(A/N: *cue fanfare* I'm returning to fanfic! This will be loosely based on a popular story that I'm sure many of you will be able to tell right away, if not from the title.)

—

"Are you kidding me?" A flurry of thick brown hair swirled everywhere as the short brunette stomped towards the edge of the stage.

"Miss Berry, please," said Andrew, the director. "I'm only saying that—"

"I was perfect," Rachel shouted, her voice full of malice. "Why don't you appreciate my talent?" And she went off on that, bickering back and forth with Andrew... something that happened every couple of days during rehearsal.

"Here we go again," murmured a tall, slender boy in the chorus. He sighed, leaning against the wall behind him. How Rachel Berry, just as much of a diva as she was in high school, was able to maintain the spot as the star of Broadway was beyond him, and he, Kurt Hummel, was destined to the chorus. Especially considering the fact that they had come to New York together to chase their dreams, like they had planned to do together since they visited the city for the first time when they were in their junior year. Now they were both twenty-two, and Rachel had gotten very far in the industry. Kurt, not so much.

He often felt as though Rachel had sold him out. They weren't chasing their dreams together; he was tagging along as she chased hers.

—

Kurt watched with a combination of amusement and secondhand nerves as Rachel paced the living room of their apartment, her cell phone in her hand.

"Rachel, can you just... chill?" Kurt sighed. "If you get the call, you get the call. Pacing around won't make it happen any faster."

The look that Rachel shot Kurt was a bitchglare to defy the ages.

Rachel was waiting for a call from the casting director of an off-Broadway show. Rachel had auditioned for the lead role. Kurt hadn't bothered, because he wanted to focus on school. It seemed like Rachel wasn't as concerned. She was so confident that this role would take her places that she thought it was worth potentially putting a halt to her education. Kurt knew better, and figured he may as well continue his studies so that he had a backup plan in case nothing came around for him.

Kurt stopped watching Rachel pace, and looked back down to his magazine. After a while, he heard a faint ringing, and looked up, curious.

Rachel was staring at her phone in front of her, as it was lighting up.

"Damn it, Rachel, answer it! Or I will!" Kurt yelled at her.

Rachel seemed to snap out of it, and opened the phone with shaking hands.

"H-hello?"

Kurt could hear a male voice on the other end.

"Speaking," Rachel replied, before setting her phone on speaker and sitting on the couch next to Kurt.

"Hello, Rachel," the male voice spoke out to the room. "My name is Manny Frederick."

"The director of the show," Rachel murmured in Kurt's general direction.

"I've finished the cast list," Manny said. It seemed like every muscle in Rachel's body tensed. "Normally I would email you, but I feel like I should say this to you myself."

"Ye-yes?" Rachel asked, her tone begging the man to continue.

"Rachel, I'd love to have you playing the lead role."

Kurt got to it before she did, and put his hand over her mouth to keep her from screaming. That would be just a little bit unprofessional.

She took a deep breath, and held the phone close to her. "I'd be honoured, sir. Thank you, thank you!" Once they hung up, Rachel hugged Kurt so tightly that he thought his ribs might break.

—

That one role had put Rachel in the spotlight both on Broadway and off. Her voice and her acting talent was shortly after that noticed by directors and envied by musical starlets.

Rachel had always told Kurt that she would put in a good word for him, and that he deserved to be a star along with her. That's what she had always said, anyway.

Now, Rachel was the lead in a major Broadway production. Her co-lead was a famous tenor named Bart Page. He was not new to the Broadway stage, not nearly as new as Rachel was.

When Rachel was cast in that show, she had claimed that she would try to get them to cast Kurt as the male lead. She got him an audition, anyway. But the director had told him that, while he was very talented, Kurt wasn't quite what they were looking for. It didn't even seem to be his voice—the director said he was perfect. Andrew had said that he was just not what they were looking for.

Kurt had mulled that over with Rachel for days, until Rachel found out that Bart Page would be her co-star. That was the point at which she stopped caring about getting Kurt opportunities.

He couldn't really blame her, he supposed. Bart was famous, beyond famous, and he could get her places. Not that she wasn't already places, but Bart would bring her farther. Kurt couldn't blame Rachel for taking advantage of that.

But Kurt knew how to keep a grudge.