I wander outside, taking in this fine Sunday morning. The air is laced with the smell of freshly cut grass, and the mixed aroma of various fast foods being fried up. The atmosphere is filled with the light senseless droning characteristic of a small crowd. The festival has begun.

Stepping out into the outside world, I see the beginnings of a gathering, with the first of the festival-goers already having arrived. I can see people playing some of the games we set up, couples going for a stroll, groups of friends gathering in the outskirts of the shack village the student collectively built. I look over and see Rin, asleep by her mural, having stayed up all night to finish it, I assume. The mural is very... nice? I can't say that it looks bad, as it's actually very well painted. I just don't understand anything going on in the picture.

Maybe that's the point...?

Trying not to short-circuit my brain, I begin moving into the crowd, wondering if Rika is manning the stall we constructed together. After a short walk, and a tad bit of distraction by the other booths, I see that she isn't. In fact, nobody is. I look around and behind the station, and realize that it's been left completely unattended. My first thought is, Where the hell are Rika and her classmates? My second thought is, Has anything been stolen?

I head inside and, after taking a quick inventory, establish that nothing has been stolen, because really, who would take the time and effort just to steal a stuffed animal? The whole place looks untouched: there's a shallow layer of dust on the screen of the empty register, the tossing rings look undisturbed from where we placed them yesterday, and the grass beneath the booth stands tall as if no one has walked on it in a while. There are still even drops of dew still hanging onto it from the night before.

As I'm surveying the abandoned attraction, a boy and a girl, who I guess are a couple, approach the booth.

"Hey, is this stall open?" The nameless boy asks, leaning over the counter with his hands in his pockets, his friend standing next to him with her hands behind her back.

"I- uh..." I stammer, considering what to say. I'm not a part of Rika's class, so I'm not sure if I'm allowed to run this place. Then again, I did help to build the thing, so maybe I am qualified to attend the shop while they're out doing whatever it is they're doing. Coming to a conclusion, I say, "Yeah, we're open."

"How much?" he asks, reaching deeper into his left pocket.

"250 Yen for four rings," I guess, trying to refer back to a brief conversation about money Rika and I had yesterday. That sounds right, but it might have only been three rings per payment.

He hands me the money and begins his attempts at a prize. The first toss simply bounces off of the worthless one point outer ring of bottles with a clatter, while his second nearly lands in the three point middle ring. The third one bounces away as well, but the fourth ring finally lands, albeit on a bottle that doesn't win him anything.

"Here, let me try," the girl steps up to the plate, depositing another 250 Yen, and receiving another four rings. Toss one lands on a bottle, but it's only a one pointer. You need at least three points to win a small prize. Her second toss scores once again, bumping her up to two points, while her third misses, leaving a lasting ting from the point of impact. The girl sticks out her tongue, carefully lining up the last shot. Her arm goes up and down, practicing, until she finally releases the ring, bouncing off the three pointers, and landing her one last point.

"You know, it's not very gentlemanly making a girl win prizes for herself," she says teasingly as I hand her a little blue stuffed monkey. The boy says something about dumb luck before turning back and saying, "Thanks, have a nice day!"

I'm not about to let my work on this station thus far go to waste, so I take a seat and begin attending to any other customers that drop in to play. I wouldn't exactly call this a job, since all it really is is taking people's money, watching them play, and occasionally giving out a prize. It's good for practicing small-talk as well, since everybody seems pretty upbeat and talkative today.

By noon, I've already collected about 8,000 Yen, and the festival has only just started to pick up the pace as more people drive up from town and more students leave the dorms to partake in the fun. I finish catering to a small group of guys when I hear a familiar voice coming from down the line of shacks.

"Hachiro! Ai! How're the profits coming along?" she calls, her voice drawing nearer, "You guys better not be stealing money out of the-" she stops when she sees that the only operator here is myself.

"Hi, Rika," I greet her awkwardly.

"Hisao?! Where are Hachi and Ai?" she asks, craning her neck, looking around the shop just like I did, with her hands having firmly secured her ponytail once again. She's not wearing her school uniform today, having it replaced with a plain white t-shirt, jeans, and a bark blue hoodie. The jacket compliments her eyes.

"I don't know who Hachi and Ai are," I explain, "I came here to check up on you, but nobody was running the stall, so I just eh... took over."

"Goddamn those bastards!" she exclaims, stepping into the shack, "We had an agreement that they would work the damn stall because I put it up all by my lonesome yesterday!" She takes a seat across the room, and faces my way.

"'All by your lonesome,' huh? I'm pretty sure I helped out yesterday," I say, acting mildly insulted.

"Well yeah, of course you helped. They don't need to know that though, do they?" she asks with a clever wink. We make idle chit chat for a while, and she cracks a joke here and there, in her odd humor. We talk about the weather, what's going on in sports, and other mundane things, until she asks a question that I get stuck on, "So, what do you think of Yamaku so far?"

My first response was something along the lines of 'pretty good' but she wouldn't accept that as my full answer. What do I think of this school? When I first got here, I thought everyone would be broken and... strange, for lack of a better word. I've realized that this school is actually abnormally normal for what it is.

"I've been getting more comfortable here, but..." I answer her, still trying to fully figure out what to say, "It's almost disturbingly normal as a school for people with, problems-"

"Disabilities," Rika states, twirling the end of her braid in her hand. The word feels out of place to me for some reason, "There's no need to beat around the bush here, Hisao. At least not with me," she adds.

"See, that's another thing. I still don't really know what can and can't be said, and I feel really bad about remembering kids I see in the hall as 'that girl who's missing her arm' or 'that one guy with the crutches,'" I explain.

She takes a second to think before responding, "Really, the best way to go about it, I think, is to not make a big deal out of things. If you said 'I'm just pulling your leg' to Emi, or something else to that effect, the person probably wouldn't mind. A lot of people here have had their disabilities for a long time, and it's hard to get offended about something you've had for years," she explains, "As for the thinking thing, I'm sure most people remember me as 'that one albino chick.' There isn't much to be done about that."

That actually cleared a few things up for me, I think. Then, another thought crosses my mind. "You're albino?" I ask.

"White skin, white hair, and red eyes aren't normal for Japanese girls, you know?" she begins, throwing us off of the subject, and back into our banter.

It turns out it was 250 Yen for three rings instead of four, and after learning that I was giving everyone an extra toss earlier, she throws a ring at me with malicious intent. "You're dumb," she says as the ring makes contact with my shoulder. I throw the ring back accompanied with my own remark, and before long, we're playing catch with it. After our back and forth jabs die off, we're left idly throwing the ring back and forth while Rika leans on two legs of her chair and rocks to her usual rhythm. As we toss it we make more small talk, commenting on some of the student's casual wear. One of my shots gets thrown wrong and she gets disoriented in her rocking, flailing her arms in attempts to catch herself before gravity swiftly claims it's victim with a triumphant thud.

"Are you okay?" I ask, before I realize that she's giggling, and trying to keep from bursting into laughter. In her attempts to escape the fall, Rika brought some of the medium stuffed animals down onto herself, making it look like she got tackled by a colony of rabbits. Her laughter proves contagious, and before long, I'm doubled over with small tears forming at the corners of my eyes from my own laughing.

After our little bout, I help her up and put the prizes back on the shelf, while she still giggles every few seconds. I don't even notice that we have two more customers until they speak up.

"You two having fun in there?" one of them asks.

I turn around, slightly startled. "Sorry, sir, that'll be-"

"Hachiro!" Rika interrupts, her laughter gone, "Ai! You two were supposed to be running the shack today!" she suddenly scolds.

"We eh... Forgot," The girl who I'm guessing is Ai says sheepishly, looking at the grass and hiding her face.

"Forgot? The stall was left all alone! We're lucky Hisao here took over for us before I came to check up on this place," she keeps going, her chest puffed out to make her seem bigger, "You were supposed to be here at nine AM!"

"Sorry," Hachiro says, his hand behind his head and red flowering to his cheeks. I realize that I've slowly backed into the corner of the stall, away from the argument.

"I swear, you two are more irresponsible that I am," she states, continuing to hound them. She essentially would've been running this thing by herself if I hadn't stepped in, so her nagging is warranted, I think. "Well, now that you're here, you can take over for us. It's already three o'clock," she says, after making sure to guilt trip them.

"Okay," they both say dutifully, straightening up.

It's three o'clock? Already? I flip out my phone to confirm what Rika just said, and the LED display reveals it to be true.

It's already been three hours? All we've done is shoot the breeze and serve what I thought of as a few customers, but during Rika's briefing of the two replacements, she tells them that we've already made 12000 Yen. Time really flies when you're having fun, huh?

We leave the stall, and head out into the warm festival air. The crowd has really picked up now, and I'm afraid I might get lost in it. While I'm looking around at the various stalls set up, Rika takes my forearm to grab my attention.

"So what's the first thing you want to do?" she asks up to me. I look around and try to decide, but I have no idea what I'd like to do. There are games, food stalls, even a small karaoke place, but the line for that is too long to be worth embarrassing myself.

"Maybe you should decide," I say, but my suggestion is met with rolling eyes.

"Don't be so indecisive," she jabs, poking me with two fingers. Spinning around once more, and being forced to make a choice, I settle on one of those games where you pop balloons with darts. I remember I used to be pretty good at darts.

We head over and officially begin our shenanigans, dropping 250 Yen for our first three darts. My first dart makes a direct hit as far from any balloon as physically possible, while my second one seems to get a little farther than that. Rika is giving me advice like 'actually aim next time,' which I take to heart as I practice my final throw a few times before loosing it. The dart flies from my hand, striking my target with a loud pop!

"Nice one, but you still lost," Rika informs me teasingly, with a sly grin.

"Let's try this again," I say, depositing another 250 yen, along with another player at my side.

"Maybe I can win something," Rika challenges me, putting her own money on the table. My pride may or may not survive this ordeal. The cashier hands us six darts, and our battle begins, with Rika hitting her first balloon, and my throw once again missing terribly. Her second shot is met with another loud pop, and mine is met with the same, but I hit a red balloon, so it's a two-pointer. We're tied, as we both make the last shot at the same time, both darts hitting the same balloon. The cashier has been watching us throw, and looks at the two darts side by side.

"Heh, never seen that happen before," he says, inspecting the phenomena, "Hey, Haru, who do you think gets the point?"

"Uhh... Both of 'em I guess," the other boy says from the back, tossing two small stuffed cats, one pink, and the other green, to the front. The cashier hands us our prizes and says, "Have a nice day!"

Rika and I start debating who's dart got to the balloon first as we walk away. "You don't deserve that little pink kitty!" she insists, "My dart was the one that popped it."

"You can't prove that," I say, defending my case. It's a lasting debate as we continue to blow nearly all of our cash on games, saving just enough to have ourselves a sizable carnival-junk-food supper. If Emi saw us, she'd probably chew our ears off. We take our extremely unhealthy meal, and head out to the grass outcropping where there aren't any stalls. The sun has begun to set, and the festival lights have come on. making it seem even more full of life than it did all day. Other couples and small groups are here too, enjoying the relative peace, away from the festival, now in full swing.

I bet we look like a couple, I think to myself. Thankfully, the lines of the world have begun to blur as the light level drops so that Rika can't see my awkward glances and the redness on my face. We take a seat, and begin whiddling down our food supply.

"Y'know, I'm actually glad that Hachi and Ai were so late today," she says, breaking the peaceful silence.

"And why is that?" I ask.

"Because if it weren't for them forcing me to take early shift, I'd probably have been stuck there now," she explains, "It's funny how things work out like that."

"I guess every cloud does have a silver lining."

"Yeah," she says, leaving the conversation open ended for one of us to continue. Neither of us does, and we just lay back in the grass, quietly munching away. The stars have only just begun to come out, Venus shining brightest in the western sky. The moon hasn't gone down with the sun yet, and there's but a sliver of light coming from it. We eat quietly, listening to the murmur of the crowd. Rika is rocking again, and this time I fully begin to notice it. She always sways to some invisible beat when she stays still for too long, sometimes it's side to side, and sometimes it's too and fro. She always needs to move.

"Hey, Hisao."

"Yeah?"

"You wanna go somewhere nice?" she asks, suddenly sitting herself upright, getting ready to get up.

"Uhh, sure," I comply as she takes my hand and pulls me up. We grab what's left of our food, and set out for whatever destination Rika has in mind. We make our way through the festival and past the crowds, but I start to get curious as we leave the school gates.

"Where are we going?"

"Somewhere."

"Really? That's descriptive," I say sarcastically.

"Yep," she giggles to herself as we begin making our way up the hill to the side of the road towards the trees. It's a long climb to wherever we're going, and I feel myself getting winded, with cold sweat forming on my hot forehead. The combination feels odd. Rika's also breathing pretty hard, and she begins to slow down. I'm about to recommend a break when her foot slips out from under her. She falls down, catching herself with her hand, but then she stops resisting and rolls over on her back, letting out an urgent "Oh, shit."

I run up to her to figure out whats wrong, a task mad difficult by the fading light. Her eyes are squinted shut, her breathing panicked, and her hand clutching her chest. There's a thin layer of sweat reflected off of her forehead. As the full realization of whats happening sinks in, my eyes get hot, my stomach fills with locusts, and my own heart skips a beat.

She must be having a heart attack!

My mind freezes, and my feet debate what to do. Should I run for help? Should I stay with her? Can I help her? Is there any thing I can do?! Is Rika gonna die right here?! A million questions race through my head, and I begin to feel dizzy, like I'm going to be sick. All my mind can end up deciding on is to stare at her while this unfolds. Everything is screaming at me, but it all falls on deaf ears in my panic.

Rika's breathing slows down, becoming deeper as she attempts to fill her lungs. She finally takes one deep slow breath, holding it in for a moment, then letting it out in a low whistle that ends with a shallow chuckle.

"Boy, that was a close one," she let's out, finally opening her eyes. My mind is still trying to process what just happened, and I feel my own heart tugging at my chest for a moment. The murmur is enough to bring reality back to me. I look down at Rika, whos taking deep slow breaths and doing a systems check on herself, all while wearing a smile. Her casual attitude should've been enough to make me mad, but I can't help but to feel relieved that she isn't dead.

"Rika, I think we need to get you to the nurse after that," I state.

"No, I'm okay. It was just a small episode is all," she says, maintaining her casual attitude.

"No, Rika. You just about scared me into my own heart attack," I say sternly, "That was bad. You need to see the nurse."

"I have little bouts like that all the time, and that one wasn't even that bad compared to others," she says, pleading her case to the jury, "I've been living with it all my life. It happens," she says, more forcefully this time.

It was just a little bout? That's all? I think. My mind takes me back to when I ran into Emi in the hallway. Is that really what I look like when I'm having chest pains?

"I still-"

"Hisao. I'm not going to the nurse," she commands, ending that discussion. Maybe I am just overreacting. "C'mon, we're almost there," she tells me, just as a flash lights up the sky, and a booms rattles our bones.

We both whirl around to see the remnants of the first blast, with golden shards of light raining down. Two more beacons are sent up, with blue and green explosions lighting up the night. The fireworks display has begun.

I can hear the oohs and ahhs of the students below us, watching the same spectacle. The lights seem closer since were this high up, and we can see where they're launching from. One firework goes high than all the others, illuminating the smoke left behind by previous explosions, and releasing a shower of golden sparks that last. It's been years since I last saw fireworks, but this is a great way to see them again. They send them up one and two at a time before the finale, then they stream up, as if somebody released the floodgates. So many explosions and bursts in the sky create what almost sees like a flickering artificial sun. Blue, green, white, red, and every other color on the spectrum flies through the air, creating a show you'd expect to see at some big special event, and not some dainty school festival. One final firework flies up and pops to create a red smiley face. The smell of gunpowder is in the air, along with the cheers of the festival goers.

My gaze shifts back to Rika who somehow made her way to my side without me noticing it.

"Is this why we're up here?" I ask. She shakes her head and grabs me by the hand, walking me to our true destination.

We make our way up the rest of the hill, and through the trees ti come out into a large grassy area, enclosed by the forest. It's a large circle, and Rika runs straight into the center, lying herself down in the tall grass.

"This is where we were going!" she calls back to me.

I jog to the center as well, and take my place laying next to her. The is a nice secluded spot but I have to ask, "What's so special about this place?"

Her response is a light sigh as she settles into the grass, and a soft, airy voice. "That," she says, pointing to the sky. My head turns from Rika to the heavens, and the view is wonderful. The Milky Way slices through the sky, as clear as day, and there are more stars than I ever knew existed. I grew up in the city, where light pollution made it so that only the brightest stars shone, but here, they all come out.

"Beautiful, isn't it?" she says, her voice so small and quiet that you'd think she's about to fall asleep, but her eyes are wide open, the universe reflected in a reddish hue. "I've always been a stargazer. Every night as a child, I would stare into the sky, wondering exactly what's up there. Afterwards, I would always feel better about whatever was worrying me. It's a good way to idly sort things out in your head," she finishes. I look up, and start trying to think like she says. Staring up into the sky, I remember how each and every star is as big as or even bigger than our sun, yet we still see them. It takes four years for the closest star's light to reach us, I recall. I try to imagine such a vast distance, but it's impossible, and yet this starlight has traveled all that way.

"You start to feel small don't you?" Rika says, interrupting my thoughts. It's undeniable that I feel insignificant compared to these distances, but while the Earth may be a single drop in a vast ocean, it's still my drop. From my perspective it's the most important thing in the world to me. The wind rustles the trees and I hear the girl next to me shudder as she yawns. My thoughts some back down to Earth, taking notice of how cold Rika is, but I don't have a jacket to give her.

I consider moving closer to share my warmth with her, but my mind keeps telling me no. My thoughts wander back to the stars, and I think to myself, How much does it really matter if she rejects it?

I move in to put my arm around her, and to my surprise, she immediately clings to me, her whole body having tremors. She puts her face to my chest and starts breathing out slowly, trying to use her breath to warm herself up against me. Her body slowly stops shaking and she lays with one arm around me, and the other holding her braid.

"I'm sorry for scaring you earlier, but I really don't like being in the nurses office," she mumbles into my shirt, holding me slightly tighter.

"It's fine," I respond. Thinking back, I really did overreact. We both have broken hearts, and we'll both have chest pains now and then.

"...And, Hisao?" she asks after a moment of silence, pulling her face away and looking up at me.

"Yeah?" I say, prepared to answer whatever question she has. But what comes next isn't a question, and instead I feel something cool and soft touch my lips. After a moment of confusion, I realize that Rika has her face against mine. I close my eyes, relax, and accept the kiss, while she calms down as well, taking her hand off of her braid, and wrapping it around me. She pulls away and puts her face into my neck, which causes me to shiver from the chill. It's been an eventful day today for sure, and this is the best way I think it could've ended.

"I'm sorry. That was stupid," she mumbles.

"No. No it wasn't," I assure her. Here we are, two people with only half a heart each.

Maybe two halves make a whole.

[End Act I]