Chapter Text
Chapter 1
THE AUDITIONS
“PowerPoint 2007 and The Meet-Not-So-Cute”
Obito Uchiha was hunched over his laptop on PowerPoint 2007, faced with a very important—possibly career-defining—decision.
The decision was whether to title his presentation in rainbow WordArt or diagonal purple WordArt. Obito wasn’t quite sure what time it was, but it was definitely late enough for his partners to be asleep and for the bright blue light of his laptop to start hurting his good eye (his bad one hurt all the time but that was nothing to remark on).
“Obito? What the fuck it’s 3am,” came Rin’s voice from somewhere behind him. He ignored the concern in Rin’s voice and nodded sagely at the confirmation of the late hour. 3am was such a glorious and productive time. Yes, maybe the wavy WordArt would be better . . .
“Rin, dearest morning glory,” he started, drawing on his Tobi personality.
“Maa, what did we say about Tobi in this household?” came a lazier, lower drawl—Kakashi, his other partner.
Obito hadn’t considered the vertical WordArts. Dammit. More options.
“Bakashi, either tell me which of these delightfully nostalgic text designs most accurately represents the main themes of The Phantom of the Opera or go away,” Obito said, dropping his Tobi personality in favour of grumpy old man 40-year-old Obito. Damn, he sounded more like his grandfather Madara everyday and it was equal parts thrilling and terrifying.
Thrilling because Madara was an icon with his long flowing hair and the cane he carried everywhere that absolutely had deadly weapons hidden inside it. Terrifying because aw man , that meant Obito was getting old. Like, at thirty, you could still kinda convince yourself you were young, but at forty? Obito was encroaching on mid-life crisis territory.
Well, come to think of it, Obito probably already had his mid-life crisis ten years ago when he used Madara’s generous investment into his pitched engineering firm to instead open the amateur theatre company, Akatsuki, with his partners, Kakashi and Rin, and a gaggle of his weird-ass uni friends.
Lol.
You only live once and all that crap.
“What’s the PowerPoint even for?” Rin asked, shoving him aside on the couch and squeezing in next to him.
She was clutching her plushie turtle named Isobu—so giant that it took up way too much space in their king-size bed but Obito and Kakashi let her keep it because she was just too damn cute with it (and she knew it).
“It’s for the rehearsal! People have to know the plot of Phantom, otherwise rehearsals are just gonna suck. And then the whole show is going to suck. And I absolutely refuse to let it suck. This is my magnum opus, Rin!”
“So . . . it’s for the rehearsal that starts in seven hours?” Kakashi drawled.
“Oh shut the fuck up, I know Rin’s done the music but you, Mr. Choreographer, you’ve done the hand actions for ‘Masquerade’ and that’s it.”
Obito didn’t have to turn around to see that Kakashi was rolling his eyes, the vertical scar around his pale left eye shifting with the movement.
Rin kissed Obito over scar tissue under his right eye, mirroring the scar on Kakashi's left, and that made him feel all fluffy inside.
Yeah, yeah they had mirroring damaged eyes (wow, so poetic) but it was actually kinda sick because they were slightly lighter and were prone to turning red in flash photos. Way better than a wedding ring.
Hmm, now maybe the rainbow WordArt was the way to go.
Kakashi ruffled his hair on the way out. “We’re going to have sex without you,” he teased.
For once, Obito didn’t care. This PowerPoint was more important than sex right now.
three weeks ago
What was it with all high schools having cheesy-ass graffiti? Did all teenagers lack any basic wit and creativity?
Sasuke Uchiha shifted on his uncomfortable plastic chair in the hallway of Bushvale Secondary College’s performing arts wing, reading off another remarkably uncreative line of graffiti on the lockers beside him. Poggers. What the actual fuck did that even mean?
Stupid cheapskate Obito—renting out a high school music hall. Sasuke leafed through his audition form again.
Akatsuki Theatre Company —it read at the top. Then below it— The Phantom of the Opera.
He glanced at the large doors to the music hall, squinted through the endless flyers for the high school’s junior band concert.
What was taking them so long? Sasuke had shown up at 8:45am on a Saturday and auditions were meant to start at 9am.
Ugh. Why the fuck was Sasuke so eager anyway? Why the hell, upon opening the Uchiha family WhatsApp (which he rarely checked) and seeing his cousin Obito’s announcement, had he immediately decided to audition? When was the last time he’d even done a musical?
Sasuke was twenty-seven now, had been happily employed as a senior business accountant at Chidori & Co for years and even though he could practically do his job in his sleep, that didn’t mean the next best thing to do with his spare time was audition for a musical put on by his cousin’s amateur theatre company.
In Konoha, there were two kinds of theatre companies. The first were professional theatre companies, who actually paid their cast and crew and performed officially sanctioned shows in the city. No matter how talented, you usually couldn’t get into those shows unless you had formal performing arts training (which Sasuke did, at least in ballet) and an agent (which Sasuke did not have). It was ruthless and competitive but that was just the way the whole performing arts industry was.
Everyone was there for their own benefit, fighting each other for roles, for the spotlight. You had to make a living some way—it was just like any other job. Sasuke’s six years of high school at the Konoha Ballet School had taught him that.
The other kind of theatre company was the amateur kind. These were small groups, usually run by volunteers who relied on council arts grants to put on shows in small theatres out in the suburbs (and sometimes, god forbid, the country, in the desolate bush of regional Konoha). Amateur companies were plentiful and did not pay their cast or crew but, Sasuke had to admit, there was something charming to that. They participated simply for the joy of performing, for the experience.
Sasuke had done a couple of these amateur shows in the past, back when he’d been in uni for commerce and was still desperately clinging to the remnants of his artistic ambition. But at the time, he’d found it tiresome, a poor facsimile of the actual performing arts career he once believed he could have.
A career like Itachi’s. Graduating from Konoha Ballet School at age eighteen, immediately being accepted into the National Kirigakure Ballet, then spending only two years in the corps de ballet before being promoted to senior artist at age twenty.
Like a ghost, Sasuke could almost see his older brother, five years his senior, waltzing into the dim high school hallway, doing a perfect arabesque penchée in front of him, his leg elevated behind him, lines long and elegant.
With a blink, the illusion disappeared. Sasuke’s ensuing sigh echoed around the drafty hallway and he pointed his feet in his jazz runners, admiring their elegant arch. As he’d gotten older, as adulthood had sunk its teeth and claws into him, Sasuke had just . . . lost time for dance. It wasn’t like he had the energy after his 9-5 workday to go take a dance class.
Truth be told, he also just didn’t have the passion anymore, the love. After graduating from his six years at the Konoha Ballet School, Sasuke had auditioned for the Konoha Ballet Company . . . and wasn’t accepted.
Ruthlessly competitive industry and all that shit. Whatever.
So he’d gone to TAFE, then uni, gotten a bachelor’s in commerce, joined Chidori & Co, and that was the end of it all.
At least he’d kept up his vocal training. That is, if singing musical theatre via YouTube tutorials in his empty (lonely) apartment counted as training. (It didn’t. He was miserably out of practice and yet he was still auditioning. Ugh.)
Well, he was already here. He could at least do his due diligence by warming up.
As he stood and ran some simple vocal warmups, his voice echoing off the brown paint and navy blue lockers of the hallway, Sasuke flicked through the rather informal audition form. Typical Obito. Even when Sasuke had attempted amateur productions, he’d always avoided Akatsuki. Sasuke had never really been close with Obito, being thirteen years younger than him and previously favouring classical ballet over musical theatre.
So that begged the question—why was Sasuke here, now, in sweaty Konoha February, sitting in the graffitied hallway of Bushvale Secondary College, waiting to audition for The Phantom of the Opera?
There was no one else waiting to audition, the hall desolate. Sasuke snorted. It was probably because this particular show, Phantom, was freakishly ambitious for an amateur company to put on. For starters, it demanded a large budget for costume and set with its Victorian era setting and the fact that a major plot point of the story was a falling chandelier. In addition, it also contained incredibly difficult, opera-level songs, which in turn, demanded a very talented cast, who—as a reminder—would be expected to perform these freakishly difficult roles without pay.
This had to be Sasuke’s quarter-life crisis or something. It was the only logical explanation why Sasuke would voluntarily audition and prepare to give up so much of his free time from March to July for shows and rehearsals.
Sasuke’s eyes flicked down to his audition sheet again. In the Roles section, he’d ticked the boxes for The Phantom, Raoul, Ensemble and Ballet. Technically, he could play any of them. He had the skills. The wide high baritone range for The Phantom (he’d practised in his kitchen and, yes, even without regular vocal training, he still could reach the high notes required for ‘Music of the Night’). The light baritone for Raoul (though Sasuke did suspect his voice lacked the kind of warmth that Raouls usually had). Also, the fucking professional ballet training, couldn’t forget that.
Sasuke did suspect however that nepotism might end up playing a role in his audition’s success. It was kind of spooky how many Uchihas had talents in the performing arts. Even his grand uncle Madara—the scary grand uncle, everyone’s got one—was suspected to have a history in opera.
Leaning against the grimy lockers and doing some light stretches and body warm ups, Sasuke caught his reflection in the window of a small music practise room. For a moment, he could see himself as a ten-year-old kid, excited to go to ballet class because that was where he felt free.
A blink and he was back to twenty-seven and jaded.
So perhaps Sasuke had finally gotten sick of the sound of his own voice echoing off the thin walls of his apartment. Perhaps he was here foolishly chasing some idealistic mirage of what performing had been like to him as a kid, before his Konoha Ballet rejection, Itachi’s success and the ruthless environment of ballet school had made him fall out of love with the craft.
Or perhaps time had finally started to wear him around the edges like a old paperback, making him squishy and nostalgic.
Right as Sasuke was lowering himself into a flatback stretch, lengthening his spine and pressing his hands against the lockers, the doors to the music hallway crashed open and in came . . . sunshine.
Well, no, it was a guy but he looked like he was infused with sunlight. He had to be no older than thirty, fit and tanned with a messy shock of blond hair sticking up around his head like a dandelion. He was wearing a neon orange tracksuit with black accents and he walked like he was bouncing.
“Hey! What’s up, man? Are, uh, are you here for the Phantom auditions too? For Akatsuki?” the blond exclaimed, jogging up to Sasuke, sneakers squeaking on the linoleum. His voice was rich and warm in timbre, like dappled daylight on bare skin, and he was grinning ear to ear, as if Sasuke was an old friend and not the competition in these auditions.
Huh.
His smile made Sasuke’s stomach feel weird.
He was loud.
His tracksuit was aggressively orange.
“Hn,” Sasuke grunted noncommittally before returning to his stretches. Good thing he’d done his vocal warmups earlier. Now they could just co-exist in peaceful silence and—
“Hey, uh, have they called anyone in yet?” the blond continued, looking back and forth between his audition form and the door to the hall. “I was so worried I would be late and there’d be a line and I wouldn’t get to audition—I was running late because I accidentally ended up on the tolls and I don’t have a tag on my car so I had to loop back and then when I finally found the school, I couldn’t figure out where to park, ya know?”
The guy was pacing back and forth, bouncing on his toes. It was exhausting just looking at him (or maybe that was because he was so orange).
Sasuke straightened from his stretch so he wasn’t presenting his ass to the guy and leaned against the lockers instead.
The guy kept talking. “I’m so nervous, I’ve never done a musical before so I want to make sure I’m doing this right and I really want to get this role so when I saw that Akatsuki was doing Phantom, I literally started practising straight away! I still don’t really get the story but I’m sure they’ll go over it with us, right? That’s if I get in though . . . Anyway—” He finally stopped moving and stuck out his hand for Sasuke to shake. “—I’m Naruto!”
Sasuke eyed his hand. His nails were also painted orange (oh god). Knowing there was no way out of this without being rude, Sasuke pushed off the lockers and took Naruto’s hand. It was pleasantly warm—like summertime—and that was unsettling.
“Sasuke,” he replied smoothly.
Naruto kept grinning at him, blue eyes glittering like sequins, like Swarovski crystals on a dance costume.
Fuck, was this guy trying to psych him out? Was that what all the chatter and friendliness was? No one was this jovial before an audition in a high school at 9am on a Saturday.
If questioned later, Sasuke would blame what happened next on the combination of shitty school hallway energy, an overdose on the colour orange, and the fact that Naruto’s eyes were just a little too piercing.
Because what he said—or rather, condescendingly sneered—next was:
“Are you always this . . . happy?”
Naruto’s eyes flashed with something unreadable. His grip tightened and he pulled, stepping into Sasuke’s space. Then he shot back, without hesitation, “Are you always this much of a dick?”
Sasuke should’ve recoiled from the insult. But it was true, wasn’t it? Sasuke was kind of a dick.
Their chests were nearly touching. Sasuke glared at him. It was a good glare too. One that, along with his affinity for the performing arts, was in his Uchiha blood—but Naruto appeared to be immune. They were still holding hands.
Sasuke let his face form into an arrogant smirk, but didn’t make a move to let go or back off. “Only around idiots like you.”
Something flared in Naruto’s eyes again and he tightened his grip on Sasuke’s wrist, stepped even closer, almost pressing him back against the lockers. “You asshole! I was just trying to be nice— ever heard of that?”
“Have you ever heard of something called peace and quiet?” Sasuke shot back. “I don’t know how they let you backstage if you talk this much.”
Naruto’s jaw dropped, and he wrenched his hand away, jabbed a pointed finger in Sasuke’s chest. He let it linger, pressing. Sasuke felt the touch through his thin black turtleneck. “I don’t know how you can sing or dance with that stick so far up your ass.”
Sasuke’s smile turned sharp. “What if I like things up my ass?”
Naruto’s face suddenly cracked into an equally sharp grin. “Hah! Then get fucked, bastard!”
Sasuke knew that the right thing to do would be to de-escalate, laugh it off and start, like, an actual human conversation. But this was too much fun.
Maybe it was the high school setting. Maybe it was because Naruto was undeniably hot. Maybe it was because Sasuke was a petty bitch who had been starved of drama in his dry accounting job for too long.
But there was no way he was backing down from this, not unless—
A familiar dry cough came from the door into the music hall.
Oh shit.
Sasuke turned to see Kakashi Hatake, one of Obito’s partners and the choreographer for Akatsuki, leaning casually against the open doorframe with his arms crossed. Even behind his navy blue face mask, Sasuke knew he was grinning.
“Sasuke,” Kakashi said.
Yep, he could hear the repressed giggles. Goddammit, how did he not notice the door opening? Was Kakashi some kind of ninja or something?
Kakashi continued, “Come in. We’re ready for your audition.”
Sasuke stepped back from Naruto, straightened his spine, picked up his audition form and pretended Naruto didn’t exist.
He sure hoped whatever Kakashi just witnessed hadn’t blown his chances with this audition. Because, as jaded as he was with . . . fuck, just life in general, really . . . Sasuke really did want to get a role in this production.
He wanted to remember why he’d even wanted to be a performer in the first place.
As Sasuke followed Kakashi he couldn’t help but turn back and look at Naruto.
The blond was staring back at him intensely, eyes blue and curious.
Sasuke broke the stare, walked into the hall and didn’t look back again.
Kakashi was squinting at Sasuke with his one good eye. “Maa, do you know each other, Sasuke?” he asked innocently as he closed the door behind them.
Sasuke blinked back with equally performed innocence. “I’ve never seen him before in my life.”
Kakashi hummed thoughtfully.
Somehow, that made Sasuke more nervous than the impending audition.
Naruto took his place in the centre of the music hall and tried to calm his rapidly beating heart.
It was nerves, of course it was! He’d never done any productions outside of his school and Jiraiya’s little theatre by the beach. It made total sense he was nervous and flushed and his heart was beating like crazy and it absolutely definitely no way had anything to do with that asshole he met in the hallway.
Fucking mean bastard.
Naruto had been anxious about the audition, he’d been late, and the school layout was confusing as fuck. So when he’d finally found the arts wing and the music hall where the auditions were taking place and the first thing he’d seen in the hallway was a sexy dark-haired guy bent over at the hips with his hands on the locker like he was presenting his ass to get fu—
Look, Naruto was a gay man with working eyes and you couldn’t blame him for being caught off-guard! The guy was, in no uncertain terms, hot as all hell (Naruto had always had a thing for dancers—look, yes, it was weird) but also, this guy had cool hair, dark and spiky in the back but long in the front, and his eyes were so dark and mysterious, but also guarded in a way that tugged something in Naruto’s chest with just one glance.
Anyway, in Naruto’s attempt to not look like a creep on his first meeting with a fellow performer he might end up working with, Naruto defaulted to chattery small talk. He’d been trying to be nice, friendly, kind—all the things he was supposedly good at being.
And all the asshole had told him he was . . . too happy? With a tone like that was a bad thing?
In that split second, Naruto had felt something shift in his chest, felt his confidence falter as those dark eyes bored into his. How did the guy seem to know he was faking all that, oh god, did he look like a phony, fuck, had he ruined his chances, what if this guy was, like, the director’s cousin or something?
In his panic, his happy-go-lucky mask had fallen and, in that fraction of a second, the weight of the morning’s frustration and stress had spilled forth in a barked, “Are you always this much of a dick?”
Not his best moment by a long shot but Naruto was not about to let some snobby asshole muscle him out of this audition—this was an amateur show! This was just for fun! Anyway, yeah, after that, Naruto expected Sasuke was going to full-on fight him, curse him out, but instead they’d . . . bickered playfully?
They’d gotten all up in each other’s faces, Naruto had grabbed his hand, Sasuke had smirked at him all sexy with that silky voice and it had been . . .
He fought back the smile on his face, the one that showed his canines.
Who knew that serious-looking bastard had a sense of humour? And when was the last time Naruto had been able to argue like that? To let out his verbal fangs?
“Naruto?” prompted the deep voice of the director, Obito Uchiha, bringing Naruto crashing back to the present, to the music hall where he was meant to take his starting place for his audition song.
Ah shit, right.
Naruto quickly scanned the panel of judges (aka the Akatsuki main production team for The Phantom of the Opera ). The woman on the left with purple eyeshadow and asymmetric cropped brown hair was Rin Nohara, the music director (or MD). The guy on the right (the one who had called Sasuke into his audition) with a navy face mask, one scarred eye and spiky silver hair was Kakashi Hatake, the choreographer. And in the centre, with short black hair, a piercing gaze, and an entire half of his face scarred (kind of like The Phantom . . .), was Obito Uchiha, the director and primary owner of Akatsuki.
Fuck, goddammit, Naruto’s palms were sweating and he kept remembering Sasuke’s sly smirk, his dark eyes, the way he didn’t back down from Naruto’s defensive and panicked insult, the way their bickering kinda made him feel strange inside—
“Are you ready, Naruto?” Rin said from the table, hand poised over Naruto’s shitty old iPod Touch, hooked up to the music hall AUX. “Do you need a moment?”
He waved his hands hurriedly, panicked. “No, no, no—I’m fine! I’m good! I’m ready to start—sorry, sorry!”
Like slipping into a pool of water, Naruto let go of himself, of his thoughts of Sasuke’s stupid hair, of his insecurity, of that little voice saying you’re not good enough, you don’t belong here, this was a stupid idea, and became a man who had just lost all his friends in a revolution.
The opening notes of ‘Empty Chairs at Empty Tables’ from Les Miserables rang out from the speakers and Naruto opened his mouth, the character of Marius pouring out through his singing.
On his audition sheet under desired roles, Naruto had written The Phantom, Raoul, and Ensemble. Honestly though, Naruto knew he wasn’t good enough to sing as The Phantom, even if he could act it well.
Naruto had been a performer his entire life, though he hadn’t started taking the hobby seriously until he was around twelve and his parents had signed him up to Jiraiya’s youth theatre group, Toad Sage Academy. Jiraiya had mentored Naruto through his teenage years, developing his acting and singing skills—his confidence—encouraging him to sign up for school productions and the like. Eventually, when Naruto graduated high school, he studied to become a personal trainer while participating in Jiraiya’s adult theatre company, Myoboku, often taking the lead roles in the small shows they’d put on at Jiraiya’s bar by the beach, while also helping to direct some shows for Toad Sage Academy himself.
In his audition, Naruto clutched over his heart while he fake-sobbed through the lines about Marius’s friends dying in the revolution.
Jiraiya had always said Naruto had a strong ability to convey emotion in his performances, that he could move an audience with how genuine his acting was. And that was something Naruto liked about performing, ya know? He liked putting himself in the mind of his characters, letting their emotions surge through him like energy and spill forth in his voice, his body. He liked the fact that, by becoming these characters for a song, a show, a season, he could experience their stories, let himself get swept away in the narrative of their dramatic lives.
In their passionate relationships and happy endings.
When he performed, he wasn’t Naruto—with all his flaws and loudness and insecurities. He could be . . . someone else.
Naruto collapsed to his knees to show Marius’s pain and heard the floor creak beneath him, imagining it was the worn wooden floors of a bar where revolution had first taken root, imagined the ripped-up acoustic padding on the music hall’s walls as torn revolutionary flags.
The scene swirled around him, mixed with the unsettled feeling in his chest from meeting Sasuke.
“Phantom faces at the window . . .”
Goddammit, Naruto really wanted to be in this production, even if he was just an ensemble member.
“Phantom shadows on the floor . . .”
Naruto wanted to be part of a real show, earn his place on the team. Akatsuki was known for their ambitious productions and eccentric team and Phantom was apparently going to be their biggest undertaking yet.
“Empty chairs at empty tables . . .”
And Naruto just . . . wanted to be a part of that. Wanted to experience something bigger than himself, bigger than small scale productions with Jiraiya or the youth group.
“Where my friends will meet no more . . .”
By the end of his audition, Naruto had to blink the genuine tears from his eyes.
I want this, he thought. Please let me have this.
When he stood and brushed off the knees of his orange tracksuit, Rin was smiling at him warmly, nodding before scribbling something in her notebook. Obito was wiping a tear from his eye with a giant orange frilly handkerchief and Kakashi . . . well, it was hard to tell with that face mask but he didn’t look upset so, uh, that was a win, right?
Naruto bounced on the toes of his runners, rocking back and forth. As the character of Marius slowly peeled away, Naruto felt some of his anxiety start to creep back in, felt the urge to fill the silence bubble up.
“Oh my!” Obito crowed. His voice was somehow higher now, lilting. He hopped out of his chair, combat-rolled over the judges’ panel and took one of Naruto’s hands between his own. “I am entranced! Bewitched! Enthralled! Thank you, Naruto-kun, for that wonderful audition.” He sniffled again, wiped his eyes dramatically on the handkerchief. “Tobi has been deeply moved today. Tobi may never be the same again.”
Naruto was so stunned by the praise, by the fact the director/owner had rolled over the table and was now clasping his hand, he didn’t think to wonder who Tobi was.
After Kakashi dragged Obito off Naruto by the back of his collar and Rin ran him through some quick admin about when he would be contacted if successful, Naruto walked back out to the hallway and, after a quick check to see if there was anyone around, did a little dance and punched the air.
That was a good audition. He’d felt the character in his bones, felt the energy flow through his voice and his body and fill the shitty music hall, soak into the ripped acoustic foam. The director had been so impressed with him that he’d become an entirely different person? Surely that was a good sign, right?
Naruto knew he wouldn’t get the role of The Phantom, no fucking way, but maybe, just maybe, he could hope to get Raoul.
As Naruto picked his way back through the maze-like Bushvale Secondary College, finally jumping back into his run-down red Barina in the staff carpark, a thought hit him.
On the slim chance he did actually get cast as Raoul, there was a chance Sasuke would get cast as The Phantom.
He rolled down the window and let February rush in with its last dregs of summer.
Naruto didn’t know the story of Phantom that well, but he did know that The Phantom and Raoul both loved the main character Christine. So . . . if Sasuke did get cast as The Phantom and Naruto got Raoul, at least it wouldn’t be hard if he had to act like he hated him, play up that whole love triangle business.
“I don’t know how they let you backstage if you talk that much.”
“I don’t know how you can sing or dance with that stick so far up your ass.”
“What if I like things up my ass?”
“Hah! Then get fucked, bastard!”
Naruto bit his lip and grinned.
Who knows? Maybe it’d be fun.
“Masquerade . . . paper faces on parade . . .” Kakashi mumbled to himself, raising his hand up to cover half his face, watching his reflection in the oven like it was a dance studio mirror.
Maa, they probably needed to clean their oven soon. He hoped it wasn’t his turn.
Obito and Rin were sitting at the breakfast bar, forms and notes from that weekend’s auditions scattered around them. Obito was using an excessive amount of sticky notes, trying to colour-code each form.
“I want our Phantom to be young and fresh,” Obito said as he peeled off a green sticky note and replaced it with a pink one.
“Like the character? Or the show?” Rin asked, subtly trying to sneak the sticky notes away from Obito before he used them all up. Shit was expensive these days, even with all of them working.
“Both! I don’t want some old farts playing the leads and supporting cast! Eh. I guess if they’re in the ensemble though, it’s fine.”
Kakashi examined the piles.
The Phantom of the Opera cast consisted of the following leads:
The Phantom—the deformed and terrifying yet somewhat irresistible ‘Opera Ghost’ and the villain of the show (like, the one the whole show was about).
Christine Daae—the ballet girl turned lead soprano and protégé of the Phantom.
Raoul, the Vicomte de Chagny—the aristocratic patron of the opera and Christine’s childhood friend and love interest.
Then came the supporting cast:
Carlotta—the diva-esque soprano prima donna.
Piangi—Carlotta’s husband and the opera’s tenor.
Monsieurs Andre and Firmin—the comic relief theatre managers.
Madame Giry—the ballet mistress.
Meg Giry—Christine’s ballet girl best friend and Madame Giry’s daughter.
And finally, they needed a varied ensemble (from which they could select all the minor roles) and a troupe of featured dancers. Phew. Well, no one could say Obito Uchiha wasn’t ambitious.
Kakashi—to the surprise of both his partners—had done his job and had already decided on their ballet members (six ballet girls and a male ballet dancer) right after he wrapped up the dance rehearsals on Sunday. Since they’d needed to audition Meg Giry for dance as well as singing, by extension, they’d also selected her role.
Kakashi fought the urge to rub his hands together in glee. He was excited to start terrorising those gremlins with his eccentric choreography.
From the colour-coded piles Rin and Obito had made, the supporting cast were pretty much narrowed down but they seemed to be struggling with the leads, arguing over technical singing skill versus acting ability—this show demanded strength in both.
They did actually (to Kakashi’s jaded surprise) end up auditioning many strong candidates. Well, Phantom was the longest running show on London’s West End but still—who would’ve thought?
Somehow though, Kakashi’s mind kept going back to the first two candidates of the day—Sasuke Uchiha and Naruto Uzumaki.
He pulled their forms from the file and laid their headshots side by side. Kakashi thought back to that Saturday, poking his head out of the music hall to call in the first candidate (because he lost the three-way Rock Paper Scissors) and finding Obito’s little ballet dancer cousin (one of them at least) practically nose to nose with some blond guy wearing a shocking amount of orange. He’d only caught the last bit of their conversation (if you could call it that) but just from those handful of insults, Kakashi could practically smell their chemistry, the sexual tension licking off them like flames.
Maybe that was just his inner fanfiction goblin but he honestly kinda shipped it.
In their tiny kitchen now, Kakashi sifted through the piles then slid Naruto and Sasuke’s forms across the table to Rin and Obito. “Thoughts?”
“For Phantom and Raoul?” Rin asked.
Obito slammed his finger down on Naruto’s nose. “This guy! His audition made me bring out Tobi! He was good! ”
“He used such an overdone, basic audition song though,” Kakashi conceded, playing faux devil’s advocate.
Rin took the bait. “His voice wasn’t technically strong but Raoul’s parts aren’t too difficult anyway . . .” Rin mused. “He carried such emotion in his voice—you don’t see that every day.” Her lavender-painted nails skated over to Sasuke’s form. “Sasuke on the other hand had an impeccable voice. Wonderful control and pitch. He must have had professional opera training.”
Obito rolled his eyes. “Nah, Sasuke went to KBS—you know, that fancy ballet school—following in Itachi’s footsteps and all that crap. He lacked feeling and emotion.”
“But surely you can teach him that? He’s got the vocal range for Phantom and that’s a lot harder to find,” Rin countered.
Kakashi pushed their headshots together. “You two are forgetting their looks—they complement each other like fuckin’ night and day.”
Obito looked. Hummed. “They’re like the sun and the moon,” he murmured.
Rin was nodding along but her brain was still focused on the music. “Their voices would complement well. Sasuke’s was deeper and richer and Naruto’s was lighter and brighter, but Sasuke’s voice is quite pretty on the high notes and Naruto’s got that raspiness when he talks.”
“They’re the same age too,” Kakashi said, pointing to their dates of birth on the forms, trying to contain his gleeful matchmaker chuckle.
“We can have the youthful modern Phantom of my dreams,” Obito breathed.
Rin leaned into Obito’s side on her stool and Kakashi reached across to lace their fingers together.
“So, if those are our male leads, who’s our Christine?” Kakashi asked, lifting the stack of female soprano candidates.
Rin leafed through the forms, brow furrowed, before producing a headshot of a woman with shoulder-length bubblegum pink hair. “This one for sure. Sakura Haruno.”
Obito scanned the page. “What’s special about her? She sang ‘In My Life’ from Les Mis. It was fine.”
Rin scoffed. “It was better than fine—she’s got the range for Christine and she sounds pretty and girlish without being simpering. That’s hard, you know.” Then she tapped the date of birth section and gave Kakashi a look that said i see what you’re up to . Oh rip, guess he got caught. “And she’s the same age as Naruto and Sasuke.”
“What about Ino Yamanaka?” Obito said, pulling the next form from the pile and pointing at a girl with platinum blonde hair.
Rin scanned her form then shook her head. “No, no, she’s Carlotta for sure. She’s got professional opera training and the coloratura soprano range. Sakura is a musical theatre singer—and Christine needs that. She has to sound more human and down-to-earth than Carlotta.”
Kakashi clapped his hands. “Then it’s settled! Sasuke Uchiha as Phantom, Naruto Uzumaki as Raoul and Sakura Haruno as Christine.”
As Obito and Rin divvied up who they were going to contact in the morning, Kakashi went back to staring at himself in the oven and working on his ‘Masquerade’ choreography.
He thought about Naruto and Sasuke standing in that hallway at auditions, chest to chest, glaring at each other. The sun vs the moon. Day vs night. Light vs dark. Good vs evil. Raoul vs The Phantom.
Oh man, Kakashi was excited for rehearsals to begin. He was going to bring so much popcorn.
three weeks later
It was now 5am and Obito was still hunched over his laptop, pouring his heart and soul into PowerPoint 2007.
He’d given up on WordArt, on transitions, on the distant siren song of sleep, but he was not giving up on this PowerPoint—his pride and joy.
He was going to have to chug a giant iced coffee tomorrow morning just to make it to rehearsals alive but in all honesty, he was fucking excited.
Akatsuki was going to put on The Phantom of the Opera.
They said an amateur company couldn’t do it well—that it was too expensive, too difficult, a show best left to the professionals. But he was going to fucking do it.
There would be opera singing. There would be masks. There would be ‘Masquerade’. Rehearsing ‘Music of the Night’ long into his weekday nights. Obito would probably be living off iced coffee for the next five months. He would get to bring out Tobi and terrorise his cast.
Obito hit ‘Save’ on his PowerPoint and resisted the urge to let Tobi out to squeal with excitement.
They were past the point of no return now.
They were actually fucking doing this.
His eyes fell on the cast list on his desk. Nope, not even the freakish number of cousins he cast in his own show could possibly dampen Obito’s mood.