"Did you know? There really is an Opera Phantom hiding in this theater. He's silently watching you from the darkness... Something terrible is bound to happen here!"
With her back to center stage, Matsuzaki Haru hugged herself and cowered in a corner, muttering fearfully to herself. Behind her, the tall Opera Phantom landed soundlessly, the mask on his face a ghastly white.
It should have been a terrifying scene, but with Suzuki Sonoko standing nearby at close range, clutching a notebook and diligently taking notes, Mouri Ran suddenly felt that the stage looked much more normal.
Sitting in the front row of the audience, she whispered to Jiang Xia beside her, "So why are we performing The Phantom of the Opera at the school festival?"
Jiang Xia lowered his voice too. "Maybe the atmosphere here is just so fitting that everyone couldn't resist."
"Dr. Araide," seated beside them, silently glanced their way. "..." Everyone? Shouldn't that "everyone" be changed to just you?
The Phantom of the Opera was a story from the last century. It was roughly about a disfigured man with a gift for music who hid in an opera house and painstakingly taught the beautiful, intelligent heroine, turning her from a minor performer into an overnight sensation. But later, the heroine fell in love with someone else. The "Phantom," consumed by jealousy and rage, carried out a series of acts of revenge and murder, while the heroine's feelings toward him gradually changed from trust to fear.
Recalling that summary, "Dr. Araide" could not help sighing inwardly. "..." It was too fitting. This stage was far too fitting. If he remembered correctly, the murders and revenge in The Phantom of the Opera had not happened just once or twice. How much longer could this peaceful atmosphere... really last?
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