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Wylan kept his nose stuck in his notebook as much as possible sketching out doodles while practically the entire theatre department was in a full on civil war. People might just have a point when they say Theatre is dramatic. Especially when it comes to the great works of Shakespeare it seems. Currently as they sat on the school’s proscenium stage, students argued back and forth over the proper interpretation of Shakespeare’s most famous work Romeo and Juliet. Option 1, the one Wylan agreed with more, a cautionary tale of the stupidity of youthful romance. Option 2, a beautiful tragedy about poisonous hatred conquered by love. Wylan wasn’t sure how the argument started or got to the point of students abandoning their chairs to shout in each other’s faces but the reason it needed to be settled was because depending on the view the actors would have to act to portray the theme. Wylan was part of the crew so it didn’t matter quite as much to him. Unfortunately high school students couldn’t see the ridiculousness of the whole argument.
“The reason the play is popular is because it’s a tale of love conquering hate! People like the hope and message of that!” Jesper Fahey, cast as Romeo, has been doing theatre as an actor since middle school and argued for that message.
“So you can go stab yourself over it!? Why not elope! They were foolish which made them illogical!” Kaz Brekker, switched between cast or crew depending on the production, to no one’s surprise argued for the more depressing side. This year he was cast as lord Montague.
Nina, who was cast as Juliet, the most obvious choice in Wylan’s opinion, and Inej, cast as the nurse sided with Jesper.
Matthias, Sir Capulet, who would never agree with Kaz on anything did finally find something they could agree upon.
Wylan wanted to stay out of it as much as possible and hated the fighting since they were all his friends. He was sure it would calm down in a day or two. Everyone knew Kaz hated arguing with Inej, and Matthias and Nina were a couple. Surely they couldn’t keep up this argument for too long.
“Wylan!”
Oh no, he dreaded when he heard Jesper call his name and hopped over to where he sat near the back. “Wylan is an unbiased third party as part of the cast. He can decide.”
Wylan felt his face flush as everyone went quiet and turned to him. He wanted to hide behind his notebook, but he managed to find his voice. “I-I agree with Kaz… I mean if they were being logical about it then well they wouldn’t have died. They were kind of stupid…” he mumbled his voice drifting off towards the end.
“Never mind,” Jesper said clearly not getting the answer he wanted and went back to trying to argue with Kaz. A ridiculous endeavor for anyone who knew Kaz.
Wylan bent over in his chair, laying his face on his notebook page. Please let this be over soon.
They spent the entire rehearsal time trying to decide on a theme. It got a little more calm but they could never get a majority. Everyone was too afraid to vote on a theme. No one wanted to vote against Kaz. He would make their homework go missing or make sure they couldn’t open their locker for an entire week. No one wanted to betray Jesper either, the easy going kid who was friends with everyone, and while he wouldn’t do anything if anyone hurt Jesper’s feelings well, Wylan would feel bad for them. Only a bit. No one should hurt Jesper’s feelings.
“Okay, guys,” the director said, trying to get their attention. “Students,” he said a little louder. “Can I have your attention?” A little louder.
“QUIET!” Matthias said at barely louder than his loudest tone but Wylan swore any kid who did sports had a deeper voice than everyone else. It was part of the contract.
Everyone went silent and the director rubbed the bridge of his nose. “Okay we can’t waste time arguing over this, but I know it is an important thing to agree upon for the actors, and even for the crew. It can change the lights as much as it can change how an actor phrases a line. Since this is your play you all are welcome to choose how to portray it, but rehearsals must continue without these arguments. So when you come in here do not bring this argument, and the show will go on.”
Wylan stuffed his doodle filled notebook into his neatly organized backpack. He shouldered his bag and stood up noticing it was only him and his odd group of friends left. Nina and Inej standing beside Jesper all of whom were glaring at Kaz and Matthias. Wylan rolled his eyes. Why were his friends so dramatic? “Can we just do rock, paper, scissors or something?” He asked walking up in between the wi groups.
“Nope,” Kaz said. “Romeo and Juliet are stupid teenagers in love. Wylan you said you’re on our side.”
“What? No I’m not on anyone-“ the glare from Kaz made Wylan too afraid to finish. He shuffled behind Matthias.
“Hey you can’t bully Wylan into your side,” Jesper protested.
“You said he could choose but then ignored his choice cause it didn’t agree with your stance.”
“Can we resume this tomorrow, you two?” Inej asked. “I know we all have essays due that none of us have worked on.” Inej looked around at all of them before turning on her heel, leaping from the stage and walking out of the room.
Kaz grumbled something under his breath and walked off, his cane hitting against the wooden floor of the stage. Every time the school tried to make him use a crutch instead, it went mysteriously missing and he returned to his crow head cane.
Gradually the rest of them dispersed and amazingly Nina and Matthias didn’t talk at all on the way to the parking lot. Jesper and Wylan both had to go to the front of the building to wait for their respective father’s to pick them up. While waiting at the front roundabout in the empty front of the school Wylan looked up and over at Jesper.
“This is ridiculous. You’re not seriously going to start a theatre civil war over this right?” Wylan asked only to see Jesper was already jogging across the parking lot once he saw his dad’s car. He threw his backpack in the trunk and Wylan could hear him launching into a cheerful conversation with Mr. Fahey as he got in the passenger’s seat.
Wylan kicked his foot at the concrete for a bit until a few minutes later his dad pulled up. He put his backpack in the second row of seats before getting into the passenger’s seat to be greeted by silence. They didn’t speak the whole drive home.
The next day Jesper came to school and joined Inej where they normally sat in the morning’s in the school’s courtyard on a bench under the tree. He had a coffee in one hand and a pencil he flipped back and forth in his fingers in the other. He sat down, one foot on the ground, and the other on the bench. “Okay so,” he began getting Inej’s attention, “We can’t change Kaz’s mind, that’s like trying to convince Karen lesbians won’t turn her kids gay, but I’m pretty sure we can change Matthias and Wylan’s minds, on the whole Romeo and Juliet thing.”
“You’re still actually thinking about this? Why not just agree to disagree and just move on with the play,” Inej said, looking at Jesper seriously.
“I am a man of honor and I will not be letting this go unless Kaz lets it go first and we know his dramatic ass isn’t going to do that, so- Nina! Glad to have you join us.”
“So how are we going to get Matthias and Wylan on our side?” Nina asked, sitting between Jesper and Inej and taking a bite into her muffin. “I’m pretty sure I can seduce Matthias into joining our side.” Jesper offered up a high five to Nina which she complied to.
“Not you too.” Inej rolled her eyes at both of them. “This better not affect rehearsals.”
“Hey we still want to get the play done and we want the play to be good so of course it won’t, but we are not backing down,” Jesper insisted. Out of the corner of his eye he saw Kaz reach the door of the hall to the courtyard, saw the three sitting at their bench, and pulled his phone out as he walked away. Jesper didn’t like disagreeing with his best friends or getting into a mini teenage war with them, but at the same time the whole idea got him jittery with excitement.
Just as Wylan entered the school he felt his phone buzz in his pocket.
Kaz: voice message
Wylan clicked on the play button of the voice message. “The bench has been compromised. Meet in the Cafeteria, corner table. The good one.”
Who the heck was sitting at their bench. That was their bench the entire year, no one else ever sat there and if they did Kaz certainly didn’t let them stay. Something was up. He got to the cafeteria as quick as possible and saw Kaz and Matthias sitting across from each other, Kaz with his hands folding and resting just in front of his mouth as he hunched slightly over the table, scheming. Matthias was doing extra credit math homework.
“Who took the bench? Where are the others?” Wylan asked, sitting down beside Kaz.
“The ‘others’ you refer to are the reason the bench is compromised,” Kaz answered, not moving a muscle.
“You’ve got to be kidding me,” Wylan mumbled to himself. “So you are willing to get into a civil war amongst the theatre program against your best friends just because you can’t agree on the message of Romeo and Juliet?”
“Yes, I’m so glad you can keep up Wylan.”
“Sarcasm,” Matthias pointed out.
Kaz frowned, glared at Matthias, before pulling a single quarter out of his bag and begrudgingly handing it over. “You’re going to hell, Helvar and I will be the demon who will be responsible for you eternal misery.”
“You have to pay Matthias a quarter when you’re sarcastic? That’s not that much money,” Wylan pointed out.
“It adds up,” Matthias said, pulling out a bag of quarters and adding the new one in.
“Okay I’m going to go to the bench.”
“Leave the cafeteria Van Eck, and I promise you you won’t live to regret it,” Kaz said pointing a finger towards Wylan as he stood up.
“Kaz,” Matthias began, “you are the exact reason people say theatre kids are dramatic.”
“I don’t see your point.”
Wylan sat back down. “Okay, so say we are doing this and we’re going to seriously have a civil war. Why? What do we get?”
“We can worry about that later, but we’re going to win.”
“Is there some way you think we can get money out of this?”
“No, unfortunately, but there’s more to life than money.”
Matthias almost laughed. “I never thought I’d live to see the day where Kaz said there’s more to life than money.”
“There’s also revenge.”
“There we go.”
Wylan was miserable during lunch. He had an article he needed to read for one of his classes but according to his classmates there’s no pdf of the article only the copy the teachers gave out on paper so he couldn’t put the pdf of the article into a text to speech website, and he was apparently banned from going and asking Jesper to read it to him like he normally did when there wasn’t a pdf.
“What’s wrong?” Matthias asked as Wylan set his head on the table and gave out a small groan.
Wylan lifted his head. “There’s no pdf of an article I need to read, and someone” (he glared at Kaz) “won’t let me go talk to Jesper who normally reads these things for me.”
“I can read it,” Matthias offered.
Wylan was hesitant. He liked Jesper’s voice the most. It was playful, but sweet and he read it so actively and made it fun to listen to. He supposed Matthias’ Scandinavian accent was cool, so he handed the article over to him.
Matthias skimmed over the article and then began to read. Wylan regretted it almost immediately. Matthias read in such a monotone voice that if he was Wylan’s regular reader he’d fall asleep every time. “Sorry no I’m too used to Jesper reading it,” he said, taking the article back.
“Maybe Kaz can read it then.”
Kaz looked up from the notebook he was writing in at the mention of his name. “I’m not reading for him. There’s no time. We need to convince the majority of the theatre department to agree with our idea.”
“Well you’re the one threatening Wylan not to go to Jesper.”
Kaz stared at both of them for a moment before holding a hand out for the article.
This wasn’t much better. Kaz wasn’t monotone but still more boring than Jesper, his voice was more crackly not as bubbly as Jesper’s, but this was his only option it seemed so he suffered through.
“A week! This has been going on for a week, Jesper!” Inej said just before rehearsal. A week after the first rehearsal where it was more of a debate club.
Jesper refused to admit this was ridiculous even though he hated not talking to Kaz his oldest friend, Wylan, who if he had to pick favorites would be his choice, and he was even beginning to miss Matthias. “It’s fine. Kaz has got to back down at some point.”
“Or you could be the bigger man and just give it up already.”
“And say what? That Kaz is right? There isn’t a right, but if there has to be one then it’s going to be me.”
“You’re absolutely ridiculous.”
“Aw come on you know you love me,” he said, swinging an arm around Inej’s shoulders.
“Yes, you’re the most obnoxious, ridiculous, flamboyant man I know but somehow you’re my friend. I still don’t know how you managed it.”
“Face it. I’m irresistible.”
“Irresponsible, more like.”
They both laughed, shoving each other playfully as they made it into the green room. They weren’t the first ones there.
“Traitor!” Jesper called with a grin when he saw Nina curled up at Matthias' side on the couch looking at something on his phone that was making them laugh.
Nina quickly stood from the couch and put her hand to her head dramatically. “Oh no, my dear Matthias we’ve been caught. Run before we are punished for our forbidden love.”
Jesper was a little upset the integrity of their two groups was compromised, but he would be a cruel cruel person to keep two lovers apart. Perhaps Nina was seducing Matthias like she mentioned before.
“Does this mean I can talk to Kaz?” Inej asked, looking up at Jesper.
Jesper gasped and put a hand over his heart. “How dare my group be so easily compromised.” His demeanor was joking but he was partially serious. Even if it was ridiculous it was important to him. And his excitement itch had been happy since the whole thing started.
Inej sighed. “Okay. I’ll stick with you Jesper. We can convince the others that it’s a story of true love overcoming hate.”
“Thank you Inej,” he said earnestly.
Wylan on the other hand was more anxious than normal over the whole thing. It really didn’t affect rehearsals though which he was glad for. But he desperately hated ignoring three of his friends. And what was absolutely wonderful was Wylan’s favorite person has decided to join tech and Wylan had a sneaking suspicion why which made it worse.
“You’ll be working on sound, it’s easy just press that button. We’re not doing any complicated sounds for the play that’s usually for the musical. You will have to control the mics though which will be your main focus because trust me people speak a very different volume when they’re mic-ed than when they’re not.” He looked back at Kuwei who was leaning his elbows on the windows of the mic and sound booth looking towards the stage. “And this is the pet dragon, but don’t worry he only likes pinkies.” No reaction. Wylan walked up behind Kuwei, put his hand next to his ear and snapped. Kuwei jumped and nearly fell over one of the cables. He didn’t luckily for both of them. “This is serious, and if you’re just going to make goo-goo eyes at the cast then you can leave and come watch the show when it starts.”
Wylan swore he saw Kuwei just roll his eyes. Wylan looked out the window where the cast was working on their scenes. Currently it was when Romeo meets Juliet for the first time. Wylan realized why Kuwei was staring and almost couldn’t blame him. The way Jesper carried himself in the Romeo role, it was hard not to believe he was a medieval upper class nobleman. He was perfect for the role. He moved his long limbs gracefully as he moved in towards Nina meeting her at the front of the stage.
“What was that about not making goo-goo eyes?”
Wylan glared at Kuwei doing his best imitation of the Kaz Brekker glare and then got to work figuring out which light would be best for the setting.
Three weeks. Jesper was starting to think maybe this wasn’t the best idea. Nothing was happening, it was just a silent treatment towards his friends. It was less exciting now and just boring and full of missing three of his best friends.
They were getting changed after one of the rehearsals, in the boys dressing room and Jesper eventually just wanted to bite the bullet and be the bigger man like Inej suggested.
He walked up to Kaz and cleared his throat to get his attention. “Hey man, this is ridiculous right? Nothing’s happening or gonna change no matter who’s right or wrong. According to the English teacher it’s not right or wrong anyway.”
“I don’t care what the English teacher says. And don’t worry Fahey you’ll get your excitement soon enough,” Kaz said, grabbing his cane from against the wall. It was the rare time he wasn’t wearing his gloves though or even long sleeves for that matter., though it had taken a long time for him to do that. “It may not prove who’s right or wrong, but we’ll both see who can get the most votes on their side.”
“Oh please don’t use my last name now, that just hurts,” he said dramatically, pretending to stab his heart. “Wait, vote? For what?”
“I’m not going to spoil any surprises.”
“Can we talk normally for a minute?” Jesper asked.
“No. This is what you like right isn’t it? You like drama, it’s like a drug for you. Things will be exciting soon.”
“I don’t care about that anymore Kaz I’m just sick of not talking to my friends.”
Kaz went quiet for a moment. He always did when someone actually called him a friend. Jesper always noticed that. “Well I still care and we’re going to do this. This is war a-”
Jesper groaned and wanted to go run somewhere before he came back to deal with this. “Kaz it’s not a war you need to win. It’s a high school theatre class. I like dramatic jokes and taking things to extremes sometimes but even you have to admit this is insane to not talk for weeks on end.”
“Nope.”
Jesper was getting annoyed. He wasn’t quite sure when he grabbed the pen from the counter in the room and started clicking it but it was clicking and didn’t help that much. “Kaz for the love of- I’m sorry okay, do you want some apology even if I didn’t do anything?”
Kaz scoffed. “Didn’t do anything-“
“That?! You’re still going on about that? It has nothing to do with the Romeo and Juliet thing?”
“You screwed up.”
“Two flipping years ago Kaz!”
Kaz turned, but Jesper wasn’t done and grabbed his wrist. Shit. His wrist, skin exposed. One person saw then everyone could feel it and looked to see.
Jesper dodged one blow, but not even a second later he was decked in the face.
Jesper held a bag of ice on his eye and a tissue was stuffed up one of his nostrils. His lip was busted. Kaz wasn’t much better. He sat shamefully in the front office waiting for his dad to come pick him up. He could see Kaz in the counselor's office pacing back and forth probably despising the fact he was sent there. Kaz hated the counselor and hated being treated like he was messed up. He was but he didn’t need everyone knowing it. Jesper felt a little bad but Kaz did also deck him in the face so not too bad.
Jesper shrunk even more into his chair when he saw his father walk in the building and into the office. His father had to talk to the principal first. He avoided his father’s gaze and stared at the carpet, rubbing the tip of his shoe up and down the lines in the carpet. It felt like hours before his father came back out. He walked up in front of Jesper.
“Come on, son. Let’s get you home,” his dad said.
Jesper shuffled to his feet and hung his head low but still towered over his dad. Sometimes it felt weird to be a lot taller and right now was one of those times. They got into the car in the parking lot and Jesper rested his head against the seatbelt still holding the bag of ice over his eye.
“What happened?” His dad asked.
“The principal didn’t tell you?”
“I want to hear it from you.”
Jesper sighed and pulled the ice pack down. It was getting too cold. “I just grabbed Kaz’s wrist, then he punched me. I punched him. It went like that until the director broke us up,” he muttered.
“Why were you fighting with your friend?”
“I told you about his touch aversion. I forgot for a second,” he mumbled.
“There’s gotta be something more to it, Jes.”
“It’s nothing, da. Really. We got carried away. I’m sorry.”
His dad set a hand on his shoulder. “Just make sure you apologize and it doesn’t happen again. Alright? Best friends fight but you can’t let it fester.”
“I will.” After a moment Jesper pulled out his phone and opened the contacts. He wasn’t sure who to text first. He opened up Kaz’s, the contact labeled ‘loveable bastard’. Kaz hated it. It just made Jesper keep it.
Jesper: are you okay
He didn’t get a response but in a second it read ‘seen’
Jesper: i’m sorry
No response. Just ‘seen’. That was probably the best he would get.
Wylan only heard about the fight. He wasn’t at the rehearsal the day before, but the first thing he heard when he got to school was a bunch of kids talking about a fight, then he saw Kaz with a cut on his eyebrow, and purple bruise near his eyes, in first period he saw Jesper, black eye, and broken nose.
Wylan didn’t talk much that day. He was worried for both of his friends and worried about how far this would go.
At rehearsal that day he stayed on the catwalk most of the time looking down at the stage from up high. He didn’t want to get muddled up in the drama. It was already causing a mess of things. He doodled and did his math homework the whole time after he had the lights in place. He was even aware that rehearsal had ended until he heard someone else climbing up to the catwalk.
“Nice little hideaway you got here,” Jesper said walking casually over to Wylan before dropping down to sit next to him.
“Thought you weren’t talking to us.” Wylan couldn’t describe how happy he was to hear Jesper talking to him again though.
“I’m done with that. Kaz isn’t. But I missed your stupid face. Besides I realize it’s not fair that you missed out on my wonderfully reading voice.”
Wylan chuckled. He smiled up at Jesper. “I’m glad you’re talking to me again.”
“Me too.”
Wylan sat there, face a bit red he realized from the warmth in his cheeks. He has missed Jesper. A lot. More than Nina or Inej.
Jesper swung his feet over the edge of the catwalk and wrapped an arm around Wylan’s shoulders. His face warmed up even more. He became overly aware of the situation. He was sitting alone with Jesper hidden somewhere no one could see them.
“My dad’s probably waiting for me. I should get going,” Wylan said, getting ready to stand up.
“Can you wait a few minutes? I need to take my mind off things. I don’t like fighting with Kaz. There’s no real winning.”
Wylan sat back down. “Yeah. Yeah I guess I can stay a few minutes.”
“You got anything you need me to read?”
“No actually. All of them I have pdfs for. I do miss your reading voice though.” He brought his knees to his chest and sat calmly next to Jesper. “Matthias told me more about the fight since he was there. He said you said that Kaz was talking about something else, not the Romeo and Juliet thing. What is it?”
“It’s nothing. Happened a long time ago but Kaz likes his grudges.”
“What does he possibly have a grudge about that has to do with you?”
Jesper rubbed the back of his neck. “I guess there’s no harm in telling you. I’m over it by now. But in sophomore year I accidentally got Kaz in trouble. Kaz knew some kids found a way to get the Google doc of test answers from the teacher’s computer, and Kaz got in the doc too. Kaz wrote down all the answers for himself, but then went into the doc and changed all the answers when the other kids got to it. I thought it was really funny and I was telling Nina and Inej about it. You know how I sometimes talk too loud and get myself in trouble, well the principal overheard me talking about the whole thing. Got Kaz in trouble. He won’t let me live it down even though he only got a few hours of detention.” He opened his arms as if presenting the whole story in one serving. His arms dropped back down to his sides. “Kaz has something up his sleeve but I’ve got no idea what it is.”
“He’s scheming during lunch but I have no idea what he’s doing. He writes down all of his stuff, but doesn’t say anything.”
“I could steal his notebook.”
“He’d break your hand,” Wylan said with a small giggle.
“You got any cool drawings you’ve been working on?” Jesper asked.
Wylan’s cheeks were almost not red anymore, but that went away. He pulled out his sketchbook that also dragged out a small pin he’d kept hidden away in his bag as well. It clattered on the floor of the catwalk and he quickly picked it up.
“What’s that?” Jesper asked, forgetting about the drawings.
Wylan held the pin close to his chest and a wave of panic flooded over him. “Uhm, it’s…” he opened his hand and showed off a circular rainbow pin.
“For a second I thought it had a swear word on it cause you were freaking out. Why’s it inside your backpack?”
Wylan’s heart was still racing but of course Jesper would be cool with it. For heaven’s sake he had a bi pin right on his bag. Wylan wasn’t sure why he was freaking out. Probably because he’s never really talked about it to anyone.
“I was scared my dad would see it.”
“Your dad sucks big time,” Jesper said.
“I know he does.” Wylan took the pin and put it on the strap.
“Looks good.”
Wylan grinned and was still scared but it was nice. Someone knew. “So uh yep. I’m gay.”
Jesper wrapped his arm around him again. “Hi gay nice to meet you, I’m Jesper.”
“Oh my gosh you’re such an idiot,” Wylan laughed, shoving Jesper gently. Wylan then leaned in closer with Jesper’s arm around him.
“I missed you a lot,” Jesper said again. If he didn’t know any better he’d say Jesper was nervous. He got a pen out of his backpack and was stimming with it, clicking the pen open and closed.
Wylan turned to face Jesper face to face and began leaning closer when his phone began buzzing. Wylan fumbled his phone out of his pocket and quickly got up.
“I’ve been waiting out here for ten minutes, where the hell are you?” His father didn’t have a good day at work.
“Coming, sorry I got busy with the lighting.” Wylan folded one of his arms over the one that held the phone to his ear, and tried to make himself smaller.
“Well hurry up.”
“Yes sir,” Wylan mumbled.
He could hear his father scoff a little. “They already get you for two hours almost everyday. Don’t know why they need an illiterate teen for so much time. And don’t mumble. You know how I feel about that.”
“Yes sir.”
His father hung up, and Wylan quickly grabbed his bag. Jesper was up on his feet. “You good?” He asked.
“Yeah fine, my dad’s just been here and was wondering where I am.” Wylan quickly slid the pin off his bag and put it back inside again. He’d put it back in when his father was in a better mood, so maybe he could avoid awkward conversations as much as possible about it.
“Want me to walk you out there?”
“Yeah actually. That’d be nice.”
“Kaz!” Matthias and Wylan stood on either side of a very proud Kaz, as the entire school was plastered in posters, wall to wall. Posters meant to be advertising the play. Matthias told Wylan that they all said “Come and see Ketterdam High’s production of Romeo and Juliet, a cautionary tale of two foolish people who sacrifice their lives in the name of love. Disclaimer: Romeo is in his twenties, and Juliet is a teenager. Do not sponsor pedophilia.”
“What is the point of this?” Wylan asked.
“No one’s going to come see it if we spread the more depressing message. People like hope. They’re stupid. Everyone’s also going to be scared of the disclaimer to risk coming.” Kaz pointed his cane at the small text at the bottom.
“Kaz I can’t hecking read it.”
Kaz sighed. “I can’t believe I’m sided with the only two people in the whole word who say hecking instead of fuc-”
“Watch your hecking language,” Matthias said, arms crossed. “There are children here.”
“I am your same age,” Wylan argued.
“The entire theatre department is going to hate you,” Wylan said and admittedly even he was annoyed at Kaz for this stunt.
“They have no proof it was me, so they can’t get me in trouble even if they hate me.”
“How did you do this?
“A magician never reveals their secrets.”
“I’m telling Inej you’re behind this.”
“Don’t you dare.”
Kaz didn’t get in trouble for the posters. No one knows how he did it. How he made so many of them or how he got them all over the school in one night. There was even a banner in the cafeteria, and they were on the newspaper pamphlets. The newspaper club denies any knowledge of the advertisements. It made almost the entire school turn on the theatre department. No one turned on Kaz because no one knew he was a part of theatre, no one thought the most chaotic dramatic kid in the school would partake in any school activity. No one believed Matthias was either. He was the star player of the football team, how could he also be in theatre. Everyone assumed by association with them that Wylan was one of the only good theatre kids. But Wylan had to watch everyone turn on Jesper, Nina, and Inej. He felt horrible for the three of them. They still kept up the appearances of not talking to each other throughout school.
This went on for weeks. Kaz wanted Jesper to say that it was the cautionary tale of two foolish lovers and then he’d fix it all. Wylan knew that’s what would make it better, but Jesper was too stubborn. Jesper had continued meeting Wylan up on the catwalk above the stage and would sometimes swing by the sound booth to say hi. Wylan was mostly glad the whole fiasco didn’t ruin everything.
Months passed even and nothing got better. It only really split the theatre department more. People who agreed more with Kaz’s view were despised by everyone else, and it got to the point where some students dropped out because they didn’t want to be involved. Fortunately no one with a major role was allowed to leave unless it was because of grades or they were caught breaking too many rules. Wylan just stayed away from it all, out of the way of the actors, staying away in his tech spots.
Jesper was mad. He didn’t like considering himself a mad person, but he was mad. Kaz wasn’t just punishing him, this was making everything too much for all of the theatre kids. But Kaz was the last thing from Jesper’s mind right now. One of the biggest school dances, other than prom, was coming up, and he knew exactly who he was going to ask. He tried to be not so nervous about it, but how could he be when he was planning to ask one of the cutest sweetest kids in school to be his date to a dance. After rehearsal Jesper went in search of Wylan. Jesper eventually found him up on the catwalk putting a filter into one of the lights.
“Hey there, you see any cute technicians around, curly red hair, freckles, about this high,” he said, holding his hand comically low.
“Ha, ha,” Wylan said with the roll of his eyes. “I’ll be done with this in a minute, then we have to make our way to the front of the school. My dad’s been stressed at work and I don’t want him taking it out on me.”
Jesper watched as Wylan fiddled with the light fixture, then stood up and grabbed his bag. “Okay let’s go.”
“Uh, yeah, just one second. I have something just quick to ask,” he said. He fumbled with the zipper on his jacket. “Do you want to go to the dance this weekend with me?” Too quick, he noted, maybe too loud. Or too quiet. His mind raced with a million thoughts, all of better ways he could have asked. He kept switching between fiddling with his zipper and picking at the edge of his nails.
He watched Wylan react to the question. First it looked like disbelief, and for a second Jesper had a moment of doubt, but Wylan began to grin and jumped into Jesper’s arms. Jesper quickly wrapped his arms around Wylan after he got over his own shock.
“Yes! Yes I’ll go with you.”
Jesper grinned and then laughed when he realized Wylan was standing on his tiptoes and almost wasn’t touching the ground just to reach up high enough to wrap his arms around Jesper’s shoulders. Wylan pulled back and then got on his toes again and kissed Jesper. Jesper melted into the kiss, and gently held Wylan around the waist.
Wylan pulled away. “Crap, sorry I should have asked first, I hope you didn’t mind.”
“No, no it’s okay, it was great.”
Wylan pulled Jesper into a hug again before his phone started buzzing. “Crap we gotta go.”
Wylan took Jesper’s hand so naturally, and Jesper didn’t mind one bit. They made their way down the catwalk and through the school to the front of the building.
“You can’t go to the dance with Jesper.”
“Kaz,” Matthias and Wylan protested at once.
“I can go with who I want, and how do you even know I’m going with Jesper,” Wylan said, crossing his arms.
“He talks too loud.”
Wylan rolled his eyes and rested his arms and head on the table. He didn’t want to deal with another person telling him he couldn’t go to the dance with Jesper. He had forgotten to take off his rainbow pin last night when he got into the car. Needless to say it wasn’t his favorite night last night. At least the only reason Kaz was saying he couldn’t go to the dance with Jesper was because he was just being petty.
“Kaz he goes with whoever he wants,” Matthias said.
“Weren’t you homophobic in middle school?” Kaz asked.
“I’m a changed man. I have bi wife energy now.”
Wylan closed his eyes and ignored Kaz’s protests against ‘dealing with the enemies’. Wylan then had a hilarious thought. He pulled out his phone and opened it to Jesper’s contact. He sent a voice message. “We’re Romeo and Juliet aren’t we,” he whispered into the phone. A moment later Jesper sent a laughing emoji. Wylan smiled and felt a little better for the rest of the day.