I Start with a Bad Hand!

“Wow, this actually… worked out in the end.”

Regardless of whether the audience was shocked or not, our play managed to claim first place among the five competing plays—boldly… no, shamelessly.

“I think the promotional materials played a big role.”

“The direction was a bit experimental but quite good.”

“The sword dance…”

The members of our play had no intention of giving credit to anyone else and believed the reason for our success was their own efforts. However, it was quite amusing to admit that Aiden’s help had a significant impact.

“Ah, Degoph! Hey!”

During the two hours of the play, Aiden eagerly awaited Irene’s appearance with a pounding heart, only to realize he’d been deceived by the time the curtain call began. As the orchestra members started to rise, he threw the bouquet onto the floor and ran out, shouting my name. I didn’t witness it firsthand, so I can’t be sure. By the end of the curtain call, I had already left my seat to avoid the slightly angry audience.

“It’s a real trash play. The person who wrote the script is rotten to the core.”

Aiden, having been deceived once by me and twice by the play, began criticizing it along with his fencing club members. His intelligence, which was above average, seemed to become exceptionally sharp when it came to criticizing others.

“However, just as humans abhor evil, it’s only natural for someone who loves art to despise ‘Waiting for Podrelis’.”

“No amount of seasoning can mask the stench of low-quality meat. Degoph’s play is like that. The weak script penetrates through the decent acting and flashy direction, leaving the audience bored.”

“The playwright Degoph’s only achievement is discovering the most groundbreaking way to waste paper.”

These and other sharp, clever criticisms filled about two pages of paper. Before the last edition of the school paper before vacation, the reviews collected by the drama club itself, and even newspapers outside the academy, Aiden made sure to submit his exhaustive reviews of the play to every possible outlet.

“Seriously, who are the Podrelis family? Why does the lead character spend the entire two hours cursing them, and every time they appear, there’s a five-minute chorus, but we never find out who they are until the end?”

“My point exactly. The title is ‘Waiting for Podrelis.’ So why don’t they ever appear?”

“Looks like they ran out of things to say in the play. They should have shown more sword fighting. That part was at least entertaining.”

Fortunately, Aiden wasn’t the only one who gave the play a harsh review. Overall, everyone who watched the play expressed their dissatisfaction, starting with Aiden’s critique, and it gradually became a trend among the audience to mock the play and demonstrate how to criticize it in a scholarly manner.

“Podrelis is a satire on the Lord Ferris incident, which caused a huge scandal in the past. Maybe the playwright cleverly used it to criticize institutional corruption.”

Oddly enough, these harsh reviews irked the students who actually enjoyed the play. Just as there are people who eat dirt, there were also students at the academy who found satisfaction in bizarre works of art. They seemed to take the criticism of the play as an attack on their taste and, by extension, on themselves.

“Maybe it’s you who lack artistic or academic sensibility for not understanding such a historically significant event.”

Thus, they began countering the critics. Of course, there were students who didn’t belong to either of these groups. They would just hum the repetitive song from the play, “Isn’t the Podrelis chorus in the play catchy? Pod-re-lis. Po-po-po, dre-lis.”

This led to chaos outside the play.

However, whether there was turmoil outside or uproar inside, I was only interested in one person’s reaction.

“I don’t think Hayden came to see it on the first day. Please, let him come to the re-run.”

Was the variation of the Lord Ferris family as Podrelis too subtle? Should the play have been more explicit in criticizing that family? On the day of the re-run, just like the premiere, the students flocked in. They were mostly ready to criticize, sitting with folded arms and sneering expressions, as if to say, “Let’s see what you’ve got.”

“If Hayden sees this, he’ll probably have a fit.”

But as the lights dimmed and the stage lights came on, it wasn’t easy to make out individual faces in the audience. Besides, I was standing at the back of the audience, so finding Hayden or someone who looked like him from behind was quite a challenge.

“Pod-re-lis. Po, dre-lis.”

“Sss-!”

As the chorus ended, applause as insincere as the lyrics erupted, mingled with derisive shouts. Amid the crowd, I scanned the audience, biting my lip. Brown hair, slightly curly, that kind of hair….

“What? Who’s wearing a hood in this weather?”

I spotted someone suspiciously hiding in a corner and shifted my position slightly to get a better view. However, no matter how much they tried to hide their face, the sculpted silhouette was unmistakable.

‘…Roxanne? Is that you?’

Roxanne, hiding her silver hair and watching the play with a dark expression, was calmly staring straight ahead even as everyone else burst into laughter. There was an inexplicable chill in her sunken eyes…. Honestly, it was strange.

‘Beatrice’s play received praise from both the audience and the professors. It’s getting a re-run too.’

It seemed unfair that only the trashy play I created with my colleagues was getting a re-run, so Beatrice’s play was also given the chance for another performance. Although I couldn’t say my play hadn’t negatively impacted hers, at least she got the chance for a re-run, which was a relief….

‘So, there’s no need for that kind of… expression, is there?’

Just then, as the stage lights shifted, Roxanne’s face was once again enveloped in darkness. I was about to move to get a better view of her face when—

“Dietrich.”

A faint breath whispered in my ear, startling me. I quickly turned my head. The hazel eyes I had been waiting for met mine.

“Oh… Senior Hayden.”

Hayden greeted me with a smile instead of words.

“If I’d known you were coming, I would have reserved a seat for you… I didn’t expect you to be standing here.”

The chorus condemning Podrelis was growing louder. On stage, Agnes was furiously striking the Podrelis family mausoleum with a shovel.

“The play is interesting. A unique… story.”

The audience was dark, so I couldn’t see his expression clearly. But one thing was certain—he was smiling slightly.

“How did you come across this story?”

“I found it while looking through history books for a play idea….”

I tried to speak in a steady voice as I looked at Hayden’s face. In the noisy theater, he leaned in closer, straining to hear me.

‘What is this… Could it really be him?’

His smile was so subtle and sincere that it made me doubt my assumptions. In that moment of uncertainty, I blurted out something I hadn’t planned to say.

“But, senior, after the play, I’m going to address the audience as the playwright. I’ll explain it to you then.”

Why I wrote this play. Hayden, with the same calm expression, simply said, “Alright. I’ll wait.” He remained composed, without showing any change in emotion.

As the curtain call began, I had to endure something even more humiliating than writing this script, amidst the mixed boos and cheers from the audience.

“As someone who loves the Empire… um. That… you see. Those who disrupt Thomple’s order, and those who are not noble… um, those people. Um…. They’re bad!”

My fervent declaration of patriotism for a country that wasn’t even my own…. The more I spoke, the more the audience’s expressions turned cold.

“I know it’s a flawed work. But I wanted to inform you, um, to preserve this. I hope you remember. Remember how many people suffered because of cowardly and irresponsible individuals. And how the Empire’s honor was tarnished.”

Even as the curtain fell, Hayden remained standing still. The play ended with a lingering sense of uncertainty, and I was left wondering if I had completely misjudged everything.

“I didn’t know you had such affection for the Empire,” Icarus muttered, leaving me with a sense of deep embarrassment. However, despite the confusion, my long-planned provocation soon bore fruit.

“Hey! What’s this rumor going around the academy? Who started it?”

Just a week before summer break, the rumor that “Dietrich Degoph once deceived a noble family and was disowned” began to spread.