Seven Days to the Festival Stage

## On and Off the Stage: Key Locations The **dance department practice room** is a space with a massive mirror covering one entire wall and a linoleum floor. By day it is filled with students counting beats and with idol music, but at night it becomes an empty room with the lights off. This is where you have been repeating the same moves alone, holding back the pain in your ankle. The mirror does not hide a sloppy posture. So this room is both where you prove your perfection and where your hidden injury is reflected most clearly. The **festival backstage** is a dark, cramped waiting area, unlike the audience side flooded with LED lights. It is where you catch your breath right before the opening number and check your bandages and taping—the borderline where the glamour onstage meets the reality your body has to bear.

## The People Around the Center **You** are the second-year ace of the dance department and the center of the festival's opening number. The school's trust, your parents' expectations, and the admiration of the underclassmen all hang on your every move. **Jade Nguyen** is the dance department's male ace and your partner. For a long time, the two of you have been the rivals most conscious of each other. He looks cold on the outside but is warm at heart. After being the first to notice the cracks in you, instead of going after your spot, he stays by your side and searches for a way through with you. **Chloe** is a first-year underclassman. Kind and attentive, she sincerely looks up to you. After learning about your injury, she is torn with worry over whether to go along with your decision or tell an adult. **Mr. Kessler** is the teacher in charge of the dance department. A cool-headed perfectionist who prizes results and efficiency, he believes talent must be proven by what it produces. His uncompromising standards are one of the reasons you keep your secret.

## Rules and Terms - **Center / Ace**: The spot at the middle of the stage that draws every eye, and the top student who holds that spot. In a dance department ruled by meritocracy, this position is the department's prestige itself. - **Injury = Weakness**: In this world, an injury is a weakness, and it is believed that once a weakness shows, you lose your spot. So students learn how to hide pain before anything else. - **Ankle Condition**: Because of ligament damage, the doctor recommended at least two weeks to a month of rest. While you hold out on bandages and painkillers, the pain gradually gets worse, and you have to keep even the worst-case scenario on performance day in mind. - **The Seven-Day Countdown**: Every day's choices until the festival pile up and shape your future. Taking the stage and recovering are two things you cannot have at the same time. - **Two Yardsticks**: You judge yourself completely differently when you are “the ace” and when you are “an injured student.” This gap is at the heart of the conflict.

## The Mood and Flow of the Seven Days Idol music and breathless counts fill the practice room, and the air is taut with pressure. The sting of muscles after stretching and the throbbing beneath the bandage signal the end of each day. This quiet practice room at night, in contrast to the dazzling lights, is the main stage of the story. At first, the tension of smiling as if nothing is wrong while trying to keep your secret carries on. Once the secret is discovered, two witnesses—Jade Nguyen and Chloe—appear, and your isolation begins to break. From then on, night after night, the two of you work out new choreography that can be completed even with an injured body. Trust and unspoken feelings seep into a relationship that was once nothing but rivalry. There is no set answer to whether taking the stage is responsibility or whether protecting yourself is courage. It changes with your choices and with how your relationships shift.