Disclaimer: As of the other chapters AND Romeo and Juliet was written by Shakespeare.
Author's Note: Plenty of quoted Shakespeare here so there might be some confusion. For parts that I quoted more than two lines, I retained the poetic verse form. So I hope you guys still get who's saying what.
I interchange the names and play characters a lot throughout the chapter, because (1) they are both who they are and who they act as, and (2) certain happenings within the play itself pertains more to the person rather than the character, as you will see (hopefully). So, no confusion...I hope.
Now enjoy, and thanks for reading! I'm sure you people will be somewhat relieved/happy by this chapter or perhaps you may get chills running up your spine by immense OOC-ness…but hey! It's THEATRE! :D
Warnings: A lot of Shakespeare. Beware!
Chapter 14: "Romeo" and "Juliet"
Tyson only joined the group near the end of Act 1, Scene 2, after having had some problems with his dress. The problem had been quickly sorted out, seeing that it was a silly little moment of misplacement, and he arrived just as Scene 2 came to a close. In all the flurry of scene-changing, he was not aware of Kai emerging backstage with Raul as Benvolio. He went about his lines as Juliet gallantly in Scene 3 and barely paid attention to the exchange going onstage in Scene 4, busy as he was preparing for the scene to come. As it were, both Kai and Tyson were kept apart the way the main characters of the play were, during the course of the play until the fateful Scene 5 of the first act.
Kai knew the play by heart and knew that it was only in Scene 5 would he see Tyson for the first time the way Romeo and Juliet would each other in the play. He hoped to see Tyson backstage, but craned his neck as much as he could, he could not seem to spot Tyson in the bustle of scene changing and the throng of characters. Bits of props and players—a feathered hat here, a chair there—kept passing across his vision as he tried to spot a head of midnight blue hair, crimped and styled into the aristocratic half-braid that he had seen it in during the only time he had seen Tyson perform as Juliet on stage. Perhaps it was just as well because if he did see Tyson, he didn't know what he ought to say to him. Kai was bad with words, especially words of his own making.
The cue came for players to be in place and when the party started up, scene 5 began.
Kai had not been to any rehearsals what more rehearsed the play with the cast. He had, from the very beginning of the play, acted on impulse and gut feeling, guided by the actions and lines of the other players. Right then, he was acting just on that impulse and on something else too, something genuine, something strong and resolute. He was weaving through the crowd of party-goers in the onstage masquerade ball setting as he would at any party he was in. And as he would at any party, for being a Hiwatari he often had to attend a number with his grandfather, he sought a corner to be by himself.
It was while weaving through the crowd that he spotted Tyson as Juliet, in character, just accepting a dance with someone in a knight's doublet. Tyson's hair had not been curled for after the panic about the missing dress, Julia only had time to brush it and tie it back into a low ponytail with a ribbon. With the lightly sprayed bangs that fell into his eyes, it was pretty much the way Tyson always wore his long hair. Kai thought about the irony of it. In one impulsive act of bravery, where Kai had decided to show Tyson what his heart felt, what he felt, Tyson would appear more like Tyson than Juliet.
Kai stopped a passing servant and asked, "What lady's that, which doth enrich the hand of yonder knight?"
If the boy playing the servant was surprised to see Kai, he was professional enough not to show it. Instead, the servant lowered the tray he was carrying and replied with only a quick glance at the said lady, "I know not sir," before going on his way.
Kai continued to gaze at Tyson as he spoke:
"O, he doth teach the torches to burn bright!
It seems he hangs upon the cheek of night
As a rich jewel in an Ethiop's ear;
Beauty too rich for use, for earth too dear!
So shows a snowy dove trooping with crows,
As yonder lady o'er her fellows shows.
The measure done, I'll watch her place of stand,
And, touching hers, make blessed my rude hand.
Did my heart love till now? Forswear it, sight!
For I ne'er saw true beauty till this night."
No one in the audience seemed to notice Kai's blunder in the first two lines of that verse where he referred to Juliet as a "he", not even Tala who was listening closely to every word, possibly out of interest and possibly because it was really something to see Kai acting and saying words he would not be caught dead uttering elsewhere. Not even Kai seemed to notice it.
The dance between Tyson and the knight ended. As Tyson curtsied to the knight, Kai took off his mask and made his way to the bluenette just as the conversation, between Tybalt and Lord Capulet, about his presence at the party took place. They eyeballed him as they spoke about what they ought to do about him: Tybalt wanted to fight him, Capulet did not want to ruin the party.
In the midst of the crowd, out of sight from Tybalt and Lord Capulet, Kai took hold of Tyson's hand and the moment their hands touched Tyson turned, fully expecting Brooklyn, only to find himself face to face with Kai. Tyson's eyes held his astonishment and would have rendered the late teen speechless if it wasn't for the fact that the play must go on. There were so many questions he wanted to ask but for now, the words of Juliet would more than suffice.
Kai had never held Tyson's hand the way he did then. If he did dream of it, he had not imagined that it would take place on stage in front of an audience of a few hundred, in some of the most renowned theatre-house of the region. The world seemed to dissolve around them and their lives became the lives of the two star-crossed lovers of old Verona.
Kai was arrested by Tyson's appearance as Juliet. From a seat in the audience, Juliet had appeared dazzling but up close, he found that the eyes indeed held sweet innocence, the lashes defined and a tinge of the faintest make-up blush touched the cheeks of the younger teen standing before him. He noticed too that a significant amount of skin was exposed by the dress' wide neck and that Tyson had on a little glitter around his eyes.
He tugged Tyson gently to the edge of the stage on stage right, very near the audience. Taking a deep breath he began, holding up Tyson's hand and bringing it to himself as he did:
"If I profane with my unworthiest hand
This holy shrine, the gentle sin is this:
My lips, two blushing pilgrims, ready stand
To smooth that rough touch with a tender kiss."
With that he brought the hand to his lips. He could and would not do that as Kai Hiwatari, he knew, but as Romeo, it all seemed perfectly right. Certainly, as Kai, he would not even ask for such a kiss.
Lifting his free hand to touch Kai's cheek, Tyson began in his Juliet voice:
"Good pilgrim, you do wrong your hand too much,
Which mannerly devotion shows in this;
For saints have hands that pilgrims' hands do touch,
And palm to palm is holy palmer's kiss."
Catching the hand on his cheek, Kai went on, "Have not saint lips, and holy palmers too?"
Tyson let out a breathy laugh and replied, "Ay, pilgrim, lips that they must use in prayer."
Leaning in, our dual-haired Romeo said, "O, then, dear saint, let lips do what hands do; they pray, 'Grant thou, lest faith turn to despair.'"
"Saints do not move, though grant for prayers' sake," our Juliet said in return.
Kai swallowed and went on, "Then move not, while my prayer's effect I take."
With that he leaned and kissed Tyson chastely on the lips. It was Romeo and Juliet's first kiss, as it was theirs. Kai had somehow missed and his lips only met the top of Tyson's own. Tyson tried to respond but he didn't quite know how for he had only taken Brooklyn's kisses passively during the other runs of the play.
Nevertheless, the underlying reality of the moment seemed to be caught by the audience and a collective in-drawing of breath was heard.
Pulling away, Kai continued, "Thus from my lips, by thine, my sin is purged."
Looking up at Kai with eyes he could have given no one, Tyson went on more naturally than any other actress could achieve, "Then take my lips the sin that they have took."
Kai replied with "Sin from my lips? O trespass sweetly urged! Give me my sin again" before leaning in again.
This time, Kai did not just kiss chastely. He got Tyson's lips point on and took advantage of the whole situation, deepening the kiss as his hands snaked around the other's waist. Responding more confidently to the kiss, Tyson wound his arms around the older teen's neck and pressed himself closer.
They were reluctant to let go but as they had a play to finish, pulled away still keeping their hands linked.
"You kiss by the book," Juliet commented a little breathlessly.
Oliver had watched from backstage, noticing everything that was going on, especially the way the two looked at each other. He was almost reluctant to separate them but when the line was said, it was his cue to enter the stage. Oliver as Nurse came rushing up to the couple saying, "Madam, your mother craves a word with you."
Juliet pulled away though a lightly tanned hand lingered in a pale one and brown eyes refused to turn away from crimson ones. Then both hand and eyes slipped away with the person to which they belonged.
Romeo watched as Juliet's back wove through the throng of party-goers and only when he could see her no more did he turn to the Nurse. "What's her mother?" he asked.
At the end of the scene, Tyson was on to Kai within seconds backstage, grabbing hold of both the latter's arms without giving it any notice.
"What are you doing?" Tyson demanded in a hoarse whisper of his own voice, adding a comic element to his dress-clad appearance.
"Playing Romeo," Kai replied easily as the scene changes took place behind him.
"What happened to Brooklyn?" Tyson asked. He tightened his grip on Kai's arms even though Kai made no move to extricate it. Tyson's eyes were too arresting, too captivating to compel Kai to do such a thing. He wanted the kiss all over again.
"Tala locked him up," and before Tyson could say anything more, he placed a hand over Tyson's lips to quiet him. He nodded in a particular direction and added, a little amused, "But he is playing Paris now."
Tyson glanced in the direction Kai had indicated and saw Brooklyn standing in a corner, costumed and glowering at Kai, rapier at ready by his side. Tyson let himself take it all in before turning to Kai again.
The chorus began for the Prologue of Act 2 and Kai leaned down to kiss the back of his own hand which was still over Tyson's mouth. He left Tyson and in a few minutes, his voice was heard coming from the stage: "Can I go forward when my heart is here? Turn back, dull earth, and find thy centre out."
Tyson stood rooted backstage staring at the curtain until Romero bustled him out to get ready for the famous balcony scene in Act 2, Scene 2.
As much as the players, namely Tyson and Kai, wanted to take away the most out of the last running of the play, as it was with much of life, everything went in a blur.
The balcony scene went without a hitch, except Kai couldn't help but wish the Nurse would stop with the "Madam!" each time Tyson was saying something as Juliet. The promise of a marriage made and Tyson was gone from the balcony.
They met backstage a few times but none of them shared more than a word or two between them. Brooklyn kept his eyes closed for most of the play and refused to speak to anyone, seeming to focus his energy on a personal battle he was going to undertake, waiting for his scene to come. If one looked closely though, one could perceive a tiny smirk on his usually serene face.
The play went: A secret marriage. Tybalt's death. Romeo taking leave of Juliet after a night spent together, and Kai stealing a few kisses as he did so. Juliet's refusal to marrying Paris.
And the play just spiraled down to the end everyone expected.
Romeo having entered the chamber and forced open Juliet's tomb, looked down at the figure of Juliet, lying in her dress at the bottom, her hands clasped easily over her stomach. Tyson looked like he was only having a short nap.
"Stop thy unhallowed toil, vile Montague!"
Upon hearing that cry Kai, as Romeo, turned to look over his shoulder to see a very menacing looking Brooklyn in his Paris costume blocking the way to the exit, his rapier already out, the end pointing at Kai.
"Can vengeance be pursued further than death?" asked Paris, taking a step towards the still kneeling Romeo. "Condemned villain, I do apprehend thee. Obey, and go with me; for thou must die."
Romeo turned back to the tomb, to Juliet still at the bottom of it.
"I must indeed; and therefore came I hither," he remarked sorrowfully.
"Good gentle youth, tempt not a desperate man;
Fly hence, and leave me. Think upon these gone;
Let them affright thee. I beseech thee, youth,
Put not another sin upon my head
By urging me to fury. O, be gone!"
Romeo stood and whipped himself around to look at Paris, still with his rapier raised.
Standing thus, Romeo went on:
"By heaven, I love thee better than myself;
For I come hither armed against myself.
Stay not, be gone; live, and hereafter say,
A madman's mercy bade thee run away."
Paris was unmoved by Romeo's attempt at mercy.
"I do defy thy configurations," he told Romeo, standing his ground and playing the part of the upright citizen to the 'T'. "And apprehend thee for a felon here."
Romeo skulked nearer to Paris. There was a sweet sense of satisfaction for Kai to be putting Brooklyn in such a spot and referring to the senior as 'youth'. He drew his rapier slowly, eyeing Brooklyn steadily. In time, he smirked, a near deranged smirk of the despaired.
"Wilt thou provoke me?" Romeo snarled, drawing nearer to Paris. Without warning he lunged out at Paris with his rapier, crying, "Then have at thee, boy!"
The Drama Club president proved to be trained in the art of swordfight for he raised his rapier in time to counter Romeo's strike.
"You have killed my kin, Juliet's kin, and from sorrow she has expelled her final breath," Brooklyn hissed into Kai's face, their rapiers crossed between their faces. "I will not forgive you for taking her away from me, when we would have been wed!"
Everyone backstage cast puzzled glances at each other, not having read those lines in the script anywhere. Romero watched from the side of the stage, hidden away from the audience, impressed by the believability of the swordfight and the boys' emotions but unsure as to whether or not he ought to interrupt. The boy playing as Paris' page almost forgot his line as the swordfight ensued before his eyes.
"Juliet does not love you!" Kai hissed in turn, breaking away from Brooklyn with a little jump backwards. His rapier threatened to leave his grip but he closed his hand tighter around the hilt. He took another lunge at Brooklyn and cried, "Juliet does not love you!"
Brooklyn jumped away in time to avoid the lunge.
Romero took a step forward but still remained hidden from the audience. He was suddenly afraid that having these two face each other on stage was the worse thing to happen to the Jurgen College Drama Club. Those rapiers may not be the real thing but a hard enough thrust could run anyone through.
"You caused so fair and innocent a creature to die and you still dare blaspheme!" cried Brooklyn raining down on Kai a series of blows. Metal met metal in a series of clangs as Kai blocked each blow. "You, sir…" and Brooklyn brought down one particularly hard blow on Kai, getting the younger man square in the shoulder, causing him to winch. "Are…not…worthy of his time!"
The audience, too caught up in the intensity of the swordfight did not notice Brooklyn's own blunder in referring to Juliet as a male. In the tomb, Tyson's eyes shot open. The swordfight between Romeo and Paris was not supposed to have any conversation between them. He was beginning to get worried. He debated "rising from the dead" and interrupting them, thus changing the whole play into a ghost story of sorts, but that did not seem right. He itched to do something, but Juliet must wait her cue to rise.
Brooklyn's last line got Kai where it hurt most because the truth in it was not easy for him to bear. When he could have left Tyson with nothing between them but those few awkward moments, he had to seal it all with this stupid charade.
In a bout of self-directed anger, Kai thrust the rapier through Brooklyn…no, he actually stabbed it through the gap between Brooklyn's arm and the side of his body which faced away from the audience, making it appear as if Brooklyn had really been stabbed. Had Kai not been so upset, he probably would have been surprised that the scene went so well and that he had not killed Brooklyn by accident.
Romero almost ran onto the stage and a gasp ran through the audience as Brooklyn was stabbed. Brooklyn's actions suddenly ceased and for a few seconds, he stood remarkably still, staring down at Kai was he if had lost a battle he was sure he would win. Kai watched Brooklyn, panting from the exertion of the fight he had unintentionally made real. His crimson eyes widened as he took in the shocked expression on Brooklyn's face, suddenly frightened that he had indeed killed Brooklyn for real.
"O, I am slain!" cried Brooklyn, dropping to his knees. Looking up at Kai, he pleaded, sounding very much in pain, "If thou be merciful, open the tomb, lay me with Juliet."
With that Brooklyn fell forward, the clatter of his rapier when it met the stage floor resonated through the silent theatre, and he remained there unmoving as if truly dead. Although the scene had not ended, the audience clapped, giving Kai a bit of time to think what his next line from the script should be. It was the long monologue before he drinks the poison and dies.
He performed the monologue without further glitch and, for once not feeling jealous, laid Brooklyn down (with some difficulty for Brooklyn was heavy and putting on a good show of being dead) beside Tyson in the tomb. Within the tomb, away from the audience's eyes, Brooklyn turned to Tyson, who was staring at him wide-eyed, and winked. He did it just in time before Kai took hold of Tyson and lifted him halfway out of the tomb so that he could finish his monologue looking at his face.
The monologue was long and Tyson, listening with his eyes closed to Kai performing it, found it somewhat difficult to keep a straight face and not burst out laughing. Finally, Kai got to the part where he drank the poison. With one hand holding Tyson, he removed the stopper of the bottle with a thumb and raising it as if in a toast, he said, "Here's to my love!" before drinking it, finding it to be none other than raspberry cordial, and that it was cloyingly sweet.
"O true apothecary!" he went on, trying not to grimace at the sweetness. "Thy drugs are quick. Thus with a kiss I die."
He planted one last kiss on Tyson's lips and fell forward, dead, his body dangling halfway into the tomb, for that was the only logical way he saw to in the play. For a moment, Kai wished that he, too, could buy poison and do away with himself before he left for the Hiwatari first mansion.
With Romeo dead, the play sprung back into action after the paralysis that Kai and Brooklyn's fight had induced. In time, Tyson as Juliet awoke and perceiving Romeo's unmoving form, took himself from the tomb with surprising sprightliness considering the cumbersome dress, and was beside the "dead" figure, cradling the head to his chest.
He kissed Kai's lips for remaining bits of poison, and thought how the raspberry cordial never tasted so sweet before. Finally, he took Kai's dagger and with,"This is thy sheath; there rust, and let me die", he fell dead in the final act of sacrifice. He felt forward over Kai's body, heard the faint heartbeat of the other but there was no rise and fall of the other's chest, as if Kai was holding his breath. Unseen by the audience, Kai took the opportunity to raise a hand slightly and hold Tyson with it. The action was almost imperceptible, but Tyson felt the hand at his waist and could not help but take a furtive fistful of Kai's shirt as the exchanges went on between the other characters.
The play closed with Prince Escalus reciting the famous line: "For never was a story of more woe, than this of Juliet and her Romeo."
Amidst thunderous applause, Voltaire Hiwatari watched the curtains close. He had been annoyed when Kai was not home when they were about to leave for the play. Later, he received a call from Robert Jurgen's father telling him that Kai would be going ahead and that the Jurgens would be more than glad to have their driver pick him up. Voltaire Hiwatari had declined the offer, preferring the privacy of his own car so that he may better fume over Kai's supposed insolence.
He was more than a little surprised to see Kai on stage. Kai had not told him anything about acting. He considered leaving but with the Jurgen family sitting directly beside him, he had no choice but to stay.
When the play ended, and the supporting cast came on stage to take their bows, Voltaire was in a world of contemplation. He stood up and left before the main cast arrived.
Back stage, right after the final curtain, the rest of the cast was congratulating Kai for his performance. No longer Romeo, Kai was once again Kai and only Kai, so all he said in response to their praises was, "Hn", his arms crossed over his chest, adding something of a comic relief to his Romeo costume. Everyone had to admit that Brooklyn did a fantastic job as Paris, but when everyone wanted to praise him too, the Drama Club president was for once nowhere to be seen.
Tyson watched the crowd surrounding Kai and fell a tug in his chest, though it was not an unpleasant one. Everyone was approaching Kai so candidly, from seniors to juniors who had steered clear of Kai's way in school. Tyson could not help but think that Kai had grown somewhat over these past few months. The announcement came for the cast to come on stage and while the supporting cast made their way out, Tyson went over and took Kai's hand as it was customary in the club apparently for the lovers in a play to come out holding hands.
Or maybe, Tyson was only using it as an excuse, but right then, they didn't care.
The missing Brooklyn came out when his name was announced for his performance as Paris and he took his bow and stood with the supporting cast, not minding it a bit. Everyone got an applause but the applause was louder when the announcer read out the names of the two players for the lead roles. Tyson tugged lightly at Kai's hand and led him on stage, where their appearance was greeted by a series of hoots and catcalls, most likely from Tala and gang.
Once everyone was on stage, they thanked those in charge of the multimedia and took a bow together, before the curtain shut with a profound sense of closure. While no one was looking, while everyone was busy smiling at the standing audience, Kai felt Tyson gave his hand a squeeze before letting go of it.
Next Chapter: Exeunt