Play (10)

When the next school day arrived, Jun Yang noticed things were a bit strange at school. He would turn around and discover people chattering and whispering behind his back. Even though he did not have any concrete proof, Jun Yang felt like they were talking about him, that was simply something you would know if you were the target of people's gossip.

Jun Yang wanted to get to the bottom of this but whenever he tried to approach them, they would either play dumb or turn around and run away. In the end, there was nothing Jun Yang could do but to convince himself that perhaps he had been overthinking things.

Jun Yang walked into class and to his disappointment, Feng Qi's table was empty again. He probably went off to work at Mist Café and skipped the school day. Jun Yang had a smile on his face as he reminisced about the good time that they had shared at the theme park. Speaking of which, Jun Yang sneaked the cat's ear headband past the butler and his parents.

He kept it inside his drawers under some unused notebooks. Jun Yang wondered how he was going to explain its existence should his parent stumble across it. Then again, the young man knew the chance of that happening was very low. His parents were too busy with their own lives to rummage through his stuff and they adopted a mostly hands' free method to raise Jun Yang, at least when it came to the young man's day to day life.

"Good morning, Jun Yang." Pei Ling greeted the young man as she sauntered into the classroom. She was looking perfect as per usual. She could see the concern on Jun Yang's face but she did not comment on it. She understood it was due to Feng Qi's presence and Pei Ling was in no mood to deal with that… at least not yet.

"Good morning, Pei Ling," Jun Yang greeted the girl back. He was about to ask her about the strange way the other classmates had been acting around him that morning but Pei Ling had something else to say, "Jun Yang, can I take a minute of your time to talk about the play that we need to do for Mr. Sam's class?"

Jun Yang was surprised by the topic, the last time they departed, Pei Ling said she was going to write the play's script. Perhaps she had finished it and she wanted his opinion on it?

Jun Yang was not wrong. "I've already finished the script," Pei Ling admitted as she looked through her bag to retrieve a binder of papers. She handed it over to Jun Yang with the explanation, "I've also taken the liberty to run it by Mr. Sam. He is on board with our idea of doing a sketch on a school romance, to use his words, it is very fitting. Do have a look through of the script and tell me what you think."

Since the play was going to be a short one, the script was only several pages long. Jun Yang skimmed through it quickly and everything looked fine… except when he reached the last page.

As if knowing what had tripped him over, Pei Ling asked, "Do you some comments with regards to the play's climax?"

Jun Yang read the section again to make sure that he did not read it wrongly. Then he looked at Pei Ling with a mixture of disbelief and shock. He asked in an incredulous tone, "Do we have to end the sketch with a kiss?"

Yes, Pei Ling had added a kiss between the two main characters, which were Pei Ling herself and Jun Yang for the denouement of the play.

Hearing the accusation in Jun Yang's voice, Pei Ling played it off like it was not a big deal, "Since the play is going to be very short, we need something attention-grabbing to end on a high note, a literary climax so to speak. I've spoken to Mr. Sam about this and he actually agreed with my idea. He also thought having a kiss between the two main characters would be a good way to tie up the tale of our high school romance."

When Pei Ling dropped Mr. Sam's name, Jun Yang knew there was not much he could say. He would need to talk to Mr. Sam if he wanted to bring changes to their group's script and that just felt like a lot more unnecessary trouble.

So, a kiss with Pei Ling… Jun Yang knew it was malicious to think this way and perhaps the girl only wanted what was best for the group, after all, he knew that she always strive for perfection, but the young man could not help but wonder if she was doing this on purpose, to use the play as a means to further her own agenda.

From how she had come onto him during his birthday, Jun Yang knew she had that intention in mind but the better part of him wanted to believe that she had already thrown that idea out of her mind, and this was merely the scholar in her trying to go for literary excellence. After all, it would help them score in class.

For some reason, Jun Yang thought of Feng Qi at that moment. The young man wondered how Feng Qi would have reacted to this news. He had a feeling he would react to it not well, and that made Jun Yang feel better for some reason.

"Pei Ling, about this ending…" Jun Yang was about to share his opinion when he was interrupted by Cindy who barged into their conversation, "Pei Ling, Jun Yang, have you seen our class' whatsapp group? It is exploding with news!"

In today's age, education was made simpler with technology. Communication between classmates was made more convenient with social sites like Facebook and Whatsapp. Jun Yang personally was not an avid user of these sites but he had them registered on his phone because it was the responsible thing to do.

Jun Yang initially did not pay much attention to Cindy's news, he was more concerned about the kiss in the play… at least until Cindy said, "Jun Yang, you should definitely take a look, it is about you and Feng Qi."

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