaks if we kept repeating the same play. So I thought creating another play with Komi-san as the cold-blooded princess would work." she remarked. "Oh, and you're the protagonist for this play. Tadano-kun."

"M-me?!" Tadano stepped back in surprise, not expecting to play a role.

"Alrighty! Let's recast Komi-san!" Najimi yelled with spirit.

The blistering hot sun beat down hot and high in the proud sky on Itan, as the lively river of guests streamed in the area, engrossed near the school's gate entrance. The bristling amount of people came to visit the school to delight themselves in the festival experience, blends of students and non-students alike harmonized the bustling atmosphere.

The theater of Class 2-1 had its seats sprinkled with a variety of people, ranging from parents and other family members of the students who came to watch their performance, to connoisseurs and critics of theatrical play. Nevertheless, everyone came with a similar and simple reason in mind—to enjoy.

On the other side of the curtain, Komi dwelled in her thoughts with unease. "What if I stutter? Or flub? How should I act this role again?" the perturbation of her thoughts turned into her voice silently stuttering and her body rattling out of control. Tadano turns his head to her, his face signing to her a serene smile of confidence, causing her worries to melt away. "You can do it, Komi-san!" his lips fluttered.

There once was a peaceful kingdom—the narrator intoned with the drapes shifting, inching away to unveil the stage. …and in it lived a beautiful princess. But neither gems nor jesters… could make her smile. The people found her disconcerting… and called her the cold-blooded princess.