Children inherently tend to want to live up to their parents' expectations.
This held true even for events like the current school arts festival, and it was especially the case for children given important roles.
Fundamentally, my role as the 'Magic Mirror' wasn't very long.
As Snow White grows up, the child playing the Queen speaks to the Magic Mirror a total of three times.
'Mirror, mirror, who is the most beautiful in the world?'
The mirror, which would have initially replied, 'You, my Queen,' changes its answer as Snow White matures.
The most beautiful is Snow White.
Upon hearing that answer for the third time, she shatters the mirror.
My very first performance as a VTuber should have ended right there.
"How dare you!!"
The moment the words 'Snow White is the most beautiful' left my lips, the child playing the Queen threw herself into her performance and swung her fist. Incidentally, this was a scene Teacher Min-ah had specifically requested to be added.
The standard Snow White story was apparently too dull, so she claimed to have added her own arrangement...
In any case, as if to meet our teacher's expectations, our little Queen fiercely slammed her fist into the mirror made of aluminum foil.
Very fiercely, at that.
"……."
The mirror was made by cutting a round hole in a piece of cardboard and covering it with aluminum foil.
Even the punch of a seven-year-old, if thrown with enough force, could easily puncture aluminum foil.
Had I not reflexively tilted my head back to dodge, I would have taken the Queen's punch straight to the face.
'What do I do?'
My judgment was swift.
Normally, the Magic Mirror would meet its demise here with a final death scream of 'Argh!'
I wasn't sure if the Magic Mirror was actually destroyed at this point in the original story, but at the very least, this was the fate of the Sunshine Class's Magic Mirror.
Besides, it would be rude not to fully receive the Queen's passionate performance.
Matching the other children's acting, I dialed up my previously subdued emotional mimicry to a certain level.
And so.
「Aaaargh!!」
With a magnificent scream, Joo Seo-yeon slumped down.
At that grand death performance, the previously noisy vicinity fell instantly silent.
Good, this should focus everyone's attention on the two of us.
If the Queen seizes the mood and delivers her lines now, the atmosphere will look perfectly sinister.
A child's scream, after all, is the easiest way to evoke a sense of terror.
If she utters her lines over the eerie background music currently playing...
Even ordinary dialogue would be transformed into a display of the Queen's charisma!
………
……
'...Huh?'
The Queen's lines should have followed immediately, but there was only silence.
Opening the eyes I had squinted shut, I looked up to see the Queen frozen in her mirror-piercing posture.
"Uh, Seo-yeon?"
Stealthily creeping up to the corner of the stage and crouching down, Teacher Min-ah asked,
"Are you alive?"
"Yes."
"Um, we didn't practice it like this, did we?"
Asked like that, I found myself wanting to make an excuse.
Saying I was just reciprocating the Queen's passionate performance felt a bit like shifting the blame.
"I'm just a natural on stage..."
"Well, that's true, but..."
It seemed my death acting was so realistic that Teacher Min-ah had come up to check on me.
I intuited it instantly. I went way overboard.
The moment of Joo Seo-yeon's first acting debacle.
"You startled me."
"It felt so real for a second that I thought something had actually happened."
Fortunately, the audience's reaction was favorable.
Blending well with the eerie background music, they seemed to have interpreted the lack of dialogue as the Queen's own emotional acting.
"Phew!"
Teacher Min-ah must have realized the same thing, as she dragged me and my cardboard backing off to the wings of the stage.
Thanks to that, the child playing the Queen stared with wide eyes for a moment, but soon continued her performance.
"Hmph, you gave me quite a fright."
In any case, the play proceeded without any further major issues.
The child playing the Queen chased Snow White away, and the children playing the dwarves each played their parts well.
'There's definitely a difference between kids who have acting experience and those who don't.'
Lee Ji-yeon was still a child actress who hadn't filmed anything particularly noteworthy outside of commercials.
However, compared to the other kids, she possessed a presence so vivid it stood out sharply.
Even her normally tomboyish demeanor was currently shining through properly as Snow White.
Her line delivery was crisp and clear; seeing her like this, it was hard to fathom how Lee Ji-yeon would later quietly vanish from the industry.
But the wound inflicted by her agency must have been that deep.
"T-Teacher."
While I was watching the performance like that.
I saw the child playing the Soldier approaching Teacher Min-ah with a deeply scrunched-up face.
'Did something happen?'
Feeling curious, I momentarily took my eyes off the stage and looked in their direction.
"The Prince's pants are a weird color..."
A truly dreadful answer came back.
***
The young Lee Ji-yeon's first stage.
Since she had only ever filmed commercial CFs at this point, Ji-yeon gave it her all, even if it was just a school arts festival stage.
She couldn't see very well, but her mother had to be watching.
'Geez, why can't any of them act properly?'
Such complaints bubbled up, but it was only natural.
How many kids at this age could have actually learned how to act properly in the first place?
If anything, this was pretty decent.
Even so, her heart was filled with disappointment.
It would be nice if they could at least perform as well as the kid playing the Queen.
'Joo Seo-yeon really should have taken a different role.'
Even if she had just played a dwarf, it would have been better than this.
Everyone else was watching the children's cute antics with smiling faces, but Ji-yeon wanted to show them something far more impressive.
Because that was the heart of a child.
And so, Snow White eats the poisoned apple and collapses.
A transparent plastic coffin had been prepared.
Lying inside it, Ji-yeon slightly opened her closed eyes and glanced at the side of the stage.
'That prince better not mess this up.'
The guy playing the Prince, who had been chosen by drawing lots among the boys.
He had no enthusiasm for acting and hadn't even memorized his lines properly, so she wasn't fond of him.
Because of that, the Prince, who was originally supposed to make an appearance in the middle, ended up only showing up at the very end to spit out a few lines.
He better at least do that well.
Ji-yeon thought as she waited for the Prince to appear.
Amidst the acting of the dwarves' wailing, the moment the solemn background music kicked in.
Thud.
Footsteps could be heard.
For some reason, the audience suddenly stirred.
'What?'
Ji-yeon tried to squint to see what was happening, but it was hard to see clearly.
What on earth did that prince do to cause that reaction?
As she was thinking that, the footsteps grew steadily louder.
「Why are you weeping so sorrowfully?」
The Prince spoke to the sorrowfully weeping dwarves.
It was the clear voice of a young boy.
'Huh?'
Ji-yeon almost snapped her eyes wide open in that instant.
It was a familiar voice.
To be precise, it was slightly lower than the Mirror's voice she had been hearing just a moment ago.
A boyish voice.
And as far as Ji-yeon knew, there was only one person who could produce such a voice.
It was none other than Joo Seo-yeon, who was always showing off with her unnecessary vocal warm-ups.
"Honey, isn't that child Seo-yeon?"
"Hmm, looks like it... But Seo-yeon was definitely cast as the Mirror, right?"
Joo Young-bin narrowed his eyes at his wife's words and stared at the stage.
The backstage area had been strangely rowdy earlier; had something happened?
'It's my first time watching my daughter's acting right before my eyes like this.'
He had seen her act during the soy milk commercial, but seeing her act in a 'play' like this was a first.
As for his impressions upon seeing it...
He was astonished.
The immediate reaction of the audience was the same.
Given the nature of parents, who always want their own child to stand out the most...
This might not be a welcome situation for them.
The child who had garnered attention from yesterday's drama teaser video was sweeping up all the surrounding focus at once.
But, even so.
「Snow White?」
His eyes were drawn to her.
Simply, continuously.
「How terrible, for such a kind and beautiful princess to suffer such a misfortune.」
Listening to the dwarves' explanation, the Prince's face subtly creased with sorrow.
With her long black hair tied back in a single braid, black pants, and a relatively plain top, it wasn't an outfit that particularly suited a Prince.
Only the crown atop her head indicated that she was the Prince.
Nevertheless, every single movement exuded a refined elegance.
The child playing the Prince was clearly a girl, yet...
Her gait and mannerisms were perfectly masculine.
As if she had experience living as a man.
Shortly after, the Prince scooped the sleeping Snow White up from the coffin in both arms.
"Hey, what are you doing? Joo Seo-yeon."
Ji-yeon whispered in a small voice.
Squinting her eyes and looking to the side, she saw the Prince with sleek black hair brushed back.
It was none other than Joo Seo-yeon, dressed up as a young boy.
"Just bowing my head wouldn't give off the right posture."
The play Teacher Min-ah had composed from here on out concluded with a grand peck on the cheek.
Since they were kids, it wasn't an actual kiss scene, of course.
But because of the size of the coffin, a small child's body couldn't easily achieve a good posture for it.
"You're really..."
"What?"
Snickering, Seo-yeon flashed a smile that was perfectly befitting of a Prince.
Well, obviously.
Because she was the Prince right now.
"Didn't you want me to act properly?"
At those words, just as Ji-yeon was about to retort, "No, this is a bit much"—
The Prince, still holding Snow White in her arms, turned around.
"Especially."
With her back to the audience, making it impossible to clearly see the position of their heads.
Then, the Prince's head dipped down.
"The finale has to be spectacular."
Naturally, she didn't actually lock lips or give a kiss, but to the audience, it might very well have looked that way.
That was the intention from the start, after all.
Listening to the audience's sharp gasps of admiration, Seo-yeon stared into Lee Ji-yeon's wide, rounded eyes right in front of her.
"It's my acting debut, after all?"
Well, at this point...
It felt like a rather splendid finale.
***
In any case, Lee Ji-yeon's spectacular debut in her first play came to a successful end.
The children who participated were all satisfied.
Teacher Min-ah, having successfully secured her vacation, even had tears of joy welling up in her eyes.
...With one single exception. The boy originally cast as the Prince, who had an accident in his pants due to nerves.
Thanks to that, I, who was capable of ad-libbing, had no choice but to be thrown in as an emergency replacement.
Suffice it to say, everything I spouted as the Prince back there was entirely ad-libbed.
'Though he did reappear from behind the tree at the very end.'
Needless to say, Snow White was revived by the Prince's kiss.
Afterward, emerging victorious from the final showdown with the Queen, the play reached its happy ending.
I did have to endure being pestered by people for a long time after it ended, but that became a good memory in its own way, too.
"But Mom,"
"Yeah?"
Sitting in the back seat of the car, I let out a deep sigh.
"Do I really have to attend?"
"You and Jung-woo are the leads for this preview screening, after all."
The upcoming preview screening.
Honestly, having found even the previous events burdensome, I was determined to avoid this one at all costs.
But that's just how social life works, isn't it?
You can't live only doing the things you want to do.
'If I want to work as an actress later, there's no need to get on a PD's bad side...'
I heard word had even reached the Drama Department Head.
In a situation where such high-ranking figures were paying attention, backing out unnecessarily wouldn't look good.
On top of that.
'Mom is looking forward to it, too.'
Seeing my mom's face as she drove with a bright smile... well, I figured this sort of thing wasn't so bad.
It wasn't like I'd be participating in these kinds of events again anytime soon, anyway.