Disclaimer: As of the other chapters.

Author's Note: Plenty of confusion on my part with regards to Juliet's age, because she had not seen TWO summers before her fourteenth year and I live on a tropical island where there are only hot and wet seasons. But I did a check with what Shakespeare critics (those guys who study Shakespeare's works in better detail…) has to say, and found that she is really thirteen. I thought I should give you guys a heads up there. Enjoy!

Warnings: To spoil the show or not to spoil the show...that is the question. I don't believe in villains, only people who happen to be in the wrong place, the wrong circumstance at the wrong time and place. :D


Chapter 10: Where's this girl? What, Juliet!


The famous play went flawlessly, displaying the talent that the college's Drama Club was famous for. Kai had to admit that it was quite an experience watching the play first hand after having gone through the whole script with Tyson, dramatizing the very parts that were played before his eyes on stage.

There were times where Kai found himself mouthing the more witty pieces of conversation along with the characters. Those times he would have to catch himself and look to the redhead sitting beside him to see if he'd been caught. To his relief, Tala was very much engrossed in the play, along with the rest of the audience present.

Garland played Tybalt and Raul, Benvolio, to perfection. Their fight in the very first scene of the play set the stage for more to come, as it was both compelling and comical. However, Kai couldn't help but dislike Paris' character a little and the talk that Paris had with Lord Capulet reminded Kai of the time he first found out that Juliet was—

"She hath not seen the change of fourteen years,

Let two more summers wither in their pride,

Ere we may think her ripe to be a bride."

—only thirteen when all of this took place in the play.

However, almost every person in the audience was awaiting the entrance of that freshman who had somehow clinched the star role of Juliet. Words had gotten round among the seniors that the Freshman playing Juliet was pretty, coveted not only by the President of the Drama Club himself, (who happened indeed to be playing Romeo in the play), but the very son and heir of the family who founded and ran the school. Such news was enough to make everyone curious as to what this freshman was made of and, of course (and most importantly), what he looked like in a dress.

"Tyson!" he heard someone hiss very near his ear. He had pretty much calmed down, especially after listening to the banter and later swordfight between Garland and Raul. Still he jumped before turning around to see Romero bending down towards him, his hand at his mouth to whisper:

"Get ready; your cue is coming next."

"Oh, yeah," Tyson replied, giving his corseted, dress-covered torso one last pat before making for stage left from which he'd enter into Act 1, Scene 3 of the play.

"Tyson!"

The bluenette looked back. He saw Romero smiling at him.

"Break a leg."

From the stage came the Nurse's call, a tinge of Oliver's Frenchman's accent still apparent in the voice:

"Now, by my maidenhead, at twelve year old,

I bade her come. What, lamb! What, ladybird!

God forbid! Where's that girl? What, Juliet!"

Tyson stepped into the scene to a thick hush from the audience.

Juliet entered and there was an audible catch in everybody's breath, especially Kai's. All eyes were on her, looking for nuances that indicated the real gender beneath the dress and demeanor. There were none.

No one was fully prepared for how Juliet was going to appear on stage. No one was prepared at all for the sight of Tyson in a dress. No one expected a boy could look so…pretty.

"Wow! That Tyson sure is pretty in that dress…" someone said to his friend right behind where Kai and his friends were sitting. "Too bad he's a guy. If he's a girl, I'll corner him…and…"

Kai could not stop himself from sending them his famous glare over his shoulder. They emitted a squeak and sank down in their seats. When Kai turned back to the play, he noticed Tala looking at him out of the corner of his eye, smirking just a little. Kai chose to ignore it and turned his attention to the play instead.

The dress Tyson was wearing looked like it had been made for a princess. The neck scooped down over a chest which had a slight rising that Kai was sure Tyson didn't have before. Of jewelry Tyson only had on pearl earrings and a necklace, but his straight hair was curled into waves, part of it braided back to form a half-ponytail.

On stage, Tyson did not have time to take in the thickened silence. He delivered his first line on stage without a glitch: "How now? Who calls?"


Kai watched as the stage lights come on again to reveal a ballroom scene with masked party-goers mingling with each other, creating a cheery buzz. Since the moment of his appearance on stage, Brooklyn had been keen to be in the limelight as much as possible. As such, while his character was supposed to try and blend in with the party in Act 1, Scene 5, Brooklyn stood out so much with his over dramatics that that task was impossible. That did not bother Kai as much as Juliet's present entrance into the scene with the rest of the Capulet family. For the first time Juliet and Romeo were on stage at the same time and Kai kept recalling what Max had said before.

He was aware then that the whole thing bothered him a lot. He was able to admit to himself then that he cared for Tyson enough, no...in an odd, unexplainable way, cared for him so much that he didn't want Tyson's first kiss to be taken by a pompous, carrot-headed, drama-king, on STAGE, in front of so many people. Heck, he didn't want Tyson's first kiss to be taken by anyone at all. He was also not going to lie to himself that despite him sitting calmly in his seat, his usual serious expression in place, and arms crossed over his chest, despite him looking so unaffected, he was actually quelling an insane desire to climb onto the stage and punch the living daylights out of Brooklyn. Why, Tybalt's rapier looked about good right then.

Then there came those lines, those lines that came before the kiss. Kai tried not to listen, but he was saying the lines along with Romeo. He tried not to look, but at the point where Romeo kisses Juliet in the play, he looked up and saw…saw Brooklyn leaning forward, and their lips touched, lightly and then once more before Juliet proclaimed that Romeo kissed like he learned it from a book. Sometimes, there were disadvantages about having the best seats in a theatre.

It was strange. Kai felt like he lost something that moment. Lost something so important and so profound.

The rest of the play went with a blur. At the last scene, Kai closed his eyes as Juliet said:

"This is thy sheath; there rust,

and let me die."

He felt it already: what a mistake it was for him to be there, watching the play. If he had not come, he would be at home thinking about the scene where Romeo kisses Juliet but he would not have known about Brooklyn's plan to steal Tyson's first kiss on stage. He would not have seen it. Something told him that he had let something go, some time in the past, and that the kiss on stage would not have been Tyson's first.


There was a reception after the play. Kai did not want to go. The last thing he wanted was to see Tyson and the rest of the cast. The last, last thing he wanted was to see Brooklyn with Tyson, and the rest of the cast. But Tala and Bryan, born perhaps from the lowest circle of hell seeing how they were always making Kai's life more miserable than it already was, dragged him to stay for it. They had bought chocolates and wanted to give them to Tyson, since, according to Bryan, it was polite to give someone a gift after their performance to show that you appreciate it. Kai had nothing to give but Tala had insisted in true Tala style that he should at least stay and congratulate Tyson. Kai did not see the point since Tyson had only performed and not given birth.

"Stay anyway," Tala said and that was that. Kai knew it was childish to keep arguing.

Perhaps, the truth to the matter was that he wanted to see Tyson no matter under what circumstances. There was nothing rational about feelings sometimes.

The reception was held in the large gathering area outside the performance theatre. It was just a little beyond the ticketing counters and tables laid with a buffet had been set. While everyone milled around, Kai stood apart from the party like an outsider looking in. Ray was talking to Max, Kenny and Lee near the dessert table. Ray was probably hoping for Lee and Kenny to leave despite his benevolent smiles and laughter. Tala and Bryan were somewhere. So Kai stood alone with a Styrofoam cup of innocent, children's party punch in his hand. He would have been glad for the solitude. Only he wasn't.

He had wanted to see Tyson. All he would do when he did see the bluenette was say something not-so-encouraging and as always he would expect Tyson to know his nature and brush it all off as typical Kai behaviour. Damn, sometimes Kai just wanted to punch himself.

He had wanted to see Tyson; that was true. When the bluenette finally did came out, in a white shirt tucked into slim black pants, his hair, still retaining its Juliet waves, pulled back into a simple, low ponytail, Kai had straightened up and pushed himself off the table he was leaning against with a hand. But no sooner had he done that, the Drama Club President had swooped in on Tyson and taken the bluenette by the waist to take him around the room to receive the congratulations from everyone.

There was nothing left in him for anger. Kai lost everything during that kiss. He contemplated stepping out and away from the party, to which he never belonged. But he heard his name called and the voice made him turn back. That voice could probably call him from the dead should he be shot in the head. He saw Tyson running up to him, while Brooklyn watched, his expression maddeningly serene.

"You came!" Tyson said happily right into his face. "I thought you said you wouldn't!"

He found himself looking into a pair of starry wine-coloured eyes and those eyes had only before been filled with sorrow on stage when looking upon the figure of a dead lover. He faltered inwardly. How could eyes do that?

Steeling himself, he replied, ice cold, "Tala had an extra ticket and Ray wanted company."

Tyson's face fell for just a fraction of a moment and Kai felt like killing himself. His lies were hurting but there was nothing he could do to take them back. Tyson grinned and landed a light punch on Kai's shoulder.

"I'm still glad you came," Tyson said, in a voice much softer than he was used to speaking.

Rigidly Kai stood, arms crossed and feigning disinterest he never felt. His mind was saying a lot of other things like: Shake his hand and say 'Good job, Tyson' or maybe 'Excellent performance, Tyson'. But no. He only kept quiet and an awkward silence rose between them like an unpleasant, embarrassing smell.

In the background, music started up. The old kind, like the one in the dance scene during the party scene of the play. Tyson turned to look at the band for an instant and Kai took the opportunity to look at the back of Tyson's head, noting how alien the waves looked.

Turning back, Tyson asked excitedly, a thumb pointing in the general direction of some dancing couples, most of which were male-male, "Hey, do you want to—"

"No," Kai replied far too quickly.

Tyson took an involuntary step back at that.

"If he wouldn't, I most certainly would."

Tyson spun around and almost collided into the body of another man. Robert stopped him from doing so with two hands on Tyson's waist and smiled down at the younger man.

"You made a beautiful Juliet," Robert commented letting go of Tyson, smiling still.

Sheepishly scratching the back of his head, Tyson said, "Yes, but as Tyson I am hardly—"

"Ah," Robert interrupted him. "True beauty hardly has anything to do with gender or the costume."

Kai watched Tyson laugh at the remark. His hand tightened over the cup as he looked on. Only before he had been in. Tyson was talking to him, but Kai couldn't even hold a decent conversation. Then, as Robert flirted with Tyson, he was out again.

"Now, the object of my coming here," Robert went on. Taking Tyson's hand, he asked, "Will you do me the honour of a dance, my lady?"

Tyson was looking up at the gentleman and laughing amusedly. "I am not wearing my dress anymore."

"Let me correct that. Will you, my dear sir, do me the honour of a dance?"

Kai frowned, unaware that he, like Robert was awaiting the answer.

Tyson glanced at Kai. Kai only looked back indifferently. When he tried to take a sip of his punch, which had long since disappeared, Tyson turned to Robert and said, "Sure."

Robert took Tyson's hand and led him away, though not before looking back at Kai with an expression that strangely did not carry within it any sort of triumph, only something that bordered on pity. Not that Kai needed any. No.

Inside the bearer of the dual-toned tresses was beating himself up severely. He watched, increasingly pained, as Tyson was led to the dance floor and then settled into an immaculate ballroom waltz with Robert. It was a little funny because Tyson was hardly a maiden in a flowing dress but the two of them seemed to be enjoying themselves. He saw the two of them talking as they danced and then Tyson seemed shy as Robert peered down interestedly at him, then as Robert chuckled, Tyson laughed and Kai could hear him from where he stood. Kai felt himself wanting to stomp over and break it all up.

Angry with himself for thinking that and for various other things, he turned and made to leave.

Only he almost collided into Tala and Bryan, leaning on the table, drinking from cups and watching the two dance. Kai swore they had not been there before.

"You should have asked him to dance," Bryan said, not looking at Kai.

Kai grunted and left.

"Say Tala," Bryan spoke up again, turning to his boyfriend. "Why do we keep doing this to Kai?"

"Because he's too stupid to see," replied Tala, following his reply with kiss to Bryan's lips.

"Oh," Bryan uttered, not appearing very thoughtful about it. "You want to dance?"


Next Chapter: Bedlam