Chapter Text
It was midday and the sun was shining right through white clouds up high. Killua, Canary and Ikalgo, inseparable trio of childhood best friends, were sitting under its light, on the gray, dirty, suspicious-looking-stain covered concrete floors of their high school. It was a Tuesday, the longest of their school days every week. Their morning started at eight with a mix of scientific and linguistic subjects, then followed through with history and geography classes in the afternoon. Those hours of excruciating mental pain were topped up with three more hours of classes, specifically theater rehearsals, for a heavy total of ten hours at school, before finally seeing the light of day (night) again. Between those two phases of the day, morning and afternoon, they took an hour off to eat and rest, attempt to save whatever sanity they still had. That was what they were doing, at the moment.
Killua lowered his sandwich away from his face, turning to look at Canary with curiosity, intrigued by her silence. Ikalgo had also lost his train of thoughts, stopping his incessant complaining and childish wailing. Their friend stared blankly at her old, crappy phone, her pupils moving along, jumping from a pixel to another. It was pretty unusual of her to loose focus during a conversation, principally one about grades like the one they were just having. Ikalgo, who sat by her side, let his body fall upon his left hand to peep over her shoulder. He stared at the screen with as much intensity as she did, eyes moving swiftly as he read.
"What is it?" Killua asked, but the two others completely ignored him. He set down his food with annoyance and clapped his hands, starling his friends.
"Ah?" Ikalgo interjected, eyes widening.
Killua crossed his arms. "What's up?" He reiterated. "Why are you so shocked?"
Taken out of her trance, Canary threw her phone on her backpack, letting it bounce off carelessly. Thankfully for her, Ikalgo managed to catch it before it hit the floor. She'd already broken her phone this way once, two years prior. Unbothered, she intertwined her fingers, tilting forward.
"Remember the Didascalies?" She smiled.
Killua set his hands down on his crossed legs, his jacket neatly tucked and folded under them. The "Didascalies" was an event of some sort, originated from France, that their ambitious theater teacher had been working hard to try and get students to participate in for years. It was a complicated process and a hard idea to put in place. The jubilee no longer took place in France, not always at least, and instead it traveled around southern Europe. It was hard for a teacher, one at that who taught what was considered to be a secondary subject, to be allowed to take students to another country, and a different one every year.
That year in particular, when Killua and his friends entered high school and joined the drama class option, said teacher was getting closer than she'd ever been to getting everything she needed ready. Killua could recall every single one of the dozens of times she'd told them about the festival and just how awesome it was. She had been telling them about it since the very beginning of the year, stating with positivism that the trip was at the tip of her fingers and barely out of reach, but there wasn't ever any confirmation that they would get to go. It was now February, and everyone had stopped speculating about it. But their teacher, stubborn and unwaveringly motivated, continued attempting to put her plan into motion. She'd gone to the festival when it was still based in France, back when she was their age. It was, in her words, a four days experience dedicated to celebrating students and their investment. Ever since she became a teacher, she'd been chasing after it to relive it, even if from another, completely different angle.
Her name was Madame Siberia. She was a white, french woman with a strong accent, mid thirties. Tall, long black hair and dark eyes. More often than not, Killua found her annoying, but never intentionally mean. She made her students shut up when they tried to question processes and raise concerns instead of explaining the way things worked, and told them to speak up when she herself only ever whispered (so much that it was impossible to hear her from a distance even with complete silence). She wanted calm, she wanted attention, she wanted professionalism and discipline. She had great intentions, Killua thought, but really poor executions.
"I do remember." Killua stated, nodding. "I assume you got some news."
"Not exactly." Canary shrugged her shoulders. "But teacher says, here in the group chat, that she'll tell us more about it today! So we should get to know whether we're actually going or not."
Ikalgo chuckled, his arms raising to hold his legs up to his torso. "So she either got us signed up, or she wants to tell us face to face that we're not going."
"Don't be so pessimistic." The girl shook her head. "I'm sure we're going! This is so exciting... I wonder where it's happening."
Sat across from her, Killua sighed. "Don't get your hopes up." He told her, picking his sandwich back up. She glared at him. "Don't look at me like that," he resumed, "I'm just being realistic."
"You just sound like you don't even want to go." She complained, crossing her arms over her chest. Her locks fell upon her shoulders, only half of them secured behind her.
Killua shook his head, ready to disagree, but he stopped himself to think before speaking. Do I want to go?
"Whatever." She continued, breaking Killua's silence. "I really want to go, and therefore if we get that opportunity, you are coming too." Killua frowned at her statement, hearing but not really reacting to Ikalgo's laughing in the back. Canary immediately turned to him with a sly smile, and she didn't need to add anything for him to know that he wasn't getting away either. He immediately grumbled in protest.
He'd wanted to focus on the pros and cons of it all, but in the end, Canary's teasing had distracted him out of his reflection. The three of them began bickering loudly, catching passersby's attentions, kicking into each other's water bottles and throwing bread crumbs at each other's faces. Killua rolled his eyes. Whatever, he could question his own desires later. He could even not question them at all. It's not like they were actually going to the Didascalies, anyways.
Except that they were. They were going to the Didascalies, that's exactly what their teacher had yelled at them as soon as they stepped foot into the room, that day.
She seemed happy, excited, ecstatic almost, running around, making the teens sit by the stage just to tell them about every single aspect of the trip and event itself, drowning them in unnecessary loads of information, causing confusion amongst the twenty young comedians. In the end, she'd handed out a long document that they'd been given some time to read and, thankfully, it was clear enough to be understood, and it answered at least half of their questions. It was written by the company organizing the event (and therefore contained no information about the trip itself), explained without much detail what would be taking place. It was rather simple: groups of students from high schools all over southern Europe would take turns presenting a twenty minutes play on stage in front of their comrades. The event prided itself in its capacity to create a great working environment where anyone who tried to create something good would be praised, and which naturally helped uplift comedians' self-esteem and confidence. When students weren't performing or watching other's performances, they would be separated into groups to do exercises and activities, have some fun while learning to appreciate each other's cultures. Everyone would be fed, roomed with a certain number of students (depending on which establishment they were being housed at), and promised a great time. This year, the event was taking place in Spain, Alicante (in Valencia), over the Mediterranean sea.
Killua was skeptical. Canary seemed over the moon and even Ikalgo was sort of enthusiastic, but he was reticent. He didn't really like theater that much. It was a nice activity that he didn't mind partaking in. He liked his comedy classes, although three hours was just very long. Still, he didn't enjoy the art enough to hear, see, live and breathe it for four days. Sitting with his classmates, legs dangling over the border of the platform, he wondered whether or not he should make up an excuse not to go. Immediately, before it was too late.
He'd only ever joined drama class because his parents wanted him to do a second extracurricular activity (he already swam competitively) once he entered freshman year of high school, and since Canary was signing up for theater, he decided to go with that instead. That was also how they'd pulled Ikalgo in, it was their plan to heighten their chances of having more than one lesson in common. It had worked, and for the first time since kindergarten, they were all in the same class, but at what cost?
To only make matters worse, he and his classmates were all particularly pressured by their teacher, who wanted their performance to be perfect, remarkable and unforgettable. They were an official option - a large group of students who had costumes and props to work with, who got to watch performances every once in a while, who played three hours in real conditions on a theater stage every week, who were taught how to play by various professionals, who had performed a few times since the beginning of the year. Most of the others at the Didascalies were only clubs, groups of seven or eight kids who worked by themselves in an empty classroom during their lunch breaks. Killua and his classmates had to be better than those, for their egos, for their school. As soon as the organizers present Hunter High's Comedy Option, all eyes will be glued on them and their every move.
Madame Siberia kept, in the following months, reminding them of the stakes at hand, creating an unusually critical atmosphere within the group, in which students didn't want to work and didn't feel comfortable performing. Killua was sure it was just her way to motivate them, but it was strongly disliked amongst his classmates, a questionable method. Scaring a bunch of fifteen year old teens, exploiting the potential shame and embarrassment of their hard work by deeming it insufficient was not a great idea, in their opinion. It was making them all unhappy, creating tensions and turning people against each other for minor mistakes. That's something Killua could imagine his parents doing for him and his siblings to get their grades up, but not a teacher. It was very unprofessional, and yet, what she claimed made sense, and nobody could shake it off.
Canary nagged Killua relentlessly, smug smiles and snarky remarks about how she was right and he was wrong were thrown at him every day. Although they and Ikalgo all spoke about it with amusement, Killua could tell the three of them were freaking out equally as much about the festival.
When they next talked about the event in all seriousness, Killua still wasn't convinced he wanted to go at all, and his face testified of it. Ikalgo sighed, cracking his knuckles. He had his way with Killua, he would utilize it.
In the end, they'd been able to make him want to come. The idea of spending such a long time away from home, and with theater kids of all people, was not a pleasure, principally with Madame for only accompanist. But, on the other hand, there was also the perspective of a week off of school spent with friends, and that side of it was so appealing. Then, there was the logistic aspect. If his parents found out about the trip, they'd force him to go anyway, so he'd have to be extra careful for them not to discover. Reasons added up and Killua came to conclusion that it was just a lot easier to give in, for his final answer was a yes.
He'd told his family about it over dinner two weeks after the original announcement, when Madame handed him the authorization paper for his parents to fill. They'd accepted immediately, seemingly charmed by the idea. It earned him a few judgmental stares from some of his siblings, a few jealous whines from the others, but he didn't care about either.
Together, Killua, his classmates and their teacher were leaving for Spain on the fifth of may by six in the morning, and Killua's bags were just packed now, on the fourth by ten at night. He sat cross legged on his bed, considering one other and last time his choice to decide whether or not he was having a change of heart. Not that it mattered whatsoever, it was way too late to back out anyhow. If not for the fee that his parents had paid, for the twenty students who needed him on stage with them in four days and would never have the time to adapt the show for a missing comedian.