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Ilya Rozanov was in his senior year of high school, and he needed this role.
'This role' was Romeo Montague in Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet. Both Ilya and Shane had been theatre prodigies, always competing for roles in their local theatre troupe. For their entire teenage lives, one of them had been the male lead in every play and musical. Their rivalry was well known within the troupe, and some castmates had even been discovered to have been betting on whether Ilya or Shane would get the lead.
After the callbacks, Ilya felt certain he'd get the role. If he was being honest with himself, he deserved it more than Shane. He'd been in one more lead role than Shane had, plus he had been an extra in one of the Avengers movies. Shane, on the other hand, had never been in a film at all. Ilya had perfectly read Romeo's final monologue—the one right before he died—, and he'd heard the two directors talking to each other as he left, overhearing "He'd be wonderful as—" before moving out of earshot.
__________
Ilya practically strutted into the theater after school the next day, excited to check the casting list pinned to the bulletin board. The members of the troupe who had gotten there before him—Hayden, Vaughn, and JJ—were clustered around it, giggling.
Ilya stood directly behind them, waiting for effect. "Excuse me," He said loudly, causing them all to jump before breaking out into the loudest, most obnoxious laughter ever.
"There—" Hayden gasped for air, "She is!" He doubled over, laughing the hardest out of them all.
Ilya pushed JJ aside and looked at the list, sighing in frustration as he read 'Romeo Montague: Shane Hollander' in bold letters at the top. He started to look at the regular print letters, searching for his name. Hopefully he still got a decent role, like Mercutio or Benvolio. Before he had read the next roles, his eye noticed his name, also in bold, at the top. Directly under Shane's. 'Juliet Capulet: Ilya Rozanov'.
His face flushed red. There was no way this was happening. It had to be a joke Hayden and JJ had played on him. Maybe the directors had messed up and this would all be laughed about throughout the production. He couldn't play the love interest of his secret crush, that was for sure.
The other troupe members arrived soon, and Ilya suddenly became aware of the fact that he was standing in front of the casting list. Not knowing what to do, he decided to just sit in one of the chairs in the audience and wait for the session to start, decidedly ignoring the cheers that erupted from the rest of the cast when Shane walked in.
Scott Hunter, their main director, walked in the door exactly at 4pm. "Hello everyone, and welcome to the first day of Romeo and Juliet! Before we begin, does anyone have questions about the script or their roles?"
Hayden raised his hand.
"Yes, Hayden?"
"Is—Is he really—" Hayden fell over laughing, unable to finish his sentence.
"Is Ilya really Juliet?" JJ finished for him. He laughed too, but it was much more respectful and less dramatic.
"Yes." Scott answered. "Anything else I can clear up for you?"
"But he's a guy!" Marleau said, standing to Ilya's left. Ilya made a mental note to thank him later.
"Yes, I'm aware of that. Svetlana, our usual female lead, is doing an exchange semester in Sweden, so she's unable to be in this production, unfortunately. None of the other girls wanted a leading role this spring, so I went with the next best option: Ilya." Scott sighed. "If it helps, try to think of it as historically accurate Shakespeare, where boys would act as women."
"Back when dinosaurs roamed the Earth," Ilya muttered under his breath.
"I know this is different from many other productions you all have been in, but please handle it like mature people. Alright, let's get started!" Scott clapped his hands, and the actors got to work.
Blocking for Ilya and Shane was one of the hardest things Scott had done. Every scene that they interacted in, they both had to start throwing insults across the stage at each other. Most of them didn't even make sense to Scott, but he guessed they were pretty bad, based on the gasps and laughs from the rest of the cast.
"Okay, so, when you two first meet, Shane, I want you to stand stage right. We'll have the extras dancing in the background, and Ilya will be over here at center stage. We'll get through the interaction with Tybalt and Capulet, then, Shane, you'll come over to meet Ilya."
Ilya groaned, rocking back and forth on his heels in boredom as Shane slowly walked over to him.
"Great. Perfect. You'll read your first few lines, kiss, and—"
Scott was cut off by a loud wolf whistle from the crowd. Ilya looked and found that it was Hayden.
"Hayden, your character is literally gay. Shut up!" He shouted angrily. "Shane, control your friend." He spat.
"Yeah, but at least I don't kiss another guy on stage!" Hayden replied, scrolling through something on his phone, not looking up.
Fuck. In his despair over being cast in a female role, Ilya had completely forgotten that he'd need to kiss Shane several times in each production.
"Ilya, Shane," Scott said, ignoring Hayden, "You don't actually need to kiss if you don't want to. We can modify it a bit, would you be okay kissing each other's hands instead, maybe?"
Ilya looked at Shane, who shrugged. "Yeah, I guess," He mumbled.
"Great. Kip, I'm thinking we'll need several columns and a backdrop that looks like a fancy ballroom."
Kip, the lead set designer who was also Scott's husband, quickly wrote down what he said.
__________
The days moved slowly. Ilya enjoyed working with Jackie, the makeup and costume designer. He didn't know how someone so lovely could be dating Hayden.
"So, I'm guessing you don't want to wear a dress, right?" She asked kindly.
"Yeah, I'd really prefer not to, if that's okay."
"Sure! Here's some outfits I've been thinking of." She placed a large pile of shirts and pants on the table in between them.
Ilya looked through them and found a beautiful, flowy white shirt and white dress pants. "Jackie, these are beautiful! Can I try them on?"
"Of course!"
__________
It was tech week, and the theater was filled with a mix of both excitement and exhaustion. If someone wasn't acting onstage, they were pacing backstage or closing their eyes to mentally rehearse their monologues. The set was finished, and the stage crew had their actions down to a science.
The current dress rehearsal had been going extraordinarily well. They were on to Act 3, Scene 5, and the curtain had just risen. Ilya and Shane were lying in bed together, parallel to the audience, and the sound of birds singing came out of the speakers. As practiced thousands of times, Shane woke up first, sitting on the edge of the bed and facing the audience. Moments after he settled, Ilya woke up as well, crawling to rest his face beside Shane's head and wrap his arm around Shane's bare shoulders.
"Wilt thou be gone? It is not yet near day. It was the nightingale, and not the lark, that pierced the fearful hollow of thine ear. Nightly she sings on yond pomegranate tree. Believe me, love, it was the nightingale." Ilya said. The microphone attached to his head allowed him to speak softly and get more into character.
Shane turned his head to look at Ilya, getting lost in his hazel eyes. Ilya simply stayed there, awkwardly silent. He'd finished his line, and now it was Shane's turn.
"It was the lark. . ." Ilya whispered to Shane, too quiet for the microphone to catch.
Shane blushed furiously but recovered quickly and said his line.
_________
It was intermission on closing night, and everyone was relaxed. Everyone except for Ilya Rozanov. He was crumpled in the corner of a supply closet backstage, shut out from the noise of the auditorium. He'd suddenly been hit with a feeling of gut-wrenching sadness: this was the last time he'd ever be with this group of people. Marleau would be going to Boston with him for college, but everyone else was either going somewhere else or staying here in New York. Shane was going to Montreal to be in some movie with the famous actress Rose Landry; he'd discovered that from stalking Shane's Instagram. JJ and Hayden were also going to Montreal: JJ was pursuing a college there and Hayden just wanted to live outside of the United States, preferably near Shane. Scott and Kip were staying in New York, of course, and Vaughn was going to school there, too.
This was the last time he'd see Shane.
Ilya started crying. He was such a coward. He'd known Shane for years, and he'd never asked him out or even tried to become his friend. A person with any amount of courage would've asked Shane out once they started playing love interests; it was like something out of a romcom. But no, Ilya had to be shy and lazy, blushing every time Shane kissed his hand and hoping nobody noticed.
The door suddenly opened and Ilya tried to muffle his sobs.
"Ilya?" Fuck. It was Shane. "What are you doing in here? Are you okay?" Shane closed the door and bent down to be at eye level with him.
"What the fuck are you doing here, Shane?" Ilya snapped, wiping tears from his eyes and trying to retain his dignity.
"I—I usually come here during intermission. It gets too loud and I can't focus. Ilya, are you okay?" Shane sat down next to him.
Ilya gave up. "It's the last time I'm seeing all of us. And we're all going to different places, and we'll never meet up again, and I'll never get to tell you—" Ilya sobbed, leaning forward into his knees.
"Tell me what?" Shane asked, awkwardly bringing his hand up to rub circles on Ilya's back.
"I'm fucking in love with you, Shane! I'm so in love with you and I don't know what to do about it!"
"You—What?"
"Shane! I am in love with you! Fuck, how many times do I have to say it?"
"Ilya." Shane raised Ilya's head, speaking gently. "Ilya."
Ilya opened his eyes to look at him.
"Ilya. I love you too." Shane softly kissed Ilya, barely brushing their lips together
"But we'll never see each other again!"
"Yes, we will. I'll come visit you in Boston whenever I can, okay? And during your school breaks, you can come see me if you want, yeah?" Shane brushed a tear away from Ilya's eye.
"Okay," Ilya sniffled, kissing Shane. It felt perfect: Shane's lips were soft and gentle, and he let Ilya set the pace.
Ilya had only kissed two other people outside of acting: Svetlana and Sasha. He'd kissed Svetlana in elementary school when she got a crush on a kid at school and wanted to practice kissing with Ilya, and he'd had a relationship with Sasha for a few months when his dad was the director for the troupe for a year or so before moving away. Ilya had tried to stay in touch with Sasha, but his messages were left on read and never replied to. Shane was the best kisser by far. Svetlana was gorgeous and likely a much better kisser than she was in third grade, but he didn't want to kiss her again. Sasha had kissed him like he was starving and Ilya was a five-course meal. Shane was gentle and perfect.
"We've got five minutes until the show starts again," Ilya said shakily. "We should probably go back out."
"Yeah, you're right." Shane stood up and offered his hand to Ilya, who accepted it and was pulled into a tight hug.
__________
They had made it to the final scene of the play. Nobody in the audience could deny the fact that Shane and Ilya, despite both being men, had starred in the most beautiful production of Romeo and Juliet. Their intonation and actions captured the audience and turned the tragic tale into something believable. They were two teenagers who had fallen in love, despite being from rival families, and were willing to do anything to stay together.
Shane lay collapsed on the floor downstage. Ilya sat up from the table slowly, waking up.
"O comfortable friar, where is my lord? I do remember well where I should be, and there I am. Where is my Romeo?" Ilya asked Friar Lawrence, who was played by Vaughn.
"I hear some noise," Vaughn said. "—Lady, come from that nest of death, contagion, and unnatural sleep. A greater power than we can contradict hath thwarted our intents. Come, come away. Thy husband in thy bosom there lies dead, and Paris, too. Come, I’ll dispose of thee among a sisterhood of holy nuns. Stay not to question, for the watch is coming. Come, go, good Juliet. I dare no longer stay."
Ilya let out a dramatic, yet believable, sob. "Go, get thee hence, for I will not away."
Vaughn exited, leaving Ilya and Shane alone on the stage as a spotlight focused on the couple while Ilya climbed down from the table.
"What’s here?" Ilya lifted the cup from Shane's still hands. "A cup closed in my true love’s hand? Poison, I see, hath been his timeless end.—O churl, drunk all, and left no friendly drop to help me after! I will kiss thy lips. Haply some poison yet doth hang on them, to make me die with a restorative." Ilya paused, a second longer than he usually did at this part. He then bent down to kiss Shane on his lips, not his cheek as he'd been doing in all the previous performances. "Thy lips are warm!" He exclaimed.
Two of the newer cast members—Ilya couldn't remember their names to save his life—entered the stage.
"Lead, boy. Which way?" The taller one asked loudly.
"Yea, noise? Then I’ll be brief." Ilya said, inhaling shakily, tears falling down his face as he quickly picked up the fake dagger lying on the ground. "O, happy dagger, this is thy sheath. There rust, and let me die." He pretended to stab the dagger into his chest, feeling the fake blade retract up into the handle. Ilya's left hand held the dagger in place, and his right hand, hidden by his body, grasped Shane's hand.
The two actors lay there silently, listening to the others finish the last few lines of the play. Then, it was over. The audience burst into applause, the curtain closed, and they all scrambled backstage, ready to bow and curtsy.
"Do you wanna kiss? Like, when we bow?" Shane whispered to Ilya. As the stars of the show, they'd be going last.
"Sure," Ilya said. "It's the last time we'll see all of these people, so why not?"
The actors and actresses for Montage, Capulet, and their wives went onstage, and, ten seconds later, they were followed by Shane and Ilya, both of whom were grinning and waving to the crowd.
They stood downstage, and the audience rose to their feet, giving a standing ovation. Suddenly, Shane dipped Ilya, kissing him. Ilya yelped, caught off balance. The audience clapped even louder for them, and their eyes met as Ilya stood back up and regained his balance.
They stood there, side by side and holding hands, as the rest of the cast and crew moved forward for their final bow. The curtains closed on them together for the last time, and Ilya realized that, as long as he had Shane, everything would be okay.